Island People
A night with Maxwell the Night Guy

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

It's 7 p.m. and the sun is setting fast outside of KSSK AM/FM's fourth-floor Iwilei broadcast studio.

Honolulu-born KSSK AM/FM night deejay Maxwell the Night Guy, whose real name is Kris Sereno, returned to O'ahu from Texas to take over the station's evening request shift. He plays host to the "Seventies At Seven" show and the "All Night Request and Dedication Party." Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

As the tinkling piano intro of Styx's 1978 prom staple "Come Sail Away" bathes the greater Honolulu area in bombastic Me Decade Midwest-style cheese rock, Maxwell checks out the rest of the list for his popular nightly trip down Seventies Lane, a regular diversion from KSSK's somewhat rigid adult contemporary playlist.

Next up, Hughes Corporation's "Rock The Boat" and Grand Funk Railroad's "Closer To Home (I'm Your Captain)." Take that, Celine and Mariah.

When an early request for Maxwell's "All Night Request and Dedication Party" comes in from Rick in Kaimuki begging for Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" for "all the sugar babes at Zippy's Kapahulu eating their saimin and chili," it takes everything in his power to keep Maxwell from busting a gut laughing. Another two request calls come in before Maxwell can relax again.

"Monday's usually my slowest day for requests," says the Night Guy.

'Unpolished diamond'

The deejay Formerly Known As Kris Sereno, Honolulu-born and California-raised, Maxwell doesn't rule the Honolulu ratings roost in the primarily teenage listener-dominated nighttime airwaves. In fact, he doesn't even rank No. 1 at night among KSSK's target 25-54 year old age demographic. But each weekday evening from 7 p.m. until midnight, Maxwell brings enough of a loyal audience of listeners to his thematic '70s mix tape and off-the-beaten-playlist request show to keep station execs happy.

"Maxwell brings some personality to a fun, uptempo audience interactive type of show," says KSSK AM/FM program director Paul Wilson. "He's a live human being that talks to people at night. If you're 35 years old and listening to the radio at night, it's because you're in your car or at work ... and like to have that kind of companionship. I think he may be one of the unpolished diamonds of this radio station."

An evening with Maxwell in the studio, though, makes it as clear as crystal blue persuasion that the Night Guy has a larger age range of fans than Wilson might think.

A few minutes before the request show's 8 p.m. start time, a caller named Carl — who sounds firmly rooted in the 65-plus age bracket— asks for the '80s Gen X anthem, "Don't You Forget About Me."

"Wow, Simple Minds!" says Maxwell, smiling. "You like that one, huh?"

"Yup," says Carl.

"Where you calling from," asks Maxwell.

"Kina'u Street and Pi'ikoi," Carl replies.

"Wow, pretty exact, huh?" says Maxwell.

Dedicated to music

Kris Sereno lived in Honolulu for just one year before his parents — his father was a UH communications professor, his mother a nurse — moved the family to Seattle in 1968. The Serenos moved to Orange County, Calif., in 1971, where Sereno would spend much of the next 25 years. But the family enjoyed summers in Honolulu with the grandparents.

As a teenager, Sereno began collecting music and piecing together enough audio equipment to form a small deejay business. Closer to graduation, he took jobs with mobile deejay companies before bravely asking his parents if he could skip a free University of Southern California education — his dad was teaching there — to attend radio broadcast college.

After hitting the parental ceiling, "They agreed to pay half if I paid half," remembers Sereno, laughing. "I could never come up with my half, so I went to Orange Coast College instead."

All the while, Sereno continued his mobile deejay gig while trying to avoid the tedium of a 9-5 job. He moved on to a career as a club deejay, eventually getting a full-time job with a company that owned a chain of nightclubs in Southern California. He met his wife, Danielle, in 1995 while spinning at a Long Beach club called Live Bait.

"He was kind of shy," remembers Danielle. "He only started talking to me when the club closed and I was ready to leave." He took another two weeks to ask her out. Danielle and Kris married a year later. They have two daughters, Taylor, 4, and Sara, 2.

Camaraderie with callers

A requested airing of Honk's obscure six-minute epic surf instrumental "Pipeline Sequence" and Christina Aguilera's "Come On Over," is followed by a 9:25 p.m. call off the request line.

"Do you have 'The Safety Dance' by Men Without Hats?" asks the young voice, who identifies himself as Timothy.

"I do," says Maxwell. "How old are you, Timothy?"

"Uh, I just turned 12 in February," says the boy.

"Wow, are you married yet?" asks Maxwell. The boy answers "no." "Any kids?" Maxwell follows up.

"Actually, I have a brother and two sisters," replies Timothy.

Origin of his name

Sereno's first real on-air job was at an FM station in Bakersfield, Calif., but he got the radio nom de plume that would stick after scoring an evening show at KDMX, a Dallas FM station, in 1997.

"The program director came to me one day and said, 'What do you think about the name Maxwell?'" says Sereno, who had been using his real name until then. "I remember thinking, 'Well, that name sucks. Do I really look like a Maxwell?'"

To add insult to injury, the director added, "You could even add The Night Guy to it, since you're working at night."

Sereno ended up liking the name, which everyone but Danielle and his mother now uses to address him. By 1999, Sereno was itching to leave Dallas for Hawai'i, where his mother had moved and his grandparents still lived.

"I was born here and visited almost every summer, but I never got to live here," he says. "And that's what I really wanted to do."

Searching the trades, he found an ad for an afternoon opening at KSSK AM. Sereno arrived in Hawai'i in February 2000 not to the promised mid-day AM slot, but a night shift on FM.

"I've been working nights ever since," he says.

Sereno gets anywhere from 25 to 200 request calls each evening. Wednesdays and Thursdays are his busiest nights. He is required to digitally edit at least five calls an hour for broadcast. Though he still has to play a sizable chunk of songs from KSSK's programmed playlist, Sereno says the station gives him lots of room to accommodate even the more stranger caller requests.

"I would say that I'm able to play about 75 percent of the songs people request," Sereno says.

No surprise, none of the calls go on the air live.

Requests all night long

"Can you play 'One Fine Day?'" asks Chad, driving home from work at 11 p.m.

"What do you do, Chad?" Maxwell asks.

"I'm in the Navy," he cheerfully replies. "I load bombs on planes."

"What are you doing, Mike?" Maxwell asks another caller requesting Bread's "If" for his wife Janet.

"Cleaning house," says Mike, sleepily.

"You're cleaning house at 11:30 at night?" Maxwell asks.

"Yeah, I've got an inspection tomorrow," Mike replies.

"I won't even ask," Maxwell says.

'Old ladies love him'

"I know that old women love him," says Danielle Sereno, about her husband's biggest fans. "No matter where we've gone, the old ladies love him. I think it's the voice."

Though he treasures the ample time his night job allows him for days at home, at the beach and on the basketball court with his wife and daughters, Sereno admits that all things being equal, he'd enjoy being "the day guy" just as much, if not more.

"I'm pretty happy right now," Sereno says. "But professionally, of course you want to make it to the day shift at some point. I'm flexible though. I'm not going to always be the Night Guy, hopefully."

Fifteen minutes before leaving the studio for his Moanalua home — where he'll likely spend some time on the Internet before crashing on the couch at around 2 a.m. watching "Law And Order" reruns — Sereno takes a last-minute flurry of requests from some youngish voices that sound like they really ought to be asleep.

"Goodnight, Maxwell," says one teenage female voice, after Maxwell promises to play the evening's umpteenth request for an 'N Sync song.

"Goodnight," he says.