Latest / BBQ Therapy / #49 Greg Rempe - The BBQ Central Show | How One Man Changed BBQ Media Forever

Transcript

#49 Greg Rempe - The BBQ Central Show | How One Man Changed BBQ Media Forever · BBQ Therapy

• 0:00
  I want money like I'm a professional and I demand to be
• 0:03
  paid like a professional if you don't want to pay me because the
• 0:06
  rest of the industry has gone to taking stuff for free and
• 0:09
  ruining it for the rest of us, All right, I have a day job.
• 0:12
  I'm not living and dying by every dollar I get from a
• 0:15
  sponsor and it's going to be my way because I told myself to a
• 0:20
  different standard. Definitely, definitely.
• 0:23
  That's what I'm about. Exactly what you said.
• 0:26
  I don't want no. It's nice to get ruined, but I
• 0:29
  want money. I want equipment.
• 0:30
  I need rub. I need more free rub like I need
• 0:33
  a hole in the head. Ever notice how the sound of
• 0:43
  sizzling meat and the smell of smoke can silence the noise of
• 0:47
  the world? Now that's BBQ therapy.
• 0:50
  If the fire moves you like, subscribe, share and help spread
• 0:54
  the message because growth, like good BBQ, takes time and
• 0:58
  patience. Welcome to your therapy session.
• 1:03
  Welcome to the BBQ Therapy podcast.
• 1:05
  My name is Tavis Sprant and today's guest isn't just behind
• 1:09
  the mic. He helped invent how BBQ sounds
• 1:12
  in the digital age. In 2006, he launched the BBQ
• 1:16
  Central Podcast, which became one of the most downloaded shows
• 1:19
  in the genre. Since 2008, Greg Rimpi has been
• 1:24
  hosting the BBQ Central Show, the longest running live fire
• 1:28
  podcast in the world. He's interviewed legends, broken
• 1:31
  stories, and created something this community didn't even know
• 1:34
  it needed. Greg, welcome.
• 1:36
  I got one rule, make yourself at home.
• 1:38
  I have no sponsors yet so speak freely.
• 1:41
  You could be inviting a lion into the den here, my friend.
• 1:46
  For it, if you say it, it need to be said.
• 1:49
  So that's what we're here for. Happy to be here.
• 1:53
  All right, I'm going to start off taking it back to your
• 1:56
  origins. Most people know you as the
• 1:58
  voice of BBQ, but before the mic, who was Greg?
• 2:02
  Where was Greg from? And what is the single defining
• 2:05
  moment where fire and food became more than just dinner and
• 2:09
  turned into an identity? Originally from upstate New York
• 2:14
  and ended up here in Cleveland when my dad took a transfer with
• 2:17
  his position. They've subsequently landed in
• 2:20
  Sarasota, FL where they've been ever since. 97.
• 2:23
  So I was graduating Ohio University at the time in 97.
• 2:26
  Literally 3 days later they left Cleveland, went to Florida.
• 2:30
  I was moving into my then fiance's parents basement which
• 2:35
  is awesome. Saved up a couple packs, got an
• 2:38
  apartment on from there. In regards to a defining live
• 2:43
  fire moment, there wasn't really anything.
• 2:46
  In my youth I loved when my dad would cook burgers, but he was
• 2:51
  no offense to possible. He was no great grill master.
• 2:54
  Certainly there was no low and low BBQ that was happening in
• 2:57
  the house. When I got into college, one of
• 3:00
  my great friends, Brandon and I thought it would be a great idea
• 3:05
  to learn how to cook so we could try and get laid in college.
• 3:11
  On the inside cooking, I was focusing more on the outdoor
• 3:14
  grilling aspect and while the initial plan didn't really bear
• 3:18
  a lot of fruit, we did become pretty good cooks.
• 3:21
  Especially when you're comparing us to other college students
• 3:25
  where the real interest or tipping point happened.
• 3:30
  It was a Father's Day Now a decade and a half, two decades
• 3:33
  ago, my wife got me. So I we moved into a house.
• 3:37
  I got a grill cooked through the back of it.
• 3:39
  Was going to get another grill. Talk to my cousin.
• 3:42
  Really the person you should be having on this podcast is my
• 3:44
  cousin Glenn Rempy, who introduced me to something
• 3:47
  called BBQ. He was a BBQ caterer at the
• 3:49
  time. He told me what are you looking
• 3:52
  to get? I said I'm looking at this $1200
• 3:54
  Jenn Air grill that's all stainless steel, blah blah blah.
• 3:57
  He said why don't you look at a BBQ pit?
• 3:58
  You could probably still get a decent, decent gas grill and you
• 4:01
  might save some money at the time.
• 4:03
  Now you got two different ways to cook and who knows?
• 4:06
  So he's the one that really got me into it.
• 4:07
  My wife got me a Weber Smoky Mountain for a Father's Day
• 4:10
  gift. I followed the directions to the
• 4:12
  tee on how to fire it up. I made a horrifically average to
• 4:16
  below average rack of ribs and thought I was going to put that
• 4:19
  thing on the tree lawn and either make a planter out of it
• 4:23
  or just throw it out because I said how could I have wasted so
• 4:25
  much time on something that is really not great after hearing
• 4:29
  so much fanfare of how this BBQ was going to change my life and
• 4:35
  it didn't. Luckily digital age as you had
• 4:38
  mentioned, just starting to roll out and I got on the Internet,
• 4:42
  found a website called the Virtual Weber Bullet which was
• 4:45
  literally dedicated to this kind of a cooker at times.
• 4:48
  So early 2000s ish message forums were like the hot
• 4:53
  technology at the time. I actually ended up making one
• 4:56
  of my own, but the virtual Weber bullet is where it started.
• 4:59
  Everybody's throw away. Those directions are trash.
• 5:02
  This is how you fire up the bullet.
• 5:04
  And from there I learned a how to become a much better user and
• 5:10
  cook on the Weber Smoky Mountain, but also realized
• 5:13
  there was an online community. I engaged, I was getting
• 5:17
  engagement back and that's where we started rolling down the
• 5:21
  hill. Back then it was dial up and
• 5:24
  everything else, so y'all were ahead of the time.
• 5:27
  Now you got all these Facebook groups and stuff, but people
• 5:31
  don't know that y'all were doing it back then.
• 5:33
  You started. You had to be a college student
• 5:37
  to have a Facebook account. Like you couldn't be out of
• 5:39
  college. You had to be in College in
• 5:41
  order to have the Facebook. I didn't know that there's
• 5:45
  something new and you started a forum before your podcast.
• 5:50
  Do you remember the very first time you posted and felt like,
• 5:54
  OK, this community is different from everybody else?
• 5:57
  This could be something bigger or it caught your attention when
• 6:00
  you started. Honestly, having been a part of
• 6:04
  the virtual of a bullet community and I was also fairly
• 6:08
  active on a couple other bigger message forms at that time, so
• 6:12
  one is still around called the BBQ Brethren.
• 6:13
  I think virtual Weber Bullet is actually still around too.
• 6:16
  Wow. So I knew the concept was
• 6:20
  scalable that I think that I could start my own.
• 6:24
  Not necessarily. I was on an incredibly bad piece
• 6:27
  of software that was free just to try it.
• 6:30
  I invited some of the guys that I've become online friends with
• 6:34
  at those various message forms and said hey, what do you think,
• 6:37
  let's try it out, can it possibly work?
• 6:41
  And once we realized we were having some fun just amongst us
• 6:45
  dudes, I said OK. I went online and found at least
• 6:49
  a better version of free software and started to scale it
• 6:53
  out a little bit. And then we started getting
• 6:55
  organic growth. And I said, OK, I better
• 6:57
  actually invest some money here and get my own website address
• 7:01
  and pay for the software so I can get upgrades and do all
• 7:05
  these customizations. So it was probably a good year
• 7:08
  before I realized. So I knew it was going to be in
• 7:12
  some shape or form an online presence.
• 7:15
  I just didn't realize how big it was going to get and I was doing
• 7:19
  some things that nobody else was doing or allowing their members
• 7:21
  to do at the time. Always trying to be irreverent,
• 7:24
  always trying to be outside of the box and not just doing what
• 7:27
  everybody else is doing just because that's what everybody
• 7:30
  else is doing. Wanted to set myself apart.
• 7:32
  Also, being a sales guy all the way through, since I graduated
• 7:36
  from college, I know that you need to bring value.
• 7:40
  I know ways to sell things. I was able to secure
• 7:43
  sponsorships pretty easily because I'm used to just doing
• 7:46
  that from a day-to-day basis. So I was able to generate some
• 7:49
  revenues. Thinking back into the show, and
• 7:52
  that's kind of how we got going. But did I think it was going to
• 7:55
  be as successful in the beginning?
• 7:57
  Not necessarily, but I knew that the concept of message forms was
• 8:01
  one that had proven out. I actually signed up for BBQ
• 8:05
  Brother four years ago. I use, I still go in there just
• 8:08
  to get information. Sometimes I need to research on
• 8:11
  some of the gifts and sometimes I go to barbecue for them just
• 8:14
  to see what it says about them back in the day and stuff like
• 8:18
  that. So I still use it a lot.
• 8:21
  Around that time, were you doing any competing or anything or how
• 8:24
  were you meeting different BBQ people or just people that you
• 8:26
  knew or? Yeah, I've said often that I
• 8:31
  have had zero interest in competing ever.
• 8:35
  I think I've done one competition non sanctioned.
• 8:37
  There was about 11 years ago at a Hartville in Hartville, OH,
• 8:42
  they have a grill fest that is just celebrated 12 years.
• 8:46
  I had some sense transition into being a host after the first
• 8:49
  year when I was competing, but that's it.
• 8:52
  So my connections with Top Hit Masters has solely been because
• 8:59
  that had an interest in connecting with them, seeing why
• 9:03
  they do it, and exploring the ways that they were winning.
• 9:08
  Both in an effort to satisfy what ended up being an
• 9:12
  unrealized dream of being on the radio in some form or fashion,
• 9:16
  and also wanting to spread information and help just grow
• 9:20
  the live fire industry in general.
• 9:23
  That's the reason why I do it, because I try to be different
• 9:26
  also and watch other podcasts and try to do stuff differently
• 9:30
  than they do it. Stuff that I used to listen to
• 9:33
  and complain about. I try to change that as well as
• 9:38
  helping people also because people might be on the fence
• 9:41
  about starting a podcast, starting a food truck, starting
• 9:44
  a restaurant, but hearing somebody else's story may push
• 9:48
  them over the edge to jump into it and chase their destiny
• 9:51
  versus trying to be hesitant and not knowing if they want to do
• 9:55
  it. But that's why basic on origin
• 9:58
  stories of how people got from point A to point Z just to boost
• 10:02
  them up and just to have fun. So I definitely understand.
