Latest / The Scene Projects / Tom Fox on Podcasting, Community Resilience, and Upcoming Media Events

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Tom Fox on Podcasting, Community Resilience, and Upcoming Media Events · The Scene Projects

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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
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  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is my friend and award winning podcaster, Tom
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  Fox.
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  Tom, nice to turn the tables on you.
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  Welcome to my show.
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  Great to be here with you, Bubba.
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  I'm really excited.
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  You know?
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  Last year, we got to speak on your program.
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  You had me on as a guest.
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  Met through the c suite network.
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  A quick shout out to them.
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  What a year that they've had growing and spreading their message.
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  But you were one of the first video podcasts that I was ever a guest on.
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  And since that time, we've had, you know, a lot of experience gained, a lot of mistakes made,
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  but we also won one of our own awards.
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  Now we don't have a mantle full like you do yet, but, we're, we're gonna do our best to
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  catch up.
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  But for all of our fans, new to you that don't know who you are and what you do, I'd to just
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  give you the floor and, give us a little bit of your backstory.
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  Sure.
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  So, I'm a lawyer by professional training.
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  I started podcasting in 2012 in the b to b world of the riveting topic of legal and
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  regulatory compliance.
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  I ended up founding the, first and only network in that space, appropriately called the
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  Compliance Podcast Network, grew that to 75 shows.
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  In 2021, I cofounded a another podcast network called the Texas Hill Country Podcast Network.
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  I I moved from Houston to a ranch in West Texas in a area called the Hill Country, and I met
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  some like minded folks who wanted to start a network.
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  So we have a net, small regional network where we focus much more on human interest and local
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  business people.
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  So that part kind of aligns with, I think, the niche you have found as well.
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  So I play in those two spaces and have a ton of fun doing it.
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  Absolutely.
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  And I've really found, my love of podcasting in this last year and the opportunities that it
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  has opened up for us in every realm.
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  You know, when we first started out, it was mostly we were audio only.
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  I was just kinda getting my feet under me, and I was only interviewing musicians and artists,
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  mostly people that I had known.
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  They were part of my, you know, existing network of people that, I had around me.
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  And really at the turn of the calendar last year in 2025, I started to to figure out how to
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  kinda put myself out there to talk to people that I didn't know.
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  And doing it on video and to watch how podcasting can just change your whole world
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  because of the conversations that you get to have and to use that platform to support local
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  voices.
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  You know, we have a scene project sports network where we're covering and talking with
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  local high school sports teams and and shining a light on some of our young amateur athletes
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  or local businesses who aren't going to get on the local news channels for for one reason or
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  another and and really using our voice and our platform to support the people that are around
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  us every day.
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  Absolutely.
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  And I live in a town that is too small for television.
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  We don't even have our own radio station.
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  We have a newspaper that goes out three times a week.
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  And so there is a just a thirst for information, for knowledge, for news, for human
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  interest stories.
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  And the welcome to the podcast.
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  Very cool.
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  A co star, the boss.
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  But the other thing is that I live in a community that's 38% over 65.
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  And guess what?
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  They're all on Facebook.
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  Well, why aren't the businesses in this town on Facebook if your customers are on Facebook?
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  And so it it really lends itself to a video approach, not video only because I'm still a
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  firm believer in the audio component of podcasting.
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  But the other thing that, there's been this ongoing dialogue in the podcast community.
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  Can you have a video pod?
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  Is it really a podcast?
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  Is it something different?
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  And one of the very early founders, in our space, a guy named Rob Greenlee said, hey,
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  guys.
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  When we started, it was video.
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  We gravitated to the audio format.
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  So let's not talk about something new.
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  We were doing this twenty years ago.
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  So a combination of both is absolutely what every business needs, what every performer
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  needs, what every artist needs.
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  The artists that I talk to are a little bit different than the artists you talk to because
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  I'm talking to to painters, to writers, to movie directors, to actors, to film directors.
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  And so but they all need to tell their story.
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  And that's exactly it.
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  To me, because I haven't been in it for long, I don't even bother getting into the debates.
