Ralph Sutton on the Podcast Revolution and the New Rock Economy

Podcast and Radio veteran Ralph Sutton, founder of the Gas Digital Network (now featuring 22 shows and 6 million monthly listeners), sat down with KOP to discuss the seismic shift from traditional radio to the new digital landscape. Sutton asserted that conventional media, including radio and TV, is now "irrelevant."

For up-and-coming rock bands, success is no longer measured by Billboard charts but by tangible metrics like filling concert seats and selling merchandise, reflecting a return to a more grassroots, fan-supported "band culture."
The conversation highlighted the freedom of podcasting, which Sutton contrasted with his 20 years in syndicated radio where content was constantly constrained by program directors. He shared how the Gas Digital Network's early success stemmed from a relentless focus on high-quality audio and a disciplined, regimented show structure—innovations that set his network apart.

Both noted that the "beautiful thing" about the current era is the democratization of content creation, where anyone can start a podcast, though Sutton cautioned against the high abandonment rate of those who chase money over passion.

Ralph also detailed his intensive grassroots strategy for promoting his podcast, which involved personal "hustle" to gain subscribers. A key lesson Sutton shared was that making a show guest-dependent was his "biggest mistake," as a sustainable podcast is built on the audience's connection to the hosts themselves.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Podcasting since two thousand and five. This is the King
of Podcasts Radio Network, kingo Podcasts dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
When I think I know everything about radio, another longtime
radio veteran humbles me.

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The King of Podcasts Radio Network proadbly presents to the
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanksgiving Day here on the Broadcasters podcast and for over
the weekend, I had planned to go and put an
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with some broadcast professionals that I got the opportunity to
go and speak with at links And I'm going to
play one of those interviews for you today and just
love it up to me to go ahead and give

(00:46):
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(01:25):
Well that said, check out my.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Interview and I hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
My next guest is a season podcast pop culture commentator,
two decades of experience in front of the mic as
a TV radio host, founder of the Gas Digital Network,
and we'll talk about where all that, how he came from.
But pers of all reaches six million listeners a month,
twenty two shows on the whole lineup and currently hosts
to hit comedy podcast whether in Berg called the SDR

(01:50):
Show SDR Sex Draws Rocket Roll launched five years ago.
Ranks is one of the top comedy podcasts on iTunes,
and prior to that, was the host of the nationally
syndicated rock show The Tour Bus, which ran for fifteen
years seventy five stations with nationwide I mean a from
the WDAH in New Jersey and also the hotel for
VH one classic and major rock events like the Sturgist

(02:12):
Rallies for all the bikers out there, I'm here with
Ralph Sutton.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Ralph, thanks you bring on, thanks for having me. I
think you thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
So I got to get into the start of the
terrestrial career because when I look at rockmeys today. One
other person I talked to a few years back, I
think it was a twenty twenty was Dave Pratt, the
Morning Mayor, KUPD and Phoenix, and I think about he,
you know, a KPD at that time, longtime rocker he
left to go into when it was offered. I think

(02:41):
it was working at CBS, worked in the country because
country was where all the rock musicians went. They went
to Nashville, and I feel like that well, that was
also changed because of the fact of how rock music
had just changed. I think Woodstock two thousand when he
talks about was a turning point in the way things
were with rock music. And it's it's underground. It's not

(03:01):
bad to the mainstream like I'd like to see it.
I think that variety we had, you know, all the
way up into the two thousands, even to the twenty tens,
it's missing because right now there's this homogenization of music
that's out there, and it just doesn't feel like.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
It's so digital.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
No instruments except for in country, I would say, but
not much else. The thing is is that when you
look at being away from into podcasting now ever since
change has happened, I saw that in twenty sixteen busy
broadcasting Bob WDH and other stations. Of course, corporations come in,
they decide to go and clean house. It's not I

(03:38):
don't think it's any testaments to talent, but it sucks.
And with radios changed, no one's supporting or defending rock music.
And that was something that when you look back at it,
are you're surprised that you know, no one's ever tried
after all these years to try to go and bring
back rock to the forefront, not in terms of the music,
it's still out there, but to have taste makers bring

(03:59):
it to the front and let people hear it.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Well, let me ask you this question on that poor
front of what because there is no radio doesn't matter anymore,
TV doesn't matter anymore, right, So let's put that aside.
It's not a relevant format. It's like wanting to dominate
the A track market. Who cares? It doesn't exist anymore? Right?
So I see bands younger, especially now there was a
TV show that came out earlier this year called The

(04:23):
Run Arounds that embraced band culture. I'm seeing more and
more guys like Swayco and a bunch of other younger
bands that we just had Calva Luis on the show.
These bands that are up and coming that are embracing
rock and roll, are they on? I mean even Billboard
doesn't matter, right, So the question that I ask is
can you fill seats? Are you getting followers? That's all

(04:46):
that matters, and that to me is happening. Rock music
does seem to start, not just not single performers, but
bands are coming back, which is exciting to me to
see bands back on. We just had a new band
on called The Dooms. That's very cool. So bands are
coming back. But if you're looking for them to dominate charts,
charts are irrelevant, so I don't care about that anymore.

(05:08):
What I look for is seeing shows being sold out,
bands having followers online and them selling tickets and merch
and that is happening. But if you're looking for, you know,
I don't know, a Taylor Swift like event in the
rock space. I don't think that will ever happen again.
For anybody that's just going to be pop spoon fed

(05:31):
music and that you know, not to ramble on it.
But back then, in the eighties, which is I was
a product of that, rock was kind of mainstream. It
was mainstream, it was easily digestible, and it just pivoted
to this and it'll be pivoting again again sometime soon.
But I love seeing rock bands selling out venues, rock
bands getting a lot of following. Is a great new

(05:52):
band called Jailer. There's a great there's so many. Deese
is another one that are getting arenas, not necessarilyena, but
giant venues sold out, and that makes me feel good
as a die hard fan of rock music. It is
back in a way, just not in the traditional Billboard
radio way, which who cares.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Okay, well, I'll put it like this. Social media streaming,
as great as we are, it's too broad. There's not
enough time in the day for us to go ahead
and try to sample every artist I see.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
On TikTok or Instagram or YouTube. It's just too much.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
And so I got to miss so many people that
are out there and platforms that are wide ranging that
will say, okay, bring them up.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
We don't.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
I mean I'm not. I mean, we don't have an MTV.
We don't have I don't know. I don't expect that
technology to continue. I'll make that point clear, and I
agree with you on that. But what replaced it? Something's
got to be there. It falls for any kind of
pop culture to be relevant. I want to see where
you know, obviously it's an audience for it. I mean,

(06:54):
look at every artist out there. When Oasis came back
and decide to reunite, look up the buzz they got
for that. Of course, you know, streaming singles is not
the money anymore for what things? For rock music, it's albums,
and that's for any artists out there, I'll imagine, and
the touring.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
That's where the money's coming from.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
There's no record labels to give out the support, no
major record labels, because they're all on the catalogs. They're
going to keep making making money on the catalogs with
everybody else until they want to. But I want to
see something that's more narrowcast. If there's somebody that has
a large audience, like I'll say this, if there was
an influencer to said, okay, I want to have a showcase.
Let's go and do it like a talent thing, and
you know, I don't want It's not the voice, it's

