Stephen King is taking a big old ax to his Maine radio empire. The prolific author bought Bangor-based station WLBZ in 1983, renaming it WZON in honor of his 1979 novel, The Dead Zone, per Billboard.

Stephen King, the horror author whose books have sold hundreds of millions of copies, inspired classic films and disturbed untold nights of sleep, has long played another role closer to his home in Maine: local media magnate.

Stephen King’s raucous rock ‘n’ roll radio station is going silent at year’s end. The renowned author and lifelong rocker who used to perform with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock band that featured literary icons,