It's a daily talk show and we're in Los Angeles and yeah, we're in someone else's studio I feel like we've just gate crashed. Yeah, Zach sang you can you'll be able to see if you're watching the video There is a massive illuminated sign. Yes projection. Thank you for having us It makes me feel so good when I see my name in a light on a wall It's just something about it.
Well if you don't catch that one there is one there there there there. That's what you got It's so disgusting with littered with my name that clearly and no other creative vision from the roof But by the way, I feel like that's what people do right especially when it comes like radio studios or any sort of like studio When you have no creative vision, you kind of just put the logo to your thing everywhere. Yeah I absolutely I think that like the daily talk show we do put it everywhere as well I felt like it was a bit much if we all were wearing it So I decided to do something for three. Yeah, it's 97's wearing it as well, but Zach you in my eyes is one of the best interviewers You've done over 10,000 you don't know the 10,000 interviews which is ridiculous.
Yeah, some of which like probably A couple hundred at least in this room on the couch that you're sitting on right now. By the way, this is very weird I've never done somebody else's show in my To be honest dude, I thought I said to Josh if he let's us do it in his studio and that's a massive deal because I mean I don't know if you come to Australia, you can have our studio say that much, but I understand that it's your safe space I mean Josh is sitting where Ariana Grande was which I was Miley. Miley was right side as well Okay, I'm not a lie. You're in the camera spot Josh So you're in where most of the slurry's in the sitting if you shoot it right from this corner Right, and yeah, you're in the prime spot.
So what am I on? The drama spot yeah, yeah big bands Talk as much or Tommy or Kesha's boot which he chose to spread out Compliments on the catch it's very comfortable, which is crazy because it's a couch that literally was salvaged from our dumpster Engineer Craig found this couch in our dumpster when he found it the actual bottom was falling through So if you were to sit and it like literally hit the bottom there was no support He had to put in planks of wood to support it We fixed it once and then there's somebody who works here another engineer. They usually allow their kids and they're not really kids They're like mid to late 20s They let their grown adult children come to work with them on the weekends and turn my studio into their video game Haven and they would literally sit on the couch and turn the TVs behind me into video game stations. I get it It would be comfortable doing this.
Oh, yeah, so comfortable And one of the bigger guys broke the couch and literally sat on the couch playing video games The whole thing caved in and then engineer Craig for a second time had to come in and resurrect the couch He had bloody fingers. So no pressure. No land parties going forward Yeah, please do not play video game to my studio But no that where you're sitting right now it's woven with the blood of engineer Craig Fingers. You can smell it.
It's right What was that the dog? He farts really bad. I'm sorry. No, that's fine.
So Zach's dog is in here. I'm not just talking about some some guy in the corner Fighting You're radio geek. What was your first home studio like describe that? Oh, it was my room.
Okay. Oh great question It was my bedroom I had an Ikea desk First I used a very crappy microphone. I was able to get one great you like great I mean crappy professional standards great when it comes to like just a little kid trying to figure it out Save my money was able to spend like 120 bucks on a USB microphone And I just put that on a stand and it was me facing a wall and behind me was a poster of a monkey wearing headphones And that is in one of like my first quote unquote promotional pictures for my radio show and it was all done on one laptop I didn't even really need a board at first because I started on a platform called blog talk radio What blog talk radio was was anybody who had an internet or a phone line? How's the ability to pretty much set up a radio show?
What YouTube was for video this one's for radio So you really didn't need a lot to get it on but dude I mean, I try to make it feel such like a legitimate radio studio I remember when I was able to find like one of those arms on the internet like one of these arms Yeah, but like a crappier version. It's definitely not the mark. Yes. I mean, yeah, I don't know super squeaky every So it's hard to put those the shows I did for my bedroom It's hard to even think about them because they were real radio And I meet kids every now and then who started listening to my show back 12 years ago It's just hard to think of those as like legitimate real times But the truth is like they were and I mean I use that USB mic plugged into Skype connected to my blog talk radio dashboard You know four times a week at 7 p.m For a year and a half.
I mean people struggle starting anything 12 years ago You're pretty young what was the catalyst to actually start and why doing radio? Why the radio thing for you Tommy? It was like friends, man. I had I had no friends and I felt very Misunderstood when I was younger younger when I was in middle school I had so much fun with my best friend at the time creating a party DJ company We go around we DJ all of the middle school Catholics dancing Catholic school dances So we do the eighth grade dances we do like the graduation parties I mean anything that was like everything from like bingo nights whatever a Catholic school in our area of New Jersey needed We were there to DJ and I just remember the thrill and the escape I had and helping somebody else put on a stellar party And the fun I had and helping people escape through music and community which by the way like that is an eighth grade party That is a graduation party.
What is it? It's like you're leaving your troubles at the door You're having food you're hanging out with people you care about and you're listening to music and in that moment you really get an idea of like What music does to the human body and how it makes somebody feel and the transition from song to song I love doing that in middle school so so much and then when I started like getting older I just I Felt I lost my best friend We were we ended up not being best friends as time went on and I feel I started to feel very misunderstood Because I also remember at the same time while I was trying to do the party DJ thing I started a YouTube channel with my friends my neighbors at the time and I remember overhearing them We were trying to shoot a YouTube video I remember that overhearing them say something like it's exactly these ideas are two over the top like they're just they're not good Like they're not like whatever you're trying to do. It's just not right. I just very extra And in that moment I was like fuck man.
