THE SYNCREATE PODCAST: EMPOWERING CREATIVITY
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY, AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY, AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
EPISODE 111: stories from the podcast studio
WITH record atx co-founder grant davis
LISTEN TO THE FULL AUDIO EPISODE HERE:
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO VERSION HERE:
Grant Davis is the co-owner of Record ATX, a creative audio and video production studio in Austin, Texas, where we record The Syncreate Podcast.He’s also the longtime co-host of The Beerists Podcast, an award winning craft beer review show and host of Hello Crawlers, a book club podcast dedicated to the Dungeon Crawler Carl book series. Our conversation traces Grant’s journey from baby podcaster to studio co-owner, sharing stories and insights from both the creative and production sides of the podcasting process.
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, if you’re thinking of starting a podcast (or any creative endeavor for that matter), remember that quality matters, perfection is the enemy of creativity, and just put it out there!
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process in a variety of contexts,
you might also like our conversations in
Episode 1: Audio Storytelling with Podcaster and Environmentalist Michael Osborne, PhD
Episode 52: Texas Poet Laureate Amanda Johnston
Episode 109: Light and Shadow: The Art of Journaling with Keila Shaheen
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes.
Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate.
If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!
We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at [email protected].
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, if you’re thinking of starting a podcast (or any creative endeavor for that matter), remember that quality matters, perfection is the enemy of creativity, and just put it out there!
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process in a variety of contexts,
you might also like our conversations in
Episode 1: Audio Storytelling with Podcaster and Environmentalist Michael Osborne, PhD
Episode 52: Texas Poet Laureate Amanda Johnston
Episode 109: Light and Shadow: The Art of Journaling with Keila Shaheen
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes.
Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate.
If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!
We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at [email protected].
EPISODE-SPECIFIC HYPERLINKS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Melinda: Creativity and community are absolutely vital in challenging times. Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. We talk with visionaries and changemakers, and everyday creatives working in a wide range of fields and media - from the arts to science, technology and business.
We aim to illuminate the creative process, from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life. At Syncreate, we’re here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you're not quite sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, coaching, workshops and retreats to help you bring your work to the world.
So, hey everyone! Welcome back to the Syncreate Podcast and I am here in the studio today with Grant Davis, who is the co-founder/co-owner of Record ATX, which is where we are today, and where I've been recording the podcast for a couple of years now.
Grant: A couple years now. Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Which has been wonderful because y'all handle all the technical stuff and I just get to come in and do my thing. And, you're also very much behind the scenes of the show because you do most of the editing for the show and -
Grant: Yeah.
Melinda: And cut clips for me and stuff like that. So, it's been great. It's gotten to the point where I don't even have to tell you anything anymore. (Laughter) You just, like, it’s perfect. You got it down.
Grant: Well, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Melinda: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you yourself are also a podcaster. You have a couple shows, and you have the video editing stuff. So, maybe tell us about your shows a little bit.
Grant: Sure. So I got into podcasting in 2007.
Melinda: Okay.
Grant: Like, the early days of podcasting when it was really done in people's garages or living rooms. I first got into it with a group of friends. I did a movie review site that which was a pretty big review site back in the day. They not only reviewed movies, but they did it while animating their characters. So, they would do this whole like, cartoon animation. It was called SpellCon. Okay.
And, these guys in Austin… Austin was already known for being a pretty big movie… and so, criticism community with like, Ain’t It Cool News and a few other places here in town, these guys grew pretty large. They had several… I would say like 100,000 followers.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: They would put on these like, yearly events, and have people like, fly in, for their whole SpellCon that they’d do. And as their community continued to grow, they opened up and started doing additional podcasts. And one of them, my coworker, at the time was doing a show called LEOG, which is the League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen. (Laughter)A play off of Alan Moore's comic book series. And they just talked about all sorts of geeky stuff. They talked about movies and comics and film.
And I came on just to check out initially what they were doing, and just kind of got brought in and really enjoyed getting to chat about all this geeky stuff. And as a result, we saw things grow with them and we started taking on and doing our own creative projects. I spun off from there and started doing my own podcast network. Where I made a new site where, like, other people, all their shows, I was like, moderating a bunch of other people's podcast shows, their video and audio shows, helping oversee that.
And I started doing a beer show, (laughter) as well as… yeah, talking about TV for a long time. TV in general. I did one on Star Trek. I did some on video games just across the gamut. Geeky.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: Discussion. Yeah. Yeah. All of that like, that kind of started picking up around 2012 or so, and I just kept doing this as a hobby, not making any money or anything off of it. Up until around early 2017 when I met my business partner. We kind of knew each other from similar circles, talking about geeky or like, TV podcast stuff. And I went to him and said, “Hey, I would like to do a… I have an idea for a business.” And my initial business idea to him was I wanted to do a podcast convention here.
Melinda: Okay.
Grant: We both would attend this festival called ATX TV Fest. And I just really liked the structure of how they managed everything. I was like, we could do the same thing for podcasts. And we know the people that already orchestrate all that. We could start working with them and maybe pivot that into us doing a podcast version of that same kind of festival here in town.
Melinda: Nice.
Grant: I think that Mike, my business partner, had a little bit more of a grounded concept. (Laughter) He's like, “Well, how about we start with a studio where we can record our shows from, and we're not recording in our garage or our basement or whatever.” (Laughter) And if we start small there, he knew a place where we could get really cheap rent here in Austin, and we could just kind of see how things grow from there. And that's kind of how I tripped and fell into having a podcast studio.
Melinda: Yeah. And you were initially like, on South Congress area?
Grant: Right. Which is, it's a pretty hot area.
Melinda: It is. Yeah.
Grant: What we lucked into was, he was a member of the church down there. I don't know if you remember that big A-frame church down there on South Congress.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: They had a building in the annex that had space so we could lease that out for a few nickels. And it was great to have that as a setup space, in fact, larger than our current. So, yeah, really the amount of space we had a
Melinda: Oh, really?
Grant: The problem was, here in Texas, if you can't control the AC, it's awful.
Melinda: Oh, yeah. Especially in the summer time. (Laughter)
Grant: Yeah. It's like, we can't really have, like… continue to grow, when it's really hot and people are sweating while trying to record.
Melinda: Definitely. So when did you move up to this space?
Grant: We actually moved here near the tail end of the pandemic. We had to make a bit of a pivot during the pandemic to doing a lot of consulting for people recording from home. But people did still come into the studio and we were like, trying to work with everyone's boundaries and like, have people recording in different spaces, and all that. And then, we just saw the opportunity that we should try and move up to closer to where both of us live anyway. Driving through Austin downtown… traffic is hell.
