June 30, 2025 • 49 mins
Garrett Gaudet reflects on his podcasting journey, detailing how he started EDM Weekly, a podcast focused on electronic dance music, and grew it into a recognized platform with over 500,000 downloads. He shares insights on the challenges and successes he faced, including building an audience, securing media accreditations, and connecting with artists. Garrett also discusses the evolution of podcasting and the impact of industry changes on his work. Podcasting emphasizes the importance of community and authenticity in creating meaningful content.
EDM Weekly with Garrett Gaudet
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/edm-weekly-podcast-garrett-gaudet--701318
Connect with Garrett Gaudet
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrettgaudet/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@garrettgaudet
Email: garrett@activatemedia.co
Website: https://www.garrettgaudet.com/
EDM Weekly with Garrett Gaudet
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/edm-weekly-podcast-garrett-gaudet--701318
Connect with Garrett Gaudet
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrettgaudet/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@garrettgaudet
Email: garrett@activatemedia.co
Website: https://www.garrettgaudet.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Gary Cadet Podcast. I am Gara Cadet
and this week's episode or this episode will be about
my podcasting career. So I've recorded about six episodes now
on this podcast, and it's time to kind of talk
about my careerent podcasting because for the most part, I
haven't really talked on this platform, on this medium about
(00:21):
podcasting specifically.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So that's what I'm going to do today.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So with my most notable podcasts, with my most popular podcast,
Eating Weekly, it's got over five hundred thousand downloads, and
it's life's time, and that's what I'm going to talk
about today is just how Eatingly got started, how I
got started into podcasting, and how I grew up podcasts
from my bedroom in small town Ontario, Canada to a number.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
One podcast in Japan and India.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Which seems like an incredible feat, which it is, and
I'll get into that, but it's time to talk about
what it took to get there and how I got
there and a little retrospective journey of my career with podcasting.
So for those who aren't familiar of Eating Weekly, for
those who are, to sit back, you'll enjoy this. Eating
(01:11):
Weekly is a podcast. I'm gonna say current currently on hiatus,
but it is a podcast that's a thirty minute DJ
mix or a mix of electronic dance music. And I've
coined the phrase the spectrum of dance because I like
a lot of different varieties of dance music and that's
a lot of what the podcast was about. So it's
(01:33):
an episode or it's a podcast filled with dance music, electronic, DM, techno, trance, progressive,
hart style, hardcore, all kinds of genres subgenres of dance
music like that, and it's it's the music that I love,
it's the music that I like, it's it's everything that
I think people should hear. And that's kind of how
(01:54):
that got started. So I'll talk about kind of the ranking,
some interactions I've had with artists, and how I started.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
The podcast grew the podcast, So let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So with why I got started is I was really
inspired by a lot of podcasters. So my podcast started
in twenty thirteen, which is fairly early for podcasting. We're
now in the year of twenty twenty five, and it
seems everyone and their friend, and their mother and their
grandmother has a podcast now and it's very common for
(02:29):
a lot of people to have a podcast, but when
I started my podcast, not a lot of people did,
and that is probably because I was such a big
fan of radio, and I still am a big fan
of radio.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
There's still a podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I listened to a Melbourne morning show called Jason Lauren
down in Australia on Nova and I've still I am
a big fan of radio, and I've always phrased podcasting
as syndicated.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Radio or on demand radio.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Which is in its most simplistic or that's exactly what
it is. It's on demand radio. So as a big
fan of radio and TV and broadcasting, I started a
podcast because I thought where I live and where I
grew up, I didn't see myself being represented. And I
(03:18):
think that's where podcasting can have a really big impact
on a community or individuals. When they don't see representation,
they look for communities and they look for like minded
people or people who have similar interests. So when I
started the podcast, I grew up, like I said, in
a small town, rural community, and there's a lot of
(03:39):
country music. There's still a lot of country music, so
I didn't see dance music or electronic music that much
around me other than going onto YouTube or listening to
DJ sets from Tomorrowland or Ultra.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So that's ultimately why I started.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
It was a platform where I could share the music
that I loved, the music I thought was really cool,
and the music that I thought my friends should hear,
or trying to encourage my friends to go, hey, give
some dance music a try, and I think you'll like it.
And that's kind of how it got started. I was
a big fan of Jay and Dan from TSN Sportscasters,
(04:16):
who had a podcast who I followed for the longest time.
Jay on right So has a sports center show on TSN,
but they are kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
My inspiration for this.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So it wasn't even about dance music in itself, but
the concept of a podcast in dance music is what
I thought podcasting could have.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And there's a lot of other big DJs that had
podcasts at time.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Tisto Army van Buren has had his radio show since
the early two thousands, so I was definitely not the
first DJ to have a.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Podcast about dance music.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
But I thought my own perspective, my own curation of
music could be really impactful and it.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Was just a creative project for myself. Growing up.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I was the athletic and played a lot of sports, hockey, baseball, volleyball, basketball,
like all all of the sports. But I never really
tried something creative, and that really wasn't kind of what
was a familiar, familiar kind of thing to do amongst
my family. So it's something where it's like, Okay, it
(05:21):
was a Sunday night while watching the Oscars, the Academy Awards,
and I had my MacBook Air out, and it's like, okay,
let's try recording a podcast. So that's basically what I
did is I recorded a podcast and it was on
this MacBook.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Air and I had no microphone.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
The audio wasn't great, and I had very low quality
versions of these songs that I had, so it was
really rough.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I encourage you to go back to the first one.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I'll probably include the first step a little intro of
the first episode here so you can hear you're kind
of what how rough it was.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Welcome to EDM Weekly. I am your host, Gared Kiddet.
Now we'll play some of edm's hottest hits along with
some of my favorites. Here is dead Mouse featuring Jarred
Way Professional creefers.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And I think if anyone would have listened to those
first episodes, I probably would have been discouraged to kind
of continue. But somehow it was something that's like, Okay,
I'm just gonna do this and try it out. And
I think after ten fifteen episodes, I then went out
(06:38):
to the Apple Store at constogamong Waterloo and bought this
blue Yetti microphone, which a lot of streamers and individuals
who are on Zoom calls will have this USB microphone
and I still have it today and that was my
first microphone. So it kind of was the first step
of formalizing kind of the podcast in itself. Where I
(06:58):
had this podcast I started, I had this rough artwork.
I really didn't know what I was doing. As it's like, okay,
it's not really that matured, like maybe a YouTube was
at the time where he had this vlogging era of YouTube,
but podcasting again, like I said, it was still not
at the place where it is now.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
It's nowhere near in the billions.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Of revenue that it is now, So it's just trying
something different. And I thought, because I've always been one
to make short films at that time and create videos
so I thought this would be a nice way to go.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Okay, so I really like.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
This kind of music and I want to share it
with someone, what's the easiest way to do so. So
that's kind of how that got started. And I really
thought that I didn't really have any expectations. And I
think when you're starting a new creative thing like podcasting
(07:56):
or video, not having any expectations is kind of a
nice thing because nowadays, with podcasting being so mature, a
lot of people have high expectations. I work with clients
all the time when it comes to starting podcasts or
developing a podcast, producing a podcast, and they have these
high aspirations that they're going to start a podcast, they're
(08:17):
going to develop this podcasting career, this new career for them,
They're going to make lots of money, sponsorship, everything like that.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And it's just gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
But I just did it for the love it. I.
Like I said, I'm still a big radio fan. I
know that there wasn't going to be something big run
off the hop, and I didn't really care because I
was enjoying myself having fun and it started to grow,
And when it started to grow, that's when it's like, okay,
(08:48):
maybe I'm onto something. Where I recorded a episode every
week for the first few months, and obviously the name
of the show was eating weekly, so that weekly, freaking
and sy was It was good to just keep in
the routine and understand how to do this, because you
never get to the heights of any profession, let alone
(09:11):
podcasting without practicing, putting its the repetitions and understanding that
it's not You're not going to be the best at
it the first time or the twentieth time or even
the fortieth time. Because my show definitely demonstrated the growth
and you.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Can see it online.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
You can go back from episode one to episode three
hundred and eighty and listen to the difference in the production,
the mixing, the production quality increase.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's just at such a different level.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And of course I had seven years to kind of
practice that, and unintentionally or maybe intentionally, I was okay
with that where I had that runway of okay, so
if I keep going with this, maybe I'll be like
with some of my favorite DJs for musicians producers, like
(10:00):
an Army, Van Beera, Ibci or Hardwell. So it was
really something that I was like Okay, my friends are
starting to notice that I was still in high school.
