You've heard them on air. Maybe you've seen them post on Facebook. But who are they really? Staff writer Leila Srouji sits down with INHAILER's best to find out what makes them tick. It's time to Meet the DJ!
Clara Stryker would much rather be someone’s shot of whiskey than everyone’s cup of tea. She lives by that Carrie Bradshaw quote, which doesn’t surprise me at all after she confessed her love for rom-coms and bourbon to me last week. An avid dog lover and leather jacket enthusiast, Clara started DJing for us here at INHAILER back in January, although she's always been involved in the local indie music scene. She likes to order the smorgasbord in life, so to speak, but it seems that from a young age Clara knew that she belonged in radio.
It likely didn’t hurt that Clara was raised on everything from Echo and the Bunnymen to Elvis Costello to George Michael to Prince. Her parents definitely got her to catch the music bug at a young age. In high school, Clara began spending a lot of her free time making playlists and burning CDs for her friends if she wasn’t already busy roaming the mall, cheerleading, or going to the movies.
If Clara hadn’t told me that she jetted into the emo-punk direction at one point or another in her adolescence, I might have joked that she wasn't a good fit at INHAILER... but she did, and she is! It’s pretty amazing how many of us go through that phase. It never really goes away, either, and that surely contributes to Clara’s eclectic music taste today.
While Clara says she has no single preference in musical genres because she appreciates so much of it, she does have an affinity for rock and pop bands as well as poppy boys and girls bands. Spice Girls is her utmost source of nostalgia, but her current faves are Carly Rae’s Emotion, Young Fathers’ Cocoa Sugar, and Born Ruffians’ Uncle, Duke, and the Chief.
When I asked Clara who were her longest-standing favorite musicians, she told me of her adoration for “strong, fierce females with amazing voices, like Debbie Harry and Patti Smith.” Those kind of icons have clearly rubbed off on her; if you’ve listened to Clara on air, you know she is all three of those things.
After high school, Clara chose to get a degree in electronic media broadcasting at NKU; through that, she became an intern and later an employee at Q102. With her experience, the leap to online radio was natural. Clara wants the audience to have a chance to fall in love with songs that are dear to her. For her, the best part about working at INHAILER is knowing that as a DJ you are introducing people to music that could possibly change their lives. Music does that to you sometimes. So tap into this Kentucky girl’s reality and catch Clara listening to just about anything and everything, sporting the classic color black, and sippin’ whiskey, right here on INHAILER radio.
Catch Clara Stryker every Tuesday and Wednesday from 3 pm-7 PM on INHAILER Radio to get you over the hump and through the week!
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