Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Comedian Dan Cummins on leaning into your passion and how he grew his podcast to 4 million downloads a month

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Dan Cummins is a comedian and podcaster and the host of three podcasts: Timesuck, Scared to Death, and Is We Dumb? He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how he started his career in comedy, the massive success he has found in podcasting, why he moved out of Los Angeles and back to Idaho, where he finds inspiration for his comedy, advice for aspiring podcasters, and more! Find out more about Dan Cummins at: https://dancummins.tv/ Submit your Blue Wire Hustle application here: http://bwhustle.com/join If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh, hey, welcome back, my friends, to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm Chris Van Fleet. I appreciate you being with us on this episode. And on every single episode, we're in for such a treat today. Dan Cummins is so incredibly talented. And it was such a pleasure to talk to him about his comedy career and his insanely successful podcasts. Yes, that's podcasts, plural. He hosts three very successful podcasts,

which are always at the top of the charts. Time suck, scared to death, and is we dumb? And between those shows, he racks up around 4 million downloads a month. Those are mega numbers, man. You can find Dan on social media. He's at Dan Cummins Comedy on Instagram. If you're not following me already, you can find me at Chris Van Fleet on all of the social medias.

Thank you to Gris Fan 4Fa Life. Who left this review on Apple Podcast? He says, truly inspirational and one of a kind. I first started listening to CVV when he interviewed Big Cast. Now I've officially listened to every single episode in his library. I strive to be better every day, and I've incorporated into my own life, waking up and telling myself three things that I'm grateful for every day.

I work as a letter machine operator for the United States Postal Service, and it's a great way to keep myself motivated and positive while at work. I'm a wrestling fan, but it's always fantastic to see other. talent on the show like Chuck Liddell or Steepa Michich or my favorite, David Benoit. Keep up the amazing work, Chris. Well, thank you so much for that. I'm going to keep reading one of these reviews on every single episode as my way to say, thank you for being on this ride.

I'm so excited about this one today. So let's dive right into it. It's a fascinating conversation with the one, the only, Dan Cummins. Dan, thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you, Chris. I have a random question for you right out the gate. Oh, my goodness. You're asking the questions.

Your last name is that Dutch? I've never seen like the V-L-I-E-T bleat. Yeah. And thank you for, you know, saying that correctly. Yeah, it's Dutch, but like many, many generations ago. I think my dad's side of the family came over from Holland in like, I think it's 1651. And they settled in upstate New York. And then when they drew the lines between what was going to be America and then still Britain at the time, half the country or half the family was like, well, we're going to stay, you know, in Britain and move north.

And they ended up being in Quebec. And then the other family ended up staying in New York. But yeah, I'm like 10th or 11th generation in North America. That's a, okay, that's very good. That's so interesting when there's those dividing lines when like a family will settle someplace. And then after they've settled in a town or an area. then some countries are like, you know what, we're going to divide this up a little bit differently now. Right.

And you become like a citizen of a different nation without ever moving. And that's exactly what happened. And it divided the family up too. That's so interesting. Yeah. Between the U.S. and Canadian and they didn't really move. This is what makes you so good at what you do. There's so many people in the entertainment business that are trying to be interesting.

you were like interested all the time. I love this. That is true. It's as far as interested. It, like the family lore, I guess I drove my parents crazy. I don't know if I've talked about this ever in an interview before, but they still like all these years later teased me where it was my first statement or sentence, I guess, as a kid was, what's that?

What's that? What's that? And it drove people crazy. Like they would have to put limits. They're like, okay, you get three more questions. for the rest of the day. And that's all you get. Because, like, I would just wear them down.

Just everything. What's that? What's that? What's that? And whatever that is in my head, it's never, never went away for better or for worse. But, I mean, look where it's got you now. Yeah, you know, it is nice. It's, it's lucky that Time Suck has grown.

It's such a weird show that now has launched some other shows. It's grown beyond my expectations just because it's an odd show. But I think what attracts most people to it is the intense curiosity. Like, they'll talk about, yeah, there's, the weird jokes and the characters and, you know, it can be a little dark and crazy. But underneath it, there is a pretty solid level of research. And that's because I genuinely enjoy that. Like, I genuinely, when I'm looking into a subject, I just, basically I try to get my,

I realize if I can't get my head around it, I'm not going to be able to communicate it to the audience. And to get my head around it, I really have to like immerse myself. You know, I really have to dig in. And I like that. With the amount of success you've had both in comedy and now in podcasting, I'm really curious to know, what do you identify yourself as now? Are you a podcaster? Are you a comedian?

Are you a comedian who has a podcast? What is it? Well, it started, you know, that's interesting too. I've kind of questioned that. You know, I was a comic for so long. And I did a few other things peripherally, like worked on some reality shows and, you know, in production and different things. But always on the side. always like, okay, that's something I'm doing in addition to stand up.

And then when I started the podcast, my agent was excited to like, well, maybe, you know, if this does well, it'll bring more people to your standup shows. And then there was a big shift because of the pandemic. And it was already shifting a little bit before that. But it became a small business where to get where I didn't have like this huge business plan of like, I want to hire this person and this person, this person. It was just, I want to work on the show and keep growing it. and I ran out of hours.

So now I have to hire an audio engineer. Okay, and that takes that off my plate. That allows me to do another show. Okay, well, now I don't have time for social media. So now I got to hire this person. And before I knew it, I had this like team and I became a small business owner. And then I started to kind of identify that way. And now I haven't done stand up.

