'Dirty Jobs' ' Mike Rowe Has a New Show About the Nitty-Gritty of Work (and Talks a Bit About His Personal Life)

Don’t tell anyone, but the “dirty little secret” ofMike Rowe’s career — in his own words — is that he’s been making variations of the same show for decades.

FirstDirty Jobson Discovery (his breakout series, which isabout to be revived) andSomebody’s Gotta Do Iton CNN andReturning the Favoron Facebook and now, in his return to primetime,How America Workson Fox Business Network.

“It’s all kind of the same show,” Rowe tells PEOPLE a little wryly. But that’s the point: The format and platforms vary, but not the focus on what it means to do a job, in all its nitty-gritty glory.

And Rowe’s job, he says, “is to tap the country on the shoulder, as best I can, and say, ‘Hey, what about him? What about her?’ I just change the title of the show every six or seven years, but that’s really all I’ve been doing since 2001.”

Mike Rowe.Michael Segal

Unlike some of his previous shows, Rowe, who also hosts a podcast andruns the mikeroweWORKS foundation, will be narratingHow America Worksrather than be its on-camera personality.

He had been interested in returning to his favorite themes, he says, when a production company and Fox approached him with the series.

“It wasn’t a question of, should I do it? I have to do it,” says Rowe, 59. “And I’m glad to do it, because I think people are going to dig it.”

“Look,” he says, “if the show does one thing — I think it’s going to do several things, but if it does just this one thing, I will deem it a huge success — if it makes people pause for a moment when they flick the switch and see the lights come on, if it makes them go, ‘That’s a freaking miracle. I had forgotten,’ then this is all good, right?

Below, the host talks about his new project, why he only opens up a little about his personal life (and his longtime partner) and why he’s kept so very busy during the pandemic.

“I feel fortunate to be on somewhat of a mission, and that mission allows me to work in lots of different ways,” he says. “But no, I can’t imagine retiring.”

How America Workspremieres Monday (8 p.m. ET) on Fox Business Network.

PEOPLE: I want to start with a textbook question.How America Worksis about infrastructure, literally — but why that topic, and what does it mean to you to get people to pay attention to it?

PEOPLE: You’ve been focusing on American work for years. Have you seen things change in the culture?

Rowe: The honest answer to that question is a 350-page book I can’t get around to finishing, but the short version is both micro and macro. Our personal relationship with work has shifted in the same way our thoughts about education have shifted. College needed a PR campaign 50 years ago. And it got one. Unfortunately, that PR came at the expense of skilled labor. We took shop class out of high school and we started telling kids, “Look, it’s not enough to say a four-year degree is a good thing.” We started saying, “If you don’t get one, you’re going to get stuck over here, turning a wrench, we’re doing something unsavory.” And my mission, to the extent that I have one, is to confront some of the myths and misperceptions and stigmas and stereotypes that keep people from pursuing a career in the trades.

How America Works.FOX business

PEOPLE: Could you preview some of the jobs and people you learned about on the show? Any that surprised you?

PEOPLE: In many ways it still feels like you’re the person talking about these issues and making it into a format people can consume.

fox business

PEOPLE: So catch me up beyond the show, outside the show. You’re Zooming from your office right now. Are you in California?

Rowe: Yeah, the mail comes to Northern California, where I continue to exist for five, six, sometimes seven days a month. We never stopped shooting. We pivoted, but back in March [2020] when the lockdowns started, I talked to the president over at Discovery and we got the first Zoom show in the country on the air in April. And then we tookDirty Jobsback out on a road trip. And so we shot six of that. Then we shot six episodes of something calledSix Degrees, which I’m really proud of. And then we went back into production onDirty Jobs. So new episodes of that sometime in October. And that I doubled down on my podcast,The Way I Heard It, because when you’re trapped here in your office looking for stuff to do, it’s like, okay, yeah, podcasting. So that thing blew up and now projects likeHow America Works. It’s, look, the key is to do everything as best you can. And if you’re constantly reverting to a larger mission, which again is, “Hey America, check him out, check her out,” then you’ll always find a different way to do it.

I mean, I don’t know how you feel, but I’m on a first name basis now with every UPS, FedEx and Amazon driver in California. They know me, I know them. I know the people that look after the wires that allow us to have this conversation. So, I think that if there’s a silver lining in all this, it has heightened people’s understanding of who’s doing the wet work.

PEOPLE: And what’s happening in your personal life? Do you do anything for fun? Catch me up on that.

So, why not? I’m game to try virtually anything. But I am loathe to impersonate a celebrity.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

source: people.com