Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Drinkin' Bros Podcast hosts Ross Patterson & Dan Hollaway on Going All In on Your Dreams

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

Ross Patterson and Dan Hollaway are the hosts of the popular show "Drinkin' Bros Podcast". They join Chris Van Vliet from their studio in Austin, TX to talk about the success of their podcasts, how they were able to grow them, their advice for podcasters who are just starting out, their dream guests, their impressive sports memorabilia collection and much more! For more info on the Drinkin' Bros Podcast visit: https://drinkinbros.com/ 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

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris. Here we go, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. And as Justin Roberts so eloquently announced there, I'm Chris Van Vleet, and I felt like the music needed a little pep to it. So that's what we have here. Some peppy music.

Let me know what you think about it. I love it. And thank you so much for joining us for this chat with Ross Patterson and Dan Holloway, the hosts of the insanely popular drinking bros podcast. If you haven't checked it out yet, do yourself a favor as soon as you're done with this episode. Check it out wherever you're listening right now. These guys are hilarious.

I mean, you'll find that out from this conversation, but they're also incredibly entertaining and insightful. And they're doing the thing that so many people wish they could do. They're podcasting for a living every single day, and they are crushing it with their numbers. You can give them a follow on Twitter. They're at Drin underscore Bros. That's Drinkin' without the G at the end.

On Instagram, they are at Drinkin' Bros podcast. And I'm going to be a guest on their show. I'm flying into Austin, Texas, August 25th. So, you know, instead of doing this on Zoom and we've had this long debate since COVID started, is a Zoom interview really meeting someone? If you can't shake their hand, if you can't hug them,

if you can't look them in the eyes, if you're only seeing a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional person, did you really meet that person? So when they invited me to do this interview in studio, I said, heck yes, let's do this. So you can stream that live on their YouTube channel, August 25th, or you can hear it on their podcast

as soon as it's posted. Spying on the scene left this review on Apple podcast that says, I listened to a million podcasts, but I've never left a review before. I wanted to leave CVV a review for two reasons. One, I think he's earned it. And two, vague goals get vague results.

CVV gets five stars. Well, thank you so much. Yes, vague goals get vague results. I love that. We recently hit 2,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts. So I think the next logical goal is 2,500 now. So let's make that happen. Leave a review.

I'll read one out on every single episode. Now, without further ado, because, let's be honest, nobody likes any more adieus than are necessary. Please welcome the Drinking Bros. Ross Patterson and Dan Holloway. Drinking Bros.

So good to have you guys on. Yeah, what's going on, dude? And I feel like I had to come prepared here, so I poured myself one. Cheers. Cheers to you, friend. And cheers to you guys. And congratulations on everything.

You guys are just your podcast, is just absolutely exploding. It'd be great, though, if YouTube would allow us to let it explode. Audio-wise, yeah, it's gangbusters and it's great. But YouTube-wise, I'm looking at your silver badge above you there, and I'm real fucking jealous. Well, you guys will have one soon enough. There's no reason you shouldn't have one.

Do you think so? We're gaining, like, I'm looking at the numbers now. It's like a thousand a month. When you have as many controversial guests on as we do, YouTube frowns on it. I'll never forget, before we went on air, you and I were chatting about this. I'll never forget having Alex Jones on, you know, election night. And I think as soon as we went live, Dan, correct me if I'm wrong, we were drinking out of a boot, a cowboy boot.

During the middle of, like the height of COVID. I wasn't. I did. So Alex was first and then I drank out of this guy's boot afterwards. That was to start the show. and I know it got up to like 300,000 live viewers or something crazy like that. Incredible. Wow.

The second it ended, the feed cut and we couldn't even find it on our channel. Like as soon as we went off air, it had disappeared into the ether. And unless you typed in letter for letter caps lock for hyphen and all the other bullshit, it was gone. And that was for us on our end of the back end of it. So again, looking at your silver badge there, I'm jealous of it. and I want it. The last time.

I'm looking at your set, jealous of it, and I want it because, as you guys know, lots of people have a podcast, but not lots of people are doing it like you guys are doing it with a set, with actual equipment, with cameras that cut. You guys are doing it right. We are and we aren't. We talked to our CPA yesterday. Or, BFO, I should say, our CFO. And he goes, hey, dude, do you know how much money you're spending on video versus how many

subscribers you have? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I do. And he goes, if you guys just did audio only, you probably never have to work again. And here we are. I think video is the future, though, which is why we do this. Just to have the catalog at some point, you know, when, when things like mergers and acquisitions happen is a very valuable tool. Correct. And I know that's what propelled Rogan to that huge dollar amount that he got from Spotify was not only did he have the audio, but he also had the video.

And that's something we've been doing all along, you know, for six years is recording as much videos we possibly could. In the event of an acquisition or something like that, it would make our back catalog seem more valuable. And because there's, look, there's apps that are popping up on TV now that it's like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing last night. I was looking for Twitch on like Roku TV where might do this deal with Twitch. and I was trying to find the app and whatever reason they weren't, they weren't signed up with Roku, but it led me to another direction of like,

whoa, would you like to watch live video? Here's podcast TV. And I was like, what the fuck is that? Podcast TV, that's a thing? Yeah, it is. And I downloaded it and it's like select shows, but it's all video. So there is no audio on there.

And it was video only, and that was shocking to see where I was just like, okay, so there is people that are developing apps right now to go ahead and pick off back catalogs. And that's, look, that's the studio model for Hollywood as well. You take an Amazon with their latest MGM deal. They want that library. So it's endless movies and content forever.

I also think with the video, perception is reality. And if you have a guest that comes into your studio in person and sees this amazing set that looks great on camera, they go, oh, these guys are the real deal. Right. It demonstrates a seriousness of purpose, I guess you might say. Yeah, and when they do come in, dude, if you walk in here, it does feel like a Hollywood set. We've got seven sets in this building.