Melinda: Definitely. (Laughter)
Grant: But on top of that… yeah, being able to come up here to a tinier space that we could at least regulate everything was fantastic. It worked out. We were afraid that business wouldn't follow us to the new location. We weren't sure if our clients would continue with us, but they did. And other people joined on too. And we got enough people that we felt secure even moving to our third location here. Which is, now we're operating five different studio rooms in here.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. And they all have kind of your… their unique character. And like, anytime I bring anyone in here, they're like, “Wow. This is awesome.”
Grant: Yeah, I think it's the unassuming complex right there. You think it's like, kind of almost like a warehouse kind of area. And then. You walk in here, it’s like, “Oh, I didn't expect that.”
Melinda: Yeah. So, how do you know, like, offhand, how many shows you're kind of producing here at the moment?
Grant: I mean, we have such a range. We have steady, clients who come in, like yourself, who will record their show consistently and release weekly. Some people come in and we'll see them and they'll do a big batch run.
Melinda: Oh, yeah.
Grant: So they'll record eight, ten episodes and then we won't see them for a few months. And then they'll come back. And then there's always the one-offs. People that are either testing out if they want to do a project like a podcast, video show, clips, whatever. Or people from out of town. It’s hard to gauge how many. I would say we have anywhere from 20 to 40 shows that are pretty regular.
Melinda: Like, consistent. Yeah.
Grant: Yeah. I'd put on my Rolodex.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And we also recorded our Syncreate audio book here. So, that's a service that you offer as well.
Grant: Yeah. It's one of those things where we we recognize like, “Oh, we have all the equipment to do it.” And then spend a little bit of time just researching what all needs to go into making sure that we've crafted that and we've catered to what all the needs are of anyone recording an audiobook. And once we were able to confidently check that off, we started offering that to a few people. And then, yeah… and now we do audiobook services as well.
Melinda: Yeah. Which is super cool. And how many of the shows you do here are like, audio only, versus audio and video? Is it mostly video shows?
Grant: It is mostly video., we started off with audio only in our first location down south, and it was, that was what we knew. So we were comfortable doing audio only. Getting cameras, understanding… you know, they can be complex.
Melinda: Sure.
Grant: And running all of that, knowing how to turn around all of the files to people and deliver that. Those all came with a little bit of research and figuring out, like, “Is this viable and will people want it?” Turns out, people pretty much primarily want it.
Melinda: Yes.
Grant: Which is funny to me because I think that a lot of people who listen to podcasts, they will still go to YouTube and then just not even watch.
Melinda: Right.
Grant: They'll listen right on YouTube. Or Spotify now has a video option, but you just still are only like listening while you're driving or whatever.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Grant: I guess the visual element, people like that they can also use it for marketing for clips and everything else. So it makes sense to have both.
Melinda: Yeah. And I mean, it seems to be a growing trend in podcasting to have a video component.
Grant: It's rare that we have people that do audio only. I would say we only have a handful that consistently record only audio here.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm curious about your perspective kind of behind the scenes as a video editor (audio and video editor). Like, I don't know, in your experience, also as a, you know, as a podcaster yourself… like, what makes a good show or like, what makes engaging content and dialogue?
Grant: I mean, it’s tricky. It's initially figuring out your audience. Sometimes you can know your audience before you start a show, but sometimes along the way you have to figure out who your audience actually is. Once you’ve already started making a project. And that can vary. And then once you, if you like your audience (laughter), if you want to continue going in that direction of the people that are engaging with you, figuring out how to best serve them, I think with your content. I think a lot of people come into these shows not really sure what it is they want to do with their show.
Yeah. And I guess maybe lacking a confidence. And it makes them kind of give up a little too early before they've kind of gotten their feet under them and they've figured out like, the direction of what they want to do with their show. There’s a lot of like, with new podcast launches, we recommend frequently to people that they do consider trying to record a batch of episodes before they start releasing, because that gives them a framework.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: If you've done 4 to 6 episodes, you know, you start getting a good feel for what's working for you and what isn't. And then you can just kind of roll from there.
Melinda: Yeah. Like kind of doing a pilot. Yeah. I did that with my show. That was before I connected with y'all. But so, speaking of the marketing piece, like, I feel like for all artists and creatives across the board, that's often like, the hardest piece, right? We can like, create the content and put it out there and everything. But then how do we market it? How do we find our audience? How do we get the word out?
Grant: That is… it’s funny because I would say that's an element of our business that we don't actually do as much anymore, because I know it's such a targeted hurdle. I feel like it requires a lot of time and dedication. That's a whole other field -
Melinda: I know. (Laughter)
Grant: - marketing. The advice I always give to our clients, regardless of what their content is, is find your community. Find it online, find it locally. If you're doing a show just for your local community, know how to target people within the area that are going to listen. And then, deputize certain people to spread the word on your behalf of your show. Make something that is valuable to them and that they want to pass along to others. Which is… what happened is there was a big glut. Like, everyone was making content.
So it's, because it used to be like, “Oh, to maximize your audience, you go broad.” You make, something as big and as wide-appealing as it can be. Just kind of like, following the TV model. And then it was like, “Oh no, there's all these like, TV… there's all these channels.” You’ve got to niche down and have something that is very targeted to your little audience because those are the people that are going to be passionate about it, find other people.
Melinda: Yes, and listen across multiple episodes, and yeah.
Grant: And they're going to get something out of it that they are excited to spread to other people.
Melinda: Yeah. Definitely. It's tricky. But I guess… you know, we talk a lot on the podcast about, you know, the importance of community. And so, it comes back to that.
Grant: I mean, for a lot of people, I find that sites like Reddit are fantastic. Reddit can be a range of things.
Melinda: Yeah. Definitely. (Laughter)
Grant: But that is a product of having every possible type of channel and community all collected there. But there are wonderful communities also there where there's people not engaged in trollish behavior or the drama that can also be associated with Reddit. You know, I do an audiobook podcast and there is a fervent book community dedicated to that book.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: That has been a great resource for spreading what we're doing. I mean, I think the general rule of thumb is you don't try to market yourself too much there, but an initial post of awareness can go a long way.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: For those people. And, yeah. And then you can start getting feedback. And you know what it is that they want you to deliver message-wise, and what works for them.
Melinda: So, in your experience with your shows - the book podcast or beer podcast - like, how how have you adapted your show in response to what listeners want?
Grant: Sure. So the book podcast I started off… the book series is called Dungeon Crawler Carl. It is a wacky premise. It's a guy who steps outside to rescue his pet cat out of a tree in the middle of the night, and the whole world gets destroyed by aliens. Then these dungeons open all over the planet, and you can go into the dungeon to compete in an intergalactic game show.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: If you want.
Melinda: Sounds little Douglas Adams-ish to me. (Laughter)
Grant: It is. It is the next big thing. I'm pretty sure it is the next… it’s the next Game of Thrones. It's the next Stranger Things. It's been optioned already for TV by Seth Macfarlane.