• 10:07
  So why a podcast or a radio show?
• 10:10
  Where did the idea come from and during what time?
• 10:13
  It was during the time where BBQ shows didn't exist.
• 10:16
  Were there any anxiety or anything when you got started?
• 10:22
  The reason I did a podcast was because I had just started
• 10:24
  hearing about whatever that was podcasting and there was a guy
• 10:29
  who was no longer with us, but he was also, he ran probably the
• 10:32
  biggest BBQ forum at the time, ironically called the BBQ Forum.
• 10:37
  BBQ forum.com was the website. And back in the day, that thing
• 10:41
  was just a blaze with activity. There was a lot of competition
• 10:45
  aspect to that as well. And he did a podcast.
• 10:50
  He was horrible and but I like the concept.
• 10:54
  He'd end up doing like a small handful of BBQ podcasts, did a
• 10:59
  tutorial and how he did it, and like everything that he
• 11:03
  explained. What I come to realize
• 11:06
  continuing on with my effort was terrible.
• 11:09
  Advice sounded bad, he was not a great interviewer.
• 11:13
  It was overall a bad experience. However, I appreciate the effort
• 11:18
  and the continued idea of trying to press his form ahead with
• 11:23
  different technology and trying to be on the cutting edge of
• 11:26
  technology at that point. And I said I love this concept
• 11:30
  and if there's a way I can figure out how to do it, there's
• 11:33
  no way I can be as bad as him. So I will have perhaps the
• 11:36
  second worst sounding BBQ podcast, but then it would only
• 11:40
  be and maybe it would be the best because at that point it
• 11:42
  was probably me and him and nobody else.
• 11:45
  So I found a was like teleconference software.
• 11:49
  So I was like dialing in on my phone and the guest was dialing
• 11:52
  in on their phone. They were combining us together
• 11:55
  was automatically recording. It was cutting edge for the
• 11:59
  time. But as we sit here in 2025,
• 12:02
  seems like it was the most basic bitch stuff ever.
• 12:05
  And the good news is this great time to start.
• 12:11
  Ignorance is bliss. I didn't know I was terrible.
• 12:15
  Nobody else knew I was terrible, and everybody was available to
• 12:19
  interview. So it was a perfect storm back
• 12:22
  in the early 2000s, where before it blew up, four or five years
• 12:27
  after that got on television, all that I had access to
• 12:30
  everybody. Everybody was reachable.
• 12:31
  So I just had to reach out and say, hey, do you want to come on
• 12:35
  the show? We can talk about whatever.
• 12:37
  And as I continue to attract sponsors and get money, I
• 12:41
  started investing that money back into the show.
• 12:45
  There was a tipping point where I realized I don't really like
• 12:48
  the forum anymore, but I really like this podcast.
• 12:50
  I had a call from somebody that his business was running forums.
• 12:54
  He figured out a way to make a marketable, make money off of
• 12:58
  them. He was looking for a BBQ forum.
• 13:00
  He bought mine so took the money and reinvested a lot of that
• 13:04
  into the show as well. I also was a guest on somebody's
• 13:08
  podcast, not BBQ related. The show was called You Are the
• 13:11
  Guest and the concept of the show was this guy would take
• 13:15
  requests about people trying to be a guest on his show.
• 13:17
  If he picked you, he would do research on you and the city
• 13:22
  that you lived in and he would the first part of the podcast
• 13:25
  was him interviewing you and then you could interview him.
• 13:29
  This guy sounded like 1,000,000 bucks like real radio guy.
• 13:33
  And I was listening to this podcast.
• 13:34
  I was like wow, I got a sound like this guy.
• 13:36
  So I reached back out to him and I said, guy's name was Bill
• 13:39
  Grady. And I said, Bill, you sound
• 13:41
  magical. How do you do this?
• 13:43
  And he took a whole bunch of time telling me, this is how I
• 13:47
  do it, This is the gear that I have held.
• 13:50
  Nothing back was a complete open book.
• 13:53
  And that was really the time when I realized I'm going to
• 13:56
  sound a lot better immediately because I'm going to get all
• 13:58
  this stuff, tell me how to hook it all up and use it.
• 14:01
  And at this point, if anybody ever asked me any questions, I'm
• 14:06
  going to do my best to make sure that I'm also not gatekeeping
• 14:09
  any information. You want to know something you
• 14:11
  asked me, I'll tell you if I get really good at it and I'm
• 14:14
  listening to stuff that I like and I hear there's some pain
• 14:18
  points that they might not realize.
• 14:20
  I was actively reaching out and saying, hey, big fan in concept,
• 14:24
  love the content you're covering, but here are some
• 14:28
  things that I'm hearing or seeing.
• 14:30
  Here's some things that help me. Maybe this will help you shorten
• 14:33
  your learning curve and getting to where you want to go.
• 14:36
  But then never wanted to be intrusive at the same time.
• 14:39
  So those were like key points in realizing how I wanted to
• 14:45
  continue the growth of the show, how I wanted to focus on sound
• 14:48
  quality first and everything else 2nd.
• 14:51
  And those were two really big watershed moments.
• 14:54
  And the whole podcasting. That's what it's all about.
• 14:56
  There's enough listeners for everybody.
• 14:58
  So it just holding stuff and watch somebody fail.
• 15:01
  I don't understand why people do that.
• 15:03
  It's not going to kill them to coach them up because there's
• 15:06
  there's enough for everybody. And that's why I appreciate the
• 15:10
  and I have people from podcast, other podcasts on the show
• 15:15
  because I admire what they do and I want to give them their
• 15:17
  props because they came before I did.
• 15:20
  And any I had Luke Darnell come on, he gave me advice.
• 15:24
  He said start looking in the camera because I got a habit of
• 15:29
  looking at the screen and not looking at the camera.
• 15:31
  And I said, I appreciate that because I need to be better and
• 15:34
  I'm trying to get better. I'm not going to get offended.
• 15:36
  Like why he's saying that. No, no, you give me a criticism
• 15:40
  that I need to get better. So if you invest in that time to
• 15:44
  coach me up, I'm not going to get mad about it.
• 15:46
  I'm just going to get better. You helping me and stuff like
• 15:49
  that. So that's why I admire people
• 15:52
  that does that and like you coming on here and saying that
• 15:55
  you're here to help people. I admire that also because
• 15:59
  you're a pioneer. So you have no choice but to
• 16:02
  respect what you say. Because I knew of your show, but
• 16:05
  when I started researching you for it to come on the show, I
• 16:08
  didn't know it was back that far when I started digging into
• 16:11
  videos and I'm like, man, that's young Malcolm Reed.
• 16:15
  That's young Meathead A. Lot of young everybody 15-18
• 16:19
  years ago, including me. That's what I'm trying to be
• 16:23
  like. So it's not like a we're in
• 16:26
  competition. It's like I'm trying to, I look
• 16:29
  up to you and what you're doing and I've strive to be like you,
• 16:32
  not overtake or get mad if you say, OK, you need to do this.
• 16:36
  Hey, visors. I like just, and when I looked
• 16:39
  at your LinkedIn, I saw about sponsorship.
• 16:42
  I'm going to ask you about that at the end because I need to
• 16:45
  know more about that. So that's why I brought your
• 16:48
  just to get more information. And there's other people out
• 16:51
  there that have podcasts that even though it may not be BBQ,
• 16:55
  but it may be something that you have stuff to help them boost
• 17:00
  more into what they're doing. So I definitely appreciate what
• 17:03
  you're doing out there. Did you have any naysayers when
• 17:07
  you first started? Anybody saying are you crazy for
• 17:09
  doing this or no? Nobody knew anything about it.
• 17:14
  Like I said, perfect storm, perfect time.
• 17:16
  Nobody knew I sucked because nobody had anything to compare
• 17:19
  it to. I thought at worst I would just
• 17:21
  be talking into a microphone and putting something out that
• 17:24
  nobody was listening to. But it was fun and that's all
• 17:27
  that really mattered to me. So the first, so you started
• 17:31
  with a podcast, then you switched to live.
• 17:35
  So what was the podcast on? Was it like a iPod or just
• 17:38
  Internet or? Found a piece of software that
• 17:41
  generated podcast feed and then I would just record a long
• 17:44
  format show, edit it down to the best 20-30 minutes and release
• 17:48
  it once a week. Did that for two years between
• 17:51
  O6 and O8. There was an influx of other BBQ
• 17:55
  podcasts at the time. So to set myself apart again, I
• 18:00
  wanted to try a live show and found a guy that was opening up
• 18:05
  a Internet radio station in LA and through Craigslist of
• 18:09
  course, because that's where you find everything.
• 18:11
  And I called them, told them he was looking for honor talent to
• 18:16
  start filling holes in his schedule as they started to
• 18:19
  launch. So it was an in kind trade.
• 18:21
  We give content he wouldn't charge, would prove out his
• 18:24
  concept so he could end up turning it into a business.
• 18:28
  And I ended up being a so that name of the guy was saying
• 18:30
  Hassan. The online radio station which
• 18:33
  is still in existence today is LA Talk Radio.
• 18:36
  And I did 50 minutes once a week, started on August 7th,
• 18:40
  2008, which was actually Thursday.
• 18:43
  And then the following week I got moved to a Tuesday and
• 18:46
  that's where I've been ever since. 2008 + 7 is 5 and 10.
• 18:50
  So 17 years of live shows and then two years of podcast before
• 18:55
  that. But the live show impetus just
• 18:57
  was to set myself apart from the other BBQ podcasts that were
• 19:02
  there. I'm like, OK, I'll just do a
• 19:04
  live instead of pre recording everything and see how that
• 19:07
  goes. And a lot of people have come
• 19:10
  and gone and here we are still pumping them out week after
• 19:14
  week. Yeah, that's a bold move doing
• 19:16
  it live too, because you got to be on point and mistakes and all
• 19:21
  this other stuff. You got to keep moving.
• 19:22
  But it's very innovative and stuff like that and preparation
• 19:26
  where you got to be on it. Did you have a team back then or
• 19:29
  just you? Team, like other people, I don't
• 19:34
  know, it's always been me. So all over the years, my team
• 19:38
  would be what I consider to be, let's say, recurring guests.
• 19:43
  So the monthly recurring guests, quarterly recurring guests, the
• 19:46
  small handful of embedded correspondents, they allow a
• 19:51
  little bit more ease of preparation just because I don't
• 19:55
  have to book like I know they're coming in a brand new
• 19:59
  conversation. I talked to Malcolm Reed once a
• 20:02
  month for the last 10 years. But every conversations
• 20:05
  different. Same guest, different
• 20:07
  conversations. Same thing goes for the
• 20:10
  quarterly guest. Same thing goes for embedded
• 20:12
  correspondence. Now, embedded correspondence
• 20:14
  will also send me tips or things that they're hearing so I can
• 20:19
  chase those down. But as far as the weekend,
• 20:22
  weekend, week out content and show prepping, it's me.
