DeadRag Airsoft Radio, with 11 episodes now under their belt and counting, is one of the two well-known airsoft radios online. Supported by Airsoft Extreme, DeadRag Airsoft Radio is managed and operated by Shawn Boswell and Jeff. And taking from their site..."DeadRag Airsoft Radio, brought to you by Airsoft Extreme, is your source for airsoft news, reviews, tactics, team coverage game and OP reviews. We feature a guest on every show that will talk about the area of their specialty including gun and gear tech, tactics, milsim and anything else they want! Based in the North Texas airsoft scene, DeadRag staff will cover local teams, games and retailers as well as any OPs we travel to."

 

If you or your team are interested to be featured at the show, feel free to contact them, wherever you are. I think they can do phone interviews if you're not in the US.

 

We have been corresponding with Shawn over the past weeks, and he's one of the nicest chaps we've exchanged emails with, that not doing an interview with him and Jeff would be a great disservice to our readers.

Hi Shawn and Jeff! Thank you for this interview which we hope doesn't get in the way of the production for your next show. Can you tell us more about you guys in terms of what you do in and out of airsoft?

 

Jeff: I'm the XO and Recruiting Officer of our team, Team Excessive Force.  Shawn and I both do a lot in the realm of organizing practices and events for our team and I take care of the majority of recruitment of new team members. Shawn and I have organized a few OPs and staffed several as well. While we
love playing, we also love making sure everyone is safe and has a great time. When I'm not playing Airsoft, I design and produce all the marketing material at an international manufacturer and printer.

 

Shawn: I’m heavily involved with CAOC and have helped them establish some of their sponsor relationships.  Jeff and I  both are members of Team Excessive Force and I’m the Operations officer of the team which basically means that I support our team leader and I’m responsible for making sure that all of our members have the required team equipment. In my real life (ha ha ) I’m an account executive for an environmental services company.

What do you guys have in your personal airsoft armory? Any favorite airsoft  replica and brand?

 

Jeff: Oh gosh, my collection is always growing and changing. I'm kind of a gear nut. Some of my personal AEGs include a CA SAR M41, CA SAR Taktik Rifle II, Echo-1 M733 and a JG G36C. One of my favorites is a custom M4 CQBR that I built using parts from so many differen't manufacturers I can't even name them all. DeadRag also keeps its own armory with some AEGs that we get for review from time to time. Shawn and I both use the Dead Rag guns. We try to use them as much as possible to give our listeners some great feedback.  My personal favorite DeadRag gun so far is the CA SLR-105A1 Compact that was  generously donated by Airsoft Extreme. Combined with the 1000rd highcap magazine from Kapowwe Airsoft, it's a very formidable weapon. I've used it in about 5 skirmishes so far and the combo has been just fantastic in every  way. It's also quite the head turner with its nice real wood finish.

 

Shawn: Man, I am really impressed by the quality and performance of the Echo-1/JG guns. First of all you can’t beat the price, and all of the ones that I’ve seen have performed just as well and have been more reliable than the better known more expensive brands. Currently I have a JG M4, JG M4 CQB, and a Classic Army M4 R.I.S.

 

How long has DeadRag Airsoft Radio been on the air/online? How did you come up with the idea of putting up an airsoft radio?

 

Jeff: We released our first episode on March 25th of 2007 and if you've heard it, you can tell it's come a long way in a short amount of time. Shawn and I had originally wanted to do something for our local community- kind of a "what's going on" sort of thing for local players to listen to and find  out where games are and where to shop etc. Well, as we got more and more excited about it, we decided that we needed to do something that catered more to the national airsoft community and now, it's international! It just  kind of snowballed into something bigger than we imagined. It's really all thanks to our wonderful and interesting guests and our listeners. We decided from the beginning that no one would want to listen to Shawn and I ramble on  and on by ourselves so even though it's a lot of extra work, we always have a guest on every show that brings their unique perspective to people all over the world.

 

What do you use for in producing for your shows? Any tricks of the trade you want to share to budding airsoft radio jocks wanting to put up their airsoft shows in their own countries?

 

Shawn: All of the tech head stuff is Jeff’s department. I do the scheduling and contact guests and retailers. As far as advice for new airsoft radio jocks, the number one thing you have to do to be successful is to support your local airsoft community. Promote all of your local teams and events first, before you try to take on the business of the entire airsoft world. If you don’t have local support and feedback you are going to get discouraged and fail pretty quickly.

