E41 Season Premiere: Who Is The Itch?

Allow us to reintroduce ourselves. This is The Itch. My name is KC.
My name is Dan.
And I'm Aaron. And we are back after a hiatus.
I will say though, that was the busiest damn offseason ever.
You think it was busy? Imagine being me! We're doing a lot of plotting and planning and texting and brainstorming. And then the fact that we revisited those old episodes but recorded new intros to them, we were still getting on and doing new stuff.
And that's why it didn't feel like a vacation or break or offseason it was it was just just another week, we just didn't spend as long on the recording sessions as we normally do.
Which, which, that in and of itself is sometimes okay. Yeah, maybe we'll have some short episodes this year, I don't know. We'll see how we feel.
Or research new topics.
Yes. But man, that was productive, though, you gotta admit. We came up with a whole bunch of really cool stuff that we're gonna, and we're going to take this episode to share some of that new stuff, and what you might be able to expect in the second season of the podcast, and we're definitely excited.
You put in a lot of work. You put in a lot of work, to try to get us lined up with some different opportunities. And you know, I think the communication has been really good back to us. So I'm super excited about what this season, if we're going to call it that, has in store for us.
Yeah. So one thing I learned is that when it comes to podcasting, the word season either means you're deliberately like a short run like eight episodes, this is the full story. And we'll come back with another story later, kind of thing, or it means we're tired, and we need to take a break. And we're calling it a season. In our case, it was the latter. We were like, We need to rest for a minute. We barely did. Plus, it feels so cool to call it season two.
We're new and improved.
And mildly rebooted, to be honest.
Yes, mildly, is very true. Yeah, rebranding, we're going to try to do this season to go along with, with just the new features that we've gotten in store. So the first thing you might notice is that we did not introduce the show as Rock Matters, or the Rock Matters podcast, but rather as just The Itch.
We decided that between the radio show, which we're hoping will return to this season, and the podcast and our website and social media handles, that it was too complicated for everything to be different, we needed some synchronicity there. And so while rock does matter, and we will be continuing to discuss matters related to rock, we decided that it didn't necessarily need to be part of the name of the podcast anymore.
And honestly, this season, we kind of want to focus on us, we are The Itch. That's why we introduce ourselves every show. And we do that not only on the podcast, but we do it on the radio show as well. If we don't introduce ourselves, we outro ourselves, so that you kind of get to know us and that's, that's gonna be the focus is trying to get to know us this season.
Yeah, and we're gonna keep the, the format pretty much the same the way we did in the first season. We're gonna do album reviews, and we're very excited to get some interviews lined up and recorded. And we're also going to do some collaborations with other podcasts. And we're excited about those opportunities as well.
Yeah, one thing that we've discovered since doing this is how incredibly awesome the podcast community is, and how supportive they are of their own. And it's not something that I guess I would have expected, you know, maybe I should have, you know, like radio broadcasters have always been friendly. You know, every run-in that we've had with the specialty show hosts at the radio station have always been really nice. And any kind of radio broadcaster that I've met, or DJ as you want to call them, they're typically most of the time down to earth guys. Most of them. 90%.
By and large, by and large.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's just incredible, like, how supportive that they've been, you know, and then even reaching out to us and collaborating with us. So it's really exciting that we're getting to be a part of this.
Yeah, we we decided in our conversations that we didn't really need to reinvent the wheel in terms of what the format of the show was. There may be a couple of fun little bits and segments that show up here and there throughout the season, you'll have to see, but by and large we we like the idea of sort of this buffet style. Some episodes focus mostly on album reviews, some might be a little bit of a game. Some might be a conversation with an artist, where we have the freedom to pick and choose what interests us without being entirely obligated to follow the format. But what we did decide was that we really wanted to focus this season on being about collaboration. And so as, as Casey mentioned, I think with the interviews, as Dan mentioned, with the podcast community, we've already got a good solid number of leads and interested parties. And speaking to some artists, and having guest spots and being guests on other shows, we may even end up deciding to collaborate with a network of some sort. And plus, there's also the possibility of old former ish members returning for episodes here and there, including some you have not met yet. Yeah, we're gonna try. I really hope that's possible. You know, with COVID? It's, it's a little bit more difficult than and just invited one of them over to my house.

