Martha Quinn is back where she belongs -- in the music business. The original MTV VJ has landed a gig as a morning host on 1Heart80s KOSF San Francisco, which is the market's first all-'80s radio station. In an interview with Billboard's Chartbeat, Martha Quinn talked about her new radio role as well as her MTV roots.
Quinn said she didn't even really know what she was getting into until after the fact.
"By the time I walked off, when I started to see the set [and] I started to see the format … 'OK, they're talking about music' … I called my brother and said, 'Oh my God, I just auditioned for the perfect job for me,'" Quinn revealed. "Two days later, they called and offered me the job."
"I was there with my parents and Bruce Springsteen walks in. I'm like, 'Oh my God, you guys, that's Bruce Springsteen!' My dad says, 'Who?' And I say, 'Dad, he was just on the cover of Time magazine!'" Martha recalled. "Springsteen leaned over to me and said, 'Hey, aren't you on that new thing, MTV?' And I said, 'Well, that's more than I can say for you... when are you gonna make some videos?!' He then made all those great videos from the Born in the U.S.A. album. So, I like to think I'm kind of responsible for launching Bruce into the video age."
While she's all about taking credit for Bruce's music video heyday, in a previous interview with CBS News, Martha Quinn revealed that the VJs didn't actually watch the clips they introduced.
"That's the best-kept secret," Martha said. "It wouldn't make sense for the camera people to turn on the camera for a total of six minutes an hour, and then to be sitting there watching [the rock band] Asia. It seems so obvious now, but it wasn't obvious to us at the time. We turned our heads as though we were looking at a monitor. We didn't do that in the beginning."
"I always tell people, 'Look, even if MTV had never changed formats, if it was 24-hour videos -- it's not like they'd be playing Warrant and Spandau Ballet," Quinn told CBS News. "They'd still be playing Chris Brown and One Direction. People of our generation would still be going, 'It's not the same.'"
Martha Quinn was one of the original five MTV VJs alongside Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, and the late J.J. Jackson. Quinn worked for the network from 1981 to 1991, then later joined Ed McMahon as a co-host for Star Search in 1994. Fans may also remember Martha as the spokesperson for Neutrogena in the mid-1990s, but it is clear that music is still in her blood more than 30 years after the birth of MTV.
Take a look at the video below to see Martha Quinn in the early days of MTV.
