Los Angeles radio legend Richard Blade was honored Thursday with the unveiling of his star at a Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, as he attributed his success as a DJ to loving the music and groups he plays.
Blade was nominated for the Hollywood star by his fans, and Richard Blade Fan Club coordinator Oscar E. Alvarez Jr. spoke at Thursday’s ceremony, holding a cassette tape, and said he reviewed Blade’s set list had recorded at the time, made for the coolest eighties. mixed band.
“We turned the dial to 106.7 KROQ, a little radio station in Pasadena, and a really cool DJ came up, with a really cool British accent, and he said, ‘Richard Blade here, coming up,’ Depeche Mode , Morrissey, New Order, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Culture Club, Dramarama, The English Beat and the rest, The Cure,” Alvarez said.
Blade started his career at KROQ in 1982. He has worked with industry greats such as Rick Carroll, Kevin Weatherly, Dusty Street, Larry Groves, Mike Evans, Freddie Snakeskin, Rodney on the ROQ, Jed the Fish, Swedish Egil, Kevin & Bean, Rockin’ Fig, Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, Carson Daly and Dr. Drew.
TV host Jimmy Kimmel hosted Thursday’s ceremony and explained how Richard Blade got his name, which for a time was shortened to “The Blade,” during his run at KROQ in the 1980s.
Kimmel, known as “Jimmy the Sports Guy” early in his career at KROQ, revealed that Blade’s real name is Richard Sheppard.
“He chose the new name in 1982, live on air. He saw an ad in the newspaper for the movie ‘Blade Runner’ and from then on he was Richard Blade Runner, which he shortened to ‘Blade Runner’.” Kimmel said.
The Blade helped usher in the new era of alternative music to ’80s rock, also known as The World Famous KROQ.
Rocker Billy Idol spoke at Thursday’s ceremony, calling the 1980s a “fantastically crazy time.”
“It was great for us in the ’80s to have someone like Richard on KROQ, great, you know, to support new music coming out of England and America. Because we got a lot of pushback from the people of the ’60s and ’70s who just didn’t want to believe that there was anything good about the ’80s, so you needed friends, really,” Idol said.
Hollywood Walk of Fame
At the end of his speech, Idol hugged Blade and shouted with a fist pump, “I love Richard Blade, yes!”
Blade has been on the air for decades. He was born in England, but started his music career as a DJ at the University of Oxford. After touring Europe for two years as a DJ, he moved to the United States, and with great difficulty eventually ended up at KROQ in Los Angeles.
His rise to success in the United States began with much rejection. Blade said he was told he would never work with his accent in Los Angeles. Eventually he got a call to work for two weeks, a 9 a.m. to noon shift at KROQ, unpaid. To do this, he had to quit his current paid radio job.
“So I took a risk and at the end of my first shift they hired me for KROQ, and suddenly it was like the locomotive took off and just ran,” Blade said.
“I had the privilege of playing that music,” Blade said. “You like listening to it, I like playing it.”
While Blade was the top-rated morning DJ on KROQ, he also hosted and directed numerous TV shows and series, including Video One, MV3 and VideoBeat.
He has won numerous awards, including The Golden Microphone, California’s Best DJ, Brit of the Year and the American DJ Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Blade was recognized last year for his contributions to music and entertainment when the Los Angeles City Council declared June 9 as Richard Blade Day in Los Angeles
Blade has also appeared in many Network TV series and starred in or co-starred in several feature films including Girls just want to have fun, WizardAnd Long lost sonwhich he also wrote.
Blade is also the best-selling author of ‘World In My Eyes’, his autobiography, published in 2017, and four novels: ‘SPQR’, ‘Birthright’, ‘Imposters’ and ‘Ghosts of the Congo’.
He also has two nonfiction music books, “The Lockdown Interviews” and “The Unlocked Interviews,” which feature conversations with music’s biggest stars during the pandemic.
Blade’s latest novel, “Slapton Sands,” released on June 6, the 80th anniversary of D-Day, is inspired by the true story of the disaster that befell the American soldiers training in England for D-Day.
He currently hosts a daily radio show on both SiriusXM 1st Wave and KCBS and continues to be a live DJ.
