Aaron Rand
Host
Aaron Rand began his radio career in 1974 working as a sports writer at CKGM, when Ralph Lockwood was still ruling the airwaves in Montreal. He lost that job after walking in on Lockwood too many times while he was on the air, to tell him a joke.
After a stint as a writer/researcher on CBC TV’s “Sports of the XXIst Olympiad” leading up to the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal, Rand assumed his first position behind the mic at CJFM, as its sports director. From there, he moved one floor down in the same building to take on the job as sports reporter on George Balcan’s morning show on CJAD, where he spent two years working with the legendary morning man, and learning what made great radio.
After leaving CJAD for what he thought would be greener pastures as the sports anchor at CBC-TV in Montreal, Rand followed the Beatles to India (well they weren’t actually together, or there at the same time) for a few months between the two jobs, only to be caught up in a journalists strike at the national broadcaster that lasted more than nine months and eventually cost him the job he had left CJAD to take.
After a year of eating tuna out of cans, and mac and cheese at every other meal while looking for work, Rand finally surfaced at CHOM, writing and co-hosting “Rock and Roll News” and handling all guest interviews and station foreground programming. From there, it was back to CKGM, this time to host his first ever morning show in 1982, after Ralph Lockwood had moved on. That position, eventually teamed him up with Paul Zakaib (aka Tasso) with whom he would spend the next 30 years of his career.
The pair ended up on CFCF 600 in the spring of 1985, and then eventually on sister station CFQR, before before being split up in 2009.
In addition to radio, Rand also has a variety of business interests in Montreal, and has written a short film which he hopes to produce in the near future – the very near future given that he wrote it in 1989. He also considers himself a news junkie, and an interested observer of the financial markets.
Mr. Rand is divorced, and has two children – Molly, 23, who works in the fashion industry, and Casey, 28, who lives and works in New York as a copywriter at a major advertising agency.
