Stuart Chaseman

Original Air Date: July 21, 2024

Ever wonder what it’s like to be on shows like “The Bachelor”?  Musician Stuart Chaseman tells all about his experience on “Jewish Matchmaking”.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues didn't matter. Here's your
host, three time Greasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Stuart Chaseman. And whatcaught my eye. I get a lot
of press releases and I get alot of requests for interviews, and Stuart
Chaseman is a musician, but that'snot what caught my eye. Caught my

(00:25):
eye was that Stuart Chaseman appeared ona show called The Jewish Matchmaker, which
is a show I had never heardof Jewish matchmaking Jewish matchmaking, but I
had to check it out and Iwas kind of fascinated. But tell me
about how you came to Jewish Matchmaking. Well, first of all, I'm

(00:50):
glad you said that you saw meon Jewish Matchmaking. As afraid you were
going to say you saw me onAmerica's Most Wanted or something, and then
the interview would have gone down.Hell. I saw an ad. It
was quite a while ago. Itwas quite an intensive process. I saw
an ad that they were looking tocast Jewish people and I thought, okay,
well, I'm Jewish people that arelooking for love I'm like, okay,

(01:10):
well I qualify for that. Andthe first step was to talk to
a casting director and this certainly wasn'tin the heart of COVID, but that
was still going on, so everythingwe did was virtual. And hopefully some
people know what it's like when yougo on a job interview and you just
know you nailed it. This wasone of those situations. But she didn't

(01:34):
have the authority to hire me,and I figured, Okay, there'll be
one or two more interviews and thenhopefully they'll tell me I got it.
But it was unreal. I hadto meet with a rabbi to prove I
was Jewish, and I had noidea. How didn't much you have to
do? Drop your pants? Everybodysays that I hear these days. You

(01:55):
know, I'm not that up onthe medical industry, but I hear even
the gentiles get that done these days, and some don't. Okay. I
actually had to join ancestry dot comand trace my lineage and find paperwork that
shows a few generations ago that theylisted someone's language is Yiddish. When they

(02:15):
came through Ellis Island. I hadto meet with their psychiatrists. They assume
that's like a liability sort of thingin case somebody goes completely postal that's on
one of these shows. So theysaid, do you mind meeting with our
psychiatrists, and like, mine hasn'tdone anything for me in twenty years,
maybe yours can knock something back inplace. So I did that. There's

(02:42):
just quite a lot of interviews.They ultimately I think there were two thousand
people who applied, and they ultimatelychose nine primary cast members to follow around.
Wow, so what was that likefor you? Good thing? Is
this a real thing? I mean, it certainly wasn't fake, It wasn't

(03:04):
staged. I mean, I thinkeveryone knows by now reality TV is only
about as real as you can makeit. I don't know that you could
call what we were on dates whenthere's twelve other people in the room and
then you're in the middle of astory about something, and then they're like,
Okay, hold up right now,we need you to hold up.
We need to change the real Okay, we'll be with you in a second.
All right, Now go back aboutfive minutes when you were talking about

(03:27):
this. We need to get thatagain. You know, nobody tells you
what to say or anything. Likethat. I mean, like I said,
it's probably somewhere in between. It'scertainly not stage, but it's hard
to suspend your disbelief and actually imagineyourself on a date with the person.
Unfortunately, the two girls have setup with were from out of town,

(03:51):
which always makes things more difficult.One of the two we went out later
that night, and one of themthat wasn't a possibility. I keep in
touch with Pamela a little bit oversocial media. She is the comic and
I haven't really talked to Hope inabout a year. I saw her in

(04:13):
New York about a year ago tocasting event. So in terms of finding
love, you did not find loveon Jewish Matchmaking, I didn't. That
didn't happen for me, unfortunately.You know, my husband and I are
fascinated by the Bachelor and the Bachelorette. I'm not a fan of reality TV,

(04:36):
however, that show fascinates me.But I always get which one the
Bachelor of them? No? No, no, well, actually Jewish Matchmaking
too, but I always get thefeeling that the people who compete, well
it is a competition, who competeon the Bachelor or Bachelorette are really out

(04:56):
more for fame than they are forlove. Now you're a musician and that,
you know, being on a TVshow elevates you know, your visibility.
Was that part of the mix whereyou thought, well, maybe I'll
find love, but certainly I mightfind a little bit of fame, you