Unknown Speaker  5:37  
Right.

Unknown Speaker  5:38  
Yeah. You know, we've been fortunate with other members that we've had come come back on that they've had the means to set up some kind of recording situation. So I don't know if that's quite possible for all of our past cohorts. But we'll see. We'll definitely try it. That's for sure. My dream for the season is for as many episodes as possible. Not every single one, but as many as possible to have somebody joining us on them. ahead. That would be a lot of fun. That would be fun. But don't forget, this is our show. And doesn't want to share too much. The spotlight here. That's fair. If we can hit like a 5050 kind of split, I'll be pretty happy. Especially if those 5050 are bands that we love. Ya know, I definitely wouldn't argue with that. Yeah, actually, KC brought up a really good point the other day that was that I hadn't even noticed. Without without dropping any specific names, I think we're able to give at least a hint of some of the artists you might be able to, to expect on future episodes.

Unknown Speaker  6:40  
Well, we, we have one interview that that is one of my favorites from the top 20 list. Then we have another interview. That is Dan's favorite of the top 20 list. And then we hope that we can get one of Aaron's favorites of the top 20 list, which was all done on a review episode.

Unknown Speaker  6:58  
Yes. So that's, that's a little sneak peek. And then I want to go any further than that. Because I don't want to say things that aren't fully locked in yet. But also, they're pretty close, though. And I'm really excited about like, I want to talk about that. I was so high promises. We're not liars.

Unknown Speaker  7:13  
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  7:15  
things don't work out. I've sent out a whole bunch of other, you know, shots into the dark to see what happens. And so something will work. But man, we're so excited last season when we talked to Sean from gray days. And we talked to Ray from skindred those are awesome episodes. There's there's so much fun. And to do it more.

Unknown Speaker  7:30  
Yeah. And pretty unexpected context to be able to get the interview for one. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  7:38  
Still a little bit mourning that the grandson went didn't work out. I'm just gonna go public with that. I will say that, especially since they reached out first. Yes. Yeah, definitely. Not recently, something we were talking about. And yeah, I agree. Like they reached out to us. And it was kind of like, oh, man, fuck you then. I wasn't gonna go that far. I was really excited to talk to them. But man, I was disappointed that it didn't work out. I like taking the positive road. And what I said is we will make sure that one day we will have enough listens to warrant them wanting to come to us for interviews and stuff. But yeah, no, I, I agree with with somebody that said that when a conversation that we recently had, and that's I laughed so hard because I agreed 100% with that. I'm just going to reach out to them again in like six months. Amazing. Alright, so death of an optimist has been out for a while. nobody's talking about it as much anymore. What is he doing? He's not doing anything, it's still COVID Come on.

Unknown Speaker  8:31  
It's not an election.

Unknown Speaker  8:32  
We're gonna make this happen. We have some major goals, one of our goals is to get the grandson interview at some point. And other of our goals is in a post COVID to get skindred back in the United States, and preferably with like a good label of good management, whoever. So that's, that's a low key mission like that The Itch has and to play, you know, even if they just come to play one show here in St. Louis, I don't give a crap. As soon as we continue as we continue interviewing more and more bands, you know, I'm going to slip that in there like oh, you know if we ever have a show or something to play and we call you

Unknown Speaker  9:03  
or Hey, do you guys know skindred? Because you should you should get to know them. Yeah, you should totally open for them on a concert that we set up called The Itch fest.

Unknown Speaker  9:09  
Second one yeah. Take him on your next tour and we got a show for in St. Louis. That's one of our dreams that we have not really pursued because we are not actual concert promoters. I still think it's a good idea to dream big. And so yeah, I don't even know where we would like we'd have to like solicit all these venues like come on hold this show for us

Unknown Speaker  9:25  
man. Absolutely no idea how do you guys even know any concert promoters? I don't think I do. We're gonna have to find some Okay. Well,

Unknown Speaker  9:35  
I don't know about promoters but I know a few smaller venue people that deal with stuff like that, but

Unknown Speaker  9:42  
we may have to we may have to find some to interview so that we have we will have a connection. So there you sit there you have an itch fest coming 2023 buy or sell some time. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  9:53  
I was gonna say depending on how quickly we could get it done. Depending on the COVID situation, we People would probably want us to have their venue, please come back to us.

