102.1 ‘The Edge’ drops Jagger, adds Atom Smasher in mornings
It appears that morning-show host Chris Jagger is out at KDGE/102.1 FM ‘The Edge.’ Again.
The station’s parent company, iHeartRadio, announced Friday that beginning May 2, “longtime Texan radio host” Atom Smasher will become the morning personality for the modern-rock radio station.
Atom Smasher, who most recently was at KHMX, a CBS-owned adult-contemporary station in Houston, had a previous DFW gig from 2006 to 2008 at KHKS/106.1 FM “KISS-FM,” which is also owned by iHeart, formerly known as Clear Channel. According to his LinkedIn page, he also worked at KEGL/97.1 FM in DFW.
“I’ve wanted to move to rock radio for some time,” Atom Smasher says in a news release. “This opportunity is huge and I’m really ready to get going on the Edge and do what I love to do.”
It’s also what Jagger loves to do, and he has a long, tangled past in DFW radio. He was host of the Edge’s morning show from 1998 to 2006, part of an ever-evolving morning crew that in its best-known incarnation included Dean Lewis, “Mondo” Mike Vasquez and Jasmine Sadry.
In 2006, the Edge dropped Jagger’s show when the station and the crew couldn’t come to terms on new contracts. Less than three months later, Jagger was at what was then talk station KLLI/105.3 FM, with the other members of the Jagger Mafia joining him. When that station became sports-talk KRLD/105.3 FM “The Fan” in 2008, it kept Jagger’s show although he and his crew skewed more pop-culture than sports.
After a number of lineup shuffles, Vasquez and Lewis were off the Fan show, and then Jagger left the station in April 2011. Sadry stayed with the station, but was released in 2013. Meanwhile, Jagger resurfaced on “hot” adult-contemporary station KDMX/102.1 FM (also owned by Clear Channel/iHeart) in 2012, doing the “Jagger and Tara” morning show with Tara Ward.
In late 2013, Jagger began to reassembled the old cast of Vasquez, Lewis and Sadry, aka the “Jagger Mafia.” They returned to the Edge morning slot in January 2014. But during the past several months, cast members have departed, such as Sadry, who is now part of the Hawkeye in the Morning show on country station KSCS/96.3 FM.
According to Atom Smasher’s LinkedIn page, he has been doing radio since he was 16. The Lousiana-bred DJ worked at stations in Baton Rouge and New Orleans before making the move to Texas. He worked as a night jock at Houston Top 40 KRBE from 1998 until he made his KISS move in 2006. He followed KISS with a five-year gig at WSTO in Owensboro, Ky., on the Indiana state line, then returned to Texas for his KHMX job in January 2014. At both WSTO and KHMX, he did mornings.
Atom Smasher will host from 6 to 10 a.m., according to the release. He will not be solo, but additional hosts will be announced later.
This story was originally published April 15, 2016 at 3:56 PM with the headline "102.1 ‘The Edge’ drops Jagger, adds Atom Smasher in mornings."