The on-air team of Dave Luczak and Carole Caine has defined morning FM radio in Milwaukee for nearly two decades. In fact, their morning drive program on 96.5 WKLH is steadily ranked in the city's top two wake-up shows, a challenging feat given the steep competition in the 5-10 a.m. time slot.

Maybe it's their obvious chemistry. Maybe it's their top-notch guests and interviews. Maybe it's the exotic locations where they travel and broadcast. Maybe it's all of the above. One thing's for sure, however: Milwaukee will keep on listening to Dave and Carole, as the team recently signed a 10-year contract, which is especially long in the industry.

Dave and Carole took some time out of their incredibly busy lives to talk about the schedule, their families, their on-air rapport and how they landed on our FM dial. Check out this exclusive interview with OnMilwaukee.com in another installment of Milwaukee Talks.

OMC: You guys are cracking jokes well before most of us even wake up. What's your schedule like, and more importantly, how do you do it?

DL: We go to bed between and 9-10 p.m.

OMC: But what time do you wake up?

DL: 3 a.m. We're here early. Our show starts at 5, but we're here prior to that.

OMC: Are you expected to live a normal life during the weekends?

CK: You're expected to live a normal life, 24-7. Like Dave said, the kids don't slow down. They don't care. Mom's tired, what's new? Come on. I've got to be someplace at 1 p.m. Get on the stick.

OMC: How long have you guys been working together?

CK: 18 years here.

OMC: But you've each been doing radio even longer?

DL: Yeah. I've been doing this since I was 18.

CK: Since I was 21.

OMC: Have you always worked morning drive?

CK: No, I didn't. Did you always do mornings, Carole?

DL: No, I did a noon-4 shift for about a year. Other than that it was just mornings.

CK: I did 3-11 in Fort Atkinskon. I did an 8-5 thing. When I hooked up with Dave, I was already doing mornings, since I was a traffic reporter.

OMC: Yet, this is the pinnacle of the radio career, right? Morning drive is the best day part.

DL: Unfortunately it is, yes.

OMC: It's an odd sacrifice, though. You work crazy hours but you're at the top of your career?

CK: Wanna tell him the truth, Dave? For me, it's been great. I've been able to be a full-time mom, and I have a full-time job. I could leave in the morning, even though I'd be tired by the end of the week, and be done with a good chunk of my day by the time that my kids were rousting. When they were very young, my husband, Lou, would take care of them. But I've always spent more of my children's waking hours with them than not with them and still been able to hold down a full-time job. For me, it's been great.

DL: I agree. Generally speaking, I'm home every day by between 1 and 3. Even though we have a lot of appearances that we have to go do, for the most part, I've always been there for the kids. I'm going to be 44 next month, and my kids are 20, 18 and 16. But I've been there all the way through their Little League games and all that stuff.

OMC: As parents, this is a good schedule then.

CK: It's an incredible schedule!

DL: We always say it's better than a real job. The things we've gotten to do, to experience, because of our radio show, it's hard to fathom. We've both had the chance to fly with the Blue Angels. We've done our show all over the world, from Hawaii, from Octoberfest three times. We did a week in London. Not too mention the people we meet and talk to. The idea is that we come in here, we're supposed to be having a good time. Basically, the better time we have the better time people have listening to us.

OMC: Does it feel like work, or are you just sitting around chatting in the morning, being yourselves?

CK: We're at a level now where it's automatic.

DL: We've worked together for so long that it's not really work, per se.

CK: But we know our responsibilities.

DL: She knows where I'm going to be, I know where she's going to be. Kevin (Brandt) has worked with us for seven years. We're all on the same page. It is work sometimes and it gets demanding, like when we have to emcee an event at night. We don't get home until 10 or 11, get three hours of sleep and are back here for a full day. Maybe that's a day we have to make a TV appearance. It's time consuming and tiring, physically exhausting.

OMC: But when you get to do something like Octoberfest, is that still work?

DL: Believe it or not, that's more work.

CK: You have to entertain the listeners, and you're out of your element. You've got to find stuff to make the show interesting. It's not like you can come in here and pull up stuff on your computer and check out the New York Times. It's almost like a vacation doesn't feel like a vacation anymore. For me, I'm always thinking while I'm trying to relax, "Shouldn't I be doing something?" Because we're working all the time when we're on location.

DL: It's weird to be some other place and not be broadcasting.

OMC: Tell me how the show came to be 18 years ago.

DL: If you go back to 1984, my morning show partner Don Girard and I were doing a show in Rochester, N.Y. We had several different job offers, and we ended up coming to Milwaukee to work at 96.5 WKLH. Don worked with me for a couple of years. About a year and a half after we were here, we needed someone to do news. So Carole came on board. She was a traffic reporter for the old WBCS, which was a country station that's now Lazer 103 across the hall. About four or five months later, Don got a job in San Francisco, He quit, and the rest is history, so they say. Since January 1986, it's been Dave and Carole in the mornings.

OMC: So Dave, you're not from Milwaukee?

DL: I'm from Pittsburgh.

CK: I'm from Beloit, the booming metropolis. When I got here, something just fit.