And Atlanta.

Another body was this covering today at Police Task Force headquarters.

There are twenty seven faces on the wall, murdered, one missing.

We do not know the person or persons whatever responsible.

Therefore, we do not have the moody from Tenderfoot TV and how stiff works in Atlanta.

Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was a fixynor.

Atlanta was unlikely to catch the killer unless he keeps on killing.

This is Atlanta monster.

That's a great crowd.

They're ready.

Uh it's ten pm.

Do you know where your children are?

We have kind of a young audience here.

How many of you remember hearing that as a kid growing up?

And did you know the story behind it?

I know, I for one, kind of felt like it was strange and I didn't really understand, but I knew it was bad, but I didn't know what the true story was behind it.

And as we get in today, I'd love to hear kind of how you came together, um, from your two sides of how stuff works and Tenderfoot TV to bring the story to life.

Well, it actually starts with you, guys, because was it email me first?

Or how that work?

It was it was really weird.

Um, believe it or not, We're in the same building in Atlanta and we didn't know it.

Um, And through some circumstances I found out and I said, hey, I reached out to Paint and said, let's come on down and have coffee and some So Painton and Donald came down, and uh, we just started talking and I said, you know, up and vanishes really great, and I think the next project that we should do together is on this Atlanta child murders case that I was nine ten years old at the time.

Really fascinating, even though I didn't live anywhere near Atlanta.

And they looked at me like, yeah, we talked about that two weeks ago, and uh, and we kind of looked at each other and said, well, then we have to do it.

Yeah.

I mean he did to take it one step, you know, back, one step further.

The reason we were even in the same building is because we're looking for office space.

And then pain was like, I think how stuff works is in the same buildings.

Were like, okay, well that's he was the deal.

Listen the real podcast.

Yeah, yeah, the truth comes out on the tune in stage.

So basically, you were hunting down down right.

So but um, yeah, So you know when we sat down with Jason and he presented the idea of a lot of child murders to us, you know, we had literally just talked about it weeks ago, and it was something that Paine hadn't heard about before.

Um, he wasn't even born when it was happening, when the when the merger were taking place.

Um, I was about four years old, all the way in California, that's two thousand miles away from where those tragedies were.

You know, we're happening.

But I still remember hearing about it, and UM remember those commercials, not not really understanding what's back of those commercials were about, but just growing up being black and um, just having this effect the black community with the black black victims.

Um.

And and eventually they you know, caught a black serial killer.

Um.

It was something that we just I just heard about all the time.

So we're looking for something to do a new podcast before the seconds even up Advantaged and I said, you know, Paint, have you heard this before?

And I sent him and send it to him and he was intrigued, and you know, just went from there and Jason, what was it about?

Working with Payne and Donald that you an aside from them stalking outside your building.

Yeah, I didn't have a choice at that point, you know.

I think, Um, you know, House Works has been doing podcasts for about ten years, you know, and UM, what I appreciate about podcasts, um, and I hope this stay is true, is that there's not kind of a cookie cut cutter template to how things should be done.

And what I really really appreciated about Up and Advantaged is it was there was kind of no rules and so so pain you know, came from filmmaking.

Um, he had definite ideas around kind of what it meant to tell his story.

And I loved, you know, the layered approach to things, using sound, using music for emotion, um, you know, frankly, kind of being fearless about it.

Where, UM, I feel like we don't do that enough in the industry, where let's let's tell a big story, let's talk to everyone that we can and see where it goes, and you might be surprised where that story might end up.

And I think Up and Vantage is a perfect example of if you're persistent and you embed yourself in the community and you talk to people and they just know that you're someone they can talk to.

Things can happen.

And I think, um, that was just really interesting to me and um and and it just speaks to telling big stories.

And I think that this industry is just right for you know, early on it was serial it was s town, etcetera, etcetera.

Think there should be twenty or thirty or forty of these each year where these kind of monumental layered stories with you know, kind of so many twists and turns, but also just the layers of that story are just super interesting to me.

And so I really admired all those qualities.

And I've kind of felt like the combination of our efforts would um would kind of be a power house story if we really put our heads together.

And I think I think we've done that now.

This story in particular, no one was telling.

There haven't been movies, there haven't been kind of the same the There's been some books in writing, but there just hasn't been the same kind of continuous examination that there have been for things like The Zodiac Killer.

How did you feel about that in terms of coming into it and the approach that you took, but also knowing that there was so much hesitation from other people jumping into it.

It really that was one of the main you know, motivations behind us wanting to do it was that Paine never heard of it.

He grew up in Kennesaw.

I was after you know, it happened.

But you know, plenty of people didn't grow up during the era of you know, Zodiac or you know these other serial killers that have been you know ingrained in our mind through TV series and books and all these different um adaptations of movies, but this was something where it was kind of forgotten, and you know, doing some digging within the podcast, it's there's there's a reason why, um.

I think initially, you know, these were all poor black victims and just historically you're not going to get the same attention being poor number one and then being a minority number two.

So that's one of the reasons.

But also, you know, there's a lot of political stuff involved with this um with these murders, and it was something that Atlanta wanted to forget about.

So within the investigation, you know, we um uncovered some of that stuff and just had a better understanding ourselves of why you know, I was hearing about it, but we took it upon our I'll just say, look, if you've never heard about this, it's important and you should know about it.

So we want to just tell that story and read.

The ultimate goal was, look if we can bring the millennial generation who's never heard of it and the black community who's familiar with it, but they're not really um having maybe heard the entire story because there's been so much rumor and um, so many conspiracy theories throughout the years, which happens when you don't have, you know, a platform to tell to speak truth from.

