Congratulations to Roger Farrelly, Hamilton’s new (honorary) mayor
The Rock’s Morning Rumble host Roger Farrelly returns to where it all began, celebrating 25 years on the air.
No, your eyes don’t deceive you, Hamilton mayor Andrew King handed his reins over to The Rock FM’s Roger Farrelly on Friday, but only for the night.
It occurred at a special celebration at The Bank Bar and Brassiere, where a host of industry pros and fans of the radio station congratulated Farrelly for his 25 year contribution.
Farrelly, who hosts The Morning Rumble show, started out with The Rock when it was a local station broadcast from the basement of Radio New Zealand’s Broadcasting House in Hamilton.
He didn’t know what to expect before he arrived at The Bank.
“I was told there are a few surprises, I know there’s going to be a few games and we rightly or wrongly tried to push a wet t-shirt competition,” he said.
Imagine his shock when King handed over his robe and made him honorary mayor for the night.
Farrelly moved to Hamilton from Tauranga when he was 19 and remembers his time there fondly.
“Hamilton gets a bad rap to be honest, I lived there for eight years and I had a great time, I did all of my growing up there really,” he said.
The party concluded an epic few weeks for Farrelly.
“Three weeks ago before we went on holiday, they had a mariachi band that came into the studio, they dug up all this archival footage and had different guests come in,” he said.
“We’ve got a relatively new studio, on the door they had a sign saying Farrelly Suite, it was quite emotional actually, especially afterwards when we had a few speeches and they gave me a new radio.”
Farrelly said that Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl was the coolest guy he has interviewed in his career.
“He’s obviously one of the biggest rock stars in the world, if not the biggest, but despite that, you’d never get a bad interview out of him.”
But things weren’t always smooth sailing.
“A lot of big time actors, they might be awesome in their movies or on TV, but they don’t have much to say, like in that TV show Entourage, the main guy Adrian [Grenier] was god damn awful,” he said.
As far as future guests on The Morning Rumble go, Farrelly hopes to chat to Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger or former Oasis front man Noel Gallagher who he was supposed to interview last year.
“I was really looking forward to it, I was literally in my car driving to the city and then I got a call from the publicist saying that Noel had cancelled the whole Auckland show,” he said.
“I got within half an hour of meeting him, that would have been a dream interview, but maybe next time.”
Does that mean he has another 25 years in him?
“Maybe I’ll end up on Magic, in 25 years I’ll be 70 working at Magic,” he laughs.
“I’m at The Rock for another couple of years at least, I don’t particularly want to go to any other station, but eventually I’ll be too old for it I suppose.
“I might not have much left in me after tonight either, put it this way, I don’t think I’ll be celebrating my 50th anniversary at The Bank, unless The Bank’s a retirement home.”