So someone came up to me at this grad party
and after I finished high school.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And they're like, oh, you still doing the podcast.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
It's like, yeah, it's I don't do it as often
as I used to, but yeah I still am.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
And he's like, oh, well, it's it's really good. You
should be doing it.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And that was kind of this pitole moment, like, Okay,
so someone else kind of sees that in me, maybe
I can keep going and really understand how I can
take this seriously and how I can make this more
than just a podcast. So it was understanding how to
leverage who's listening, how to build out a show, the
(10:51):
format of a show, So that's something where over the
lifespan of the show it changed a lot, whereas obviously
the music that I liked, but I definitely understood how
to build a set as a DJ, of how to
warm up a crowd, or this is how I'm gonna
start an episode, or this is the kind of music
(11:13):
I feel like playing this week, or this is the
sound that's really popular, and these are the artists that
are about to take off. So I played Oliver Helden's
when he was just blowing up, or before he was
blowing up, artists like Kirby and a lot of other
artists who were like, oh, he's they're amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I got to play this track and they're gonna be huge.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So like even supporting Martin Garrick's tracks really early on,
because Animals came out in the early twenty ten, so
his star was rising very quickly. So it was just
this big room sound that I think a lot of
listeners knew my show to have, and they knew that
there's always going to be some sort of diverse kind
(11:57):
of selection of music.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It wasn't just gonna be the same sound.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Although I did have this core sound of around one
twenty eight, I understood that it's.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Good to change up.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It's good to make sure that the same feeling is
still there. But you can also go to a lower tempo,
maybe a tropical house, and end with maybe a hard style.
So there was a lot of diversity when it came
to kind of the music selection that it was. So
there was a lot of people that kind of started
to comment reach out, whether that's through Twitter at the
(12:29):
time or even comment sections where it really started to
grow bigger and bigger than I ever expected it to.
So when I'm talking about larger than I expected, it
was now attracting international listeners where there's a lot of
people from around the world where I was doing shout
(12:50):
outs on the podcast where people would be listening to
the podcast, and I remember this one listener, Daniel, who
was down in Australia and he wanted a shout out
to the surf Shop down in Australia. And that was
really cool because I'm doing this in my bedroom, in
my childhood bedroom of all places, and I'm connecting with
(13:13):
these people from around the world, and it's all just
because of the show. And I think that was still
is a really special thing in a special time, especially
in my career, in my life, where just kind of
recognizing that what you're creating can mean something to someone.
And you never really truly know who's listening, watching your stuff,
(13:33):
or consuming your things, because when we talk about content
or just uploading things on the Internet, you truly never
know who's watching, who's listening. Of course, if you have
an Instagram story, you can see that, but on platforms
like YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, you don't know. It's pretty
anonymous and you don't know who's listening, so something like that,
(13:53):
so like kind of goes huh okay. And then from
there I started parting on the Apple Podcast charts, whereas
a new and noteworthy so I then became all my
podcast was right beside my favorite dj is, like I
remember m Beeren, hardwall Avicy, Tiesto, all those DJs Niki
(14:15):
Ro Merro were all colleagues. I guess I was right
beside them in the Apple Podcast charts and we were
on the same page. We're in the same top ten,
same music charts on the Apple Podcasts And that.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Was really cool because like how did I get here?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Because, like I said, I'm just I'm someone who didn't
have any radio broadcasting experience. I didn't really have that
background of music production or I wasn't a DJ at
the time.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I just enjoyed dance music.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But slowly I found myself in the same room as
these DJs that would play these sets like Tomorrowland or
Ultra or EDC, these vessels of tens of thousands, if
not hundreds of thousands of people, and I was also
with them. So that was kind of a surreal feeling
(15:10):
because it wasn't that long into the lifetime of Eating
Weekly where I started to chart on Apple podcasts and
people started listening and there were forums with kind of
suggesting my podcast and things like that. So that was
really a big moment where it's like, Okay, I'm consistently
(15:32):
getting hundreds and thousands of listeners per episode, and again,
this is an independent operation.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
There's no producer. I wish I had a producer.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Or a team behind me, because that would have been
really helpful to capture the growth of the podcast, or
at least the momentum that I had, But there was
other ways that I was also trying to build momentum
because when you build an audience online, that unlocks a
lot of opportunities for you when it comes to whether
that's a YouTube channel and Instagram following a TikTok audience,
(16:03):
a podcast. Because you have this audience, because you have
this now catalog of different content that you've created made,
you now can ask for things and insert yourself into
these credible opportunities.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
So that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So in twenty sixteen, I started branching out and trying
to go to a music festival, have some media creditation
provide some media coverage of these festivals because I had
a blog or this podcast, because a podcast still wasn't
recognized as much as it is now. A lot of
political analysts have said that podcasting kind of affected the
(16:45):
outcome of the twenty twenty four American election US election
and how influential podcasting can be. But we're already six
seven years earlier and that still wasn't recognized as much.
So it was easier to say, oh, yeah, I've got
this medium blog which is kind of an audio blog
if you want. But that's where it was takeing time
(17:05):
to take that next step of like, okay, how do
I I'm not.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
The biggest DJ in the world.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I don't produce music, I don't release tracks at all,
so how can I be a little bit different with
these artists? So with that, I reached out to some
music festivals. So one of the first ones I did
was Digital Dreams in Toronto. It was this music festival
right by Lake, Ontario with some big names, and I
(17:30):
got media credittion, so.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
That was through Live Nation.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So I attended with a media pass and I was
allowed to go in the pit by the stage record video.
I still some of my favorite photos are still from
this festival of Axewon Grosso and other artists like that
Arman van Beeren of course, And that was.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
A really cool moment where I.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Think I was kind of understanding how I can build
an audience and the direction is how I can build
a following or can continue to unlock opportunities because of
the content that I've produced and the content that I've made.
And it was really cool because now I was twenty
feet from Army van Buren, Axel and Grosso and just
(18:13):
listening to their set in front of them in the
VIP and it was just really a real moment where
I kind of recognized that, Okay, this was a milestone,
this was something that was working towards and in my
wildest dreams when I started the podcast, I would have
never thought I was that close to Army van Buren
(18:34):
or the members of Swish House Mafia where they were
right there and I was working with them or with.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The festival that I had them. That was another kind
of breakthrough.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So after Digital Dreams, I also went to ever After
in Kitchener that was kind of my hometown festival as
I was running as it was running, and it was
just really cool to go apply for these media creditations
and go, yep, here's your past.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So it's like, oh, okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So now I can go to music festivals and not
pay anything because I haven't paid for a music festival
in years, just because I always had that media creditation
where I could go to the music festival, ask to
interview artists, take photos, be in the VIP or the
media lounge, and just be one of these individuals, one
(19:23):
of these influential individuals in the scene, in the industry
that is seen as this influencer of sound, of taste
of kind of different artists and try to capture what
people want to hear or who I think people should
hear too, because I kind of had that responsibility. Now
of Okay, now I have this audience of thousands of listeners,
(19:44):
what should they listen to or why should they choose
my podcast over another podcast? Because like I said, I
wasn't the biggest DJ or the biggest artist that had
an edium dance music kind of podcast, But for some reason,
people chose mine, and they continue to choose mine every week,
and they enjoyed what I was playing, And there's a
(20:08):
reason for that, so I thought it was really time
to invest in the show. So it was kind of
Another breakthrough for the show was when I started receiving
dms and emails from record labels and artists and PR
teams that are like, hey, we've got a big track
(20:29):
coming out. We'd love for you to play it. It
is embargoed until a certain date, though, so I'd love
to hear your feedback or get a play on the podcast.
And that's still something I get this year when it's
not as active as it used to be.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And I'll get to that in a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
But they saw me as someone who could really make
a difference in an artist's career, where I could collab
with them or interview an artists and go, hey, Garrett
spoke to them, or Garrett featured them, highlighted them in
an interview ordcast episode.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Now you could do something with that.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Or now someone will hear the song or hear the
track or hear the album and go, oh, I heard
this on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So that was really cool.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So there were a lot of cool artist interactions and
interviews I was able to do. So I flew out
to the estate of Trance Festival and U Tracks the
Netherlands for a State of trans eight hundred in twenty seventeen.
So I was really rolling in that time where I
was going to a lot of festivals, doing a lot
of media stuff and things with artists. But this was
(21:33):
the first festival where I started to interview artists. So
the process was really cool where I asked for media credittion.
