On Wednesday night I tagged along to a local gig that my college had organised. In collaboration with Capital, Leicester College had organised JP Cooper to perform at The Athena in Leicester and I was buzzing the whole day! I couldn't wait to get to the event, my tutors just gave up with me in my sessions.

I had a fantastic opportunity to interview Tom and Claire from Capital FM and they were lovely! I'm currently editing a vlog that I had done throughout the night and there are a few funny clips of them on there. 

If you're interested in working in radio, this would be a great interview to read as we chatted quite a bit about that topic. This is one conversation that you don't want to miss, although Tom and Claire are used to being the interviewer, I think they did quite well when the tables were turned.

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Are you looking forward to JP Cooper’s performance?

Claire – Really excited, I am really obsessed with (bursts into song!) ‘She’s on my mind, she’s on my mind!’ That’s my favourite!

What got you interested in working in radio?

Claire – I like talking! It seemed like a great job and just listening to people on the radio, they seem to have a lot of fun so I was like, I want to do that please!

Tom – My dad used to be a journalist with the BBC so I went and watched him a few days when I was growing up. He used to work in Broadcasting house, London. Being in that environment, that buzz and excitement was in me from a really early age.

What would you have being doing if you weren’t doing radio?

Tom – I think I would try and work in gigs and stuff, the technical side of things or being a roadie. Tour manager or events, I kind of like putting events on.

Claire – I think I would work in a different bit of radio, I couldn’t not work in radio. I really like it. I trained as a journalist and then the opportunities worked out and I ended up being a presenter which is amazing. If I weren’t presenting I would be doing the news or being just in that environment.

Do you have any advice for anyone aspiring to work on the radio?

Tom - Try and get as much experience as you possibly can from as early age as possible.

How do you do that though as some places won’t except you until you are eighteen?

Claire – I had that trouble, you have to try and negotiate with them, like "can I come in for a day or a tour?". You are getting you face and name in there, but sometimes you do just have to wait until you are eighteen, it’s an annoying fact of life with health and safety and stuff. As soon as you reach eighteen, don’t wait until Uni to do it, do as much as you can beforehand, power through it and get loads of contacts.

You have some real banter on air, you have recently been covering the morning show, do you get told off for running on too long?

Claire – Not too much, well back in the day. There’s a technique to moulding yourself, Capital is quite different from other radio stations. When we started we were fresh out of student radio and we didn’t know what we were doing to be honest. We used to just ramble on for ages and our boss was like, “Okay, try doing this, take that bit out, really focus what you want to do in the link and target on that!” We don’t anymore do we?

Tom – No, I think like with radio as opposed to TV people are usually doing something at the same time, like their commute or they are getting ready, especially in the mornings. So you want to grab someone’s attention. When Claire and I are chatting it may sound like it’s been thrown together, because we are friends it’s kind of natural anyway. We plan it out so it has the maximum amount of impact to hook people in. There’s always an affect we want to cause, like laugh about it, or if we are raising money for charity we want people to donate money. That kind of thing, so it’s kind of planned out a bit.

How do you plan it?

Claire – Tomorrow show is roughly planned…..ish! Then we get lost. We know what music we are playing then I can say, “Let’s do that there” and its like, “Ok”. But the drive show we get in beforehand, so we get in about one, two o’clock in the afternoon, go through loads of content, showbiz stuff, plan it there and then go on air at four.

It’s not as serious as you have to say so many word per second then?

Tom – Oh God no! In news that can be a thing, if you were doing a minute and half news bulletin, I guess some people would write three words per second maybe. But in terms of us, we just have a laugh and mess about.

Claire – When you are having fun you can’t be so that you are reading scripts and all that stuff, we have to sometimes to messages that you can tell its scripted as it’s not as natural.

What’s your favourite track to play at the moment?

Tom – I think I know what you are going to say.

Claire – Yeah but I am going to say one and then it’s going to be different one because I forget about some!

Tom – Err...

Claire – I really like Charlie Puth.

Tom- I was going to say that.

Claire- What did you think I was going to say?

Tom- I thought you were going to say Marshmallow.

Claire- Oh….oh no..wait...

Tom – See!

Claire – One we have just added to our playlist but haven’t played yet is Khalid – Young Dumb and Broke. Oh my god, I am obsessed with that man’s voice It’s so good.

Tom – Charlie Puth’s new song is very good, it’s very catchy, very funky.

Who’s your favourite upcoming artist at the minute?

Claire – Khalid! I am soooo obsessed with him! His album is ridiculous. He’s nineteen, made the album when he was eighteen. It’s got no features on there and its gone platinum either today or yesterday. He is just ridiculously cool and been touring with Lorde…..and I like him a little bit!

Just a little bit! What about you Tom?

Tom- I am kind of obsessed to see what Anne-Marie is doing as every time she’s saying, ”Oh I am doing this,” or “I’m with this person.” She was photographed with Stormzy recently and that like, oh is that a thing? She’s not got an album out yet but she keeps on releasing hit after hit after hit. She well funny as well, she can sing, she has incredible style and she’s hilarious. When you see her live and she talks between her songs, she has these crazy stories and has an incredible laugh which is so infectious. She kind of ticks all the boxes. She would be fun to interview.

Who has been your favourite person to interview and why?

Claire – Oh I quite liked, oh what was his name?

Tom- What does he do?

Claire – Boris Johnson.