So I wanted to bring these two groups in the middle somewhere to meet and just have a conversation about race, about um, you know, the criminal justice system.

And I think that's what we've been able to do.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, Um, there was a little bit of the perception early on was I don't know.

We we got a lot of comments from people that say, oh, there's no way that Pain couldn't have heard of this case.

No, No, he's just making he's just he's making that up for a story.

And I gotta tell you, Um, the two crowds of people that have actually given us tons of feedback, one has been the people that were alive at the time, and they remembered it, but they didn't really remember it when psychics and all this crazy stuff happened.

And then literally a whole generation of people that says, wait, so twenty eight African American kids were killed and I never knew about this, And I think, you know, pain is a lot like our audience in terms of like, how could such a big tragedy happen?

And there never kind of be a big stage to tell this like some of the other serial killers, um in our history of America.

And that was kind of a surprise for us.

Yeah, I found out pretty quickly the born eight seven there was a lot of people like me, I just turned thirty this year that had never heard of this at all, and um, you know, it's such a big tragedy that affected not only the city of Atlanta but just the whole nation that I found it interesting that there was others out there like myself who had never heard of it.

And that was one of the reasons that I chose to to continue researching this story and to make it into a podcast, and not only researching, by creating and producing it up to the very last minute before published.

So how many people here are caught up?

And are you all waiting to go home tonight for the drop of the final episode.

Well, we have a surprise for you because we have a preview clip of the final episode.

We do.

I'm kidding, we do, we do.

Pay do you mind just setting it up for us?

So this is um Dale Russell.

It's actually a preview for tonight's episode.

There's one episode next week which will be ten, which is the finale.

So it's a nice episode, episode nine.

It's called the Trial, and this is Dale Russell.

He's a Fox five Atlanta reporter and he's talking about during the trial when Wayne blew up on the stand and it kind of changed the trajectory of why or just how he's How he was convicted in the first place is one of the major points.

So this is him talking about it.

They had a breaking They had to show the jury a different sign of Wayne Williams.

They hand to let the jury see that this unassuming guy sitting in front of them had this other sign to his personality, and they got it.

Wayne Williams was not the mild Mannard witness we saw the last two days.

He was irritable, arrogant assistant d A.

Jack Mallard had him right where he wanted him.

He finally broke, and he snapped at the prosecutor.

He called FBI agents goons, didn't answer some of the prosecutor's questions and said his own defense attorney Mary Welcome, forced him to give an interview for money.

You want the real Wayne Williams.

When you got him right here as an observer, he was electric.

Mallard, Mr Williams, you've been eating up all this worldwide publicity, haven't you, Williams, No, I haven't.

I'm tired of sitting here.

You're telling these folks I fit the profile, Mallard.

Wasn't these murders your center stage?

Williams, you must be a cool I distinctly remember writing down I've got it here for you, looking up at somebody I don't remember who, making eye contact and looking at the edge O.

They were like, oh my gosh, here we go, Here we go.

So I think a lot of people are wondering about that first conversation.

How can you talk to us, like how that unfolded with Wayne?

With Wayne, how you felt about that?

Um, it was weird to be honest, Um, it was I think you were in the room, and you were in the room and I was like be quiet, like one of those things.

Um, And I didn't know what to expect.

I was being introduced by Dwayne.

Not to be confused with Wayne and or me pain yes, but um yeah, I was.

I just thought it was super weird.

But um, he was very nice and he was charismatic, and he was easy to I would say, talk to you, but listen to at least.

Um.

It was hard for me to kind of reel in and it's sort of give any direction to the conversation like I usually do in an interview or something.

But UM, yeah, I just found it very interesting.

And it's really it's been the same since then.

It has not wavered at all.

He's He's the same the whole time, which is also very interesting.

So you've never seen that side of him, the getting really agitated, And I haven't know, And I'm just curious, um, in terms of you are you're actively producing the show, as you're talking to him, as people are reaching out to you, how do you balance that kind of following where their story is going, but also needing to lead it and push it it is UM extremely difficult to say the least, actually believe it or not.

This is how difficult it is.

On the way here, I was listening to episode nine on my phone in the elevator to get here, to make sure that there was no mistakes in it.

UM.

And like that clip you heard this morning, I made that this morning actually in Atlanta.

So like, this is not how you should do your podcast at all.

Please don't do this to yourself.

I agree with that, but if you do, call me, I'll try to help you out.

But seriously, it's UM.

It's crazy because it opens the door to so many things because you know, a lot of the findings we have and some revelations coming in episode nine and ten have been because the podcast got so big and allowed for us to find new things, new information, new people.

So in a lot of ways, it's very helpful.

But you still have to build a story arc and and map it all out, and there's so many little technical things that make a podcast good and you still have to do those things and they take a lot of time.

So doing that and talking to Wayne in real time and going here and going there, it's it's very difficult.

You have time for nothing, else.

Um, and I'm sure that's a thank you to Meredith.

You're yes, and if yes, thank you Meredith for putting up with all that.

I was, I was, how many interviews?

Like I look at the dropbox and I see all these interviews, all these files, and I was I was trying to count how many interviews with Wayne or clips?

It's it's thirty forty maybe more.

What is it?

I don't know.

There was so many folders in there that I just made a folder that that's called stuff That's less important, and I started dumping stuff in there that I was like, that's not important, that's not because there was so many folders I couldn't even find like one thing beca.

It's probably as far as Wayne goes, at least thirty plus calls in there, and um, even some as recent as a few days ago.

So it's, uh, we're excited to kind of come to a conclusion.