(07:33):
not American Idol, it's not any of those Americans at all.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Those are all on irrelevant platforms. There's also a reason why,
you know, network television late night shows stop live performances
too costly and not worth it. But I think you
do get it in the podcast space. You are getting
it there. You're getting people like my show, and I'm
sure you know dozens of other shows that are like
I look at when we bring on bands, because we

(07:56):
bring on comedians, rock stars, actors, whatever, different groups. But
and I've said this on my show many times, I
don't look at their social media. When I get a
link to a band, I look for the audio of
the of the song only. I don't want to judge
anything else. I want to know if I like the song,
and then once I like the song, then I'll look
at the other stuff and maybe it'll swim me. But

(08:17):
we bring on people that have a thousand followers sometimes
like something it's totally irrelevant just because I like the song.
So I do think there are people that still do that,
but it's going to be a microcosm. It's no longer
going to be a Jay Leno or a David Letterman
or Carson. It's you know, the the hugest podcasts in
the world, which let's say Rogan or whatever doesn't really

(08:38):
bring on musicians. That's not what that's about. And then
even if he did, he doesn't highlight their music. It's
a conversation. We always try to get a live performance
out of a band. We try to get people to
know the band as people who play silly games with
them and stuff like that. Sure, it's just going to
be segmented. There's never going to be a unifier. Again,
it's just not going to be is too much content.

(08:59):
There's too much which new releases, not just in music
but in books, in video when the barrier to entry
has appreciated the way it did, where I could put
out an album tomorrow because I don't need to know music.
I can ask Ai to write a song for me
and I could release it. It just happened. It was a
number one country song that was Ai and no one knew.
So the trick is, yeah, to just find bands that

(09:22):
you're passionate about and support them. That's all that matters.
At the core level. It's kind of gotten back to
when rock started in the sixties and they weren't played
on radio and early seventies and not until FM started.
But go back to then, and that's the way those
bands survived as people show up to the venue, buy
a T shirt, buy the album if they released one,

(09:43):
and that's all that matters, and that it's gonna be
segment that I hosted ship Rock for ten years and
most of those bands were unknown when they got on
Shiprock and then built the fan base, and that's the
way to do it.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
So podcasting has helped to have the evolution of talk
radio over to there.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
So anything that's talk related we had that set.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Podcasting has been a wonderful paradise for anybody to go
and get their word out there. And of course you
have notoriety of Poppylarity and a name like you have
had yourself for so many years. You know, it's a
great place to go. It's some place you go ahead
and at least to get tee to you know, ply
your craft.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
But I look back at what.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
You did on the tour bus and I say, okay,
bringing a heavy dose of what is missing on the
radio today, at that time, that's what the idea was at.
But I still think there's a part of I know,
the artists sy to make money. I know that the
artists they got to be able to get and put
themselves out there.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
And wherever the money is.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
But man, I'm surprised not anybody has the money or
the wherewithal to put something online that becomes viral and says, okay,
here's what's missing in music, and just give us a platform.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
I mean, I'm I mean.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
There's public radio stations that trying to do that, a
couple of them around the country that are kind of
a little bit enterprise and okay.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Here's some artists we haven't heard from before.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
But it's like, you know, where's somebody that actually has,
you know, a good sense of what music is and
it was should be heard that people would go ahead
and catch with the masses.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Because I still do.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
The something about something going you know, if it's something
that crosses over. When that crosses over, okay, I don't
expect an artist to stay up there and want to
become popular. It's like, okay, here's your hit, you come
back down and.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Then people just follow you forever. I just thought there was.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Something about that that's still valuable and it can still
be done today because I think people.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Need the platform. What platform are you thinking? YouTube? What
else could it possibly be? There a great spot, I think.
And I also think that this guy that I like
on YouTube, Professor of Rock, where he delves into a
history of songs, you know, and there's a few other
people like that that do you know rock on YouTube
and in depth interviews and stuff like that. And I

(11:49):
think that the only people to blame are the fans
because now it is the democracy of all kinds and
that anybody can start a channel, anybody could build the following,
and anybody can start bringing on band that they like.
It's whether or not other people will watch it. I
don't know, you know, it's it's algorithms, it's the quality

(12:09):
of the video of the podcast or the video show.
But it's kind of a beautiful thing now that there
are no more taste makers that decide what gets played
on MTV. There's nobody deciding anymore what's in heavy rotation
on a radio station. So the fact that it's just
open to everybody, it's kind of cool. You know that
you could play it, you could become a TikTok star.

(12:30):
I mean, even though, like now, let's lose in comedy space,
even though it's not been working that well because a
couple of them have burned out already. But let's use
kill Tony as an example blew up. Where now these
open my comics kill on Kill Tony and then end
up headlining shows. Most of them are not ready for
it yet, which is funny to see them crash and
burn but giving them that audience. It's wild how all

(12:53):
of a sudden, open my comics are headlining theaters, which
is it shouldn't happen that way, but it's kind of
cool in a way that it does have its same
thing with bands like that. We had a guy on
named Sawyer Hill and he's big now, but when he started,
he blew up overnight, and then his first he headlined
a European tour as his first tour and sold out

(13:15):
immediately because he went viral. So it is kind of
wild that that can that can happen in a way
that back then you'd have to get not only radio support,
label support, all the stuff that would require many many
contracts and many many deals with the devil and percentages,
giving up left and right, and now he's doing it
and it's like his father is his tour manager or

(13:37):
something like that. Like it's great that that can happen now.
So you have to take the good with the bed.
You have to look at it from a positive angle.
That there is a democrat, a democratic look at this now.
That is fascinating, and that's that's what I think is
what we should be embracing.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
At the same time, I also know that while I
enjoy the fact that I have, you know, all these
that applied for YouTube in this bottom, I pay the premium,
and you know, I like the fact that, you know,
I used to go and pay sixteen dollars for a
CD on a regular basis, and they'll tell you I
had no problem if I if I saw an artists
and I wanted to go and get their music and
go ahead and invest my money into it, I was fine.