Unknown Speaker  10:07  
Nobody's playing shows yet we still need some people to play shows that well, we'll do it. Well, we'll get you there.

Unknown Speaker  10:11  
There'll be like,

Unknown Speaker  10:12  
it's called hitch festival like, Wait, what? We don't want whatever that is happening here. Like, no, we promise it's theirs. It's not like that. It's so nothing disgusting.

Unknown Speaker  10:26  
Real quick why you mentioned that, you know, one of the things that we want to try to make sure that we stress enough is that we are The Itch. We're a rock music podcast. And, you know, so just because you hear The Itch, we're not going to talk about weird stuff that you don't want to hear it. This isn't a medical advice show. That's not our goal. But what we do want to start saying now and one of the reasons why our name became a thing is because when we got the radio show, we were asked, What kind of a niche Do you guys want to fill. And that was part of the the thing that we needed to tell them in order to get the radio shows, we had to have some kind of niche that we're going to fill in St. Louis radio. And, you know, the story goes, I'm sure you might have heard it already. But KC misunderstood it. He heard the word edge, and he said, one that needs to be scratched. That's the niche we're gonna fill. And so our ongoing theme, I think this season is going to be you know, every episode, what are we scratching? That's right. So it may we may be scratching the itch for a new album, a new style of album, or maybe scratching the itch to hear a cool story about a band, it could be any number of things. I've always understood the name of the show the to be exactly that. It's this idea of like, the misinterpretation worked for me, it was this idea of there is a there's a void in the radio for radio for rock that isn't the same 10 songs over and over. And we're here to be able to do that so that people can scratch the itch for a little bit deeper, wider selection of music to hear, well, you know that the name was perfect. And I don't know if you guys have ever been in a band. Or if you've ever been in a collaboration where you've had to name something. There were five of us for one that started this radio show. And when when the name kind of came up, we're pitching all these names. And somebody said, Well, what about the edge? There was no more questions, there was nothing like that's the one that's it. That's exactly we're gonna call it like in for five guys to agree on a name just like that. It's just incredible. And it meant a lot to us. And it's me, it still means a lot to us to this day. 17 years later. Oh, yeah, we got to get that to in a second. But yeah, I just wanted to point out that as well that that Casey's happy accidents. I don't know if we ever come up with a name. You hadn't done that, because we'd probably still be talking about it right? It would have been something like wood rock or rock on the wood or something like that. It would have been something had to do with the wood because we were teenagers and we came up with the name. Yeah, we haven't done that. But that that's a good point. You said 17 years. Early on in season one, Dan has sort of a running gag where he would try to sneak we've been on radio for 16 years and every episode, it eventually faded out a little bit. He didn't do it quite as much. But if you've listened regularly, you have heard it plenty of times. Well, now, with the dropping of this episode on February 22. This is 17 years. It's The Itch aversary as we call it, it is but the funny thing is I can't really say that I've been on the radio for 17 years because I haven't like the whole last year we haven't been on the radio March 8 was the last date that we were there. And so so we can work around that though. The Itch has existed for 17 years. Perfect. I love it. I can work around it. Yeah, I like it. And so we love celebrating the anniversary is usually a show a time when on the radio show, we would try to have people from the past back. Join us. What were some of the other traditions you have you guys had aside from sometimes we would have like food in the studio when you weren't supposed to. I think sometimes like we would just go back and play old playlists and or Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  13:40  
I don't know, we played a lot of stuff from like the first couple weeks of our existence on the show. Yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  13:45  
we will. Yeah, we would always like one of my favorite things is like going back and playing like the the first playlist that we ever played as a radio show. Yeah. Because we saw have all those listed. Did you always start controversially episodes with Metallica? I think so. Or maybe ended with Metallica? Maybe not. But yeah, I don't know. To be honest. I don't think we did that. And then I What do you got to say? It just, it doesn't come? It doesn't feel like sound familiar off top my head like that. That was a tradition. Okay. I just know that that was that was the first track that was played as the as was a Metallica song. It was fading last and there was actually a reason for that too, because one of the radio stations that got me I guess, that was popular when I got into rock music. It was a radio station called 1041 extreme radio. And it was amazing. Like I literally like there are very few commercials on it. You can just sit there and listen to music and not listen to station and not really hear like the same songs, the same bands. That station alone was the reason why I wanted to be in radio. I literally would turn it on when I got home from school and sit in my room and play on you know, video games or whatever. And just be listening to the radio all night long. And that's all I listen to is one for one extreme radio. And so the radio station did last because of a FCC guideline that basically said one entity can only hold six radio stations in a network or in a market. And they can't be of the same genres basically. And so ms had three or four rock stations at the time. Yeah. So they had to get rid of 97. One, they had to get rid of 1041 and 93. Seven, it was a clean sweep of St. Louis radio for a while there. Yeah, they did. I mean, that was awesome, too, because there were so many rock stations. And that's why I didn't understand is like, why would you have to get rid of them? If you're supposedly competing against yourself? That doesn't make any sense. But yeah, it sucked. Because like, we, I felt like at the time, we had some of the greatest radio ever, like anywhere, and then we lost half our rock stations, and then another one kind of turned over. And it's just been crap ever since. And that's, and that's exactly why I wanted to do The Itch. That's why, you know, when we got to college, I wanted to get on the radio, and I wanted to bring back that style radio, back to St. Louis, that was a whole our whole intention. But, you know, we're a college radio station, and it's almost impossible to just go into a huge radio station and be like, Hey, I have no experience, you should hire me. Very true. It's not gonna happen. But

