As the host of the incredibly popular podcast Bullseye (formerly the Sound of Young America), proprietor of the Maximum Fun network, and curator of the annual MaxFunCon, Jesse Thorn become an important gatekeeper to all that is good in American culture, and he's done it all while staying true to the fun of it all. Join me as we spend a little time talking to America's Radio Sweetheart, Jesse Thorn.
EB: Bullseye (formerly The Sound of Young America) is a particularly interesting podcast to me, because you have a huge audience and consistently get great guests but are different from other really popular podcasts of similar content. Your show seems to be a truly DIY project. People like Kevin Pollak, Chris Hardwick, Kevin Smith, Adam Corrolla, Scott Aukerman, Marc Maron, and Doug Benson all had established audiences, famous contacts, access to studio technology, and/or the capital to promote their shows. I've heard you discuss doing the show on college radio, but I'm interested to know what happened in between. How did you first start to make the connections necessary to get people like Thomas Lennon or Matt Berninger to do interviews from your apartment?
JT: I've never not been on the radio. When I was in college, I would tell publicists I was the producer of a public radio show in the Bay Area. Which was true, depending on how broadly you define the San Francisco Bay Area.
We really book guests the same way now we did then. I'm not really a "famous friends" type of guy. Certainly there are folks who have been on our show before who I can invite back personally, but I don't generally hang out at Hollywood parties, trying to make contacts that will help us book guests. I just go through traditional channels and try to act professionally. I think the fact that we do a good job makes a big difference, frankly.
EB: The show is probably better known for your interviews with comedians, but you've also had some huge music guests. I mentioned Matt Berninger from The National (which, by the way, isn't he the nicest Rock star on the planet?). But you've also hosted Dr. Dog, OK Go, and more recently downright legends like Mavis Staples, Nile Rodgers, and Bootsy Collins. I remembering listening to the interview you did with Steve Albini, in front of a live crowd, and thinking, 'My God. He had to look that guy in the face in public and hold a conversation.' I can speak from experience about the pressure that goes with having to humanize and hold a conversation with someone who didn't seem like a real person before. Who was the first person you interviewed that seemed like they were on that level and how did/do you get past that level of awe? How do you get past some variation of the Chris Farley character that just wants to gush over Paul McCartney? Does that feeling ever go away?
JT: I would say that Andrew WK is the nicest rock star on the planet, but that's only because he is so inhumanly nice it may literally be a symptom of mental illness. He's an amazing man. Matt Berninger is also a fantastically nice guy.
The rock and roll guys I just don't personally hold in awe - I find rock music interesting, but it doesn't touch me that way. I felt that way when I interviewed Bill Withers. I was almost a little shaky to talk with him, and he really put me through my paces. At the end, I asked for his autograph - the only time I've done that in my whole career. His music has meant so much in my life, I just wanted to do that.
Mostly, though, that feeling goes away. Because all of these people are just people. I mean, they're great, but so's my pal Jordan, who I get to talk to every week on our show. So's John Hodgman, who I work with every week. So's my wife. And they're almost all nice. If they weren't, I probably wouldn't have invited them on.
EB: Another thing I don't think people realize about interviewing celebrities is the level of preparation that goes into that conversation. Your interviews always feel very natural and conversational, almost as if it is off the cuff. How much background work do you do before an interview?
JT: A lot. I generally know a lot about the guest going in - I decide which guests we're going to book, so I'm booking people I'm already interested in. Today, for example, I interviewed David Hornsby, who's a writer-producer-actor on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (he plays Rickety Cricket) and has a great show on FX called Unsupervised. I've seen every episode of Always Sunny. Then I spend a day or two reading about the guests, and reading about the subject matter, plus the time I spend consuming their project - reading the book, watching the movie, that kind of thing. Usually that gets distilled in my head down to a few things I want to talk about with them, rather than copious notes or something, but it's all up in my noggin, ready for access if need be.
