History That Doesn't Suck - Bonus: A New Sound for HTDS (Farewell to Josh, Hello to Lindsay Graham & Airship)

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

After more than two years of putting his blood, sweat, and tears into HTDS, Sound Designer Josh Beatty is moving on. We'll miss him! But we're also excited to have history podcasting legend Lindsay Graham and his audio production company Airship (https://airship.fm/) stepping in. Why is Josh leaving? In what ways will this change the sound of HTDS? Join Greg, Josh, Cielle, and Lindsay as they discuss those dynamics, reflect on Josh's time at HTDS, and explain how the four of them met through Podcast Movement. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We've got Ciel here. Hey, everyone. And Josh. What's up, guys? And it is also a pleasure to have Lindsey Graham here with us today of American History Tellers, Terms, 1865, WikiGame. Lindsey, I could probably fill up the episode just listing your accomplishments, but good morning to you. Good morning. Pleasure to be here. So we're having this little bonus episode here because we'll just go ahead and rip the band-aid off. Josh, you're leaving us.

I hate to say leaving. I am stepping away from the podcast because of lots of different changes in life, but I'm still going to be part of the community and still hanging around and supporting the podcast as much as I can. But yes, sadly, I'm stepping away for the time being. I mean, last week, you just said you're going to go get some cigarettes before we record. I just never came back. Just never came back. But yes, you've had a shift in life in all seriousness. So we will get into that. We're going to discuss what's happening. And Lindsay, you're here joining us as the representative of Airship,

of your company. And we're looking forward to discussing with you how you're stepping in, where Josh is stepping out. And yeah, let's just kind of go ahead and lay this all out. Does that sound all right to everyone? Let's do it. Perfect. That sounds good. All right. So Josh, it's your swan song, man. I don't want to make sound like such a sad thing. It should be more of a, it's just a, it's a change, right? It's a change.

And with change comes a little bit of melancholy and maybe sadness. A little bit. Also exciting, right? There's lots of amazing things I think coming for history that doesn't suck. So I don't want this to be such a sad swan song story here. Oh, well, hey, we agree and appreciate that demeanor, but it will be a shift. We certainly want to know. I mean, so many of our fans have come to,

you know, they know your style. They know what you do. I was very touched as we started to discuss this just a little bit with patrons. I think it was about a week back. This has happened somewhat rapidly. Yeah. I was going to say just in the last, I guess two weeks ago, I think is where I called you guys and said, Hey, we, we need to chat about some things that need to change on my end. So I don't, you know, ruin my entire life with absolutely no time at all. But yeah, before

we jump into kind of the story of how things went down, I just want to first and foremost say thank you to our community. They've been nothing but supportive. All the comments on Patreon were more than touching. I had to take a moment reading each one. This has been hard. This has been a hard shift for me. I was talking with my fiance about all this stuff that's going on. And this was a decision that I had a lot of trepidation about. I was scared in a way to talk to CL and Greg, just because I've been here from the beginning, you know, from the ground up with Greg on this. You know, obviously, Josh, I've been reflecting a little bit as, I mean, because really this is, I don't think either of us appreciate it. As I think back to summer 2017.

Summer 2017. You were studying at Yale for the summer. I was at Yale University for that summer, yeah. And you were calling me as your professor. We were talking about grad school and I just almost flippantly hey i'm thinking about starting a podcast uh i know you know a thing or two in the tech side of things yeah could you talk me through and i think that ended up becoming we just stay on the phone for like two hours oh it was like literally i called you and was like hey let's talk grad school and then you're like hey i know

i had previously started a podcast didn't we talk we did talk grad school. And then you're like, hey, I know. I had previously started a podcast before. We did talk grad school for a bit, didn't we? We did. We checked that box off. Yeah, of course. And then for the next, you know, yeah, two and a half hours, we basically, you know. I had no idea how much you really knew at that point. And you just, man, you unloaded.