Unknown Speaker  16:03  
now you can say you've been on the air for 16 years plus, plus.

Unknown Speaker  16:11  
The show really does still, even today, the show really when St. Louis has at least four rock stations. And this is it feels a little bit weird to say this, the show that you guys had done until the pandemic still actually does scratch an itch that isn't particularly well scratched by those stations, you would think that with with three or four other rock stations that that they would have their bases covered, but no one's a classic rock station, two of them are functionally the same station. And then there's another one that I'll admit I kind of like, but I still, they're the ones that I think are closest to us. And that would be the Viper. But yeah, but I still think that there's a spot that we've that we've got to fill there. And so that's been really enjoyable. Well, one of the things that we've absolutely made sure to do and separate ourselves as we continue the radio show, is to make sure that we don't repeat ourselves, we don't have a three hour time slot, there's, we don't want to use that time slot to play the same damn songs every week, especially when radio does that for us. Turn on a radio station, hear the same song every four hours. So that that was not our intention. We didn't want to do that. And I think not only did we do a great job with that, just from our own memory. But as we continue to progress and more technology became available to us, we made damn sure that we didn't repeat. So it's free if we have unless we actually wanted to. Yeah, we were playing with play deep cuts, we were playing new tracks every week, we're playing bands that that hardly get any attention. The freedom is just fantastic. We had a little Twitter discussion about that earlier earlier this week, that the beauty of the freedom of community radio, or college radio are things that don't have to answer to a particular format that they're reporting to, and they have to report all their plays and all that kind of thing. Where's this, we could we could play the stuff that you aren't hearing elsewhere. And that was fantastic. And so it's aversary, it's a good time to celebrate, that is a lot of fun. The other thing I kind of wanted to discuss is that, you know, I don't think that the show would have lasted 17 years, if not worse, if it weren't for each and every one of us that contributes to the show. Now, I will say that, as the years have gone on, some of us have definitely contributed more than others. And some of us continue to just pull their way, way beyond, you know, or as put the whole way to the show on their shoulders. At this point, there's there's no doubt that every one of us brings different things to the show and makes the show exactly what it is. If it wasn't for the original five that started, I don't think we would have had the introduction playlist, and then the understanding of like, all the different types of music that we that we played at the time. And just kind of understanding that we should try to adhere to all rock music audiences instead of just our own preferences. And I think that as we've, we've grown, every one of us continues to add more and more uniqueness to the show.