Melinda: Okay.
Grant: It's the… I think it's one of the books of the year on New York Times.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: So there's seven books out, and the eighth one's coming out pretty soon. And yeah, the community is just growing and growing.
Melinda: Amazing.
Grant: When I started the show, it was me and a couple buddies of mine that we've been podcasting since I first started podcasting back in ‘07, and we started this just kind of keeping it to like, 30 minute episodes, and we would just kind of lightly gloss over what's happening in a certain set of chapters and use that as a pivot point to just have a little bit of discussion on it. And I realized that people were just really hungry for much deeper dives than I was initially doing.
Melinda: Interesting.
Grant: And people were catching stuff that we weren't talking about and like, asking us to really, like, invest more. And once I saw that, I was like, “Okay, we can we can do that.” I can, yeah, make the pivot and really dive in on these books. Now, like, each week I make like, much more detailed notes. I source information and comments from the community so they know that we’re/I'm listening to that and I'm interacting with them and engaging with them.
And I try to incorporate them into the show. In fact, I have a segment where, people who the… you know the platform Patreon where people can donate to help promote your show? Yeah. The people that have donated to a certain tier, I kill them off in a whimsical way, which is basically me writing fanfic each week that's incorporated into the end of our show.
Melinda: Oh, wow.
Grant: And people really enjoyed that.
Melinda: That's awesome. I mean, that's such a great example of a super niche… like, people who are interested in this particular book series and like, want to go really deep with it. And that's kind of awesome.
Grant: Like that… also, I feel like it's capturing something in the moment too, because as soon as we released our first episode, the audiobook narrator caught notice of our show and said, “Wow, this looks really well produced.” I kind of get it.
Melinda: Wow. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. (Laughter)
Grant: I have a studio. And so he shared it, and then he reached out to us and asked if we'd be interested in interviewing him, which we were like, “Yeah, definitely. Wow.” That pivoted to him reaching out to the author of the books and asking… putting us in contact so we could interview the author.
Melinda: Wow. Nice.
Grant: And then this is… it feels like I'm sometimes tripping uphill… the author of the book, we reached out to him because he's releasing a new book, and he's doing a press tour for it. He's gonna be here in Austin. So I said, “Hey. Can we get tickets to attend that? And then he's like, “How about I'll do you one better? How about you moderate it?”
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: So, now we're moderating his panel here in a couple of weeks at Trinity Church.
Melinda: Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Grant: South Congress or Congress, I guess.
Melinda: Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. So cool. I mean, that's a testament to just following your passion and your interests, right?
Grant: It's been pretty fun. I feel like I started this studio alongside my partner with this intent that we would have this opportunity to make the things that we enjoy. And then I kind of just got more focused on the business side of it for years. What we're.. I think we're like, seven years in and I finally decided, “Okay. Now I'm going to do like, my own creative thing again.” Yeah. It’s been pretty rewarding. Because now I know how to do it from the side of, you know, making these kind of shows all the time for my clients.
Melinda: Yeah. That's amazing. Super cool. So in terms of like, making, you know, producing shows for clients, like, are you noticing any particular trends emerging at the moment in podcasting? I mean, we kind of touched on like, there's kind of an oversaturation of podcasts.
Grant: Right. I notice a lot more that businesses are getting into it as well. Businesses are marketing themselves frequently, and they're using podcasts as a shorthand business meeting in a way. It’s actually pretty fascinating to see businesses do this, because what they'll do is they'll invite someone that they want to have a business meeting in to be on their podcast.
Melinda: Interesting.
Grant: I don't know if they're as focused on getting big numbers (like, a lot of people viewing and watching their show), so much as like, this is a business meeting, but under the pretense of it being within a podcast. I think you can have a two hour session where you're talking with someone, you really get to know them, and that allows that person to feel seen, feel listened to in the podcast, in a business environment. And it's kind of replaced going to the golf course in a way, I think for a lot of people. (Laughter) So, I see that a lot. And then, I noticed that a lot of people have been recognizing the value of batch clip making.
So people don't even necessarily come in to do a podcast. They'll just come in with a whole bunch of scripted podcasts. A lot of times people are doing this with AI, helping them out to generate a bunch of ideas, but they'll just sit down and they'll just record, 30 clips in an hour using like, a teleprompter and just talking right to the screen and just knock them out and they'll have a bunch of marketing material for themselves that promotes whatever else they're kind of doing.
Melinda: Yeah. It’s a great idea. And again, it makes it so easy to just come in, everything set up and you go.
Grant: Yeah. That was the other big intent. Like, Mike and I both recognize all the things we used to do just to set up and then to have to be in the room recording and then kind of agonizing over, “Oh, is that still recording? Are we still good? Is this mic on?” And losing stuff. I know we had a lot of failures along the way too, but we're like, “Well, no one else wants to deal with all the tech stuff.” In fact, I don't… (Laughter) within the business relationship, Mike, my partner, he's the tech guy much more so… I handle, like, the business and financials and stuff, and he handles a lot of that, more so.
Melinda: Good to have a balance in a business partnership.
Grant: It is. It’s necessary. But it's also like, once we recognize, like, we can provide something that like, other people will find valuable because they don't want to have to deal with that. And they just want to feel secure that like, they're going to make their content, it's going to look good and it's in trusted hands, people that care about it. That's just worked out well for us.
Melinda: Yeah, definitely. Okay. I have a question about social media.
Grant: Okay.
Melinda: Which I think is always like, a hot topic. Right? So my initial producer who I still consult with for this show, Mike Osborne, he has some kind of take on podcasting… is that he kind of sees it as long-form social media, which kind of I think ties in a little bit to the business kind of case use that you were just talking about.
Grant: Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. And then so, I'm curious your thoughts on that as well as just the relationship between podcasting and social media. So we've been talking about, you know, a lot of people come into your show, pull clips. I do that and post them on social media. You know, what's your sense of that relationship? And, you know, people have a lot of ambivalence about social media these days. Whether it's like, a necessary evil in some sense for podcasting.
Grant: Right? I mean, when I think of social media, I think of there being this fake-ness. I think up front, that's one of the first things. Social media is how you curate, how you present yourself to the world.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: And you know, this is why people get lost in the flicking through different reels and clips, and it sucks you in. There's an algorithm that's that targets you. It's reacting with your brain, and it’s highlighting a fake reality for people. The idea that podcasts… I agree in part, I guess… there is a fakeness and a performative aspect to the conversation, because it's not like you and I are having a conversation without awareness that there’s cameras on us.
Melinda: Right? Of course.
Grant: I see a microphone here. Like, I know that there's a way in which I'm talking probably a little bit more animatedly than I might normally, or whatever. So there is a facade, I guess. I came up in podcasts with the exposure to a type of indie garage podcast that we're supposed to be, you know, niche communities, fans and geeks just being able to connect with other people and talk about the things that they really enjoy.