I haven't done stand up at all since March of last year. And I'm going to go on tour again in August. So I have like notes. I'm really nervous because I haven't been on stage at the time. but I would say now I identify probably primarily as a podcaster who also does stand-up, which is really weird because it was 20 years of stand-up focus. Yeah. And if you haven't done comedy in more than a year, are you like nervous?

You're going to be a little bit rusty? Oh, yeah. I know I'm going to be rusty. It's funny. Everybody's always telling you they're like everybody who doesn't do stand-up. It keeps telling me, oh, you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. It's going to be great.

Like, you know, you've done it for so long. You're going to jump right back into it. Yeah. But I know how hard stand-up is. And that's the thing with stand-up is like you're making something really difficult look easy, like you're just talking. You're just telling the story off the cuff if you're a storyteller. But it took a long time to figure out the beats of that story.

The only thing that makes me think it might be okay after a few shows is when things were getting bad in early 2020, I started trying to throw as many bits out into my shows as I could, like new, new bits. Because I was like, I don't think this is going to last that long. I think we're going to get shut down. And I recorded them. And so I have these recordings from my last shows in Nashville and Huntsville. And I'm just going to, my plan is just to listen to those a whole bunch of times,

bring some notes on stage. And you know, with stand up, the beauty is you can be really transparent with the audience. Yeah. What I'm not going to do is go up on stage and be like, ah, this is great and pretend that I'm just like I was. Yeah. Right out the gate, I'm going to be like, hey, guys, uh, this. This is going to be weird.

This is going to be different. I got my notes. Hoping for the best. I apologize. Please see me in three months if this is a train wreck. But hopefully it's a fun train wreck. The interesting thing is there's a lot of similarities between stand-up comedy and podcasting and the fact that they're both storytelling.

They're both mediums for storytelling. Yes. Yeah. And I'm hoping that I have been able to work those muscles enough through podcasting, especially on the show, Is We Dumb, we do, which is. is more reactive. It's like, my co-host presents information

and I try and react to it in the moment, you know, improv style and kind of build little vignettes out of it comedy-wise. And that's kind of similar to how you build the beginning of a stand-up bit. And then with TimeSuck,

it is more that storytelling, which I like, that type of stand-up more where I'm putting thought into creating little characters and little flights of fancy, I would call them, like with a thing.

And I'm hoping, but what's interesting is like, I'm doing all of that by myself. And so I'm hoping that people like it. And then people will say they like to show overall, but it's such a weird delayed reaction.

And you don't know if they're grading you on a curve. They're like, oh, that was funny for a guy in a room by himself, doing it every week. I don't know if that's funny, like, you know, stagewise. Because that's interesting, too. I've worked with guys who are really funny podcasters or really funny, let's say, radio hosts. That's actually my favorite.

Really funny radio hosts. They do a great job that. And then they'll, maybe their station is presenting a show. And they'll do like five minutes on stage. I've seen this a couple of times almost every time they do really bad. Like, because they're in their little bubble with their producer and their buddies and those. And it's like very kind of frat house and inside and everybody knows the lingo and laughs. And then they go to an audience of strangers.

And that's what's so weird about stand-up is that, I mean, yeah, I guess it might be a little bit different now. because I'm lucky to have my own audience, which I didn't used to have. Yeah. But with stand-up, it's so weird where everybody knows, it's so contrived. Everybody knows you're there to try to make them laugh. You don't know what the people's sense of humor is. Like, it's such an, it's really such an awkward thing at its core. It's weird that it works.

It's, I mean, the concept of it is so wild. You hold a microphone and try to get people to laugh. It really is bizarre. Like, at the core of it, it's like, how it's the thing? Bill Hicks, one of my favorite guys who he died young. He was a great stand-up. Never became really well-known, but man, he was brilliant, put out a fair amount of albums. And he did some bits where he called the audience out on that.

He said something to the effect of, like, how sad that your lives are so boring, you have to come listen to me to be entertained. Something like that. Like, you have to go find a stranger to tell you stories to get laughs. I just thought that was so funny. Like, it is so unnatural. Yeah. Yeah, and it's been around for so long in some sense, going back to court jesters.

Like, what a weird thing that, you know, back in medieval Europe, they'd have some clown come out in the royal court and, you know, make us laugh, clown, make us laugh. Take it back for you, Dan. Did you think that this is what you'd be doing for a living when you were a kid? No, not at all. I felt like an outsider in stand-up for a long time that way because I'll listen to a lot of my peers on interview, you know, podcast or being interviewed or whatever, talk about, oh, man, actually just recently I saw a lot of this. Conan just did his last show, late night show,

and a lot of comics that have been on Conan, and I was on Conan a few times. Yeah. Posted like, you know, how much that meant to them and how when they were, like, to be on his show before it ended and how when they were a kid, they would watch late night, and they would just be like, oh, my God, how is this person doing that? I can't wait to do that. I just didn't have that. Like I didn't dream of being a stand-up as a kid, and I was happy to do those shows, but it never felt like,

this is what I've been waiting for. This is, it felt like, well, this is my job, and that's what you're supposed to do for this job. So I should try that. I,

I ended up doing it because I wanted, I wanted actually, I was, I was creative in college. I grew up in the small town Idaho. Riggins, Idaho, 400 people at the time. Wow.