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  To me, a podcast is just an independent broadcast.
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  It's something that can be done from someone's home studio or from your phone even.
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  To me, it doesn't matter.
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  I'm not getting caught up in the semantics of it.
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  What is the, what's the passion behind it?
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  What is the the root of why?
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  And to me, it's all stories.
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  It's all about getting these stories out there, whether it's me telling mine.
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  I really started my podcast because as a musician, I had gone on and guessed it on a few
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  of my friends' podcast, and I barely scratched the surface on who is Bubba Starts.
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  So I was like, well, the only way I'm gonna have an opportunity to do this is if I'm able
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  to show up more consistently and bit by bit tell my story.
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  And I I kinda got that from listening to Joe Rogan and hearing eventually, you've heard some
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  of his stories so many times, and, you know, he feels like a broken record, I'm sure.
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  But he's just relating with the people that are across the table with him or for us, you know,
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  across on the other side of the computer screen.
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  And we're finding a way to relate as human beings, and that is the basis of relationship.
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  And to me, that's really what podcasting is.
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  And it's not just the relationship between you and I as host or guest, but also that
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  relationship with your fans.
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  They pay it's common wisdom in the or conventional wisdom in the podcast world that
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  people come for the guest, but they stay for the host.
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  And if you can develop that relationship with the host, people will come back.
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  I tell people I have two metrics and two metrics only for a successful podcast.
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  Number one, how much did I learn?
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  And number two, how much fun did I have?
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  Now in the b to b world, I'm a subject matter expert.
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  And if I learn something, my audience is gonna learn something.
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  But guess what?
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  I always learn something.
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  I learn something from you simply because you're different than me.
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  You have a different perspective, a different background, different focus.
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  But the second part is how much fun did I have?
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  Because if I'm having fun, I'm engaged, and people can hear that in my voice.
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  And if I'm engaged, the listener's gonna be engaged.
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  And if I can give you a couple of anecdotes, my daughter is a millennial, and one time my wife
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  said nobody watches a video podcast.
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  So we asked my daughter, do you you watch video podcast?
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  She goes, oh, yeah.
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  That's what we do on Friday night.
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  We get the girls come over and we have some wine and we watch video podcast.
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  Well, here's what it reminded me of, Bubba.
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  When I was in college, Saturday Night Live came out, and we would literally go to bars that had
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  big screens to watch and listen to Saturday Night Live.
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  Now I recognize that's a professional comedy troupe on network TV, but it's still an audio
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  video format, which is what you're doing in 2026.
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  So I think there's a pretty good track record of people watching audio and watching music and
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  watching people talk about themselves, whether it's a comedy, whether it's a serious, whether
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  it's an entertainment, whether it's just human interest.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, I that's pretty much all that I watch, our podcast.
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  And and what is it besides a talk show?
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  And what is most of TV filled with but talking heads, you know, discussing topics or whatever
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  it might be?
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  You know, shows like The View and all of the like, a podcast is no different than that.
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  And that's why I don't try to get caught up in the semantics of it.
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  Your show can be whatever you want it to be.
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  And, for me, I like conversations.
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  I like having hosted some people, you know, a Bill Burr can carry his show all by himself and
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  monologue, till the end of time and fill up an entire hour.
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  That's not necessarily how I like to do it, but I also have varied interests.
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  Right?
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  Like, I don't have just this one show at this point.
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  We have 13 shows on our networks.
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  I have four different networks that we do because of the varied interests.
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  I I a lot of the stuff that I was doing maybe in a news or politics world didn't necessarily
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  fit into this entertainment entertainer's world.
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  So I created the Patriot Broadcasting Project.
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  The mental health stuff that we were doing in those longer conversations that that lend
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  themselves to didn't necessarily fit onto a channel that was mostly twenty to thirty minute
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  get to know you type episodes like these are.
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  So I created the Get Better Together project.
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  I am a huge sports fan.
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  And as you, you know, alluded to, I had to do a little set change from last night's show, but
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  we have the same Project Sports Network.
