We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hunter Logan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Hunter thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I honestly never had a desire to be in radio or be disc jockey. The opportunity just kind of fell in my lap. I had just finished my last gig as an entertainer for Carnival Cruise Lines aboard the Carnival Conquest as an entertainer, when I went to one of the radio stations about 40 miles from my house to visit because they played my music on the station. While I was there, the owner asked me If I would be interested in doing a show on Saturday afternoons. I said sure, I needed to do something in between the weekend gigs so that is how my career in radio actually started. Working for the owner there wasn’t going well, so I went to the other station in town and they hired me. The manager at the new station I was at had the #1 Morning Show in Myrtle Beach South Carolina for 5 years straight. So I would receive the best training available, radio inside and out but, his methods of training would be the worse. It didn’t matter if I did everything exactly like he said, he would still find something wrong and have to correct it. Drove me absolutely nuts. I would also have to write and voice commercials before going out on sales calls. So, one morning as always I come in and do the voice overs and then I head out to go do sales calls. When I get back in my office there is a white board on the back of my door when I shut it and it says: (you don’t own the radio…you are “on” the radio. I said listen, this is south Louisiana, we are Cajuns down here and that is how we talk. He said you need to learn how to talk without an accent that way you can go to work anywhere you want to. I said I got news for you, I ain’t going to work anywhere in radio, I don’t know if I want even stay here anymore.

But I would end up leaving not too long after that incident and start what is now known as HLE Radio and it has been going strong now for 12 years and with a live morning show that is heard in 191 of the known 195 recognized countries around the world. But HLE Radio wasn’t started because I fell in love with radio, in fact it was quite the opposite. I was burnt out on it and didn’t want anything to do with it. Here is how we got to were we are today.

I was doing a grand opening for a computer repair business in my hometown where I live Jennings, La. and I had noticed afterwards that the owner of the computer repair business had the other half of the recording equipment that I had from my studio in New Orleans. So, I asked him about starting a recording studio and he rented me a spot in the building for $100 a month so I could do my paperwork and wouldn’t have to drive 40 miles everyday to the radio station. While we were setting up the recording studio, he was really interested in radio. I wasn’t. But he kept on asking about it. At the time, the FCC had a 15 year freeze on broadcasting licenses so the only way you could obtain a radio station am or fm would be to buy one outright. Since he couldn’t do that he said he would start an internet station. I said I don’t know the first thing about that but I will be happy to tell you everything I know about radio. So he built an obscure website and made a server out of a computer and begin to put together an internet radio station. Since I already had an umbrella company HLE Records, HLE Studios, we just called it HLE Radio which consisted of a 40 song playlist of southern gospel songs and a few commercials I lifted from the then station I worked at.

A year had passed and things really weren’t working out between me and the computer guy. We both had different ideas. So what I didn’t tell you earlier was there was a third person in the building a real estate lady who actually was leasing the building, which I didn’t find out till later on. I told her that I was leaving and that I would find me another place since I am basically paying all the bills. She said no, he can go and you can have all of the back of the building. It was a little awkward at first but he was a Christian man and we stayed friends through it all. In fact, he let me borrow the server he built so I could continue to run the radio station. So with a borrowed server and a broken computer and an obscure website that no one could find and a lump of faith, HLE Radio would be in its first stages. But stepping out totally in faith had not happen yet. I am still drawing a check from the radio station that I am working still, but the owner is not happy about me not coming into the office everyday.

So the ultimatum was given to me on a Thursday. He said you have until Monday to decide whether you still want to work here are not. You need to be in this office every morning Monday through Friday if you want to keep being paid your commission check. That very day I was out on a sales call and I could feel the Holy Spirit prompting me to witness to this couple who owned this business. No customers were in there at the time. I left without doing so and felt so ashamed. I pulled over on the side of the road and cried and I asked for forgiveness. And I said God, I am not ashamed of you, I just need a comfortable way to tell people about you. If you will give a comfortable way to do this. I promise I will do it everyday. Well guess who discovered Christian Country Music and never went back to that other radio station.

So with no knowledge of running a business and no knowledge of being in full time ministry, I talked it over with my wife and she was in agreement, she even said you can’t work for no one else for more than two years anyway so do it. And we have never looked back! Be careful what you ask for, God will give it you if you are serious about it!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

It is really dual fold for me. I am a singer/songwriter/entertainer who found himself to become a radio personality who now does both! I am really blessed.

The singer/songwriter/entertainer goes like this. I was blessed to grow up around a lot of music and able to learn to play a lot of different instruments. I sat in with my dad’s bands many times being able to play. I would play drums, bass, sax, steel, guitar, keyboard, whatever was available I would play. Lead guitar would become my main and most proficient of all. I was really allowed to develop that in the church as a young teenager. Of course as I became and older teen and was able to get in bars, then I began to play with some friends of mine and that is where I begin singing and it was out of necessity because no one else in the band knew any words or wanted too. Good thing I remembered some.