(14:12):
And it was really about if you can put money,
if you are willing to get and putting money down
for something that you like, whatever it is, whether it
is a comedy show and watching an act or going
and buying a CD for an artist that you want
to get hear the music cause you found a bunch
of your songs there, but your singles good or whatever
it was. That's there's not enough of that, And I
don't know if there's enough, like you said, of quality

(14:34):
where there's just too much room in the comedy area,
like you said, for somebody's open my gags to get
a platform, and you know, maybe they're getting viral and
getting popular for the wrong reasons, but they haven't really,
they're just not gonna go and resonate.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Well, they'll put you fly by night. Who knows what
they're gonna do.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Who any of those people that could ever go ahead
and carry a TV show.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Or a movie anything like that, because right you have
theory more. You don't have to anymore. You know, to me,
it's what's cool about it. You don't have to carry
a TV show. Movie stars are kind of irrelevant now.
And you know, the joke or cruth that I said
about podcasting ten years ago was the beautiful thing about
it is anybody can do it, and the bad thing
about it is anybody can do it because now there

(15:19):
is such a you know, when I start a podcast here,
which was ten years ago, now there was one hundred
thousand podcasts. Now there's ten million, so exponentially grew to
ten million, right, which still sounds like, oh my god,
ten million, How am I going to compete against ten
million podcasts? Go be a TikToker where there's a billion people.
Then it's like, you know, the then ten million sounds great,

(15:42):
you know, or go get you know, if you could
get fifty thousand, let's just use an arbitrary number. Fifty
thousand people to follow you on Instagram or fifty thousand
people to watch your YouTube. You can make no money.
You'll make no money. You get fifty thousand people to
listen to your podcast, you can make a comfort living.
So the barrier to entry, while now lower, is even

(16:04):
lower on the podcast space. And to me, those are
good things. That's wild that that can happen now, and
I'm doing so. When I did radio, which was on
for almost twenty years on about one hundred stations at
one point, I was I had basically was on about
one hundred stations, so I had one hundred program director bosses.
And every week somebody in Ioway thought they knew better

(16:26):
than the guy in Kentucky than the guy in California
on what should be played on the show. And every
week at beginning to play. You can't say that here,
you can't see it, you can't play that here. And
it was a constant problem of having one hundred bosses
on one hundred different stations that all felt they knew better,
not just than me, but then every other program director. Now,
whatever decisions I make on my show are my decisions,

(16:48):
and nobody else can stop it, for better or for worse,
because there is no powers that be anymore. And that's
a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
I'll put like this too, And I completely appreciate where
you're coming from. I know, maybe what I'm stating bent
the thing right now. It's probably you know, from the
outside looking in, because I've only been in the industry
for so long. I was always a fan of the
outside when it comes to radio, when it comes to
how music is done. But my thing is, I like

(17:16):
when there were people that got that a big platform
and could push back, push the envelope, you know, bend
the rules a little bit and give people that probably
wouldn't get an opportunity to go ahead and got there
those that would would take risks. I don't know if
there's there's those are root for that, because obviously there's
not that many places to go in the doors open
for that kind of thing, And just for me, it's

(17:37):
like I wish we had some place for also where
if it's a musician, artist, or whatever kind of talent
there is that you see, where's the highest level you
can go? Like, what is the level of success that
you can reach if you want to be able to
you know, say, okay, this person reached this level.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
I want to be like them.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
I don't want to be for somebody that's like, you know,
from fifty years ago, forty years ago, three years ago.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
I want to see.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Somebody that is now at the level I want to
be some day, striving to be somewhere the star search.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Is there still a drive for that or is that gone?
I mean, I think it exists every day in terms
of what goes viral and what works. And like if
you're a band, to me, if you're a band and
you're selling well and whenever you go out you do shows.
I forgot who the quote is from. If you get
a thousand people to show up, you can survive the
rest of your life. I figured who said that? But

(18:27):
that is being is happening now all the time, you know,
and that is what's great is that it's gone back
to the people. It's more where people will support what
they want and what they like, as opposed to being
spoon fed what you're supposed to like. You can now
go find what you like. And that I find myself
constantly going on the Spotify like new rock release channels

(18:50):
and seeing anything new that I like and find bands
and find songs and people that I've never heard of
that I'm like get into and I think that's great.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
But there's short term and then there's a long term.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
I just want to just see that there's a way
for people to.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Go ahead and say okay, Like even with influencers now
on TikTok Yestagam, you know, they might have like a
one trick pony. They might have one dimensional something that
they do that everybody's getting into.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
So what do you do for the next act? Yeah,
well that's what happens to. Using the kill Tony Comedians
as an example, if you blow up too early and
you're not ready, you're gonna flame out real quick, you know.
And some people figure it out and keep going get
bigger and bigger, which is great. Some don't like though,
again not to keep bringing him up. But that kid
that came off of that kil Tony cam that's now
a cast member on SNL. So he took that and

(19:36):
became something else. So there is ways to do that.
And that's what I find fascinating is that I love
the fact that anybody can do anything. When I got
my first job at radio, I think there were probably
ten radio jobs in New York, you know, so that
was it. So if I didn't get that job, my
options were to move or to go into a different field,

(19:57):
and I didn't want to move. So the fact that
I got that job, I was like, great, I can
start working in radio. And now it's like okay, then
I'll just start a podcast and just start promoting it
and do like I the first five years of my podcast,
I never left the house without stickers. I considered a
day of failure if I didn't get somebody to subscribe

(20:18):
in the real world and give me a review. I
was on the story I've told the million times. I
was on jury duty, and at the end of that
jury duty, I had eleven new people sign up to
my podcast because there was twelve of us, and I
was gonna make sure all eleven of them, did you
know so? And I did that for years where every
day was a mission to get people to sign up
to the podcast, right, And I just did it over

(20:40):
and over again every day. And so that's how I
made it happen. I took it out of the control
of program directors or general managers from radio stations and
pivoted to podcasting.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
All right, So twy sixteen moved in the podcast We're
gonna go in the podcasting specific were I'm gonna leave
the radio stuff, fine, but you know you had all
the time that you came back, and the thing was
in twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen. Rather, there were quite
a few people that came from radio that were making
their way into podcasting. I still will say over and over.
I got the call to Donna Mike's show after an

(21:14):
Aicole Smith died, and I remember when I they asked me,
like what I did for a living. I said, I
work in podcasting. They said, well, it's just the same
thing as you working.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
On McDonald's kid. But they told me, and of course
they're in.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
The podcasting now, both of them. But either which way,
I'm not judging that. It's like, that's what I happened
was that was the perception, but there were a lot
of people that were making their way and again trying
to find a good pay model. I think a Tomlkes
is a great example of bringing the new normal and
putting that out there until he decided to go ahead
and you know, put in the sunset. But either which way,
Gas Digital, you've gone to the twenty two shows stick

(21:46):
twenty listeners a month.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
That's a huge and you've found a spot. Now.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
The other thing, too, is that you know you've kitted
it where it's very distinctly a non corporate We know
there's a million shows now that the iHeart radios of
the world or you know, Wondery or Amazon and all
these others that are putting out there, all these celebrity
driven or somebody that has some followership being out there
and yeah, they're getting paid millions of dollars. Then getting
somebody else like, oh, here's some producer to work with

(22:10):
you to keep the show going so you can kind
of make act like your show host and doing those
kind of things. But the thing was you had the
background to do this, and it was an I feel like,
you know, obviously the easier transition in the podcasting. It
was just a matter of in the years since leaving
radio and being in podcasting full time.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
You know, take it, wait, take away.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Give me some of the takeaways you've gotten from what
you've changed when you did radio that you brought into
podcasting and now you've evolved it into what.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
You need to do today. Sure, well, we'll start with that.
The way I fell into podcasting was I was hosting
Shipwrock and they put me, asked if we do any comedians.
I knew a comedian that was good for the show Shipwock,
called Big Jay Okerson, and I asked him to come on,
and he was a comic and I was the host,
and those are a few other people on bands and what

(23:00):
they ended up partnering us to host a couple of
events together. We had been friends ready, and then we
made each other laugh. We'd never been in that environment before.
And he told me, I think it was twenty fourteen
that he was doing a podcast called Legion of Skanks
and him and I actually do a podcast together. And
I said, podcasting answer people that can't do radio. I'm

(23:21):
doing radio, so thank you, but no thank you, all right, right,
and then the course of that year, a few things
happened where I started realizing, oh, this might be a thing.
Podcasting seems to matter, right, So the next year I'm
hosting again. He's a comic again, and I said, you know,
let's look into this, let's see what this is. And
we started podcasting together in twenty fifteen, and then gas

(23:45):
Digital started in twenty sixteen. And the way that I
what I brought sense of Brugal showed you how such
a neophied industry it was. We were on a network
called All Things Comedy, Like we just signed the podcast
because Jan knew one of comics I think it was
Bill Burr and Al Madrigal, and they signed us to
All Things Comedy and it was a very new thing.