I feel very misunderstood by people I thought understood me and That's how I started making a transition into finding friends and community and in anything That was public and if YouTube wasn't gonna be my thing I always had this longing this long-standing affection and appreciation for radio and the role that radio played in my life from even earlier And by the way like the time I'm talking about right now was like middle school to like freshman year of high school You know that transition Which for me was very intense because I went from a school of only 80 kids to a school of 2,800 kids and nobody knew me So feeling like the people I held the closest to me my two friends Paul and George back there my neighbors growing up Like when I the second I found it felt like they didn't understand me was a second I needed to find Somebody who did and for a lot of kids during that time period YouTube became an outlet and for me It just ended up becoming radio and I turned to radio for a friend like that's that's the simplest answer to your story I'm sorry was I just need a friend and it's turned into a friendship that I never could have imagined What do you think are some of the things that you can bring to YouTube and online that is unique to radio? The biggest thing with radio in America for the longest time has been this I don't know if homogenization is the right word But it's like very much manufactured. It's very much the same records every 42 minutes every hour Jocks only talk for this little matter time They only do this they only do that and the thing with creating anything on the internet was there are no rules Conversation authenticity is what reigns supreme being an actual human is what matters by the way radio was the original form of social networking in my opinion Calvin Coolidge first use radio fucking back then to get the word out What is social media now like some of the greatest ratios of all time are built off of one guy saying something and then a ton of other people calling in What is fucking Twitter right you tweet something and then you just wait for people to respond to you Everybody has the potential to host their own version of a radio show So what I realized really quickly back so just in a brick I moved out of my bedroom about a year and a half to two years into making radio and I go to this digital radio startup And it's just a whole different way of thinking it was taking traditional radio and matching it mixing it with this digital mindset of There are no rules. It's the wild west quality matters user experience matters Like all things that radio hadn't really thought about for a long time You know even how like we would get commercials across like we were just rethinking all of that so creating digital radio I that's what my whole FM radio show is built on like nothing has really changed Yeah, the only thing that's changed are my mechanics of my show like I name check and I tease forward but it's the same authenticity It's the same no rules.
It's literally the same everything But it's exactly what ready was missing ready was missing authenticity radio got very used to having four-year-old men balding in bowling shirts trying to relate to 16 year old females and it just There's no way that works in the online age people want everything people want to know who you are from all sides you know and even now like artists people make music the audience demands a deeper relationship a deeper understanding of who they are and Already was a companion medium. It's a friend by nature your ears are so Delicate, I mean, what is a conversation? What are your ears? I mean when you think about who you let access to that sort of stuff like that's a personal relationship And that's what radio is so the second that I think people realized that they couldn't keep up with what this authentic generation required Was this second that like they gave in to the corporate mandates of five second top breaks play the same song every hour?
No personality read this line. Do you know? Absolutely and so we've been trying to sort of figure out the landscape here in Australia's got quite a strong radio Understanding I did a couple of years on radio in a town called Shepparton where they you know bunch of these rural or like sort of regional towns Have their own sort of breakfast show and so I hosted the breakfast show and then the night time show The afternoon was syndicated from the biggest city for Westwood one the company this building We're in how does it fit into the American radio landscape? So It supplies quality content to radio stations you need it while at the same time having the potential to fill 24 hours with the programming For signals that require it.
What's one is like a what's one is a one-stop shop for all things content to fill Any sort of radio station you may have from the NFL and getting sports games on your sports radio stations to people Pop radio station and you need a night-time radio show because you either have to cut cost or the radio show that's been in there Before us isn't doing what it needs to do what someone has the ability to fill it You know Westwood one is just a some vehicle to get great content out to radio stations and to radio groups You need it. That's what we are the one thing that I think is really cool That'll show you does and I hope that they keep this is a local morning show I you know syndication is changing radio as a whole, but it's not a negative thing at least here in the States It shouldn't be seen as a negative thing a lot of times There's a lot of content that we have the ability to generate every day that a local radio show may not have the potential to do that Plus we also have the ability to connect and relate and do all the things that a great radio show that's in a community Has the ability to do and I think national radio the right sort of national radio has the ability to work its way within a radio station Where the two work together for each other do you understand? I believe in local morning shows totally hundred percent I don't want to like people deserve to wake up with their neighbors They also deserve to go to sleep with their neighbors I'm just as much as somebody's neighbor in Fort Wayne, Indiana as the morning show in Fort Wayne, Indiana We're all king beings at the end of the day. We all share this planet.
We all share this country We all have past presence and futures. Yeah, did you find that in your hometown? Did you feel limited with where you could go with with your career? I was so lucky man because I grew up right outside Manhattan I grew up 25 miles outside of it and I don't know there's like growing up outside of New York made it seem like anything It's possible because I just had to figure out how to get there and I couldn't drive for most of the beginning of my radio career So I was like taking trains in weird places and taking the fucking buzz at the middle of the night like just weird stuff Sorry, just started my dog and I had a fear that he stopped breathing He's a very relaxed pushing with my foot.
Maybe he's alive. No, he's fine. He's just relaxed. He's like living this life here One thing we've sort of Grass the sense over here is that you can think big and there's a chance of heating big growing up going to school Is that what the other kids are thinking?
Are you thinking I can make it in Hollywood? I think now it's different I think my generation of millennials a lot of my peers followed by the traditional rule book Which was you go to school you go to college you do well in your SATs then you go to college Then you get a job. You pay off your debt Whatever like that's that's the path Then there were few people within my generation and I maybe I'm one of them Maybe I'm not only history will be able to tell that story that went against that grain and Made it clear to the generation that was coming next that they could do it too And I think people like that are on Grande the David Dobrik's of the world anybody who is successful today that said yo I'm not going to do what society has laid out in front of me I'm going to do what I feel in my heart and I'm gonna follow my passion and follow what I feel like I'm good at and destined to do and the internet has changed the world because everybody has the ability to get out there and do something You know before Ariana Grande was Ariana Grande She was filming videos on YouTube singing covers Justin Bieber Sean Mendes I mean there's so many people that have that have shown the generations that are coming up What they can do with this technology that they're now born into we weren't born into This phone and to YouTube we had to figure this out. We had to say yo people who want me to go right right is not the direction for me I have something new to figure out and left is where I want to go Well, these are all self-starters.
