CATONSVILLE, Md. — Tom Pless spent more than 40 years teaching in Baltimore County. Now, he runs a metal radio station from his basement, which he says reaches a quarter million listeners worldwide.
Pless has a man cave most can only dream of; basement jam sessions are next-level. For thousands of followers across several platforms, he runs 97 Underground.
Pless taught at Dundalk High School for 42 years, where the origin story of 97 Underground begins: broadcasting on FM radio waves.
"My students, because I taught there for many years, decided we wanted to go and put up a radio station in-house," Pless recalled.
Around the rise of grunge in the 1990s, the Underground left traditional airwaves. It found a new home on the internet, and it's still rocking today from his home.
"I'm excited about it. It just continues to go. The legacy goes with it. I could write a book if I had time to put all the ideas together, but it's been really fun," Pless said.
DJs, many of whom worked for the old station, send in their work. The station does play old school metal, but also gives a boost to newer artists; playing at local venues makes for quite the community-builder in Music City Maryland.
"I just think [Catonsville is] a nice little place to involve yourself in. We have a lot of local bands in the area that play the kind of genre we have, and I'm here to support and interview them and try to give them some credence to what they do," Pless said.
You can find O's gear and movie posters in thousands of Maryland basements, but you won't find the subterranean community Pless has built.
"I'm not a young man anymore, and I'll go as long as it takes for me to continue to enjoy it. When it stops being fun, then it's over," he concluded.
"But I don't think that's ever going to stop being fun," he laughed.