Buildings around, I don't know, 5,000 square feet, a couple floors, very nondescript. So if you're trying to find it, fuck off. But it's fun, and there's people recording it all times. And the cool thing about, you know, owning a media company is, you know, collectively, what do we have, Dan? 16 shows, I think, on our network. There's always cool people in and out of here shooting all day. And, you know, with our employees, everybody has a key. And everybody's welcome to shoot content and use the cameras whenever they want.

And that's part of the gig of working here. But with that being said, every night you walk in, there's somebody that you wouldn't expect where you're like, oh, shit. Like I saw Danny Brown walk in here when I was doing somebody else to show the rapper. And I was like, oh, dude, I fucking love that, dude. Jamie Kennedy was in here the other day. We had, you know, Marcus. Tim Kennedy was in here yesterday.

Tim Kennedy was here yesterday, yeah. So they're all, it's all a blast. Mostly Kennedys, actually. Yeah. A lot of Kennedys. Hopefully we can have JFK on. Yeah, well. Maybe one day.

Is that an intercontinental championship behind you? It is. That is signed by Hulk Hogan. Wait, did you not know that he recently accepted? you're starting to work with AEW, right? That was two years ago. I was on the first episode. From the first episode, I was on an episode a few weeks later.

Yeah, so I've done a few things with AEW. Bro. He's a huge fan. He just took his kid to one, what, last week? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they're back on the road now. Two weeks ago. So that belt right there is signed by Hulk Hogan before he said the N-word.

And we did get that verified. That's the COA verification. Yeah, it's on the certificate of authenticity right there. This is pre-N-word. So I really want to put that out to the audience. It's before he said the N-word. And then same with the OJ Simpson jersey behind Dan here. That was before he killed two people.

We got that. Well, that is a Bill's jersey, right? Yes. And then the helmet as well in front of Dan is also signed by OJ. All of these were pre-murters, so we really want to put that out there. But with the AW, man, I took my kid, and I didn't know what it was. He just wanted to go see wrestling. And I was all in because W.

WWE is on a lot, and I'm not amps with the fucking personalities that are in it right now. Like Roman Raines to me, and those guys are fucking boring. I think it's kind of a snooze fest right now for, for WWE. But then you roll over to AEW. Oh, my God, dude. I mean, it was brutal. Like, half of it was real. And that's what I enjoyed.

We're like, real blood during the commercial breaks, there was a guy that clearly got a concussion from an incorrect move. and didn't know where the fuck he was. They had to get security over there because I was sitting right behind their production bay for it, I guess, if you want to call it for lack of their video village. And I got to see how fucked up these people were. And like,

what and all that stuff, you know, was real. And I was like, Jesus Christ, you don't see that very much on TV because it's all, you know, on TNT. The other part about it is the swearing. I was like, are you allowed to say that? The first meeting that I was in with AEW, so the show comes on at 8 live on TNT. And they specifically said, all right, everybody, we can't say shit until after 9.

And then everyone, oh, okay, after 9 o'clock. And I was like writing notes. Yeah. And when it happened, it was a guy named the hangman. Hangman Adam Page. Yeah, dude. So when he walks out, he's in a full cowboy. You guys are a couple of fucking nerds, you know?

Hang on, Dan. If you and I were designed to design a wrestler, it's probably this guy. What's his name? Hangman. Hang man, Adam Page. Adam Page. He comes to the ring, not unlike this, with a drink in hand. Full beer in hand, but it's in a cup.

And then he's got a huge, long, curly mullets. I see that, yeah. Greases up his chest. He's got a hairy chest that he greases up. There's a big fat belt buckle. Any relation to Diamond Dull. us or is this a separate page family? Man, I don't know.

That's a great name though to have in the rest. A lot of pages and cages. There's also Ethan Page. Adam Page. Christian Cage, Brian Cage. There's a lot of cages and pages in AEW. I would go with Cage Against the Machine if I were one of them. That might be copyright infringement, though.

I think if he just changed butter, you're fine. But Dan, his whole chance was cowboy shit. So the entire arena, just chance, cowboy shit, cowboy shit, what does that mean? It just means he's there

for some cowboy shit, Dan. Yeah. There to kick some people with boots on the ground. Like he's at a, kind of like a, all the matches are like a bar fight,

it feels like. That's exactly it. Yeah. I mean, W. I love that you had a great time at AEW. I had the fucking best time of all time. And afterwards,

I told the audience the next day. I was like, look, man, I'm AE dub for life now. I'm all in. And then the, the female champions started following me after the show ended. Britt Baker.

Dr. Britt Baker. Sorry, Dr. Britt Baker, DMD. Love me some. Dan thinks we are giant, giant nerds right now. No. I'm getting ready to kill myself. Dan, you'll actually love this one too. So I go, why do they call her Dr. Britt Baker?

And it turns out, Dan, she's still a actual licensing dentist. She's like when she's not wrestling, she is a dentist. She's an actual dentist. So it's kind of like Stepe, but not. Oh, Steepa as a firefighter, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's got a day job. He's got a day job.

She's a fucking dentist, man. Yeah, it's great. It's awesome. So, yeah. How great would it be if your house is burning to the ground and the heavyweight champion of the UFC comes to your house to put out the fire? Yeah, that would be hilarious. I mean, for this woman, though, as a dentist, that's almost vertical integration opportunity.

Yeah. You have your practice signed some kind of a deal. with the AEW, right, that you'll do all the dental work at a discounted rate, and you just start smashing people's fucking teeth, then you can control the thing on. You guys just fucking focused on the wrong shit here. We are,

but her moves are, she puts a hook in people's mouths and, like, tries to tear a tooth out or something. Awesome. And it's hot, I'm all in.

What's the walkout music? Is it just the sound of dental drills? Because that would be made people, that's good. Even a Maori board dance. You know what I mean? You start hearing those dental drills, and everybody's like,

fuck. Yeah. No. That's like a dude watching another dude get kicked in the nuts. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to hear that noise ever again for the rest of my life. There was a girl. Do you know the girl who's dressed up like the grudge?