Do you feel a sense of? You got lucky by I mean you love the thing right you decided to turn on the microphone and start recording right into it Right issue, but it's also like imagine if you didn't do that Do you have those moments we like I didn't if I didn't just if you didn't have a USB microphone if you didn't want to find the friends You know if I wasn't lonely as far having a terrible existence in a grocery store, and you're right like I don't it's weird I don't think about those moments because I genuinely Every fiber of my being I feel like I was destined to do what I'm doing I feel like I was meant to do this and maybe that's a fucked-up way to think but I I don't know if there's anything else I can do Yeah, and as I progress in this world it becomes even more and more clear to me that this is what I This is what I meant to do I need people all the time who are more famous than me different types of influencers whatever and everybody's talking about like I you know I don't want to interview people. I don't want to do that. Everybody wants to be the star Everybody wants to everybody wants to be the focus everybody wants to be the center of attention and at the end of the day All I want to do is be able to live my life with people I care about Over the radio and that's my audience and my friends in the studio and I also want to be the vehicle for people's stories I want to be the eyes and the ears for the normal person who's just hanging out at home or driving in their car Nobody really wants to do that.
It's not cool to be that guy. Isn't it funny? But I feel like it's changing I think podcasting you know obviously it's been around for a bunch of time I remember like 2005 the this week in tech and all that sort of like the Leo the ports and all that sort of thing and Consuming dignity and all these different podcasts it feels like this is a new generation of podcasting that started in the last two years Where it's gone a little bit mainstream. What's your relationship with the mainstream?
What is the mainstream? Yeah, well, that's why I'm trying to figure out I guess there is more confusing over here, too Because we don't have something like this. Yeah, but anybody can do a podcast What's gonna anybody has the ability to grab a mic and do it by the way like again? That's the difference like what I was talking about in the generational differences, right?
Millennials have to forge it and figure it out. Where is now? There's a whole template. They sell kits on how to podcast within 10 minutes You know anybody can get a podcast up and running literally anybody so I think it's amazing Mm-hmm, but what it's gonna end up doing is the cream is going to have to start rising to the top But at the same time how you did but but does the cream that rise to the top is that what you determined as a mainstream podcast?
Mm-hmm. Do you got I mean? Yeah? Yeah, what's a thousand true fans?
It's like finding your audience like do you find because in some ways the people that you have on you have the biggest stars in the world? I was baby Yeah And so there's part of that which is like when you have the big A list is that you have on that does lean towards That's mainstream. I guess yeah And so like cuz that would be interesting because there's almost a bit of pressure there Which is like if you go on YouTube and you type in Justin Bieber, you're watching, you know people are watching your Interviews which the pressure is on we are I feel like podcasts certain podcasts have the ability depending on what it is You can build a podcast for anything anybody and everybody can find their audience, right? Which I you did say and I think that's the most important things like the most niche podcast if you have an idea You got to go for it, but don't get discouraged if your podcast is not being heard by millions of people hundreds of thousands of people You have a concept go for it.
It's about you know ninjas I'm telling you there's other people out there that want to talk about ninjas with you Yeah, or if it's I don't know about dogs pause there's people who will discuss at length the fall of the dogs Do it if you feel passionate about it. Do you find that you're in a time that because there's so much change I mean if you go on YouTube, there's not many people that have the studio that you have the production value Do you feel the pressure of this is a unique opportunity when no one's fucking doing this and I can cement Apposition in this dude. I Believe that nobody is ever gonna be able to do interviews the way we do interviews because we come out of very uniquely I think great radio shows can never be duplicated because what is a great radio show if not the lives of people that are on mic? Unless you're gonna start living in my footsteps and wearing my clothes our shows are gonna be different Yeah, you don't look at a conversation and an interview E or a subject nobody's gonna look at it the way I'm gonna look at it because it's fueled by my experiences It's fueled by the way I communicate which I do believe is unique to what we do so to your point I believe we have something here that is very unique and very different, but unique in a way that is not Revolutionary interviews have been around since the beginning of time and guess what the way we're all gonna find out that the world is Officially over is mostly through an interview one guy asking another person.
Hey, what's going on with our planet? It'll be exact saying show exclusive I don't know if it's I just I feel like we have a duty to keep interview school and to keep interviews relevant to entirely new generation of people and I also have an obligation I feel to keep radio relevant to a whole generation of people so as long as we're doing those two things then we're doing our job right, but I do believe that there is a lot of pressure because Right now a lot of people look at us as a very trusted source for information and the truth is Everybody out there doesn't watch every single interview we do they come to us for the people they care about but when they come They're expecting the best they're expecting to get to know that person on a really human level in ways that nobody else can bring it out That's just the truth and that is a lot of pressure man So I mean that's external pressure. What about internal pressure for you? What are you hard on yourself?
I mean yes and no Yes, totally. I've watched my interviews and I do I get myself a ton of notes There's like one of the biggest most impactful notes that was like I realized I was saying yeah And it was a realization that came maybe a year ago. You're an half ago and it's like you don't need to verbally Cue someone that you care you can you know I don't need to tell somebody that I'm focused into what they're saying I can show then I'm into it Well only you only worked out when you have a mic because you'll constantly do it in a conversation Until you hear yourself backwards like and you're trying to get a snippet. Yeah, and it's like yes It's like yeah, I can't use a snippet great But the other thing too is like I Want to it's hard to prep for so many interviews in a week and right now We're you for three or four we want to up that to five or six So it's more about being able to turn out a lot of prep because that's the other thing too is like when guests come on We get a lot of guests because they watch other celebrities do interviews like Diplo comes on after watching Justin Bieber or Logic comes on after watching big Sean like there's a lot of hype And then an artist comes on and they come on again It's like they want you to ask great questions They want you to know things about them that nobody else is gonna pull out and it's like dude It's a lot of pressure and a lot of prep that goes into that type of stuff And then so when they're some of the big names is there you was a host that's looking to see who could pop or who's coming up That you want to sort of support always because always always Alec Benjamin is an incredible artist If you haven't heard of him you need to check him out He is an incredible storyteller one of the greatest three towers of my generation and he's amazing He's just superb and he was an artist that came on like the show for the first time like a year ago And but I'd met him maybe two and a half years ago playing at a coffee shop now He's touring all over the world incredible artists had a hit let me down slowly.
