Ricky Vaughan

by Dr. Iain Corness

It is not every day that you meet a man who used to live in an underground coal cellar, and has spent time as a “plugger” but then again, Ricky Vaughan is not your everyday sort of person. Better known as the voice behind FM 105 in Bangkok for 18 years, he has come to Pattaya to get away from the claustrophobic life that getting up at 4 a.m. can be, to sit at a radio console, talk and spin records and then fight your way home in Bangkok traffic.
Ricky was born just outside Leeds in the UK, where his father was a one-legged wine salesman. This did have an effect on the young Ricky, with pressures being brought to bear for him to have a “good” education, hoping that this would see the young man into a “good” job, without the difficulties that his father had to endure in the employment market.
A “good” education was to be had in private schools, and luckily his grandparents could afford to send him to one. There he did well in sport and “very mediocre” academically; however, Ricky felt this was not really his fault. “I blame it all on Mum and Dad, as it’s all in the genes,” he said with a laugh.
When he finished school, he had absolutely no clue of what he wanted to do. “I was always a little bit envious of those who did know!” His first job was in a publishers office, and he very quickly knew that it was not his calling. “It was boring.”
He took himself off to the Channel Islands, where he worked in Jersey as a barman in the high season, and then drifted into becoming a part-time DJ at night, as he had always had an interest in music. “It was very mediocre money, but it was enough.”
Returning to the mainland and following the music, he was short-listed for a job with the record company EMI. Unfortunately he didn’t get it as he couldn’t play a musical instrument, while the other applicant could. However, 12 months later he was offered the job, but this was a very conservative company, and somber suit and tie were the dress code. “I ended up moving on,” said Ricky, still unable to play a musical instrument.
He moved on, or rather moved back, to Jersey to be a DJ for the high season, but accommodation was at a premium. Eventually the only digs he could get was in a friend’s coal cellar, where he slept on the floor. The working life of the DJ behind the night club turntables might appear glamorous, but the day-time reality was to be down in the anthracite dust.
By this stage in his life, Ricky was starting to look ahead. “I was sort of pre-planning things. I knew radio was going to boom and I got a job with Phonogram, promoting music to the radio and TV stations.” This was an exciting period in Ricky’s life. He was involved in music and even looking after bands on tour, such as 10 cc, Status Quo and Thin Lizzie. This was his life for the next five years, until he was offered a job in London as a “plugger”. This is someone who ‘plugs’ the music to the radio stations, but he was soon fed up with life in London.
He needed a break, and where better than Jersey? He became a van driver for Findus Frozen Foods during the day and a DJ at night. He even managed to find a real flat. He continued in Jersey, rising up to drive a bus, as well as jockeying at night, but the big break was coming.
He had been to Thailand for holidays and a friend from Jersey (his font of all opportunities) was running a music company in Bangkok. Did he want to join him? Ricky parked his bus and came to live in the mystic orient, where he managed the music company and then began as a DJ for a radio station at night.
He graduated within the station from being a night owl, to become the breakfast DJ. “It was a shock to the system, getting up at 4 a.m.,” he mused. This was FM 105.
He stayed ‘on air’ and also took over the job as program director for the station, which grew to three stations. Radio was going places in Thailand, even if Ricky was apparently staying put. Then, as Ricky put it, “A miracle happened. Virgin Radio (part of the Branson empire) arrived in Bangkok. This was the best thing that happened to radio in Thailand.”
It may have been the best thing, but DJ Ricky was now working 16-17 hour days in the selection of the ‘play list’. With an audience that was 80 percent Thai, listening to the top 10 in the US or UK charts was not relevant. It was much harder to be a program director. “I was burning out. I had to make a heavy decision. I didn’t want to be the program director any more. I decided I was going to do what I wanted to do. I went back to being the DJ on the morning show.”
However, it did not stop there. Ricky could see that the writing was on the wall for FM 105. He parted from Virgin “very amicably” and went back to being a freelancer after 18 years with 105, in all its various guises. “I was doing live work again, emceeing, pub gigs and the like.”
But by now, Ricky could also see that Bangkok was not as attractive as it had appeared from behind the FM 105 console. He sold his house and came to Pattaya, where he is now looking for something to do.
With Ricky’s positive and upbeat attitude, it will not be long before he is again heard on the airwaves, with that ‘dark brown’ unmistakable voice. Just keep listening to a loudspeaker near you!