(24:06):
It wasn't even really a network. It was more of
an affiliation. And we weren't making any money. We were
told at the time we were like the fifth bike
oft show on their network, whatever you want to call it.
But we weren't getting any money. So I said, hey, look,
I have radio contacts, I'm already making money on the
radio side. Why don't I add make it an added

(24:27):
value package where you spend a little more money and
we'll add you to the podcast and we could start
making money that way. And the people at All Things
Comedy back then said, well, we don't know how to
handle payouts and stuff, and we don't know, so we're
we're not going to do that. It sounds complicated, which
is like, yeah, but you're gonna make money. No one's
making money, and they didn't want to do it, so

(24:49):
we just didn't do it. And then I started finding
ads on my own for the podcast, and within a
year we were making more money on the podcast. So
that's what transitioned me full time to p podcasting. What
I think I cared about more than everybody was audio quality,
which wasn't happening back then at all. Now it's a
pretty commonplace, but back then most podcasts were done on

(25:11):
a laptop with the laptop mic and that's it, you know,
So I really tried to figure out how we could
escalate audio quality.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
I also would well, the first podcast I had to
do where actually we were on phones that tell you farm,
I got twollion five and just weight for hearing like that.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yet, so to me, the biggest turnoff for any podcast
was hearing shitty quality. He's like, I don't want to
see this. It sounds terrible, right, So that was number one.
Number two, I tried to make us a little more
regimented in that an hour should be an hour, give
or take ten minutes. It should be about an hour
and at the time, and that's if you want to
do an hour, a half hour to a half hour.

(25:48):
Podcasts were all over the place. One episode be twenty minutes,
one episode be an hour and a half, one episode
will be thirty minutes. I tried to keep them all
to be about an hour, just because I felt there
was something value added to know what you in for, Like, oh,
if I'm going to start the podcast, it's not Dealer's
choice this week. You know it's gonna be about an hour.
So those little tweaks about audio quality, about keeping it

(26:10):
focused for this certain amount of time was important, especially
back then and then. I've always been tech savvy. I
and this is my second bedroom that I'm in right now,
But I built as a studio that had multi camera
and multi camera switching that nobody was doing at that time,
and I figured it out. This story, I've told her
that I on my phone, I used Google Translate, because

(26:31):
at the time, you needed a trycaster. The thing was
fifteen thousand dollars. I didn't have money for that, so
I found a card that plugged into a PC from
China that the instructions were in Chinese, and I used
a Google Translate app to get the download link to
install the drivers, and that's how I got it working.
In the same respect, when I did radio and I

(26:51):
had a show that was on one hundred stations, then
the satellite decaying orbit fell out of the sky and
we need to switch to CD. At the time, as
CD were digital, one to eight was ten thousand dollars.
I didn't have a ten thousand dollars. I found schematics online,
downloaded it, figured out how to build it for eight
hundred dollars, and then sold it years later for one

(27:12):
thousand dollars because they were still expensive. But then we
switched to digital. So finding ways to figure out and
problem solve is one of my strength. I'm not the
smartest guy in the world. I'm certainly not the best
looking out of the world, but I'm good at problem
solving and figuring out ways to do things.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
I can't believe you did that. I remember the tricast
vividly because I remember we had to go and get
in with somebody else to go and buy that damn thing.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
And another thing was just what a plunk. It was
like an avid machine for videos, like just I remember saying,
look at the time, it's twenty fifteen, like, there's got
to be better ways to do this. I'm you know.
I would call my friends that worked in video or
worked at MTV or work whoever, and they would just
give me the boiler plate that they've been using for
the last fifty years, like, no, that's not the answer anymore.

(27:55):
There's a way. Just like when I started in radio,
they were all using reel to reel to edit UH
calls and edit nick sweepers, Like, man, I have a
computer that can record audio, let me get a fucking
let me figure this out. And they told me. I
remember one said, well, if you can get fifty sweepers done,
which is a for those that don't know where yea
sweeps from one song to another, you know, then we'll

(28:16):
talk about giving you a shift on the air. Them
thinking I didn't even know how to do tape editing yet,
because I was relatively new, I went home, I downloaded
a software I edited fifty sweepers together using free software
online that I found, burned it on a CD and
came back by here's a CD with fifty sweepers, and
then like how did you do that? I'm like, I

(28:38):
figured it out. Like I just figured it out, you know,
And things like that is what I think differentiates to
It's work smarter, not harder, you know. I love it.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
And you had to do that in podcasts because we
wanted to always because I think that's also the radio things,
Like everything just sounded so good.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
Everything was set in.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
A good environment, so like it would look good if
you had somebody at a Cameron there or you had
the audience, so like it was this obviously there was
just like this itch of yours. It's like, no, damn it,
it doesn't sound right, don't look right. I gotta get
this straight. So like you're you're going past you're you know,
is pushing you to even evolve more and just find
a way to go and get to their point.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
I love it now. By the way, I am constantly
looking at the software we used to stream is called
v mix, right, uh huh, and I feel well we've
been using it for six years. There's got to be
newer software. So and my staff hates me because they're
gonna have to learn new software right but over and
over again. I used to offer my team, I'll give

(29:38):
you five hundred dollars if you find a way to
do something that I taught you that there's now a
better way. And over the last ten years, no one's
ever come to me with an idea, but I've done
it at least six times, or like, oh, if we
edit this way, or eh, if we download this, or
if we use the AI this to do this, and
then you're cutting your time down by thirty percent, making

(30:01):
your life easier, you know. And then they're just most people. Unfortunately.
You're taught away to do something and you just keep
doing it that way, sometimes not even asking well, why
are we doing it this way? And that's the important
thing to look at. Try to keep an open mind.
So I'm always looking for new software for new editing,
looking at the top, new podcast. Maybe they're doing things
that I never thought of. Let's look at that. And

(30:23):
people don't want to do that because it's comfortable to
do the same thing over and over again, because you
feel warm and cozy, because you know, some of my
friends go to the same restaurant or to the same
thing all the time. I hate that. Let's go drive
it into place they're just open. Yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, I don't like the routine, and there's certain things
to be routine, but yeah, there' certain things we're just
more variety.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
I agree with that completely.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
The other thing is now you're you're already operating full
fledged well before COVID.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
What's interesting to me is that when we were all lockdown,
is that the first of all.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
I think that's when we started seeing the change of well, Okay,
we don't need so fessional environment of guns do shows.
Everybody can do it, like you said, in your bedroom
or from your lib or whatever it is. Plus, I
think people really took their time to gun when they
did podcasting. People started spending on money on equipment, and
they're actually the quality of podcast finally got a little
bit better finally after COVID, and I think that's one

