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Have you ever wondered what an inanimate object thinks? What it feels? Well, that's the subject of one of the best and most original podcasts available today. Everything is alive.
On Everything is Alive, host Ian Chilag sits down with a can of cola, a lamppost, a pillow, a mousetrap, and a subway seat to find out what's on their mind. What follows is an insightful, philosophical, fun, and highly entertaining series that leaves you glued to your seat, anxiously awaiting for the next episode to download. I recently was able to speak with Ian about his new series. In our conversation that follows, we discuss how he came up with the idea for Everything is Alive, what surprises he's encountered thus far while producing the series, and what else we can expect from Season 1 of Everything is Alive.
Here now, my conversation with Ian Chilag. Can we just start? Can you tell us a little bit about how you came up with the idea for Everything is Alive? Yeah.
Yeah. One, I think it's just, you know, it's kind of a way that I think, you know, I think a lot of people are this way, where you just imagine the things around you, what their personalities might be like. And, you know, I find myself kind of joking around and having these thoughts, wondering, like, what my chair felt about its job of being sat on all day. And also, I've been a producer for a long time for NPR and, you know, producing host interviews.
And you'll, you know, someone will, you'll need to book an expert to talk about sand dunes or something. And you always try and find the most primary source you can. And I just thought, you know, it would be a really fun experiment rather than finding the PhD sand dune expert. What if you could talk to the sand dune itself?
How interesting might that be? So I started playing around with that idea and kind of went from there. And it is an absolutely interesting idea, and that gave birth to Everything's Alive, a show where you interview inanimate objects. And the way I first heard about it was I listened to 99% Invisible, and you were featured on it with Roman Mars.
And during the conversation you and Roman had at the end of the episode, you mentioned that a majority of your shows aren't scripted. You'll pretty much discuss an idea with the actor or the actress beforehand who's playing the inanimate object. But I'm just kind of curious, do you kind of prefer not knowing what that individual is going to say, or do you kind of, like, direct them a little bit, saying, oh, that's at this point, that's at that point? Yeah, no, I definitely prefer it being unscripted and, you know, the surprises that you find when you do it that way.
It's good for a couple reasons. One, I'm just not a very good actor, so I really do like to go in and have it. For me, it really feels like an interview. You know, we get in that space where I feel like I'm talking to, you know, a mousetrapper or something.
And I treat them exactly like I would treat a human that I was interviewing. Sometimes there's been episodes where I've had ideas about what I thought the arc of the story would be, and then it went a completely different way. Our second episode, which is with a lamppost named Maeve, I had in the back of my mind that the kind of interesting story there would be, what if this lamppost was obsessed with the lost dog posters that got attached to her? What if she was constantly worried about those dogs, you know, that the signs were taped to her?
And I thought that might be sort of her central character note. But the conversation didn't go that way. It went in a kind of other interesting place. And, you know, you just try and follow that, what happens naturally, and both do the interview and edit the course.
And that's really interesting, because I actually just re-listened to Maeve the Lamppost this morning, and Maeve definitely is kind of a little starstruck. She has Hollywood in her eyes and that. Yeah, yeah. So I'm kind of curious, because ultimately the show is, you know, anthropomorphizing objects and talking about that.
And, you know, I actually know some people that kind of do that. So I'm kind of curious, have you been contacted at all by people who anthropomorphize objects? And, you know, what have their reactions been like to the show at all? Yeah, that's been really wonderful.
We've heard from tons of people who say, oh, my God, I do this. You know, I worry about when I shut my laptop at night, if it feels lonely while I'm asleep. And, you know, I think it's something a lot of people do. And, you know, we've had people say, I wish that I had done something like this, because it's the way that I think.
And that's been really fun. Also, it's been fun. I think it's made – we've heard from people who, because of the show, are thinking differently about those things in their life. You know, they're imagining – we've heard from people who, you know, say that they're looking longer at a lamppost or at a can of cola, you know, and they're thinking about what if it did have a life.
