Zach McCormick’s passion and enthusiasm for sharing music with others started at a young age. As a middle schooler in South Minneapolis, he was the kid who used to walk around with giant headphones and his Walkman, listening to music of all different genres – from ska and punk to Bruce Springsteen – and sharing with anyone who would listen. 

“I used to just walk up to people and stick headphones on their ears, making them listen to all the music I found interesting,” he says with a laugh.  

Midday host 

It only makes sense that someone with such a deep love for sharing music would eventually end up at The Current. Listeners may already know Zach as an on-call host for the station, filling in as needed and on overnights since early 2023.  

But now, listeners will hear a lot more from Zach as he steps into a new role: As of March 25, he is The Current’s midday host, joining The Current’s weekday lineup of Jill Riley, Jessica Paxton, and Ayisha Jaffer. Zach will be on air weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Zach will take over the midday show features and specialty programming that listeners know and love, including the Chart Show on Thursdays, Tonal Recall on Fridays, the Gig List, and Song of the Day.  

For a music-loving kid like Zach, working for The Current is the definition of a dream job. “The Current was founded right around the same time I started having dreams of working in radio,” Zach says. “I’ve always had a deep respect for the station, so to actually work here is incredibly fulfilling.”  

Growing up with music 

Zach credits his parents and their eclectic music tastes for his love of music. From his mom’s passion for classic ’70s music to his dad’s punk zeal, he became well-versed in different music genres from a young age.  

All this led to Zach seeking out all the ways he could be involved in music and the music scene—doing everything from volunteering at the DIY youth music venue TC Underground, attending all-ages punk shows with his dad, a brief stint playing the clarinet in the school band, and eventually landing as a youth host at Radio K at the University of Minnesota.   

“Radio K is where I really caught the radio bug,” says Zach. “Having access to so many different types of music and learning from these incredibly talented veteran DJs was a great foundation for me.” 

And the bug stuck: Zach stayed with Radio K while attending the University of Minnesota, hosting different shows like the local music show Off the Record and the morning show, Rock and Roll Over until he graduated in 2013. 

Staying in the music scene 

After graduating college, Zach channeled his passion for music in a different way — through writing.  

He landed a gig as a freelance writer for the alternative weekly newspaper City Pages, where he covered the local music beat for three years.  

Zach then moved to local radio station Go 96.3, where he got to dip his toes back into the radio world by doing weekends and overnights on air and leading the station’s first local show, Local Ties. He eventually left the station to pursue writing in other ways, but the radio bug never quite left him. When he got the chance to take a part-time gig at The Current in early 2023, he knew he had to jump on it. 

“Working at The Current has made me completely fall back in love with radio,” says Zach. “It’s a hand-in-glove fit for what I loved about working in radio when I first started, with its community-oriented focus.” 

The voice of discovery  

Zach knows that the idea of community and shared music discovery is incredibly important to listeners of The Current. A musician himself in a local band Sparrowhawk, Zach feels strongly about what Minnesota and The Current has to offer.  

“This town is really interested in music, and I think we have a cool thing going here. I want to try and celebrate people’s music tastes and curiosity as much as possible,” he says. 

Zach finds leading people to music they might not listen to otherwise incredibly exciting. If you were to ask him what he’s most looking forward to as he steps into this new role, he’d tell you it’s exactly what’s most important to the listeners: the music. 

“Sometimes in music, there’s this tendency to want to make a cool kids club and to keep what you find interesting to yourself, to gatekeep. But I’ve never felt that way,” says Zach. And that’s what he knows is so special about being at The Current. 

“I mean, it all comes full circle in a way, doesn’t it? Whether it's sticking my headphones on somebody's ears or yelling about a band I like on the air, it's all the same impulse: to share good music.”