I know a lot of people are during what they're listening, They're like, what's the point, what are you doing?

Well, the first point was, you know, have you heard this story before?

Do you know all the details to even care about how this could in the first place.

I think that we're there now obviously, and so in episode nine, not to give too much away, we kind of explore, well, why was Wayne convicted in the first place?

He was?

So, what are those bad parts of Wayne William's true or not?

What convinced the jury that he was get t And then from there we kind of end up in this new place for the first time, and we concluded an episode ten.

I want to give too much away, but that's where we are.

I think this room really wants you to give too much away what we want?

Well, what do you mean maybe after the microphones turn off?

Um?

So, I think what what is so wonderful is to see how many people are listening, how many people you have now exposed to this story.

How did you think about the audience that you were trying to reach and how did that guide the decisions you made and either the production or how you released it.

I think the production.

Um, you know, there's there's different sides of this, you know, and such a polarizing case.

Everyone picks aside and they stick to it.

He's guilty of everything, or he's innocent, he did nothing wrong, and you've got to find out how do you find an audience within there that's willing to even hear this story from a neutral perspective, and you know, we get a couple of different things.

I mean, I think pain being the host as someone who didn't experience it growing up as someone who's a different race than the killer and the the convicted killer and the victims automatically opens it up.

So it's bigger than just a black story, because I think it's important that everyone knows the story, not just one race or another.

It's it's the tragedy that you know needs to be exposed so and itself.

How we were able to do it, I think UM brought in a more broad audience and then even from a from a marketing perspective, UM you know, we wanted to reach people who weren't traditional podcast listeners.

You know, we did billboards in Atlanta, we did trailers, you know, visual trailers before we ran UM TV commercials of that trailer on TV one, just targeting a you know, forty and up urban audience.

So you know, we had to identify who we wanted to listen to this and it was you know, we kind of knew what that was, but we knew we had to figure out how to actually go get them.

So we you know, we did some things that most people don't do when when in podcast promotion.

So I think I think it worked and I think it left an impression in Atlanta.

We knew that the people in Atlanta have heard this story, but they, you know, were intrigued in too interested in it.

So the billboard just had the mug shot that if you were around, you remembered that mug shot, and that's what the cover is.

So when when that was upon billboards, so many people have come to me and said, oh, yeah, I saw this on Spring Street or on Ponce and it intrigued them to usually hadn't listened, it was on their mind to go and listen.

And those and those billboards were right in the same parts where actually a lot of these kids were found.

Um where we're in in the Atlanta where in midtown Atlanta, um and kind of in a what two to five mile radius is where most of those kids first started disappearing.

And it's it's very humbling when you hear a clip about someone who called into a pastor.

I think it was episode or episode episode two or three, and I'm talking about Ponce daileone Avenue We're like, that's our address.

The guy was down the street at a bar when he called, and it's just it really brings it home.

UM.

I love what Donald said about bringing in new listeners.

Um.

Every part of what we did we wanted to kind of do something big and different.

So it wasn't just the story.

It was we actually hired an actor and shot some scenes.

We did, uh throwing a um what's his name?

What was the name of the body, rescue Randy, rescue Randy over the bridge, and just trying to kind of, um, just do things differently.

We dropped four audio trailers or teasers before to build up interest, so kind of UM, build that buzz, and I think it actually drove people nuts because they couldn't stand it anymore.

And then UM and four video video trailers that would play out in different mediums and kind of educate people.

And if they saw it, they would say, wait, what what was that?

Like There's shots of UM pulling kids out of a river and a little boy that's scared of going outside at night, and it just it instantly makes you think, I don't know what this is, but I have to listen to this right now.

And so UM that was a combination of having audio teams, video teams, archives, the whole thing to tell a big story.

And and that's just going big.

Yeah.

A lot of people thought it was a you know, television series or something because it was high quality of visuals and re enactments that we use.

And when you see it on TV or you see it on the internet and it looks like it looks good, we don't want them to think of it as a podcast.

So I don't know what that is or you know, I don't listen to podcasts.

We want to be good enough to where you'll go anywhere to find it.

And I think, you know, um, I think we did.

We did that, and I think it's still growing and kind of we want to just set the bar for like how you promote important projects and podcasts.

They're they're growing there.

You know, they're big and they should be treated as such, you know what I mean with the marketing and you know, just a little more innovation from the promotions and marketing side.

Now you mentioned archives.

Jason and I have a shared love of American history and primary source materials.

Um, I'd love for you to talk about how much that influenced the story and I think a big thank you has to go out to the archivists who kept all this material for you to then dig through.

It is Jason's expertise here, it's it's it's interesting backstory.

So, um, the University of Georgia has been holding onto ws TVs video archives.

It's down in a vault in a basement in University of Georgia, which is what about an hour or so outside of Atlanta and Athens, Georgia.

And uh, they've just had all these original they were video clips and they have a series of researchers and archivists that we're waiting one day for someone to show up and want to tap into this and it was us, And um, I just I think it adds again that layer to the story that is interesting.

It also it's jarring when you hear um people talking about so and so identified themselves as a homosexual and and it's just not the way we talk anymore.

And this was this wasn't kind of you know, Joe, average person on the street.

This is actually the news media reporting on these things.

And it's just I think hearing stories told differently, um using that that archive material, but also to kind of move the story forward in an emotional way.

I think it's really interesting, but pain can speak to this.

We didn't just want this to be a history lesson or a History channel type experience.

It needed to go deeper than that, and so the the archive footage was always meant to help move the story forward, but not be the story itself.

You think.