(31:17):
of the best things that that came away from that
unfortunate mess that we had to go through.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
But I think that was something that I noticed the
difference from.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Because everybody had better cameras, better microphones, and people were
not afraid of go and be on microphones, not have
a microphone in their mouth, and like, okay, yes you
could do that. It's it's not just Howard Strnder did it.
Everybody else can go do this. It's not that, you know,
It's like I like that part. And I think also
with all podcasting, especially when you see on video, I
actually like the fact that we're seeing it the way

(31:44):
it is now, with all these microphones on, no lava leaders,
all this kind of thing, Like it's you know, the
presentation can be a little bit you know, stripped down
and be.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Brought up like this. Look a look at Joe Rogan,
who is you know, arguably the biggest podcast in the world.
That guy's making. Let's I don't know what he makes.
Let's just say, for argument's sake, he makes fifty million year.
I don't know you make full Let's just say that, right.
His operation is two people, that's his operation, right. And
what's wild is so we have I had this thing
designed in our studios that a little pop up boxes

(32:13):
that sit in the table flush, you pop them up,
and there's a place to plug in your headphones, a
cough button. You can charge your phone or plug in
a computer and has a volume audio headphone volume right,
and there branded Gas Digital. I just think they're cool. Right.
Joe Rogan came in. We did a show there at
our studios. He's like, oh, I love these. I said,
I'll get you the manufacturer for it. I got him

(32:36):
the manufacturer. A couple of weeks ago by I was
in California with my business part of Lewis and his
producer called Lewis and said, oh, we got those boxes.
Is Ralph around? I said yeah, I went there and
the crazy thing is the biggest This is ten maybe
eight years ago, and now seven years ago, the biggest
podcast in the world did not know how to wire
an audio box. And I said, why am I showing

(33:00):
this to you guys? This makes no sense. Have an
audio guy on at least that month speed dial. You know,
like what if I wasn't here. It makes no sense.
But it shows you how bare bones something can be.
Now you don't need the crazy budgets anymore, and that
is beautiful. When coch started, I saw the riding on
the wall that the city was going to get locked down.

(33:21):
We went to Guests Digital the studios and I said,
get every show on the phone, find out what they need.
Do they need a mic, do they need a camera?
Do they need a computer? And we put ubers all
the shit and ubers and sent it around the city
to all the shows that need it because we weren't
gonna be there, you know. And then we never missed
a beat when the lockdowns happened. Was we had been
used to doing zooms with remote guests all the time.

(33:43):
We were used to putting graphics up on zooms. You
were used to doing getting rid of the talkback. We
had done that already. So we were looking better than
broadcast television and for immediately better like and I was like, wow,
we're doing We look better than the Tonight show. We
sound better than than covert like it's wild because we
had been doing it over and over again. We were nine.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
You had the celebrities that started coming in to try
to do their own thing and like everything's kind of horrible.
Nobody was helping them out. They needed a rouse Sutton
to help them figure out.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, exactly, it's funny. And also though with the celebrity thing,
which makes me laugh. Cannot to go back to radio
too much. But I remember when when Torbus started to grow,
and radio syndication was becoming a thing. Every week we
were getting these in the studios, new shows hosted by
various celebrities right right. And the same thing which happens
in podcasting happened in radio over and over again, where

(34:34):
they do a dozen episodes, it doesn't take off the
way they hoped, and they dropped the show. So like
the same extent with podcasting. This ten million podcasts, I
think fifty percent of them are abandoned aready because oh
I'm a celebrity. I didn't get one hundred thousand views
right off the top. Screw it, I'm giving it up.
So there's so many that just need to be you know,

(34:54):
purged from there to really the ten million is probably
more like four million or five million. But because of
a celebrity finds out, oh a, I can't sustain a
conversation for an hour. B I don't have the rabbit
fan base I thought I did in this platform because
people don't like to jump platforms. I know you from YouTube,
I know you from music. I don't want to go

(35:15):
listen to you like that happens. So it is great
again to watch the way this whole kind of levels.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Out well, and the celebrity is also the ones that
are still around are the ones that have already been
getting paid a lot of money even beforehand. But then
at the same time it's like, well, you know, essentterically
where celebrities are. For people that are doing podcasting, I
like the fact that podcasting, if you're going into podcasting,
it's not a step down.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
For anyone anymore. My only thing it is.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Because there's a lot of people that have thrived, found
their second career, their second life, and have extent of
their careers by doing podcasting.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
And I think a lot of committees have done a
great job doing that.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
And you know, and I think also it's a part
of that when you're coming into it, you're not sounding old,
you're not using the same tired act. You're actually still
falling along and staying relevant and staying in the times.
You're still current. It's a great thing about that, But
I wish your voice.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
What I the main thing that bothers me about podcasting
is people that are doing it not because they want
to do it, but because they're getting paid to do
it or they feel they're supposed to do it. You
have to want to do it, my my happiest hour
of the day is when I'm going to do my show.
And if it's you're not feeling that way, you shouldn't
be doing a podcast, you know. And that's the same
thing with almost any business. Like if you're trying to

(36:34):
be an entrepreneur and starting something, if the thought of
getting out there and grinding and doing what you love
for a bigger picture isn't exciting to you, you probably
shouldn't do it because it's going to be thankless. And
anytime someone asked me to start a party, if they
should start a podcast, they say yes. If you think
you're gonna make money within a year, then don't start
because you're not. You're not going to make money for

(36:54):
a year at least. And that's even if things go
over unless you are a celebrity with you know, ten
million followers, that's gonna get a payday. If you're looking
to start grassroots, you ain't gonna make money for a
year at least, and even then it's not gonna be great.
But do it because you love it. And if you
can't talk about what you want to do over and
over again, it's just it's not gonna work out.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, I've been on my YouTube channel for what gonna
going on nine years, and I'll tell you I still
can't get it monetized. I got the I finally got
enough subscribers, but not enough to go ahead and get
the watch ours whatever to go and just need to
get that part. So I make a little bit of
advertising of course of programmatics. So we got every one
of these podcasts as the platforms.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
But that's about it. Well, to say what happened which
is worse is the SDR show on YouTube had I
think close to one hundred thousand followers and then they
shut us down because one of my producers accidentally forgot
to edit out a porn clip and they didn't even
give it like we said, oh it was a mistake.
We take it down with so sorry. They had good
luck warning, Yeah, yeah, good luck we're done. Copy or
some strike or something. Yeah, that's horrible porn with nudity.