• 20:26
  It's always been me. There's never been a team or one
• 20:28
  other person that has hid behind the seat.
• 20:31
  If that was the case, I would be telling everybody that it's me
• 20:34
  and or we, because usually I'll end up saying we as a mistake.
• 20:38
  And then I'm like we. And by we, I mean me, because
• 20:41
  that's really what it is. And I'm at a point now where if
• 20:46
  I had somebody that wanted to come on, I don't, I couldn't
• 20:51
  figure out the mental logistics to have somebody work in and be
• 20:55
  a producer, sit behind, let me show you a picture here.
• 20:58
  So sit behind this desk here, be a producer.
• 21:02
  And then I would set off in the guest chair over here, which
• 21:05
  would could be a host chair and just host from that side.
• 21:10
  Too many things that are happening here that I've known
• 21:14
  about for the last of 17 years that I couldn't possibly train
• 21:19
  myself to focus on the guests without worrying what's
• 21:22
  happening here behind the camera.
• 21:23
  It's. Just a sit up.
• 21:24
  I've worked in new flow that works for me, single host,
• 21:28
  engineer, producer, and the good news is I haven't fallen behind
• 21:33
  the times. I don't need a team and I don't
• 21:36
  need to count anybody that I don't need to count on anybody
• 21:40
  to show up every week like I do. I know I'm going to be here and
• 21:43
  that's good enough for me. You don't have to depend on
• 21:45
  what. And now we're in the age of AI,
• 21:47
  which helps out greatly. That's how I am.
• 21:50
  It's just me and I say me and my wife because she keeps the kids
• 21:54
  upstairs quiet while I'm down here.
• 21:55
  But I started out by myself watching YouTube, figuring out
• 22:00
  what to do, just getting starter equipment and moving up as I go
• 22:04
  along and stuff so I won't have to depend on nobody.
• 22:07
  And since times are different and it's harder to get people, I
• 22:11
  decided to go the route of pre recording and then release one
• 22:15
  at a time so I know I can get them on their schedule and so I
• 22:19
  won't have to be sitting there waiting and get cancelled on and
• 22:21
  stuff like that. Because I'm not as well known as
• 22:24
  some of the other people out there.
• 22:25
  But I've so far I like, I release 8 episode 18 this week,
• 22:32
  but I've recorded actually like 40 something episodes.
• 22:35
  And so I have a buffer and I don't have to wait on nobody
• 22:40
  until I get to that point where I can get people to come on
• 22:44
  regularly and not have to worry about are they coming or not.
• 22:47
  So that's the route. I know most people won't do
• 22:50
  that, but that's how I just decided to do mine.
• 22:54
  I would stay with it like I think podcasting your main
• 22:58
  audience, just like my main audience, the percentage of
• 23:01
  people who listen to me on Tuesday nights as it's happening
• 23:04
  is slim. The overwhelming majority is
• 23:07
  getting it at their convenience. Audio download.
• 23:10
  The numbers prove it out. They've proven it out over the
• 23:12
  last 17 to almost 20 years. I could drop back into pre
• 23:17
  recording and the show would be still a successful, except it
• 23:22
  would feel different. I don't.
• 23:24
  I think I could do some things that weren't as timely or
• 23:26
  topical and nobody be any of the wiser.
• 23:30
  But at this point I'm still interested in the whole live.
• 23:33
  What happens if the plane goes down?
• 23:36
  What happens if I lose an engine or a guest drops out or whatever
• 23:39
  cliche you want to say or analogy you want to make.
• 23:43
  That's fun for me in sales. I tell all my new sales people,
• 23:48
  you have to get comfortable with being in the most uncomfortable
• 23:51
  situations and that's where you're going to really see if
• 23:55
  you're going to be good at this or not.
• 23:57
  So same thing with podcasting, like everybody can do it when
• 24:00
  it's easy, but what happens when it's hard?
• 24:03
  Those are the people that I want selling for me.
• 24:05
  Those are the people that I want as hosts of shows like what
• 24:10
  happens when it's hard? How do you feel time?
• 24:12
  Do you have stuff ready to go because you prepared?
• 24:15
  Is it seamless? Are you worried?
• 24:17
  Are you able to feign that at least you are confident?
• 24:21
  Because 18 minutes of what was supposed to be a great interview
• 24:24
  segment is bad because your guest lost Internet or totally
• 24:27
  forgot about you or fell asleep in the chair or whatever, and
• 24:31
  now you got to carry an extra 18 minutes that you didn't plan on
• 24:35
  burned early on that only took one time and figured out a way
• 24:38
  to not have that happen again. So that's really what I'm trying
• 24:43
  to accomplish. When I started, I didn't think
• 24:46
  it was going to be as hard as it would.
• 24:47
  It's a little bit harder than what folks think.
• 24:49
  It is just popping on, talking and going about your business.
• 24:52
  But. Everybody thinks it's real easy
• 24:54
  to just get out and talk for an hour, right?
• 24:56
  Exactly. You got to have your stuff
• 24:58
  together, whether it's researching the guests and just
• 25:03
  editing alone and all that. It's just it's a lot and
• 25:06
  organize it and getting a decent conversation.
• 25:10
  You got people that don't talk that much and you got people to
• 25:13
  talk too much and it you got to, it's a lot.
• 25:18
  I definitely learned a lot since I've been doing this.
• 25:22
  You stay live every Tuesday for the past 14 years.
• 25:25
  What's the hidden cost of the consistency, the sacrifice no
• 25:28
  one sees? That's a good question.
• 25:34
  I don't know if I even at this point think about it as
• 25:37
  sacrifice. It's just process.
• 25:40
  There was a time for many years where my oldest daughter and
• 25:46
  then my youngest daughter were pretty high level athletes and
• 25:49
  they were into softball initially.
• 25:51
  The oldest one was in a softball transition into volleyball.
• 25:54
  So on those teams we were at practice facilities 2 to three
• 25:58
  times a week for months on end and then we were in real
• 26:02
  tournament season, so we were on the road over the weekends for
• 26:05
  months on end. After that just seemed like it
• 26:08
  was year round. So there were three to four
• 26:11
  times a week where I had two and three hour blocks just sit there
• 26:15
  and hammer on the show. And it became a process.
• 26:18
  And as the girls have aged out of sports, I've still been able
• 26:22
  to carry the same kind of mindset, the same kind of
• 26:26
  process. So I would say for a 2 hour show
• 26:28
  through the course of the week, I'm prepping 12 to 13 hours a
• 26:32
  week, not all at one time, but piece by piece as we build into
• 26:36
  a Tuesday and the weekend holds the lion's share of that prep
• 26:39
  time. At this point.
• 26:39
  I'm doing 3 to 4 hours on Saturday, 3 to 4 hours on
• 26:42
  Sunday, sound checks on Monday, and then after the show on
• 26:45
  Tuesday we start building the next show.
• 26:49
  So we me and that's, that's just the process.
• 26:52
  So there was there was never sacrifice.
• 26:55
  I was never away from the kids. Like I'm at home and then I come
• 26:58
  home from work and I bury myself in the basement.
• 27:01
  I was never going to do that. If that were the case, I would
• 27:04
  have figured out a way to be around everybody until everybody
• 27:08
  went to bed and I would just stay up and maybe do it
• 27:10
  overnight. But luckily the girls were
• 27:12
  really good at sports. I was able to figure out a
• 27:15
  process there and it is carried me through.
• 27:18
  Yeah, that's how mine is. Me and my wife work.
• 27:21
  I'm in Georgia, so I work and then she works West Coast hours
• 27:25
  so she may start, She works at home but she starts at maybe
• 27:30
  11:00 AM to 8:00. So when I get off I have to get
• 27:34
  the kids homework. We got a 16 month old so I have
• 27:39
  to watch her until she gets finished and stuff like that.
• 27:42
  And that's why I scheduled most of my shows from 8:30 to 9:30 PM
• 27:47
  Eastern Time because that's the short period that I have to do
• 27:52
  that but on also, I have to get up at 3:45 every morning to go
• 27:57
  to work. So that's what I tell people.
• 27:59
  I love BBQ. I love BBQ.
• 28:01
  That's why that's the sacrifice I have to do.
• 28:04
  But I love it that much that people think what?
• 28:08
  Do you do for a job? I work for a financial
• 28:10
  institute, Bank of America and the fraud department.
• 28:13
  Oh nice. And I work like maybe about an
• 28:18
  hour away from where I live. It's a grime but and then my
• 28:22
  baby still don't sleep during the night.
• 28:24
  But I powered through it because I love once I got into it, I
• 28:28
  love doing this. I love talking about BBQ,
• 28:30
  talking to barbecue people in the community because they
• 28:33
  showed me so much love just because right now I haven't
• 28:37
  started competing because my daughter and I want to.
• 28:40
  I'm a father before anything so I make sure she's up in age.
• 28:44
  So that's why I started doing this, to get a BBQ fix while I
• 28:47
  wait. But I go walk around
• 28:50
  competitions, meet people and stuff like that.
• 28:52
  They're so friendly and welcoming.
• 28:53
  Welcome me in, Go take a couple classes just to learn as well as
• 28:58
  make connections. That's how I made most of my
• 29:00
  connections, just going to classes, talking to people and
• 29:03
  interacting with them and stuff. But I tell people, number one,
• 29:07
  do your homework on people. Don't wait until you see them to
• 29:11
  try to learn about them. I got more attention just by
• 29:14
  what, Hey, you're sewing knowing stuff that that people, other
• 29:18
  people don't know and it may surprise them.
• 29:20
  Wow. He know me.
• 29:21
  He know a lot about me. That's how you make those
• 29:23
  connections and stuff like that. But it, it's definitely a
• 29:28
  sacrifice, but it's a good sacrifice in my part of doing
• 29:32
  this. So that's where I'm at.
• 29:35
  Heaven forbid you should show up prepared, right?
• 29:37
  I mean, that's. The way to stand out?
• 29:40
  Yeah, then. But I do, I, I, I, when I do an
• 29:44
  interview like you, I go through everything.
• 29:46
  I listen to the podcast that you've been on.
• 29:48
  I go to websites, social media, everything and dig through to
• 29:52
  find stuff that most people don't ask or a follow up
• 29:56
  question. I'm like, why didn't anything
• 29:58
  follow up on that? Questions.
• 29:59
  I'll ask that follow up. I'm curious about how they grew
• 30:03
  up or another occupation. Paul Keltner, he used to be a
• 30:08
  bass fisherman. So I was asked about that 'cause
• 30:10
  I was curious about that 'cause I, it used to come on TV every
• 30:14
  on ESPN every morning, Saturday morning.
