Radio personality Jed “The Fish” Gould, who for 34 years spun records on the afternoon shift at KROQ (106.7 FM), and whose musical taste greatly influenced the station’s direction as it rose to be a powerhouse in Southern California, died Monday. He was 69.

Gould joined KROQ in 1978, right about the time the station began to embrace the Second British Invasion of punk and new wave music.

Gould was already at the front of that movement, using his afternoon show to play bands such as Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and the Pretenders, and interview rising stars such as Elvis Costello and the Police. In later years, his love of the next new thing saw him champion artists like Trent Reznor and Katy Perry.

“It was very eclectic,” said Kat Corbett, a fellow KROQ DJ, of Gould’s musical taste. “It could go from Devo to classical. I hosted ‘Locals Only’ for years, and he would be like, ‘I heard this song you played.’ He was still listening to new music, and, you know, offering up things.

“I mean, he’s the one who gave me Katy Perry,” she added in a phone call just hours after Gould’s death. “Like, he played Katy Perry way, way, way back. And he’s like, ‘You know, there’s this girl, and she’s pretty great, and her name’s Katy Perry.’ And then I ended up doing a local show with her at the Viper Room of all places. He was very much all on this need to find the latest and greatest, and he was still doing it, even after all the years.”

In addition to the music he played, Gould was known for his offbeat humor, and in particular a raucous, wheezing laugh that became an aural trademark of his on-air personality.

“It took me years of imitation before I learned the simplicity of being myself on the air,” he wrote on his LinkedIn page, which lists his occupation as visual artist, a career he took up after leaving KROQ in 2014. “Turns out, this was a wacky position to take, but people seem to like the honesty behind it. The laugh? People would often say, “Jed, do your laugh!” I would glibly reply, “Say something funny.”

“They often would, and even now, if they do, they get what they want,” he added.

“Oh my God, I’ve got that on a voicemail message somewhere,” Corbett said of Gould’s laugh. “I’m like, I need to save this because I know I’m gonna need it one day.”

Gould was born July 15, 1955. He got his first radio job at 16 when he was still an Arizona high school student. In 1978, the same year he graduated from the University of Southern California’s journalism school, he joined KROQ, at the time a ragtag band of radio lovers whose instinct for what was cool and interesting soon launched its rise to the top of the ratings charts.

“My decades at KROQ are the core of my radio experience,” Gould wrote on LinkedIn. “Right place at the right time. We were leading the way but had no idea. Looking back, it’s plain the influence of this powerhouse reached beyond radio. TV, movies and now the sorts of attitudes and intensities displayed online owe much of their processes to KROQ.

“Any music lover who grew up in SoCal will tell you KROQ was their buddy for much or most of their lives,” he continued. “You can tell I now take pride in what I did. But I really tried not to while I was doing it. When I was younger, and my name was not on a guest list, that was always my little test. Was I going to be that guy?”

He was not that guy. Instead, he was your best friend on the radio, a guy who introduced you to your new favorite songs, or maybe you laughed at his antics. Even if he was occasionally a pain in the neck, you always forgave him. Take that last bit from Corbett, who for years held the KROQ midday shift right before Gould’s afternoon show.

“He was chronically late for his show,” Corbett said. “I’d just be like, ‘Dude, if you’re late again, I’m just leaving the studio. So if there’s dead air.’ And I did. I would leave KROQ. Just be like, ‘All right, like, I don’t know what’s gonna happen,’ you know.

“But as frustrating as he could be, he was also, like, the best kind of crazy,” she said. “I think it was really symbolic of what KROQ was about. Just like having a good time loving the music and being a little off, which is always, you know, the people I’m attracted to.

After Gould left KROQ in 2014, he continued to work in radio. He had his own show on KCSN (88.5 FM) until 2018, when he jumped to KLOS (95.5 FM) briefly. In 2019, he took a Sunday night show of “Roq of the ’80s” on the KROQ HD2 station.

Gould also worked as a visual artist, a longtime passion, and hung out with his beloved dog Alice in the 1894 Queen Anne Victorian house he purchased in Pasadena in 1994.

“At 6 a.m. on April 14, 2025, the world lost one of its most unique and brilliant personalities,” a message posted on Jed the Fish’s Facebook page read. “Jed the Fish passed peacefully away in his beloved home, and the world will never be the same.

“RIP Jed, go be with Alice,” it finished.

Gould reportedly discovered only recently that he had lung cancer.

As wacky and fun-loving as he was on and off the air, he never took for granted how fortunate he was that his life had unfolded as it did.

“This vast experience raced by like all good things,” he wrote on LinkedIn under the resume entry for KROQ. “Driving to work, at least 10 times a month, I would remember how lucky I was; that this could all be over any minute. Like the end of ‘The Sopranos.’”