About Cranked Up Country, the Hosts and the News
Brad and Curtis on
"The Morning Blend" KTNV Las Vegas, NV
Brad Hennington
Curtis McKinney
What is Cranked Up Country? It's three hours of great music, great topics and Brad and Curtis blowing your mind as they bring you to your knees laughing!
Cranked Up Country is taking the Country Radio industry by storm and is broadcast on a number of stations like, #1 rated KWMW 105.1FM Your Country in SE New Mexico and West Texas, "Station of the Year" 99.5 KXPZ Zia Country in Las Cruces, NM and West El Paso, TX, KLMX in Northern, NM and over 25 other stations across the United States and Overseas. You can see the full list of stations HERE
Brad and Curtis on ABC's
"The Morning Blend" KTNV Las Vegas, NV
The guys have won Broadcaster Association awards such as the New Mexico Broadcaster Associations “DJ Personality of the Year” and “Interview of the Year” along with multiple other awards. The show is also a proud member of the Country Music Association and the Texas Country Music Association. Cranked Up Country is here to stay.
Brad and Curtis were "Award Presenters" at the 2018 Texas Country Music Association Awards Show at the Will Rodgers Auditorium in Fort Worth, TEXAS.
“Brad and I are very excited about Cranked Up Country. So many industry people told us that we had lost our minds when we made the decision to retire from Rock Radio after a decade and 103 station reach and move to Country Radio; but that's just us... a little out of our minds. When someone tells us we CAN'T do it, it makes us want it that much more. Saddle up because here we come!" - Curtis McKinney
Brad Hennington
Brad has always enjoyed entertaining people and even created a website that was much like today's theonion.com, though he never had the chance to really expand or promote the site. He then decided that he wanted to mix humor and talk, but wasn't sure how to get it out to people. He thought he would start with some humorous dubs of commercials and then, possibly, a podcast of humorous news and political talk.
First, however, he needed to upgrade the equipment from the average computer user's stuff, to a more professional level. After searching the internet and finding many opinions on the best equipment for what he wanted to do, he reached out to an old friend, Curtis, that he knew was doing a radio show.
As it turned out, Curtis was looking for someone to add something to his radio show and, knowing how crazy Brad's mind worked, invited Brad to be on the show with him to "check it out". He also gave Brad some tips on what professional equipment to buy, which Brad immediately noted and never used, 'cause he's really good at forming his own opinions despite professional advice. Brad was very nervous about the first show and didn't say a whole lot, but that quickly changed after just a couple shows. Brad and Curtis found that they worked very well together and could seamlessly put live shows together like they were scripted.
Curtis then provided Brad with some professional audio editing software and Brad instantly got to work on countless bits, spots, liners, etc... A fictitious product company, Stinky Canyon, was born and now has comical, new "products" on nearly every show.
Brad is now constantly jotting down new ideas and bits for the show and can be seen cracking himself up in the middle of Honolulu traffic. The locals must think the laughing haole (said like, how-lee, it means 'white person') is crazy! He loves being able to share his wit with others and hopes to continue expanding his reach. (Especially since he plans to take over the world some day.)
You'd think Brad got his start in radio many, many years ago but, in fact, it was just last Thursday. ...OK...maybe it was the previous Tuesday... Anyway, his big start was when a talk radio station in Las Vegas took his phone call and put him on the air live. He nervously said, "Hell, even Yasser Arafat comes to the U.S. for healthcare. I think he may see a dentist in England, of course, that may explain why he's never been in any toothpaste commercials." Brad thought that line was hilarious, because he generally thinks he's quite a bit funnier than he really is and , though he called in many times after that, they never again put him on the air.
Curtis McKinney
Curtis started in radio at age 17 when a local country station asked him to cut voiceovers for $2.00 each. That led to bigger opportunities such as announcing Monster Truck Rallies and occasional “Live” remote from a local business. These days, you may not see Curtis around Southeastern New
Mexico as much as you used to, but you definitely hear him. At any given time you can hear spots created by Curtis on practically all of his local market radio stations, movie theaters and television stations.
Curtis on KVVU FOX5
"The Gibson Showroom" Las Vegas, NV
His voice and personality has become one of the most requested in his area and with the Rock show Cranked Up Live under his belt and growing bigger than ever, things were not slowing down.
Curtis realized that he had the gift of gab at a young age; or at least the gift of getting under people’s
skin. In 1998, he began hosting a one hour talk show that was broadcast over the internet called The
Rant!. The show was an immediate hit and drew listeners from all over the world. With over 35k people
a week tuning in to his show (a serious amount of people at that time for Internet radio), Curtis knew
he had found his calling. The Rant! aired for seven years before Curtis decided to walk away to pursue
terrestrial radio.
In 2007, Curtis talked with KCDY station owner Don Hughes about airing a rock show on his Adult
Contemporary station. While Don was reluctant to give the tattooed Curtis a shot on his station, he
finally agreed, but not without a price. Don charged Curtis $250.00 per month for the air time and Curtis
jumped at the chance; the time-slot was 8PM-11PM on Friday nights.
After 14 months on the air with KCDY, Curtis was approached by Coyote 107 Station manager Will Rooney to “Chat about things”. After a meeting, Will offered Curtis the opportunity to go to Coyote 107.1 and bring his show. Same time-slot, no salary, but the show would no longer pay to be on the air and there would be performance bonuses. Curtis jumped at the chance. Even though he was a small fish in a big pond at 107, Curtis looked forward to proving that he had what it took to be taken seriously in radio.
Once Brad Hennington joined Curtis on the show, things changed in a BIG way! Brad made an immediate impact on everything and Curtis knew he had found the missing piece to the show. The project has never been the same since Brad’s arrival and things have grown to levels neither Curtis nor Brad thought would be possible.
The humor and antics of Curtis and Brad push people’s buttons and entertain. Cranked Up Live was not
for the faint of heart, but it had a lot of fans around the world that tuned in every week. Brad and Curtis love what they do and never leave the listener bored!
Hang out with Brad and Curtis on Cranked Up Country! You won't regret it!