Nobody in my family had ever gone, to college or definitely never been an artist or worked into creative arts like at all. It was beyond foreign like as a concept. I mean, I would watch Saturday Night Live with my grandma and be like, oh, that's cool. That would be fun, but no clue, like what steps you would have to go through to get there. My family's hope for me was to be either a lawyer or a doctor only not because I had any interest in those fields, but because in their minds, that was like you've made it. If you become a lawyer, if you've become a doctor, you've gone farther than anyone in our family tree.

And I did well in school. So they're like, you can do this. So I went to college and I studied psychology because that's what kind of resonated with me the most. But I didn't really have a plan. Like I've talked to my kids about this. Like my plan stopped at like getting good grades. Like, oh, you go to school and you get good grades. And then you're done with school.

the universe hands you this cool career. I was so naive in some ways. I thought like, well, psychology is fun to study and I got good grades. And I could be a social worker or counselor maybe. I graduated from Gonzaga, like with honors or whatever, all that. And then I went to this job interview and they told me how much the position paid. And it really, it shocked me. Like, looking back, I can't believe I did not know what the field paid.

Like, I went through four years with no. clue. And then I was like, excuse me, excuse me, what? It's $1,600 a month, a month. Wow. It was so like for this base level for your job. And then I'm doing the job. I got it. And then I'm talking to my boss. And I'm like, hey, so how can you move up in this? And he basically like told me what the ceiling was. And it was really low and it took a lot of work to get there. And the hours were terrible. I was on call all the time. And then the nature of the work, I was fun to study, but I didn't, I'm not good at like, with social work, you got to be able to focus on saving the one person and be able to block out, not being able to save the other

99 out of every hundred. The other 99 really kind of wore me down emotionally. And I just felt so stupid. I'm like, oh my God, I never actually thought to look into what am I supposed to do, you know, career wise. Right. And I took one aptitude test in college. like a career after at the counseling center. And literally the only thing I lined up with was art. Like, like, you know, creative arts. Yeah. And I did was an band in a college.

So I was like, well, maybe I could be in a band. But I'm not, I'm not good enough of a singer. Like, I'm realistic. I was like, nah, it's probably, it's probably not going to work. Don't play with others well enough to probably like keep a band together. Maybe. And then it was a total whim with comedy. My fiance at the time, she's like, well, I done theater.

comedy in college and made people laugh. But again, just for fun, not thinking like, here we go. Here's my career. It was sketch comedy kind of like SNL. And she's like, well, you were funny in that. Like, you did well. I heard a commercial on the radio. There was a comedy club in town to have an amateur night. Why don't you just try it? And I just, so I did 100% on a whim. And then it was fun. I was like, oh, okay. And I'd never even been to a stand-up comedy club. I didn't mean, I had no interest. And, uh, and I went. And, uh, and I went. And I was like, well, that's fun. And then I just went to next week.

I'm like, oh, this is really fun. I like this. It lets me get some creative ideas out. And then it was a very pragmatic thing of like, I'll do it on the side for three months and reevaluate. I'll do it for another month and reevaluate. And then pretty soon I was making money. And because I made such little money at the treatment center I worked at, it didn't take much to surpass that after a year. And then it just became this thing of like, okay, well, I'm making more money now doing this than that.

So let's give it a go for a few years. Do you remember how you felt before you stepped on stage for the very first time? Yeah, I was pretty nervous and I still get nervous to this day for the same reason as the first time. I just don't, I've never been super motivated by like fame or that thing, but but I am motivated by I don't want to embarrass myself. I just don't want to like really embarrass myself. and it's powerful enough to make me feel like I want to throw up sometimes. You know, it's like, oh, God. And so that first time, I don't do this now, but I had a couple drinks.

I had to get some liquid courage. Yep. And I had a bunch of friends in the audience, so I definitely stocked the crowd. And so I cheated a little bit that first time. Like it, I'm in awe of comics who or people who go to like L.A., Chicago, New York, no friends or family. And they go and try stand up for the first time. time in a room with real comics in the audience and they don't know anybody.

I don't think I would have been, I think that would have been too intimidating for me. I tried at this open mic where there was only local kind of Spokane Washington comics who weren't really part of the big scene. It was pretty low stakes and it still made me really nervous. I mean, the idea of getting on stage for the first time is something that terrifies most people. It's a bucket list item for a lot of people. Yeah. they'll never do it because they're probably more scared to stand on stage and tell jokes for five minutes

than they are to jump out of an airplane. It's nuts. There was a study I read years ago, and it blew me away. It was like, it was a list of the most common fears. Like what is, you know, the survey was basically like, what are you most afraid of? And fear of public speaking, fear of public speaking ranked higher than fear of death. And that blew me away. That is so wild. That is so wild. That is so. wild. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I mean, maybe that's like, maybe my kind of anxiety is a pretty common one. I think a lot of people, like, you just don't want to embarrass yourself. What's funny is all these years later, though, I've gotten to a different place with that. And I was telling my son this about, I think he was, he was running for a student government

position. And he had to do something else where he had to speak. And he was really nervous. and I just told him from years of doing this, I'm like, we get so worked up because this thing is so important to us. And in our minds, we're like, oh my God, if we don't do well, we're going to be like ridiculed. And it's like, we're not that important.

Nobody cares about us that much. Like if you bomb, they're going to, I don't know, some people might talk about it for a few minutes, but then something else is going to capture their attention and they're not even going to think about it. But it's funny how in our minds, you know, we work ourselves up like,

oh my God. Like it's going to go really quickly to this weird medieval like pitchfork, you know, like torches, an angry mob. It's going to like, he, he didn't make us laugh. We must capture him and burn him or something. It's like, no. They don't care that much. They're just going to go about their lives.