Unknown Speaker  18:43  
Yeah, we wanted to scratch all the edges as it were.

Unknown Speaker  18:48  
Yeah, that's, that's a good lead into something that I thought would be kind of fun to do, which would be for us to each kind of circling around, and sort of maybe shedding a little bit light on what each of the other one brings to the table and the role that they played in, in the show existing to this to the length that it has, and silver like like for Dan, with what you just heard him talking about with all the with all the radio stations, and that kind of still need for something else going on? I think that I would say that The Itch is the Dan brings the passion to that. And that he very much is something that he cares very deeply about, is that music and is he's very much driven by the passion for for sharing music with people for seeing opportunities that might not exist otherwise. And then that's a good thing that he that he brings to the table. I think if I think he's the one that keeps things pushing along, whenever, you know, like when I left I moved out of St. Louis. So that was just down to you to at that point. So you both had to collectively decide that you're going to continue or not and I doubt either one of you would have done it without each other. I don't think a one man show would have been very much fun. But so I think that's one thing that he brings the table. Dan also brings to the table sort of the the I would say the grumpy old man vibe of The Itch

Unknown Speaker  19:57  
to get off my lawn as it were,

Unknown Speaker  19:59  
and I'm the young It's been a show, aren't I?

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
I think you're the youngest one.

Unknown Speaker  20:04  
But you're also the most get off my lawn. Yeah. The only one here that has kids too. So he actually, he is somebody who's old man. So there's that. And so I think that that sort of, but I think that that's fun to have that little bit of sort of like lovable grumpiness and sarcasm kind of somebody needs to bring that to the table and most shows. And so that's kind of where I see that. And it's kind of like this driving force and and a little bit of the snarky attitude. It's my humor style. Can I say, it's this humor style? giving out some bro love today. All right, this is gonna be the day after Valentine's Day, guys. Yes, like I said, I think Dan is sort of the, the driving force behind the show. And also kind of brings a little bit of that attitude to it. But he and KC collectively, have been the anchors of the show when other people have come and gone whenever I became very part time. And so they definitely operate as the duo, the main duo. It's funny that you say that, because I actually would definitely say that KC is the main driving force of the show. Yeah, because there's, there's no doubt that it was just on me, given up a long time ago. It just because there's so many times where the show becomes an afterthought, like you said, You know, I got family, life, house and all this other shit going on. The last thing sometimes on my mind is, oh, I gotta get all this stuff together, and go to a radio show for for three hours and be away from family and, and not be productive at home, basically, for four hours of my life, every week. And so yeah, I think I think I probably would have given up on that. There's no doubt. But the fact that I get to do the show with one with one of my best friends that I've known for 20 years, 22 years.

Unknown Speaker  21:52  
It'll be 21. This year.

Unknown Speaker  21:53  
Wow. KC even knows exactly how long it's been. Our friendship is drinking age, right, I can legally get drunk. So it just goes to show you how much this dude means to me. And, you know, it started out as a really close friendship in college. And, you know, there's no doubt that one of the reasons why I continue doing this show is just because I get to go and have fun three hours every day and just earn three hours every week and goof off. And but KC brings a lot musically to the show two is the classic rock aspect, just just a different mental aspect. I think all of us kind of have that. But he kind of is almost the me and him are both kind of Mainstream Rock. And over the years, we've really kind of toned in on each other's like, wavelength of rock preferences. But yeah, he's always been like the classic rock guy. And always he's always just bring in all kinds of different things. And because KC is such a loyal guy, he always has like this, this loyal following, whether it be friends family, that has supported the show throughout the entire years, that we've been doing it and I think that's also helped keep the show going is because he's so dedicated to everyone around him and the show and everything that he does, that people are dedicated to him as he is. You bring up two good points there. Can I touch on real quick? One is that I definitely agree. I think I think if, if people are just meeting us for the first time, I think Casey's the most instantly likeable of the three of us, because he's just so darn friendly and and and, and laughing and so and so that's there's a good magnetism there. And then also you point out is his dedication to show which I didn't even think about that. But I remember plenty of times whenever something would come up for you at home and you couldn't make it or you're going to be late and he's KC is more than willing to run the show by himself if he has so even though it's not half as much fun by herself, but just to make sure it's still happening on a regular schedule, they'll still do it. So he's the rock behind the answer there's no doubt that's right.