EB: On the comedic side of interviewing, I've always thought it would even more frightening to talk to some of the people you have on the show because they aren't just people you respect, but you respect them for poking fun at things. I'm sure everyone is mostly down to Earth in conversation, but guys like David Cross and Patton Oswalt actually do bits about hating radio interviews. Is there any extra pressure for you when you've got somebody like that coming in for the show?
DK: I've never interviewed David Cross - he was on our show once a long time ago, but I was out of town - but Patton's been very, very kind about coming on the show many times. Generally I'm confident about interviewing people, because I've done it hundreds of times now, and I can count the number of times it went poorly on one hand. And most of those weren't my fault. Sometimes it goes better than others, but the thing that bothers people is going on shows where the hosts are doing a thousand things at once, hosting a three-hour show where the interview is 10 minutes, they've just got a couple questions shoved in front of them, that kind of thing. That's just destined to fail. I'm lucky in that I'm interviewing people I care about, I have room to stretch out, and I can engage them like a human being.
EB: So, not only is MaxFun a completely independent project, but it is the first, to my knowledge, to launch a podcast network. Tell a little about how this one show became a whole project, complete with a full-blown convention.
DK: I think that Adam Curry and Leo Laporte had networks first, so I can't claim that distinction. It may be true in comedy world, though.
I really just thought that I didn't want to depend on advertisers, because I'd rather appeal to listeners than ad buyers. That meant I'd run something donation-based. Then I thought I'd want to do everything in my power to connect with listeners on a powerful enough level to make them want to voluntarily donate to support me. I thought a community of shows and people would do that better than just one show. I started with The Sound of Young America, then the other pieces just sort of fell into place - first Kasper Hauser and Coyle & Sharpe, then Jordan Jesse Go. Then Stop Podcasting Yourself and My Brother, My Brother & Me, which both sort of came to my attention from fans of our other shows. Then Judge John Hodgman through my relationship with Hodgman. We've tried to be modest and deliberate in our growth. I'm not out to conquer the world, just to have a distinctive little corner of it.
MaxFunCon was really just way to bring that community into the real world. It's a sort of weekend where people come and there's big comedy shows and creativity classes - writing and improv and that kind of thing - and talks and interviews. And drinking. And smart, warm people.
EB: On the MaxFun network, you release the Judge John Hodgman show. Hodgman, the smarmy New Yorker writer, novelist, Daily Show correspondent, Apple shill, and mustache enthusiast, seemed like a huge get when it was first announced. How did that relationship start and what is it like working with John?
JT: Knowing John has been one of the great blessings of my life. He's been a wonderful friend, colleague and (often) mentor to me for a number of years now.
He was first on The Sound of Young America when I was just out of college, doing the show from my apartment in San Francisco. His first book was out, but he wasn't on the Daily Show yet. He was so funny on the show, I was just blown away. I think he was surprised and impressed that I was such an able straight man to his schtick, too. My wife and I went to his reading at the Booksmith on Haight Street in San Francisco, and the whole audience was us, Dave Eggers, Dave Eggers' baby, John's literary escort, and the people who worked there. We met John and Jonathan Coulton, and then a few days later, John got booked on the Daily Show, and within a couple weeks, he was cast there and then cast in the Mac vs. PC commercials and was famous. I take full credit for all of these things - none of them had anything to do with John's talent or the 15 years of hard work he'd put in at that point.
It was actually John who first recommended The Sound to WNYC in New York, and introduced me to one of my best friends and most loyal champions in public radio, Chris Bannon, who's program director there. Chris put a short series of the best of our show on WNYC, and that was really my big break.
Hodgman did a lot of stuff together, like MaxFunCon, of which he's been an integral part, and then one day he realized his podcast, which was just stuff from his audiobook, was going to run out of content. He'd been doing this segment on Jordan Jesse Go called Judge John Hodgman, and he emailed me and asked if I thought it would make a good weekly show. I put the pieces together, bought him a microphone, hired a producer, worked out a format, and that was that.