(05:17):
know. I mean, the bestway I could qualify that, the best
way I can answer that is I'mqualified for both. And to that equation,
it wasn't like I'm I certainly don'tmind getting my name out there.
I certainly don't mind if somebody goesto Spotify and downloads my album or anything.
You know, I'm not above that. I didn't tell them, you
know, let's not even mention mymusic. No, I want, I

(05:40):
want that out there. But I'malso single. I'm also looking for love.
So it wasn't like I was cheatingthe process. You know, whatever
came out of it, I wascertainly happy with. I think you have
to have limited expectations about finding loveon these things. I mean, even
if you're the Bachelor and they bringout thirty different I mean, if you

(06:02):
watch that show, you know they'resuccess, right, isn't that high right?
I Mean, ultimately they're in thebusiness of filming a TV show.
They're not in the business of findingyou a match. And if they find
a potential date for you that mightbe a really good match, versus a
potential date for you that would makereally interesting television but maybe wouldn't be the

(06:25):
best match. I don't know thatthey would go with the person that would
be the better match. I suspectthat they might go with the one that
makes better TV. But that's theirjob. They're television producers, they're not
matchmakers. And I know the matchmakerwho is on the show a matchmaker.

(06:45):
She is a matchmaker. I knowher hands were tied a little bit.
It wasn't the sort of thing whereshe could just go into her database and
go, Okay, why don't wetry this? Oh that didn't work,
Like, why don't we try this? Everyone had to be qualified, everyone
had to go through the same processI went through. So, like I
said, it certainly isn't fake.But some people sometimes come up to me

(07:09):
and say, oh, how isLiza as a matchmaker? I'm like,
I don't know. We're co starson a television program, so it's a
little bit of both. Okay,you're very honest about it. I'm speaking
with Stuart Chaseman. He is amusician. Let's hear now about your life
as a musician. Well, firstof all, can do you make your

(07:30):
living as a musician or is thisstill a side thing where you're still striving
to make that your main career.You know, I don't want to intimidate
you or make you nervous or anything, but you are talking to someone who
has made hundreds of dollars in themusic industry. Wow. I mean,
it's certainly getting better. I dohave a day job. I sell advertising,

(07:51):
but sell advertising for who I'm selfemployed. As far as selling advertising,
I don't even really need to getinvolved to talk about that. To
be honest with you, it's verysecret. Should if anyone who finds out,
I would have to have them takencare of. Now I saw it
just be a whole lot. It'sa unique niche as far as the music

(08:13):
goes, I certainly wouldn't call ita hobby. I've been doing it professionally
a long time. I've played reallygood venues. I've had some degree limited
success, and that's getting better andbetter. We just played as sold out
show it Hey Nanni's in Arlington Heights, Illinois. I'm coming now to the
Cutting Room in New York City onAugust tenth, and I'm coming to World

(08:35):
Cafe Live in Philadelphia and August ninth. And what's really cool is we're playing
We're playing music. I'm doing mytypical standard concert we have. It's going
to be We're going to have someJewish comics on the bill. We're going
to have other musicians on the bill. It's going to be a great night.
But what's really unique is we're goingto be doing a symposium. I
think that's a good word to use, symposium. Maybe I should have looked

(08:56):
it up first. We're going tobe doing a simpose seem about reality TV.
I'm going to be answering questions fromthe audience. I'm going to be
interviewed live on TV and have awhole bunch of great stories that I'm prepared
to tell it. If you're interestedin reality TV, if you've ever wanted
to be on a reality show,if you want to hear in more detail
what the process is like or whatyou should go about doing, should you

(09:20):
want to follow that path, You'llbe getting a lot of good information on
that, a lot of funny stories. If you like rock music, You're
going to get both original music andclassic covers by great, great artists.
You're going to get a variety ofmusic. You're going to get some Jewish
humor. I cannot think of asingle reason why anyone would not want to

(09:41):
come to the show. And asa special gift to your listeners, if
you go to either website for theCutting Room or world Pafe Live to get
tickets, use this code STU fanfive STUFA N five and you'll get five
dollars off your admission. So haveyou been on other reality TV shows other