One just interesting tidbit about the archives that you guys might find interesting is that, like each clip you hear is thirty seconds or sixty seconds of a clip that's like an hour long, and then there's literally several thousand clips.

And so they went through and tagged all the clips by name and number with time codes and kind of described what was being talked about.

But so in between there you have all this other bizarre stuff from the eighties and it's actually some of its hilarious, just actually looking back and seeing just society in nineteen age.

Yes, yes, bizarre things from the eighties, so that now we just have to talk about it.

We weren't going to talk about it, but now we have to talk about it.

Jason's US Weekly Magazine another obsession.

I'm a history major, so I get into this stuff.

I mean, and I talked about this on our special episode called The Vault, which is the fact that um Wayne was just all over the media and kind of attached to this, and he did an interview with US Weekly with just kind of this salacious um dramatic magazine.

And I got obsessed trying to find this, and so I searched the internet.

It wasn't anywhere.

I found it on eBay, ordered it and got kind of to pristine copies of the two editions, and there was and it was kind of positioned next to old cigarette ads and liquor ads and and kind of all the stuff, and I just I still, I look at it and I can't get my can't get my arms around it and understand it.

But it is another crazy layer to this case, for sure.

And I borrowed it from you and you text me was like do you still have the magazine?

I was like, yeah, still, okay, could you bring it to me when you're done.

It's like, yeah, sure, that's fine, So full disclosure.

I asked Jason to bring it today.

I think he was afraid to have it leave his office.

It's it's probably on his desk in a case.

You brought it in your pocket so actually what that what that brings us to is how how are you balancing then the first person because I think to your point, Jason, you didn't want this to feel like a history lesson and you really went out and drove around the neighborhoods where this, where this happened.

How did you balance those two of the archival and then um first person interviews?

Well, to me that the history element of this is actually the most important part of it.

But me as a listener thinking objectively about this project, that would be boring to me.

And so I wanted to bring new information and mesh the two together and tell a different story than just me playing archive clips for you and playing interviews of people just recounting what happened one time.

UM, I wanted to bring in new information, explore theories, but also stay true to the archives and everything else and all the racial bar bifurcations that are just so prevalent in the story and UM, just tell it the right way.

And to me, that was sticking true to the history of it, because the history is important, but also bringing new information to the table.

And what did you feel like you UM wanted to tell so far that you haven't been able to because you have done some of the extra episodes where you've delved into the side stories.

Is there anyone, any story is still nagging at you?

Um, it's it's hard to say.

I mean, there's this story is so complex and there's so much you could tell.

You could make a hundred podcasts on this, but UM, to me, the biggest thing and it's I want to just tell people so badly like what I'm thinking sometimes, but this is not really the place to do that.

Um.

There's also what I sayings too, were just listen to the end, you know, listen one through ten and then come talk to me.

And so like week by week, I'm like, just you just don't know what you don't know yet.

So like that kind of stuff is, why isn't he talking about this?

Lane's got him?

Yeah, exactly.

Stuff like that.

We also can't really say, like from tell people what we think or Pain can't just weighing on an opinion because the next week he might feel differently.

And we've changed positions on this thing several times.

And we have a conversation, you know, internally with our production staff with Pain, and from week to week, you know, we we might feel feel differently.

So it's important that even for us that you know, we're waiting to the end and we say, Okay, we've digested all this, we know you know what was left out, we know what we've covered in the podcast, and you know, how do we feel about this?

And but yeah, you have to wait till the end to really form an opinion.

Yeah.

And part of that too is, UM, I think I'm not spoiling anything when I say, um, we you know, pain is not saying this is how I feel and this is how you should feel.

Part of this is all of us should be listening to this and going through a lot of those same emotions and maybe thinking, well, you know, um, what is my bias?

And why am I thinking this?

Is it because I'm white?

Is it because I'm black?

Is it because I grew up in Atlanta?

Is it because um I was um of of age at the time and I remember that, or maybe I don't know anything about it, and and I think, um, you know, one of the things that we want to leave with um anyone that's listened is how do I make up my own mind?

But why am I making my mind up in a certain way?

What is my bias.

What have I collected here?

And you may not have a clear answer, And and that's okay too.

Yeah, I think that's great as a as a listener, it's it's almost a relief to hear you say this, because I certainly from week over a week would feel one way and then listen to the next episode and feel the other way.

And sometimes would hear Wayne and as he's going down kind of his pathways, of the conversations you're having with him, just even in that moment listening to him would change my my perception of him.

But you can't forget either.

I can't tell you how to feel about something.

And a lot of the way I presented this was you tell me what you think about Episode five, Wayne's World.

Wayne talking to me.

I'm not gonna tell what I think.

You tell me what you think.

You know, I'm gonna put it out there.

I'm not gonna influence you at all.

I'm gonna make sure it's all there and the important parts are highlighted.

But that's kind of what this is in a lot of ways, is what did you get from this?

And you'll see very quickly this is why it's so complicated, so why people still talk about this.

I definitely think that's why it's so compelling as a listen because you you do have to think through that, and you're pushing us as listeners to get to that point.

Um.

I know that you've got in some some heat for saying you're not a podcaster, um, but I'd love to hear you kind of talk about that and how that impacts your storytelling.

What does that mean to you?

And is it this being able to say I'm just gonna put something out there and let the audience react as they see fit.

Yeah, I said I'm not a podcaster one time, and people got mad about that.

But what I actually meant, if you heard, um, was it podcast movement?

The little thing I said, basically it was, is that I was scared to make podcasts before I made a podcast because I didn't think that I fit in and I still don't fit in that well.