*laughter*

Claire – It’s the most random thing. He came into Capital and we got him on air, we got him on live which was fun to begin with. We got him to do the travel as he was the travel minister at the time. Completely irrelevant to the East Midlands and Capital! Literally we spoke to him for just two seconds and then said right we are on air now read this travel script, he was reading it and then started going off on his own, like the trams, "the tube network are all going to plan". We then got him to introduce Olly Murs, he turned to our people and said on air, “Who the bloody hell is Olly Murs?” He was really fun, I liked him!

Tom – Louis Tomlinson came in recently, we didn’t get to interview him unfortunately but he was a very nice man. Becky Hill was very nice too actually, she’s not mainstream yet, but on the cusp. She does a lot of song writing. She was like crazy, fun. She was not out of control in a bad way but she was just going and doing what she wanted, going off on different tangents, which was great because it was exciting and different.

My sister wanted to know, who would you invite to your radio show and why?

Claire – I would say Beyonce but I don’t think I would be able to speak in her presence!

Tom - I would like to have Anne-Marie on because we have done have not got to interview her yet ourselves but she seems a lot of fun. I would like to have her on as a co-host.

I feel like Niall would be fun.

What do you get up to when we don’t hear you speaking on air?

Tom – Dance routines, Karaoke.

Claire – Hiding from each other.

Tom – Making each other jump and scare. Scrolling through Instagram, Twitter.

Claire – Tagging each other in stupid Facebook posts. He says tag your mum so I just tag Tom!

Tom – Just quite silly and fun, like Claire and I were friends in University beforehand so we have that natural friendship which makes everything so much fun!

So we can expect a dance routine when JP Cooper is on?

Tom – We did a line dance routine to Timber when Pitbull ft Ke$her came out, I am terrible! This morning we were doing Yoga positions.

Claire – I taught Tom how to do a dance.

Tom – Oh the superman one?

Claire – Yeah, I taught him how to do that one at about half six this morning!

What’s your favourite and least favourite and least favourite part of your job?

Claire – Favourite part is, it’s not a real job!

Tom – Yeah.

Claire – A lot of my friends are like, oh go get a real job, because we normally start work in the afternoon and you finish at seven. You just hang out with your mate all day playing music. It’s pretty fun. I don’t know what the worst part is!

Tom – We normally do the drive show which is in the afternoon so we get in about one, two o’clock in the afternoon to be on air from four until seven. On breakfast, my alarm goes off at half four in the morning. We are then on air from six, that is not particularly fun! I am a big fan of sleep so when I can’t sleep that’s a struggle.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you when you have been on air?

Claire – Oh, yeah, I don’t know if it’s embarrassing. I was in Tesco’s just pushing a trolley along, do you do this? When you are doing your shop, your trolley is just going along and you lean on it and fly along with it?

Yeah

Claire – Thank you!

Tom- Wait do you still do it or was this when you were a little kid?

I still do it!

Claire – Thank you! I was flying around, I fell over, the trolley fell over and I ended up on all fours. My boyfriend is laughing so much that he can’t even help me at all and then this other man said, “Are you ok?” I couldn’t even reply I was crying as I was laughing so much. It's stuff like that happens to me on a daily!

Tom – There was one thing that happened when we had just started doing the drive-time. In the studio the microphones hang down from the ceiling, they are suspended on an elastic band system. We were live on the radio and I was literally about to start talking and the microphone just fell out of its holder. We hadn’t been on long and were super inexperienced, I just kind of froze and started laughing. We both get the giggles quite a lot, when one of us gets the giggles then we both kind of go and then sometimes there is no kind of saving it. When that happens it’s tricky!

If a Zombie apocalypse broke out right now what would you do?

Claire – Probably hide in that bathroom! I would be the first to die! I would probably go and get my dog, I don’t want him to turn into a zombie.

Tom – Save these biscuits (Holding the ginger nuts)

Claire – I would be useless, I don’t watch The Walking Dead as it scares me.

Tom – Yeah. My flatmate watches The Walking Dead and I am like what’s going on! I don’t watch it.

Claire – I don’t like scary things.

Tom – I have only every watched one horror film and the person I went with, I just hugged their legs. It was ‘The Strangers’ don’t know if anyone has seen it?

Claire – No, I might watch The Walking Dead now

Just don’t watch Season Seven, episode one it’s gruesome when someone dies!

Claire – You’ve spoilt it now, I know someone dies!

So no plan then!

*laughter*

Tom – I would ring my flatmate and he would tell me what to do! Obviously we would escort everyone safely out the building!

Claire- I would be useless, I would panic, I panic quite quickly!

Tom – I think I would try and arm myself with something, but looking around there is not much so I would be just like waving some coat hangers around which wouldn’t be very fierce would it?

A Zombie JP Cooper!

Claire- Who would be the weirdest person as a zombie?

Tom – Anne-Marie

Claire – Yeah she would be like “AHHH I am a zombie!”

Tom – Great Impression!

Claire – Thank you, I always think in these things if you lay on the floor and play dead you will be okay so I will just lie on the floor!

Tom – Should be just hide under a table or something?

Claire – Well you don’t zombies bending down do you!

Tom – Have you ever seen a zombie bend down?

Claire – I tell you what to do in a zombie apocalypse, don’t come to us for advice!

Tom – Do you ask everyone that question?

Some people, The Hunna said they would take their tour bus to a castle in Scotland.

Claire – Yeah a castle would be good.

Tom- I know where I would go, I would go to Hogwarts!