"I've never felt qualified for this," he says.  "I think there are several complex reasons for this.  The main one, of course, is that I'm actually not qualified for this."

Brant grew up wanting to be on the radio, but as a play-by-play announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals.  One problem:  He can't see worth a darn.  "I go to a lot of games, and I never see the baseball," he says.  "That would've made for some entertaining radio:  'The ball is apparently hit by the bat -- I just heard it !  And now some blurry guys are running around and...'"

Brant is a husband to Carolyn, a father to son, Justice, and daughter, Julia, and an inveterate nerd, who uses words like, "inveterate".  In high school, he was President of the State of Illinois Student Librarians Association (for real) and the Captain of the Scholastic Bowl team.  He earned a letter in basketball and football -- for keeping stats.  

He's originally from a lot of small towns in Illinois and Indiana, and went to high school in Assumption, Illinois -- pop 1150, including dogs -- before graduating from the University of Illinois.  Brant's previous job was as a talk radio host, "Arguing about politics and stuff for three hours a day.  I miss that."  

Brant has some quirks:  He plays accordion, used to work videotaping tanks for the Army, batted .000 in eight years of playing baseball, has traveled to many of the most poverty-stricken places in the world, invented a board game that sold nationwide, was lead vocalist for an indie band in the 90s, is an expert on toast, played the flute in the marching band, has a three-legged dog named Nigel, and can't ever find his keys, phone, or wallet.  

He also is a night person, which makes being a morning radio host kind of ironic, he says.

"I know this:  God loves irony."