• 30:16
  So I asked about that and different stuff that that's it.
• 30:20
  Most people ain't going to ask. So that's what I do.
• 30:24
  Were there any times where everything failed like audio or
• 30:29
  tick crash or a guest that didn't cooperate as well as you
• 30:33
  thought? Yeah, all that happens multiple
• 30:36
  times a year if a guest forgets or bad guest or tech issues.
• 30:41
  I mean, it's the blessing and the curse of the live thing.
• 30:44
  So I always tell everybody this is a live Internet show.
• 30:47
  And the one thing that's even more important than me as the
• 30:51
  host is the Internet. And if the Internet is not
• 30:53
  happening, there's no show. And that has happened already
• 30:56
  once this year. It's happened multiple times
• 30:59
  through the life of the show and we've had plenty of technical
• 31:03
  issues and echo loops and people that sound crappy through no
• 31:09
  fault of their own just because the Internet bugs are out.
• 31:12
  And initially it was pretty frustrating and I'm trying to
• 31:16
  produce the great product for people and through no fault of
• 31:19
  my own or a guest, we're having things that we got to work
• 31:22
  through. So it's just about trying to
• 31:25
  figure out a way to power through that as quickly as
• 31:27
  possible, find a remedy. Or the other thing that I had to
• 31:30
  learn how to do, and it took a long time, was no one to cut
• 31:33
  bait. You're on with somebody, they
• 31:36
  sound like crap, You're not able to figure it out.
• 31:38
  Like 2 minutes tops and then just dump it.
• 31:42
  You should have content in your backup that you can fall back on
• 31:46
  and fill that time. But don't let the crowd struggle
• 31:51
  through crappy audio. You're not disrespecting the
• 31:53
  guests. The guests should understand
• 31:55
  that you have a show that you care about and you care about
• 31:58
  the listener. And cut bait quick.
• 32:01
  Because I did that the one episode towards the end, it got
• 32:04
  real bad. So my idea is found a point
• 32:07
  where it got bad and just made a shorter episode and just dumped
• 32:12
  the rest of it. And I like I catch up with them
• 32:14
  later and get that part again because I don't know that's
• 32:17
  going to put anything just to put anything out there, just to
• 32:19
  have it out there. But I was able to get at least
• 32:22
  35 to 40 minutes of it. So I was like, that's a good
• 32:25
  sized chunk to go with it. And I stopped it at a decent
• 32:30
  point where it doesn't seem that it was obvious, but I, I went
• 32:34
  with what I had because even though I don't know where this
• 32:37
  going, I still want to be professional as possible because
• 32:41
  you never know what's going to happen or who notices it or sees
• 32:45
  this and give you opportunity as something else.
• 32:48
  So that's why I try to be as professional as possible.
• 32:51
  I know I'm from Georgia. I don't speak the best English
• 32:54
  and all that, but I do want to make sure everything else is
• 32:57
  professional as possible within my power and give a everybody a
• 33:01
  good product. Did you have you ever went back
• 33:05
  and listened to your early episodes?
• 33:07
  What's the craziest thing that the early episodes compared to
• 33:11
  who you are now? I think just hearing how good I
• 33:18
  thought the show sounded and then hearing the product that is
• 33:24
  produced in 20/25/2024 and might demand on guests to have USB
• 33:30
  microphones to sound almost as good as me.
• 33:34
  I wish I would have done that 15 years ago.
• 33:37
  I'm sure the technology wasn't there or equipment availability
• 33:40
  wasn't there, but it's just hearing like how I sounded, how
• 33:46
  I was speaking. That's how I was back then.
• 33:52
  But as you say, cringy wise to go back and listen to the
• 33:56
  beginning shows in 2008, 2009, first couple years of the live
• 34:03
  show was pretty crazy because at the end of the recorded podcast,
• 34:08
  so like bridging into the live shows, 2008, those recorded
• 34:16
  shows were good. I sounded good, I was asking
• 34:18
  good questions, felt confident. And then there was a whole new
• 34:21
  learning curve on the live stuff.
• 34:24
  So those shows were pretty bad. I piped in some bullshit crowd
• 34:28
  noise, may pretend like I was at a bar doing the show live on
• 34:32
  location somewhere that was bullshit just to make it seem
• 34:36
  like it was cooler than it really was, but that's those are
• 34:40
  probably the most cringey to me. It's more technical and sound
• 34:45
  versus anything else. What's one part of the
• 34:47
  production process that you underestimated getting into it?
• 34:51
  Always editing. There's no doubt.
• 34:54
  If you're long forming something for 30 minutes or an hour, then
• 34:58
  you can count on it being at least as long as it took you to
• 35:02
  record it and typically double. I always tell people when
• 35:05
  they're getting into podcasting, one of the four major things I
• 35:08
  mentioned is edit. When you think you've edited
• 35:11
  enough, edit more. Always leave people wanting
• 35:14
  more. I think if you're long forming
• 35:16
  an interview at an hour, you should cut that thing down to
• 35:19
  about 30 minutes, 35 minutes tops.
• 35:21
  Get the best parts because I was always afraid that a guest would
• 35:24
  be like, oh it's finally over. I would rather have somebody go,
• 35:27
  oh it's over. Man, that was great.
• 35:30
  I wish it would have went a little bit longer.
• 35:32
  Leave them wanting a little bit more.
• 35:34
  You can always get that person back if they were entertaining
• 35:36
  and do another version of that or do another episode.
• 35:40
  But editing is easily the most under estimated time vampire of
• 35:47
  podcasting. OK, OK.
• 35:49
  A. Lot of people don't want to do
• 35:50
  it because they're lazy so the show sounds like shit.
• 35:55
  All right, you said live audio matters more than Polish editing
• 35:59
  because it creates theater of the mind.
• 36:01
  Do you think BBQ is losing that mystique as everything goes to
• 36:05
  TikTok or quick hits and social media and stuff?
• 36:09
  So first of all, I'm terrible social media number one.
• 36:13
  Number two, I am completely unmotivated to post on social
• 36:16
  media. I don't care, and I know that's
• 36:18
  bad, I know it's a detriment to my show's growth and all this
• 36:21
  other stuff, but I still operate under the assumption that nobody
• 36:25
  gives a shit about what I'm doing, whether it's show related
• 36:28
  or not, nor do I have any interest in sharing what I'm
• 36:30
  doing. I don't.
• 36:32
  So that has really been an issue for me.
• 36:35
  But I'm 51 and I'm old. I don't give a fuck, so that's
• 36:38
  probably just going to be the way it is.
• 36:40
  You can delete all these swear words as well if you want.
• 36:44
  No? So that's like #1 but I, I, so I
• 36:50
  can watch my show, so it's live no matter what, but we are
• 36:55
  recording. So then it's going to become a
• 36:57
  podcast or a video archive. So I can rewatch the show and
• 37:01
  hate it. I can listen to the show on the
• 37:04
  way to work. Same show and go.
• 37:06
  That show was great. And it's because when I'm seeing
• 37:10
  it, I can also see when I became nervous about a question or I
• 37:15
  thought something bad was going to happen, or I think I'm
• 37:18
  pausing too long in the video. But that gap in sound doesn't
• 37:22
  translate into just listening to the audio portion of it.
• 37:26
  And I'm able to use that theater of the mind that I say that you
• 37:30
  had just mentioned to you Don't make somebody look like, I want
• 37:34
  them to look like or think about how we're actually interacting
• 37:39
  on that video conference and not actually see what it looked
• 37:43
  like. But that's just my preference.
• 37:45
  So there's been plenty of times when I have gotten done with a
• 37:48
  live show on a Tuesday and I'm like, and then I listen to the
• 37:52
  first hour on Wednesday, 2nd hour on Thursday and I'm like,
• 37:54
  you know what, that was actually way better than I'm giving
• 37:57
  myself credit for it. I always prefer to listen to it
• 37:59
  by the way, statistics prove out.
• 38:01
  Most of the people want to just listen to it at their
• 38:05
  convenience as well. As far as quick hits and all
• 38:08
  this other stuff, again, I'm no expert.
• 38:11
  It does seem to be a lot of people out there that seem to be
• 38:15
  very good at editing and I guess cooking, and they get a lot of
• 38:20
  followers. I don't know how that translates
• 38:22
  into money, but that's all I really care about.
• 38:24
  I wanna make money. I don't want stuff for free.
• 38:28
  I don't want trades. I want money like I'm a
• 38:30
  professional and I demand to be paid like a professional.
• 38:33
  If you don't want to pay me because the rest of the industry
• 38:36
  has gone to taking stuff for free and ruining it for the rest
• 38:39
  of us, all right, I have a day job.
• 38:41
  I'm not living and dying by every dollar I get from a
• 38:45
  sponsor. And it's going to be my way
• 38:48
  because I told myself to a different standard.
• 38:52
  Definitely, definitely. That's what I'm about.
• 38:54
  Exactly what you said. I don't want no.
• 38:56
  It's nice to get Rose, but I want money.
• 38:59
  I want equipment. I need rub.
• 39:00
  I need more free rub like I need a hole in the head.
• 39:03
  You giving countless people their first media spotlight.
• 39:06
  Do you ever feel that you're curating BBQ history in real
• 39:09
  time? And does that responsibility
• 39:11
  feel heavy as far as the people that you put on?
• 39:16
  So there's no question, since basically 2006, I have
• 39:21
  documented the rise and evolution of live fire cooking.
• 39:25
  I never even thought about it like that until a year and a
• 39:28
  half ago. John Solberg, who happens to be
• 39:31
  the executive producer of the best moments of the BBQ Central
• 39:33
  show in 10 minutes or Less, started to take on a task of
• 39:37
  getting the show entered into the Library of Congress because
• 39:41
  he feels like it has been an archival study of this
• 39:45
  particular industry over this period of time.
• 39:47
  I don't know where he's at actually with that or if that's
• 39:50
  even possible. But because of technology, it's
• 39:55
  not just we're writing books and sticking them on a shelf
• 39:58
  eventually become outdated. This is all on the Internet
• 40:01
  forever and ever. Amen.
• 40:02
  So in 15 years from now if a young Tavis wanted to or your 16
• 40:08
  month old 16 years from now wanted to hear.
• 40:11
  What it sounded like when you and I chopped it up or wanted to
• 40:15
  know what BBQ was like back in 2008 or who knows?
• 40:19
  You can find that. Yeah.
• 40:21
  There's no doubt that I have been archiving the best way I
• 40:25
  can, how this whole industry has evolved over the time that I've
• 40:30
  been covering it. Do I feel like there's a weight
• 40:32
  on me now? I think if I stopped doing it,
• 40:36
  I'm sure somebody would be able to step in and pick it up in a
• 40:41
  way that makes sense for them to continue the archival of this
• 40:44
  industry. But I'm very honored that a lot
• 40:48
  of people think that I've been able to showcase that over the
• 40:51
  last 1718 years. I had just recently talked to
• 40:55
  Ryan Gray about KCBS. I'm like, your records is hard.