I said, here's my numbers, here's the podcast, here's a
sample of the podcast, and they said yes, which was
amazing because this is Army van Buren's basically music festival
(21:53):
where he can kind of curate who's there and who's not,
so I was really fortunate to be there. So I
asked for interviews with Marlow, Vini, Vici, Orage and Nielsen
and they granted all of those interviews, so it was
really cool.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
So I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Not even done college yet, fly to Amstream with a
couple friends, go to this music festival, go through the
media accreditation, I get my pass. I'm in like a
backstage area where I can prep kind of for interviews
and creating some content. And my interviews weren't until eleven midnight,
ten o'clock, nine o'clock, and we got there a little earlier,
(22:34):
so we had nothing else to do, So we went
into the crowd for the main stage and listened to
a few watch a few sets, and then my cousin
Rommy helped me out with the interviews where I had
a microphone. I bought this microphone and this dslark camera
where I hooked up to the camera, and iPhones weren't
good at the time, like the cameras weren't good at all,
(22:57):
so it's not as easy as just whipping out an
ipe and having a portable mic.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
It just didn't work that way. So it's a lot
of gear.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So I had a tripod, I had a small light
on the camera in this microphone, and it was the
first time interviewing anybody at all. So it was a
daunting kind of opportunity that I was a little nervous
for because these artists would play in front of tens
of thousands of people in front of me on the
(23:26):
main stage, and it's like, oh, time to talk to
Garrett from Eating Weekly, Okay, cool. Yeah, So I had
no media training and I just kind of had to
figure it out because I was given the opportunity. And
you see that with a lot of content creators nowadays,
like Amelia de Moldenburg from Chicken Chop Date or like
(23:47):
Eliza koshe Brew from TikTok, where a lot of these
influencers or content creators now have this authority because they
have an online following, so now they've been given access
to go, oh, they should talk to them. So that's
kind of how it felt, except I didn't have even
the following that.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
They would have had in current day, So with a
following like that, it was really this.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
One of the best nights of my life for sure,
of going to the Netherlands, flying there and being like, okay,
so now here's your schedule for the interviews you'll interview.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I think it was Marlow first, organ Nielsen.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Vinni Vicci and that was just my life now of
just being able to record a podcast each week, Mix
up podcast, ask for interviews, go to these music.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Vessels, yep, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
It's just such an unreal, doesn't feel like it's life
kind of experience where it's like, oh, so like I've
been a fan of these artists for years and now
I just get to talk to them because I have
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It was such a really cool thing of just.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Have a pinch me moment kind of situation where it's like, Wow,
you went from your mom's basement to this big music
festival where they're like, yeah, you can interview any artists
you want, and you can have all this access and
you can come here record content, videos and.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So that was really cool and, like I said, one
of the best nights of my life. I'm still I
would say friendly with Origin Nielsen. So that was twenty seventeen.
In twenty twenty, when he released his album The Devil's
and the Details, I think that's what's called going off memory.
He his PR team reached out to me to do
(25:43):
a special album release mix, which was amazing. Where three
years earlier, I must have made an impression or must
have had some sort of connection or they recognize, Hey,
he provided coverage for Origin in the past. Now let's
reach out to him for when he's doing his album.
Because a lot of arts or any celebrity will be
doing media or interviews when they want to promote something
(26:04):
like a new movie, a new show, a new podcast,
a new album with media. So those are always great
opportunities to ask for interviews and things like that because
these creators need the exposure and you could be part
of that exposure. And I was a part of the
exposure as a podcast with thousands of listeners and such
a global audience because my podcast wasn't just like Canada
(26:29):
and I always expected it to stay a little more regional,
but it was most popular in Asia and Europe and
all these other countries, and I was learning countries because.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Of where my podcast was popular.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I had no idea where Bhutan was before my show,
So there's just countries where it's like, how would someone
even know to look for this or how did it
kind of.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Appear on their timeline or the podcast app.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
But because of the credibility that built these platforms started
to push the podcast, and these relationships with these artists
were continually seen as people that I should talk to
and they want to talk to me and have these
opportunities where I had exclusives. So another that same summer
(27:15):
of twenty twenty, Chammy, who's notable French producer, has released
music with DJ Snake and has but Ultra Tomarland every
big music festival. His team reached out to me to
promote his EP and he did a special mix for
my show too. It was this really time where everything
(27:35):
was continuing to kind.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Of build building.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
This is during a lockdown kind of situation, and these
artists are still pushing promotion and music because music really
doesn't stop, especially during a time like that. So I
was trying to understand the format and the platform that
I did have. So the podcast was still the flagship
product of Eating Weekly, and it continued to be the
most important part of the brand of what I was making,
(28:02):
and that was really successful with understanding, Okay, the podcast
is the most critical part of the show, of the brand.
It is what creates these opportunities. It is what people
listen to. It is how these record labels PR teams
find me is because.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
But then there's these interviews and I think trying to
juggle things and trying to stay independent, and there was
never I was never really approached about teaming up or
collaborating with someone to kind of help build the show,
or collabing with a different medium, a different brand to
kind of build a show or a podcast for them.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That's something that I would.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Still explore because I would still like to be active
with the podcast, but that just hasn't been the case.
So it's understanding of how to or what to focus on,
because during the twenty tens, it was still that time
where creators were trying to identify and figure out how
you can make a living off this, how you can
grow a career in this, because podcasts as a career
(29:11):
was a really foreign thing, not as common as it
is nowadays. Where you'll see someone start podcasts that'll blow
up on TikTok and now that'll just be their job.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
It just wasn't the.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Case back then in the twenty tens, So to get
representation for a podcast or for someone who didn't produce
music or actively dj a lot wasn't really a thing
that a lot of representation did. So I think that
definitely would have helped to have their representation or at
(29:43):
least a manager or a team to go, this is
how we'll continue to build it as a business, and
you can focus on the content. Which is ironic because
now I do the opposite of Now I'm on the
business side of things, where I produce podcasts for clients
and I'll show them how to build a business out
of it. So it's kind of taking from the lessons
I've learned through my own show and applying it to
(30:05):
an era where podcasting is a lot more accepted, tolerated,
not tolerated, but.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
People are just understand what it is.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Because when I started my show, I most of the
time of like, yeah, I do a podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
A lot of people like, what's a podcast? I don't
know what that is? Do I need my iPod to
listen to it, which of course is kind.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Of the root of the word podcast, iPod broadcast, combination
of the two. But yeah, it would have been really
helpful to have that representation, And I think that's a
big part of why I'm doing the career that I do,
as far as building businesses for creators and unlocking kind
of their potential and understanding where they could go, because
(30:48):
a lot of times myself included as a creator, you
don't see the possibilities or you don't see how you
can make it happen.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
And that's where.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I wasn't really able to capture the momentum or the
audience that I had to translate into much of a
career now with the podcast. So the year is twenty twenty,
as we all know what kind of occurred that year.
During the summer, I started to have difficulties with the podcast,
(31:20):
in the sense of as we know, there were lockdowns
worldwide and it became difficult for musicians and artists to
make a living because they could no longer tour.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
It just was not possible.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
So at that time, lawyers and record labels were getting
pretty active and aggressive when it came to kind of
confronting a lot of platforms and brands, and myself included
where there's an agency or an association that reached out
(31:53):
during the summer and the podcast was taken off Spotify. Now,
Spotify was never a big plan for myself, but it
was still a platform that helped legitimize the show. And obviously,
if you're a music fan or listening to music, Spotify
very much is still one of those platforms that a
lot of people listen to.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Music or streaming.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
So it's just nice to be amongst kind of the
music and podcasting. So the show gets taken off with
Spotify and it's like, okay, I can take a hit.
It was probably fifteen percent of my audience on Spotify
that was kind of gone, or maybe they can find me,
or maybe they would shoot a different platform.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I have no way of knowing that October rolls around.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I just finished up a couple things with Chommy and
Orgin Nielsen that summer, and I celebrated the three hundredth episode,
three hundred and fiftieth episode of the show, and we're.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Rolling into the fall.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Three sixty comes around and the week before I get
another email that, oh, Apple podcasts here, iTunes here, someone
has asked us to remove the podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Due to copyright. And okay, this might.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Be the start at the end of the show, because
Apple Podcasts represented probably sixty to seventy percent of the audience,
and now they're no longer able to find the show
or even.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Understand where the show was.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And that was a tough kind of moment to understand
of Okay, I'm really good at this, but the parameters
of how it used to work are no longer applicable.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
This was okay, and apparently now it's not okay.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
And nowadays, there's still a lot of podcasts I listened
to that are dance music podcasts that are still on
Apple Podcasts. So there's DJ Isaac's podcast that I will
still listen to, Maddox's podcast I still listen to on
Apple podcast And the biggest difference between them and me
is representation. I don't have any representation. I don't have
(34:10):
an A and R team or a team behind me
that can I even license these songs or make sure
that it's still playable on Apple podcasts.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I don't have the representation.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So I think in a lot of ways that was
a big learning curve to try and understand how the
industry worked. Like I understood the situation in the scenario
of why it happened, but there's definitely more protection that
I could have had as a creator, as an independent creator,
or at least with some support or team around me.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
And I think that's why it's so important.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
So powerful to have a producer or someone working with
you on creative projects to go you focus on the stuff,
I'll make sure that there's no issues with it, or
if you want to grow to a certain level, I'll
help you get there and I'll show you how to
do that or at least unlock these doors that is
now possible for that.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
So on.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
In October, the final episode of the podcast during that
era was released. It was episode three hundred and sixty,
and there is that part of my brain that was
so happy that was a round number, and it was
kind of finishing on an episode like three hundred and sixty,
and during the height of the podcast, I recorded a
(35:32):
new episode every week for five years. I did not
miss an upload from I think twenty fifteen to twenty twenty,
never miss an upload. And a lot of people always
ask me, hey, why was your podcast so successful, And
a lot of times I say, it's because of consistency.
If you think of your consumer behavior and how you
(35:54):
consume things, whether it's TikTok or a TV show or
something that you do you after work or in the morning,
it's all because of a routine. So you become part
of these creators' routines. I know, if I'm looking for
a new episode of my favorite podcast, I know every
Wednesday I'll get a new episode from This might get weird,
(36:14):
and it's just setting the expectations of your audience of
what they can expect from you as a creator.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Now there are podcasts, or there are platforms.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Like YouTube, where YouTube frequency isn't as what isn't as
important was what it used to be. Where as YouTuber
you had to make sure that you had constant uploads.