And so, you know, there's this weird starting to have empathy with objects or at least considering them more, which, you know, that wasn't our goal or anything, but I think it's a nice secondary effect. Yeah, it really is. And I think that ties into something else, and that's the variety of emotions that you get from your series. It's incredible.
Like, when I first heard Louis the canicola, man, it was like a deep philosophical conversation I was listening to. And I forgot that it's an actor playing a canicola. You just got so pulled into the conversation and the emotion of loneliness or not being picked and all these different layers in that. And even with Maeve the lamppost, who is just so charming and childlike, was it ever your intention to get this emotional with your topics and everything?
Or did you think this would just be kind of almost like a very simple story told? Yeah, I think we – I always wanted it to do more than – I wanted it to go beyond sort of the gimmick or the joke that things can talk. And it's been very important to me that it's – you know, it's not a comedy show. And, like, I love that it's funny when it's funny, but it doesn't – our goal is more that the characters that we're creating feel real.
Like, if we do that, that's when I feel like we're – you know, we figured it out. So, you know, I was – Louis, I was surprised by – you know, I felt that, too. And doing the interview, sitting there doing the interview, it was emotional for me, too. Really?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was surprised by what happened, and I really felt for him. And, yeah. It was – and then there's that second effect, which I think, like, I listened to that, too, which is, like, I'm feeling this thing.
And then you have this other layer of thought, which is, like, why am I feeling this thing? It's a canicola. Yeah, yeah. But even, like, the production element that you employ then on the show, like, when you drink Louis, I mean, it's a really, like, emotional, like, moment.
And I remember sitting in my office going, man, I don't even know if I should be listening to this right now because it's almost this, like, very private moment that's happening here. And it's – I think it's a testament to how talented and how great you are at being a storyteller in that and the use of sound effects and the use of music and the overall presentation of your show. I'm curious if you can kind of just discuss a little bit about what your approach is to music and sound effects because you don't use it a lot. But when you do, I mean, wow, they are impactful.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I like things to be pretty fair. And, you know, this show especially, I think the silence does a lot of work in making it feel real and in sort of illustrating where the moments are. I'm always very hesitant to use music.
But – and I'm also figuring out how to do it, too. I think, you know, we tend to – I tend to use it when the things are sort of – I guess when our objects are sort of having dreams or imagining things. I think it's easier rather than sort of telling us about experience they've had when they're talking about a dream they have. I find that music helps get us into the state where we need to be.
Yeah, again, I don't really know what I'm doing with that yet, but we're figuring it out bit by bit. Our executive producer said to me, to Julie Shapiro at RadioTopia, she said, you know, it's so much easier. Put in – play with all the music you can think you possibly want. And then pull back because you can always take some out.
And I think that's a good note. Like, you can make something feel sort of over-floored and over-illustrated and maudlin and then just pull back to it feels right. I think that's been a good tip for me. It's almost like that, like, less is more kind of a philosophy, if you will.
Definitely. I really believe that, yeah. So I got to ask, especially since maybe the lamppost is so fresh in my mind, has anyone ever contacted you yet about the missing lamppost from Singing in the Rain? We haven't heard anything yet, sadly.
We've heard some people say they're going to look, but nobody's made any headway. I still hope that you guys are able to solve that mystery and everything. It'd just be so fun. Yeah, it'd be great.
Has anything surprised you thus far with working on Everything's Alive? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think my wife, who is, she's been a real collaborator in developing the show. The first time we sat down and listened to Lewis in a very early state, you know, it was 35 minutes long and really loose and messy.
I think in the first few minutes we were both just very struck that it worked. It was like, you know, it wasn't even good. But what I mean when it worked is that we both were like, yeah, not for a second have we doubted that we're listening to a can talking. And so the thing that happens where you believe what you're listening to, it's been a surprise that that worked.