• 41:01
  You can't tell what The Pioneers did because you can't just
• 41:05
  Google it like baseball stats or football stats.
• 41:08
  There's nothing out there to tell me why Darren Worth is the
• 41:12
  greatest. All I can go is buy BBQ data and
• 41:15
  it's not showing that he's the greatest.
• 41:17
  I have to go by what people are telling me and you can't just go
• 41:20
  look and find out those stats because then it's not out there
• 41:28
  and that's why I told him it. We want to know those type of
• 41:32
  things because when I'm researching, I want to know
• 41:34
  everything. I don't want to know from 2007
• 41:36
  up if they started in 2001, 1999 and all that.
• 41:41
  And I want the stats out there just like sports stats, and
• 41:46
  we're not able to see that. Yeah, hot take coming in, right?
• 41:51
  KCBS, not promoting anything, not doing any extra work.
• 41:55
  It's like that's just been the way of how it's been under Rod's
• 42:00
  tenure. Yeah.
• 42:03
  I don't disagree. I would love to see stat.
• 42:05
  I know there's a lot of cooks out there that would love to see
• 42:07
  stats, but that is a project to KCBS would have to actually put
• 42:11
  a lot of work into. I'm sure there's the money cost
• 42:14
  associated with that. I'm sure there's some actual
• 42:16
  cooks out there that care about that as well, that are tech
• 42:19
  savvy that would be happy to pitch in some time pro bono in
• 42:23
  order to make that happen. But KCBS would want to have
• 42:26
  that, would want to have that happen first before that's going
• 42:31
  to go anywhere. And again, I think when extra
• 42:34
  work is needed, then that's probably not going to be a high
• 42:37
  interest level to them at all. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:40
  And by the way, we can argue all day long about who the best
• 42:43
  competition cook is, too. So at this stage of the game, I
• 42:46
  think there's more than one. Who are your top 2?
• 42:51
  So I think Darren gets a lot of mentions right off the bat and
• 42:57
  Darren has won a lot. I don't know at this stage if
• 43:00
  Darren is the greatest of all time.
• 43:03
  I'm happy. I'm happy to throw in Brad
• 43:06
  Lininger of getting basted to to actually be best of all time.
• 43:10
  I think he's won just as much as Darren has.
• 43:12
  As far as I don't, I'm not talking about total, but as far
• 43:16
  as major competitions, I think Brad has won just as many.
• 43:19
  Brad's won Memphis in May and Darren is not won Memphis in
• 43:23
  May. Darren has said on my show
• 43:25
  couple of times he's got 0 interest in it, but it is a
• 43:28
  major competition that many people consider something you
• 43:32
  want to win before you put out the fires for good.
• 43:35
  And Darren has made his opinion on Memphis and made very clear
• 43:38
  that he thinks, you know, there's probably some favoritism
• 43:42
  and certain teams versus other teams, but and he and his
• 43:46
  interest level in doing that is, is very limited, if at all.
• 43:50
  And meanwhile Brad is gone in there.
• 43:52
  They want it so that that speaks a lot Brad and by the way, Brad
• 43:56
  wins like a lot. So he's team of the year
• 43:58
  multiple times. Darren Morris never been team of
• 44:00
  the year for KCBS. So there's a lot of things that
• 44:03
  I can make arguments for. Also Travis Clark, Clark crew
• 44:08
  BBQ, when he was doing it, he was dominating.
• 44:11
  I I think we can at least have a discussion or debate kind of
• 44:14
  like LeBron and Michael Jordan. Everybody of course knows LeBron
• 44:18
  is way bigger than Michael Jordan.
• 44:19
  You can have that debate if you want.
• 44:21
  So I'm happy to see that there have been a number of really
• 44:26
  great crooks over the last 10 years on the KCBS competition
• 44:30
  side of things that we can at least have that conversation.
• 44:33
  There was no Travis, there was no Brad.
• 44:36
  And you know, Darren stands alone at the top of competition.
• 44:40
  Mount Rushmore, without a doubt. They've won a lot.
• 44:42
  They've done it forever. I remember having him on the
• 44:44
  show back in 2009 when there was a great KCBS race going on
• 44:49
  between him and Rod Gray of Pellet Envy and Steve Fahren of
• 44:52
  Ice Smell Smoke is probably something you've never heard of.
• 44:54
  And it was like a race to the end of the very last competition
• 44:58
  in Tempe, AZ in 2009. Whoever won it was going to win
• 45:03
  Team of the Year that year. So it was very exciting.
• 45:05
  But that's a different ERA of BBQ as well.
• 45:10
  Yeah, I love talking about it. And I think just saying Darren
• 45:13
  is the greatest flatly is uneducated and there is debate.
• 45:17
  There is debate to have at that point.
• 45:19
  That's definitely true based on because when I talked to Travis
• 45:22
  Clark, I love the way he talked because it's so confident and
• 45:26
  just you remind me of Kobe, that Kobe Bryant mentality will take
• 45:30
  no prisoners and stuff like that.
• 45:32
  And I never been around Brad that much, but listening to him
• 45:36
  on BBQ Brawl, he sounded that way also, as well as Darren
• 45:40
  Worth is that they all have that same mentality of going there,
• 45:45
  take no prisoners, just do what you got to do.
• 45:47
  But yeah, it's a toss up because you don't know all what Darren's
• 45:51
  done. But like you said, Memphis and
• 45:53
  May, that's a big one because it's one of the major ones
• 45:56
  people consider. And to go in there and win, that
• 45:59
  is, is really big. So Darren's won everything else.
• 46:02
  If Darren wins Memphis in May, then yes, to me he is a top the
• 46:06
  competition heat because he'll have, he'll won everything to
• 46:09
  include a Houston Livestock and Rodeo.
• 46:11
  So yeah, I wish he would become more motivated to try and win
• 46:16
  Memphis in May. Yeah.
• 46:19
  Darren Darren's always been his own guy too.
• 46:21
  Like he's never really cared to chase team of the year for KCBS
• 46:25
  and when he wants to go cook a competition and maybe it doesn't
• 46:28
  make sense for a points chase, but it's just he loves the
• 46:31
  people that are going to show up or he likes the area that the
• 46:34
  competition is going to be in and very successful restaurant.
• 46:38
  Very philanthropic as well. Him and his wife Sherry are just
• 46:42
  dynamite people. I had a great opportunity to
• 46:44
  meet him in person when I traveled outside of the state,
• 46:47
  which is very rarely in Shawnee or in Oklahoma at a BBQ
• 46:52
  competition that AMC out there a number of years ago.
• 46:54
  And hearing him on his show and having him as a guest on my show
• 46:58
  many times over the years, he's the same guy.
• 47:01
  Like ask him all the questions. He'll tell you everything you
• 47:03
  want to know and just, but he does what he wants to do.
• 47:07
  He's not there to, he's there to win, but it's not at the cost of
• 47:12
  everything. If he wants to be somewhere
• 47:14
  else, if he wants to take a weekend off, like he'll do it.
• 47:17
  And that's just the way he is. And I love it.
• 47:19
  Cooking the contest on one drum and deciding to turn in and pull
• 47:24
  pork at the Jack Daniels and all.
• 47:26
  It's like a wild card, all right?
• 47:31
  Podcasting has exploded. Everybody has a microphone.
• 47:34
  What separates an authentic BBQ voice from just another backyard
• 47:38
  guy with Wi-Fi? I think getting headed in the
• 47:42
  beginning, it's doing the prep work, it's doing all the stuff
• 47:45
  behind the scenes, like anybody can crack open a mic and just
• 47:50
  have a weird conversation with a guest or amongst buddies.
• 47:54
  It sounds like you just picked, so you probably don't know this,
• 47:58
  but back in the old days they had these things called party
• 48:00
  lines on telephones where it was just you can just pick up the
• 48:03
  phone, everybody's talking, you just jump in.
• 48:06
  I don't want to hear a podcast. Me personally, I don't want to
• 48:10
  listen to a podcast where it feels like I just picked up on
• 48:12
  the party line. I want structure, I want
• 48:15
  segments, I want takes, I want opinions, I want all that.
• 48:21
  And if I'm happy to give a Showtime to build and see where
• 48:27
  it's going to go, But if it's just going to be like that, then
• 48:29
  you know, that's not a show for me.
• 48:31
  I think what you're getting at is what separates my show from
• 48:33
  everybody else's. It's the work that I put in.
• 48:39
  It's the dedication that I have to covering all the topical
• 48:43
  stuff that I can within a 2 hour period every Tuesday.
• 48:46
  It's my commitment to sound. It's my commitment to my guests
• 48:49
  having great sound. And it's mostly my commitment to
• 48:52
  providing a product to my listeners that is never hard to
• 48:57
  listen to, that is never tiring to them.
• 49:00
  And where now over the last almost 20 years, we've built a
• 49:05
  community where we can have inside jokes.
• 49:08
  I can make references that people get.
• 49:10
  And maybe not necessarily for the new folks, but if they like
• 49:14
  it and they give the show couple 234 show listens and they feel
• 49:19
  like they can become a part of the group and become a central
• 49:22
  light, then they also can share in the fun and frivolity of all
• 49:26
  the nonsense that we do every Tuesday while still trying to
• 49:29
  keep it very professional. Yeah, I remember there was party
• 49:33
  lines. I'm 49, so I'm close to age.
• 49:36
  Yeah, you. Got a 60.
• 49:38
  Month old. Yeah, I got married two years
• 49:41
  ago. Wow, God bless.
• 49:45
  Yeah I waited till late 40s to get married and have a newborn
• 49:50
  but. I was that wife.
• 49:53
  My wife is 42. Wow, look at you guys fucking
• 49:57
  the trend. I'll be 66 when she graduates so
• 50:05
  but I wasn't trading for nothing in the world.
• 50:07
  It's a great experience for it was to have an experience having
• 50:10
  kids. But she I have a nine year old
• 50:13
  and a 16 month old, but I've been in the 9 year old life
• 50:17
  since she was like 4. It's a great experience.
• 50:20
  I'm learning because it's new for having all these years and
• 50:23
  not having just me and then having a family now, but it's
• 50:27
  fun to support wise from a wife and all that.
• 50:30
  It's been a great if you don't have that great person pushing
• 50:34
  you and knowing what type of person you are because I was on
• 50:37
  the fence about doing this and if it weren't for her, I
• 50:41
  probably would have been still dragging my feet about it.
