Jed the Fish, the longtime KROQ DJ whose tastes set up the station as a major musical influence in the 1980s and ’90s, died Monday morning. He was 69.
“A legend of the airwaves, Jed was a pioneering voice in alternative radio, a beloved agent of chaos, and the man who made Los Angeles afternoons weirder, louder, and infinitely more interesting,” friend Paul Sinacore, a casting director, producer and drummer for the band East of Gideon, wrote in a tribute. “Over 34 years on the afternoon drive, he transformed the airwaves into a launchpad for revolutionary new music and culture.”
Jed, whose given name was Edwin Jed Fish Gould III, died at home in Pasadena under hospice care, his close friends confirmed to The Times. The cause of death was an aggressive form of small-cell lung cancer that was diagnosed in early March.
“At 6am on April 14, 2025, the world lost one [of] its most unique and brilliant personalities,” announced his social media accounts, run for years by friend Catherine Davis. “Jed the Fish passed peacefully away in his beloved home, and the world will never be the same. RIP Jed, go be with Alice” — his beloved dog.
His laid-back voice — one that was unusual for radio — and his impeccable taste in music practically defined Southern California during his time on KROQ-FM (106.7). Most importantly, he introduced countless bands to the local audience, often before they were being played in the locales from which they hailed.
A list of bands he brought to the fore reads like a history of rock music: Depeche Mode, the Cure, Duran Duran, the Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the B-52’s, the Go-Go’s, the Germs, the Pretenders, Devo, Blondie, the Ramones, the Runaways, Oingo Boingo, the Motels, Missing Persons, Josie Cotton, the Pandoras, X, Social Distortion, Oasis, Dramarama, No Doubt, Katy Perry, Teenage Fanclub, the Donnas, the Offspring and System of a Down.
His on-air interviews included chats with David Bowie, U2, Elvis Costello, Brian Eno, Sting and the Police.
“I was a fan of Jed and his shows on @kroq long before I ever met him,” Noodles, guitarist and backing vocalist for the Offspring, wrote Monday on Instagram. “He was the first DJ to spin Come Out And Play on the radio, which changed our bands trajectory in ways we never thought possible. … His sense of humor was insane in all the best ways. … Jed is forever a local hero who will be greatly missed. R.I.P. Legend!”
With “Catch of the Day,” Gould highlighted new music with his trademark irreverence. The madness inherent in his broadcast kept fans hooked. Sinacore, who met Gould in 1990 in the green room at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, said the show “wasn’t just a show — it was a happening.”
“He captured the zeitgeist of the alternative era, understanding that music wasn’t just entertainment — it was the heartbeat of a generation. He was at the pulse of the cultural shifts happening around him, bringing listeners the soundtrack to their rebellion, their youth, and their identity,” Sinacore wrote.
“It was L.A.’s incredible good fortune that he was here and that it was then,” longtime friend Rudy Koerner said in a phone interview Monday.
Never a smoker, Gould had assumed in late January that the irritation he was experiencing was residual to the devastating wildfire earlier that month in Altadena, Koerner said. When other doctors couldn’t find a simple cause after ruling out wildfire smoke and an infection, Dr. Drew Pinsky, also a KROQ veteran, suggested that he get scanned in case it was something more serious, Koerner said. Unfortunately, it was.
Born July 15, 1955, in Orange County, Gould earned his First Class Radiotelephone Operator License in 1971, when he was 16, and programmed and hosted a radio show for teens in rural Arizona. He was ultimately fired from the gig because he chose to recite George Carlin’s famous bit about the seven words you can’t say on TV, Koerner said. Turns out you couldn’t say them on the radio either.
Koerner and Gould met in the 1970s at USC, where they lived in adjacent dorm rooms and both majored in broadcast journalism. Gould graduated from USC a couple of years after Koerner did, having taken time off to work at a radio station in Orange County.
He pitched himself as “Jed the Fish” to KROQ in a flyer copied on salmon-pink paper with a grainy photo that looked to be himself scantily clad — if clad at all — sitting in a wheelchair. There was also a small diagram of a fish. “LOOK HEAR! That’s right! JED will perform absolutely FREE! On your station!,” the flyer said under the banner of a KROQ “Summer Fishfry.” “30 hours per week or less 90 day max FUR FREE!”
He got the gig.
As Jed the Fish, he hosted the afternoon drive-time show on KROQ from 1978 to 2012, and his unique taste in music set the station up as an authority on punk and new wave in the 1980s and alt-rock in the 1990s. Jed influenced KROQ, the station influenced Los Angeles, L.A. influenced California and California influenced the taste of the nation, Koerner said. (“As goes KROQ, so goes the country,” Noodles quipped to The Times in 2024.)
“He really had no fear about the types of artists he played,” Koerner said before relaying a story about how Jed decided to play one of the early pressings of Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” on KROQ one night and boy, did he get feedback. “His listeners weren’t used to hearing Michael Jackson tunes” — at least not songs from the adult Jackson — “and they were like, ‘What the hell?’” But Jed said, “This is good,” and it was.
“Radio is so ephemeral,” Koerner said, “reaching no further than the listeners’ memories. And Jed was so into the moment.”
Some promos and drop-ins that are still in use on KROQ today were created by Gould in the station’s studio “when Jimmy Carter was president,” he said. “And they still sound fresh.”
He hosted the syndicated countdown show “Out of Order” from 1994 to 2013. Gould went on from KROQ to work at KCSN-FM (88.5) and KLOS-FM (95.5), then in 2019 joined the “Roq of the 80s” Sunday night lineup on KROQ’s HD2 station, streamed online. He was named Billboard’s modern rock personality of the year in 1997 and 1999 and won Radio & Records’ local modern rock personality. In 2004, he was named one of L.A.’s top radio personalities.
Gould was also a drummer — playing with System of a Down at one of KROQ’s famous Weenie Roasts — and dabbled in music production and visual arts. Massive, offbeat stone and tiled statues built by Gould sit in the gardens, pathways and lush landscaping around his home, which went on the market briefly in 2017. “It’s like something out of ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” the listing agent said at the time. “In the backyard, you really see the personality of the owner.”
Davis said by phone Monday that she considered him her “chosen family” and the uncle to her children. “When he loved, he just loved,” she said. “He was larger than life.”
Gould came home from several weeks in the hospital the night before he died, returning to the colorful turn-of-the-century Queen Anne Victorian home he loved. He had updated the Foster/Blankenhorn house — which he purchased in 1994, when it was already 100 years old — with a soundproofed music studio off the garage.
Koerner said that early last week, friends all thought chemotherapy would be the next step for Gould, who had been the best man at Koerner’s wedding. “We still thought he had options,” he said. Then “it went from one thing to another” and suddenly turned into a race against time.
He died almost exactly at 6 a.m., Koerner said, which was perfect, because he was never a morning person.
“He is survived by a community of artists, misfits, and fans who were changed by the sound of his voice — and the daring freedom it represented,” Sinacore wrote. “Jed the Fish didn’t just play the hits. He was the disruption, the detour, the spark in the signal.”