But as a podcaster that was really important to know
that because I knew that my podcasters really could be
(36:45):
really replaceable because it wasn't anything proprietary. I was doing
a lot of the other podcasts shared similar music to me,
but it was just a different structure.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
My podcast was the only half hour version of a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Of these shows where they would go the full one
hour or two hours, and I know in my busy
life and lifestyle that that half hour of all the
music that I need to hear from this new release
sweek was really powerful. I still think it could be
something that's really impactful nowadays, especially how competitive it is
(37:19):
with music promotion and everything that artists need to do.
So the podcast came to end in that era and
I definitely felt burnt out, but it was also a
time where it was this method of survival where I
was trying to understand, Okay, where's revenue coming from. It's
not as much from the podcast because there's no media accreditation,
(37:43):
and it felt like more like a hobby, and I
think in a lot of ways I treated it more
like a hobby than I probably should have. Where the
product was fine, The product was always at a very
professional level, and I would still put that podcast beside
all of the best dance music podcasts, but it didn't
(38:04):
operate as a business as much of a business as
it could have been. But nowadays we have short form
videos where we really didn't have short form videos. TikTok's
mediorc Rise was in twenty twenty, and yeah, I wasn't
part of that wave, but I was part of that
podcasting wave in the early twenty tens of podcasts that
(38:25):
we're able to surge in popularity and have this new
medium and platform that nobody really else had.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
So when it.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Came to the end of the show and talking about
kind of the legacy of the show, I'm really proud
of what I've created.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
There's a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Has done so much for myself for me in my
career of why I've been able to do the opportunities
that's unlocked because of the success and how I've built
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I've been able to become.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
A professor at college and been there seven years now
now run the program. When it comes to an authority
on content creation, a pretty achieved or successful podcaster when
it comes to building a successful podcast and understand what
it takes. And I've also got over a decade of
experience of podcasting now where when I consult and work
(39:20):
with these creators and podcasters that are trying to grow something,
build something, it's really awesome to be able to say, hey,
So the reason I bumped shoulders with Mark Garrix is
because I had this really big podcast, and it's because
I just was consistent. I ensured that if the episode
(39:42):
was not good, I would throw it away, so I
would also say, focus on quality. And that's probably reason
why the Garrick at AP podcast is not as frequent
as it could be or maybe should be, because I
want to make sure that I can have a conversation
or at least present an episode that's worth listening to,
but also that I care about, because I don't want
(40:03):
to create an episode that I.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Don't want to listen to. Basically because I do listen
to everything that I do.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So when I was actively creating episodes for EE Weekly,
there were weeks where if I didn't get a mixed right,
or if I just didn't like kind of the song
selection I did, I'd have a full episode done and
I'd throw it.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Away and started again. Is that a normal rational thing
to do? Probably not.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
That's probably the perfectionism in me coming out, but it's
what I did to make sure that it was amongst
the top DJs. I think that was a tough part
about being kind of fixated on quality is just because
I was no longer competing with just local DJs. I
(40:51):
was now in this arena with some of the world's
best DJs, So now I even had to bring my
caliber up a notch.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So that was.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Getting a professional intro done, that was understanding of different
ways I could have artists say, Hey, this is your
vandn Helven and you're listening to Medium weekly like I
create stings like that, and there's so much more to
the show they added throughout the years, and it was
just this really nice time of the week to be
(41:19):
creative and productive, and it's just finding a way to
do that, or finding a lifestyle that could permit that,
or that's more financially feasible to have a production or
commit that much time to a creative project like that.
Because the game has changed, I can no longer kind
of do what I did back then because there's different rules,
(41:43):
there's different parameters, and Spotify really doesn't allow music podcasts anymore.
In Apple Music or Apple Podcast kind of does, I guess,
But that's kind of how different it's changed from when
I started to now. And of course it should change
in a decade time and it should get better, but
it's still challenging to do what I did with Eating
(42:06):
Weekly at its start, at its infancy, because there were
not many rules at the time. So it's taken advantage
of being one of the first ones and taking advantage
of a platform that's now become a billion dollar industry.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
When it comes to podcasting, I.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Still have some of my closest friends or friends that
I've met online because of the podcast. So there's a
friend in Philly that I know. There's a couple of
American friends that I always DM on Instagram. We talk
about music, new releases, and that's because of the podcast.
They slid into my dms and we went back and
forth and now we talk all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
So that's really nice.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
And I think the nice thing about podcasting is the
ability to build community. It's so interest based, it's so
surrounded about what do I want more of?
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Who are people that.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
I want to be around, And that's really I think
was the success of Eating Weekly was building community around
the type of music we all loved and the type
of music we're all obsessed with and making sure someone
was enthusiastic about it, because I was always enthusiastic about
the music that I played, and enthusiasm is contagious, and
people want to see that you're genuinely excited about the
(43:20):
stuff that you're making. And that's where if you watch
any interview from a YouTuber a content creator, they're always like,
authenticity is important, and it absolutely is in my case
that I was genuinely excited. Every week I was like, Oh,
it's the new Swedish House Mafia song. I got to
say something about it. I've got to have some commentary
(43:40):
on it.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
To have I have to play this song, and that's
what a lot of people look forward to.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I still do these first listens on my YouTube channel
at Yarka on YouTube, where I do these first lessons
specifically for sweets Hout Mafia, because that's kind of what
my content on YouTube has been about for years, is
just reacting to Mafia and having my opinion or my
first thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
The new release. And that's been really cool.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
So I wouldn't have had some of the friends that
I do because of the show. And yeah, it's it's
been this really rewarding career and I've found ways to
kind of leverage these opportunities where a lot of people
do social media digital marketing, but not a lot of
people specialize in podcasting, and that's a niche that I'm feeling,
(44:30):
especially locally and regionally where I live in Woodstock, Ontario,
and that's not limiting to stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
And even at this time where.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
One of the most recognized trance artists posted earlier this
year about meeting help with digital strategy, I sent a DM,
we had a conversation. It didn't work out because of
my own commitments, but I was still able to get
into those doors.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Because of the catalog and the.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Of the career that I've done, because I've created over
three hundred and eighty podcast episodes, because for a short
stint in twenty twenty three, I tried to come back
up a podcast, but I've been busy with the things,
so it hasn't really been the focus or the priority.
But it's still some of the best years of my life,
(45:21):
and it's really cool to kind of look back and go, Wow,
we've built something really cool and it's all just because
of the podcast. So is there going to be a
return of the podcast. I've always said that it could
return at some point. It just needs to make sense,
and with the career that I have, it needs to
(45:44):
be some sort of source of income and maybe a
partnership with a different brand, or it might not live
as Eating Weekly, but it might still live as an
edim podcast that I do. So that's kind of what
Weekly was. That's been my podcasting career. There's now over
five hundred and thirty thousand downloads half million downloads of
(46:06):
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
It went number one in.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Dozens of countries, top two hundred and almost fifty countries,
so it was listened to.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
A lot of people. A lot of people appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Still get messages of like, hey, I need a song
that you would recommend, But yeah, there's a lot of
good moments, interviews. Yeah, it's just been such a wild ride.
And I still say ride because I don't think it's
over when it comes to the podcast, or at least
my work in dance music, as if that's.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Something I want to get into again.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
I certainly can, just with the career and the catalog
that I've built and my ability to be able to
pick a song and curate good music and pick artists
that are going to blow because I've also done that
with the show. So yeah, that's my history of podcasting.
(47:02):
So I went from the bedroom in my childhood house
or the childhood bedroom where I grew up, and now
I've built a podcast studio here withstock Ontario activate Media.
So if you go to activatemedia dot Co, you can
book the studio and it's finally the podcast studio that
I've always wanted, and it's an opportunity for you to
(47:24):
start a podcast. But if you want to start your
own podcast, please reach out. I would love to work
on your podcast and try to make something of it.
