BFF.fm Founder and Executive Director Amanda Guest spoke with Break Fake Rules about her passion for the local music scene, her background in college radio, and her love for sharing underground artists with her community of listeners. Watch it below, or scroll for a lil transcript.

On getting into radio:

I’ve always been obsessed with music, even as a kid, I used to listen to top 40 radio all the time. Then, when I went to college, I didn’t even realize until after I had already accepted and gone into orientation that we had a college radio station at my school, so I went down there and joined up. Originally I thought that this would be about me being like a really cool DJ, but once I got in there, they had a rule that you could only play music that had never been played on commercial radio before. So it was only underground stuff, and I had to learn about all this music that I had no idea about a couple weeks prior. That actually was what changed my life, because all the sudden I realized that the coolest part of being on a college radio station isn’t being a DJ. It's getting to uncover all of this really cool music, getting to be the first person to play it on the air, and getting other people who are listening to care about what you care about.

On why she started BFF.fm:

When I started BFF.fm in 2013, I really wanted the station to be about playing underground artists, and being a resource for the local music scene- because to me, that’s the most exciting thing you can do. Overall, on the station, a lot of us are just playing stuff that we personally are really excited about, and that excitement is contagious. You know, if I really believe in an artist or I think a song is really good, if I play it chances are it's going to resonate with people that are of a like mind. That’s kinda what community radio is all about- building those connections between the DJ, the artist, and the listener.

On her show, Hot Local Singles:

I do a weekly show on Friday nights 6pm to 8pm called Hot Local Singles, and I focus only on local music. Each week I have an artist or a band on the program to either play live in the studio, or we listen to some of their new releases and we talk about it.

On how she discovers new music:

I’ve always just been really old school with how I discover music. It involves going to a lot of shows- or even if I don’t go to shows- just looking at show listings and seeing weird band names and thinking that sounds cool, let’s look them up and listen. But also, going to record stores and talking to friends. I always saw BFF.fm as being kind of like your friend that gives you those hot tips on what the cool music is, without having to rely on algorithms.

On how algorithms affect the way people find music now:

Today, it’s really easy to have music presented to you on different platforms, but the longer we’ve had these platforms, like Spotify, people are starting to realize that the algorithm isn’t necessarily some magic benevolent robot that's trying to feed you stuff you want. It’s usually being manipulated, especially by major record labels and corporations. So a lot of times those playlists that you see that you think are curated by a person or an algorithm, they’re actually just put together in a boardroom somewhere.

On what a ‘Fake Rule’ is to you?

When I think of fake rules, one of the things I think about is the music industry. Someone that’s breaking rules that I want to shout out is the San Francisco Public Library, because they have a program called Bay Beats. Basically, they have hundreds of really amazing Bay Area artists that they feature on their platform. Every artist that they add to the platform is paid $250, which is far more than you’re ever gonna get from Spotify. A lot of these rules that we have and the way we’re operating are just fake. They’re not really good for the artists, and they’re kind of not really good for anybody, but it’s just the way things are and the way we’ve always done them. So I’m always very happy to break those rules and do things a little differently. Here in San Francisco, we have a lot of really amazing local independent venues, and it’s really important to support them. They’re not jacking up ticket prices, and they’re not creating false scarcity in order for you to rush to buy.

On BFF.fm's new LPFM:

Coming soon, we will have an actual, terrestrial low-power FM signal: 104.9 and our call letters will be KBFN. Our joke in the studio is that BFF.fm stands for Best Frequencies Forever, but BFN is Best Frequencies Now. So we’re BFF.fm, Best Frequencies Now and Forever!

Watch the full interview here!