Words & Interview by: Lex Celera

Visuals by: Raymond Manglo & Kris Villano @thevisualclub

There’s a very slim chance you haven’t heard of Boys Night Out at least once in your life. The most common occasion would probably be when you’re in traffic a little past dinner time and you’re slouching in your seat. You switch the radio station and you then hear laughter, air horns, funny jokes, and loud, sometimes raunchy, conversations.

You put your hand away from the dial and listen some more. You laugh when the boys on the radio laugh, you listen intently to their discussions, and you find yourself grinning almost the whole time the DJs are on air. You get to your discussion and you realize that you’re hooked. Welcome to the club.

Sam YG, Tony Toni and Slick Rick have been running the show for more than a decade, and they’ve never run out of topics to talk about. Slick Rick, the relatively reserved one from the group, could possibly turn heads when people hear his familiar voice. He looks exactly as he sounds: moderated, eloquent, but also casual and approachable.

We talk to one of the boys of Boys Night Out about the show, himself, and his ways of dress.

LC: Can you introduce yourself and what you do?

SR: Hi, I’m Slick Rick, I’m from Boys Night Out on Magic 89.9. I am one-third of the boys, so I am the responsible one, yeah.

LC: How did you find out about DBTK?

SR: One day my wife, she, she had an appointment, and I was just killing time in the mall, Greenbelt. And I walked in to Brat Pack and I saw a merchandiser just taking out a bunch, a bunch of shirts. I think, I think this is the shirt that I saw that he took out first Because he took it out of the plastic, he opened it and I was like ‘okay, it’s a nice shirt’ and he looked back and forth and there’s, there’s nothing really in the back. It’s just the logo in the back I was like okay so I asked. I go, ‘sir can I try it on’. Tapos, I tried it on, and then once I tried it on, tapos I asked him, I go ‘where’s this from?’ because I know Brat Pack, they carry a lot of foreign brands, international brands and he said, ‘sir it’s local’ and I was like ‘talaga? It’s local? ‘ And he was like ‘yeah’ and I was like ‘oh okay Because I’ve never heard of it. And then so from there, I bought like 4 -5 shirts. I just asked him like, ‘whatever’s large just give it to me nalang, because I may not be able to come back because my wife may not like me buying 5 shirts all at the same time.’ But she’s okay with it. I mean she knows, she knows basically this is, this is more or less my style so she doesn’t bother me.

LC: How do you not lose things to say on air? What’s the secret?

SR: You know what, the secret is that there’s three of us, and that’s what makes it so much easier, that two people will be talking and the other one will just be thinking, and then from there it’s just easy to pick up on whatever, okay. Because we’ve been together for 11 years, and 11 years, you know honestly this is our longest relationship, be it a girlfriend or whatever, this is our longest relationship with anyone. So, it’s just something that we picked up over the years. Like for myself, I’m actually a really quiet person Because I’m an only child and I think a lot, and when I think a lot is, that’s when I pick up on a lot of things that I’d like to say, things I’d like to do.  That’s why I never run out of things to say.

LC: Can you run us through a day on the job?

SR: A day in the job. . .usually I get here at the station by 5:45. Now the reason why is that people think na ‘okay, you have to be here for 8 hours. Not really. Honestly, just be here before 6 o’clock. But, I live upstairs, and.. I’m never late. *laughs* The reason why is because I was taught by my dad that it’s better for me to wait for other people than for people to wait for me. So I’ve always had that philosophy that I always want to be early. And then when 6 o’clock hits, after Joyce and Aaron, what I do is I put in the commercials and from there I just wait for Tony and Sam. That’s just about it. And then we work four hours, six to ten, Monday to Thursdays. So we finish around, maybe around 10:15, 10:30, sometimes if it gets good, 11, if it gets really good. That’s my typical work day. It’s four hours, four days a week. But we have our day offs, Friday, Saturday Sunday, but there are also days that we also work, we do a lot of hosting jobs, there are times that we’ll be together the whole week.

LC: What’s the most memorable interaction you’ve had on air?

SR: Memorable 11 years, actually there are a few, I mean, there’s Jojo, the love survivor, when he first called. Because we just came back from Vegas, and when he called, it was one of those things where he, you know our topic was ‘you only live once so blank’ and when he called in, he said ‘you only live once so tell the person that you love that you love them’. I was like, okay. Simple. I think one of us asked ‘oh, did u tell the person that you love them’ and then all of a sudden, he just cries *grunts* and I was sad. Tapos, *laughs* ‘is he crying?’. He was really crying. and then it just ended up being that he wanted to kill himself, he was from CDO, and he caught his girlfriend at the time in a coffee shop, holding his office mate’s hand, and not only is that it’s his officemate or cubicle mate but also his DotA mate. So.. medyo serious. They’re like DotA brothers. So that’s what hurt. So that’s one of the more funny ones.