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  So without knowing it, I had built what, business people would call a house of brands.
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  And now I'm able to fit any number of projects underneath the Scene Project's umbrella and to
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  you know, I'll create a new show tomorrow, Tom.
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  What is it to me to develop it and to keep pushing it, especially in this media landscape
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  that is changing?
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  I think occupying the space before you get it perfect is almost more important.
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  Go claim your space like, like the old days of, you know, homesteaders.
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  Go make your claim and then figure out what you're going to build on it later.
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  But if you have that idea, that inception is the beginning.
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  You can use AI and chat GPT or anything to help you build that idea out, and then it's just a
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  matter of showing up on camera and doing it.
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  Let me say something about something you said, early on in this, podcast, Bubba.
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  And you said when you started the network and over the past year, you've made mistakes.
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  Well, I'm gonna suggest to you, you didn't make any mistakes.
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  What you did was have learning and growth opportunities because I'm asked often, tell me
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  your top five mistakes in podcasting.
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  And I always answer the same.
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  I've never made any mistakes except one, which every podcaster makes, but you only make it
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  once.
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  Because every other thing I've done, bad audio, bad interview, bad something, it's a learning
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  opportunity.
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  And I know not to do it again.
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  Now that mistake, forget to hit the record button.
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  Everybody does it once, and you never make it again.
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  One time I flew to Boston to interview a Harvard professor, and he gave me three hours.
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  And at the end, I looked down and I said, why is the red button not on?
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  Well, I learned a very big lesson.
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  Always make sure the red light is on.
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  So other than that, it's all learning.
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  Whatever you've learned, whatever you garnered, whatever thing you thought was a misstep, it
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  was an opportunity for you to say, okay, I made that error.
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  I made that decision.
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  I made that choice.
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  How does that negatively impact and how can I fix it?
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  I continue to grow because I take all of that information as let's do it different next time.
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  No.
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  And I appreciate that because we did a lot of learning.
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  I I don't come from a broadcasting background.
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  We just started this in, you know, March, April 2024.
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  One of my, like, third or fourth interviews was with Bill Payne, who's the cofounder of Little
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  Feet, the rock band from the sixties.
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  And I was just like, how did I end up here?
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  Right?
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  Like, how how did this happen?
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  And getting on the conversation with him was so great.
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  And we were audio only.
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  I just had him on a phone call and and was able to record the conversation.
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  But even he was, you know, you're one of us.
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  Right?
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  You're you're a musician yourself.
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  You know this this game and never made me feel like I was out of place.
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  And that was such a huge confidence builder for me so early in our careers.
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  We went on to you know, we've interviewed Grammy nominees, rock and roll hall of famers,
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  the drummer from Judas Priest.
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  I got him on a nice thirty minute conversation that I got to have as well.
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  And just I've never felt out of touch with my guests.
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  I've never I've always been able to find that common ground with someone no matter what level
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  of their career or status they may have.
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  And, yeah, I've definitely forgot to hit that record button one time.
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  One time.
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  That was all.
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  And, I've had the batteries die on the cameras, one time, and you learn.
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  At least at that point, I had already been smart enough to have a backup audio version
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  just running and was able to make the video podcast work inserting some photo clips and
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  some some b roll from some of our other coverage.
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  But exact I wouldn't have known that without having made, you know, having those
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  opportunities earlier to know better.
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  And I learned to bring extra batteries and extra sound cards.
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  Some it's amazing.
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  How fun.
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  Well, I know you mentioned off camera, you've been working on a book, since we last spoke.
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  Tell me more about that.
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  So I live, near a town called Kerrville, Texas, and we had a devastating flood on July 4.
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  A hundred and nineteen people died, twenty seven girls at a summer camp.
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  There were two RV parks that were literally wiped out, one with a 100% loss where,
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  generations in one RV, grandparents, parents, children, were literally washed into the river.
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  It was a devastating flood.
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  And so I'm writing a book on that experience.
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  I've interviewed several people around the summer camp.
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  I've interviewed people around the RV park.
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  I've interviewed multiple survivors.