But it turns out that doesn't matter, actually, And that was the whole point.

It's not that I don't like podcasters.

If I didn't like podcasters and me and Jason went me friends, but like, seriously, it's to me, it's just the whole labeling of things people you know have a problem with like when you're doing a podcast, well, what are you?

You filmmaker?

You have made a film.

It's like, why do I have to be labeled something?

And I kind of just like tell stories and do stuff in two years if I'm doing something wildly different, am I still what I am today?

Or am I just the same person?

I'm just growing.

So I just don't like the label thing very much.

And the podcast label really, in all, honestly almost deterred me from making a podcast.

I did not think that I I fit in.

I just that was not my thing.

So why would I be good at that?

Why would people listen to that?

And really, like, genuinely I almost didn't do it because of just that and not look back like, wow, that would have been really stupid if that's why I didn't do it.

So I just choose to tell that story that way.

So yeah, I'm still on a podcast.

When people ask and I alsot it's steams from up and vantaged episode one where you know, we kind of just disarmed the listener by saying, look, I'm I'm paint Lendsy.

I'm doing this podcast, but beware, I'm not a podcaster.

I'm not a journalist, I'm not an attorney.

I'm just really not qualified to be doing this.

So, you know what a judgment too hard And that's where you know, that's what sparked it.

So, I mean, it wasn't made a statement.

It was like to the podcast world.

It was to the five thousand listeners of Up and Vantished Episode one, and it just became, you know, it just steamrolled in this bigger thing.

And to be honest, you know when we first, you know, we we know each other through the music industry, and um, we're both burnt out of you know, being in the music industry and just the monotony of you know, what we're doing, and you know, pain and say look I want to do something on the TV and film space.

I said, look, I'm I'm down.

Let me know what I can do to hell.

So Up and Vanished The Disappearance of Terry Grinstead was supposed to be a documentary, and then when we realized that it costs too much money for us to to do a documentary by ourselves, he decided, let's make this a podcast and stay.

So the entire idea of us getting into a new field and doing some storytelling was about film and TV, not about podcasting.

So I think that's another, you know, the reason why he described himself that way.

And I think this comes back to Jason.

You're saying just looking for the big stories and really being able to jump into those and and tell those and whatever medium it is.

Yeah, I was saying this yesterday on the panel, Um that it was a part of I think I got this right.

But I think it's been forty three days since Cyrial launched.

You've been counting every day or I did my homework before I came here.

Um, it's on the desk with the US week and uh, I mean total props to that show.

Um, it continues to be in the top twenty or top thirty on Apple podcasts every single week.

And so when you look at this in a positive way, you'd say, you know, while that really is the starter kit for anyone that is new to pot cast, this is I think everyone's gone through that right.

Oh my gosh, Serriel, you have to listen to serial now.

It's Cereal and s Town and and I think that's been great to kind of get people in the door.

But I think we need to tell bigger stories and kind of the idea around Atlanta Monster was how does Tenderfoot and House to Works kind of come together as as uh, cool credible storytellers with different expertises and different voices and different disciplines and and kind of elevate um in our own way, UM one story that might be bigger and and do things creatively.

And we're starting to see more people kind of getting out there and and I look at the industry and I want to see more, and I think listeners do too.

I think they're hungry for more, and we need to give them more.

Um.

That's why everyone's talking about Atlanta Monster.

Not I'm not trying to kind of say that we're awesome and we're promoting ourselves, but we I think we fed them something they really wanted.

I say, you're awesome, what's up?

Thank you?

That's nice.

So I'm actually hearing um.

A lot of people say that Up and Vanished has now been their first podcast that they hear about a podcast.

And I feel like for a lot of people, Cereal was that that starter kit.

But now I'm hearing Up and Vanished.

How do you feel about that?

That's pretty cool because Cereal is why I made a podcast, basically because I would not have known what podcasting was if my friend didn't say, hey, I ever heard of Cereal?

I was like, no, what's that?

And then I started listening to Cereal.

And then so when I went to go make this uh up and Vantaged documentary which is gonna be a TV series, at first, um, I was like, well I really liked Cereal.

Someone to go look for other true kind podcasts to kind of see how it was made or what was out there, and I decided that I should make one.

Don't Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest compliment to me is when someone says, look, you you brought me into this new space.

Never listened to a podcast before, because I hadn't listened to a podcast until Up and Vantage episode one.

That's the first podcast I ever listened to.

And then Pain was like, um, probably right about right, maybe a day before yeah, I mean probably yeah, yeah, but you know.

And then the first thing Pain told me was, look, if we're gonna do this and do it right, go you gotta go listen to Cereal.

And so the second podcast, let's do with Cereal.

And then when it started to blow up, we said, okay, look we now have a podcast business.

So then I listened to Startup, which was a cheat sheet for how we're gonna start up our own, you know, podcasting company.

So you know, this just goes to show you could have not not be a podcast listener.

I never have made a podcast before.

And you know, it's all about the storytelling and trying to tackle big stories and and just telling them in a way that's that's compelling to the listener.

And I think you shouldn't shy away from controversial stories, you know, stories where you know they're gonna be polarizing to listener.

You you have to really tell the big stories and and and it intreagues people and brings them in when they feel like this is something that I can't talk to everyone about.

Guess what podcasting really is.

It's you and you're earbuds.

You know, it's a private experience, and you want to try to bring that out to the larger community, and people obsess over they want to talk to their friends about it.

All right, you listen to up Advantage, You're listening to a lot of monsters, So that's what we want to hear that.

You know, Hey, I never listened to this, but it was so good, and I heard about it so much that I wanted to come into the podcast under the podcasting tent just to listen to your podcast.

