For years, Tony Smith was exactly where you wanted him — behind the glass, keeping the lights on, the sound clean, and occasionally dropping a perfectly timed Dancing with the Stars reference that somehow became radio gold.

In this episode of Your Dark Companion, Mike Rhyner and Grubes welcome longtime Ticket engineer Tony “the Engineer” Smith for a candid, funny, and surprisingly emotional conversation about radio life, finding your voice in the margins, and knowing when it’s time to walk away.

Tony traces his path from promotions to engineering, explains how an unexpected obsession with Dancing with the Stars turned into a beloved on-air bit, and opens up about how leadership changes, shifting station culture, and a slow drip of punishments eventually drained the joy from a place he once loved. Along the way, Mike reflects on his own departure, the unspoken bonds inside radio stations, and how sometimes the thing you leave behind simply isn’t the thing you fell in love with anymore.

It’s part nostalgia, part therapy session, part inside baseball — and a reminder that sometimes the most interesting stories come from the people who were never supposed to be on mic at all.

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Chapters

00:00:00 – Welcome in and meeting Tony “the Engineer”