(37:53):
It's different, it's not it's not a copyright stright. You
are out. Oh yeah, pretty much. No.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
I was gonna mention this too out and this I
think it's wort with every podcast. And I also feel like, well,
you know, while I love what Joe Rogan does. For me,
it's one of those things where like if a show
is guest driven, guests intensive, for me, I want to
have a reason to go and come back and go
back to that podcast because I like the people on
the show. It's not the guests you bring on that

(38:20):
gives you a reason. And I can't tell you there's
too many podcasts that I go to that I'm only
going to watch or listen to because of the guests,
and it's not because somebody's on there regular I mean,
I do podcasts that are monologues very I don't do
a lot of the interviews like I used to. But
the thing is for me is that I got to
make sure I do a show that people come back
for me and consistently come back, and I'll see the metrics,

(38:41):
try to keep building that little audience that I got.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Make it something more. But tell me about that part
as the fact that I think this mistake I ever made,
just so you know, oh and I made the SDR
show guests dependent. If I could go back in time,
it would have been something that I mean, Jade doesn't
do the show with manymore. We have a new co
host named Aaron Bird, but if I could go back
to talk to you know me of ten years ago,

(39:05):
I would have said, don't do guests. Figure out something
else because I'd rather have half the listeners than I
do now that don't care who's on, you know, whether
it's just mean Jay or whatever. That that would have been.
That was the biggest mistake I made. But the way
the show started was that I was still doing radio.
Jay lived four blocks from me, so I would say, like, hey,

(39:28):
tests coming in to do the radio show, So I
asked it to hang out for an extra hour to
do the podcast or just come by. So that's how
the podcast started. You know, we're just like, oh, we
got this band coming in to do SDR to do
the tour bus, so they'll hang out and do SDR.
And it was that's the way it started easily enough.
So that's how we built originally. But had I known now,

(39:50):
I would have said, just don't book guests. Also wouldn't
have called it sex, drugs and rock and roll because
that gets us demonetized a lot, because we you know,
if you're gonna start a podcast right now, find a
topic that you can either monologue on or a best friend.
You can do shows with to don't do anything dirty.
Don't you call it anything sexy, because in this landscape
that we are in, you are gonna get demonetized. We

(40:13):
are shadow banded on YouTube now. Our views used to
be in the tens of thousands and now we get
twenty views. And I know it's shadow band because, ohit,
I subscribe to my YouTube channel. I don't get notified
when a new video goes up, so they don't tell you, right.
So that's why gas Digital was created. With that we
can create our own servers, put up whatever we want.

(40:34):
You get your free following the best you can, but
you have the paid subscribers. When we started, there was
no thing as Patreon. Patreon didn't exist yet. We did
that before them, and then that became commonplace, but at
the time that it was unheard of.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
This is amazing, and I agree with the part with
when it comes to monologues and being able to put
shows out there. I have been trying to push the
needle because I have a show that's called The Praise
and the Batres. It's just about society, dating culture, and
so far, TikTok's only one that's really gotten after me.
So I can't put any clips or any kind of
material for that show on there. But if I want
to go to talk about you know, sugar daddies or

(41:09):
OnlyFans or porn in this year, whatever there is, I
can only go into those industries and talk about it.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
But I have to keep it within like some kind
of guys. And then the stupidest thing now, like you
call it porn instead of porn, and like that's just
you're just ridiculous, Like what are we doing here? We're
not children? Like the answer that they don't want to
do this. The answer woulself so many Internet problems. On
your settings, it says, am I okay with pornographic or
political or controversial, and you just have on and off

(41:37):
of things you're okay with, and then it's on the
creator to tag it as being this. They don't do
that because they make money with ads, and if people
saying I don't want political, I don't want sex, I
don't want this, then they're not gonna make as much money,
so they don't do it. But that would solve the
problem immediately. Just like if we were to make it
where there's one area, one website, let's call it myidentification

(41:59):
dot gug right. You get your profile from there and
only one official profile per person is given tied to you,
removing anonymity, so that these people that have vendetta, that
create five hundred fake profiles to try and take someone
down wouldn't exist anymore because every person has their one
verified profile end of story. But they don't want to

(42:21):
do that because then they lose all their followers. They
can't say they have one hundred million, that have thirty million.
So that kind of shit is what prevents this stuff
from happening, and it says logical answers that they don't
want to do.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Ralph, you bring go until a great point because the
thing is even I remember, like any doing any radio,
we were.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Still under sec rules.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
We knew what the rules were, terms of conditions. We
don't have that kind of rule here. We have cancel culture.
We have things where if you say something political or
any something that's a little bit out of bounds that
you're gonna get you know, you might get strickened down
for it.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
And that's what that really sucks.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
That's the part of podcasting that was the liberation of
it that I thought we were gonna have.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
But social media has caused a problem with that right,
by the way, It's funny. When I was doing radio,
something happened that I'm gonna be honest, I don't even
one hundred percent remember what it was. We're talking twenty
something years ago, but some people were mad about it.
Something I did at a live event. I don't remember
what it was. That's just I'm sorry on something stupid,
like I mean, joke I made whatever. And on the

(43:19):
radio station of DHA at the time, they told me
they got over two hundred emails complaining about what I
did and that they were going to have to take
me off the air, and I say, could you at
least send me the emails. I would like to see
them before we have this decision discussion. They did, and I,
because I'm tech savvy, was able to look at the

(43:41):
headers of the emails and said, do you realize that
one hundred and ninety eight of these came from the
same IP address. It's the same person with dozens and
dozens of extra emails. He is trying to make it
look like there's a problem, but there's no problem. It's
three people, that's it. And when I showed that thought like, oh, okay,
forget it, and that was it. But if I didn't

(44:02):
know how to do that, I would have been kicked
off the air back then. That is just kind of wild.
So thank god I knew that was it.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
The guy's named Jack Thompson. I don't remember his name,
to be honest, again, I remember well as the guy
who went after a lot of radio posts. Neil Rodgers
down here was you know, a love down here and
talk radio. That was a guy that regularly went after
every talk show host down here for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
That was just an ass whole. I mean, there's that
guy that was doing in comedy for a while that
you know, famously took down Shane Gillis from SNL. And
so there are people and there usually you know there
I always forget who said that, But you'll never meet
a hater that's doing better than you, you know, And
that could not be more true. If someone's taking the
time out to crap on your social posts or on

(44:45):
whatever you're doing, I guarantee you they are not happy
in their lives in whatever they're doing. There's no way,
like I can't keep bringing up the same people. But
Joe Rogan is not going to take time out of
his day to crap on my podcast. He's just not
He's got other things to worry about, right, And in
the same respect, like if that whoever is doing it,

(45:08):
it's because they're a disgruntled podcasters. They tried it, didn't start.
They're not getting followers that are, so they just take
it out of you, or their wife just left them
or something else, and they're taking it out on you.
So my general response to most of these people is
I'm sorry you're having a bad day, because it's insane
to reach out to someone you do not know and

(45:29):
crap on them. It's insane. I've never left a negative
comment to anyone in my life social and social media.
I've just never done it.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
No, No, And the thing is through that you know
you're gonna get in trouble, you know, you know if
you do something wrong. It's like it should be the
ones that actually did something really stupid, like okay, Butla
Luve Sponge, Okay, you roasted a live pig on the
air and they probably you shouldn't got fired for that.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Okay, you just deserved them. Sorry, But either which way,
now with what you're doing with.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
No, I was gonna ask you this too about when
it comes to podcasting because I know and a lot
of work I have to go and work with clients.
I get the wonderful job of doing with basically broken radio.
So I have these people that pay for time to
go and do a show and get their own podcasts,
and have to train these people, and more and more,
I've gotten the habit of like okay, listening to the
their content, going back, getting your feedback, and I've gotten