Unknown Speaker  23:52  
Well, now on to Aaron. Aaron brought a different musical tastes than Dan and I at the beginning of the show, kind of those fringe bands that either we weren't really familiar with or just weren't really that into so like the project at sixes and the blind sides and Jimmy world

Unknown Speaker  24:14  
I got you a little bit of emo and a little bit of Christian rock. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  24:19  
But having that third guy on the show for the first half of our existence was was always that that important factor because you know Dan, and I could have been a two man show but having the third man is just that that final piece of the puzzle above all else. Now with the podcast. I would say that Aaron is the Gorilla Glue as it were. Gorilla Glue

Unknown Speaker  24:48  
glue if you just told me

Unknown Speaker  24:53  
but he's the the planner and the keeping us on track as far as As the direction of where we want to go as a podcast, and we appreciate the effort that you put in with all the Google documents and the editing, the editing of the shows. I know I've been kind of tagging in on that as well. But, but this podcast wouldn't happen if you weren't trying to get us to do it. I know. That's partly because you missed doing the radio show itself because you're in Chicago, but with Coronavirus, it's able to exist and that's, that's awesome.

Unknown Speaker  25:29  
And just to add on to that, I give you a lot of trouble man. It's all good love. You do bring a different aspect to the show a very unique aspect, especially with your music preferences. That that just wouldn't be the show wouldn't be what it is without you and your quirkiness. You know, like just bringing like the acapella songs and the Carmen San Diego theme song crazy shit that we used to do on the on the show like those are all your crazy ideas and and yeah, I don't I don't think the show would have been as random or as goofy or off the wall if it wasn't for for you just wanting to do random stuff. And just, you know, kind of that I guess that I don't even have to say, eccentricity. That randomness kind of rubbed off on us over the years. That's why you guys got wild on some Halloween episodes and stuff. And we're doing some some crazy songs on those too. But I just appreciate that you guys indulge my weird, my weird ideas. Rather be like, Hey, can we play Bjork one time just for fun? And you guys are like, Alright, fine.

Unknown Speaker  26:33  
Derek, are you sure we also played Tori Amos for you? Do you play the reigning blood? Yeah. So that all worked out together really? Well. The Carmen Sandiego theme song. So my favorite acapella song. It's pretty good. If I could find a way for us to do an episode on that I would but so far, it hasn't struck me as to how that would

Unknown Speaker  26:56  
make any sense and start interviewing all the acapella groups that do the did the song

Unknown Speaker  27:01  
Hey, hey, rock Capella is the group that does it. They have the word rock in their name that makes them relevant to our show. I think you just figured it out. I'm gonna find Rockefeller they're gonna make we'll have them record a new age seems

Unknown Speaker  27:17  
amazing. I'm half serious about like, Can you guys record something right now live on the air with us?

Unknown Speaker  27:26  
I'll do the beatboxing I'll join you for for one episode or one for one song for one song. So yeah, I think The Itch is, this is one of my favorite things about doing the show with you guys is that not only are we close, but there's there's a collective, that really, it works the best whenever it's all three of us. I know even whenever I would come visit St. Louis and visit the show, most of the time we have either one or both of you would make a comment effective. Like, you know, it feels like the show feels complete. Now, you never listen, this like the triad versus the duo. Those are always the most fun shows, especially if it had been a while since we had last kind of collaborating, because we just had a lot of fun together. And that fun, you know, always run you know, transcribed into just laughter really good times good music and a great show. And now here we are. And that's why I think we're all pretty happy to see this podcast, continue on into 2021. And branching out into some new areas that are really hyped about and again, I don't want to say anything, but I do at the same time. Just give it a week or two. And you'll find out we can you know, we can talk about this one thing we can talk about? Yeah. Because, you know, we, we wanted to spend a lot of time this episode to introduce ourselves and kind of reintroduce ourselves, I guess. And just to get a little bit more knowledge on us. Well, the great thing is, is that if you want to know more about us, too, you can listen to our our buddy Trove. His podcast which drops tomorrow features us and it's called the struggling artists podcast. And that will be I'm assuming the episode most likely be called struggling with The Itch.