Who do you think was most influential in your career early on? And this could be someone that you met or just someone that you looked up to. You know, there was a guy. I'm so thankful. I keep me needing to like reach out to him recently. But there was a there was a guy named David Crow who is part of the Seattle standup scene. And I took these like little jumps. I never took the big, okay, I kind of want to do comedy.

So I want to go right to L.A. I was like, well, okay, I started doing well in Spokane. And then Seattle was the closest like big city that had a scene full of comics that I would hear about in Spokane. And nobody in the rest of the country would even know about. But they were like, they were the big comics that got the stage time in Seattle. And I'd heard about this guy, David Crow, who had won this Seattle comedy competition, which for the Northwest could get you a lot of work at the time. This is back in like 2001.

And there was a San Francisco comedy competition in Seattle. And they were related. Same booker behind them. And like a long time ago when they formed, I feel like Robin Williams had done San Francisco. Like a lot of big comics, Dane Cook, I think maybe won San Francisco. Like comics that went on to be very big names. Wow. Did these things.

And we were aware of that at the time. And it was a, you know, like a cool thing to do. And I did Seattle. And I just, I was like a year. I was really new, really enthusiastic. I was only like a year in, but I made it to the finals. And I, it was like, it was a crazy like three week thing where you had to do like the preliminary round, five out of your 15.

And that round go on to the semi-finals where you go, it's 10 of you, five from each different preliminary round. and then five in the finals. So starts off with like, what, 30, pairs down to five. And David Crow was one of the judges. And he saw me to the set, talk to me afterwards. He wanted to try out a two-man show and wanted to bring me on the road. You know, bring me out to like Indianapolis and various other cities like a long ways from

Spokane. And that was, that led to everything else, I think. And he was really supportive early on. you know, this is a guy who had already been doing it 12, 13 years, and to have his kind of, like, stamp of approval. Yeah. And then other guy knew I was working with him, it opened up a lot of doors for me that led to all the other doors being open.

So, yeah, David, that was, and it's interesting how fragile when you look back, those things can be. Like, had he not endorsed me and wanted to do something, I would have went back to doing little bar gigs around Spokane, and if I wouldn't have been able to leapfrog beyond that, it might have kind of fizzled out. So this was the idea that somebody who had already been there and already done that, saw something in you, which also, I guess, made you then believe in yourself, too. Oh, yeah.

And there's been a series of those people along the way. You know, like I, after doing it for a couple years, I ended up getting into the, to capture the attention to this manager in L.A. He's not a comedy manager anymore, but he was a guy John McDonald and he managed Ron White at that time. He heard about me, started managing me about four years in, believed in me. That was a big confidence boost. Yeah. And then got me an audition for the Montreal Comedy Festival, which was, you know, Just for Laughs, which was the biggest thing you could do at that time for like an introduction to the industry.

If you were an unknown guy, it was the new faces showcase. And he got me an audition. I got into it. And then that led to Comedy Central, put me on some shows, some late night stuff, and got me out there as like a headliner on the national scene. So he was another person. But then after I got an hour special with Comedy Central years ago, it didn't rate well for them. And it was my first taste of the business side of show business in a real way. People liked it.

I thought it was funny. I still get people talking about it to me, you know, to this day. but it, you know, it rated like, I want to say, point nine. It was bad. It didn't like, they wanted it to be around a two, I think, as far as two million. It didn't come close to that. And they basically just are like, okay, we're done with you. And that was devastating at that time.

I was like, I had hoped that I, you know, I got the hour special and then maybe that would lead to being on a show or at least more specials. And instead it was like, no, you're done. Didn't work. You're done. and you're back to just, you know, obscurity. And I had a manager at the time, Maggie Hulahan, who she was never able to get me another thing, but her belief in me, her constant belief in me, I mean, truly kept me going

for the next five or six years. And then my agent, and then helped me get an agent, a new agent, Joe Eschenbaugh. And then this guy, Joe, who I don't usually talk about in a lot of shows, he has been such a believer in me where it's like when he was an innovative talent, he had all these comics that worked worked for them or, you know, him and this other agent, much more successful than me. But I'll never forget the first time I went into his office after we've been working together for a little bit and my albums were on his wall, like some doings. But and other people's weren't. And it just kind of blew me away. I was almost like, why? Why? Like, I thought like maybe he just did that for everybody.

Like he just swapped out albums. Right. Yeah, yeah. But he didn't. And to this day and now he's UTA, you know, a big agency, and he had to really fight before time sucks started to go. He moved over there and they didn't want me. And I went through years of like after that Comedy Central thing of like nobody wanting to do anything with me on the network side. And he had to really fight to like, he got to bring three clients that even though the agency was like, no, I don't know about these guys. He's like, please, these are my passion projects.

he brought me in and then using his contacts at UTA was able to get me better deals at clubs once people started showing up for the podcast that got me better money that I was then able to put back into the podcast to grow it and that again kept me going he more than anyone if that one agent had really believed to me we wouldn't be talking right now

how do you not take the defeats personally because in the world that you work in you are the product when they don't want you, they don't want you. How do you not take that personally? Oh, you do. Oh, you? I mean, in other comics, it's a thing.