(10:03):
than Jewish Matchmaking? I have donea lot of interviews on TV shows.
We've done a lot of these podcasts, but I haven't been on another reality
and and I have my own showright now. It's not on TV.
We got some competition out there,Shelly, I'm doing a video show called
The Schmooze and the first episode isright is on YouTube right now. We

(10:28):
don't really have a setup system asto how we're releasing these episodes. We're
just releasing one every so often.And the first episode I interview Harmony from
the show We weren't. Our storylinesdon't overlap it all on the show,
but we talk about reality TV.We talk about what our experiences were like

(10:50):
on the television show, and Idon't know, I thought we had some
chemistry. Maybe someone else could lookat it and give me some tips if
you think we in harmony might bea good match. What do you think
is the most surprising thing people willhear from you when it comes to reality
TV? Well, I mean Ineed to have people come to the show

(11:13):
so I can't tell them all theseatons. I'm interviewing you right now.
Yeah, yeah, I know,but nobody's paying me for this. But
I do really really appreciate it.Some of the surprising things of what goes
on on the show, I think, well part of it I told you
going through the process until we geton there, some of the questions they

(11:33):
ask me, some of the thingsthat they're looking for, and just what
the prop like, everything that surroundswhat you see on the screen. There's
so much more than what you see. There are things that never made it
to the show. There were Idon't know if everyone was like that,
but there were just some ridiculous storiesthat went into it. It was kind

(11:56):
of like meets spinal tap, soso I'm going to come preloaded with a
lot of great stories. There's justso I think he'd be surprised just how
many people are involved in filming thisthing. Like if you were to ask
me prior to this experience, Iwould say, maybe, if you're watching

(12:20):
The Bachelor, there's like five otherpeople in the room or something, and
it is exponentially higher than that theamount of people that are involved. And
you know, while you're filming it, everything is revolving around you. You
know, at some point someone mightsay, oh, Stuart has some of
them a little bit a beat ofsweat under his eyes, and then everyone

(12:43):
goes, okay, hold up,hold up, and like four different people
with towels run up to me.You know, at first I was so
humble. I was so great toeverybody, all the interns and everything like
that. And by like the secondor third day, I'm like sending them
to pick up prescription for me becauselike, I don't have time to do
it because we're filming this show.And by the end of it, it

(13:05):
just all went to my hat andI'm like, no, I told you,
I don't want to do it thatway. I'll be sitting here on
the couch when you're ready to doit my way, let me know so.
But no, that was a prettynice guy, I think anyway.
I think they'd be surprised just howmuch goes into the task of filming these
things. Okay, we only haveabout two minutes left. What have we

(13:28):
not discussed here or touched on thatyou would like our listeners to know about
you or your show's Stewart Chaser.Sure. I have a new album out.
It's called Secrets, Lies and Alibis. It's available on all the typical
outlets like Spotify and YouTube and Appleand all the iTunes. I'm really really
proud of it. Take a listento it. The single is Sins.

(13:50):
There's plenty of ways you could getit for free. I don't even care
if I get paid on it ornot. I just want you to listen
to it. It's great songs.My influences are Springsteen and Dylan. Get
compared to the people all the time, so if you're into singer songwriter type
stuff. It's not acoustic, though, it's an album that rocks. Please
please please check out my record.You can find me in all this typical
social media outlets. I am moreof a Facebook guy than an Instagram guy,

(14:15):
So please drop me a line onFacebook. Let me know what you
think. I'm also on this crazything called Cameo where D level celebrities could
wish you a happy birthday and thingslike that. Oh yeah, I know
about that. Yeah, if youdo, you do that. I don't
do that. No, okay,I only charge forty bucks. Quite the
deal. They have the one andonly Stuart Chaseman. Wish your wife and
I get some really unusual requests onthere. So check me out on social

(14:39):
media. Drop me a line.I'd love to see you at the cutting
room. I'd love to see youat World Cafe Live. I'd love to
say hi to everybody. And likeI said, it's going to be a
great show. Remember the coach,stew fan five will get you five bucks
off. Okay, thank you somuch, Stewart Chaseman, and thank you
for the opportunity. You're welcome andgood luck at both with your career and

(15:01):
finding love. You've been listening toSunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, a production of
New York's classic rock Q one Ofour point three