So yeah, that's what I love about audio.

It's it can go from being that really personal, intimate experience to them that very shared community.

Exactly that when you find someone else that's listening to the show that you love, you just cannot wait to talk to them about it.

How do you build that connection with your audience.

It's it's hard to say exactly because I'm on the other end of it.

I don't have the same experience as you have.

Sometimes I wish I had that experience with this show or whatever show I'm working on, because you know, you hear it so much.

It's not they're the same anymore.

All the material is just not the same.

Um to me, it's like who in here makes a podcasts or wants to anyone in here trying to do that?

Okay, that's pretty good amount.

When we say like good storytelling, do you even know we're talking about?

I would be like, what are you talking about?

Like you know what I mean?

Um, I think that a good podcast, at least the kind that we've been making it's not just telling a good overall story, it's the very tiny little things the matter.

It's like, for example, I'm taking the ums out of someone talking, just making the listening experience clean, and you begin you begin to depend on it, and you don't even know what those things actually are anymore.

You might listen to another podcast like, I don't know, I don't like it as much, but I don't really know why.

It's those little things.

So we're always focusing on those details.

We're trying to make it sound good.

We're we're also we're trying tell a big story and to tell it right, but we're also focusing just as much on making something sound good.

So like, if you want to make your own podcast, you know, that's really what you should focus on.

To be honest.

If you have good content and you're trying your hardest and it sounds good, then it's gonna be good.

People are gonna like it.

Yeah, And I think, um, I love um the kind of backstory on the use of music in the in the podcast to um and that's highly underrated as a as a mechanism for for driving emotion and podcasts.

And uh, I mean I love how this kind of got cranking.

I got got cranking as we as we.

I want this eighties music throughout the whole thing.

And I found this guy on Spotify.

His name is Makeup and Vandy Set.

It's just one guy.

I thought it was this big group of people who know its just a guy in his laptop.

He's awesome.

Um.

But I called him up also, like, hey, would you be interested in basically scoring this podcast?

And he had never listened to a podcast either.

Then he listened to Up and Up and Vanished and was like, I totally get it now, and he just progressed as every episode has gone by making amazing music.

To me, I like that.

I like being submerged in a sequence and just sort of being there in the moment.

Some people don't like the music.

I kind of like it, so that's why you always hear it that way.

But you know, make what you like and just making your best that's pretty much it.

How much of that is an influence from your music background, I don't know.

I think it's just kind of to me.

I always sort of thought podcasts were kind of boring.

Um.

I didn't really listen to talk radio that much, so I didn't really kind of get into that.

So when I first made up and vanished, I was trying to make something that I thought was compelling, what would suck me in, And so I had this sort of these music beds in the background and just sort of setting the scene and making this tone that really grabs you.

So it comes from that really, to be honest, yeah, I'd agree.

I mean, paintings, music, background goes it goes back a long way.

So he understands, you know, production, He understands the timing, even when it comes to how interviews are edited, and you know how that one second pause or you know, those things make a big difference.

Things are huge.

Yeah, So if you don't know why you like one one podcast more than another has a lot to do with the editing, the production.

I think also, you know, the music, like we talked about, but I think the relatability of the host plays a huge part in it, because you could listen to a really great story or you know, interesting story, but the person who's delivering that story is just the language they speak, isn't the language that you're understanding how they phrase things.

I feel like when I started listening to podcasts and I felt like, is the host just trying to show me how smart they are by the way they're trying to tell the story.

I just want to hear a good story.

It doesn't have to be told from the perspective or from you know you.

You spent you know, days and weeks writing this one part to see let me let me, you know, go in the saurus and figure out a better word to say here that makes me sound even smarter.

It's like, just just tell me your story so I can relate to it.

And and those are the things that you know, you like, why do I like this and not that one?

Both could be good stories, but how is it relating to you?

With pain, he's he's like the audience when it comes to like, oh, I might go and knock on the door just like that.

But the journalists or the attorney might not take that approach.

They might say, oh, that's that's not the way we would do it by the book.

But pain is like, Okay, let me call this guy up, let me recordious call you know, so as things that we would just all do as a listener if we were hosting our own podcast.

I think that's a huge part of it.

So you're saying that I should buy a thesaurus.

Basically, yeah, definitely got it.

I was just gonna say, there's there's a clip at the beginning I think is it episode five, and it's a really frustrating to three minute um interlude of all the things you had to go through to actually connect with Wayne on the call.

And you know, some people are like, oh, how could you do that?

That is yeah, you're like, okay, well it's a little long, but you're like, I knew that.

But actually, to be honest, the whole thing took about fifteen minutes.

And that was about two and a half minutes.

I kept treating a DOWNSA, this is a little too long.

About wanted you to be like, good greed, this is ridiculous.

You'll hear that confirmation number.

I was like, this is that is That's the longest number I've ever been read.

Someone has to hear this.

It reminded me of the old dial up days when you're waiting for the modem.

Exactly this is what you have to do.

I thought I was intriguing.

I was like, this is what everyone does when they talk to someone in ja illness is insane.

Yeah, and then I mean not to get too intellectual about it, but um, like, wow, the prison system and everything about this bureaucratic nightmare is broken.

Um, and look what you have to do to just talk to someone.

And I just just putting it out there for people who observe and frankly get a little frustrated themselves as they listen to.

That's the whole put you there, that's the whole point.

So you did go and knock on doors and show up at people's houses.

How did you build the report to get them to talk to you?

To be honest, I didn't really have one.