My Uncle who I respected more than anything and was an awesome lead player wrote me a letter when I was stationed in Germany. I had sent him a cassette of me with a band I was playing with at the time. He had told me that if I really wanted to make a living doing music, that I was good enough to do so. He said if you get serious about it and leave the woman and the booze and drugs alone and just do music, you can make a living doing it. It was the best advise ever and he was truly the only one in my family that believed I could. I never wanted to be famous, just wanted to be able to make a living doing what I love, and I can say that I did.

It was hard to start a full time music gig with a wife and three kids at home. I really wouldn’t recommend it for anyone. My wife had bought me a book at a yard sale and the title was “Everything you need to know about the Music Business” I read it and used it like a bible. I opened up a record label, a publishing company a recording studio. I even started signing other artist to the label and publishing them. To date I have over 250 published songs in my catalog.

I had four different house gigs at four different clubs in the New Orleans area. and I would play early and late night gigs from 2am to 6am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was playing 10 gigs in a 7 day week consistently. But I would also get up at 8 am in the mornings and learn new songs so I wouldn’t be repeating the same songs over and over. It was work, but it was work that I really enjoyed.

After playing several clubs and different festivals, a fan of mine paid for me to do a showcase in Branson Mo and in Nashville Tn. Now, when we got to Branson I had realized that the contest was a scheme to just take money from people who had the idea of being a star. But since she had paid for everything I had to go through with it. So after waiting a long time to sing in a room full of horrible hopefuls, not that I am really anything to talk about, I was really aggrevated and went across the street to a place called the Nashville Palace. I just wanted a steak and something to drink. Well they had a talent show that night and whoever won would come back and sing that Thursday night, well I never thought in a million years that I would have won, but I did. So there was my time in Nashville, but having no delusions of grandure, I left and headed down to a bar in Venice La. I was going broke in Nashville. I could do better playing little clubs and make more money than having the privelidge of saying I sing in Nashville. But on my way down to Venice, I got a phone call from Carnival Cruise lines and they said they had a spot for me for the next 6 months on their new boat the Carnival Conquest which at the time was the biggest ship in their fleet.

Radio personality goes like this. I honestly never had a desire to be in radio or be disc jockey. The opportunity just kind of fell in my lap. I had just finished my last gig as an entertainer for Carnival Cruise Lines aboard the Carnival Conquest as an entertainer, when I went to one of the radio stations about 40 miles from my house to visit because they played my music on the station. While I was there, the owner asked me If I would be interested in doing a show on Saturday afternoons. I said sure, I needed to do something in between the weekend gigs so that is how my career in radio actually started. Working for the owner there wasn’t going well, so I went to the other station in town and they hired me. The manager at the new station I was at had the #1 Morning Show in Myrtle Beach South Carolina for 5 years straight. So I would receive the best training available, radio inside and out but, his methods of training would be the worse. It didn’t matter if I did everything exactly like he said, he would still find something wrong and have to correct it. Drove me absolutely nuts. I would also have write and voice commercials before going out on sales calls. So, one morning as always I come in and do the voice overs and then I head out to go do sales calls. When I get back in my office there is a white board on the back of my door when I shut it and it says: (you don’t own the radio…you are “on” the radio. I said listen, this is south Louisiana, we are Cajuns down here and that is how we talk. He said you need to learn how to talk without an accent that way you can go to work anywhere you want to. I said I got news for you, I aint going to work anywhere in radio, I don’t know if I want even stay here anymore.

I believe what has set me apart from other as a Radio Personality is I can connect with artist in a way most radio personalities cannot. Being an artist myself, I have the same road stories, the same being double booked stories, the same recording studio stories, I can speak their language and the only way you can do that is to be able to walk the walk they have walked. And God has blessed me with that compacity to do so for his kingdom.

You must know though it was not until recently that I started writing and putting out music again. For 16 years I had not written or hardly played anything. I believe that was by design. I think God wanted me to take some time to promote other artists from behind the radio. Now I am blessed to combine the radio with the studio and the writing and the records and recording all of it.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When we first started the radio station, we knew nothing about running a business. We just really stepped out on faith. We lost our church of 10 years. My pastor at the time called me lower than infidel. Our home was going into foreclosure and both of our vehicles were being repossed. In fact, the repo folks came to my house to get the vehicle but it was parked at the radio station. Good thing the didn’t know where the station was located. We continued to depend on God and believe what he said. We kept our house and our vehicles. Paid them off and bought brand new ones twice over I might add.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The one thing that drives me every single day. It is what makes me get up every weekday morning at 5 am and go to the radio station to get ready to do a live morning show every weekday morning. It is the reason I write songs and will go sing them anywhere someone will let me. And it is this reason and this one reason alone. I just want to tell someone about Jesus. How good he has been to me. I just want to share his goodness. I absolutely HATE RELIGION and LEGALISM…but I Love Jesus. He has made a way where there is no way more times than I can recall. So that is why I do what I do…Jesus…It is all about him always…not about me. Always Jesus…I am just not that smart or good, but I am smart enough to know I am nothing without his saving grace.!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hleradio.com www.hunterlogan.org
• Instagram: hunterlogan3
• Facebook: hunter logan
• Linkedin: hunter logan
• Twitter: @hleradio
• Youtube: @hunterlogan6400