Ask him some form of the question he's heard for the last two months, about how it feels to take over Howard Stern's morning radio slot, and his first crack is, "Oh, hell, everyone knows doing morning radio is just an excuse to put bourbon in your coffee."

There's a lot more where that came from, and Roth will be rolling it out starting today at 6 a.m., when he takes the mike on the new WFNY (92.3 FM), christened "Free-FM."

Free-FM, a talk format designed to lure some of the young men who are up for grabs with Howard heading off to Sirius Satellite Radio, is billed as free of format restrictions.

As Infinity CEO Joel Hollander has noted, no radio company has ever had to replace a Stern-level listener- and revenue-generator in several dozen cities at the same time. So while Hollander says he's allowing a year or two for the new era to take shape, Free-FM represents a major roll of the dice with a large bet riding on it. Unconfirmed reports have Roth alone making up to $4 million a year.

Roth, who turned 50 in October, doesn't talk dollars. But he does promise to work hard for the money, and that includes cheerfully playing into Infinity's hope that his reputation as the wild-man lead singer of Van Halen will give his radio show the warm glow of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

But while a big part of Roth's charm is that he's always tossing a huge stage wink at everyone, including himself, he says the radio gig is serious.

"This is something I've done as an avocation since the '60s," he says, recalling how he grew up on fast-talking top-40 jocks, then caught the birth of cool FM with Los Angeles' Tom Donahue.

"My background is utterly different from everyone else on the radio," he says. The average host "has spent the last 30 years talking into a microphone in a room without a window. My life for the last 30 years has been international adventure and intrigue."

That's why, he says, taking Stern's time slot isn't like being the guy who has to replace Michael Jordan for the Chicago Bulls - because he's not doing what Stern did.

"Stern is an aberration," says Roth. "He's unique." Roth sees himself as part of a much longer radio time line, one that predates Stern by decades.

"This is the tradition of [famous WOR 1940s and '50s hosts] Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg," he says. "They got on the radio every morning and talked to you."

Unlike Roth with Infinity, of course, Tex and Jinx weren't promoted as sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. But then, Roth's dirty little secret is that he sees that part of his persona as only the starting point. There's also the Roth who follows the news of the day, and the Roth who has been working outside the spotlight as a New York emergency medical technician.

"Does that affect you?" says Roth, rephrasing a question. "You mean waiting for 10 hours in the freezing cold for a call on Stillwell Ave.? You bet it changes things."

"Look, I can bond with a fire hydrant if I have to," he says. "But I'm not a comedian. I have a sense of humor, but with a lot of things it's a New York sense of humor. Like, 'It's funny, but it ain't funny.'"

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