By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Thursday, January 7, 2016
Brian Moote was so eager to join the Bert Show today, he was at the mic at 5:15 a.m. this morning even before his boss Bert Weiss showed up.
The Washington state native who grew up on a farm moved to Atlanta last month as Jeff Dauler‘s replacement on the syndicated radio show, which is produced at Q100 studios. Weiss jumped right in seeking a new cast member to supplement him and Kristin Klingshirn. He quickly found Moote and hired him within six weeks after Dauler’s surprise departure in early November to Star 94. (I broke the story of Moote’s pending arrival last month.)
Moote is a fan of the show and so far sounds far more upbeat than Dauler, who always had an edgy, cynical side to him that often split listeners.
He is married to Katie Waissel, a singer who finished seventh on the “X Factor” in the U.K. in 2010. They had been living in Los Angeles, though for a time he had commuted to do radio in Seattle. He was doing stand-up comedy and “auditioning [for acting roles] relentlessly and being told no for no reason.”
PARK CITY, UT – JANUARY 25: Singer Katie Waissel attends Kari Feinstein’s Style Lounge Presented By Aruba – Day 3 on January 25, 2015 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Lily Lawrence/Getty Images for Kari Feinstein)
During his introduction at 6 a.m., Weiss noted that Moote is 6 foot 3 and immensely good looking in a way that guaranteed him entry into Los Angeles clubs – unlike Weiss, who is 5 foot 4.
Moote is self deprecating. In his new bio on the Bert Show page, he noted that he attended college in southern California to play basketball but wasn’t very good. “I was supposed to play basketball,” he wrote, “but instead I mainly worked on making my teammates laugh at jokes while sitting on the end of the bench. Oh, I was also missing slam dunks in practice, which is a skill.”
He worked special education and with at-risk youth in foster care in Seattle, then moved to Boston to get a master’s degree in social work with an emphasis in legislative advocacy. He then moved to Los Angeles and became a struggling entertainer. He got on TV a few times but never got a big Seacrest-style break.
During the 8 a.m. break, he noted that his wife (they just married over the fall) is more famous than him- at least in England. She has 193,000 followers on her Twitter vs. 4,453 for him.
“I’m like an underground rapper,” he joked. “I’m the best kept secret in the business.”
He also joked that some of his photos make him look “murder-y,” especially his driver’s license shot. “I was going through a ‘Dexter’ phase,” he said. “I need a new driver’s license immediately. That one creeps me out when I hand it out to people.”
Now that he’s in Atlanta, he wrote, “we have an apartment that has a pool and I have already found out the hard way that winters in Atlanta mean that the pool is just for looks and that hypothermia is real. We don’t have any children because we have a one bedroom apartment with a ton of breakable stuff. I look forward to getting to hang out every morning and try to make you all laugh and sharing stories from my life.”