It took me a long time to get around that because it was devastating for so many, in so many moments where you're right. Like, like Comedy Central, that was a big ego blow that really kind of put me, soured me in a way on stand-up for like a year or two. I mean, I'm still doing shows, but yeah, it's not that they don't want an idea from you. It's not that they don't like this character you doing. They don't like you. They don't believe that your voice is worth hearing, you know, compared to other ones. And I think what helped me get around it is just understanding how, how subjective, the nature of comedy and just art in general is.

And I would think about for myself, there are so many super successful people, that I personally don't resonate with. Like, they don't do it for me, but they have so many fans. And I just have to be realistic. And like, well, yeah, that's the same thing for any network. You know, like when I, like network exec, like when I first went to Montreal, that comedy festival,

I really had this naive belief that the powers that be, the decision makers, know more about comedy than anybody else. Because that's their job, to be the arbiters of what is your, good comedy. And they definitely don't know more than anybody else. Right. Just like you or me or whoever, it's just some dude or some lady who likes what they like. And if they happen to like you, awesome. And if not, okay, whatever. Once I kind of really understood that, it made it all so much better. And now it's a, and it helped me too to really

double down on my voice. What really also helped, you know, talking about belief, Pandora, that Pandora, Drew Miller, this exec there, and oh, I feel terrible right now. The person who had his position before him, oh, man, I feel bad. But anyway, these two people, Kelly Anakin, that's her name. Kelly Anakin, they were the curators of Pandora Comedy. So they would help like a program like today's top comedy station or whatever, you know, that kind of stuff. Well, Pandora was the only platform I think still is that had listener, rated kind of stations. Like basically, it was thumb up or thumb down, you know, and the more thumbs

up you got, when people listen to your track on today's comedy, you know, they either thumb you up or they thumb you down, and they track that in their, like everybody does, and their analytics, and the more, the better your ratio is, the more other stations they'll push you on. And then people can also hear you and be like, oh, I want to build a station, a Dan Cumman station. Well, unbeknownst to me for a while, while everybody else, else was rejecting me, Pandora, I was building up one of the biggest followings that any comic had on Pandora with like no publicity. So like I had like more stations than Patton Oswald, like like my comedy, you know, heroes. And I was like, what the hell? And that did so much for my

psyche to be like, okay, these random execs, they don't like me. But all these other people who hear so much comedy, they do like me, uh, you know, a lot. And that tells me that there's a enough people out there that like me that I can continue to have a career. And I took this mindset of like, that actually matters to me more than the execs because, you know, the time, well,

like what we're doing these podcasts now, the times we live in, you know, you actually don't need those gatekeepers anymore. If you have fan base, like, you know, you have a bunch of like YouTube followers and that and that.

And that's all you need. Yeah. Like what a fortunate thing where that, that was not the case 15 years ago. 15 years ago, if a few people said no, you're done. I mean, the fact that we can sit here right now, Dan, and your profession is podcaster. It's mind blowing. This is incredible.

It is incredible. We're so fortunate to live in a time as creators and, you know, as, you know, artistic people where if we have enough fans, we can directly monetize that. They can sustain us. They can carry our career. They can blow our careers up. And, you know, you never need. anybody else. I remember the first time I heard about something like that was maybe like 10 years

ago, 15 years ago, these pranks, these like YouTube channels, there were some people blowing blowing up on videos just doing pranks. Oh, yes, of course. And I, there was one guy like, I want to say his name was Vlad. Yeah, Vlad TV. Yeah, Vlad TV. Yeah, he lived in Miami. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a few others. And I was, I can't remember one of the one of the ones I was watching, but I met a guy in Louisville, Kentucky, and I can't think of his name right now, but he used to do crank calls, kind of like jerky boys, like release albums of crank calls. Yeah, yeah. And it would work. Like, he made money that way. And he knew one of these prank people, and I was like, man, I can't believe this person doesn't have a TV show. And he told me, he's like,

well, he's been offered like four TV shows and he turned them all down. And that just didn't, I couldn't wrap my head around that because at that time, all I wanted was a TV show. Yeah. And I was like, what do you mean? He's turning them down. And then he said, he goes, well, he makes too much money on his YouTube channel. And that was the first time I'd heard of somebody making so much money on YouTube that they weren't interested in a TV show. And honestly, at the time I was like, yeah, right.

Right. Like, this guy's a liar. But then I did some digging. And I was like, oh, that's a thing. And now how amazing. And yeah, we're just, we're very lucky that, yes, it's still great. If you get that show, it can really kind of boost everything you're doing. But if you don't ever get like a network show or a movie deal or whatever,

you can still live a great life and do what you love. And we're just at the beginning of this too. That's what's so exciting. Like podcasting is very much in its infancy. Like podcasting is 15-ish years old, but really in the like public sphere of like people actually listening, I don't know, five, eight years. old, maybe? I know. It is so young. And it's, you know, it's funny. Some podcasters who've been doing it for a while

started to get nervous during the pandemic, there's, as you're probably aware of, so many people jumped into the podcast space. I have never seen more new shows be launched. Like, it's crazy. And well, I think that we can both agree that a lot of those shows, now that things are starting to open back up, are going to disappear very quickly as people realize how much work a podcast really is. Yes, yes. Yes. And it's a lot of like celebrity driven shows that have been jumping in. And I was talking to, we have our podcast agent about that. And he was very, you know, Frank.