Oh, Abelon, Abadon? Yes. She's got blood and all that shit on her face. Her eyes are entirely white and she only crawls around and does like crazy shit. In person, goddamn frightening this woman. But like, so that was one of the injuries, by the way. Because she's got this white, what what do you call them?

Contacts? Contacts, yeah. Yeah. I could tell she couldn't see very well. And so one of the moves where she's fucking suplexed this chick, it was incorrect all the way around. And like this girl, she just dropped this girl in her fucking head. And when they cut to commercial, they'd appeal this girl out of there.

And, you know, look, if you're wearing white contacts to cover your entire eyes, yeah, probably not the best for executing high precision wrestling moves. All right. Well, welcome Dan back into the conversation. now that we're done nerding out about. Sorry, Dan. It's been rough. As an American, I feel like I'm entitled to more.

I mean, I don't know if it gets any more American than professional wrestling. I agree. I think now feeling entitled might be more American than actually. You might be on to something, although I have no opinion as a Canadian. Well, you can. I mean, shit. Canada, I heard, is nuts right now. Is it as bad as everybody says down here?

Canada is very locked down right now. Look, this sums it up. I haven't been able to see my parents, my mom and dad, since December of 2019. Holy shit. Are you serious? Because the rules to get into Canada was a 14-day quarantine until you can actually see them. Then it was a three-day quarantine in a government-approved hotel that costs like thousands of dollars. Now it's, I just have to take a COVID test and show that I'm negative to enter.

Jesus Christ. And that just happened like a few weeks ago. Yeah, yeah. So yes, it is very locked down. They had one point in Canada where you could go to a restaurant, but they were only allowing 10 people in the restaurant. Capacity was 10 people, not 10%, 10 people. Yeah, we, that was in Los Angeles for a while too.

And there was a gas station we stopped at. Dan and I do a lot of live shows across the country. Yeah. And we didn't stop for COVID. Like, you know, well, Dan and I got it, I think, like opening day. Humble brag, obviously. But after that, I was like,

well, above the law, yeah, who gives a shit. But, yeah, there was a gas station we were in stop. Everybody had recommended, it's a bakery, like a Czechoslovakian bakery here in Waco, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. God. The fuck is the name of that.

Check stop. Check stop. That's it. Yeah. So we went to check stop and everybody's like, oh, my God, this is an amazing bakery that's inside of a gas station. Doesn't sound that appetizing. Get there and there was a line of like 80 people out the door and they were only letting in like groups of 10 at a time. So that, yeah, they've been doing that here as well.

That kind of stopped. I feel like, what, three or four months ago? Yeah, I mean, you live in Texas. Things are back to normal there. One would think. One would think. I mean, all the fucking Democrats just took off. went to Washington, D.C. for something.

And then everyone left here, everyone left Los Angeles and came there. Yeah. Yeah. They're all here. Dude, they're all here. And we go through that every day, too. I'm not really concerned about that, though, to be honest. No, I'm not concerned about that, but properties and, you know, housing and all that stuff

through the, I mean, you're heading towards L.A. prices because of what you can get here. And anybody from L.A. in particular, who's never had a yard for years and years and years and comes out to Texas, they look at this like, oh my gosh, we have a third of an acre. Holy shit, this is the biggest yard of my entire life. Let's pay four million for it. So that's kind of what's happening here. And we've been looking for bigger buildings commercial real estate wise and like, dude, we went to look at a place today and immediately afterwards, it was like, well, there's five offers on that. What do you want to do? Man. Yeah. Well, you guys just, you guys just keep getting bigger and bigger with what you're doing. COVID's actually been really

helpful for you guys, I think. Yeah. I mean, look, we weren't. directly involved. Right. And creating the virus. It's done somewhere else, but, you know, hey, what are you going to do? Yeah, what are you going to do? We just happen to provide entertainment. Yeah.

And during the pandemic, because we got COVID literally day one, our advertisers hit us up and they were like, look, people need entertainment. Hollywood is shut down. Would you consider going every single day for some of your shows? and they'd pick two out in particular, and we said yes. And we huddled up with our employees, and we said, look, we have COVID. You will probably get it. We can either hurt immunity to this shit and work through it and try to make something of ourselves,

be upstanding citizens and work and do all the things, or we can pack in and go home, and everybody agreed to do it. And we never stopped. So I'm actually really proud to say we didn't miss one single day. Yeah, that's amazing. Even like what was the sickest that you guys got when you had COVID? For me, it was just like bone aches. So I didn't really care that.

Bone aches. Yeah, like my bones hurt. But I have lower back issues from jumping out of planes and shit. So bone aches like shooting pains. That's not, that's for five days. Yeah, that's not that bad. Yeah, mine was, I'll get graphic with you here. That's where we're at today.

Who gives a shit? Let's do it. Dick fell completely on. Dick fell completely off, duct tape it back on, and then eventually had to switch to gorilla glue. No, mine was here. I was looking at houses in Austin, and it was me and my wife going around. It was one of those things where we knew everybody was coming to Austin. It was kind of like a race for houses. And we looked at like 36 houses and 27 hours, something like that, or vice versa, whatever it was.

That's like an HGTV show right there. 100%. And the problem was, I didn't, you saw what was going. on on the news and you're like, man, I feel like I might have some of those symptoms. And so I was shitting like every hour on the hour where I was just like, okay, great. But I also went out hard the night before and I got super fucked up. So I didn't know if it was because of that. Well, that's been my recommendation to anybody that's got COVID.

Don't just sit at home and drink water and eat soup and shit. Get fucking hit. If you're going to feel like shit, do it to yourself. Yeah. Don't let God or some fucking bullshit virus do it. Yep. Fuck yourself up. Be a man.