Try to build something really special because there's a lot
of stories to tell, there's a lot of representation that
still isn't visible, that that matters to a lot of people,
and you never know who your story will impact or
(47:44):
how your creative projects will inspire, motivate and give someone
some inspiration or change your day. Because that was some
of the best feedback I ever got was I look
forward to Wednesdays because of your podcast, or I was
having a bad day by turn on your podcast went
for a run, and now I feel a lot better
because of it. So, yeah, you can't make an impact,
(48:07):
you can find your community. Can also find your people,
because that's the reason why I started. Really didn't have
my people, but through my work, I've been able to
find more.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
People like myself.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
So I'll end it there. Thank you so much for
listening and watching this podcast.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
I went to this lovely little park.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
I'd like to record this episode because I thought this
was more like a story time episode where I was
kind of reflecting back on my journey and sharing some
insight of what you might not be aware of when
it comes to my career. As yeah, I don't always
talk about Hudson's Bay and that's not really where my
career started, so it's kind of returning my roots with
(48:45):
an episode like this. So thank you so much for
listening to the podcast. I probably said that already. If
you want to follow me on Instagram, Accurate Cadet or
YouTube Accurate good At, I'm really active.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
On those platforms, at least on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
If you want to connect dm me on Instagram, Act
care Kadet as well. You can have a chat, or
if you're looking to start a podcast reach out. I
do consult on marketing podcasting customer experience all things like that,
so thanks for listening. I did achieve another monthly episode,
so another milestone for me as we're setting small goals
right now, So thanks for listening and hear me very
(49:20):
very soon, all right,
Welcome to the Gary Cadet Podcast. I am Gara Cadet
and this week's episode or this episode will be about
my podcasting career. So I've recorded about six episodes now
on this podcast, and it's time to kind of talk
about my careerent podcasting because for the most part, I
haven't really talked on this platform, on this medium about
(00:21):
podcasting specifically.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So that's what I'm going to do today.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So with my most notable podcasts, with my most popular podcast,
Eating Weekly, it's got over five hundred thousand downloads, and
it's life's time, and that's what I'm going to talk
about today is just how Eatingly got started, how I
got started into podcasting, and how I grew up podcasts
from my bedroom in small town Ontario, Canada to a number.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
One podcast in Japan and India.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Which seems like an incredible feat, which it is, and
I'll get into that, but it's time to talk about
what it took to get there and how I got
there and a little retrospective journey of my career with podcasting.
So for those who aren't familiar of Eating Weekly, for
those who are, to sit back, you'll enjoy this. Eating
(01:11):
Weekly is a podcast. I'm gonna say current currently on hiatus,
but it is a podcast that's a thirty minute DJ
mix or a mix of electronic dance music. And I've
coined the phrase the spectrum of dance because I like
a lot of different varieties of dance music and that's
a lot of what the podcast was about. So it's
(01:33):
an episode or it's a podcast filled with dance music, electronic, DM, techno, trance, progressive,
hart style, hardcore, all kinds of genres subgenres of dance
music like that, and it's it's the music that I love,
it's the music that I like, it's it's everything that
I think people should hear. And that's kind of how
(01:54):
that got started. So I'll talk about kind of the ranking,
some interactions I've had with artists, and how I started.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
The podcast grew the podcast, So let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So with why I got started is I was really
inspired by a lot of podcasters. So my podcast started
in twenty thirteen, which is fairly early for podcasting. We're
now in the year of twenty twenty five, and it
seems everyone and their friend, and their mother and their
grandmother has a podcast now and it's very common for
(02:29):
a lot of people to have a podcast, but when
I started my podcast, not a lot of people did,
and that is probably because I was such a big
fan of radio, and I still am a big fan
of radio.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
There's still a podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I listened to a Melbourne morning show called Jason Lauren
down in Australia on Nova and I've still I am
a big fan of radio, and I've always phrased podcasting
as syndicated.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Radio or on demand radio.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Which is in its most simplistic or that's exactly what
it is. It's on demand radio. So as a big
fan of radio and TV and broadcasting, I started a
podcast because I thought where I live and where I
grew up, I didn't see myself being represented. And I
(03:18):
think that's where podcasting can have a really big impact
on a community or individuals. When they don't see representation,
they look for communities and they look for like minded
people or people who have similar interests. So when I
started the podcast, I grew up, like I said, in
a small town, rural community, and there's a lot of
(03:39):
country music. There's still a lot of country music, so
I didn't see dance music or electronic music that much
around me other than going onto YouTube or listening to
DJ sets from Tomorrowland or Ultra.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So that's ultimately why I started.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
It was a platform where I could share the music
that I loved, the music I thought was really cool,
and the music that I thought my friends should hear,
or trying to encourage my friends to go, hey, give
some dance music a try, and I think you'll like it.
And that's kind of how it got started. I was
a big fan of Jay and Dan from TSN Sportscasters,
(04:16):
who had a podcast who I followed for the longest time.
Jay on right So has a sports center show on TSN,
but they are kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
My inspiration for this.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So it wasn't even about dance music in itself, but
the concept of a podcast in dance music is what
I thought podcasting could have.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And there's a lot of other big DJs that had
podcasts at time.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Tisto Army van Buren has had his radio show since
the early two thousands, so I was definitely not the
first DJ to have a.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Podcast about dance music.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
But I thought my own perspective, my own curation of
music could be really impactful and it.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Was just a creative project for myself. Growing up.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I was the athletic and played a lot of sports, hockey, baseball, volleyball, basketball,
like all all of the sports. But I never really
tried something creative, and that really wasn't kind of what
was a familiar, familiar kind of thing to do amongst
my family. So it's something where it's like, Okay, it
(05:21):
was a Sunday night while watching the Oscars, the Academy Awards,
and I had my MacBook Air out, and it's like, okay,
let's try recording a podcast. So that's basically what I
did is I recorded a podcast and it was on
this MacBook.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Air and I had no microphone.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
The audio wasn't great, and I had very low quality
versions of these songs that I had, so it was
really rough.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I encourage you to go back to the first one.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I'll probably include the first step a little intro of
the first episode here so you can hear you're kind
of what how rough it was.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Welcome to EDM Weekly. I am your host, Gared Kiddet.
Now we'll play some of edm's hottest hits along with
some of my favorites. Here is dead Mouse featuring Jarred
Way Professional creefers.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And I think if anyone would have listened to those
first episodes, I probably would have been discouraged to kind
of continue. But somehow it was something that's like, Okay,
I'm just gonna do this and try it out. And
I think after ten fifteen episodes, I then went out
(06:38):
to the Apple Store at constogamong Waterloo and bought this
blue Yetti microphone, which a lot of streamers and individuals
who are on Zoom calls will have this USB microphone
and I still have it today and that was my
first microphone. So it kind of was the first step
of formalizing kind of the podcast in itself. Where I
(06:58):
had this podcast I started, I had this rough artwork.
I really didn't know what I was doing. As it's like, okay,
it's not really that matured, like maybe a YouTube was
at the time where he had this vlogging era of YouTube,
but podcasting again, like I said, it was still not
at the place where it is now.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
It's nowhere near in the billions.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Of revenue that it is now, So it's just trying
something different. And I thought, because I've always been one
to make short films at that time and create videos
so I thought this would be a nice way to go.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Okay, so I really like.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
This kind of music and I want to share it
with someone, what's the easiest way to do so. So
that's kind of how that got started. And I really
thought that I didn't really have any expectations. And I
think when you're starting a new creative thing like podcasting
(07:56):
or video, not having any expectations is kind of a
nice thing because nowadays, with podcasting being so mature, a
lot of people have high expectations. I work with clients
all the time when it comes to starting podcasts or
developing a podcast, producing a podcast, and they have these
high aspirations that they're going to start a podcast, they're
(08:17):
going to develop this podcasting career, this new career for them,
They're going to make lots of money, sponsorship, everything like that.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And it's just gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
But I just did it for the love it. I.
Like I said, I'm still a big radio fan. I
know that there wasn't going to be something big run
off the hop, and I didn't really care because I
was enjoying myself having fun and it started to grow,
And when it started to grow, that's when it's like, okay,
(08:48):
maybe I'm onto something. Where I recorded a episode every
week for the first few months, and obviously the name
of the show was eating weekly, so that weekly, freaking
and sy was It was good to just keep in
the routine and understand how to do this, because you
never get to the heights of any profession, let alone
(09:11):
podcasting without practicing, putting its the repetitions and understanding that
it's not You're not going to be the best at
it the first time or the twentieth time or even
the fortieth time. Because my show definitely demonstrated the growth
and you.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Can see it online.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
You can go back from episode one to episode three
hundred and eighty and listen to the difference in the production,
the mixing, the production quality increase.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's just at such a different level.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And of course I had seven years to kind of
practice that, and unintentionally or maybe intentionally, I was okay
with that where I had that runway of okay, so
if I keep going with this, maybe I'll be like
with some of my favorite DJs for musicians producers, like
(10:00):
an Army, Van Beera, Ibci or Hardwell. So it was
really something that I was like Okay, my friends are
starting to notice that I was still in high school.
So someone came up to me at this grad party
and after I finished high school.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And they're like, oh, you still doing the podcast.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
It's like, yeah, it's I don't do it as often
as I used to, but yeah I still am.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
And he's like, oh, well, it's it's really good. You
should be doing it.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And that was kind of this pitole moment, like, Okay,
so someone else kind of sees that in me, maybe
I can keep going and really understand how I can
take this seriously and how I can make this more
than just a podcast. So it was understanding how to
leverage who's listening, how to build out a show, the
(10:51):
format of a show, So that's something where over the
lifespan of the show it changed a lot, whereas obviously
the music that I liked, but I definitely understood how
to build a set as a DJ, of how to
warm up a crowd, or this is how I'm gonna
start an episode, or this is the kind of music
(11:13):
I feel like playing this week, or this is the
sound that's really popular, and these are the artists that
are about to take off. So I played Oliver Helden's
when he was just blowing up, or before he was
blowing up, artists like Kirby and a lot of other
artists who were like, oh, he's they're amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I got to play this track and they're gonna be huge.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So like even supporting Martin Garrick's tracks really early on,
because Animals came out in the early twenty ten, so
his star was rising very quickly. So it was just
this big room sound that I think a lot of
listeners knew my show to have, and they knew that
there's always going to be some sort of diverse kind
(11:57):
of selection of music.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It wasn't just gonna be the same sound.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Although I did have this core sound of around one
twenty eight, I understood that it's.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Good to change up.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It's good to make sure that the same feeling is
still there. But you can also go to a lower tempo,
maybe a tropical house, and end with maybe a hard style.