• 50:43
  But why not do it? What's the worst could happen,
• 50:47
  right? What's the worst could happen
• 50:49
  because I'm worried about OK, the people going to show up or
• 50:51
  is anything going to happen? But once I jumped into it,
• 50:56
  everything started flowing and now everybody's out there is
• 51:00
  getting used to me and it helps out people sending me DMS that,
• 51:05
  hey, I enjoy your show. I enjoy what you're doing and it
• 51:07
  helps boost what you're doing. And those people out there that
• 51:11
  that do that. It's a great help to know that
• 51:13
  it's just not falling on deaf ears, that it is helping people
• 51:16
  and people listening to what you do and entertain about what you
• 51:20
  do. Even though where you might be
• 51:22
  shaking on it, man, that might not have been a good episode.
• 51:24
  Somebody come along, man, that was awesome.
• 51:27
  And it keeps you going and keeps you going and keeps you going
• 51:32
  when you hear stuff like that. I want to shift in.
• 51:36
  Let me ask this before I get into the sponsorship stuff.
• 51:39
  If the BBQ Central show ended tomorrow, what's 1 conversation
• 51:42
  or moment that you would carry with you forever?
• 51:46
  That's a lot of moments, Molly. So I the one that really just
• 51:53
  pops out every time. It's really not that long ago I
• 51:58
  we had done a induction for our guest Hall of Fame, which we did
• 52:01
  the 2025 class this past Tuesday.
• 52:03
  Congratulations to everybody that made it in.
• 52:06
  John Marcus was voted in couple years ago.
• 52:10
  So what I like to do is take the newest inductees into the Guest
• 52:15
  Hall of Fame and then do the origin story of them for an hour
• 52:20
  of one of the shows for an upcoming Tuesday.
• 52:23
  And John just gave an incredible origin story.
• 52:28
  So like to know what his background is and to know how
• 52:33
  important he was in television with television actually
• 52:36
  mattered. Cosby Show, executive producer
• 52:39
  and runner for eight years. Like the when The Cosby Show was
• 52:42
  at its height, like John was running that show and and then
• 52:46
  go on and do different world and all these other shows and then
• 52:50
  see him get into BBQ, make the relationship.
• 52:53
  He does some really great interviews on my show gets and
• 52:55
  gets inducted into the guest Hall of Fame.
• 52:57
  And then we do this origin story and to hear him start.
• 53:01
  So he originally is from let's say southwest of Columbus, OH
• 53:07
  and started from there was in a band in high school with his
• 53:10
  brother that really wasn't great knew he was didn't want to be a
• 53:14
  doctor from a family of doctors. There was probably expectation
• 53:17
  that he should be a doctor as well and just to see where his
• 53:21
  career. The one thing that stuck with
• 53:24
  me, I don't know why is he's recounting the time when he's
• 53:30
  running the Cosby Show and he's home in Ohio and he goes out for
• 53:35
  a midnight walk. I think Cosby Show was on at
• 53:37
  Thursdays at 8:00 at the time on NBC or whatever it was.
• 53:41
  And he's walking the neighborhood and he's looking in
• 53:44
  homes. Every single home has the Cosby
• 53:47
  Show on that he can see in the television, on the television
• 53:51
  through the windows. And it was is that I knew like
• 53:56
  finally made it. Like this is definitely as
• 53:59
  popular as people are saying. Like he almost didn't understand
• 54:02
  it. Like, you see the metrics coming
• 54:04
  in from the television studios and the advertisers are buying
• 54:07
  all the space on the show. But to walk the neighborhood and
• 54:10
  see everybody that had a house there had the Cosby Show on at
• 54:14
  that point was a magical moment for him.
• 54:17
  And then just to hear all the other experiences and by the
• 54:20
  way, a darling of a man, I had lunch with him in person in New
• 54:26
  York City back in 2019 when I was in town.
• 54:29
  My middle daughter had a modeling gig at one of the
• 54:33
  fashion shows out there, and I met him for lunch at Katz's
• 54:37
  Belly and wow, just for as great as he is on the interviews on my
• 54:42
  show, just as magical in person, maybe even better, and shared a
• 54:46
  bunch of great stories and a great couple hours in person,
• 54:49
  which is rare for me. So he's somebody that just
• 54:53
  sticks out. But Oh my God, so many guests,
• 54:57
  so many interviews, so many great ones because they were
• 55:02
  great. So many great ones because they
• 55:03
  were horrible, so many great ones because they were just
• 55:06
  mediocre. It's tough when if somebody says
• 55:09
  what's your favorite interview, I don't know, so many, it's
• 55:12
  tough to go. That's why I like doing the best
• 55:13
  of show. It's just celebrated 400
• 55:16
  episodes. It's because you get
• 55:18
  reintroduced to what the show was like back in 2000 and eight,
• 55:21
  2009, like early days and the guests that we had and what that
• 55:25
  show sounded like. 400 Good. That's a lot.
• 55:30
  Just the best stuff. Yeah, I have.
• 55:32
  I think we're approaching 1800 episodes on the Barbie Essential
• 55:36
  Show. Wow, who's somebody that you
• 55:40
  haven't got that you want to get?
• 55:44
  We'd love to have Bobby fly on the show.
• 55:45
  We'd love to have Guy Fieri on the show.
• 55:49
  Barbecue wise, like competition stuff.
• 55:54
  I had him. I was going to say Johnny Trigg,
• 55:56
  but I ended up having Johnny Trigg on the show.
• 56:00
  I don't know if there's anybody that I haven't had that I've
• 56:04
  wanted on the show. Luckily, reputation has helped a
• 56:10
  lot over the years and also being able to drop names has
• 56:14
  helped a lot over the years. So being able to get like a
• 56:18
  Michael Simon or would love to have Ina Garten on the show.
• 56:21
  Ina, if you're listening, please come on the show.
• 56:23
  I love you. Please come on the show.
• 56:26
  But barbecue and grilling related, I think I've hit all
• 56:28
  the marks at this point for me. Yeah, I got a ways to go, but
• 56:34
  yeah, there's plenty I like more.
• 56:35
  I want to try to catch more of the older people that you don't
• 56:39
  hear about so I can catch them before they get too old.
• 56:43
  I would like to get Tootsie comments from Snow's BBQ.
• 56:46
  She does interviews occasionally.
• 56:48
  I don't know how hard it would be to line her up.
• 56:50
  She's getting towards 90. I don't know if she's got staff
• 56:53
  or handlers or whatever, but I would love to get her on before
• 56:59
  it's too late. I got Artie Davis.
• 57:01
  I can relive some of that where he did and some of the older
• 57:07
  people. I'm trying to reschedule with
• 57:09
  Donnie Teal and speak to him because he had scheduled but he
• 57:13
  thought it was just audio only, but he was driving so we have to
• 57:17
  reschedule that. So I tried to get some of the
• 57:22
  older people before I just jump into the newer people, All the
• 57:26
  newer people, they hear some of the history that they don't get
• 57:29
  to hear about and some of the how BBQ was back then versus
• 57:34
  what it is now. So that's what I'm trying to do
• 57:38
  as far as origin stories and just relive history and stuff
• 57:42
  like that. But I definitely went.
• 57:44
  And how far did I go back in yours?
• 57:46
  I think it was 2013. It let me go back or maybe a
• 57:52
  little earlier, 12 as far as YouTube and I was like, wow.
• 57:59
  Apologize for the for the video quality of that.
• 58:03
  I enjoyed it because I like seeing what it was happening
• 58:07
  back then versus now. So just having an archive like
• 58:12
  that and be able to go back and look at it and listen to it.
• 58:15
  I enjoyed it as far as the podcast.
• 58:18
  Also, I went back as far as I can and started listening to
• 58:22
  some of the older ones just to hear some of the people I may
• 58:25
  not know of or as well as some of the people that are famous
• 58:29
  now that wouldn't famous then because kill the hogs wouldn't
• 58:32
  kill the hogs that it is now. Meathead wasn't Meathead like he
• 58:37
  is now. And some of the other ones that
• 58:40
  that came along, you definitely a pioneer and you inspired me
• 58:44
  because I've listened to your show many times, so I enjoy what
• 58:49
  you're doing. I'm going to ask you some not
• 58:51
  sponsorship, partnership. I got to remember to say
• 58:54
  questions. You work with BBQ brands for
• 58:57
  years. When you first were building the
• 58:59
  BBQ Central show, how did you approach your very first sponsor
• 59:03
  and what did you offer them in return?
• 59:07
  It was like go call one O 1. I just so when I had the forum I
• 59:13
  was selling, this is going to sound crazy, but I was selling
• 59:15
  banner ads. So you would show up on the
• 59:17
  homepage and we had clickable banner ads or the sponsors.
• 59:23
  So I was just calling up companies and saying hey I have
• 59:27
  a BBQ related forum. If you want to have advertising
• 59:32
  on these spaces that'll cost you X amount per month.
• 59:35
  It's a kind of random rotating image between you and however
• 59:40
  many other folks I had at the time, and you pay me this amount
• 59:44
  every month and run the banner for as long as you want and if
• 59:47
  you don't want to do it anymore, then that's it.
• 59:50
  So it was again pretty easy for me to reach out.
• 59:54
  And so being the business guy, had no problem making the cold
• 59:58
  calls and trying to do the whole pitch as far as what I was
• 1:00:02
  offering them at the time. It was a banner exposure.
• 1:00:07
  And you had people that were interested in barbecue and
• 1:00:10
  grilling coming to the website mostly, I would imagine.
• 1:00:13
  And so you had a warm, warm market target to go in.
• 1:00:17
  Hopefully they would click your ads.
• 1:00:19
  And there you go as far as transitioning into the podcast,
• 1:00:24
  similar concept, but now it was doing audio.
• 1:00:28
  So I was producing ads with a voice over talent in the
• 1:00:32
  beginning. And then at some point during
• 1:00:34
  the live show, I said, I want to make sure that everybody's still
• 1:00:36
  engaged. So instead of running a Bank of
• 1:00:39
  produced spots like I had in the beginning, I just started doing
• 1:00:43
  live reads to make sure that everybody stayed in the seat and
• 1:00:48
  didn't go away and get busy doing something else and never
• 1:00:51
  come back to the show. Eventually transition over to
• 1:00:53
  live reads. And again, it's warm market,
• 1:00:56
  it's big audience. If you have a product or service
• 1:00:59
  in the barbecue and grilling arena and you want to get it out
• 1:01:02
  in front of everybody, then the show was a great vehicle to do
• 1:01:07
  that. And I never promised that your
• 1:01:11
  sales are going to spike or that you're going to see X amount.
• 1:01:15
  Roy, to me, advertising on something like this is a
• 1:01:20
  repetition. That's why I'm not charging
• 1:01:21
  $50,000 a month or something like that, like you spend on
• 1:01:24
  radio or billboard or TV. It's repetition.