Melinda: Totally.
Grant: And I think, you know, that's in part what I try to do with, like, both this beer show where I'm just like talking about beer with my friends and, we review the beers… but it's also about, like, just, camaraderie. And it's a friendship. We've been doing that for 13 years.
Melinda: Amazing.
Grant: My poor liver. (Laughter)
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: But yeah. And then I tried to reflect that onto the book podcast I'm doing too, where I'm like, I just want to talk about something that is fun. It's something that I'm passionate about. But I do recognize that there are people that are leveraging this for business, that there are people that are, you know, using this for a whole bunch of different avenues and it… but I don't know, like, passion can be faked, I guess, to an extent. But I think a lot of viewing audience can see, like if this is something you do genuinely care about, it's a lot of time and investment into it.
Melinda: And often for not so much return.
Grant: Yeah. And I think there can be cynicism toward it. And in general. But I still kind of want to believe that this is an equal access opportunity for people to reach others in their community. And there's something beautiful in that.
Melinda: Yeah. I mean, there's something about the conversational quality about it. And, I mean, I think that there's something that makes podcasting unique in that it's just people having a conversation in some way, whether it's in a garage or living room or studio. But, you know, I've had guests come in who are a little nervous about being in front of the camera and so forth. And they, you know, by the end of it they're like, “Oh, that was really great. Just felt like we were having a chat.” Which is what I want.
Grant: That's the goal, right?
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Grant: Where we constantly have people come sit down and like, “Do I… where do I look at the camera? Do I look at this..?” I'm like, “As best you can, ignore the cameras. This will fade away over time as you just get into actually having a conversation.”
Melinda: Exactly.
Grant: Like, one of the things we notice when we have people record audiobooks with us is they'll be kind of stiff in that first chapter. And sometimes we have people who aren't used to reading like that, are just kind of loosening up and getting into the flow of reading their own books, that will rerecord that first one.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: Because that first take isn't great. I remember hearing this with like, screenwriting for TV, that people will write their first episode and then that second episode, and get rid of the first episode before your second episode. Now your first episode becomes the first.
Melinda: Becomes the first episode, yeah.
Grant: Because what you've done is a lot of unnecessary preamble or awkward, like, kind of working out of the pieces of what you want to start doing.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: And that second episode is where you've hit the floor running. So do you necessarily need that first one? I thought that's like, fascinating because I sometimes see that in podcasts too. Like, yeah, you're working out in that first episode, what feels right here.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I know when we recorded our audiobook, it was a long day. Number one, we did ours all in one day. It was like 7 or 8 hours or something.
Grant: And that's a lot. It's a lot to read.
Melinda: Fortunately, Charlotte and I, with our book, since we co-wrote it, we switched off.
Grant: And you have a break.
Melinda: Yeah. And we had a lunch break in between. And then in between… yeah, each chapter or whatever. So that worked out really well. But I can imagine if it's just one person.
Grant: I don't frequently see like, people do such like, marathon recording. I've had one client who came in and he recorded eight hours straight of interviews. He was just one episode after another, and they're hour long interviews. I never saw his energy dip. And I have seem him do it actually multiple times. This is a client that's actually, like, flown us out to some conventions. He'll do something like that - film him on location where he can meet up with a lot of people in the same business. That type of energy, I don't usually see.
Melinda: Yeah. That’s pretty rare.
Grant: Especially with audiobooks like, you just find that your energy just kind of starts tapering because we naturally just get a little bit tired.
Melinda: Yeah. Definitely.
Grant: There's that whole other thing of, like, you know, no one likes the sound of their voice initially.
Melinda: Right?
Grant: When they're hearing it on audio or podcast. But I think just like, I'm like, “No, no. It’s fine. It's weird to you, but it's fine to everyone else.” But over time, reading a book. Ooh. (Laughter) So going, I don't know, “I want a break.”
Melinda: You can get in energetic dips and yeah, just start to stumble over your words.
Grant: Yeah. And then you're doing a disservice to yourself if you don't have the energy for it. Just take a break.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So, well, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I think we're sort of coming toward… I’m sure there’s much more we could talk about, but I'm curious, you know, as you know, I like to end each episode with what I call a Creativity Pro Tip.
Grant: Pro Tip! I do know.
Melinda: Yeah. So, I'm curious, maybe for people who are just starting out… maybe they're thinking about doing a show or they want to do a show and they're developing their concept or whatever, like some best practice. This can be an extended Pro Tip, but like, some best practices for like, what have you seen works well versus not well? Like, what are some pitfalls to avoid and some strategies to take.
Grant: So there's a lot.
Melinda: I know. We can have another 20 minute conversation.
Grant: I’ll try not be too long winded. Let's see. So, when thinking about your product, you are in competition with a lot of other people. You might even find other people doing a very similar idea to the show that you want to do. Quality matters. You have people that are listening to you. You know, invest in equipment that's going to make it look good.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: Make it sound good. That, I think is very important. If you don't feel confident in it, find someone who can help. That's kind of the whole business model that we have. Like, other people shouldn't… like, creative people should have the luxury of being creative without being bogged down by the tech side of things. And I think that's extremely valuable. And then, I think this is maybe not fully just in the realm of that, but one of the most important things I find is that, perfection is killer of creativity.
Melinda: Joy. Yeah. Yeah. (Laughter)
Grant: And I just operate off of don't… it doesn't need to be great right away. Figure it out as you go along. Just try to pull the trigger quicker on whatever project’s kicking around in there. Like, a lot of the great books people write, they write a first draft, and then they go and edit and edit, and edit.
Melinda: Absolutely.
Grant: So like, the writers are able to write like, so many pages a day. That is they're pushing themselves even if it's garbage. Write it down. Go back and fix it later.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: And you get better and better as you do that. And I think like with, a podcast or whatever project you're doing, pull the trigger faster. Just try and make something and don't be worried about it not being great. It doesn't have to be great initially.
Melinda: Yeah. No, I think that's so important because I think a lot of times people will have an idea and they'll just be like, holding on to it so tightly.
Grant: It’s so precious.
Melinda: And thinking through it, like, so much. And maybe even talking themselves out of even putting it out there at all, you know. And we talk about, again in Syncreate, like iteration. Like, you know, we're always tweaking, we're always shifting. We're always adapting. And that's it.
Grant: I think that when people become too precious about a single idea, they think that they won't have another one right after that. But when they let go of it, that makes room for all the other ones to come in, and it always builds off of the other one. You're constantly learning and your next idea, it might be even better. So yeah, put it out there.
Melinda: That's such an important point. It's like a faucet. You know, maybe it's built up with sediment, but the more you run it, you know, the cleaner the water comes out.
Grant: It's not a pie, it's a faucet. I like that.