And, you know, a number of things along the way. It's been – the response has been amazing. I was really surprised. I thought, you know, I thought some people would like it, but it's been overwhelming.
And, yeah, I guess it seems like a sort of weird niche idea. And I guess it is, but the number of people that have responded to it, that's been a really great surprise. That's wonderful. Do you have any advice for any aspiring storytellers out there?
What would you tell them? Yeah, I think one would be just do it, you know, just try it out. And I think if you're thinking, like, I have an idea for a podcast and you're imagining a podcast in the 20 episodes or, you know, infinite episodes, just go make it. Because that will – one, it's good to learn how to do that.
You're going to get better every time you do it. But also you're going to learn how hard your idea is to make because it can be really hard. And you can learn if – you can learn if your idea has flaws and if they're worth fixing or if you want to try and find another idea. This show, I initially started out making not just inanimate objects, but inanimate objects and plants and animals, basically like the things in our lives that don't speak.
And I was initially much more attracted to the inanimate object idea, but I thought that I would try the other things just because it would give us a wider range of episodes. But while those were kind of fun to make during the piloting process, they were also – they didn't work. They didn't work because you – I think we naturally, like, we naturally give birds and dogs and even plants – we give them personalities and names already. And so you're kind of working against something that already exists in somebody's mind rather than this place where, you know, people haven't thought to give it a personality before.
So there's just, like, you know, there's a steeper hill to climb to make it believable. So, yeah, just all that is a way to say try out your idea and try it a few times, and that will help you refine and make the thing you want to make. So I oversee a college radio station here in Chicago, so I just kind of have a fun college radio question. Just in your opinion, what do you see as college radio's impact on the larger radio world but also on the world of podcasting?
Well, I love college radio, and I had a college radio show as a place for experimentation. Actually, I was driving upstate New York, and this was, I don't know, a year ago, and we caught barred college radio on the radio in my car. And it was this just wonderfully weird show. So I don't know who it was, but this woman was this incredible sort of beautifully produced report about music all over the world.
And she was making these choices that were totally weird and great and the kind of thing that probably if you had trained for five years at All Things Considered or This American Life, you probably wouldn't make because they would have been trained out of you. But, you know, clearly she was in an environment where she could just take her ideas, which were unique and singular, and go and make them. And I think about that show, and I think about the things I've heard where people just have a totally new idea that isn't sort of ruined by experience. And, you know, I really admire that, and I try to do that with what I'm making.
It's just, you know, what's just the thing I want to do rather than the things that people have told me I should do? And I think that college radio, because it's the first experience people have with making things like this in many cases, you hear a lot of that stuff. And I find it very inspiring. Awesome.
So I have one final question for you, and thank you so much for joining me today. What can we expect for the rest of Season 1 from Everything is Alive? Well, right now I'm hustling to get next week's episode on, and that's going to be with a pillow named Dennis. I'm pretty excited about it.
It's pretty weird. After that, we've got coming up a mousetrap, a bar of soap, a subway seat, probably a mailbox. And, yeah, I think, you know, I think we're going to keep trying to make it different and make sure that all these characters are distinct individuals. And, yeah, we'll see what happens.
I'm excited to see what happens, too, because I'm not really sure yet. Well, as a fan, I'm excited to find out what happens. Ian Chalag, thank you so much for joining me here today to discuss your new podcast, Everything is Alive. If you could real quick just share your website so everyone can go and check you out.
Yeah, that's great. It's everythingisalive.com, and there's plenty of places you can find there to subscribe in whatever podcasting thing you use. So, yeah, listen and definitely let us know what you think. Awesome.
Everythingisalive.com, Ian Chalag. Thank you so much for joining me here today. We really appreciate it. Thank you.
And that was my interview with Ian Chalag from Everything is Alive. For more information on Everything is Alive, please visit their website, everythingisalive.com. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. I'm Peter Creighton, and thanks for listening.
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