There's a lot of artists that we have an obligation in radio to Stay a tastemaker. It's the only way we continue to keep music relevant and allow for new artists to rise You know so you need to keep your ear to the freaking ground and understand what's going on and be able to When you hear a great record feel compelled to share it and also feel obligated to share it because I'm a firm believer in pop radio Has a tendency to sound very much the same and pop radio has an obligation to really be a mix of all of the different records from all the different genres like it's popular for a reason we're pulling from all the different genres to create one not cohesive But one sound of the now that's pops job and when music sounds too much the same your brain kind of tunes out You know all the BPMs are around the same like you don't register the difference We have an obligation to search out music that is different So if we have a playlist right now that is too rhythm heavy or too electronic heavy We need to seek out live instruments, you know, we should look for music that might lean more alternative or slower songs Like lose quality. I mean, there's a lot of we have an obligation to stay different to stay fresh And yeah, I keep my ear out there. You got it.
Like fuck. Yeah. What was your first month like in LA? Terrible lonely.
I moved here five years ago. It's soft, man. I like it's a very lonely place I think I think I think I don't know like maybe it's insulating and insulating because I make it that way radio Like I feel like I feel like I've got a radio brain. I feel like a bit of a misfit I think a lot of radio people feel like like there's something comfortable about being behind a mic in the studio and not having To be at parties and not being amongst all that sort of stuff to do.
How does that fit in with the LA lifestyle? It's like weird if I brought Dan in here and I gave my answer that I believe is genuine Dan will be like your line you love attention you love all these things the truth is I hate parties And I don't dig that vibe But it is a part of the way it works here at least and you do got to get out there and meet people and network But at the same time I've also reached this weird place where I believe that our work is good enough and are If our work is good enough and stays to this level and beyond you will touch the eyes that it needs to touch and we don't need to Network as much is you know used to not turn down a single invitation. So what was the first month like that? So as lonely what we actually doing?
Did you have in and out a bunch? Yeah a lot of in and out a lot of more del talk to me I don't I haven't had del thought I've just gone vegetarian cuz I was game changers that great documentary Do you like the meatless lifestyle where it's harder cuz normally you know dickies here in the youth like this It's like McDonald's bit like barbecue. It's fucking delicious. I'm sure a trash But I love it.
Yeah, but this I feel like when I come to the US I'm always having barbecue and so it's been different having to get like beans and like I love Mexican food So it's just getting the veggie option. Let's talk. Let's talk about you for a second. So how long have you been a vegetarian?
I mean three weeks. It's early days. I'm a vegetarian for five years. Oh really?
Yeah, I love meatless lifestyle. Okay, because we're in a golden age of vegetarian as a friend Yeah, we have the ability to get meat that tastes like meat that isn't meat We only are just getting that in Australia. Yeah, like the impossible burger stuff not in distant It's coming. We've got something that's similar, but we had the impossible burger the other day I feel like it's my shit though.
Like I feel like I was like what smells like funky. I was thinking like and there was no dog around Yeah, I mean it's an interesting I mean I'm still getting used to the American toilets as well So I could be part of it. So watch out. It's like you in by the way, it is crazy I have a lot of our showing friends by a lot of I feel like I have a lot, but probably they all hate me You guys get everything so slow.
Yeah, it takes so long to get things to you It's only because Americans complain about the 40-hour flight. It takes a long time. It's a long flight But like booze for you guys is so expensive. It's made in Australia.
Yeah, and still then it's everything's gonna be a yeah We have a really high tax for alcohol. It's because we get the Australians here pretty loose. Don't you? What about guys of action?
Is he still cool down there? Yeah, he's all right. He's been on the show. Yeah.
No, no show. Oh, he's been Yeah, I mean, I remember coming here 2012 great year Amazing what's better scars I just remember here that song playing everywhere Well, I was I used to be digital content producer for a show called Fifi and Jules and they did a I know them Yeah, well, they did the big I filmed the Ed Sheeran passenger. No diggity cover. Do you remember?
Yeah, and the thing is like It's an honor to be in your present. Yeah, that zoom. That was me. Yeah, really good hand No, but yeah, I remember it was also there was another song it felt like that was um popping He didn't want like around gold because I was around the Olympics I love him.
Yeah, I always wonder where he's at. I was gonna pull up a guy. Well, he's lean as fuck now He's being like he was on his hands health or whatever and doing all of that Christian boy. Yeah, so what do you wait?
What do you like what's your on the vigil on the vigil thing? Oh, are you a lot of fake me bro? A lot of impossible a lot of brain called guardian black beans. Yeah, it's a good for you though.
Like yeah, the impossible mate Oh, what's in it? Well, it's like it's scientific. Yeah, say it's good in your It's really good I think I think don't think too much Just on the networking thing living in the city because we've met like cab drivers and people at Whole Foods everyone seems like they're grinding They want to get there and so what's the I could imagine that first sort of period of time here the mindset is I need a network network network network Here was my mindset do a great radio show because the transition between us coming from New York to here So in a nutshell, I go for my bedroom to this internet radio startup called goom then I go to Nickelodeon I work for Nickelodeon for like two and a half years. So what were you doing at Nickelodeon?
I was like I hosted Nick's orange carpet. So I did world by day of play. It was like movie vignettes It's called interstitial programming. Did you ever get slimed?
No, but I slimed somebody. Okay, and I watch a lot of you No Drake wishes I slimed I went to a party and then went back to Drake's place with a bunch of people Oh, and you know the thing the thing the thing me my mate laughing so I had because all on the wall was the Nickelodeon kids choice Awards, and it's like this is so funny. Look at the wall. I mean, there was a lot of them I'll give you that was that show only a word.
He said What was that Nickelodeon show where the people would have to climb up the thing and you'd get the the mountain like a big Legends of the head and some yeah, it was an I'm trying to think for that It wasn't that wasn't it wasn't that one. It was a one where it's like a glow in the dark like it was like like mid 90s I can't remember it's gonna fucking annoy me guts. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great And so you're using Nickelodeon. Sorry.
I miss me. By the way, that's a Nickelodeon. There was a couple golden ages Nickelodeon There that you just the man to show man to show drinking Josh. Yeah, I Carly and Victoria's I don't know where it's out right now I don't really follow it Can't even tell who loves Aaron seven.
I do. I do. I love him so much. He's on the edge of the stars now Kalman He's killing it.