Melinda: Yeah. (Laughter) We're, you know, mixing metaphors, but yeah. Like, yeah, I think there is that fear like, “Oh, you can only have a certain number of creative ideas or something.” But my experience too is, you know, the more you do, the more you kind of prime the pump. And, it's infinite. That's not a scarce resource.
Grant: Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Cool. Well, awesome. Thank you so much, Grant.
Grant: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Melinda: It’s been really fun. And, you know, I usually at the end invite people, like, if they want to know more about you, your shows, the studio, what’s the best ways for them to find you?
Grant: Oh, sure. If you want to check out our studio, it's recordatx.com, and my new book podcast that I'm doing is hellocrawlers.com. You can check it out there.
Melinda: Awesome. Cool. Thanks so much, Grant.
Grant: Thank you.
Melinda: Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate. If you enjoy this show, please subscribe and leave us a review. We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Grant joining us right here, live in person. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.
We aim to illuminate the creative process, from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life. At Syncreate, we’re here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you're not quite sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, coaching, workshops and retreats to help you bring your work to the world.
So, hey everyone! Welcome back to the Syncreate Podcast and I am here in the studio today with Grant Davis, who is the co-founder/co-owner of Record ATX, which is where we are today, and where I've been recording the podcast for a couple of years now.
Grant: A couple years now. Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Which has been wonderful because y'all handle all the technical stuff and I just get to come in and do my thing. And, you're also very much behind the scenes of the show because you do most of the editing for the show and -
Grant: Yeah.
Melinda: And cut clips for me and stuff like that. So, it's been great. It's gotten to the point where I don't even have to tell you anything anymore. (Laughter) You just, like, it’s perfect. You got it down.
Grant: Well, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Melinda: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you yourself are also a podcaster. You have a couple shows, and you have the video editing stuff. So, maybe tell us about your shows a little bit.
Grant: Sure. So I got into podcasting in 2007.
Melinda: Okay.
Grant: Like, the early days of podcasting when it was really done in people's garages or living rooms. I first got into it with a group of friends. I did a movie review site that which was a pretty big review site back in the day. They not only reviewed movies, but they did it while animating their characters. So, they would do this whole like, cartoon animation. It was called SpellCon. Okay.
And, these guys in Austin… Austin was already known for being a pretty big movie… and so, criticism community with like, Ain’t It Cool News and a few other places here in town, these guys grew pretty large. They had several… I would say like 100,000 followers.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: They would put on these like, yearly events, and have people like, fly in, for their whole SpellCon that they’d do. And as their community continued to grow, they opened up and started doing additional podcasts. And one of them, my coworker, at the time was doing a show called LEOG, which is the League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen. (Laughter)A play off of Alan Moore's comic book series. And they just talked about all sorts of geeky stuff. They talked about movies and comics and film.
And I came on just to check out initially what they were doing, and just kind of got brought in and really enjoyed getting to chat about all this geeky stuff. And as a result, we saw things grow with them and we started taking on and doing our own creative projects. I spun off from there and started doing my own podcast network. Where I made a new site where, like, other people, all their shows, I was like, moderating a bunch of other people's podcast shows, their video and audio shows, helping oversee that.
And I started doing a beer show, (laughter) as well as… yeah, talking about TV for a long time. TV in general. I did one on Star Trek. I did some on video games just across the gamut. Geeky.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: Discussion. Yeah. Yeah. All of that like, that kind of started picking up around 2012 or so, and I just kept doing this as a hobby, not making any money or anything off of it. Up until around early 2017 when I met my business partner. We kind of knew each other from similar circles, talking about geeky or like, TV podcast stuff. And I went to him and said, “Hey, I would like to do a… I have an idea for a business.” And my initial business idea to him was I wanted to do a podcast convention here.
Melinda: Okay.
Grant: We both would attend this festival called ATX TV Fest. And I just really liked the structure of how they managed everything. I was like, we could do the same thing for podcasts. And we know the people that already orchestrate all that. We could start working with them and maybe pivot that into us doing a podcast version of that same kind of festival here in town.
Melinda: Nice.
Grant: I think that Mike, my business partner, had a little bit more of a grounded concept. (Laughter) He's like, “Well, how about we start with a studio where we can record our shows from, and we're not recording in our garage or our basement or whatever.” (Laughter) And if we start small there, he knew a place where we could get really cheap rent here in Austin, and we could just kind of see how things grow from there. And that's kind of how I tripped and fell into having a podcast studio.
Melinda: Yeah. And you were initially like, on South Congress area?
Grant: Right. Which is, it's a pretty hot area.
Melinda: It is. Yeah.
Grant: What we lucked into was, he was a member of the church down there. I don't know if you remember that big A-frame church down there on South Congress.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: They had a building in the annex that had space so we could lease that out for a few nickels. And it was great to have that as a setup space, in fact, larger than our current. So, yeah, really the amount of space we had a
Melinda: Oh, really?
Grant: The problem was, here in Texas, if you can't control the AC, it's awful.
Melinda: Oh, yeah. Especially in the summer time. (Laughter)
Grant: Yeah. It's like, we can't really have, like… continue to grow, when it's really hot and people are sweating while trying to record.
Melinda: Definitely. So when did you move up to this space?
Grant: We actually moved here near the tail end of the pandemic. We had to make a bit of a pivot during the pandemic to doing a lot of consulting for people recording from home. But people did still come into the studio and we were like, trying to work with everyone's boundaries and like, have people recording in different spaces, and all that. And then, we just saw the opportunity that we should try and move up to closer to where both of us live anyway. Driving through Austin downtown… traffic is hell.
Melinda: Definitely. (Laughter)
Grant: But on top of that… yeah, being able to come up here to a tinier space that we could at least regulate everything was fantastic. It worked out. We were afraid that business wouldn't follow us to the new location. We weren't sure if our clients would continue with us, but they did. And other people joined on too. And we got enough people that we felt secure even moving to our third location here. Which is, now we're operating five different studio rooms in here.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. And they all have kind of your… their unique character. And like, anytime I bring anyone in here, they're like, “Wow. This is awesome.”
Grant: Yeah, I think it's the unassuming complex right there. You think it's like, kind of almost like a warehouse kind of area. And then. You walk in here, it’s like, “Oh, I didn't expect that.”
Melinda: Yeah. So, how do you know, like, offhand, how many shows you're kind of producing here at the moment?
Grant: I mean, we have such a range. We have steady, clients who come in, like yourself, who will record their show consistently and release weekly. Some people come in and we'll see them and they'll do a big batch run.
Melinda: Oh, yeah.
Grant: So they'll record eight, ten episodes and then we won't see them for a few months. And then they'll come back. And then there's always the one-offs. People that are either testing out if they want to do a project like a podcast, video show, clips, whatever. Or people from out of town. It’s hard to gauge how many. I would say we have anywhere from 20 to 40 shows that are pretty regular.