In a good way. I was excited. I was elated. And then it was kind of like, ah, it's something we could look at, you know, when the summer's over and I was going into my last semester that fall. And, um, next thing you know, history doesn't suck was born. It was, I mean, I, I don't know why this memory has been hitting me so much, but as I think about you departing, I think about, you know, we released the trailer and episode one and episode two all

at once, right? We've done our research on how you have a successful launch and we managed to scare up, I think almost a hundred listeners for that first. That's right. Which we thought was awesome. Oh yeah. Well, and, and of course that is right. I mean, that's an accomplishment for plenty of podcasts out there, you know, but I remember it was episode two as I was previewing what you had done with that. And you put in like two sound effects or something and it just blew, it's just so silly, right? Looking back in hindsight,

because I just hadn't envisioned that. I hadn't even thought about, oh, right, yeah, we can do that. Then we went back and added some to episode one. And anyhow, and now here we are today where we're at. Man, there's just so many things that wouldn't have happened without you. You know, we went to podcast movement last year as things were growing and CL was on board by that point. Yeah. Yeah. So I joined the team by that point. And Josh said, hey, guys, there's this really awesome conference and I think we should go to it. And Greg was like, I don't know. Oh, I thought it would. I'll be honest. I thought

it was a terrible idea. But it wasn't. No, it was the best idea. It was the best idea Josh has ever had. Well, I mean, come on now. All right, top ten. It has better ideas. No, I'm just kidding. No, that was, and what a pleasure meeting Lindsay. We're so glad to have you here, Lindsay.

Well, I'm glad to be here. You know, what's funny about that conference, I was excited to find the history podcast meetup, and I couldn't find it. You know, it was in the food court, so there's lots of differenting men and uh i was like uh i don't know if i want to i don't know if i'm feeling this today uh thankfully i turned around and saw a different table with an actual signs like oh okay uh this this this will be better yeah yeah those signs yeah it looked like a uh a table full of uh dan carlin's just eating each other up and uh and i just didn't want to participate no no what what ended up happening was that it was a dinner with some really interesting people

who have a lot in common so we had some cool people there that night we had you we had history that doesn't suck we had scott rank there that night. We had you. We had History That Doesn't Suck. We had Scott Rank from several different podcasts. But History Unplugged is probably the one he's best known for. Key Battles of the Civil War is another one that he does. Yeah. So, yeah, good conversation that night. Yeah. I believe I had the pleasure of sitting next to you, Lindsay.

And, you know, yeah, we just had a great chat. I never would have assumed, you know, things would end up where they were or rather where they are now. But, yeah, Josh, I'm so glad that you pushed us to, you know, to go to podcast movement. It just it proved to be a real life-changing decision, a really good move. So, you know, since then, Lindsay, we've been working together a little bit. CL and I have been doing some historical consultation on your podcast, Wicked Game. American Elections, Wicked Game.

We'll get the full proper name out there. And in fact, CL, you've written a few episodes. Yeah, I've done a little bit of writing on that one as well, just a little. CL's going to tamp down. I am. I know that a number of our listeners are aware of that podcast, at least I would assume they are, but it just it synced up so well with your interest. We synced up well with your interest, that is, and vice versa. Wicked Game covering each presidential election from the beginning, marching up to 2020, which we'll get to in this year. It's just right up our alley.

Maybe. And of course, 1865. I remember I hadn't heard that before podcast movement. Right after I met you that night, I think, I went back to the hotel room and put that in and just thought to myself, oh, so that's what one can do with sound. And it was just mind-blowing for me, the audio drama that you've done out of the assassination of Lincoln. And that was the first time we had you on as well, was that crossover episode with you and Steve Walters. At any rate, just wanted to put out there, you know, kind of our history that's been growing and budding.

And then of course, Josh informed us that he needed to be moving on about two weeks ago. Yeah, before we jump into that, I just wanted to say how impactful meeting you, Lindsay, was for us and the conference as a whole. about two weeks ago. Yeah. Before we jump into that, I just wanted to say how impactful meeting you, Lindsay, was for us and the conference as a whole. That really set a fire underneath us for multiple reasons, right? We got new vision of what we can do with the podcast and meeting you, Lindsay, really impacted our show in multiple ways, all the way from sound design to how we interact with the community.