He has a whole he's thriving. Yeah, I was a Nickelodeon did the orange carpet thing Worked within the offices for a while and then I ended up starting an independent FM radio show So I took everything from digital radio some of the stuff I learned from Nickelodeon And I started with my same digital radio crew that was at goom with me I started an independent FM radio show So we started radio show and we would literally go to each individual program director and all these different radio stations across the country And we'd be like, hey, are you looking for a night show because we got a night show for you So what do people pay for syndication like what's like a writer? Okay? Yeah, sure we get inventory, so we get commercial time every hour And so then you have to sell the yeah, yeah, so we sell the commercial time And we have to sell to get on the radio station.
Are you getting on the phone calling? Yes Oh, it's me and this one other woman who's one of my best friends. Listen what we tag teamed it was pretty cool You have a script. What was the no script?
That's a passion, baby Passionate passion and authenticity which has been like the the thickest common thread through everything. I've ever done I don't feel I think I'm very lucky just to genuinely feel like the same me sits behind this mic is the same exact Person that he talks to you makes it so easy doesn't it? Oh my god, I'm so The greatest blessing yeah, which by the way back to what we're talking about earlier further height And why I really believe that I was meant to do this because I'm just myself like I don't need to put anything on yeah It's too hard otherwise totally and also like people know yeah people In this day and age people know yeah, that's it. So I know this is a jumbled man No, this is how we don't we love we love a good tangent So you when it come but did you need funding like with to start the FM thing like what is a license?
I did you have to get like an FM license something one partner that did it with me and then we went to this company called Dog Global all the time which is a company that we're in now Which is what's it one and they came on to do like our distribution and then they would do some of the ad sales too But we had to pick up all the radio stations on our own and we went from literally zero radio stations We got our first station a weekend It was a queen B radio station extreme one of seven one Dubuque Iowa and we went from zero radio stations to like 25 It's amazing and then west with one bought the show put us on all of the cumulus radio stations So it brought our total like around 60 and then moved us out to LA so the first month of being in LA with me Dude we went from my entire life for these ginormous transitions like from elementary middle school It's being with 80 kids to then being with 2800 kids We worked in this crappy radio studio in New York doing this radio show that we got to like 25 affiliates We worked off a board that had three pods, dude We used to when we were playing music we had to click it on a mouse to play every song like we were working Bear bones to nothing and then we ended up here in LA in this radio studio That was huge with this giant board and all this new technology that we had no idea how to use and then nobody was here To teach us any of it we only had four days between when we landed and our first day that we're gonna be on 60 radio stations So the goal was to figure out how the fuck do we go on the air? Yeah, and we figured it out eventually we got on the air and My first month was a lot of transition was figuring out this whole new normal and figuring out all this new technology and this new team I had and these new program directors and this new executive team I had to answer to and I mean the first month in LA was just more of understanding and learning what our new reality was gonna Look like and then from that moment on it's been not letting LA get to me because LA is not America LA is not the struggle that a normal person goes through So I tried to stay away from as much of the Hollywood lifestyle as it's humanly possible because I don't want to be polluted by it Because at the end of the day I'm just a 26 year old dude He's a virgin he's just trying to live life and figure it out and I'm not Hollywood I'm a normal kid from New Jersey who just happens to live here now. How does that like get to you? I mean LA has the potential to get to a lot of people.
I don't let it get to me in a sense that is at the ego Is at the vanity a lot of people you're very selfish. There's no camaraderie on the streets It's a very isolated city from the way it's just built right? So there's no public transportation here I mean there is but nobody uses it so right off the bat we are it's an insulated city Like we don't share anything as a city where when I'm in New York City It doesn't matter who you are you could be Sarah Jessica Parker or me You're still getting on the subway to get around do you know what I'm saying like that one act in a day the fact that we all share a Sidewall empathy builder. Yes, yeah makes all the difference Well, I was thinking like it is a bubble right you look up at the hills and you see these mansions And I'm thinking if you just leave up there and you pop down or you send someone down to Whole Foods to get you groceries You're leaving this like utopian life.
You don't know that there's this struggle and so it's this Yeah, you might be super lonely, but there's a disconnect from your reality in the after reality of plagues America Yeah, and and through that people have a tendency to just I don't know Just forget who they are forget that they're normal forget that they have a past present future They live read just like everybody else and not to mention the party lifestyle the drugs that you see people get sucked up and spat out Yeah, it happens all time like you At the end of the day the only thing that's going to last is authenticity and being you and being being true But also not losing where you've come from and where you want to go and la has the ability to distract and pollute somebody's path I just I'm only here because there's more room for us to have a studio and my company didn't have as much real estate in New York City That's the only reason I'm here. And so what are you what are you looking forward to? No, I don't know what I'm looking forward to as in do you look to the future and go This is where I want the exact same show to be or I know I want six dogs Oh, I definitely want a lot of dogs to make money to have dogs And I want to get back at the end of the day What is the radio it's a friend right and we have a public license We have an obligation to serve the community and to get back to the community I just want to make radio relevant I want to be able to tell people stories and be the vehicles for people stories and being be the eyes and ears for Everybody out there and then be able to use that to get back to the communities that we're really lucky to serve So we're wherever Wherever I need to be to make all that happen is where I'll be you know, I wish I had a more exciting answer No, but if I'm what I'm gauging is you're not suffering the curse of comparison, right? Like I think you can look to your left and see successful Jimmy over here and think I want that But you kind of living in your own there's enough there's enough for everybody and again like as long I do get annoyed sometimes where I see people I'm like, oh, they're totally copying us or they're trying to be like us or whatever And that has hit me but like I can't stop that and at the end of the day That's just flattering what we're doing work.
So let me do more of it works Which is just be myself and be more researched and diligent interviews and come up with different games to play with my friends on the air I mean, I don't know like we drop the ball looking if you're looking at someone else's I can Yeah, you're right because you get distracted by what what what person number two is doing and then you just gotta be focused on what you're doing Just be you I don't know I Competition is good at the end of the day because at least it keeps you not comfortable And I do believe being comfortable is kind of like the weird kiss of death You know because you got to kind of stay sharp and even though like even if you're not comparing yourselves to everybody else around you You don't want to you you don't want to be lost innovation. Do you know what I'm saying? How do you make how do you make friends like you were talking about the struggles younger with friendships? I'm guessing being in a new city in entertainment.
