From The Stones to Nirvana: Myrtle Beach DJ retires after 30 years

Local radio personality David Pressley, Prez, retired this week from a 32-year career in radio, including more than 25 years at classic rock station WAVE 104.1 in Myrtle Beach.

Not bad for a guy who said he landed his first radio gig by accident.

Originally from North Augusta, Pressley was picketing in El Paso, Texas, in a 1986 strike against his then-employer, Continental Airlines, when he was approached by a former Continental employee who was the program director for an El Paso radio station.

He said he thought he was being tapped for something like a janitor job, but nonetheless visited the station and was taken into a production room.

“He threaded up some tape on a reel-to-reel machine, threw some public service announcements at me and asked me to record them,” he said.

Pressley recorded the announcements, but ad-libbed his way through them. This was exactly what the program director wanted, and he was offered a job on the spot.

“That was many, many years ago when we were actually spinning records, and by the end of your shift you were pretty much sweating from going back and forth,” he said. “Back in those days, you had to take a test just to go on the air and you had to have an FCC license.”

He soon went on to AOR – or Album Oriented Rock – the iconic format that contributed in no small part to the meteoric rise of classic rock.

“I was like, ‘Wow – I’m something now. I get to play tracks off albums,’ which was pretty cool until you burned up the front of it after cuing it up so many times,” he said.

The station in El Paso was owned by the same company that then owned WAVE 104.1, which was at that time a Top 40 station. Management wanted to transform it into a classic rock station, and Prez volunteered to move to the Grand Strand to spearhead the transition to classic rock.

His first move was to feature Howard Stern’s syndicated content in the mornings, and although this garnered top ratings on the Grand Strand, it made potential advertisers a bit skittish because of Stern’s controversial style.

Eventually, Stern made the move to satellite radio, and the now-familiar format for the station began to take hold.

Over the years, Pressley picked up the tech know-how to say current in his dual role as production director and on-air personality, but he knows his limitations.

“I’ll be the first to admit I’m pretty computer illiterate. I can do what I do, but going further than that – like building web pages or something of that nature – count me out. I’m not going to be there,” he said.

Even with the myriad options for folks to get their music – satellite radio, Pandora, Spotify, iTunes – many still prefer to get their music over the air.

“Let’s face it: Radio is free. There are not very many free things left in life anymore, are there?” he said.

The paradigm for classic rock radio has also changed.

“You’ll notice now that we are playing stuff like Nirvana and Soundgarden and things like that. If you step back for a minute and think about how old these songs are, they are over 20 years old. It was just time to kick it up a notch,” he said.

When he arrived here, there was no U.S. 17 Bypass, no Robert Grissom Parkway, no S.C. 31.

“It was terrible getting around for the first few years. Thank God they cleaned that up a little bit. I just hope no one from out of town discovers it, so we keep it to ourselves, OK?”

Pressley said he came up with the moniker Prez because he got tired of the incessant Elvis jokes.

“I decided to shorten it and use a ‘Z.’ That’s what happens when you sit on the balcony one night, drinking a few beers and watching the artificial grass grow.”

He will miss his coworkers.

“I have worked with a lot of great people here,” he said.

He decided to retire now so that he can be present for his aging father, who recently went into an assisted living facility.

“Family comes first for me. Everything else is secondary, but I am going to miss this. It’s the love of my life. I was fortunate enough to put some rock in the ears of the people here in Myrtle Beach, and here I am. And here I go.”

This story was originally published May 31, 2018 at 12:55 PM with the headline "From The Stones to Nirvana: Myrtle Beach DJ retires after 30 years."