Unknown Speaker  28:52  
Yes,

Unknown Speaker  28:52  
I hope I hope it puts our names in there because struggling with The Itch definitely sounds like something different than like that makes it so much worse. I don't think about that. But that is a good point. I really hope he calls it struggling with like Dan KC and Aaron of The Itch or something like, yeah, there you go. Like send him a message or something. I need to get on that real quick, just to be sure that he's doing that. Tune in next week to find out. Find out if we get started on the show about st eyes. That was a great conversation.

Unknown Speaker  29:27  
Yes,

Unknown Speaker  29:28  
it really was. And I have to say like, for whatever reason, like I just thought it was going to be like weird. I listened to a couple of his episodes. And I didn't quite, I guess I didn't quite understand or get that it was it was really just like an interview show where he like interviewed people. Because the one episode I heard he was kind of reviewing albums and stuff like that. And so like halfway through this when we're doing this collaboration, and he's asking us all these questions, it just hit me and I'm just like, holy shit. We're being interviewed. Like, I can't believe I'm at the point now where like people actually give a shit about what I said. And that they're asking me on their show. It was it was just crazy. Like it was. Just like epiphany halfway through the show was just like, holy crap. I Wow. We've hit that point look at us. It's fun to be on this end of things. Yeah. He gets to do the editing and all the work and we just get to talk and laugh. It did all the research and stuff to it was like, Whoa, this guy knows what he's talking about. He's like, actually listened to our shows and stuff has legitimate questions. Trump knows this stuff. That was a great experience. It was very fun to. And it was crazy. Like I didn't expect him to look because we you know, we did on zoom. And we're all I'm assuming most podcasters are probably the same thing as radio broadcasters. We all have a fitness for this facial hair for it too. But like I didn't expect like, I don't know, like, he just sounds like a big guy. He is a big guy. He's 636656565.

Unknown Speaker  30:53  
But it was, it was just funny because like, it's always interesting. Like, when you have this preconceived picture in your head of what somebody looks like, and then you see him you're like, oh, man, that's totally not what I was expecting. For whatever reason, when I was listening to this podcast, I totally had an image of like, Judah. friedlaender.

Unknown Speaker  31:08  
So hold on, I got it.

Unknown Speaker  31:16  
But this dude, is he was he was definitely.

Unknown Speaker  31:21  
Yeah, okay, I know who your

Unknown Speaker  31:25  
voice it's kinda was like the impression I got. I was like, okay, that's fantastic.

Unknown Speaker  31:31  
Well, that was the kind of interesting part talking to them. Before we started recording. I said, US big guys got to stick together. And I told them that I was six, seven. And he was kind of taken aback by that. So

Unknown Speaker  31:42  
yeah, reminds me actually some really good stories that we got to hear because he was like, Oh, he's, he's told KC He's like, That's not fair. You're at that height where people will just leave you alone. He's like, I'm at that height where people try to pick on me and start shit just to try to prove a point. Yeah. Case, he's like, Yeah, it's true. They don't mess with me. Like, like we said, Casey is so friendly and likeable, that like, Who in their right mind, like tried to start trouble with you? And that just because you're big, but like, what are you instigated? This is true. Exactly. If you have if you've decided you wanna pick up You got a problem? If you think that KC is somebody you want to? You want to start trouble with, but But yeah, all that to say the struggling artists podcast was a great experience. You can look that up on the interwebs. He's on Twitter, at podcasts, TSA. And yeah, Trump was a great host. He was our first appearance on another show, and we're hyped about that. We're going to return the favor as soon as we get the opportunity and the right idea for what we'll talk about. He also has, honestly, some of my favorite podcasts are of any show that I've ever listened to. Whoever did that. I think it's just a really cool visual. And so yeah, yeah, I consider that episode we recorded with him like, part two to what we're talking about right now. is they're they're sort of like a Yeah, a duet together. So,

Unknown Speaker  32:51  
so you can listen to that tomorrow, as this drops? That's right.