It can't be any easier. It's different I have a lot of friends I've had for a long time in entertainment and I hold very close to my heart Mm-hmm like a lot of friends that have been around for like 10 years Do you have to reconcile like as I know like working in media people come and go and there's this like weird Friendship on air and sometimes you're wondering like is this trance like is this real? Do you ever have the thing you're doing is building rapport quickly? Yeah, and we train right now I mean, if you want Funny enough I was wanting I wanted to be a presenter TV presenter.
Okay, and I might said to me He was who's a successful TV presenter back in the day You need to pick up a camera and start filming and doing your own thing getting out there doing pieces to camera And so I did that and one of those times I was working for a friend of mine's business And I said I'll do some presenting at this thing that you're doing and Josh was the guy filming Yeah, that would have been like 2009 So that was when we first met but then we sort of went off in our own journeys and I did the radio thing Josh did filmmaking What you'd been doing and the digital content and then all sort of came back around when I left radio and wanted to be a Filmmaker and so I reached out to Josh because I knew that he did that stuff And we had a coffee together and talked about you know starting my own thing and he was telling me about what he was doing And I guess at the start we're talking about video and then we're saying all YouTube is trying to do podcasts And they're really struggling to keep up the schedule like people drop the ball with podcasts I'm like fuck like video is hard like it's hard for us to do video constantly and be Publishing and also running you know businesses that have corporate clients And so we said okay Well, we're being chatting every day on the phone for it for an hour talking about you know How much to charge and all those types of things? It's like why don't we do a podcast and then the daily talk show.com was available. It's like well, it has to be daily Yeah, yeah, I mean how many things have been done purely based on a domain And so yeah, we've done over 500 episodes and so now we've got our business together We have mr. 97 full-time who works for us.
Is that your name? Is that the year you were born? No, it's not the year So in Australia the fake year. He was born because he's only 20 Yeah, and so we say it was born as that with me He's 22 bars.
No, but the actual reason is because in in Victoria in the state that we're in in Australia At the end of the year in year 12 you get what's known as an interscore or an ATAR which is sort of like the what do they call it? That's the grades in the score you get so you get whatever. Yeah, and Tommy didn't finish high school. I barely scraped through Mr.
97 did it was out of a hundred he did very well and so that night I'm stuck with him so you're the smartest of the three. Yeah, exactly And so what's your relationship with Australian radio? What do you listen to of Kyle and Jackie? Yeah, yeah, they're amazing Yes, I understand.
Yeah, maybe the biggest radio show in the world. Yeah, maybe they're on the way I see Kyle had a they had a billboard. It was Kyle's dream to get a billboard in LA Well, I had one recently I don't want to fuck with him, but it was a digital billboard What about it? What about Aussies over here?
I feel like there needs to be more. There's not enough. Yeah, what about us? You want to come and do a radio show here?
It excites me hearing about the the scale of this this country just the 26th station You know syndication like that blows my mind. I was on one radio station within Victoria of maybe six four different companies Like it's so small in comparison. What's the cash like so Tommy? You're on what $50,000.
That's all he got for a full time Dude, you're making more than people I have on my team Yeah, and so from a from a talent point of view is it like do you run it like your own business or is it very much like you're an employee? There's so many there's so many different ways to do it. Yeah, I'm an employee. That's how it works this time around He knows what's gonna be in the future, but I'm not I'm not gonna lie to you Yeah, there's not a ton of money in radio right now radio suffering from a branding problem radio has a potential to rebrand So what about fucking how it's doing?
How is it like I mean he's a ally? There's okay? There's two different ways to look at it, right? Yeah, Howard is an IP generator content generator serious XM creates content They generate IP a majority of radio here in the States is essentially putting stuff out there that is never going to be repurposed Demand right thing about it.
It's you know 95 7 the vibe Music it's not ever great. Well, that's one of the things that we don't want to Just forever and that's what I think that we've tried to do with the daily talk show is we have huge databases We've transcribed every one of our 500 shows So it's a 97 can pick up things that we're doing our highlights of episode 500 We're six of fun because we have all of this content we can pull upon so you have to transcribe all of them now We've got it. We've got an AI So how are you thinking about that though in regards to like IP why do you feel like you're in the IP generation game? Yeah, I mean we the interviews are biggest form of IP and like I at the end of the day those interviews are not about me They're the people that sit on the couch and I get a chance to talk to you and get to know and I get to know them on behalf of everybody else They will stay on the test the time those conversations will be around God willing after mr 97 and all of us are long gone and our kids are long gone because they help shape the way people perceive artists and get to know artists And they help write pop culture history in a sense Have you thought about inserting yourself more into the or even having not within the interviews necessarily but their own on bits where It is more about you and your life and what you're doing I feel like that's the next step for our YouTube channels because a lot of people want to get to know who we are Nobody gets to know us.
Nobody gets to understand my great dog Lou Do you look so beautiful right now? It's Yeah, so is it I mean the other thing too when you started you're young you don't have much of a life to talk about hey So now that you're That's now that you're 26 like you're you're staying to live more of a life So is that part of it too that you actually have shit to share yeah dude my radio show is full of my entire life my entire existence Yeah, we're gonna start shooting more of the actual radio show and putting it up on YouTube That's what we're saying like we don't get the we're trying to position it all over again Yeah, we were wondering we see all the YouTube content and that's sort of the lens that we view is there a lot of stuff that What that's on the radio? Yeah, we do five hours of content a night really yeah, dude Well, we feel five hours five days with six days a week is that anywhere online that we can you can only stream it That's okay thing. We're gonna I was talking to you before about all the new cameras again It's all gonna be like we have a whole behind this wall right here There's an actual like control room and we're gonna be able to control the different cameras in this room Yeah, everything's gonna be up.
We're gonna be able to shoot everything top to bottom. It's so hard though Isn't it like did you see Bobby bones like the studio studio? It's fucking hard to do well without it feeling like a spaceship hobby I love you and I know you tried to copy my studio Yeah, it feels like it's too too far away. I love him.
