‘Back in the saddle’: Crash Clark officially returns to 99X full time

Now he is working exclusively for 99X, providing both traffic reports and stories about his life with Steve Barnes and Leslie Fram of the Morning X. Barnes, Fram and Clark worked together for many years on 99X during its heyday in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Credit: 11ALI

Credit: 11ALI

Steve Craig, 99X’s program director who was also part of the original run of 99X from 1992 to 2008, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it took a few weeks to iron out the contract but both sides wanted it to happen.

“He’s an original member of 99X,” Craig said. “He was clicking on all cylinders with Barnes and Leslie. So it’s fitting to bring him back.”

Like Barnes, Clark will now be in studio every day while Fram works from her home in Nashville.

Meanwhile, Barnes on the Morning X Monday morning made light of how long it took to get Clark back on the payroll.

“It took ages to get done because we got stuck in the legal slow lane,” Barnes said. “Picture a massive bureaucratic roundabout with lawyers honking at each other, nobody knowing who has right of way. By the time they stamped the final approval, they continued to shake their heads. We must be pretty desperate to be making the same mistake over and over for 30-plus years.”

Clark, known for multiple marriages and his goofy, lighthearted persona, is coming back as a 99X employee for a fifth time, Barnes said. Clark had been fired and rehired multiple times in the 1990s and 2000s for various infractions, his partygoing ways often going sideways in the eyes of 99X’s human resources department.

Fram on air said she fired Clark at least three times when she was program director. (She is no longer in management.)

“What’s up, fellow coworkers?” Clark said on air after the announcement was made. “Back in the saddle!”

Clark said returning to radio last year after more than a decade away “did something inside of me. It brought me back to what I truly love.”

He promised to behave himself this time around. “With power comes great irresponsibility,” he joked on air.

“Beer companies rejoice!” Barnes said. “You have a spokesman who has come back to the show!”

99X, after a successful run as an influential alternative rock station in the 1990s, lost its mojo and ratings in the 2000s.

Cumulus Media took the station off its 100.5 signal in 2008 and fired its on-air staff. 99X became a jukebox entity on various weaker signals. But in 2022, Atlanta-based Cumulus Media resurrected the station, tapping into Gen X nostalgia over not just the music of the era but the station’s personalities.

Cumulus management, led by 99X’s former program director, Brian Phillips, hired back many of the original staff — including not only Craig, Barnes and Fram but also Matt Jones, Jill Melancon and Will Pendarvis.

This past Saturday, the station celebrated its second anniversary with a party at Mutation Brewing in Sandy Springs, drawing hundreds of people who listened to David Lowery of Cracker and Foozer, a cover band that played hits from the Foo Fighters and Weezer.