I didn't think I did at least I just just called people and said, hey, you don't know me, I want to talk basically, But no, I mean, to be honest, it's a very tragic story.

So depend on who you're talking to.

You're always sensitive to who this person is and how they're related to this case and this story.

You can't ever forget that.

It's the most important part of this.

So if you're always keeping that in mind, and you're trying to be a people person and just find a way to relate to somebody, then most of the time it works.

Yeah.

I mean, don't let your own voice get in the way of someone being able to tell you a story.

And I think especially if you if you listen to episode one, I think you're barely in that episode, and it's it's because that was intentional.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's I've seen some press on this where yes, we talked to FBI agents and a p D officers and television anchors, but actually just talking and of course um you know, um families, um, of the victims and such, but also just people who grow up at that time and listening to those people.

I think it's just super important, and it's just you know, hey, I grew up in this neighborhood and this is how I felt and then.

And they don't have to be anyone that is of a high position in the city or or we're involved in the case.

We just want to know how you feel.

That's super important to just listen every single interview.

You hear every single one.

Meredith and I are both there in person for every single one of them, and I often intentionally just remove myself from it.

So this person is telling their story, it's not my story, and I just think it sounds better that way.

It's more natural.

Um, you know, I'm not trying to be a part of the conversation with them.

I don't know anything about what they're telling me.

You know, I'm hearing it for the first time, like you guys are as they're telling me.

So I'm not trying to, you know, broadcast a conversation with somebody.

I'm trying to ask the right questions so they can kind of take the stage themselves.

And then what's your process of putting it together?

Because now you were there for it, hearing it the first time, and then obviously when you're adding it, you're hearing it over and over again.

How do you not get too close and actually kind of bring yourself back to that moment of hearing it for the first time.

Um, as you're listening to it, as you do the interview, you kind of go, oh, yep, that's a that's pretty important, or that's a good part, or that's a really interesting lot line that has to go in there.

So stuff like that.

You kind of just trying to remember that or take notes.

But then when it comes down to the interview, you have to kind of go back and forth.

When you're editing from going from thinking super objectively and like broad about it and then being very hyper focused on one little thing about the way this actually sounds, not what the word means, but does this sound funky?

Is this sound okay?

And then you know, does this story chronologically makes sense?

And then should I interject myself here and give a little further explanation on that or should I just you know, put this here so it makes sense to come right after that?

And the goal for me is to the less narration that's needed, the better podcast edit it is.

If it can go five minutes without me talking, that means that it all made enough sense for you to sit back and hear people just talking and you know what's going on.

I think that's pretty hard to do.

So if you can do that, you're doing a pretty good job.

Yeah you're great, Yes, okay, Donalds are great.

That's good.

Yeah, that's that's sauces right there, and the and the edit and in not getting in your own way.

You know, the worst thing you can do is over talk if you're interviewing someone, because they could be about to say something great and then here you come bumbling all over the place and interjecting what you want them to say.

Are trying to get to the point fashion than that they you know, than the pace that they're going to get to it eventually.

At so I think, yeah, just sitting back and letting people talk and then you know, being able to pull those little things out, that's what You'll have a questions sometimes and I'll just sit there five seconds of like awkward silence with somebody and I'm just like, and they're like they always talk, so and they just start filling the air with something because they feel obligated to you know what I mean.

It's like it felt weird to me at first, just kind of just you know someone's gonna eventually start of talking about Like it's not like a standoff.

It's more like a you know, I'm not I'll just be waiting a little bit longer than someone else might be waiting, and then before I'm about to talk, they start talking.

It's actually a great negotiation tactic, just so you know myself, you can save that for later, because it's not as easy as it sounds like.

I do some like pre interviews where I'll just record a conversation with someone to see what are they gonna give us if if pain is gonna you know, talk to them or not so I try to hear kind of what they've done in their interviews and mimic that strategy.

And it's really not easy because you get into it.

You want them to tell you what's next.

Want a conversational.

You don't want to sit there and just not say anything.

They're like, are you there are things?

Okay?

You want to be engaged enough and just find a little moments like yeah, just like be there with them in the conversation, but not talk over them or steer it too much.

It just takes practice pretty much.

And I was gonna say, you know, part of um um how stuff works and tenderfoot working together.

I think our approach with creators is to kind of let them have the floor and let it let them do get their way and so um it gets a little hairy at the end as we're trying to put an episode to bed and all that stuff.

And that's absolutely okay, um, But I just I don't, like I was talking about earlier about like there being a template for how you do a show.

The last thing that we want to do is tell Pain and Meredith and Donald like, this is the way you need to do the show, because this is the way that House to Works has always done that show.

And so it doesn't mean that we don't add, you know, certain riggers and discipline about production and research and kind of all that stuff.

That's why we're working together.

But I stand firm and saying like we need to let creators tell their story and every one of them can be completely different and have different personalities, and and that the whole thing, and that's the whole point is like really letting them run.

So episode nine tonight, Episode ten, which is the final episode, how do you feel about it wrapping?

Now?

Wow, I need to go to the beach or something.

Um.

I feel it's been like the longest feeling ten weeks ever.

Um, I don't even know how I feel about it.

To be honest, I'm still will like in it right now, so I don't really even know.

But um, I'm I'm happy that people have liked this podcast and have learned a lot.

And um, I was pretty nervous about this project because I knew it was big, and I thought that it was another thing that it was just too big for me.

I thought that maybe I'm not the right guy for this.

You know, I actually thought those things before I did it.

But UM, you know, I put a lot of effort into doing it the right way and I think in a lot of ways it paid off.

So UM, you know, I'm I'm proud of it.