He's one of the greatest rate personalities in my mind ever exist He has revitalized country radio the better. You're amazing. You probably never see this But I feel like you know that I love you But the studio is beautiful. Yeah, it sounds great.
Lewis. Can you be polite? It's fine. He's looking cute Isn't he great job at the studio?
The gas position is so far. Yeah, and by the way, it doesn't just look far It feels far. Yeah, but do we feel far right now? No, I think it's good feels good any further I mean we're used to being this close to each other so yeah Well, the thing is the craziness of where what we have at the moment because we haven't got the multi cams in our in our studio We're doing a little bit of neck turning which add which change of the dynamic But the dream is to be able to you know, be able to be across and having a good conversation You look pretty comfortable.
Yeah extremely It's amazing the activator Do you think about doing on-the-road shows like so we're in LA at the moment like do you think about you know what? I want to do a stint in Sydney or Melbourne or yeah, we thought about it We used to show for one summer a few years ago maybe eight years ago every Friday for an entire summer We did our show from the listener's house. I'm gonna take the whole on-the-road setup and I would set it up myself I was a vice president and president video club for three years in high school and I allowed me to understand like the bear Requirements the bear minimum requirements of what it takes like set something up. Yeah XLR's now it's all kind of shit and I was able to set up our on-the-road set up in like 10 15 minutes and we did it Too many shows from kids houses, and there's just a lot of variables to go I don't find a thrill in doing the show from a different location and having to figure out things around you And like I like being in my space and being in my universe and knowing that like when I'm again my headphones are proper And I just like being control of variables what are some of those controllables?
So for instance, you've got a big guest coming in do everything from like smell of the room to what they're hearing to where the cameras Are going you have music pumping when they come in no music well when they come in we're mostly already ready to go I've got who's coming today? Nobody today Jay Park is a k-pop star he was supposed to come in tomorrow today He didn't come in now Horan calls us tomorrow on the phone this guy Eric Noam who's another k-pop artist he's gonna buy tomorrow and then we're launching today interviews water parks They're really a cool van they're kind of new yeah, speaking of new music They're somebody that we're definitely gonna play on the radio and get out there cuz they're kind of very like vintage pop punk Five that is kind of gone missing yeah, so yeah, we have a decent metagest coming in we're gonna have more soon But to your point of like variables any to be controlled yeah, it's everything dude It's like where do the guests go who are they seeing where is the eyeline because think about it like everything matters in a long form conversation? What about the greeting so sometimes I used to get huge amounts of anxiety of heart said I hug a handshake a kiss fucking driving crazy I do nothing Depending on the guests like if they come to me I'll come over like this And if it's somebody that I care about like I'll make it known to them that like I'm getting up to hug you So is it pretty so you won't have you won't be at the door? No, but you're okay You'll see that you're doing the thing very again like I can very few have I've been like at the door to bring somebody You guys do producers you guys doing phones and stuff like not doing interviews Yeah, these are recorded separately from the actual radio show because they're long form and then you chop them up for the But the YouTube gets it in its entirety so it's like an hour or 40 minutes none of the conversations are usually less than 30 Mm-hmm.
So yeah, I have producers one producer walks them in get them set up here Dan is sitting here to my left Ricky is over there kind of in the middle and we put their team behind us Yeah, love sacks aka like me back. So it's like was it 230 here in LA? What's the rest of the day look like for you? I have to go cut the countdown for tonight show Gotta do some promos and a couple commercials And then we launched the radio show live at 4 o'clock West Coast, which is 7 o'clock East Coast and then we'll go live till midnight So I'll be your answering phone calls running show So you're having it live Oh combination.
Yeah a lot of the shows recording in the morning. Mm-hmm. Then all the live phone calls in the shows actually operate live at night That's cool. It's hybrid.
Yeah, it's kind of complicated way too complicated and not as complicated as radio needs to be But in terms of what we need to do and our current technological limitations. It's the only way to do well It seems exciting it feels like in the next five years you think about where podcasting is going You see where all of this the opportune of these like smart speakers are such a tiny tiny tiny Portion of the market. Just think where it could all of this stuff could eventually go dude Possibilities are endless. Mm-hmm content is always gonna be king Yeah, so long as you can create great content whether that's all the content or visual content You will say relevant and you're gonna have a home And I do think that over the next few years the way radio gets the people is definitely gonna change like delivery systems may change But the integrity of the brand and the notability of the brand and the personalities are on the radio station They're never gonna go away.
Yeah, you know just because Your local radio station in Kansas City doesn't need to go anywhere Just because Wi-Fi has now entered your car Yeah, it's just that that that radio station might sound a little bit clearer a little bit better Yeah, and the brands on that radio station I don't know you might be able to interact with them on a deeper level. Mm-hmm. So radio where we're going is incredibly exciting at least here America and I feel like it's just as exciting elsewhere. Mm-hmm.
I think most radio stations in Australia sound better than radio stations here in America What about radio personalities that don't like the idea of filming and they can have to get used to it It depends on what you want to do. Mm-hmm. I think Wi-Fi in the car is the first step Autonomous vehicles is the second step. So if you're not driving your car, why do you need to listen to something when you can watch it?
Mm-hmm, and in my mind All of these different social media platforms are just places for content to go and if you're creating content in a studio Why not figure out how to take that one piece of content and work it to as many platforms as humanly possible? Well, we have people who just watch snippets on Instagram of us Yeah, they still feel like they are consuming our shot totally so why not feed them with stuff? Yeah, you have the content it exists So why not feed them and by the way like those same people who get used to watching your Instagram stuff They're the same people who eventually click on the link in your bio and start listening to more so sure I feel like if you're creating content, like why not figure out how to get that one piece of content out? Just many different people as possible in order to touch as many people as possible You need to be on many on as many platforms as possible.
So Zach, thanks so much mate for coming on the show and being so generous I've talked so much. I'm so no this is exactly what you meant to do when you're a guest I like Australian people I was saying this one I reckon a year and a half time two years time it'll change with Podcasts reaching out to people. We won't be able to get access like yeah, it's a very unique time What would have been happened? You would have been annoyed 50,000 times by that.