So not to steal from being. a man guy. He's really funny. The guy on Instagram is hilarious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, look, I destroyed like 36 bathrooms of strangers' houses and that's kind of what it was. You were shedding in open houses? Is that what you were saying? Wow. There is rarely

toilet paper when you do that. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you got a fucking, well. Oh, yeah. So, dude, somebody who lives there, then you can just use. Not always. You can just use their clothes or something. But if it's a true open house, then you got problems. It was a true open house. So some of these, all of the places had toilet paper.

And I remember thinking of myself at the time, like, oh, my God, this is gold, and I'm just wasting it. And then ironically, the house we pot didn't have any toilet paper in it. Weird, right? As we, as we sit here right now, you guys are at episode like 871, I think. Yeah, yeah, but we've got, I would say for the main, just for Drinking Bros itself, we're probably at a thousand total. Which is the same. We have a second show called Fake News that happens within that same feed, right? So I don't know.

But like, yeah, for regular Drigger Bros shows, we're getting there. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. It says 1,024 episodes. So, okay, so if we take this all the way back, 2015 is when you started, right? What was the goal when you recorded episode number one? To be honest about it, like, I was in Hollywood and comedy was dying. Like, all of it was dying.

Like, I wrote scripts and everything else, sold a bunch of scripts and TV shows. and you name it. Little by little, there was just less comedies being made, and it felt like there was a change in media. So I felt like this could happen. Now, whether it would is another story

because you have to have the right personalities and everything else. Yeah. And we got in at an earlier stage in the game where you could get on the charts pretty quickly, and then if people liked your show, they would just keep listening to it and all that other stuff.

Now the challenge of it is to turn it into a business and monetize it, which Dan was able to do, and make a living out of it. Because it's one thing if you're just going to do a podcast with your buddies and that's your hobby. It's another thing if you're going to do it for a job in this world. And I sincerely thought when we started it that it could become a massive thing and a media company and all that other stuff, but you still need the right collections of personalities and guests and everything else. to make it happen. Even me bitching about YouTube at the top of the show here, that's part of it. I know if our numbers got to like the level of your mom's house

because we have, I think four or five shows running off of our YouTube channel and drinking both podcasts. If it got to the level of your mom's house, that spills over into audio. You can also charge advertisers for that. And you could also do fun things on the set and everything else.

So there's a lot of room to grow. And I think that's exciting about it. It also allows you to do what the fuck you want to do. You know what I mean? We ask the biggest thing. Yeah, we're certainly burdened by the distribution points. Obviously, any of these organizations can tell us to go fuck ourselves and take our content with us any time they want. So navigating, that's been a bit of an issue for a show like ours that pushes the envelope quite a bit.

And it is what it is, I guess. We've managed to navigate around it in a lot of ways. There's still some hiccups. but, you know, it's the pain that we go through, just going back to the joke I was told, we take it on ourselves, right? So it's a more manageable level pain, right? Because then you have ways to go around that shit sometimes

and figure it out. So yeah, it's been a bit, it's been a strange period of growth for us, I would say. Yeah. The model, you know, the models changed so much because if you wanted to do what you guys were doing 20 years, ago, you would have to be a broadcaster. You'd have to be on a morning radio show somewhere. And then every 12 to 14 minutes, you'd have to stop for commercials and then restart again. Right. Yeah, so it was my father did. So my father was a disjockey for years and years and years and years.

And I look, I will say this with what you just said, I look at, because I used to go into work him as a kid and all that other stuff, right? And kind of sit there on the floor while he would, because he was playing records and then he would talk. And he did the morning drive, which is If you're a DJ, that's the biggest, that's the biggest job you have, right? For sure. And everybody wants that. It's usually like a five-hour gig. But now that I look back on it, it really wasn't talking that long.

And then you have commercial breaks. And then he was playing records, like, you know, music in between the rest of that shit. And I was like, man, how much was he actually talking? Yeah. I mean, I started my career in radio. And when I was the, like, afternoon drive DJ, my boss told me the longest talk break was 45 seconds and he only wanted that once an hour. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So what for you guys, what was the tipping point? Like you start the show

six years ago, you're gaining some momentum. You're relatively speaking early adapters because there weren't a ton of podcasts then like there are now. What really pushed it over the edge for you guys? I think the tipping point was monetizing it in the first place because you can have a theory about something like, hey, I think this can really be something. And then you turn the switch on and maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. Once we saw that it worked, right, we started funneling almost every dime we made back into production, right? Creating more capability to do whatever we're doing now and to do more than what we're doing now as well. So I think that was a big point. The other big point was probably COVID, right? Because it got people,

used to the idea of consuming content all throughout the day, right? You do it already by checking your phone and shit all the time, looking at memes. It just hadn't been popularized until everybody was starting to work from home. And now what we see from a lot of the tech companies and a lot of the banking companies and various others is that their employees aren't going back into an office again, right? So I guess that is just good fortune. Yeah. And, you know, And two things to piggyback off of what he said, when you go every single day, you are able to virtually create your own radio station, right?

Because that's what every radio station is. They're on daily. And then you used to listen to them. You have your favorites like Stern and all those other guys. And then the monetization of it. The monetization of it allows it to become a job and not a hobby. So things don't interfere with it. Because everybody's got to make a living and support their family.

and everything else. And my kids, for example, love Dude Perfect. And I was watching their doc that's, you might have to pay for it. I might be on a paywall on YouTube or something like that. But I was watching their doc. And they had said the same thing where,

you know, the five of them were like, man, we have real jobs. Like, this isn't really paying that much money. I'd love to go in on Due Perfect, but it's not paying for my fucking life.

And I've got kids and a family and a wife and all that other stuff. And then finally they were able to do it and then it hit for them. And then they could create a bunch of awesome content and then continue to be dude perfect and explode and make millions and millions of dollars. But like Dan said, you have to monetize it first and prove that you can make money off of it. Otherwise, your wife is probably going to shut it down. But it sounds like the most important thing here is intention. Are you going into this starting a podcast because it's fun, you want to hang out with your buddies? Or are you going in going, we can actually make some money from this?