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  But it's a it's really about a story of resilience and how people have worked through
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  that event.
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  I took you'll you will appreciate that I took one chapter that is the artist response.
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  And that's painting artists, that's musical artists, that's a symphony conductor artist,
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  that's a western museum director artist.
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  And there was a girl from the summer camp, a teenage girl who rewrote the song Hallelujah to
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  honor those at her summer camp.
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  It was a camp named Camp Mystic who died, and you'll you'll appreciate this.
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  She sang that at the opening football game of the Kerrville High School team, and I assume
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  high school football is is gonna be as big in South Dakota as it is in Texas.
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  It's the only time in my life I've heard dead silence at a high school football game ever and
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  a lot of tears when she sang in it.
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  And but that so those stories, those human interest stories, I I really wanna tell that.
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  How the city rebounded, how literally the world helped donate monies for rebuilding and people
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  came as far away from rescue teams from Czechoslovakia came to help, try to find, those
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  who, got washed into the river and died.
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  So, that's my big project right now.
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  It was absolutely tragic to wake up and see the news and and as fast as news travels now.
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  And not necessarily unprecedented in that Texas Hill Country because of the geography of the
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  area and the propensity for these large storms.
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  And, you know, I I know a lot of talk in there, and I I'm sure there was, you know, a a lot to
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  talk about it more in there, the alarm systems not working or warnings maybe not going out as
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  they should have, precautions being taken that caused this massive loss of life.
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  But these storms happen, and that area is known for flooding.
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  It's the reason that you have all of the reservoirs around that area, to mitigate some
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  of that.
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  But when you have, you know, I don't even 19 inches of rain or something in a few hours
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  maybe, we can't fathom that amount of that torrential downpour and what that means
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  downstream when the land just doesn't absorb it.
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  Right?
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  In the hill country, it just runs straight off.
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  It's the reason that you have these ravines and and the way that the country is shaped because
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  of that.
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  And I think that if you go back, and I'm sure you did in your book, that they've had these
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  kind of floods around in this area and other parts of the hill country for hundreds of
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  years, thousands of years probably, but during human, you know, habitation since, you know,
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  the eighteen hundreds when people started to really habitate this area of the world.
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  1932, 1955, 1968, 1987, 1997, 2002.
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  So, yes, we've Yeah.
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  These aren't 100 floods.
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  These are twenty year floods.
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  Twenty year floods that they call thousand year floods.
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  Well, I've I've lived through a thousand year hurricane, and I just, and, I mean, you guys
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  have weather up there that we don't have, unfortunately.
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  But, you know, it's always gonna be there, and the the worst is gonna be the next storm.
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  So you just have to be ready for the worst.
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  Yeah.
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  We are known for our our snowstorms more than our our rainstorms, although we do get, you
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  know, pretty pretty deadly, and we had a lot of tornadoes out here in South Dakota this year.
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  But we don't have the population that it does.
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  So while you may have these massive storms and huge tornadoes, they very rarely, you know, hit
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  a major population center.
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  Right?
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  They're not you're not having a massive loss of life.
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  It may wipe out a town, but we're also prepared for those things.
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  And while you have property damage, you're not necessarily getting the the loss of human life.
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  And, bless you for recording this history because I think that's important because the
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  national media can shape a narrative if not for historians like yourself capturing that.
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  And I think the artist as well are the songs become the stories that maybe when the books or
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  the Wikipedia pages disappear that we have the songs to and the paintings of these moments in
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  time and to remember and to remember all of those, rest in peace, those souls that were
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  taken from us in that historic event.
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  Well, it really speaks to the role of art in so many different things, whatever that your art
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  might be, but the role of art to excite us, to move us, to help us, you know, get through
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  grief, to help us understand, to help us move together as a community.
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  And, certainly, the musician community was a large part of that, as well.
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  So kudos to to you and your colleagues.
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  Well, and Kerrville has a big folk festival there too, don't they?
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  I have a good friend who's always talking about that little town in Texas.