Melinda: Like, consistent. Yeah.
Grant: Yeah. I'd put on my Rolodex.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And we also recorded our Syncreate audio book here. So, that's a service that you offer as well.
Grant: Yeah. It's one of those things where we we recognize like, “Oh, we have all the equipment to do it.” And then spend a little bit of time just researching what all needs to go into making sure that we've crafted that and we've catered to what all the needs are of anyone recording an audiobook. And once we were able to confidently check that off, we started offering that to a few people. And then, yeah… and now we do audiobook services as well.
Melinda: Yeah. Which is super cool. And how many of the shows you do here are like, audio only, versus audio and video? Is it mostly video shows?
Grant: It is mostly video., we started off with audio only in our first location down south, and it was, that was what we knew. So we were comfortable doing audio only. Getting cameras, understanding… you know, they can be complex.
Melinda: Sure.
Grant: And running all of that, knowing how to turn around all of the files to people and deliver that. Those all came with a little bit of research and figuring out, like, “Is this viable and will people want it?” Turns out, people pretty much primarily want it.
Melinda: Yes.
Grant: Which is funny to me because I think that a lot of people who listen to podcasts, they will still go to YouTube and then just not even watch.
Melinda: Right.
Grant: They'll listen right on YouTube. Or Spotify now has a video option, but you just still are only like listening while you're driving or whatever.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Grant: I guess the visual element, people like that they can also use it for marketing for clips and everything else. So it makes sense to have both.
Melinda: Yeah. And I mean, it seems to be a growing trend in podcasting to have a video component.
Grant: It's rare that we have people that do audio only. I would say we only have a handful that consistently record only audio here.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm curious about your perspective kind of behind the scenes as a video editor (audio and video editor). Like, I don't know, in your experience, also as a, you know, as a podcaster yourself… like, what makes a good show or like, what makes engaging content and dialogue?
Grant: I mean, it’s tricky. It's initially figuring out your audience. Sometimes you can know your audience before you start a show, but sometimes along the way you have to figure out who your audience actually is. Once you’ve already started making a project. And that can vary. And then once you, if you like your audience (laughter), if you want to continue going in that direction of the people that are engaging with you, figuring out how to best serve them, I think with your content. I think a lot of people come into these shows not really sure what it is they want to do with their show.
Yeah. And I guess maybe lacking a confidence. And it makes them kind of give up a little too early before they've kind of gotten their feet under them and they've figured out like, the direction of what they want to do with their show. There’s a lot of like, with new podcast launches, we recommend frequently to people that they do consider trying to record a batch of episodes before they start releasing, because that gives them a framework.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: If you've done 4 to 6 episodes, you know, you start getting a good feel for what's working for you and what isn't. And then you can just kind of roll from there.
Melinda: Yeah. Like kind of doing a pilot. Yeah. I did that with my show. That was before I connected with y'all. But so, speaking of the marketing piece, like, I feel like for all artists and creatives across the board, that's often like, the hardest piece, right? We can like, create the content and put it out there and everything. But then how do we market it? How do we find our audience? How do we get the word out?
Grant: That is… it’s funny because I would say that's an element of our business that we don't actually do as much anymore, because I know it's such a targeted hurdle. I feel like it requires a lot of time and dedication. That's a whole other field -
Melinda: I know. (Laughter)
Grant: - marketing. The advice I always give to our clients, regardless of what their content is, is find your community. Find it online, find it locally. If you're doing a show just for your local community, know how to target people within the area that are going to listen. And then, deputize certain people to spread the word on your behalf of your show. Make something that is valuable to them and that they want to pass along to others. Which is… what happened is there was a big glut. Like, everyone was making content.
So it's, because it used to be like, “Oh, to maximize your audience, you go broad.” You make, something as big and as wide-appealing as it can be. Just kind of like, following the TV model. And then it was like, “Oh no, there's all these like, TV… there's all these channels.” You’ve got to niche down and have something that is very targeted to your little audience because those are the people that are going to be passionate about it, find other people.
Melinda: Yes, and listen across multiple episodes, and yeah.
Grant: And they're going to get something out of it that they are excited to spread to other people.
Melinda: Yeah. Definitely. It's tricky. But I guess… you know, we talk a lot on the podcast about, you know, the importance of community. And so, it comes back to that.
Grant: I mean, for a lot of people, I find that sites like Reddit are fantastic. Reddit can be a range of things.
Melinda: Yeah. Definitely. (Laughter)
Grant: But that is a product of having every possible type of channel and community all collected there. But there are wonderful communities also there where there's people not engaged in trollish behavior or the drama that can also be associated with Reddit. You know, I do an audiobook podcast and there is a fervent book community dedicated to that book.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: That has been a great resource for spreading what we're doing. I mean, I think the general rule of thumb is you don't try to market yourself too much there, but an initial post of awareness can go a long way.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: For those people. And, yeah. And then you can start getting feedback. And you know what it is that they want you to deliver message-wise, and what works for them.
Melinda: So, in your experience with your shows - the book podcast or beer podcast - like, how how have you adapted your show in response to what listeners want?
Grant: Sure. So the book podcast I started off… the book series is called Dungeon Crawler Carl. It is a wacky premise. It's a guy who steps outside to rescue his pet cat out of a tree in the middle of the night, and the whole world gets destroyed by aliens. Then these dungeons open all over the planet, and you can go into the dungeon to compete in an intergalactic game show.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: If you want.
Melinda: Sounds little Douglas Adams-ish to me. (Laughter)
Grant: It is. It is the next big thing. I'm pretty sure it is the next… it’s the next Game of Thrones. It's the next Stranger Things. It's been optioned already for TV by Seth Macfarlane.
Melinda: Okay.
Grant: It's the… I think it's one of the books of the year on New York Times.
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: So there's seven books out, and the eighth one's coming out pretty soon. And yeah, the community is just growing and growing.
Melinda: Amazing.
Grant: When I started the show, it was me and a couple buddies of mine that we've been podcasting since I first started podcasting back in ‘07, and we started this just kind of keeping it to like, 30 minute episodes, and we would just kind of lightly gloss over what's happening in a certain set of chapters and use that as a pivot point to just have a little bit of discussion on it. And I realized that people were just really hungry for much deeper dives than I was initially doing.
Melinda: Interesting.
Grant: And people were catching stuff that we weren't talking about and like, asking us to really, like, invest more. And once I saw that, I was like, “Okay, we can we can do that.” I can, yeah, make the pivot and really dive in on these books. Now, like, each week I make like, much more detailed notes. I source information and comments from the community so they know that we’re/I'm listening to that and I'm interacting with them and engaging with them.
