DJ to make name in NZ

Radio host Jason Hawkins will be using his real name when he teams up with PJ Harding. Photo / Jason Dorday

Former Australian ‘lab rat’ brings his unique sense of fun to Kiwi radio

He's worked in radio for more than a decade but Jason Hawkins is still trying to make a name for himself.

Google him and you get no results. At least, not the Jason Hawkins you're looking for.

You see, despite being a fixture on Australian radio for nearly two decades, Jason Hawkins has never broadcast under his own name. Until now. The amiable host takes over as the voice of ZM's afternoon drive show next week, marking the first time Jason "Labby" Hawkins has gone by his real name.

"When I was growing up, I started in radio doing stunts for the Kyle and Jackie O Show," he explains about his role on the top-rated breakfast slot across the Tasman.

"They used to call me the Lab Rat. They'd do experiments on me and stuff."

Lab Rat quickly became Labby, and the name stuck.

"I couldn't shake it. I've had to move countries to change my name," he says, laughing.

It's not the first time the moniker has caused him trouble. At 18, he began his first job in radio, moving to Sydney from Brisbane. Just weeks in, his mother rang the station and asked to speak to her son.

"They said 'Jason Hawkins doesn't work here' and she rang me in tears, crying 'you're in Sydney dealing drugs!'"

After more than 15 years, he's ready to shake the nickname and looking forward to being known simply as "Jase", which is what Kiwi listeners will call him when he and co-host PJ Harding begin their new slot on ZM.

The name change isn't the only perk to the new gig. After eight years of working in breakfast radio, the father-of-one is ecstatic about his new hours.

"I am so bloody excited about starting work at three in the afternoon," he says.

He's also keen to stress he and wife Lou haven't set a time limit on their new life here. Even if it means 1-year-old Felix grows up with a Kiwi accent. "I'm okay with it, he can be a little Kiwi," he says. "We're moving everything over. We're moving cars, the dog. We're not doing this short term."

But while his days of being the lab rat are behind him - his former career lowlights include being arrested for storming the Big Brother stage and being shot while wearing a bullet proof vest - Hawkins isn't ready to grow up just yet.

"I love a good office prank," he says. "You'll never see me sitting in a boardroom having a meeting with a whiteboard. No way."

One of his best pranks, he says, involved gaffer-taping the office receptionist to her chair and wheeling her into the lift - before pressing every button in the 24-floor building.

"It would open on every level. There were banks and lawyers and corporate businesses under us, so the doors would open and there's a lady taped to a chair. By the time they got up to help her, the lift doors would shut and she'd be off to the next level."

It's that love of a good laugh that cemented his move here where he says radio is less corporate and more fun than its Aussie counterpart. "I think Australian media has forgotten it's entertainment first. If you're genuinely having fun ... then you'll get your ratings, you'll get your commercials. I mean, if you can't sit in a meeting shooting each other with Nerf guns then what's the point? Go work somewhere else."

Which is exactly what he's done.

Radio profile
Who: Aussie import Jason Hawkins
When and where: ZM Drive Show, from 3pm, Monday