So I'm and we'll kind of talk about this as we keep going. But I'm grateful that the shift is happening the way it is. And it's with you, because I think this merger is really what's going to take the podcast to the next level. And so that really was like a seminal point for our show was going to podcast movement and meeting Lindsay and having these experiences. So I thought, what better way to shift than to have Airship come in? Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But I think it's really just the alignment, the mutual alignment we have as podcasters and

as people. And we've had a lot of offline conversations about a lot of things. And it's just remarkable how, well, I don't want to say well-aligned again, but how simpatico we are. And it's just been one mutual assist after another. So I think this is a natural move. Yeah. Yeah. We feel the same way. Lindsay, I always appreciate how eloquently and economically you can express things. Yes. Yes. Completely agree with that. So I guess let's go ahead and discuss what this kind of looks like a bit, shall we? We should probably take a quick break, but following that, we'll dive into it. Growth is essential for every entrepreneur. At BDC, we get that. And the businesses we support grow at double the average rate,

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Oh well, this is The Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And welcome back. So we were just going to dive into what on earth does HTDS, working with Airship, kind of look like? More sound like, I suppose would be the literal way to put that. There are a number of things that we should probably lay out there for you, the

listeners. I mean, first of all, this enables us to keep going. Josh, the sweat equity that you put into every single episode without much financial, you know, compensation. Labor of love, sir. Labor of love, indeed, which is podcasting in many ways. This is by no means a complaint. I sometimes get emails on rare occasion from a listener who clearly is under the illusion that this is my day job, that we pay our bills with history that doesn't suck. I am immensely complimented that anything of the production value would lead one to conclude such a thing. That is, in fact, not the case. And different podcasts probably have different expense levels.

Shows like this where there's heavy research, scripting, and then sound design, the production costs are actually quite high. So you've shouldered this, just as CL and I have, without recompense, shall we say, or at least not much. And honestly, you leaving, we would need someone who can shoulder much of this without asking for market value, if that's fair to say. So teaming up with coming a little bit into the Airship family is crucial for us to keep going. I guess maybe I don't want to backtrack a little bit, but I should probably say why I'm leaving. We haven't even discussed that. Well, hey, I mean, it's your personal life,

you know, Josh, I didn't want to, I don't want to dive in obviously too much, but well, I just didn't want to be the one to prompt it. I am happy to discuss your private life as publicly as you'd like. Well,

I just didn't want to leave our community kind of like, so Josh decided to leave out of nowhere, especially after I made the joke about going to get cigarettes. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe they're like, maybe that was for real. You know,

he went to get a drink one day, just never showed up again. So about, geez, eight, nine months ago, maybe a little longer than that, I started a company with my best friend. And that has turned into the full-time gig and has exploded. And consequently, we are in a massive expansion phase. The company's called Launch Fulfillment. Basically think of Amazon, but like way, way, way smaller. And yeah, that has exploded and the opportunity that's there, I cannot pass up mainly because the financial tie downs right now are a little burdensome. So it's kind of sink or swim. And yeah, between working 12 hour days and then coming home and trying to edit and do podcast stuff every night,

have a family life on top of that, it was becoming too much. And I kind of did my best that I could over the last couple months. And I felt like that conversation was slowly coming to a head where I needed to talk to Greg and CL about some changing. Well, and yet, okay, you always met what you needed to, Josh. You were, I could tell you feel like you were letting us down in some ways. I did not feel that you were letting us down, but I could tell you, you knew that you weren't able to do the same 100% that you had previously. So I think you were feeling that even though what you were doing was still checking all the boxes. So I only say that to preface. It's not that there's anything you're doing where CL and I were like, oh, yeah, about time.

But I don't think either of us were absolutely. Maybe the timing kind of caught me off guard a bit. But I remember CL, you said something like, oh, yeah, I could kind of see. Yeah, I wasn't terribly surprised. I knew you had a lot on your plate, Josh. I knew that this was a tough choice. And I also know that you're a careful decision maker. So I knew you'd gone into it with a lot of thought. Yeah, lots of sleepless nights talking with my fiance about

what's the best decision and where we're headed and what's our goals, right? And how we're going to handle this. And really, I dreaded not having some type of solution if I was to leave for the podcast in terms of production, right? Audio design and all this stuff. And so as I brought up this conversation, whatever it was, two weeks ago, an immense relief came when Greg said, Hey, you know, I was sitting there one night thinking, well, how are we going to do this? And called up Lindsay and boom, now we have this connection with airship that was born. So. Well, so, I mean, it was actually the same night that you. Oh, was it the same night?