Of course, there’s Taco Tuesday. There’s also meeting George St. Pierre. We also had like funny callers, we had like a girl caller starting to moan on air, so, she was playing with herself so, so it was funny, because she started screaming ‘i’m cumming i’m cumming’ and then we were all laughing.. In my head, I was saying, cut the call, so I just screamed out, ‘Coming from where??’ and then we hung up the phone. There. But every day you learn something new. It’s always memorable. It’s fun.

LC: Let’s talk about clothes. How would you describe your personal style?

SR: My personal style is comfort. I’ve always been like that. Like there are those days that I just wanna wear shorts. It’s just so hot here in the country. I just wear shorts, jeans, anything that’s easy, sneakers, except I’m not too fussy with what I wear, I just keep it simple because, it’s just me. I’m not too out there, too high fashion, too bold. I’m just like any other guy. You see me, you know, just hanging out, so I’m just really comfortable in t-shirts and it’s just easy.

LC: What’s your weirdest shopping habit?

SR: My weirdest shopping habit, would have to be, you know what, I’ll go to a store, I’ll try something out, and then when I try it out, I’ll put it back on the rack and then once i put it back on the rack I’ll leave the store, and then I say to myself, “if it’s there tomorrow it’s meant to be.”

And then I go exactly to the same store, ask for the same exact size, try it on, even though I know it’s the right size and then I’ll buy it. So, and then there’s also if I really like it, like if I, like a certain brand, I’ll just know my size and then I’ll say ‘okay just give me like five of these shirts, just give me all different colors, all different designs.

I think it’s typical, but my wife finds it weird. She was like ‘why’d u buy it? You’re gonna have to come back anyway.’ So I’m like no, Because I like it.

LC: How do you come up with the subjects to talk about on air?

SR: Actually the subjects that come out on air is funny because, Tony and Sam, they’d always make fun of me because I always go to the mall. And the thing is, honest truth, I eavesdrop on conversations. I seriously eavesdrop on conversations. As in I’ll just walk around and then I’ll just listen to people talk. And then you just pick up on little things that people don’t realize.

Like for example, there was this one time I saw a guy and a girl there walking. The guy simply said, na ‘oh if you were my girlfriend, blah blah blah.’ So when I heard that, oh. Okay. There you go. That’s an ahas line. So from there, it became a topic that we started to talk about.

It’s just weird, some of the mundane things you don’t even think about to talk about, you really just talk about it. It just pops out. I mean, there’s so many topics to talk about. We do talk about politics, stuff like that, serious stuff. But you know a lot of people, they just like talking about just, you know, stupid stuff. I guess that’s where it comes from.

Also like when I’m eating. It’s because for myself, I like to eat alone, and when I eat alone, that’s when I’ll also listen to different tables, see what they’re talking about, see what’s important to them. It’s because whatever’s important to them is probably what’s important to our listeners, because like, for stuff I’d want to talk about, for example, if I want to talk about tennis, I mean, maybe not a lot of people would want to talk about tennis. But you know I love the sport, I play the sport, but you know I’d like to, say, is that table talking about love, like, they’re talking about parang pinaasa mo ako, is it hosting, is there, you know, benching, cushioning, all these things that’s happening. That’s how, that’s how we pick up a topic. And we actually have so many topics we haven’t talked about. Sometimes, when we talk about it before, like a few seconds, it was like ‘oh, let’s talk about, say, love, in general’. And there when we’re talking, when we do our first adlibs, and then someone says something else, we’ll put the topic that were supposed to talk to, we’ll put it in the backburner and then ‘okay, let’s just run with whatever he said.’

LC: Any shoutouts, or any public greetings you want to say?

SR: Let’s say what’s up to the guys of Don’t Blame the Kids, you guys keep doing what you doin, I really like your stuff, and to everyone else that listens to Boys Night Out, thank you very much for the 11 years of nonsense and you know, without you guys, there would be no us, we really appreciate it. I mean coming from you know being three single guys, you know, to a married guy and then now I have a kid. And then now Sam, Tony’s forever single. But we’ll always be there. Boys will be boys, I think that’s the most important thing. Is that, let’s just have fun, you know. That’s why keep life simple, and yeah thank you. Thank you very much, thanks to you guys, you guys like, not only as a shirt brand, you guys are our market, thank you, thank you very much.

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If you want to hear more of @_slickrick and all their fun-filled crazy talk, tune in to the radio station that airs today’s best music, magic 89.9. Boys Night Out goes live every 6-10 in the evening from Monday til’ Thursday.