The man behind the voice | Dave Walters

Radio DJ, MC extraordinaire, voice over artist and that friendly guy with the microphone at Makro, Dave Walters is a well-known voice in Nelspruit. We got hold of the man behind the voice to hear about his career in radio and the stops he had to pull to get on air and stay there.

By Benno Stander

Dave Walters

Getting there

According to Dave he ended up on radio quite by accident. “I worked in life insurance, which was killing me, and also worked part time as a waiter which was a little better since I seem to be good at that.
I met a guy who was working at a local community radio station in the northern suburbs of Jhb and so started listening to the station which was called Smart FM. One day I won tickets to watch a race at Kayalami and when I went to the station to pick up my prize, I chatted to the station manager. I told him I have always wanted to be on radio. He put me in the studio and said, ‘well talk.’ I thought to myself, how difficult can it be? And now, 20 years later I’m still figuring out how difficult it actually is.

Staying on air

Dave will tell you that his career on the airwaves hasn’t been all glitz and glam and at times he stayed on air by the seat of my pants. “As is custom when starting out on radio you get to do the graveyard shift so people get a chance to listen to you without you being able to do too much damage. One morning my boss just happened to be awake at half past five in the morning and thought I sounded shocking and was planning to tell me not to bother coming in the next day. Luckily he got busy and never got round to making the call. When he heard me again the next day he decided that I wasn’t all that bad and gave me another go.

Moving to the Lowveld

“The radio industry is a small community and you soon get to know many people. I worked for several stations to sustain myself, one of which was called Bruma Flea Market Radio where I met David Watts. He then got involved in Radio Safari which was started by Andre Walters of 50/50 fame. It was aimed at tourists in the Kruger National Park and the idea was to change it from a three-day pre-programmed station to a more interactive radio station. This is where I got the opportunity to move to the Lowveld to do the mid-morning 9h00 – 12h00 show.”

By the time the station was taken off air Dave and the team had built it up to a 24-hour station and many local people were quite disappointed to lose the animal sounds that were played late at night.

“I had the choice to do other work here or go back to Jhb to do radio. I remember sending my dad an email about the decision and his reply was simply that I should do the Dave thing. So I went back to do radio. Once you have switched on a microphone it is very hard to ever switch it off again,” Dave comments.

Dave moved back to Jhb where he worked in retail radio for Radio Pick n Pay. While there he started getting involved in radio production which basically includes all the little tracks and jingles that aren’t live or played off a CD. “I realised that your life as a presenter is limited so I had to think of ways to stay in the industry even when not being on air. Not everyone can be Alex Jay unfortunately,” Dave laughs. Lately he has also been able to specialise more in commercial copy writing which enables him to write more effective radio advertisements.

“I’d have to admit that there are a lot of really bad radio ads on air and if I can make one ad better then I think I did a good job for the day.”

Dave Walters Dave’s ability to produce good audio products came in very handy throughout his career and made it possible for him to keep doing what he loves even when times were tough. When MPower FM went off the air Dave and the rest of the team didn’t stop working and made sure the station was ready to go live at the drop of a hat. He also did various other jobs like MC gigs, voice-overs and kept recording books for the blind, something he’s been doing for a while. “There is a special program that is used to record books that make it easy for the blind to navigate through the recordings. “I can’t splash a load of cash at charity but I do have a voice so for me this is a way of giving back,” Dave explains.

“While we were off air we didn’t know what would happen but the simple fact is that a radio licence is a very rare and valuable commodity and we were pretty sure ours would get the attention of someone soon.”

It went as close to the wire as it possibly could but at the last minute Times Media group became aware of the fact that the licence was available and was thinking of expanding. So they decided that radio is a good option. Dave is currently head of production at Rise FM but still does a four hour show over the weekend to “keep withdrawal at bay,” as he puts it.

“It’s funny how radio has been said to be dying from as far back as I can remember. First the record was going to kill it, then the eight-track then CDs and then digital and now the new IPod comes out with a built in FM tuner. So I think it’s safe to assume radio is still very much alive and kicking.