(46:22):
to the point where I've gotten my own tenants of
professional podcast hosting and just looking at where a lot
of podcasters do not take enough time to appreciate their listeners.
Where Okay, when you're doing your show, you want to
make sure the listener is interested in what you're talking about.
You just be Okay, I'm doing this just for the
fun of it, Like okay. Some people can get caught

(46:43):
up in the fact that, all right, I'm having a
conversation with a friend of mine, and you know, it's uninhibited,
it's you know, we're eavesdropping. But then the thing is
you still want to think about in the back of
your mind, the listener's gonna be caring about this, or
are they gonna like this, or are they gonna flip.
Are they gonna skip to something else? You know, I
want to keep the attention.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Span right, I mean, I agree here. I think that
cultivating a stickiness to your podcast where your audience wants
to be involved, whether with Like with gas Digital, we
have a live chat, so we call out the chat
a lot. You know, we're now implementing where long term
paid subscribers will get badges. We'll get specific emojis that

(47:22):
are only available if you've been a member for a
year or so. You get special rewards if you've listened
to every podcast that came out on gas Digital in
a week. Like little things like that that make people
want to keep coming back. Because gamifying things it works.
The reason why the gaming industry was never really affected
to gaming works. People love the idea of finishing and
completing tasks. There's that great book where they say, when

(47:43):
you're trying to get tasks done, you put a bunch
of jelly beans in a jar and an empty jar
on the next side. And every time you make that
phone call, every time you send an email, you put
one jelly bean from left to right, and it starts
to affect your brain where you want to do it more.
You want to make another call, you want to feel
like a sense of a common much. It's why I
make a to do list every single day, because there's
something about ticking off to do list items that make

(48:05):
you feel good. And if one of those things is
to make your audience feel valued, is something that we
take great pride in. I rarely argue with that, even
though it's not the true euphemism. It's not the customers
always right, although we say that it's the customers always right,
except in matters of taste. But I always I answer

(48:26):
ninety percent of the email complaints. I come in if
there's an issue. I'm the one that's getting them. I
have a tech team, but I'm the first person if
I If I's something that I can't respond, most times
they think it's AI. They say very funny, like it's AI.
I'm like, no, this is me. It's Ralph. This is
my personal email. If you have a problem, to email
me back and I'll deal with it. Because that kind
of reward system, so to speak, or value is something

(48:50):
that you can't buy. It's something that you need to.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Do so you real feedback. And you know, in radio,
for so many years you had you had phone calls.
You have people that gohad and getting the phone hybrid. Okay,
here's here's the line one, and we've had the change
and deal with Okay, we might get comments to one
of our podcasts or YouTube or wherever else, or we

(49:13):
get emails, or we get the chat room like you
have right now a gas digital. That transition had to
have been kind of tough because it's not like that
you will that back and forth talking to have somebody
and how they just go ahead, just take the feedback
to stare and just trying to fall in over the
chat and just fall in with the feedback you can
get to keep the interaction going.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
How tough has that been? First? Yeah, well I would
say that nothing beats and I don't know, I'm telling
you something. You don't know. Nothing beats live radio? When when?
When the old radio? So the tour of us, we
were live on about I think at the height live
on twenty stations and then the other like sixty seventy
were taped the late a week. That's the way they

(49:51):
get CDs. That was the probably the most and when
we eventually switched over, it was like one hundred stations
that were all CD and just two or three Live
Greater Media at the time before Beasley bought it, but
live across the nation was an unbelievable feeling. Also, no delay.
We had a delay, but at the beginning we didn't
have a delay, so that was terrifying. Also, you know,

(50:13):
for the non radio people, you have a dumb button
that if somebody curses, you could dump out of it,
and it probably didn't show up until five years into
my run on the radio, So you had to be
super careful about what you said and what and what
a guest said or what a call. You know, you
couldn't take live calls. He had to do preorcordicals. But
like I remember things that never will never. Kevin Dubroke

(50:33):
unfortunately passed away. Singer Quiet Riot. He literally and he
lived in Vegas and he would call us every week.
We gave him the hotline number to tell us where
he was when when the tour bus came on, it's
like because everybody in Vegas was listening to us, So
they went out the gas station. In the car next
to me was finding the tor bus. Just wanted to
say that. And he would call in every week and
then it was so cool and or you know that

(50:54):
live of the moment. We have that now a little
bit because we do stream live. We do our shows
live on digital, right, so right, the chat is interacting
with what's happening live on the show. But it's not
the same because even on the best day, maybe a
thousand people are watching live, right, But in radio, we
had a quarter of a million watching live or listening live,
you know, so that's a very different animal. And at

(51:18):
the time we were one of a few shows that
were nationwide. Now you're one of millions of podcasts. So
it just I can't explain what it felt. There was
nothing that felt like that and it never will be.
But brave embracing the new reality is all it is. Now.
I haven't really dealt too much into gas digital and

(51:38):
to other things that you've done, because it's also been
where you know, after radio, you you obviously diversified in
other areas of media, even running your own book. Well
that was their joke book, but yes, well it was
a book. I mean, come on, I'll still take a
venture like I'll show a shoot deer. Because so what
happened was during right before COVID, my my father got
sick and passed away, and but it's a little bit more.

(52:00):
It's like ten years ago now. And then my uncle
got sick and passed away. Had to take care of
him for a few years. And then COVID hit and
if you remember, we're all baking bread like jackasses and
gaining weight. So I gained I still don't know. I
always say this, I don't know what my maximum density was.
But I gained over one hundred and twenty five pounds, right,
And nothing like being on a comedy podcast to hear

(52:21):
people call me, you know, a fat this and you're
gonna die. You long miserable. So then in COVID times,
I decided to start running. I ran every other day
for two years, got to the point where I could
run a half marathon, ran ten a half marathons around
the world in ten different countries, and lost not about
one hundred and ten pounds. I still got a few pounds,
to god. But then the same jackasses that were making

(52:42):
fun of me, all of a sudden, I'm like, well,
what did you do again? Nobody wants to hear I
ran every other day for two years and sart of
eating hell like, no one wants that. So I put
out a book as a joke, and I can say
I'm a best selling author and it's for your video
listeners or watchers. It's called the one hundreds and Guaranteed
Guide to Weight Loss and Fitness. And I told people,

(53:03):
if this doesn't work, I will give you your money back.
And so that's how I promoted it. And it was
two hundred pages. Chapter one is eat less, chapter two
would work out more, and then one hundred and ninety
eight blank pages, and I sold thousands of them. I
hit number thirty three in Amazon, because now I can
say my best selling author, even though it took me
five minutes.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
But you did the book before AI okay, and you'd
wall offt the way without the without ozempic, I didn't use.
Hey man, that's that's a big accomplishment around the come
on now that that's a huge thing because people can't
do it that even just a couple of years ago.
There's so many little things you can also use to
get like, you know, cut around and not do the
real work.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
Just say exactly. But I'm a fan of that stuff
if it helps you, as long as you're also working
out and eating right. Except the thing that bothers me
with the the semi glue tides and the GLP one
is that people are using it in liua of changing
their diet in lieu of working out. If you're taking
it as in just like with AI, it's the same thing.
If you're using it as added value so to get