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  Well, you need to come down and and if not play, sit in because it's a fifty fourth year
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  this year.
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  It's, I'm very involved in it, and it's just singer songwriters.
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  Now they play occasionally, play some rock and roll.
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  Nothing wrong with that.
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  But it's literally singer songwriters and from all over the country and the top folk artists,
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  very laid back, very mellow.
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  They've got a great artsy.
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  It's over three weekends, so twenty one days.
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  A lot of people come and camp out for the event, and some people stay.
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  I have one friend who's been doing it for thirty years.
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  She spends the entire time there and just loves it.
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  But it's a great scene.
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  It's great music.
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  It's great for the musicians to showcase their, talents.
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  They have a new songwriters contest that I think is very well thought of to help, take
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  people to the next level, and, it, was really one of the top folk festivals in America.
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  Yeah.
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  Shout out to my friend, Matt Faulkler.
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  He puts on a big, a singer songwriter festival up here called the Montrose, Folk Festival, and
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  just an incredible individual in his own right, very about these songwriters.
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  And I think he learned a lot of that down in Kerrville and how adamant they were about the
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  people who are writing the songs and not necessarily the ones who are performing them.
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  And, you know, what is folk music if not our record of history, our human history in song?
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  And I absolutely love it.
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  So looking forward to getting down there.
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  I don't know if I'll make it this year.
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  We've got plans to be down in Texas in March for South by Southwest, which I know you
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  mentioned you'll be there as well.
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  Yeah.
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  There are two major podcast conferences in The US, Podfest Expo, which is next week, and
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  Podcast Movement.
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  Podcast Movement has new ownership this year.
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  It's run by a guy named, Brian Barletta, and they are going to be running the podcast track
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  at South by Southwest.
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  And I'm part of the the group that's helping to to sponsor that.
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  So I'm very excited about that.
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  It's actually my first South by Southwest.
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  I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, but I'm looking forward to the podcast.
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  I'm looking forward to the music, and I'm looking forward to maybe catching up with you.
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  I would love that.
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  I was very fortunate to actually get invited to podcast movement when it was in Grapevine last
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  August and, got one of their scholarship tickets.
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  So I made the fifteen hour one way drive down from South Dakota to spend about four hours at
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  the conference.
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  Adam Curry was on stage at one of them, the pod father himself.
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  And, his whole speech was about you can use your podcast to support your local community
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  and to being about your small local regional areas.
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  I took the headphones off.
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  I put them back in the bin and said, I think I'm on the right track and, got to shake his
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  hand.
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  Also got to meet, Alex and Alicia Sanfilippo, the founders of PodMatch, who, this I think
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  that's where we reconnected at now was on PodMatch this time.
• 24:12
  It's a great couple, a beautiful platform that they've built.
• 24:15
  So a shout out to them.
• 24:17
  And, yeah, I I think I'm gonna have to buy a ticket and come see you.
• 24:20
  And I didn't realize podcast movement had kind of moved in and a part of South by as well.
• 24:25
  So we're gonna be down there supporting our music side, but, a a great opportunity to
• 24:31
  connect and to see what the future of podcasting and music and tech and and
• 24:36
  everything and where that's going.
• 24:38
  So looking forward to catching up with you in person, Tom, and thank you so much for taking a
• 24:42
  few minutes for me today, and thank you for being part of the scene.
• 24:46
  Well, Bubba, I hope we can continue this conversation.
• 24:49
  Yeah.
• 24:50
  Give you a second.
• 24:51
  Where can people find you before I let you go?
• 24:53
  Sure.
• 24:54
  I'm on, LinkedIn at thomas r fox.
• 24:56
  I'm also on Facebook and, Instagram, Voice of Compliance, and my website.
• 25:02
  The two of them are wwwcompliancepodcastnetwork.net and
• 25:07
  wwwtexashillcountrypodcastnetwork.com.
• 25:11
  Awesome, Tom.
• 25:12
  Well, have a great rest of your day, and, I'll be catching up to you in a few months.
• 25:16
  It's a deal, Bubba.
• 25:17
  Thank you.