Unknown Speaker  32:55  
We'll have a link in the show notes to that as soon as it is available to us. So I think I think we're just about ready to wrap it up. I'm gonna go wrap it up. Man. Now I want to use that as the outro thing, but maybe just leave it in how it is right here. One other thing I want to tell you guys that I'm hopeful about, and I was working on this before, it's not finalized yet. But once we got the official kind of name change idea in mind, we're going to get some of this stuff finalizes that I'm ready for each merchandise we have. We have literally talked for years about at least getting some shirts ears like since early on in the show, about getting shirts made just for ourselves. We had it stickers. The second year the show, we did have ID stickers that did under some bumpers, and there is one bumper out there. It's still on mine, it's not mine. But we know of at least one inch bumper one. That's fantastic. Well, hopefully we can get some, some final art and get some t shirts made for us. And for anybody who is amazing enough to listen to one on one, maybe some stickers or bumper stickers. If you like that, too, I don't know. Put them on your guitar or your bumper or your trashcan or your binder or whatever. whatever's going on. your laptop, your laptop, that's what you need to do right there. laptop. So I can't Yeah, there's no formal announcement of anything available. But I just want to throw it out there that it's coming this year. So my goal is that for that to happen, if for no other reason, then for the three of us, yeah, hopefully for more. I want to totally wear some gear. That's right.

Unknown Speaker  34:26  
And we want to we want to be as interactive as we can for you the listener because you know, what are we doing this for a meant to entertain ourselves?

Unknown Speaker  34:34  
Like we said, our focus this year is on collaboration. So we want to collaborate with you too. You got ideas for us, you got feedback for us, let us know. You got to review you want to put on Apple podcast or on pod racer, by all means we would love for that as well. Yeah, and honestly, you know, any thing you can do to help spread the word we greatly appreciate because just know that the more that everybody helps get the word out, the better the show keeps getting. And I'll say that because One of the things that we talked about earlier in the show is when we've been reaching out to try to get interviews, one of the things that they always ask is listenership subscribership. And, you know, if we don't have good enough numbers, obviously, we're not able to land these interviews. So the more that you're able to spread the word, the better the interviews will get. I can promise you that. Yeah, KC hadn't had an answer for the question of how many listeners that we have, but it doesn't it doesn't cut it with, with every person that we give an answer to.

Unknown Speaker  35:24  
So some listeners,

Unknown Speaker  35:27  
some listeners is not always. We haven't. We haven't. We haven't. Right. How many? How many do you need? How many do you need, but

Unknown Speaker  35:35  
we'll get them. But it's true though, listenership and improves the quality of what we're able to do. And we haven't asked for, you know, financial help at this point. But if we once we got merchandise out, if we were to do a Patreon, anything like that, that kind of stuff goes a long way to improving the sound quality and those kind of things and paying the dues that come with operating a show and hosting it and websites and all those kinds of things. So it's always you've probably heard this plenty of times before, but all that kind of assistance of word of mouth and stuff goes a long way to to help make the things that you'd like, become even better. And hopefully you like them even more. You've been listening to The Itch a rocket music podcast. My name is Dan. I'm KC. And I'm Erin. And until next time, rock on. If you enjoyed what you heard in this episode, please subscribe and tell a friend

Unknown Speaker  36:18  
about the show. Got plenty of links in the show notes to continue the conversation including the episodes playlist and you

Unknown Speaker  36:23  
can interact with us on Twitter Facebook, or through Gmail and its rocks at its rocks it ch AR o c Ks I don't know KC forever Well, here let me let me say let me segue it over to you or some bro love giving out some bro love today. All right. all right