Yeah, you're like oh my god You're fucking the number of thousands the question is like what do you want for radio? What do you want for podcasts? Do you want it to be this wild west where anybody can do it Lewis? What the heck are you?
I don't know. He's fine. What do you what do you want? Do you want to be a wild west where I can do it?
I mean I think similar to you I mean the cream rises to the top We just have to keep getting better and better. We have video production backgrounds So that's a competitive advantage that we have also we love the authenticity So we love just being ourselves and so it becomes a lot easier part of our show is it's probably 30% guests 70% just us and so what we're trying to do is build in our Personalities and personal brands into the whole piece of content So people don't just go listen to an interview and get annoyed at us just getting in the way of their hearing You know from their favorite stars because that's kind of like that's the balance right like you don't want to just be an interview show But the same I want to be able to know you for you You don't want to be so utilitarian that you could be the microphone And so you do that through asking great questions and bringing your spin to it and for us We try and bring in our personalities and so for LA the past of six episodes have just been us in different locations talking about weird things that have been happening and then you know next week We'll have to roll out a bunch of our guests, but we tend to not we don't do that many pre-records We normally do it every single day live. Yeah, we do live to Instagram We want to eventually get to the point where similar to where you're going with the PTZ stuff like it's all dialed in So it's we can do the phone stuff or the new age version of that where it's super high fidelity And so that's what that's where we want to we want to go But we don't see I guess the democritization doesn't necessarily affect what we're doing because we just want to be unique and the seven days a week Well, it's so easy to me. Well, it's unique now, but we think that we feel like we're in a period where we have an opportunity to really Like we've done 500 episodes where we haven't missed a day and so the first we only said doing seven days in June So before then it was five days a week, but we see this opportunity week like in Australia I don't know what it's like in the US, but we have survey breaks where the radio shows go off air or whatever and they play best of And we don't we don't do that.
Yeah, we just we just keep producing more so When it's Christmas, it's not like it feels like a Christmas is could be a real lonely time for some people That's not if you're listening, yeah, exactly and so that's part of it It's like you don't have to listen to a best of you actually hear us So is that a goal just to be friends with people? Yeah, I think you're building a community bring you on young mates over here 97 And just like as we're building the audience the people that are interacting the friends of the show the people have been on the show many times That are coming back. It just it just expands it compounds. Yeah, we did a F500 event where we had like 70 people come to our live show a guy a guy named Hayden who listens to the show We've got our communities called the Gronk squad have you so a Gronk have you heard of a Gronk?
I mean like I've heard of Rob Gronk He gets a lot of the search engine optimization. Unfortunately, but a Gronk is sort of like someone like if you So if you finish the toilet roll and you don't empty you don't replace the toilet roll. That's a Gronk move or say It's like a P.O.S. I don't know what P.O.S.
What's that? P.O.S. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but the thing is we're all Gronk's we all do things this We all do things where we're thinking about ourselves and not others.
Yeah, but we're all trying to be better Yeah, we all don't want to be but we all are totally get that so the girls are where Gronk's and so we're Gronk's were but Hayden got a The Daily Talk show tattooed last week Ten years so we're gonna do the show for 10 years and so we're 20 months in which 10 years Do you think about stuff you think about like 10 years time? Yeah, I do and I think that it's still a long way ahead and 10 years Yeah, but I also think about things like I wanna die with my microphone in my hands So how do I do this for the next 30 40 20 years or you just need to walk across the road always my I'm driving, holding on. You never know. No, I don't know.
It's kind of interesting because, like, I see a lot of people in this viral day and age, for lack of a better phrase, they like blow their load, you know, they go viral, they do ridiculous things or interviewers ask obnoxious, gacha questions and those are just people not playing the long game. Absolutely. You're just looking for a short-term birth and... I'm definitely...
Our whole game is trying not to plot that long. That's the tag line, the tag line in our life, I think. You can't do it. I'm holding it in my load theory for the years.
Right now. You're doing a great job. I'm actually... Oh, wait, I got to applaud you.
You've come here and had me on your show. I haven't asked about one celebrity guest I've had on, so thank you. I mean, you have, but not. You know how many times I've gotten the question?
So, who's your favorite celebrity guest? Which guest have you learned the most from? I'm like, it's like everything from casual conversation to legitimate, you know, on-the-record conversations. It's the same sort of stuff.
So, I thank you for that. Louis, I see you chewing something. Louis, what are you up to? Oh my God, that's my phone.
I mean, it's super interesting, interesting, interesting what you're doing. I think that it is that we're trying to decipher and understand this LA weird world and also being able to do this as a job. Like, we haven't monetized the podcast at all. We've tried to make money and we're like, we're going to give ourselves another year before we try and do that.
You're very nice people. And so, you know, it's amazing. Well, I think it's 97 just going to work for free. He still lives at home.
It's a little bit. You can do this. Lucky. Zach, thank you, man.
No, thank you for having me on your show. It really means a lot and I appreciate it. And thank you. Thank you for reaching out.
Yeah, thank you. Hi, the DailyTalk show.com is our email address. People can send us emails. Which is really exciting.
I forgot that you were hosting the show. You can sign it off. Can you sign it off? Can you sign it off?
Yeah, do it. But we don't get to hear you talk to the post when watching the YouTube stuff. Well, you know, go to the DailyTalk show.com. They bought the URL so they have to make a show around it.
Because that's nice. And you look like two people who pretend to be friends. Yeah, that's what you're doing right here. Just like you and Dan.
Dan genuinely hates it. And he lets it shine. Go to the DailyTalk show.com. And I would say if this is my interview, thank you for being here.
Thanks for giving us your energy. It means a lot. That's great. That's great.
Yeah, that's great. That's great. That's great. That's great.
That's it. That's it. You also say, well, beautiful payload. What's your line?
Give a few beautiful commands. My new thing is, I love you. I love you. You just start saying that's great.
You're going to get me into the face. Alright, I'll drop it. That's how we drop it. Unless you're looking for a rush.
Go for it. Love you. Thanks. Love you too.