• 1:01:28
  So when you are in the market for a grill or you're in the
• 1:01:31
  market for a rub or a pellet or whatever, and you're a fan of
• 1:01:35
  the show, you remember I'm talking about Primo ceramic
• 1:01:39
  grills. You remember I'm talking about
• 1:01:40
  Green Mountain pellet grills. You remember that I'm talking
• 1:01:43
  about if he can the pellets or whatever it is.
• 1:01:46
  So that's the value that I'm selling and it's because it's a
• 1:01:53
  live show. It's changeable.
• 1:01:54
  You want to change it every week, Let's change it every
• 1:01:56
  week. You want to offer discount
• 1:01:57
  codes, Let's offer discount codes.
• 1:01:59
  You want to make your own trackable link with Slash BBQ
• 1:02:03
  Central at the end and let's do that as well.
• 1:02:05
  I'm not afraid. I will guarantee I will deliver
• 1:02:08
  on XYZ every week and the other stuff I can't guarantee.
• 1:02:12
  I can't make people buy stuff every week but hopefully if
• 1:02:16
  they're fans of the show and I always say you want to support
• 1:02:19
  the show, don't send me money, don't sign up for my only fans
• 1:02:23
  BBQ accounts or my another thing of Patreon.
• 1:02:27
  I'm not here to make money off the back of my audience.
• 1:02:29
  That's why I don't sell shit and do anything weird like that.
• 1:02:32
  It's support my sponsors. You want to support me, support
• 1:02:35
  the sponsors. Give them first priority and
• 1:02:38
  that's what's most important to me.
• 1:02:40
  For someone like me building a BBQ podcast today, what's the
• 1:02:43
  difference between chasing national brands versus local or
• 1:02:46
  regional BBQ companies? I'm going to tell you something
• 1:02:50
  you don't worry about money. If you get in it for money you
• 1:02:53
  should quit now. Money does not come with BBQ
• 1:02:56
  podcasts. You need to focus on your
• 1:03:00
  content. You need to focus on the guest
• 1:03:01
  that you get. You need to focus on how you
• 1:03:03
  want the show to be structured. You need to focus on
• 1:03:05
  repeatability. Releasing, editing, polishing,
• 1:03:09
  speaking. All of that is paramount to your
• 1:03:13
  success. You do it #1 to get into money.
• 1:03:17
  Quit because you're going to be disappointed.
• 1:03:19
  It's not going to be nearly enough, especially in this
• 1:03:22
  industry where people have proven that they will do shit
• 1:03:25
  for free. Means you are not going to get a
• 1:03:27
  lot of money, if any money at all.
• 1:03:30
  So I would not go after national brands.
• 1:03:33
  I wouldn't go after local brands.
• 1:03:35
  I would focus on everything I just said.
• 1:03:37
  And if you are doing your side of it, brands will contact you
• 1:03:40
  and then you can start putting deals together.
• 1:03:43
  And if you need counsel on how we're charging at that point,
• 1:03:47
  happy to jump in and have a conversation with that.
• 1:03:49
  But never do this for money #1 because heartache and pain and
• 1:03:56
  suffering will follow. That's very good.
• 1:03:59
  That's very good. And how do you price your
• 1:04:02
  sponsorships in a way that is fair to the sponsor but still
• 1:04:05
  reflects the value that you're delivering?
• 1:04:08
  Well, so the, to me, the podcasting world is still Wild
• 1:04:11
  West. So I think you have to generate
• 1:04:17
  a price that you feel is good for you.
• 1:04:20
  And you, if you get it good, you feel like you've gotten it,
• 1:04:25
  you've priced accordingly. You know what you want to give
• 1:04:27
  to the customer. You know how you want to pitch
• 1:04:29
  the customer. And if you get that price and
• 1:04:32
  you've already felt good with that, the customer obviously
• 1:04:34
  feels good with that. And then I think you start
• 1:04:37
  building a relationship from there.
• 1:04:39
  Your numbers grow. If your reach grows, popularity
• 1:04:42
  grows, then everybody involved should understand that at the
• 1:04:45
  course, at the end of a month or a contract, whatever you're
• 1:04:49
  doing, that can change. And you're having those
• 1:04:52
  conversations with them right along, so nothing is ever a
• 1:04:56
  surprise or they feel like they're getting raked across the
• 1:04:59
  coals. All of a sudden.
• 1:05:02
  You are keeping them aware of how your progress is happening
• 1:05:06
  and that rates will adjust accordingly.
• 1:05:08
  And if they don't want to pay it, fine.
• 1:05:10
  You have other people waiting in the wings that are ready to jump
• 1:05:13
  on board because they see the value of where you're at now
• 1:05:16
  versus where you were a year ago or two years ago.
• 1:05:20
  And number rule #1 in sales is charge as much as you can, and
• 1:05:25
  if somebody's willing to pay it, then that's the right amount.
• 1:05:29
  If you're not selling any sponsorships, yeah, it's because
• 1:05:33
  you're probably priced too high or the perceived value by the
• 1:05:37
  customer is not there. And those are conversations you
• 1:05:41
  need to have with people. OK, You don't want to pay this
• 1:05:43
  amount. Where do you see the value?
• 1:05:45
  What amount would you be willing to pay for it and what do you
• 1:05:47
  think you should get for that? Always going back to that, we
• 1:05:50
  can get into a wholesalers One O 1 seminar.
• 1:05:52
  I don't want to do that because we'll never end up stopping
• 1:05:55
  this. Because.
• 1:05:56
  I love sales and I love doing it.
• 1:05:59
  I think, I think we're still at a day and age where you can ask
• 1:06:05
  for whatever you want and if somebody's willing to pay for
• 1:06:07
  it, then that's the amount that you're worth with that customer.
• 1:06:11
  I'm. Going to definitely try to bring
• 1:06:12
  you back on to talk sales one-on-one I don't that'll be a
• 1:06:15
  selfish episode for me but I definitely want to bring you on
• 1:06:19
  and talk more about that because a lot of people don't know about
• 1:06:21
  that. I don't know nothing about it.
• 1:06:23
  That's why I'm asking questions now because that's something I
• 1:06:26
  was curious about how it works and with sponsors and
• 1:06:29
  partnerships and all that. So I'm definitely learning
• 1:06:32
  something. If they're not interested in
• 1:06:34
  this part, they can cut early. But I know there's other people
• 1:06:38
  out there to have podcasts and they probably wonder the same
• 1:06:41
  thing. So if I'm wondering, 10-15 other
• 1:06:44
  people probably wondering the same thing.
• 1:06:45
  So we definitely appreciate those tips and that you're
• 1:06:49
  giving. If somebody wanted to start a
• 1:06:51
  podcast, what advice would you the top advice would you give
• 1:06:54
  them? I think you got to have a good
• 1:06:57
  initial concept. You have to be honest with
• 1:07:00
  yourself on. Is that concept repeatable?
• 1:07:03
  Not necessarily the same show over and over again, but at
• 1:07:06
  least the concept of the show. Is it something that you can
• 1:07:09
  replicate time after time? You need to come up with a
• 1:07:13
  release schedule, like how often do you want to release a new
• 1:07:16
  episode? And once you have committed to
• 1:07:21
  the whatever that release schedule is, you got to meet, if
• 1:07:26
  you're pumping out 5 episodes a week and that's what you think
• 1:07:29
  you wanted to do in the beginning and you've done it for
• 1:07:32
  two or three months. The audience is used to getting
• 1:07:34
  5 episodes a week or two episodes a week or one episode a
• 1:07:38
  week or one a month. Whatever that release schedule
• 1:07:41
  is, you have to adhere to that. The menu start deviating and
• 1:07:45
  it's always, I'm so hot. I'm so passionate about this.
• 1:07:48
  I'm going to go five days a week or a couple times a week.
• 1:07:52
  And then it goes to once a week, and then it goes to a couple
• 1:07:55
  times a month, and it goes to once a month.
• 1:07:57
  And then all of a sudden you're a victim of pod fade and away
• 1:08:00
  you go just like a whole bunch. So the average time span of a
• 1:08:04
  podcast, 4 episodes and then they're going average download
• 1:08:10
  on an episode from release to 30 days out, 175 downloads.
• 1:08:17
  So that's just where the data is right now.
• 1:08:21
  That's how quick people are in and out.
• 1:08:23
  That's a real number on where success looks like from a
• 1:08:26
  download number. So adjust your expectations
• 1:08:31
  accordingly for anybody looking to get into it.
• 1:08:33
  But you have to adhere to the release schedule because your
• 1:08:36
  audience is building trust with you.
• 1:08:37
  And the minute you deviate from them, there's so many other
• 1:08:39
  options are going to go somewhere else.
• 1:08:42
  Then it's equipment. So make a small investment into
• 1:08:45
  and don't take a loan out, build out a studio unless you're a
• 1:08:50
  celebrity and you got millions or you're looking for the tax
• 1:08:52
  break or whatever. But I did not start like that.
• 1:08:55
  There's no reason to start like that.
• 1:08:56
  You can get a $70 mic that is both an XLR and AUSB capable mic
• 1:09:02
  from Samsung called the Samsung Q2U.
• 1:09:04
  It sounds might looks like you got a nice Rd. mic there.
• 1:09:07
  But you can get a Samsung Q2U for 70 bucks.
• 1:09:10
  It sounds like $1,000,000 and you can build into more stuff
• 1:09:16
  from there, but there's no need to do an incredible amount of
• 1:09:21
  investment to to get going. You can sound really good for
• 1:09:24
  cheap, but is it very important to have good audio?
• 1:09:27
  And then it's editing, right? So edit when you think you've
• 1:09:30
  edited too much, you haven't edited enough because you want
• 1:09:34
  to make sure that the audience is not having to exert energy in
• 1:09:40
  order to listen. You don't want somebody to be
• 1:09:42
  like, thank God it was over. That's really bad.
• 1:09:46
  So you'll lose audience with that.
• 1:09:47
  But I think those are like the four things that you want and be
• 1:09:50
  truthful. You're excited now you're going
• 1:09:54
  to be this excited in a month. You're going to be this excited
• 1:09:57
  in two months. How about a year?
• 1:09:59
  Can you do it for 18 years? Can you do it for 20 years?
• 1:10:03
  Be truthful with yourself. Are you just agitated or hot to
• 1:10:07
  trot right now and you really are going to be launching a
• 1:10:10
  podcast on a subject that's got like a six month life lifespan?
• 1:10:15
  Answer those questions and then figure out if you really want to
• 1:10:18
  do it or not. But those are like the main high
• 1:10:19
  level things that I always tell people when they want to get
• 1:10:21
  into it. And then don't do it for the
• 1:10:22
  money. Do it because you love it.
• 1:10:25
  Exactly, I started out with different equipment.
