L-A Radio: Gene "Bean' Baxter To EXIT KROQ-FM

KROQ's Kevin and Bean

Los Angeles' longest-running morning radio team -- KROQ-FM's Kevin and Bean -- is breaking up, co-host Gene "Bean'' Baxter announced Wednesday.

Baxter told listeners of the rock station's "Kevin & Bean Show'' that after 30 years on the air, he plans to move back to Great Britain, where he was born, at the end of the year. Bean has co-hosted the show with Kevin Ryder since it began December 31, 1989.



Baxter will remain for another nine months and then the program will continue with Ryder and others, reports L-A TV4.

"So, it's time for my wife, Donna, and me to move on to new adventures on a new continent,'' Baxter said in a statement. "We are moving back to my homeland, England. I am a British citizen ... and have spent many vacations there over the years and it always feels like home."

He added that he is not retiring and wants to continue broadcasting in Britain, "even though I have this funny accent. I just hope someone will give me a chance."



Baxter has been doing his part of the broadcast remotely -- first from his Seattle home and recently from New Orleans -- with Los Angeles-based Ryder since the late 1990s.

In a Twitter post, Ryder said, "Bean has wanted to move to England for a LONG time and I truly think this will make him happy. That makes me happy.''

According to The Holllywood Reporter, Baxter's on-air colleagues often lovingly mocked him for his random tweets, his "bad example" choices and what they deemed his questionable tastes, hobbies and interests, ranging from singers Gordon LIghtfoot and Taylor Swift to the former planet Pluto and Clyde Tombaugh — the astronomer who discovered it — to the U.S. Postal Service, to his intense desire to be chosen to serve on a jury.

Baxter famously has not worked out of the station's Los Angeles area home base for years. He moved to Seattle for 17 years, broadcasting out of his home there, before relocating to New Orleans in 2016, where he continued to work out of his home.

Still, he would travel back to Los Angeles to attend major KROQ events including stand-up comedy showcase April Foolishness, benefiting charity, as well as the Weenie Roast and Almost Acoustic Christmas concert events featuring a lineup of rock and alternative bands that the station plays on air.

On April 14, 2015, Kevin and Bean were inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.