He's like, like what you're saying. He's like, yeah, but they don't take it that seriously. Like people were worried that like, but I've been taking my podcast so seriously. And then all of a sudden, blotty blah from this hit show comes in. And now they blow up and they're getting all the ad money and I'm not going to get anything. Yeah. And my mentality is, oh, please have more of those people jumping. jump in because they're going to bring so much awareness to podcasting as a, as an art,

you know, as a medium. And they're going to bring their fans in who never listened to podcast before. And when they go away, a lot of those people are going to stay and look for other shows, you know, driven by people who care about podcasting. Like, yeah, it's going to, the marketplace for podcasting is going to get so much bigger. What made you decide to start a podcast? I mean, initially it was, well, it was kind of, you know, motivated by a failure where I couldn't sell a show. I was trying to, oh, man, it's such a frustrating thing. At least I find it was to try and sell a show. It would have been different if I would have actually sold one.

I'm sure having a taste of that success would have changed things. But I worked on so many spec scripts. and it's so frustrating when you work on a spec script because I got really close a few times but like second place is still last place and all that time you spent on it no one will see any of it like it's an all it really is kind of an all or nothing game

because if you don't get the show made nobody other than your writing partner and your manager and a few people you showed the script who will ever know or care about it and what I thought about with podcast I'm like, well, if I make a podcast, even if only 100 people listen, that's better than zero. And at least it's not all or nothing, you know? And so I just got so sick of, you know, trying to sell the other things and having to not go anywhere that, yeah, that's what attracted me to podcasting where was, well, at least I control it.

And at least something's better than nothing. Were you always interested in true crime? because, I mean, you, it's not just a true crime podcast, it's a deep dive into these stories. I mean, I guess I was, I mean, in a sense where I do remember doing a high school research report on like Jeffrey Dahmer. I think the fascination with like true crime with serial killers

for somebody who's, you know, not a murderous person or whatever, I guess, is that it's for like a curious person, I just, it's so hard to understand how, they got there. It's like they're so unlike anybody in a normal person's social circle. You know, it's like we all have annoying relatives. We all have, you know, people who are arrogant that we know or people who are maybe really successful career-wise or not or whatever.

Most of us don't have an uncle who murdered 12 people. You know, or like that thing of like, how are you the same species and you live in the same world that I do, but your concept of right and wrong and what drives you through your day and what motivates you is so wildly different and so horrific. It's just, I think there's that curiosity. And honestly, I've thought about this. They make us feel better about them ourselves. Like, I just did an episode on Fred and Rose West, and they are terrible. They're such a specific kind of terrible, these British serial killers, this serial killing couple, so rare, where the man and the woman both individually were so damaged and then got together and took things even further than they

would have alone. And by the end, and there was really bad to their kids, like, the worst. I won't even go into, the details were so bad. And but by the end of it, I said, I'm like, well, this was a terrible episode, but I feel like I have a dad of the year trophy waiting for me. I might forget to get the right present sometimes. You know, I might lose my temper here and there, but I have killed zero of my kids. And that makes your dad of the year. They set the bar solo. Right.

But yeah, I think psychologically that's part of the appeal of true crime is, you know, is it does make you weirdly feel better about yourself. At what point did you start to realize that things were scaling for you? Because look, a lot of people start a podcast. I always say the best thing about podcasting is anyone can do it. The worst thing about podcasting is anyone can do it. Yeah, exactly. You know, when I noticed it started to kind of like scale up was, again,

to kind of circle back to Pandora or not kind of directly. You know, as I started the podcast, I was still building fans on Pandora from stand-up albums. And what's nice about that is you get some royalties too. So it gives you money to, you know, passive income to invest in equipment and all those things. well, they started a beta program that just got lucky. You know, sometimes you really do just need some luck in all of this. And right after I launched the podcast, they opened up this beta program to me that soon became available to everyone, but initially just a few people to test it.

And it was called AMP, Artist Mobile Platform. And you got to send an AAM, artist audio message. And you still get to do this. And you can record up to 15 seconds, advertising. You know, plugging whatever you want, saying hi to your fans, whatever you want. You record it through their app, through your kind of artist kind of, what would it be called, like, portal, I guess, on their app. And then you hit send, and it goes out to anyone who listens to your station. And it would play, you know, one time.

And so I thought, at first I tried to use it to advertise stand-up dates. And I didn't really notice much. But then I thought, like, well, I'm asking a lot here. I'm putting a message into my stand-up. I'm geotargeting it. But then this person, if they're hearing it and want to go, they have to go somewhere else. They have to buy a ticket. They have to get a babysitter potentially.

They have to go to a physical place. But then I was like with the podcast, what if I advertise the podcast and all they have to do is click one button and they get to listen to more free content being created by someone they already like or they wouldn't be listening to my station in the first place. Within that same app too, right? Yep. And it was actually now, yes. initially they didn't have podcast. So initially you had to push them out to a third party thing, but I would just push them directly to Apple Podcasts, which was easy to use. And you could link it to the individual episodes. You can make it real easy. Yeah. And the first ad I did that,

my numbers doubled in one week. And they were low. They were low, but my audience doubled. It went from like maybe a thousand listeners to 2000, like immediately. And I was like, oh my God. and the click through rate was really high compared to advertising stand-up dates. It went from like 2% to 12% or something. Wow. And so, okay. And so I did that every week, ran those ads for like two years, every single week. This is the topic this week.