So there was a lot of diversity when it came
to kind of the music selection that it was. So
there was a lot of people that kind of started
to comment reach out, whether that's through Twitter at the
(12:29):
time or even comment sections where it really started to
grow bigger and bigger than I ever expected it to.
So when I'm talking about larger than I expected, it
was now attracting international listeners where there's a lot of
people from around the world where I was doing shout
(12:50):
outs on the podcast where people would be listening to
the podcast, and I remember this one listener, Daniel, who
was down in Australia and he wanted a shout out
to the surf Shop down in Australia. And that was
really cool because I'm doing this in my bedroom, in
my childhood bedroom of all places, and I'm connecting with
(13:13):
these people from around the world, and it's all just
because of the show. And I think that was still
is a really special thing in a special time, especially
in my career, in my life, where just kind of
recognizing that what you're creating can mean something to someone.
And you never really truly know who's listening, watching your stuff,
(13:33):
or consuming your things, because when we talk about content
or just uploading things on the Internet, you truly never
know who's watching, who's listening. Of course, if you have
an Instagram story, you can see that, but on platforms
like YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, you don't know. It's pretty
anonymous and you don't know who's listening, so something like that,
(13:53):
so like kind of goes huh okay. And then from
there I started parting on the Apple Podcast charts, whereas
a new and noteworthy so I then became all my
podcast was right beside my favorite dj is, like I
remember m Beeren, hardwall Avicy, Tiesto, all those DJs Niki
(14:15):
Ro Merro were all colleagues. I guess I was right
beside them in the Apple Podcast charts and we were
on the same page. We're in the same top ten,
same music charts on the Apple Podcasts And that.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Was really cool because like how did I get here?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Because, like I said, I'm just I'm someone who didn't
have any radio broadcasting experience. I didn't really have that
background of music production or I wasn't a DJ at
the time.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I just enjoyed dance music.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But slowly I found myself in the same room as
these DJs that would play these sets like Tomorrowland or
Ultra or EDC, these vessels of tens of thousands, if
not hundreds of thousands of people, and I was also
with them. So that was kind of a surreal feeling
(15:10):
because it wasn't that long into the lifetime of Eating
Weekly where I started to chart on Apple podcasts and
people started listening and there were forums with kind of
suggesting my podcast and things like that. So that was
really a big moment where it's like, Okay, I'm consistently
(15:32):
getting hundreds and thousands of listeners per episode, and again,
this is an independent operation.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
There's no producer. I wish I had a producer.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Or a team behind me, because that would have been
really helpful to capture the growth of the podcast, or
at least the momentum that I had, But there was
other ways that I was also trying to build momentum
because when you build an audience online, that unlocks a
lot of opportunities for you when it comes to whether
that's a YouTube channel and Instagram following a TikTok audience,
(16:03):
a podcast. Because you have this audience, because you have
this now catalog of different content that you've created made,
you now can ask for things and insert yourself into
these credible opportunities.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
So that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So in twenty sixteen, I started branching out and trying
to go to a music festival, have some media creditation
provide some media coverage of these festivals because I had
a blog or this podcast, because a podcast still wasn't
recognized as much as it is now. A lot of
political analysts have said that podcasting kind of affected the
(16:45):
outcome of the twenty twenty four American election US election
and how influential podcasting can be. But we're already six
seven years earlier and that still wasn't recognized as much.
So it was easier to say, oh, yeah, I've got
this medium blog which is kind of an audio blog
if you want. But that's where it was takeing time
(17:05):
to take that next step of like, okay, how do
I I'm not.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
The biggest DJ in the world.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I don't produce music, I don't release tracks at all,
so how can I be a little bit different with
these artists? So with that, I reached out to some
music festivals. So one of the first ones I did
was Digital Dreams in Toronto. It was this music festival
right by Lake, Ontario with some big names, and I
(17:30):
got media credittion, so.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
That was through Live Nation.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So I attended with a media pass and I was
allowed to go in the pit by the stage record video.
I still some of my favorite photos are still from
this festival of Axewon Grosso and other artists like that
Arman van Beeren of course, And that was.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
A really cool moment where I.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Think I was kind of understanding how I can build
an audience and the direction is how I can build
a following or can continue to unlock opportunities because of
the content that I've produced and the content that I've made.
And it was really cool because now I was twenty
feet from Army van Buren, Axel and Grosso and just
(18:13):
listening to their set in front of them in the
VIP and it was just really a real moment where
I kind of recognized that, Okay, this was a milestone,
this was something that was working towards and in my
wildest dreams when I started the podcast, I would have
never thought I was that close to Army van Buren
(18:34):
or the members of Swish House Mafia where they were
right there and I was working with them or with.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The festival that I had them. That was another kind
of breakthrough.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So after Digital Dreams, I also went to ever After
in Kitchener that was kind of my hometown festival as
I was running as it was running, and it was
just really cool to go apply for these media creditations
and go, yep, here's your past.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So it's like, oh, okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So now I can go to music festivals and not
pay anything because I haven't paid for a music festival
in years, just because I always had that media creditation
where I could go to the music festival, ask to
interview artists, take photos, be in the VIP or the
media lounge, and just be one of these individuals, one
(19:23):
of these influential individuals in the scene, in the industry
that is seen as this influencer of sound, of taste
of kind of different artists and try to capture what
people want to hear or who I think people should
hear too, because I kind of had that responsibility. Now
of Okay, now I have this audience of thousands of listeners,
(19:44):
what should they listen to or why should they choose
my podcast over another podcast? Because like I said, I
wasn't the biggest DJ or the biggest artist that had
an edium dance music kind of podcast, But for some reason,
people chose mine, and they continue to choose mine every week,
and they enjoyed what I was playing, And there's a
(20:08):
reason for that, so I thought it was really time
to invest in the show. So it was kind of
Another breakthrough for the show was when I started receiving
dms and emails from record labels and artists and PR
teams that are like, hey, we've got a big track
(20:29):
coming out. We'd love for you to play it. It
is embargoed until a certain date, though, so I'd love
to hear your feedback or get a play on the podcast.
And that's still something I get this year when it's
not as active as it used to be.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And I'll get to that in a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
But they saw me as someone who could really make
a difference in an artist's career, where I could collab
with them or interview an artists and go, hey, Garrett
spoke to them, or Garrett featured them, highlighted them in
an interview ordcast episode.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Now you could do something with that.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Or now someone will hear the song or hear the
track or hear the album and go, oh, I heard
this on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So that was really cool.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So there were a lot of cool artist interactions and
interviews I was able to do. So I flew out
to the estate of Trance Festival and U Tracks the
Netherlands for a State of trans eight hundred in twenty seventeen.
So I was really rolling in that time where I
was going to a lot of festivals, doing a lot
of media stuff and things with artists. But this was
(21:33):
the first festival where I started to interview artists. So
the process was really cool where I asked for media credittion.
I said, here's my numbers, here's the podcast, here's a
sample of the podcast, and they said yes, which was
amazing because this is Army van Buren's basically music festival
(21:53):
where he can kind of curate who's there and who's not,
so I was really fortunate to be there. So I
asked for interviews with Marlow, Vini, Vici, Orage and Nielsen
and they granted all of those interviews, so it was
really cool.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
So I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Not even done college yet, fly to Amstream with a
couple friends, go to this music festival, go through the
media accreditation, I get my pass. I'm in like a
backstage area where I can prep kind of for interviews
and creating some content. And my interviews weren't until eleven midnight,
ten o'clock, nine o'clock, and we got there a little earlier,
(22:34):
so we had nothing else to do, So we went
into the crowd for the main stage and listened to
a few watch a few sets, and then my cousin
Rommy helped me out with the interviews where I had
a microphone. I bought this microphone and this dslark camera
where I hooked up to the camera, and iPhones weren't
good at the time, like the cameras weren't good at all,
(22:57):
so it's not as easy as just whipping out an
ipe and having a portable mic.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
It just didn't work that way. So it's a lot
of gear.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So I had a tripod, I had a small light
on the camera in this microphone, and it was the
first time interviewing anybody at all. So it was a
daunting kind of opportunity that I was a little nervous
for because these artists would play in front of tens
of thousands of people in front of me on the
(23:26):
main stage, and it's like, oh, time to talk to
Garrett from Eating Weekly, Okay, cool. Yeah, So I had
no media training and I just kind of had to
figure it out because I was given the opportunity. And
you see that with a lot of content creators nowadays,
like Amelia de Moldenburg from Chicken Chop Date or like
(23:47):
Eliza koshe Brew from TikTok, where a lot of these
influencers or content creators now have this authority because they
have an online following, so now they've been given access
to go, oh, they should talk to them. So that's
kind of how it felt, except I didn't have even
the following that.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
They would have had in current day, So with a
following like that, it was really this.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
One of the best nights of my life for sure,
of going to the Netherlands, flying there and being like, okay,
so now here's your schedule for the interviews you'll interview.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I think it was Marlow first, organ Nielsen.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Vinni Vicci and that was just my life now of
just being able to record a podcast each week, Mix
up podcast, ask for interviews, go to these music.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Vessels, yep, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
It's just such an unreal, doesn't feel like it's life
kind of experience where it's like, oh, so like I've
been a fan of these artists for years and now
I just get to talk to them because I have
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It was such a really cool thing of just.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Have a pinch me moment kind of situation where it's like, Wow,
you went from your mom's basement to this big music
festival where they're like, yeah, you can interview any artists
you want, and you can have all this access and
you can come here record content, videos and.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So that was really cool and, like I said, one
of the best nights of my life. I'm still I
would say friendly with Origin Nielsen. So that was twenty seventeen.