Both. For us, it was both. You wanted to see comedy on a global level still. Hollywood wasn't doing it. This is kind of the only art form that's left where you can be this aggressive comedically. Now, certainly there's clean comedians and three-camera sitcoms and all that other stuff like Mike and Molly, and that's fine. But if you're going to hear an honest opinion on things that is unfiltered, this is kind of, of the last medium because you cannot do that in movies anymore. Yeah, and I think it's a better, I think it's a better modality for human beings to engage socially and informationally, to be honest.

We currently have in the West at large, but particularly here in America, I would say, the situation where people's understanding of things like philosophy are boiled down into memes with the old guys face next to it. You know what I mean? That's as deep as that understanding goes. in a three-hour conversation between Joe Rogan and a guy that worked for the federal government for 35 years doing X, Y, or Z. It just going through that process of hearing that person's story and long-term content in a conversation where a smart individual is asking them questions that other people might want to hear the answer to is really important. It's an important device to get people to truly understand things. And we're seeing some of the effects of it, right? I think people are becoming far less

far less apt to completely reject something that sounds conspiratorial out of the gate because so many people have been exposed doing so much fucked up shit through these types of mediums. Let me say what you want about Alex Jones, but he's the guy that broke the Epstein story. You know what I mean? So independent media like that, without restriction,

without somebody's friend owns the media company. and he owns a business. So he's calling, hey, can you tell him to shut the fuck up about that, please? And that being suppressed through those channels that we've seen this happen over and over again, that no longer becomes an option for those people. Yeah, and the other part of this, too, is if you can do, and I think this is very important for anybody starting a podcast out there,

if you can do shows without guests and the audience still loves it, no matter what, and it brings in the same numbers, ratings-wise, I think that is important. And I didn't realize it until I had read, there was an article in your mom's house with, Tom Cigar and Christina P. where they were like, look, for two years, intentionally we didn't have guests on

because we wanted to build this rapport with the audience. And then great, we can bring guests in later. And that's very much drinking bros as well, where it doesn't matter if it's just Dan and I on the show or we have a guest. And we like to bring guests in because it helps bring in more mainstream people and everything else. Plus, we just love talking

to cool, interesting people all the time. But it's not necessary. And especially with our media company, the shows that we look for that are exciting to us. Like we've got one called Softcore History on our network. Those guys are rising day by day. And it's the three of them.

They don't require guests. It is a history show. It is about the topic itself and the three personalities that are on that show versus I got to have Bruce Willis on my show tomorrow or I've got to have the rock on. When you start to get into that world of relying on guests every day and especially celebrity schedules and everything else, good luck. Yeah. You know, later on down the road, yeah, fine if you want to do that.

But, you know, if you're able to build a show or a show is just growing on its own based on personalities versus guests, and you're able to monetize that, that's the real longevity of... Well, how did you guys scale it? You know, you start out, you're probably getting hundreds of downloads, which turn into thousands of downloads. But now you're at the hundreds of thousands of downloads, no matter who your guest is. So how did it scale so much? man we there was a series of events that was fortuitous i guess you would say like you know episode 100 uh we just tossed out to the audience because we didn't we didn't know if it would go 100 episodes and uh we said hey what do you guys want to do somebody had suggested uh we had two have two strangers

who have never met before have sex live on air um so we said yes let's do that and then uh there was like I don't know, 700 submissions or whatever it was. And we picked a dude and a girl. We were doing a live show that night in Denver, Colorado at a comedy club. And we flew these people into Denver. We put them on a bed in an Airbnb, and they had sex for two and a half hours in front of us. We recorded all of it. Two and a half hours.

This guy's a machine. Dude, homeboy. I wish I could say his name, but God bless that guy. He had a shake, much like the Chris Kankowski shake. That's exactly what he showed up with. And he took off his clothes within three seconds. Like he was all in. And he looked like he just stepped off the cover of like a men's fitness magazine,

like a men of health or something. So with that, that show exploded. And the following day was the day before the election for Trump. And we've done an election prediction show. And I'd called every state and Trump winning except for Pennsylvania. So the novelty of the sex show, show plus the actually like what was going on in the world combined kind of showed the audience or all right this show isn't like a novelty show where we have to rely on gimmicks for every single

show and that's when it really started to take off and then celebrities started calling us to be on the show that's amazing who's the guest that you had on that had the most backlash is it out alex jones yeah well it depends on what kind of backlash you mean backlash from the social algorithms, I would say probably yes. Yes. I mean, it would be either him or Miliannoplas, one of the two. Yeah. The fascinating thing about Alex Jones, though, is as much as people say they hate him, they

fucking listen, dude, whether it's us or he's on Andrew Schultz or wherever he's at, that guy is fucking entertainment in a box, and he's fun. And, like, look, I don't treat him any more than I do any other entertainer, you know, whether he does himself or not. I don't know, but like, dude, that guy is a blast to talk to, whether or not you believe in what he's saying or not. But certainly download-wise, I remember when he was on the first time, it was monstrous. Yeah, it went to 98,000 within a couple of hours and then stopped at 98,000 for about two months. Oh, yeah, and that was on YouTube, right?

Oh, okay. Which is impossible. YouTube doesn't like him from what you're saying. No, no, no. No, that is impossible, right? there's no, there's always a tale to any kind of marketing campaign, no matter what it is. And it's, yeah, yeah. Nothing ever gets cut off like that.

It's not how it works. But the interesting part is we've had porn stars on, like a lot of porn stars. We have another one coming on in a couple weeks. Lisa Ann. Oh, which one? Lisa Ann. I'm sure you've heard to her. I'm familiar with her work, yes.