And I try to incorporate them into the show. In fact, I have a segment where, people who the… you know the platform Patreon where people can donate to help promote your show? Yeah. The people that have donated to a certain tier, I kill them off in a whimsical way, which is basically me writing fanfic each week that's incorporated into the end of our show.
Melinda: Oh, wow.
Grant: And people really enjoyed that.
Melinda: That's awesome. I mean, that's such a great example of a super niche… like, people who are interested in this particular book series and like, want to go really deep with it. And that's kind of awesome.
Grant: Like that… also, I feel like it's capturing something in the moment too, because as soon as we released our first episode, the audiobook narrator caught notice of our show and said, “Wow, this looks really well produced.” I kind of get it.
Melinda: Wow. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. (Laughter)
Grant: I have a studio. And so he shared it, and then he reached out to us and asked if we'd be interested in interviewing him, which we were like, “Yeah, definitely. Wow.” That pivoted to him reaching out to the author of the books and asking… putting us in contact so we could interview the author.
Melinda: Wow. Nice.
Grant: And then this is… it feels like I'm sometimes tripping uphill… the author of the book, we reached out to him because he's releasing a new book, and he's doing a press tour for it. He's gonna be here in Austin. So I said, “Hey. Can we get tickets to attend that? And then he's like, “How about I'll do you one better? How about you moderate it?”
Melinda: Wow.
Grant: So, now we're moderating his panel here in a couple of weeks at Trinity Church.
Melinda: Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Grant: South Congress or Congress, I guess.
Melinda: Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. So cool. I mean, that's a testament to just following your passion and your interests, right?
Grant: It's been pretty fun. I feel like I started this studio alongside my partner with this intent that we would have this opportunity to make the things that we enjoy. And then I kind of just got more focused on the business side of it for years. What we're.. I think we're like, seven years in and I finally decided, “Okay. Now I'm going to do like, my own creative thing again.” Yeah. It’s been pretty rewarding. Because now I know how to do it from the side of, you know, making these kind of shows all the time for my clients.
Melinda: Yeah. That's amazing. Super cool. So in terms of like, making, you know, producing shows for clients, like, are you noticing any particular trends emerging at the moment in podcasting? I mean, we kind of touched on like, there's kind of an oversaturation of podcasts.
Grant: Right. I notice a lot more that businesses are getting into it as well. Businesses are marketing themselves frequently, and they're using podcasts as a shorthand business meeting in a way. It’s actually pretty fascinating to see businesses do this, because what they'll do is they'll invite someone that they want to have a business meeting in to be on their podcast.
Melinda: Interesting.
Grant: I don't know if they're as focused on getting big numbers (like, a lot of people viewing and watching their show), so much as like, this is a business meeting, but under the pretense of it being within a podcast. I think you can have a two hour session where you're talking with someone, you really get to know them, and that allows that person to feel seen, feel listened to in the podcast, in a business environment. And it's kind of replaced going to the golf course in a way, I think for a lot of people. (Laughter) So, I see that a lot. And then, I noticed that a lot of people have been recognizing the value of batch clip making.
So people don't even necessarily come in to do a podcast. They'll just come in with a whole bunch of scripted podcasts. A lot of times people are doing this with AI, helping them out to generate a bunch of ideas, but they'll just sit down and they'll just record, 30 clips in an hour using like, a teleprompter and just talking right to the screen and just knock them out and they'll have a bunch of marketing material for themselves that promotes whatever else they're kind of doing.
Melinda: Yeah. It’s a great idea. And again, it makes it so easy to just come in, everything set up and you go.
Grant: Yeah. That was the other big intent. Like, Mike and I both recognize all the things we used to do just to set up and then to have to be in the room recording and then kind of agonizing over, “Oh, is that still recording? Are we still good? Is this mic on?” And losing stuff. I know we had a lot of failures along the way too, but we're like, “Well, no one else wants to deal with all the tech stuff.” In fact, I don't… (Laughter) within the business relationship, Mike, my partner, he's the tech guy much more so… I handle, like, the business and financials and stuff, and he handles a lot of that, more so.
Melinda: Good to have a balance in a business partnership.
Grant: It is. It’s necessary. But it's also like, once we recognize, like, we can provide something that like, other people will find valuable because they don't want to have to deal with that. And they just want to feel secure that like, they're going to make their content, it's going to look good and it's in trusted hands, people that care about it. That's just worked out well for us.
Melinda: Yeah, definitely. Okay. I have a question about social media.
Grant: Okay.
Melinda: Which I think is always like, a hot topic. Right? So my initial producer who I still consult with for this show, Mike Osborne, he has some kind of take on podcasting… is that he kind of sees it as long-form social media, which kind of I think ties in a little bit to the business kind of case use that you were just talking about.
Grant: Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. And then so, I'm curious your thoughts on that as well as just the relationship between podcasting and social media. So we've been talking about, you know, a lot of people come into your show, pull clips. I do that and post them on social media. You know, what's your sense of that relationship? And, you know, people have a lot of ambivalence about social media these days. Whether it's like, a necessary evil in some sense for podcasting.
Grant: Right? I mean, when I think of social media, I think of there being this fake-ness. I think up front, that's one of the first things. Social media is how you curate, how you present yourself to the world.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: And you know, this is why people get lost in the flicking through different reels and clips, and it sucks you in. There's an algorithm that's that targets you. It's reacting with your brain, and it’s highlighting a fake reality for people. The idea that podcasts… I agree in part, I guess… there is a fakeness and a performative aspect to the conversation, because it's not like you and I are having a conversation without awareness that there’s cameras on us.
Melinda: Right? Of course.
Grant: I see a microphone here. Like, I know that there's a way in which I'm talking probably a little bit more animatedly than I might normally, or whatever. So there is a facade, I guess. I came up in podcasts with the exposure to a type of indie garage podcast that we're supposed to be, you know, niche communities, fans and geeks just being able to connect with other people and talk about the things that they really enjoy.
Melinda: Totally.
Grant: And I think, you know, that's in part what I try to do with, like, both this beer show where I'm just like talking about beer with my friends and, we review the beers… but it's also about, like, just, camaraderie. And it's a friendship. We've been doing that for 13 years.
Melinda: Amazing.
Grant: My poor liver. (Laughter)
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: But yeah. And then I tried to reflect that onto the book podcast I'm doing too, where I'm like, I just want to talk about something that is fun. It's something that I'm passionate about. But I do recognize that there are people that are leveraging this for business, that there are people that are, you know, using this for a whole bunch of different avenues and it… but I don't know, like, passion can be faked, I guess, to an extent. But I think a lot of viewing audience can see, like if this is something you do genuinely care about, it's a lot of time and investment into it.
Melinda: And often for not so much return.
Grant: Yeah. And I think there can be cynicism toward it. And in general. But I still kind of want to believe that this is an equal access opportunity for people to reach others in their community. And there's something beautiful in that.