(54:04):
you from A to B faster, I'm all for it.
If you're using it exclusively, that's a problem. So like
with me, also, very often I'm like, I'm doing a
game show and it's gonna be you know this, and
that give me some ideas of what we could call it,
and Ai'll give me twenty ideas. They all stink, but
sometimes one of them like, oh, that's there's something there,
and then I make it something of my own and

(54:26):
then I use AI, but I didn't really use AI.
Or if it's gonna be an intro to a game
that we're gonna air once, I'm gonna say, make me
a funny cartoon intro for a game called blah blah blah,
and it'll make it and I play it once, and
that's great. But don't just use AI, just like don't
just use a GLP one if you're not if you're
still eating, like shit, and you're not working out, you're

(54:46):
just gonna get the droopy face from GLP one's because
you're not working out, you're losing fat and you're losing muscle.
But if you're working out with it and you're eating
right with it, then you will lose weight positively.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
So I should make msusage. You put us such great
points here when it comes to hell site. You have
a health podcast, Good Sugar. You also do on that
I've seen out there before, so there's a lot you
put into and obviously there is no shortage what you're
going to talk about and what you've been doing.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
It's really great.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
And again next year, what exactly will be ten years
for gas Digital?

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Ten years to get to see the next year. I
started SDR about a year and a half before, so
SDR has been on the air about eleven years and change.
But May of next year will be ten years of
gas Digital. Actually April amazing.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Then I'll tak in twenty two shows available and I
saw Godfrey has a show on there. You have the
thing is through that a lot of great shows.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Are your garbage started on there? Tim Dillon started on
there like it's pretty wild. All you garbage was maybe
a month in and they came to us, but Tim
Dillon started with us. A bunch of other comics came
through us, Like we used to do the T shirts
for Shane and Matt and Shane's Secret Show, Like we
used to do stuff with Jim Norton, Like we've helped
a lot of I mean, I used to be the

(55:58):
person that, like a lot of these guys that got
huge would call me, Like Andrew Schultz, I had to
show him how to set up an RSS fe you know,
things that happened years ago, you know. So it's just
kind of funny to see them all get so big.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
It's great, amazing, but a testament for you that the
fact is that did you got into here so early?
And I always look at and respect those that got
into this podcasting space really from radio and saw the
running of the wall, saw that, you know, the chance
of jumping in here so early.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
And I want to say a quick funny story on that,
and then you can rap is that I was hosting
this event for like five years called the M three
Rock Festival in Baltimore, Maryland, about twenty thousand people, and
they would have, like you know, in radio, there was
the local radio station was the main host of the event.
You know, it was ninety eight rock rafts, yeah, I

(56:47):
think so, yeah, and then we were the next biggest thing.
The torbots were on. However, many stages at the time
would say seventy staates or whatever. So in the back
where I always use the term radio row for those
that don't know. When a band comes off stage, the
backstage area, in orders of importance, are all the radio stations, magazines, podcasters, YouTubers, whatever,

(57:08):
in a row, one after the other. So the headliner
comes off stage, they're gonna hit ninety eight rock and
do a little interview maybe before or after, and then
they might go one or two down. But it's only
the new bands that'll go twelve down, fifteen down because
they're looking to promote themselves, right, and so it's a
great opportunity for bands up the companies. Oh we'll do
the whole radio row. It'll happen. So we were second

(57:31):
in line the first year, we were third in line,
the second year, we were fourth in line the fifth day,
and then the last year we were the last people
in line. And what was in front of us now podcasts, YouTube, Spotify,
and I remember saying like, oh okay, if I ever
heard that was the year after when Jay told me
to start a podcast with him. That year I hosted that,

(57:53):
I'm like, oh okay, this is a thing now and
I need to look. I need to take it seriously
because we were literally the last We didn't lose any
less audience. It just was radio was becoming less relevant,
especially syndicated it. So we just that was my eye
opening weekend when we were literally the last stop on
that Radio Row tour. That's amazing, you know.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
That's why I have one of my shows called Podcasters
ro because of the whole idea of Radio Row that
I want to be one of those people. I don't
care where I am, just give me a spot. And
the thing is too that you know, I this is
a great point too when it comes to guests, and
I make this point as well as that Give me
any guests and I'll get a great interview out of them.
That's the other thing too that I don't I had
to be people that are coming into podcasting and can

(58:35):
imagine with you a guest digital if you were asking
for a dreamless to guest right off the bat, it's like, listen,
you need to be able to going to just do
good with a guest, whoever it is, make them sound
important and special.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
So for me, I don't worry about that part.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
The thing is I will find something wonderful about these people,
and you know what, most likely they always have something
fast that you're going to go into cause So I mean,
you know, until a couple of weeks ago before I
had you come on, I didn't get a chance to
hear your show.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
I didn't get to hear you in New Jersey on
rocket or the tour bus. I never gonna hear an
of that. I wish I did.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
But the thing was, is that getting to go and
know all this and resetarting going down the line, that's
rabbit hole. Learning about ral Sutton, I was like, okay,
that's the point about having any guests on and making
him sound great and having a great time in the interview.
And I really did have a great time talking to
you other about.

Speaker 3 (59:19):
This, so I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Before we finishing up, that's going to just direct people
the Gas digital dot com Gas at the digital dot
com Gas ten.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
By the way, Gomez and Sutton, it's me and my
business partner Lewis j. Gomez, So it's Gomez and Sutton
and the GAS and we just thought it sounded better
than SAG.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
It sounds that is a very good and now real quick,
you take a minute to go and tell people about
how they should go ahead and sign up.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Be able to go and help out and support what
you're doing. Well. I just think just listen anywhere. You
could follow the SDR show anywhere at the SDR show.
My other podcast is called Good Sugar One Word, which
is a health podcast. We have a store on third
and sixty nine Street. It's all the in those single
use plastics. But you know, I just think you should
listen anywhere you want to listen or watch, whether YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, whatever.

(01:00:03):
If you choose to subscribe because you want to get
access to the shows early in HD commercial free with
the live chat, that's a gas Digital dot com. But
really I want you to be a fan for us.
There's no reason to subscribe unless you're a fan for us.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Also, I saw your own website, I am Ralph Sutton
dot com that shows everything you've done. It's you know,
are quite quite a library of things that can go
to a lot of time because it's been on that
and just work your way through.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Again.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Ralph Sutton for the Gas Diage of Network. Hey, thank
you for being on. I really appreciate the talk and
this was really fun.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Thanks for having me man.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Once again, thanks to Ralph Sutton for being on with
me on the program. There is some news that I
did not get into this week, but I will next
week about Warner Music and Sumo getting together on a deal,
the AI and the Big Regular will combining together on
a part on a deal to go work on licensing.
And there's other stuff coming out there will comes to AI.
We'll probably touch onto that next week, So come back.

(01:00:55):
Remember the content is king, and the control of your content,
it's in your hands.