Bobby Bones on Country Beefs, Death Threats and the State of Radio
Bobby Bones takes a seat behind his desk in the modest office he occupies in the iHeartMedia building on Nashville’s Music Row. Country radio’s most polarizing and outspoken DJ has just come off the air and, dressed in khaki jogging pants, a teal sweatshirt and his trademark Buddy Holly glasses, is as unassuming as they come. But as Bones tells it, he’s often looking over his shoulder.
“I’ve had 15 death threats. I have security with me everywhere I go,” he says. “It’s not even that they care about me, Bobby. But I’m an asset to the company.”
That company is radio giant iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel, where Bones has stood out with his hugely popular The Bobby Bones Show, broadcasting to nearly five million weekly listeners in 100 markets around the country. But while his employers try to survive underneath a reported $20 billion in debt, Bones is busy building his own brand. In just three years since landing in Nashville from Austin, where his show was structured around pop music, the Arkansas-reared Bones (né Estell) has followed in the footsteps of one of his heroes, Howard Stern, in becoming if not a king of all media, then at least a prince.
His band the Raging Idiots, with morning-show colleague Producer Eddie, regularly sell out their gigs and scored a Number One comedy album with The Critics Give It 5 Stars; he has a series of TV projects in the works with the production company he formed in conjunction with iHeart; and his autobiography, Bare Bones: I’m Not Lonely If You’re Reading This Book, released in May, topped The New York Times bestseller list.
Through it all, Bones, who has tussled on-air and on social media with Kacey Musgraves, Aaron Watson and, most recently, Florida Georgia Line (the duo jabbed at Bones for a billboard publicity stunt) has remained humble. Sort of.
“I’m the best interviewer in the whole format,” he says, priding himself on his ask-anything and keep-it-real approach. “Except for Howard Stern, I’d put myself against anybody. Because I ask human questions.”
And therein lies Bones’ appeal. For all his boasts, he remains unfailingly genuine and approachable on the air, as willing to discuss his childhood raised by an alcoholic mother as he is his previously lackluster dating life. (Since moving to Nashville, he’s been linked to former Gloriana member Rachel Reinert and, according to him, some unnamed actresses.) Earlier that morning, he and his team, including primary foils Amy Brown and Dan “Lunchbox” Chappell, hold forth on The Bachelorette, the merits of Marilyn Manson and Lunchbox’s misplaced wedding ring. It’s everyday stuff, reinforcing Bones — who sits in the center of his crew, arranged in a semi-circle so that they can maintain eye contact — as the witty, slightly nerdy homebody next door. Just one who travels with a bodyguard.