In twenty twenty, when he released his album The Devil's
and the Details, I think that's what's called going off memory.
He his PR team reached out to me to do
(25:43):
a special album release mix, which was amazing. Where three
years earlier, I must have made an impression or must
have had some sort of connection or they recognize, Hey,
he provided coverage for Origin in the past. Now let's
reach out to him for when he's doing his album.
Because a lot of arts or any celebrity will be
doing media or interviews when they want to promote something
(26:04):
like a new movie, a new show, a new podcast,
a new album with media. So those are always great
opportunities to ask for interviews and things like that because
these creators need the exposure and you could be part
of that exposure. And I was a part of the
exposure as a podcast with thousands of listeners and such
a global audience because my podcast wasn't just like Canada
(26:29):
and I always expected it to stay a little more regional,
but it was most popular in Asia and Europe and
all these other countries, and I was learning countries because.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Of where my podcast was popular.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I had no idea where Bhutan was before my show,
So there's just countries where it's like, how would someone
even know to look for this or how did it
kind of.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Appear on their timeline or the podcast app.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
But because of the credibility that built these platforms started
to push the podcast, and these relationships with these artists
were continually seen as people that I should talk to
and they want to talk to me and have these
opportunities where I had exclusives. So another that same summer
(27:15):
of twenty twenty, Chammy, who's notable French producer, has released
music with DJ Snake and has but Ultra Tomarland every
big music festival. His team reached out to me to
promote his EP and he did a special mix for
my show too. It was this really time where everything
(27:35):
was continuing to kind.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Of build building.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
This is during a lockdown kind of situation, and these
artists are still pushing promotion and music because music really
doesn't stop, especially during a time like that. So I
was trying to understand the format and the platform that
I did have. So the podcast was still the flagship
product of Eating Weekly, and it continued to be the
most important part of the brand of what I was making,
(28:02):
and that was really successful with understanding, Okay, the podcast
is the most critical part of the show, of the brand.
It is what creates these opportunities. It is what people
listen to. It is how these record labels PR teams
find me is because.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
But then there's these interviews and I think trying to
juggle things and trying to stay independent, and there was
never I was never really approached about teaming up or
collaborating with someone to kind of help build the show,
or collabing with a different medium, a different brand to
kind of build a show or a podcast for them.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That's something that I would.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Still explore because I would still like to be active
with the podcast, but that just hasn't been the case.
So it's understanding of how to or what to focus on,
because during the twenty tens, it was still that time
where creators were trying to identify and figure out how
you can make a living off this, how you can
grow a career in this, because podcasts as a career
(29:11):
was a really foreign thing, not as common as it
is nowadays. Where you'll see someone start podcasts that'll blow
up on TikTok and now that'll just be their job.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
It just wasn't the.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Case back then in the twenty tens, So to get
representation for a podcast or for someone who didn't produce
music or actively dj a lot wasn't really a thing
that a lot of representation did. So I think that
definitely would have helped to have their representation or at
(29:43):
least a manager or a team to go, this is
how we'll continue to build it as a business, and
you can focus on the content. Which is ironic because
now I do the opposite of Now I'm on the
business side of things, where I produce podcasts for clients
and I'll show them how to build a business out
of it. So it's kind of taking from the lessons
I've learned through my own show and applying it to
(30:05):
an era where podcasting is a lot more accepted, tolerated,
not tolerated, but.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
People are just understand what it is.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Because when I started my show, I most of the
time of like, yeah, I do a podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
A lot of people like, what's a podcast? I don't
know what that is? Do I need my iPod to
listen to it, which of course is kind.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Of the root of the word podcast, iPod broadcast, combination
of the two. But yeah, it would have been really
helpful to have that representation, And I think that's a
big part of why I'm doing the career that I do,
as far as building businesses for creators and unlocking kind
of their potential and understanding where they could go, because
(30:48):
a lot of times myself included as a creator, you
don't see the possibilities or you don't see how you
can make it happen.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
And that's where.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I wasn't really able to capture the momentum or the
audience that I had to translate into much of a
career now with the podcast. So the year is twenty twenty,
as we all know what kind of occurred that year.
During the summer, I started to have difficulties with the podcast,
(31:20):
in the sense of as we know, there were lockdowns
worldwide and it became difficult for musicians and artists to
make a living because they could no longer tour.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
It just was not possible.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
So at that time, lawyers and record labels were getting
pretty active and aggressive when it came to kind of
confronting a lot of platforms and brands, and myself included
where there's an agency or an association that reached out
(31:53):
during the summer and the podcast was taken off Spotify. Now,
Spotify was never a big plan for myself, but it
was still a platform that helped legitimize the show. And obviously,
if you're a music fan or listening to music, Spotify
very much is still one of those platforms that a
lot of people listen to.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Music or streaming.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
So it's just nice to be amongst kind of the
music and podcasting. So the show gets taken off with
Spotify and it's like, okay, I can take a hit.
It was probably fifteen percent of my audience on Spotify
that was kind of gone, or maybe they can find me,
or maybe they would shoot a different platform.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I have no way of knowing that October rolls around.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I just finished up a couple things with Chommy and
Orgin Nielsen that summer, and I celebrated the three hundredth episode,
three hundred and fiftieth episode of the show, and we're.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Rolling into the fall.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Three sixty comes around and the week before I get
another email that, oh, Apple podcasts here, iTunes here, someone
has asked us to remove the podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Due to copyright. And okay, this might.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Be the start at the end of the show, because
Apple Podcasts represented probably sixty to seventy percent of the audience,
and now they're no longer able to find the show
or even.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Understand where the show was.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And that was a tough kind of moment to understand
of Okay, I'm really good at this, but the parameters
of how it used to work are no longer applicable.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
This was okay, and apparently now it's not okay.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
And nowadays, there's still a lot of podcasts I listened
to that are dance music podcasts that are still on
Apple Podcasts. So there's DJ Isaac's podcast that I will
still listen to, Maddox's podcast I still listen to on
Apple podcast And the biggest difference between them and me
is representation. I don't have any representation. I don't have
(34:10):
an A and R team or a team behind me
that can I even license these songs or make sure
that it's still playable on Apple podcasts.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I don't have the representation.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So I think in a lot of ways that was
a big learning curve to try and understand how the
industry worked. Like I understood the situation in the scenario
of why it happened, but there's definitely more protection that
I could have had as a creator, as an independent creator,
or at least with some support or team around me.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
And I think that's why it's so important.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
So powerful to have a producer or someone working with
you on creative projects to go you focus on the stuff,
I'll make sure that there's no issues with it, or
if you want to grow to a certain level, I'll
help you get there and I'll show you how to
do that or at least unlock these doors that is
now possible for that.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
So on.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
In October, the final episode of the podcast during that
era was released. It was episode three hundred and sixty,
and there is that part of my brain that was
so happy that was a round number, and it was
kind of finishing on an episode like three hundred and sixty,
and during the height of the podcast, I recorded a
(35:32):
new episode every week for five years. I did not
miss an upload from I think twenty fifteen to twenty twenty,
never miss an upload. And a lot of people always
ask me, hey, why was your podcast so successful, And
a lot of times I say, it's because of consistency.
If you think of your consumer behavior and how you
(35:54):
consume things, whether it's TikTok or a TV show or
something that you do you after work or in the morning,
it's all because of a routine. So you become part
of these creators' routines. I know, if I'm looking for
a new episode of my favorite podcast, I know every
Wednesday I'll get a new episode from This might get weird,
(36:14):
and it's just setting the expectations of your audience of
what they can expect from you as a creator.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Now there are podcasts, or there are platforms.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Like YouTube, where YouTube frequency isn't as what isn't as
important was what it used to be. Where as YouTuber
you had to make sure that you had constant uploads.
But as a podcaster that was really important to know
that because I knew that my podcasters really could be
(36:45):
really replaceable because it wasn't anything proprietary. I was doing
a lot of the other podcasts shared similar music to me,
but it was just a different structure.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
My podcast was the only half hour version of a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Of these shows where they would go the full one
hour or two hours, and I know in my busy
life and lifestyle that that half hour of all the
music that I need to hear from this new release
sweek was really powerful. I still think it could be
something that's really impactful nowadays, especially how competitive it is
(37:19):
with music promotion and everything that artists need to do.
