For more than 20 years, Rob Timm has been a familiar voice on local radio. The Boston native arrived in the area in the late 1980s and worked as a helicopter traffic reporter before becoming a DJ on the late, great WHFS-FM in the 1990s. Since 2004, he’s been a fixture on Annapolis’ WRNR and plays drums in a band called Prozakistan.

I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was young. I was playing in a band with two guys who worked in radio and they seemed to really enjoy their jobs and their lives and I looked at them and said, “This might be a good idea.” I went to college for it and it turned out I had a knack.

My voice is an accident of birth. I sound a lot like my father. When he was younger it was very difficult to tell us apart on the phone. I’ll claim my father for my voice and my mother for my sense of humor.

I’m a good enough musician to know that I’m not a good enough musician.

I found there’s good stuff in almost every genre. Unfortunately, that’s not the way we Americans tend to consume music. As Auntie Mame said, “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.”

It’s hard to not like a good pop song. The Beatles wrote good pop songs.

My biggest problem with working in a traffic helicopter was that it was so peaceful and serene that I would have a tendency to fall asleep between reports.

HFS was an astounding place. It was really like we had lightning in a bottle. It was an extremely fertile time musically and we had an extremely talented group of people who were given license to do things that no other station was allowed to or had the ability to do.

It’s not the public’s imagination: Radio stations really do play a lot more commercials than they did 20 years ago because they’ve amassed these huge loads of debt they have to pay off.

How has the business changed? I don’t know, that’s depressing. I don’t want to talk about that. Luckily, I’ve found this little oasis in Annapolis.

Violinist Andrew Bird after visiting WRNR called it “a well-curated radio station.” It’s a high-brow way of looking at it, but I think it hits the nail on the head. It may be the only curated radio station left. Most of the others are researched in cold, robotic ways. We don’t research the music. We listen to it, decide it’s good, and play it.

Imagine if museums were curated [like most radio stations] through demographic research, what horrible places they’d be. Every place would have nothing but Monet’s “Water Lilies.” Don’t get me wrong, Monet’s “Water Lilies” is a wonderful painting, but there are other things.

I really never got Stern. I’d rather watch paint dry than listen to Howard Stern. I don’t understand strippers on the radio. I can’t see them. What’s the point?

I did adult contemporary and I thank the Lord every day I don’t have to play any more Lionel Ritchie records.

What’s been extremely gratifying over the years is being able to do things for nonprofits and for people by being in this position. That’s been a huge bonus I didn’t even realize when I got into this business—helping causes from the environment to homelessness to women’s issues.

I have a lot of unemployed friends who used to work in satellite radio. I don’t know if it will ever really take off or not. Of course, when I was a kid, you never would’ve \convinced me that I’d be paying 100 bucks a month to watch TV, but I do. So there is hope for it.

I was in this business for 15 years before I dropped the F-bomb on the air. … I meant to say, “It’s fricking cold.”

If there is any wisdom to be had out of all these years in this business which can be incredibly competitive, it’s that kindness is more important than competitiveness. I believe doing something you enjoy and doing it well and treating people kindly is worth so much more than striving for what many people would consider success—through any means necessary. Life is short but it’s far too long to live that way.

What have I learned from fatherhood? I’m a far more patient person than I ever imagined. I’ve also learned you cannot outrun projectile vomit.

My son informed me that every day is the best day ever. I think if I could somehow think more like he does, that even if the world wasn’t a better place, it would seem that way.

Most of the artists I’ve interacted with have been surprisingly generous with their time and are much nicer than you might imagine. ... But interviewing Keanu Reeves is like talking to a stump. 

I always have something stupid on my mind and the ability to unleash it. Perhaps I’d make a fantastic politician.