Yeah. We, we had conversations. The three of us had conversations and then I think we all had conversations, not trying to like cut the other out, but you know, then the panic call to CL as I realized, okay, sales now my sole partner here. And then, you know, Lindsay, I mean, we've laid out that history. I thought to myself, Lindsay, the guru of all things podcasts, essentially, I sought enlightenment. You know, I sent you an email, Lindsay, just seeking, you know, any and all advice you could give. And of course,

that led us to having a conversation, I think, just the next morning. Yeah. It was a conversation I was glad to have. Not only I could hear the panic, my editor is leaving and I've got two weeks to figure this out, but it actually dovetailed really well into my objectives as a history podcaster, well, as a podcaster in general, because one of the things that you'll notice in podcasting is that there's a vast landscape of different scales. This is true probably in any industry, but there's the homegrown doing it for fun, and then there's the VC-backed Hollywood machine on the other end. And I am a full-time podcaster. I actually do make my living podcasting, but I do it by having five, six podcasts going, you know, three weeklies and two audio dramas.

And so scale in this industry has always been interesting to me, but I can't, I don't have the room in my life, Josh, I understand this very well, to host six more podcasts. I do have the room to take on other people's podcasts and help them do achieve what they want to achieve. So it was an easy win for me. I already like you guys. The show's great. So let's just keep it moving and prevent an interruption. Right back at you, Lindsay.

We'll just return the compliment. Someone's got to be thinking good grief. All right, we get it. You guys like each other. But I'm elated that this really lines up with your goals our goals so this is it really is a win-win and you know well win-win-win josh can hopefully survive yeah do what makes sense for your life history doesn't suck we'll continue to survive you know and we can shore up lindsey you know what you're doing um I do want to kind of

reassure everyone, if there's anyone that is worried, just as Lindsay said, he doesn't have the time to write and host a million, you know, well, I believe I might've gotten slightly hyperbolic. I think he's the number six. I just changed that to a million, but you know, multiple other podcasts. So history that doesn't suck will continue continue to be researched and written by CL&I and delivered in our same irreverent yet very fact-driven story mode. That said, I do expect that the sound, I'm excited about it. We are going to miss Josh. It's an odd tension, right, to kind of articulate this clearly because we're going to miss you, Josh.

We were not looking for you to leave. But I am excited to see what Lindsay's going to do. No, like I said in the beginning, I want this to be kind of, it's melancholy, right? I feel it too because it's sad. It's sad for me, especially being here from the beginning. Bittersweet. It's bittersweet. But I'm it too. Yeah. Cause it's sad. It's sad for me. It's especially being here from the beginning. Bittersweet. It's bittersweet, but I'm excited too.

I want everyone to know, like, I'm still going to be here. I'm still going to be in the community. I'll still be on Facebook, right? With everybody, anybody who wants to shoot me a message,

like I'm more than happy to still interact with everybody. I just won't be, you know, as involved in terms of the production. I'll still be here. I'll still be active. Right. But get excited.

I mean, what this means for the sound design, like I've already heard some of the renditions that we did with the intro and outro, right? If by we, we mean Lindsay. Lindsay. Yeah. I just already put us as a family, you know, like we. Love it. Love it. But seriously, I i mean for what

nothing the quality will not drop that that i can assure people so uh lindsey i mean we're really kind of talking uh about you with you here is there anything you'd like to to say you know add or you want to maybe comment on sound design and and what you do there or do you feel like hey you know we've rambled long enough and i'm good well i can talk about sound design and what you do there, or do you feel like, hey, you know, we've rambled long enough and I'm good? Well, I can talk about sound design all day. But I think that I can listen to you talk about that all day. The salient point is this is history that doesn't suck, has a has an identity as a show. And I'm going to try my best to make that identity as clear as possible and hopefully where I can elevate certain things.