We've had some porn stars on, but like that's, like, that's what I'm looking at the clips right now. That's Tiana Trump having sex with Bill Maher. That clip is one of our highest clips on the fucking YouTube. So like, what is it? Who's the guest you had on where some of your loyal fans went, I'm never listening again now? I don't know if we've had one of those in the moment. I mean, we've had a couple of, let's see,

Adam Kensinger, a politician from Illinois, completely misrepresented himself here one time and now has become something of a puppet and just the nonsense that's going on in American politics right now. And our audience hates him now. So like that, but it was later, Yeah, it was after the fact. I don't know if we've had somebody on that people were immediately like, why the fuck would you do this?

You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't think that's ever happened. And we've only had one person walk off. Well, he didn't really walk off. He made up an excuse, but. Yeah, he said his internet cut out. Welcome to COVID.

His Zoom cut out or whatever it was. Oh, okay. Well, that's a good excuse. I wonder how many people, how many, how many women got out of going on dates with dudes because I think I might have been exposed to COVID. Oh, yeah. Well, you're a huge. You're a hero now if you don't show up on a date. Oh, COVID-like symptoms.

I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't have to protect my grandmother, okay? What do you hate my grandmother? My grandmother's dead, by the way. Yeah, RIP. RIP, obviously. I didn't do it. Who's the guest that you would absolutely love to have on the show?

That we haven't had on yet? Yes. It's a great white whale. Tarentino, maybe. Quinn Tarantino would be great. He was just in town with Rogan not long ago. He was, yeah. it was. And for me, I think Donald Trump, not because I like Trump, because I do. If you watch

the show, obviously, I like Trump. I voted for Trump and all that stuff. I just think it would be fascinating to hear the look back now of the four years, right? So I would say Trump now versus like 2016 when he got elected and all that stuff. I want to hear what it was actually like, because the things that I liked about him were that he wasn't a politician, right? And he probably went in there and asked for like, where's the aliens? Where's all the cool shit? I want to know all the cool shit, like one of us. So I would like to sit down with him and ask him those questions and then what he thought about it afterwards. Because we always say this on the show. You're not going to know how good a president really was probably for another 15 years until they leave office. So you can

speculate and judge and say whatever you want, but I don't care who it is, Republican or Democrat. that it's probably 15 years. With Trump in particular, looking back at all of the shit that he did or didn't do, I wonder if he would say, look, I wasn't a politician, I was able to get in there, and the world was fine.

Like, we all made it, you know? I wonder if there's some times where he was kind of like, you know, the magician's hot assistant, where he was making, like, silly tweets that would have the media look one way, while other stuff was happening in the, background over here. Probably. I mean, yeah. Every other politician does that. Does that. Yeah. And Dan and I have

been, I mean, every politician we've either met, I feel like, or had on at some point. And behind the scenes, man, they're just as big of dirt bags as you think they are. And the worst is the ones at the local level. I mean, they're worse than the higher ups for sure. So yeah, good old boy system. Yeah. Yeah. I think at the local level, they've also also gotten a small taste of celebrity. And they go, ah, I'm a big deal in this town or this county. Yeah. Yeah.

It's truly pathetic. It really is. Yeah, it really is. Sports-wise, I'll go, because we have a sports show, too, Drinking Rose Sports. Obviously, Michael Jordan. It would have been Kobe. Kobe would have been my number one. Obviously, he's no longer with us.

So sports-wise, that's it's entertainment-wise. I'll go Ben Affleck. I feel like that's possible. With a gram in his pocket. I want to, no, I want the real Ben. Like, I want a gram in his pocket. Like a conversation that happens outside of a South East bar. Yeah, 100%.

That's the Ben you want. That's the Ben. I like my Ben on drugs and alcohol. Like, I want some really, really good whiskey, and I want a half a gram on him at least. Sports-wise, I want Brady. I want to sit down with Brady for like three hours. You know, I think Brady would be great after he retires.

Oh, he'll be incredible after he retires. Because he's showing little flashes right now of what his personality actually is. He got away from Belichick. And I think interview-wise, when he retires, and he's just sitting there with those fucking desk full of rings, he's like, all right, what do you really want to know? Because I think he's cool. And I never used to think that.

Now it's creeping in that he might be kind of cool and like in on the joke. I think he endeared himself to us during that celebration, the Super Bowl celebration in Tampa where he took the Lombardi trophy and threw it from boat to boat. then we saw the video of him like stumbling out of their drunk. And I think we all went, ah, he's like us. Yeah. Yeah. And I think to catch him afterwards would be the best time for that.

Because that's the way I look at a lot of these interviews, too, is when's the best time to catch these interviews? That's a great point. Yeah. Honest. And that's why I would want Trump now and then Brady afterwards. Somebody like Kobe, it would have been great during the career. Because I don't think that mindset or focus ever changed.

therefore I would I would like to see that guy in the zone firing off answers versus like the funner Kobe in the later years yeah you you guys are such great conversationalists but I imagine it hasn't always been this way what did you specifically do to start getting better at what you're doing now the only thing you can do is do it all the time you just record four fucking shows a week yeah used to it right and it's you know you begin to begin to to compartmentalize information. You know what I mean? So today I've had a very serious discussion about child trafficking, international child trafficking, right? And now I'm talking about this. And before this, we did a show that was talking about all sorts of wild shit. So you have to,

being a good conversation. This is mostly about being informed enough to ask questions that uninformed people would ask. I think that's the most important part. But it's also about being able to fucking transition. Maybe the person is in kind of an angry mood that day. So you decide to do what a lot of good interviewers do is lean into that anger a little bit and get them to respond in more visceral ways they wouldn't normally do it. I think it's being able to compartmentalize that stuff is super

important. Yeah. And then mine, I started in stand-up, but it's a totally different craft altogether. Because you have written jokes that are kind of structured and like it was doing impressions and all that other shit. And I thought that it would translate into podcasts. Like, oh, no big deal. It's just another thing where you're talking. It is totally different altogether.

