Hi! And welcome to Renegade Retro.

Renegade Retro started way back in 2001 as a simple station on Live365 that focused on Def Leppard. All Def Leppard, all the time.

Yeah, that didn’t last. We (me, my station, you listeners) were shut down within 2 days by Live365 due to RIAA/DMCA restrictions. I didn’t want to give up that easily, so I really looked into what the rules were and then I re-worked the station into what you hear now. Being a child of Gen-X, the 80’s, I focused on all 80’s with an extra focus on Def Leppard as often as allowed by the rules. Didn’t even really have a station name yet. But some friends of mine had stations also, one of them being a great guy who went by the handle Wolfman, and he had a station based on late 90s/early 2000’s rock named Renegade Radio and he wanted a partner station to work with. We worked with his name and Renegade Retro had its name.

In 2001 we had nowhere near the playlist we have now, and there was heavy focus on just top 20 songs, with nowhere near even a complete list of those. Gradually we got hold of the Billboard Hot 100 charts for every week of every year of the 1980s and slowly built up the library, getting every single song that reached those peaks in the 80’s. We were very active in 80’s forum communities, notably Inthe00s.com and 80sxchange.com. We pushed live shows, brought people in, and by their requests we filled out more and more of the playlist.

We brought in another 2 stations, Renegade Country, and our longest-lasting partner City of Glass Radio. We founded our own network, Retro Radio Network.

Renegade Radio and Renegade Country died after a couple of years but Renegade Retro and City of Glass Radio marched on along with the Retro Radio Network, now numbering 2 stations. Around 2013 or so, Renegade Retro and City of Glass Radio had a falling out and went our separate ways, which also ended our Retro Radio Network. At that time I focused back on a goal I’d set some years before but never made a lot of progress on, making sure Renegade Retro had every song that ever charted in the top 40 in the 80s. From 1980 to 1989. Did you know that from From January 1, 1980- December 31, 1989, 2214 different songs reached the Top 40?

Well, I made that goal.

Now in our 24th year of broadcasting almost continuously (barring hardware failures that may have shut us down for very brief periods) we’re proud to be one of the only stations (if not the only) we know of that features every song that ever charted in the 80’s, plus so much more. Def Leppard is always still a heavy focus but so is Weird Al Yankovic, Madonna, and many, many other big names from that era, including recent material from these great artists.

We’ve had a long journey, and I expect I’ll keep the light on for many years to come.

So again, welcome to Renegade Retro and we hope you enjoy what you’re hearing!