I think that the team House of Works, Donald Meredith, everyone in the House of Works did a great job.

And UM, you know, I'm excited to see what comes next.

I'm also excited to have a complete project out there one through tin and so you know, we can with every listener I meet, I can have a full conversation about the whole thing.

That's great.

Yeah, and now it's time to um actually talk to some of your listeners and open things that and a question in the back.

Hi, my name is Amila from Tokyo.

I don't know you said, uh, it's just the story.

But what percentage is funct and what percentage fish?

And do you think and oh how do you uh making effort to uh uh two take a fucked mhm.

Um.

So All Up and Vanished and Atlanta Monster are both factual podcasts.

I've never made anything up for stage anything or anything like that.

UM, so all the stuff you're hearing is is legit and real.

Um.

I like to take these real life moments and build them up to give you the same link that I felt when when it was happening to me or anyone else on our team who was telling the story, or when we're going back in time to recreate a moment that happens somewhere else.

So, UM, you know, it's all factual stuff, and you know we're proud of that, and you know just what happens that with both podcasts.

Now we've dug up some crazy stories and UM, we just choose to present them the way we do.

So sometimes you might think this that this isn't real, but it is so.

And there's another point of that, which is, um, you know, oh my gosh, down the conspiracy rat, you know, rabbit hole here.

I have to tell you that most of the stories that we are actually putting out there, and even some of the stories you haven't heard, they've been talked about for thirty or forty years and we're presenting them back to the listeners.

So this is actually why this case continues to be so confusing and I think, um so divided is the fact that these theories, whether they were put out there by Wayne, whether other people in the kind of the connected universe of this case, the whole point is to actually say, listen, people have been talking about all these little elements for years, and here they are.

Here they are, and again, make up your mind.

That is not us with an agenda trying to push conspiracies.

It is us actually pushing those whatever you want to call them, up to the surface and presenting them to you the listeners.

Also on the conspiracy Um conversation, I think we're not just pushing like a crack pot conspiracy theory that one guy thought up.

If it's crack pot, millions of people actually believe that, so it would be it wouldn't be authentic if we didn't present like crazy things that millions of people believe.

So we're we're not pushing those but it's you know, it's our duty to kind of tell the truth about all these different opinions and what people actually believe, and then try to break down, Okay, why does this person think that way?

I think that's what hopefully we've been able to do that to the podcast, where if you hear something this sounds crazy, we present what drove that person?

Are these millions of people to think this way?

Hi, I'm all a long time?

How stuff works listener.

Um, there's a ton of new podcasts from House Touff Works right now, a lot of different, uh than what they were before.

Is like ethnically ambiguous culture kings that sort of thing.

I was wondering if you to talk about like the impetus or reasons why how stuff works sort of decided to diversify a lot more.

That's a great question.

Thanks for being a supporter.

I would say, Um, you know, we've we actually as a come.

I won't bore you with the business details, but we had the ability to to raise some money that allows that podcast business to be its own standalone business.

And frankly, a lot of our creative ambitions cannot be realized.

And so I think at last content we we saw something around thirty new shows in some level of production where we only had about twelve the fifteen shows total over the years.

And so you are north Star has always been around curiosity and that will continue to be our core focus.

But we're also just podcast fans too, and um, we want to Um, we want to cover lots of things like comedy and true crime and kind of fill those gaps.

Um, we're gonna get into some fiction.

We're gonna get into to some health and wellness and some other big categories UM.

And we just also just didn't want it to be you know, UM just the same UM voices.

We I think if you look at UM a snapshot of our employees, UM, they're starting to reflect the kind of shows that we have to.

So we want more women, we want different types of UM UM across the board with diversity.

And I think there's a hung or across each of those UM those groups for more programming like this.

So you're gonna you're gonna see a lot more from us this year, and we're really excited about it.

Are they all moving into your building?

No?

I mean part of this is, UM, you know, we're not going to be able to do every bit of this ourselves, and so we really want to work with the best creators out there.

And I think you know, Painton Donald and Meredith and the Tenderfoot team is really UM got us thinking about, UM, how do how do we how do we do our own stuff?

But then how do we also UM tell stories that we could never naturally do by ourselves and and kind of go in places that we've never been.

We had never done a true crime anything until this, it was a lot of shows that you guys are familiar with, and it was new to us and a little bit daunting.

And for one last question.

Hi, my name is Lisa Paint.

I know you're trying to go to the beach, but I'm wondering what's next and how often you get approached by people with ideas and how you decide you know what your next project is going to be.

Well, what's next is up in Advantage season two before anything else, which will be a new case and I've chose that.

I've chosen the case and it's not in Georgia, so I can say about it now, but it's gonna come out um summer, like late midsummer, So that'll be the first thing up.

We're also working on up in Advantage, the TV series on Oxygen, which we're UM really foreign development on and we'll be shooting some stuff in a couple of months and so hopefully that'll come out within the year, and also some stuff with a Letta Monster as far as UM possibly doing some visual stuff for that as well, and then they'll eventually be another podcast UM from me Tenderfoot UM in the same vein as these possibly UM there's also other arenas I want to jump into it, or other genres as just say uh.

In the podcast world, I want to jump into some being fiction as well.

Um So, I don't really know what that other project is that you're talking about, but I do have some awesome ideas and it's it's it's brewings right now.

So pop, that answered your question.

Great well, thank you, Thank you Payne.

I know you've been traveling and trying to finish the last episode, so we really appreciate you being here.

It's done, done, one am tonight.

Jason on the way out to get us phone because it's on there.

Thank you, Jason, this guy, thank you.

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