And so that helped a little bit. Yeah, like the concept of dead air, for example, is there is a pregnant pause or a pause for effect a lot of times and stand-up comedy while you're letting the room react to what's happening

and radio or fucking podcast, that space doesn't exist anymore. No. You've got to be right back on it after the joke. When you work at a radio station, if there's 15 seconds, I think, or 20 seconds of silence, like alarms start going off because you're off the air. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's the same with podcasting. And like, you realize it when you go and listen to your audio shows. Because video shows, at least you can see the reactions and everything else. And you can understand why, like the pregnant pauses like Dan was talking about, why it happens. And then you can understand it more in video. Audio, no, man, you're just listening to people talking.

So, yeah, you can't have that. any dead air. And I think the biggest lesson that I learned was Elon Musk on Joe Rogan, where I was amped for that episode to come on. I was driving home from the studio and I put it on the car and there was lots of dead air in between the questions and answers. And I was like, what the fuck is going on? And so I switched it off because it was hard to listen to. And then I waited until I got home. I put on the video on YouTube. And then as I was watching it, I was realizing, all right, well, Elon Musk is just genuinely taking his time 15, 20 seconds, to think about each question and answer with a smart and well-informed answer.

And that changed it for me where I was like, oh, my gosh, you could have Elon Musk on your show. And if you don't fill those gaps, it's not going to be fun audio-wise video, blast. And all the memes and everything that came out of that, like, yes, congratulations. And I enjoyed the interview so much more on video. But that was a big learning lesson of like, oh, shit, you could have the most interesting guests on the world, but if there's gaps, and that far in between questions, every single question, an audience is going to get bored. Yeah, I mean, you just have to learn as an interviewer.

You can't, you don't want to force that person to change their rhythm, right? So you just, you know, as there, if you know they're going to pause like that before responding to each question, you just got to fill that space somehow. You know what I mean? And Rogan's actually pretty good at doing that usually. He's great. It's just your stock with Elon Musk because you don't want to cut them off or seem like you're cutting off one of the smartest people on the planet and then you look like the asshole for doing it it's tough and you know with rogan in particular when you when you become that big and all eyes are on you for every single interview they're looking for a reason to to fucking cancel you and all that other shits and uh i think he's done a great job of it

uh i know the new york times was trying to write a hit piece on him but they ended up they couldn't like just couldn't find any dirt on them and they they literally the title of the article was why Joe Rogan is uncannable. Like he just can't get canceled. But he's been so open about everything, his entire career. He's just been like, like what you get is, what you see is what you get with him. And that helps.

He also has the benefit over anybody else in entertainment that might be cancelable, if you're going to call it that, in that he can go on his own show and talk to a few million people every day and explain exactly why he said or thought what he said. And not most, Most people just don't have that luxury. If somebody says something in a vacuum, some actor says something somewhere, that audio bite or that clip just lives without any context.

It's out there in the universe for morons to massage into whatever narrative they so choose. And it's, you know, he probably is uncancelable for that reason, to be honest. And then, you know, in the case of the celebrity, maybe they say something that they regret. And what can they do? They can send out a tweet or they can send out like a statement through their publicist. And they're only going to take a sentence to that and put it as a headline. So you're right. Rogan has an entire show to explain his actions.

Yeah. And look, that's the fortunate thing of being Joe Rogan, you know? A million millions of people and it's cool. Well, you guys are on your way, I feel like. We'll see. You never know. I don't know how the podcast industry is going to shake out. It feels like everybody's choosing a side exclusively, you know, either going to Spotify.

I know iTunes is going to open. up their own original programming as well. And then Amazon music just jumps into the fray. So I think it'll be the same wars that are going on in streaming, that are going on in podcasts. And then why you want to stay the way you are, you know, and be on all these different apps, because that's always the challenge of it as well. Because like you were saying before the show, like everybody has their favorite.

And you don't want to see somebody's favorite. So I don't know. It will see how it is. Is the hope that you guys get acquired and paid lots of money for this? I don't necessarily think so. Like it would be great, but it would also be great to grow like barstool where you're getting,

you know, rounds of funding and you can keep growing and not be stuck. Like, like they're not, they're not stuck on a platform, just one platform. They're everywhere. I think that would be the end,

and all be all dream is if you could stay on every platform but then gain enough funding to do all of the cool shit, yeah. That would be the dream because, what was it, they signed on to do a bowl game. Yeah. Yeah.

And they're going to stream it off of their app and their platform and everything else. And they're going to be commentating on it. That's the dream. But the only way that they could do that was through independent financing. Yeah. And that's incredible what they've built. Also incredible what you guys have built. I know there's going to be a lot of people that are listening to this going,

my podcast gets 36 listeners right now. What do they do to start to ramp things up? man i in today's world social media plays such a huge part in it that if you don't if you have a couple hundred you know followers on instagram unfortunately i don't know how to break through i would i would say this your topic then or your genre has to to be something that can break you out versus your social media so if you were doing true crime which is you know still the highest rated If you did true crime and the concept was good, like, you know, based on a murder or based on a famous case or something like that, I think you could gain traction there without having a huge social media following. But if you're just trying, like if you're a comedian or something else and you're just trying it from your house, I don't really know.

I know, Dan and I know a guy that bought his way into being big, but he had a ton of money behind it for marketing. So bought his way in by like having lots of advertisements. Is that what you mean? Correct. And look, that's a way, certainly. Yeah. But, and there's nothing wrong with it. If you're great, you're great.

Who cares? Shit, there's people who are fucking terrible at it that are a lot of followers. So who cares? But that's a whole different model altogether. I mean, you're basically in marketing at that point. So I would say social media first, strong concept, second. The genre is important. And then the less you can depend on guest.

as well. To get going, that's probably the tips that I would offer. But then, you know, you're going to have outliers who were just like, why the fuck is that guy? I have a huge fun.