You know, trying to come up and that built it by far more than anything. And then once it built to kind of a critical mass, it was big enough to keep kind of expanding beyond that. I mean, getting to critical mass is the dream for most podcasters because there's going to be a lot of people listening to this that are starting a podcast right now going, man, a thousand listeners, Dan, I would love to have a thousand listeners. Sure. You know, now what you have that you didn't have even a few years ago is digital marketing techniques. I would recommend somebody starting a podcast now. Yes, content is king and you got to like have a good product. You got to put thought into your product.

but there are a lot of well-thought-out products that don't have, you know, audiences necessarily. And I think, you know, some of that is, you know, just, you know, bad luck. Some of that is, you know, I had the advantage of, you know, people are like, well, I want to get, you know, a boost like you got. I'm like, well, go do stand-up comedy for 18 years. And then throw out the podcast on the back of that. But also you can get savvy with digital marketing, like SEO optimization, understand pixels and how like, you know, like when somebody, okay, if you're doing true crime, I just said, Fred and Rose West, find out like you can do things. People smarter than me in this way

can do some SEO optimization where you do an episode about Fred and Rose West. And then anytime somebody is Googling for that or whatever, your thing's going to come up high in the search results. Like, there's all these little tricks. And we're actually about to hire somebody or we just hired somebody who's going to start doing that for us, like this many years in, but like somebody who's an expert in digital marketing. And I'm excited to see what they can do. And I think there's like a weird resistance that at first I had at least. A lot of people who go into this are kind of more on the artistic side. And it almost feels like skeevy to do like the business end. And that's a hurdle I had to get over.

And I think a lot of people, it's like, what do you do? And like if you're the product, like what you said earlier, why wouldn't you want to market your own product? Like if you don't believe in it, how can you expect anyone else to believe in it? That's so good. Embrace the business. Embrace the business. But you talking about SEO is so thinking outside of the podcast box because most people go,

man, YouTube's so much easier because there's discoverability on YouTube, right? You could be watching a video about a comment. And oh my gosh, there's a Dan Cummins video right there. I've never heard of this guy. Well, now I have and let's watch all those videos. It doesn't happen in podcasting. You have to physically like type someone's name in to find their podcast. Right, right.

But there are, you know, just having these meetings recently with, and we've looked through like, we've worked with three or four companies before landing on this one that I think is they really know what they're doing. You know, there are ways if you, I mean, people have used them for nefarious ends already to shift people to horrible ideals and different things. I mean, there are those kind of wizards out there that know how to, you know, shuttle people towards whatever you want them to see. And it isn't necessarily crazy expensive either.

Like, I was shocked by the person we're looking at. There are people, you know, where for a couple hundred dollars a month, you can have somebody, you know, really kind of give you a pretty serious advantage and somebody who understands the algorithms and the analytics. give you basically consulting and do things for you that will really kind of help you. Yeah, yeah, take that next step. But it is thinking outside the box. You're right.

Because a lot of people just say like, oh, you just do this. Like my whole career is like every year, there's somebody does something successfully. And then it feels like 99% of the agents and managers and experts, they just say, oh, you do this thing. Oh, you mean the thing that worked for that one person that everyone is. is now saying. Yeah, yeah. That's so lazy.

That's so mentally lazy. It's like, well, you're just saying that because you saw it. Anybody can do that. Oh, that's how they blew up. But it's like there are so many ways to what, preferably skin the cat. You know, it's like, and if you really dedicate some thought into thinking outside the box and finding a unique way, you'll have your odds of success will be a lot greater. Well, the takeaway here is you're treating your podcast, and that's plural, three podcasts.

as businesses rather than as hobbies. And in turn, they will start to make money as businesses rather than make money as hobbies. Absolutely. And I got lucky again, you talked about people who help you along the way. Tom and Dan, there's a podcast out of, actually going back to Florida, we talked about Miami earlier. There's these guys in Orlando. It's a podcast called A Mediocre Time with Tom and Dan. And what they have done is truly brilliant, I think.

they worked at a morning radio station, a rock station in Orlando, started a podcast on the side. This is many years ago. First, Clear Channel didn't care. And then their podcast started to get some fans. And Clear Channel was like, you got to kill this. They saw it as competition now. They believed in themselves.

And they're like, no. They asked their fans, you know, like to keep this going. If you like it, we have to do a subscription model to stay alive. They built their own through a fan subscription like, service. This was like pre-Patri-on, and it worked. And they had like, I think maybe initially two to three thousand people sign up for $4 a month. But that gave them, you know, $8,000 to $12,000 a month. Yeah. Operating capital to get started. And then they've never had a huge listener base. And it's always been Orlando-centric. But they, they just, you know, really invested in their community. And

I mean, it's incredible how they have monetized and entertained an audience of maybe 15 to 20, 25,000 people, but they have, you know, awesome merch. They do cool live events. They went, they bucked the trend of going for national sponsors for podcasts and double down on local and would do like kind of like their radio background. Yeah, yeah. You know, like the local car dealership, they would, they would have them as a sponsor. And they would, and they would do onsites and bring their fans.

to the car dealership and all these things. And they really made it work and built something really special. They did outside the box things. They would do a Tom and Dan cruise using the Orlando cruise lines. And they figured out they could both give their fans a discounted cruise tickets. And also if they sold enough for those discounted tickets, the cruise line would give them a substantial amount of cash. And that became a cash cow.

And it was fun. They, it's, I, and I've tapped them as a resource so much. You know, they do Twitch. They do all the things. And I love that they have no shame as they shouldn't about making money. And they're very transparent with their audience with this. Because they just see it as they should as their audience. No one's putting a gun to their head to make them buy tickets to a cruise or anything else.

