Media: August 2024 • Catching up with 97.1FM The Drive’s Brian Sherman
The Drive’s Brian Sherman and Steve Tingle (Photo: Todd Rosenberg)
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more approachable morning radio show than the Drive’s (97.1FM) Sherman and Tingle. They don’t just talk to the listeners on the phone, they do it in person. How many radio shows regularly go out to the bars with their listeners? Sherman and Tingle do it every week for a feature called Thirsty Thursdays.
“Yeah, if it’s not every Thursday,” Brian Sherman says, “it’s every other Thursday. We go out and we go to all these different locations and hang out for a couple of hours. It’s very cool to see different people in different areas and hang out and buy some beers from time to time and you know, just have a great time. This is not a dig on other radio stations by any means, but I think it’s a little rarer now than it used to be. And I’m not exactly sure what the reason for that is. But yeah, we’re very fortunate that we get to do that. It proves that we’re just regular dudes. It’s not like we’re pulling up in our Lamborghinis. No, I’m pulling up in my Honda Civic. I’m showing up to the bar just like anybody else. And you know, we have a great time just like anybody else.”
That’s part of Sherman and Tingle’s appeal. They also don’t try to sugarcoat their flaws.
“You’re exactly right,” Sherman admits with a laugh. “You’re exactly right because that’s what’s relatable because everybody has their own little quirks. Having those quirks makes you much more human and relatable to everybody else too. What you hear on the air is the real Sherman and Tingle. Just two guys talking and sharing things from their lives.”
Most of the time, those things are played for laughs, but two years ago, Sherman shared something with his audience that most certainly wasn’t funny. His wife Katie was going through breast cancer treatment.
“Yeah, my wife started up this website, it was called Katie Speaks, and it’s still up,” he says. “She just documented everything she was going through to help other people who were also going through it. And it’s a lifelong struggle. When we would go out to these Thirsty Thursdays, that’s when I could really see how much it was helping people because there are so many other people that had gone through it or have a family member going through it. I mean, it was two years ago, and at the last Thirsty Thursday, I had two people come up and say, “Tell your wife that I love her so much because I just went through it, or I went through it last year.” I mean, that’s even a bigger deal than us being funny. If you could relate in that way where it could actually help. That’s even better.”
Sherman and Tingle have now been a radio duo for 17 years at two different radio stations.
“To be honest, I’ve only had this a few other times in my life where the other person that I was doing comedy with or improv just knew where I was going. And I knew where they were going. And I guess that’s called chemistry. Yeah, I don’t know how or why it happens. I’m sure some people wish it would happen more, especially if they’re ever teamed with anybody, a comedy troupe or in a radio station. In 2007, (Q-101 general manager) Marv Nyren had the idea to put us together, which I give him all the credit in the world for doing because we would have never gotten together had he not suggested it. We got on a phone call and talked for about three hours. Our philosophy, our work ethics, and they were dead on, and we just hit it off. We started from there and just kept running.”
Sometimes duos drift apart, but Sherman says they are going in the other direction.
“We are different, and we will disagree, but I will say we definitely see more eye to eye and have a mutual respect more than we ever did. We’re older, we’re more mature. He and I are in this together.”
Now they even have their own beer: Sherman & Tingle’s Driver Nation.
“Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” he says. “Crystal Lake brewing. They’ve been awesome with us since it started a little over a year ago. And I’ll be honest, I had plenty of it about a week ago. We took about a case to Michigan with our family. It’s pretty cool to drink a beer with my name on it. No, I do not get a discount, nor do I get any money from it. A very good portion of the proceeds goes to a great cause, the American Veterans Service Dog Academy. They help raise dogs and train them for service members needing service animals. So that’s where that money goes.”
If you’re thinking that you must be a ratings juggernaut to have your own beer, you are correct. Sherman and Tingle are consistently one of the highest-rated morning shows in Chicago. Sherman says he doesn’t pay attention to that sort of thing.
“I just try not to get too emotionally invested. Either way, whether it’s good or bad, up or down. You get a lot of at-bats. You don’t look at every single game like, oh, God, what are we gonna do?”
-Rick Kaempfer