 

Jeff: Well, really anyone can put on a podcast with some basic technical knowledge. It's really tricky, however, to do a show with high production quality that sounds polished. That's why our show is constantly evolving. It  is a lot of work to put every Deadrag episode together. I handle the production,  editing, music and getting the show online. We record the guest interviews using Skype. For editing, we record each segment into its own track in Audacity then edit them to take out the mistakes or glitches. Then I import  the individual tracks into Cubase to put it all together, add the music and mixdown into an MP3. I've used Cubase for my personal music production alot throughout the years so it's a natural workflow for me to use it to mix everything.

 

Any ups and downs in producing the shows?

 

Jeff: For me, the ups are interviewing the guests and actually talking about the sport we love. The down usually comes when I'm spending hours trying to edit and finish the show late at night. Another up is when we get great feedback from our listeners about the latest show. We love to hear feedback from people about our shows.

 

Shawn: I agree with Jeff the guest interviews are one of the most fun parts of the whole process, along with getting to review new products. The only down is the 40 mile drive to our studio for me, but when we get e-mails or people coming up to us at games and telling us how much they love the show. It’s well worth it.

 

Your site shows all those blogs about milsim events you've been to. What's the most memorable airsoft event that you covered while running DeadRag Airsoft Radio?

 

Jeff: Probably Operation Bulldog II was the most fun and memorable. We had a great time recording our experience there and interviewing the players and commanders. It was a blast and we give a big thanks to John Lu for accommodating us.

 

Shawn: Yeah, Bulldog II was epic. We were really treated well by the Lion Claws series staff. John, and SGTs Mullen and Miller were very gracious with their time.

 

Your Episode 7 had an interesting portion on organizing an airsoft op or event. I mentioned this to one of my skirmish mates and he requested me to ask you if you can outline the steps here. Care to say these again?

 

Shawn: Wow, we covered a ton of information during that segment.That`s really something that we could write an entire article for you on, and could do for you down the road.  I’ll give you some bullet points here, but people really should go back and review episode 7 to get all of the information.

 

1. Scenario writing and planning
2. Location selection and scouting
3. Prop selection and building
4. Safety preparation i.e. first aid kit, vehicles to evac injured players etc.
5. Staff selection, the event should have adequate staff for registration and check in of players and administrating the gameplay.
6. Staff should have at least one pre-op meeting to discuss who is going to be responsible for what duties.
7. Creating additional objectives and/or sub-scenarios to make sure your op or event doesn’t end prematurely

 

Operation Bulldog II (part of the Operation Lion Claw Series) looked like it was an awesome event. Can you follow through on what happened at the event?

 

Shawn: John Lu and his staff did an excellent job as always. The MOUT sites at Fort Hood made for some heart pounding combat. You can’t call yourself a true airsofter until you’ve experienced one of John’s MOUT events. Jeff and I were in the Rangers 3rd squad along with the rest of Team Excessive Force and U.A.L. that attended.   It was a pitched battle all weekend long with some very intense prolonged engagements. The Insurgents ended up the victors……..barely. One piece of advice that I want to give to anyone that hasn’t been to a Lion Claws event but is planning on going to your first this next year is START GETTING IN SHAPE NOW!  This is the most physically demanding airsoft there is. It’s true MIL-SIM and if you’re in poor shape it won’t be as much fun.

 

Any plans on providing more shows or adding more features such as video-based episodes in doing reviews and covering events?

 

Jeff:  We will always be doing our DeadRag monthly podcasts but we do have plans in the works to bring you an airsoft news podcast on a more frequent basis. There is SO much happening in the world with airsoft. The sport is growing so huge that we can't possibly cover everything in our short news segments. That's why we decided that we need to step up to the plate and  create The SpeedLoader- a quick rundown of all the headlines happening in the world of airsoft. Be on the lookout for it! We have been in talks about doing a video magazine in the future. Our partnership with Combined Airsoft Operations Command will probably allow us to do something like that in the down the road.

 

Shawn: Yes, Speedloader will really allow us to help players stay on top of the latest airsoft news. As Jeff said the sport is growing like wildfire, and we just can’t keep up with it all on our regular show. The video magazine is really something that we would like to be able to do at some point. I mean imagine being able to watch a video review of an AEG.  Being able to see the rate of fire and range. Listen to the gearbox and motor…………that would really be something.

 

Before we end this interview, why "Deadrag"?

 

Jeff: Some people call it a kill rag, death rag or dead rag. Around here when you get "killed" in an airsoft game, you pull out your red dead rag and call "HIT!” We wanted a memorable name that was something you'd really only find in airsoft. We also thought DeadRag was pretty funny and poking fun at ourselves because we are always getting killed.

 

Deadrag Airsoft Radio can be found at www.deadrag.com.

 

Reprinted from the Popular Airsoft Magazine Volume 1 Issue 1, March 2008 with minor updates.