Early this year, my brother approached me with a bold, new podcast concept. Using our learnings from the first season of “Falling For Stories“, our love for the horror genre, and nostalgia, we would construct an experience beyond a voice and a story. In this world, a goblin by the name of Gerry would own an Inn. In this inn, a small cabaret theatre would live where he would host a podcast. Every week, guests of the inn would have the opportunity to tell a spooky story from their past. Scored with the energy of a radio play or a short film, the listener would be transported into the memory for a few minutes before being pulled back into the cabaret and Gerry’s thirst for attention.

It took some time to manifest the vision of the podcast. Once Josh finished writing the stories, he decided to hire a few voice actors to bring the storytellers to life and, in the span of three sessions, we tracked all of the voiceovers within the coziness of The Brass Vulture, my home studio, in the heat of summer. It was a learning curve as I was using new microphones and a new preamp, but all things considered, I’m pleased as can be with the results and so is Josh.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, I poured a lot into all five episodes that we recorded. Not only did I work with Josh on the podcast’s format, but I tracked, edited, mixed, composed, voiced a character, sound designed, and mastered everything on my own, outside of my day job, in the span of a single month. That’s about 80min of audio. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Do I wish some of the music popped a bit more? Do I wish I understood more about my preamp and mic before tracking? Absolutely. Nothing can be perfect though, and listening back to the episodes, I’m nothing if not seriously proud of this work.

This is Josh’s project, but I know we’ll continue to work together on more episodes in a few months yet. We need to pin down the format even more and get a formula going so these can be released on a more regular basis. Until then, I hope you enjoy this goofy, sombre story about a man’s will to live in a time of hopelessness.