Well, I always say no one was listening to episode 217 of the Joe Rogan experience. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He blew up whatever it was, you know,

around episode 800 or something. And if you go back and look at it, his early videos, he was in, like, closet and like, it looked like Al Jazeera. And they were doing, They were sponsored by Fleshlight.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's because he was good friends with Aubrey Marcus, who's, you know, on it and on an academy. And Aubrey Marcus, his father is the person who owns Fleshlight. Yes. So. Oh, I didn't know that. We're reaching back into history now and explaining how this whole Rogan thing happened.

It happened because of fake pussies. So congratulations, world. We did it. We did it. But that is true. what Dana is saying is true. Yeah. Look, I want to be super respectful of your time. And I'm excited to join you guys in a few weeks here. So thank you for having me on. I'm pumped about that. I end every interview talking about gratitude. And I feel like with everything that you guys have

built, you must be super grateful for it. So for both of you, Ross and Dan, what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? Dan, I'll let you start. That's very, very kind of you. Yeah. Put me on the spot and try to make yourself seem like you're doing me a favor. Yeah, very kind of. I thought for sure he was going to say OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony and John Bonae Ram's. So I'm shocked by that. I thought that was an easy layup, but apparently is not. If we're answering seriously, if you want me to go first, I'll go first.

Go ahead. Three things. Wife is a big one. I host a show with her, Ross Patterson Revolution. She takes care of the kids and allows Dan and I to go and travel and do all this crazy shits all over the United States. Kids, obviously, number two, because I'd be. be a terrible father if if i could say them and i'm forced to uh and then three is uh is friends and

family with all this shit and like you know having been in like the hollywood system for a while and everything when you start to get successful in any fields if you don't have great friends friends and family already to start with um you're fucked because if you're going to be famous for the the wrong reasons and then it happens everybody i've met who gets there when there are super famous. They're like, oh, shit, I don't know what to do now. And nobody really likes me. None of these conversations are real and everything else. So if you have a great base to start with and then all the cool shit starts to happen, then yeah, money and all that shit can buy you happiness for real, because then you're spending it on your family and friends and you're having a

great time. If you don't have that, you're fucked. But then, and then obviously, like, if I'm going 3B, Terry Shabo, just because I've ever. specter and and and Casey Anthony and Casey Anthony and then baby Jessica the the one who fell on the well and now she's oh wow yeah what about that woman that got uh Amy's not Amy smart Elizabeth smart is that her name yeah yeah he got kidnapped and taking three miles down the road and yep in Utah yeah yeah yeah that's fucked up yeah mine would definitely be my my girl first she's uh you know it however people want to think about their individual relationships what it is and all the stuff that he was just explaining is that they become an effigy for all the good things in life, right?

Like all the struggle you go through is because you want to get back to that situation that makes you happy, right? It's a great motivating factor. Yeah. The second thing that I'm grateful for is myself. Like the weird way my fucking brain works is interesting. And it's helped me do a lot of cool shit. And I don't know why it happened that way. I don't know why it works that way or what kind of weird disease I have.

but that's cool. And I guess third, I would probably say Chick-fil-A. Even though they're not open on Sunday? Yeah, it's fine. I mean, look. It's the only time you really crave it, though. Fondness are, what is it? This makes the hard grow fonder.

It does, yeah. It's God's chicken. I meditate on Sundays. I'm not religious, but I do like that chicken. Yeah, yeah, big, big fan of Chick-fil-A. Every time I wanted, it's Sunday, though. Is it really? And I'm like, oh, it's closed.

I can eat Chick-fil-A almost every day. and everybody's children virtually do. So, like, when you become a parent, every house you go to, there's extra Chick-fil-A just laying around where it's just-ch-fil-i, when your parent, is Chick-fil-A, quote-unquote, healthy? Yes.

And I will say this. Out of the fast food restaurants, that's probably the healthiest, I mean, is Chipotle. Taco Bell is actually the healthiest. I'm not kidding. No shit. Yeah, they actively suppressed the information for years. Yeah.

I'm not kidding. They didn't want to be known as a healthy. healthy brand, they spent marketing dollars suppressing the fact that they had healthier food than other fast food places. Oh, too. That's fine. For a number of reasons because of bread, because of trans fat, stuff like that. Yeah.

Chick-fil-e is relatively healthy, right? Yeah. Eating bread is never good for you. Well, not bread, but it's the nuggets, dude. As a parent, it's that nug life. Yeah, that's perfectly healthy. Yeah. My over under, any dad is like 40 for nuggets because they're just lying around and you'll just kind of have two.

Wow. Wow. Well, say, there's 30 days in a, and a, and a, you know, I'm a, a month and there's always six to lay around. So it's like, all right, great. You have two nuggets per day, right? Boom. You're at 60 nugs, dude.

Minus those Sundays, you're 52. That's it. Ross, Dan. This has been awesome. We could talk all day, but you've got other things and other shows to host here. Do we? Fuck. We can just wrap about your life.

Have you ever fucked a porn, sir? Totally kidding. We'll save that for our show. Oh, yeah. Okay. I better come up with some great stories between now and then. I would, dude. No pressure.

Yeah, I mean. Yeah, I better, I better just go, you know, spend the next two weeks in Vegas just tearing it up. Yeah, you got to, you got to beat Matthew McConaughey talking about getting arrested naked and putting his fucking warrant in a frame. Yeah. So. When he was on our show, he told the best story about that. That's a tough one to be. He put his arrest warrant in it.

He framed it. Yeah. So good luck. Yeah. Thanks, guys. For real. Well, there we go. Give it up for the drinking.

And pros. It's absolutely incredible seeing what they've built with their multiple podcasts. And if you're not already listening to their shows, do yourself a favor. Give them a listen as soon as this episode is done, which is going to be in like 40 seconds. Give them a follow. I'm assuming you're already following insight. But if you're not, give us a follow or a subscribe on whatever platform it is that you're listening on right now. And I'll leave you with this from Chuck Pollanick.

He's best known as the author of Fight Club. love this. May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. Be great. Be grateful. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here.

The Jim Rome show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.