So the podcast came to end in that era and
I definitely felt burnt out, but it was also a
time where it was this method of survival where I
was trying to understand, Okay, where's revenue coming from. It's
not as much from the podcast because there's no media accreditation,
(37:43):
and it felt like more like a hobby, and I
think in a lot of ways I treated it more
like a hobby than I probably should have. Where the
product was fine, The product was always at a very
professional level, and I would still put that podcast beside
all of the best dance music podcasts, but it didn't
(38:04):
operate as a business as much of a business as
it could have been. But nowadays we have short form
videos where we really didn't have short form videos. TikTok's
mediorc Rise was in twenty twenty, and yeah, I wasn't
part of that wave, but I was part of that
podcasting wave in the early twenty tens of podcasts that
(38:25):
we're able to surge in popularity and have this new
medium and platform that nobody really else had.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
So when it.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Came to the end of the show and talking about
kind of the legacy of the show, I'm really proud
of what I've created.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
There's a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Has done so much for myself for me in my
career of why I've been able to do the opportunities
that's unlocked because of the success and how I've built
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I've been able to become.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
A professor at college and been there seven years now
now run the program. When it comes to an authority
on content creation, a pretty achieved or successful podcaster when
it comes to building a successful podcast and understand what
it takes. And I've also got over a decade of
experience of podcasting now where when I consult and work
(39:20):
with these creators and podcasters that are trying to grow something,
build something, it's really awesome to be able to say, hey,
So the reason I bumped shoulders with Mark Garrix is
because I had this really big podcast, and it's because
I just was consistent. I ensured that if the episode
(39:42):
was not good, I would throw it away, so I
would also say, focus on quality. And that's probably reason
why the Garrick at AP podcast is not as frequent
as it could be or maybe should be, because I
want to make sure that I can have a conversation
or at least present an episode that's worth listening to,
but also that I care about, because I don't want
(40:03):
to create an episode that I.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Don't want to listen to. Basically because I do listen
to everything that I do.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So when I was actively creating episodes for EE Weekly,
there were weeks where if I didn't get a mixed right,
or if I just didn't like kind of the song
selection I did, I'd have a full episode done and
I'd throw it.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Away and started again. Is that a normal rational thing
to do? Probably not.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
That's probably the perfectionism in me coming out, but it's
what I did to make sure that it was amongst
the top DJs. I think that was a tough part
about being kind of fixated on quality is just because
I was no longer competing with just local DJs. I
(40:51):
was now in this arena with some of the world's
best DJs, So now I even had to bring my
caliber up a notch.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So that was.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Getting a professional intro done, that was understanding of different
ways I could have artists say, Hey, this is your
vandn Helven and you're listening to Medium weekly like I
create stings like that, and there's so much more to
the show they added throughout the years, and it was
just this really nice time of the week to be
(41:19):
creative and productive, and it's just finding a way to
do that, or finding a lifestyle that could permit that,
or that's more financially feasible to have a production or
commit that much time to a creative project like that.
Because the game has changed, I can no longer kind
of do what I did back then because there's different rules,
(41:43):
there's different parameters, and Spotify really doesn't allow music podcasts anymore.
In Apple Music or Apple Podcast kind of does, I guess,
But that's kind of how different it's changed from when
I started to now. And of course it should change
in a decade time and it should get better, but
it's still challenging to do what I did with Eating
(42:06):
Weekly at its start, at its infancy, because there were
not many rules at the time. So it's taken advantage
of being one of the first ones and taking advantage
of a platform that's now become a billion dollar industry.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
When it comes to podcasting, I.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Still have some of my closest friends or friends that
I've met online because of the podcast. So there's a
friend in Philly that I know. There's a couple of
American friends that I always DM on Instagram. We talk
about music, new releases, and that's because of the podcast.
They slid into my dms and we went back and
forth and now we talk all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
So that's really nice.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
And I think the nice thing about podcasting is the
ability to build community. It's so interest based, it's so
surrounded about what do I want more of?
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Who are people that.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
I want to be around, And that's really I think
was the success of Eating Weekly was building community around
the type of music we all loved and the type
of music we're all obsessed with and making sure someone
was enthusiastic about it, because I was always enthusiastic about
the music that I played, and enthusiasm is contagious, and
people want to see that you're genuinely excited about the
(43:20):
stuff that you're making. And that's where if you watch
any interview from a YouTuber a content creator, they're always like,
authenticity is important, and it absolutely is in my case
that I was genuinely excited. Every week I was like, Oh,
it's the new Swedish House Mafia song. I got to
say something about it. I've got to have some commentary
(43:40):
on it.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
To have I have to play this song, and that's
what a lot of people look forward to.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I still do these first listens on my YouTube channel
at Yarka on YouTube, where I do these first lessons
specifically for sweets Hout Mafia, because that's kind of what
my content on YouTube has been about for years, is
just reacting to Mafia and having my opinion or my
first thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
The new release. And that's been really cool.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
So I wouldn't have had some of the friends that
I do because of the show. And yeah, it's it's
been this really rewarding career and I've found ways to
kind of leverage these opportunities where a lot of people
do social media digital marketing, but not a lot of
people specialize in podcasting, and that's a niche that I'm feeling,
(44:30):
especially locally and regionally where I live in Woodstock, Ontario,
and that's not limiting to stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
And even at this time where.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
One of the most recognized trance artists posted earlier this
year about meeting help with digital strategy, I sent a DM,
we had a conversation. It didn't work out because of
my own commitments, but I was still able to get
into those doors.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Because of the catalog and the.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Of the career that I've done, because I've created over
three hundred and eighty podcast episodes, because for a short
stint in twenty twenty three, I tried to come back
up a podcast, but I've been busy with the things,
so it hasn't really been the focus or the priority.
But it's still some of the best years of my life,
(45:21):
and it's really cool to kind of look back and go, Wow,
we've built something really cool and it's all just because
of the podcast. So is there going to be a
return of the podcast. I've always said that it could
return at some point. It just needs to make sense,
and with the career that I have, it needs to
(45:44):
be some sort of source of income and maybe a
partnership with a different brand, or it might not live
as Eating Weekly, but it might still live as an
edim podcast that I do. So that's kind of what
Weekly was. That's been my podcasting career. There's now over
five hundred and thirty thousand downloads half million downloads of
(46:06):
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
It went number one in.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Dozens of countries, top two hundred and almost fifty countries,
so it was listened to.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
A lot of people. A lot of people appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Still get messages of like, hey, I need a song
that you would recommend, But yeah, there's a lot of
good moments, interviews. Yeah, it's just been such a wild ride.
And I still say ride because I don't think it's
over when it comes to the podcast, or at least
my work in dance music, as if that's.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Something I want to get into again.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
I certainly can, just with the career and the catalog
that I've built and my ability to be able to
pick a song and curate good music and pick artists
that are going to blow because I've also done that
with the show. So yeah, that's my history of podcasting.
(47:02):
So I went from the bedroom in my childhood house
or the childhood bedroom where I grew up, and now
I've built a podcast studio here withstock Ontario activate Media.
So if you go to activatemedia dot Co, you can
book the studio and it's finally the podcast studio that
I've always wanted, and it's an opportunity for you to
(47:24):
start a podcast. But if you want to start your
own podcast, please reach out. I would love to work
on your podcast and try to make something of it.
Try to build something really special because there's a lot
of stories to tell, there's a lot of representation that
still isn't visible, that that matters to a lot of people,
and you never know who your story will impact or
(47:44):
how your creative projects will inspire, motivate and give someone
some inspiration or change your day. Because that was some
of the best feedback I ever got was I look
forward to Wednesdays because of your podcast, or I was
having a bad day by turn on your podcast went
for a run, and now I feel a lot better
because of it. So, yeah, you can't make an impact,
(48:07):
you can find your community. Can also find your people,
because that's the reason why I started. Really didn't have
my people, but through my work, I've been able to
find more.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
People like myself.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
So I'll end it there. Thank you so much for
listening and watching this podcast.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
I went to this lovely little park.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
I'd like to record this episode because I thought this
was more like a story time episode where I was
kind of reflecting back on my journey and sharing some
insight of what you might not be aware of when
it comes to my career. As yeah, I don't always
talk about Hudson's Bay and that's not really where my
career started, so it's kind of returning my roots with
(48:45):
an episode like this. So thank you so much for
listening to the podcast. I probably said that already. If
you want to follow me on Instagram, Accurate Cadet or
YouTube Accurate good At, I'm really active.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
On those platforms, at least on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
If you want to connect dm me on Instagram, Act
care Kadet as well. You can have a chat, or
if you're looking to start a podcast reach out. I
do consult on marketing podcasting customer experience all things like that,
so thanks for listening. I did achieve another monthly episode,
so another milestone for me as we're setting small goals
right now, So thanks for listening and hear me very
(49:20):
very soon, all right,
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