Motivational Radio!

Ten years ago two prog fans with a background in broadcasting teamed up to launch the UK's only dedicated progressive rock radio network. As Progzilla celebrates a decade of airtime, station founders Stacy Doller and Cliff Pearson discuss the past, present and future of one of the few broadcasters that'll play Supper's Ready in its entirety!

- James McNair

Some people's idea of prog is just to play their old Jean-Luc Ponty LPs, and that's fine", says Progzilla Radio's Stacy Doller. "But we also like to play artists who have a question mark next to their prog credentials, and I think we're all the richer for it. Almost by design, prog is a genre that challenges listeners to discover something new. We try to arouse curiosity and have something for everyone."

Together with Cliff Pearson, Doller founded Progzilla in 2015; the pair had first bonded over beer at Summer's End Festival in 2010. Pearson – gateway album Yes's Close To The Edge – was once kicked out of a bar mitzvah party while DJing when his smoke machine caused havoc, and had been creating a monthly prog podcast since 2006. Doller, meanwhile, is a retired railway worker whose specialist subject is Mark Wilkinson's artwork for Marillion.

The next time he and Pearson met at Summer's End, Doller was already broadcasting for Chicago-based station Progrock.com and he hankered for a UK equivalent.

In time, the pair hatched a plan to pool their knowledge and resources to create an eclectic radio station and podcast hub that was tailor-made for the UK prog fans whom mainstream broadcasters had for many years all but ignored.

"You'd always hear that line in BBC music documentaries that goes something like: 'And then all the prog rock dinosaurs died in 1976 because of punk'," says Pearson. "Clearly not true, of course! Some years back, when I wrote to the Beeb to complain, I pointed out that in that year alone there had been more than 2,500 prog albums released – more than during the whole of prog's golden era in the 70s. I suppose that was one of the reasons we thought Progzilla would work."

Progzilla's official launch date was March 2, 2015 and the first song Cliff Pearson broadcast on air was