The theme song is an easy example. Mainly because I attacked that first because I just love the opportunity to get back to my audio roots of composing and playing. So that was fun for me to do. But in addition, um, you know, I think we'll, um, over the course of several episodes, find, uh, our own way of, of working. And, you know, this is a matter of, of, um, of taste and of, uh, workflow and efficiency. And, and so we're going to hammer out, it will sound different. Hopefully it's its own thing and has its own merits. But yeah, I say we, Airship, which is me and my employee, Derek, and some contract editors, we do three, four shows a week. And so we've kind of gotten used to cranking this out. And

I'm looking forward to cranking on history that doesn't suck. Yeah. And you've already offered so many great ideas, things that Greg and I, you know, we're historians, right? And so we write these scripts. And you're like, yes, but what if we had a break here and add a little more drama? And what if we did this here and so it's really exciting to bring someone on who's got so much um experience with creating a great experience for the listener not only the fun story but a little bit more um production value behind that in order to deliver that story even better so we're really looking forward to doing that i mean i will perpetually be the academic

nerd who has to make sure that the primary sources sing through and all that jazz. But yes, it is interesting for me to continue to see how as much of a trained writer as I am, the, well, this whole, in a way, this is the arc for me of History That Doesn't Suck has been taking my irreverence and thinking I can step somewhat into this public space with my academic background and do something that's worthwhile. But at the same time, coming to hone the skill set and the ability to deliver that to people because that is what academic writing falls short on and i feel like that side of the the sword is only sharpening already in in working with you lindsey well we should probably go ahead and wrap this thing up yeah josh i want to i want to say look you you know we epilogue dude you're invited to come back man man. Let's not treat this as like we'll never hear from you again. Yeah, of course. I also recognize that we might go to epilogue and you will not be available, you know. So I know that this will be a rarer thing to have you here.

Anything else you want to say? The only thing I would add is basically to echo what you were saying. I'm not gone, right? Like I'm still going to be part of the community. I'll still be here. I'll still be in Facebook and I'll even be hopping in Patreon when I can, right? That's my community too. So I'm stepping away because of life circumstances, but I'm still here, right? And I'd love to come sit in on that blog for sure. 100%. And I just want to thank everybody again for your support

your kind comments on patreon it really means a lot um as i go through like all this craziness right now in life but yeah i'm i'm stepping away but not leaving it's a it's a weird dynamic but i think we can make it work so i think so well all right then c l josh lindsey thank you in particular you're joining us remotely and we're very grateful for that we'll just see what this next chapter sounds like and i will have to i do have to say just a little teaser for the next episode this is not a it's going to have a slightly different sound because lindsey's doing the sound design but i i do want everyone to know the opening did something just a little different this time, and we'll leave it there. A little surprise for you. But all that said,

join me next week where, with a new sound, I'd like to tell you a story. HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. You can join by clicking the link in the episode We'll see you next time. Thank you. Jennifer Magnolia, Jeremy Wells, Jessica Poppett, Joe Dobis, John Frugledugel, John Boovey, John Keller, John Oliveros, John Radlavich, John Schaefer, John Sheff, Jordan Corbett, Joshua Steiner, Justin M. Spriggs, Justin May, Kristen Pratt, Karen Bartholomew, Cassie Conecco, Kim R., Kyle Decker, Lawrence Neubauer, Linda Cunningham, Mark Ellis, Matthew Mitchell, Matthew Simmons, Melanie Jan, Nick Seconder, Nick Caffrel, Noah Hoff, Owen Sedlak, Paul Goringer, Randy Guffrey, Reese Humphreys-Wadsworth, Rick Brown, Sarah Trawick, Samuel Lagasa, Sharon Thiesen, Sean Baines, Steve Williams, What did it take to survive an ancient siege? Why was the cult of Dionysus behind so many slave revolts in ancient Rome? What's the tragic history and mythology behind Japan's most haunted ancient forest? We're Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fangirl. Join us to explore ancient history and mythology from a fun, sometimes tipsy, perspective. Find us at ancienthistoryfangirl.com or wherever you get your podcasts.