• 1:10:28
  My wife surprised me with the road caster Duo and this rogue
• 1:10:33
  mic. The I was like I'm a upgrade as
• 1:10:36
  I go along and go from there and I've the camera I use is the
• 1:10:39
  Osmo Pocket three. I have that hooked up to the
• 1:10:43
  iMac so I like it. It's a process.
• 1:10:46
  You're not going to go out with all the best equipment because
• 1:10:48
  all them people that be on YouTube telling people to go out
• 1:10:51
  and get this microphone, it's $700.00.
• 1:10:53
  Then it's all this. You're going to be broke having
• 1:10:57
  dusty equipment sitting around because they didn't told you to
• 1:11:00
  get all this unrealistic stuff where you got to work your way
• 1:11:03
  up and give you something to shoot for instead of just going
• 1:11:07
  out and getting all this stuff and not knowing that this is
• 1:11:11
  your calling or stuff like that. And I like I said, I start with
• 1:11:15
  where I try to make sure it sounds good and stuff like that.
• 1:11:17
  But would I have until I work my way up and then eventually I
• 1:11:21
  work my way into the setup like yours.
• 1:11:24
  But I use what I had and made a back decent background and not
• 1:11:29
  just having a regular wall and or dark room or anything like
• 1:11:34
  that. I got there from YouTube.
• 1:11:36
  But I try to put the best setup together that I can and make
• 1:11:42
  sure it sounds good. I went and got Squad cast with
• 1:11:45
  the script and use that and use a lot of the AI tools.
• 1:11:49
  That helps out and saves time that they transcribed a podcast
• 1:11:55
  for me, which makes it easier because I don't have that kind
• 1:11:58
  of time to be editing like you did back in the day.
• 1:12:00
  So it helps out where you can just read it and listen to it
• 1:12:04
  and delete just by crossing through whatever words that you
• 1:12:08
  don't want in there. So it's all about, like I said,
• 1:12:11
  doing your homework and turning out the best product that that
• 1:12:15
  you have. So the $70 microphone that I
• 1:12:17
  told everybody to get, if you're going to start, if you know how
• 1:12:19
  to use that mic, you know how to be on that mic, and you're in
• 1:12:22
  the right room, it's going to take a trained ear to hear the
• 1:12:27
  difference between that $70 microphone and a $1200
• 1:12:31
  Sennheiser or a $3000 annoyment. People listening to that will
• 1:12:36
  never be able to pick that up. If you want to upgrade
• 1:12:38
  microphones and you do it for you and that's it because your
• 1:12:42
  audience is not going to go, oh, sounds like he's on a different
• 1:12:45
  like today. That must be the Neumann TLM one
• 1:12:47
  O 3. They're not.
• 1:12:49
  They don't care. They don't know.
• 1:12:50
  As long as it sounds good, generally speaking, then that's
• 1:12:53
  all they care about. Yeah, because I'm in my, we have
• 1:12:56
  a finished basement. So I do mine in one side of the
• 1:12:58
  basement, but I put a room divider, it's right in front of
• 1:13:03
  me and I put the little sound pads on this room divider to
• 1:13:06
  bounce the sound. Because they mentioned on that
• 1:13:09
  about it's just doing little stuff to help out the best I can
• 1:13:12
  because I'm not going to put no sound pads on the wall in the
• 1:13:14
  basement. I tried to come up with an
• 1:13:16
  innovative idea just to help out with the sound and the echo and
• 1:13:20
  stuff like that is just doing the best you can until you get
• 1:13:24
  to your own studio or set up like you have so.
• 1:13:30
  I'm just on an unfinished side of the basement, bro.
• 1:13:35
  I mean, there's you can see here, this is all unfinished.
• 1:13:38
  This is a moving blanket. That's I see like the 12 bucks
• 1:13:41
  at Harbor Freight. And there's another one in front
• 1:13:43
  of me and there's another one over here.
• 1:13:45
  But it's all, there's nothing fancy here, right?
• 1:13:47
  This is all green moving blanket, unfinished wall taped
• 1:13:52
  to the thing. This is perhaps seems intricate
• 1:13:55
  or whatever, but in the end, yeah, this is all you see
• 1:13:58
  anyway. So I make sure the sound is
• 1:14:01
  right and that's it. I definitely appreciate your
• 1:14:04
  wisdom and if you have anything to shout out or promote, you can
• 1:14:08
  definitely do that now. So find me in the website
• 1:14:12
  thebbqcentralshow.com. We do it live every Tuesday
• 1:14:15
  night from 9:00 to 11:00 PM. If you can't make the last show,
• 1:14:18
  of course, the podcast feed is ever populated.
• 1:14:22
  So just go to the BBQ centralshow.com/subscribe.
• 1:14:26
  Or you can subscribe on all the different podcast platforms.
• 1:14:30
  You want to catch it live. You can catch me on Facebook,
• 1:14:33
  facebook.com dot com slash BBQ Central Show where there's a
• 1:14:35
  live video feed every Tuesday night with video archives on the
• 1:14:38
  show page. You can also watch me on YouTube
• 1:14:41
  which is youtube.com slash at BBQ Central show where there is
• 1:14:45
  not only the extensive archives but during the live show we have
• 1:14:49
  a YouTube poll question of the week where you can actually vote
• 1:14:52
  during the live show on whatever stupid question I've asked of
• 1:14:55
  both the audience and the guests and social media at BBQ Central
• 1:14:59
  show, I cannot promise you that you will see perhaps any new
• 1:15:03
  content. I think I've just added
• 1:15:05
  something to the feed yesterday and it's been months since the
• 1:15:08
  last one. So don't follow me on social
• 1:15:11
  media for an ever changing and adding bunch of content but just
• 1:15:17
  do it cuz make a guy feel really good about him.
• 1:15:20
  Once the show's over, I'm out of here.
• 1:15:23
  Yeah, I appreciate you coming on to my and giving wisdom.
• 1:15:27
  And I'm excited because learning something new and having a
• 1:15:33
  pioneer on just to tell me your history and where you're at now
• 1:15:39
  and how many episodes you have it, it helps boost me to keep
• 1:15:43
  going and keep pushing. Because I know, but many days
• 1:15:47
  you'd be like, man, I don't want to do this anymore.
• 1:15:49
  Or dealing with somebody saying, sure, I'll come on the show and
• 1:15:53
  they never hit the calendar link.
• 1:15:54
  And you still waiting for him to set up an appointment or only
• 1:15:58
  one time I had one person not show and while I'm sitting here
• 1:16:02
  in the chair waiting on him 15 minutes, I see him posting on
• 1:16:05
  Facebook. Then he'd come back and tell me
• 1:16:07
  that his phone was lost in the lake and stuff like that.
• 1:16:09
  And I'm like, maybe? Name them right now.
• 1:16:16
  Let's hate them together. And I said he'll never be on the
• 1:16:21
  show I like because I take this serious and.
• 1:16:25
  Playing. With what I'm doing, like it's
• 1:16:27
  some type of joke. I don't appreciate that when
• 1:16:30
  you're dealing with my time, just say, hey, some came up.
• 1:16:33
  I don't I can't make it, I'll be fine.
• 1:16:35
  But if I don't hear from you at all and you got that calendar
• 1:16:39
  thing that pops up on your phone and then I see you posting at a
• 1:16:43
  steakhouse, maybe. It was the fish that was got his
• 1:16:47
  phone because it was in the lake.
• 1:16:48
  Maybe it was the fish posting on his Facebook.
• 1:16:50
  Exactly. It's probably posting that I'm
• 1:16:52
  at a, I'm at a steakhouse at SO and I'm like, come on.
• 1:16:57
  But it's OK. I'm like each one, if I lose
• 1:17:00
  one, I gained 3-4 more so it's OK.
• 1:17:03
  It's part of the pains of doing this, so I got to get over it
• 1:17:07
  and one day maybe I'll get them back on.
• 1:17:09
  Focus on the show and really put your time and effort.
• 1:17:12
  Don't think about money and don't think about any of that
• 1:17:15
  sponsorship bullshit like everybody's talking about,
• 1:17:18
  because a lot of the guys that say they got partnerships, they
• 1:17:20
  ain't making any fucking money. They're getting.
• 1:17:22
  There's a pallet of charcoal and pallet of charcoal.
• 1:17:27
  I can't bring that to the to, to the Guardians game and get
• 1:17:31
  concessions with charcoal briquettes.
• 1:17:33
  Yeah. So work on that.
• 1:17:35
  And then once you start having people reach out to you to start
• 1:17:38
  doing that, then, you know, then we can start having the business
• 1:17:40
  conversations, OK, Because we'll need metrics at that point and
• 1:17:44
  downloads and views and all that other bullshit.
• 1:17:46
  So we can. But again, it's Wild West.
• 1:17:48
  I went to the I went to the HPB Expo a couple of years ago when
• 1:17:53
  I was in Louisville because it was only like 5 1/2 hours from
• 1:17:55
  my house, Cleveland, and I was handing out pitch sheets to
• 1:17:58
  every manufacturer there and my lowest price was $75,000 a year.
• 1:18:04
  Wow. Now I got 0, but there's no
• 1:18:08
  reason I couldn't ask for it. I ended up putting a deal
• 1:18:10
  together with a grill manufacturer where I was getting
• 1:18:13
  $8000 a month for a year. And that was just one of the
• 1:18:17
  sponsors. Yeah.
• 1:18:18
  And that was only for the year. It wasn't ongoing.
• 1:18:21
  But so that's what I'm saying. Like, you can, you can ask for
• 1:18:24
  something. And it's really more about what
• 1:18:26
  people are paying. So, like, I don't do any
• 1:18:29
  affiliate marketing bullshit. I don't do anything that ties my
• 1:18:32
  income or earnings into people. Got to do this in order for you
• 1:18:36
  to get money. Fuck you.
• 1:18:37
  I'm going to do this on my show and you're going to pay what I
• 1:18:41
  want or we're going to agree that I will take X amount and
• 1:18:45
  you agree you will pay X amount and this is what you're going to
• 1:18:47
  get for it. None of that other stuff.
• 1:18:49
  A lot of people with codes and this and that like they they
• 1:18:52
  making no money or they're getting free stuff.
• 1:18:54
  So we get paid in my school both.
• 1:18:58
  OK, OK. Definitely appreciate that.
• 1:19:00
  But I definitely appreciate you getting more and giving up your
• 1:19:03
  Sunday time. So enjoy your day all.
• 1:19:06
  Right man. All right.
• 1:19:06
  Thank you, we just wrapped up another session of BBQ therapy.
• 1:19:11
  Remember, stay patient, stay passionate and keep that fire
• 1:19:15
  burning. Hit.
• 1:19:16
  Subscribe, share the good smoke and pay the secretary on your
• 1:19:19
  way out. Have a blessed day.