Melinda: Yeah. I mean, there's something about the conversational quality about it. And, I mean, I think that there's something that makes podcasting unique in that it's just people having a conversation in some way, whether it's in a garage or living room or studio. But, you know, I've had guests come in who are a little nervous about being in front of the camera and so forth. And they, you know, by the end of it they're like, “Oh, that was really great. Just felt like we were having a chat.” Which is what I want.
Grant: That's the goal, right?
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Grant: Where we constantly have people come sit down and like, “Do I… where do I look at the camera? Do I look at this..?” I'm like, “As best you can, ignore the cameras. This will fade away over time as you just get into actually having a conversation.”
Melinda: Exactly.
Grant: Like, one of the things we notice when we have people record audiobooks with us is they'll be kind of stiff in that first chapter. And sometimes we have people who aren't used to reading like that, are just kind of loosening up and getting into the flow of reading their own books, that will rerecord that first one.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: Because that first take isn't great. I remember hearing this with like, screenwriting for TV, that people will write their first episode and then that second episode, and get rid of the first episode before your second episode. Now your first episode becomes the first.
Melinda: Becomes the first episode, yeah.
Grant: Because what you've done is a lot of unnecessary preamble or awkward, like, kind of working out of the pieces of what you want to start doing.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: And that second episode is where you've hit the floor running. So do you necessarily need that first one? I thought that's like, fascinating because I sometimes see that in podcasts too. Like, yeah, you're working out in that first episode, what feels right here.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I know when we recorded our audiobook, it was a long day. Number one, we did ours all in one day. It was like 7 or 8 hours or something.
Grant: And that's a lot. It's a lot to read.
Melinda: Fortunately, Charlotte and I, with our book, since we co-wrote it, we switched off.
Grant: And you have a break.
Melinda: Yeah. And we had a lunch break in between. And then in between… yeah, each chapter or whatever. So that worked out really well. But I can imagine if it's just one person.
Grant: I don't frequently see like, people do such like, marathon recording. I've had one client who came in and he recorded eight hours straight of interviews. He was just one episode after another, and they're hour long interviews. I never saw his energy dip. And I have seem him do it actually multiple times. This is a client that's actually, like, flown us out to some conventions. He'll do something like that - film him on location where he can meet up with a lot of people in the same business. That type of energy, I don't usually see.
Melinda: Yeah. That’s pretty rare.
Grant: Especially with audiobooks like, you just find that your energy just kind of starts tapering because we naturally just get a little bit tired.
Melinda: Yeah. Definitely.
Grant: There's that whole other thing of, like, you know, no one likes the sound of their voice initially.
Melinda: Right?
Grant: When they're hearing it on audio or podcast. But I think just like, I'm like, “No, no. It’s fine. It's weird to you, but it's fine to everyone else.” But over time, reading a book. Ooh. (Laughter) So going, I don't know, “I want a break.”
Melinda: You can get in energetic dips and yeah, just start to stumble over your words.
Grant: Yeah. And then you're doing a disservice to yourself if you don't have the energy for it. Just take a break.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So, well, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I think we're sort of coming toward… I’m sure there’s much more we could talk about, but I'm curious, you know, as you know, I like to end each episode with what I call a Creativity Pro Tip.
Grant: Pro Tip! I do know.
Melinda: Yeah. So, I'm curious, maybe for people who are just starting out… maybe they're thinking about doing a show or they want to do a show and they're developing their concept or whatever, like some best practice. This can be an extended Pro Tip, but like, some best practices for like, what have you seen works well versus not well? Like, what are some pitfalls to avoid and some strategies to take.
Grant: So there's a lot.
Melinda: I know. We can have another 20 minute conversation.
Grant: I’ll try not be too long winded. Let's see. So, when thinking about your product, you are in competition with a lot of other people. You might even find other people doing a very similar idea to the show that you want to do. Quality matters. You have people that are listening to you. You know, invest in equipment that's going to make it look good.
Melinda: Definitely.
Grant: Make it sound good. That, I think is very important. If you don't feel confident in it, find someone who can help. That's kind of the whole business model that we have. Like, other people shouldn't… like, creative people should have the luxury of being creative without being bogged down by the tech side of things. And I think that's extremely valuable. And then, I think this is maybe not fully just in the realm of that, but one of the most important things I find is that, perfection is killer of creativity.
Melinda: Joy. Yeah. Yeah. (Laughter)
Grant: And I just operate off of don't… it doesn't need to be great right away. Figure it out as you go along. Just try to pull the trigger quicker on whatever project’s kicking around in there. Like, a lot of the great books people write, they write a first draft, and then they go and edit and edit, and edit.
Melinda: Absolutely.
Grant: So like, the writers are able to write like, so many pages a day. That is they're pushing themselves even if it's garbage. Write it down. Go back and fix it later.
Melinda: Yeah.
Grant: And you get better and better as you do that. And I think like with, a podcast or whatever project you're doing, pull the trigger faster. Just try and make something and don't be worried about it not being great. It doesn't have to be great initially.
Melinda: Yeah. No, I think that's so important because I think a lot of times people will have an idea and they'll just be like, holding on to it so tightly.
Grant: It’s so precious.
Melinda: And thinking through it, like, so much. And maybe even talking themselves out of even putting it out there at all, you know. And we talk about, again in Syncreate, like iteration. Like, you know, we're always tweaking, we're always shifting. We're always adapting. And that's it.
Grant: I think that when people become too precious about a single idea, they think that they won't have another one right after that. But when they let go of it, that makes room for all the other ones to come in, and it always builds off of the other one. You're constantly learning and your next idea, it might be even better. So yeah, put it out there.
Melinda: That's such an important point. It's like a faucet. You know, maybe it's built up with sediment, but the more you run it, you know, the cleaner the water comes out.
Grant: It's not a pie, it's a faucet. I like that.
Melinda: Yeah. (Laughter) We're, you know, mixing metaphors, but yeah. Like, yeah, I think there is that fear like, “Oh, you can only have a certain number of creative ideas or something.” But my experience too is, you know, the more you do, the more you kind of prime the pump. And, it's infinite. That's not a scarce resource.
Grant: Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Cool. Well, awesome. Thank you so much, Grant.
Grant: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Melinda: It’s been really fun. And, you know, I usually at the end invite people, like, if they want to know more about you, your shows, the studio, what’s the best ways for them to find you?
Grant: Oh, sure. If you want to check out our studio, it's recordatx.com, and my new book podcast that I'm doing is hellocrawlers.com. You can check it out there.
Melinda: Awesome. Cool. Thanks so much, Grant.
Grant: Thank you.
Melinda: Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate. If you enjoy this show, please subscribe and leave us a review. We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Grant joining us right here, live in person. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.