They're just, they're selling fun. They're selling fun. And people are more than having. They're selling a mediocre time. I know. I love their name. They're selling a mediocre time. Dan, and you can take this question wherever you want to go with your answer.

Yeah. It doesn't necessarily need to be about podcasting or comedy. It can be about your career or your life. But what do you think is the best piece of advice that you have been given? Hmm. The best piece of advice. Oh, man, there's so many. I think my brain is in career mode right now.

And that's okay. You know, okay. Just stick with career. I mean, because there is this thing of, you know, lifewise, don't, you know, don't, my dad actually told me some of the effect of like, don't get so caught up in what's about to happen that you, that you lose track of what's happening now. Basically, like something like, don't be so worried about the future that life passes you by. Like, take a second to enjoy what you have right now. And I do think about that a lot. Like, if you're listening to this, that means that you are alive and it really is a gift, you know.

and it's a gift that's only going to last so long and enjoy it. Do you have the car you want? Maybe, maybe not. If you don't, you're still alive. You still have today. You can find something about today that's meaningful and beautiful. It's, you know, like right now, it's great sunny day outside, you know, and in the middle of my work at some point, I'll just go outside for a second and just enjoy being in the sunshine

for a minute and feeling to hit my face. Like, enjoy those little things. And then, and then, because they don't last forever, you know, so enjoy them while you got them. And then career-wise, I did have a manager years ago, John McDonald, the guy I mentioned earlier, I was terrible at the business end. I was good at like creating stand-up bits but didn't, had no interest. And it felt like I'm a, I was above it almost to want to like market anything or do any of that. And all of a sudden, he just walked by me one time before a show and he just said one word.

He just goes, show business. I was like, what? And he goes, show business. He goes, there's more than. just show in that word. He goes, if you don't focus on the second part of that word, you're never going to get beyond where you are right now. And at the time that show, I was like opening up for somebody else. And it kind of like stung. I was like, geez, I was kind of happy to be here. But then it sunk in. I was like, yeah, he's right. Like,

it's a business. And there should be no shame in treating it as a business. Like, you can blend art and commerce and it doesn't make you less of an artist. I heard someone say once that show business is a word, but business is the bigger part of that word. And it's true. It's true. I mean, it all depends on what you want to do. You know, and I think like, okay, like if you were like take painting as a medium, do you want to be in a gallery in London or somewhere or do you want to be on the boardwalk on Venice Beach? You know? And it's like if you're cool with the boardwalk at Venice Beach and you're cool with getting like a couple dollars in tips from strangers to walk by, then enjoy that and be happy with who you are and content and embrace it.

But if you want more, then you're going to have to focus on more than your art. You're going to have to like basically grow up and understand that it is a business. And now that I've been doing it a while, I know comic book authors. I know comic book illustrators. I know actors and hosts and, you know, all these people who, and I've been lucky enough to meet people who are successful in a variety of artistic fields, every single one of them, without exception, focuses on the business and is savvy on the business end behind the scenes in ways I don't think their fans would even believe sometimes. But I'm like, oh, no, they may be goofy and silly and like, oh, I just showed up, happened to be here.

No, they didn't. They put thought into it. Man, there's been so many great nuggets in here about life, career, podcasting. This has been such a great conversation, Dan. Thank you so much. And I want to be super respectful of your time, but I end every conversation talking about gratitude. I think that if you can be grateful, you can live a great life. So what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now?

You know what? I do, this is so funny. I do a mantra in the morning when I'm in the shower. I repeat little things in my head to put me in the right mood for the day. And I do gratitudes. And the ones I've been doing for a couple years is I am thankful for the love of my family. I am thankful for my health, and I'm thankful for the support of my fans. And so that's like, you know, like in that order.

I love it. Dan, thank you so much. Where can people find you if they want to listen to your podcast or reach out to it? You know, they can find, you know, just if they Google, time suck is a good place to start. Time sucks, scared to death, or is we dumb? Or you can just go to Dancomins.tv, and that will link you to everything else. And Chris, you're such a great interviewer. I've watched numerous of your other interviews, and you just have, somebody told me, actually, I was a terrible interviewer when I worked at this weird job at Playboy of all places.

Right. And this one exec, she goes, you know what the secret to great interviewing is? And I was like, what? And she goes, listen, just listen. And because I was always trying to put in the next question before they were done talking. You were a great listener. And also, this just kind of cracks me up. I don't know what's going on in Canada, how they're raising people, but they're doing it right.

Because I have met so many Canadians, and there is like this Canadian politeness that I admire so much. And you embody that. You just like, you just seem like a good dude. You are very kind. I feel like you could be an honorary Canadian, Dan. You are so kind. I'll take it. I'll take it.

I would love it. I had such a great time. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you, Chris. Well, there you have. And, I mean, is Dan Cummins not the nicest person, like on the face of the planet? absolute pleasure to talk to him. You can check out his three, yes, three podcasts,

wherever you're listening to this right now. That's time suck, scared to death, and is we dumb? Take a screenshot, share this with someone who's a fan of Dan or a fan of his shows or just someone who loves that kind of stuff. Tag us both. You can find Dan on Instagram at Dan Cummins Comedy. You can find me on both Instagram and Twitter on all of the social medias.

I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And I'll leave you with the words of the ancient stoic philosopher, Epictetus, who said, If you want to improve, be content to be thought of as foolish and stupid. I love that. It ties into this whole thing we talked about here with Dan with always wanting more and striving for more. Love it. Be great. Be grateful, my friends.

We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock. But there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video.

They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.