EB: I don't know if people understand how much of a watershed podcasting is in the business of media. It really has become a completely new way of doing things. In one way, it is much more simple. You put out a good product, and people listen. But, when it comes to monetizing things, it really seems like an undiscovered country. Some podcasters rely on listener contributions, some rely on traditional business sponsors, some sell collections of old shows on iTunes or sell tickets to live recordings. You've chosen to work from listener support. How has that worked in terms of developing the show as an independent business?
JT: For me, the choice came down to wanting to make my show for the audience, and not for advertisers. We have sponsors on our show (largely drawn from our audience), but I don't want to feel like my goal is to build a good platform for selling people crap. I want to make something that people value. That's why I've built my network the way I have.
EB: You recently changed the name of the show from the Sound of Young America to Bullseye, along with a more inclusive variety format. I've heard some podcasters before talk about the danger of changing even the name of the show because it can confuse listeners, and worse yet lose iTunes subscribers who automatically download the show. Now, you and your wife both work on this show. You've just had a baby. How and why did you make that decision now? The transition on iTunes was more seamless than I have seen with other shows that changed their name. What kind of processes did you have to go through with Apple?
JT: We don't lose any iTunes subscribers who automatically download the show, so we don't have to worry about that. Our feed is the same, and that's what they're subscribed to. I don't want to get too technical, but changing the name of a show is pretty trivial, while changing the feed address isn't.
We really changed the name of the show because it's been a problematic name for years. We really needed a name that welcomed new listeners, and The Sound of Young America was pretty confusing. The reality is that while we're well-known to our fans, we're not to the outside world, so we didn't really lose much in changing the name now. It was something we had to do, and I love the new name and format. It's brought new energy to the show, and I think it gave us a chance to re-evaluate a lot of choices we'd made over the years, and take a second to see the forest instead of the trees. The show's a lot stronger now than it was just a few weeks ago, in my opinion.
EB: In order to promote the new show, you have put a free torrent on the website of every episode of The Sound of Young America that has ever aired. Not only was this the first time I had heard anyone in new media say the word torrent out loud, you actually tell listeners they can get it from their 'favorite torrent provider'. Piracy is a hotly debated topic in entertainment. What are your feelings on the subject? Have you experienced any blowback from prospective guests for offering the torrent? It's your content, but people can get pretty personal about the issue.
JT: Guests come on the show because they want to reach people, so they have no problem with this. All of this content was available for free anyway, this is really just a convenient way for some people to get it in one fell swoop.
I certainly understand why piracy is hotly debated, because I work 60-hour weeks on the kind of products that people steal on the internet. My friends work on movies and TV shows and record albums that are sold and aired with commercials. I also think that people having free access to information and entertainment has immense value for society.
At MaximumFun.org, our solution has been to give everything we make away for free, and ask people who enjoy it to support it. A lot of people do that, and while it took nearly ten years, that now pays my bills. My hope is that people will appreciate the convenience of getting the show this way and give, or that they'll discover the show this way and end up giving.
EB: Alright, enough of the heavy stuff. Let's do some quickfire trivia.
- Who was you favorite guest yet and why?
Andrew WK. Inspired my youngest brother to become a rock star. He's now 16 and well on his way.
- Who is your dream guest for the show?
I've got lots, but I'll say Randy Newman.
- Which is more difficult to get to; MaxFunCon or Brigadoon?
Practice. (Did I do that right?)
- Better 90's comedy show; The State or Mr. Show?
Mr. Show's better, but the State is more amazing, because they were all like 21 and 22 years old.
- Favorite show written by Graham Linehan?
Brass Eye
Alright, that was pretty much the extent of it. I would like to thank Jesse for so graciously donating his time to talk with us. You can catch Bullseye and all of the great Maximum Fun shows at their website. Also, make sure and check in on the schedule for the next MaxFunCon. It's what all the cool kids are doing.
Follow me on Twitter @ChrisBell81 and keep the conversation going on our Facebook page.
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