Graham Brown: Welcome to The Age Of Audio my name is Graham Brown from the award-winning podcast agency Pikkal & Co. The age of audio is a series of conversations with thought leaders and change makers in the world of audio that's podcasts, radio, and social. Converging with big data to create engaging and authentic content for a new generation of listeners.
I'm really fascinated by not only your adventurous, but your documentary work you've had and in a true sort of radio, not journalism, but radio documentaries. I know you did the travel one not travelled, but Greece spent some time doing that and then interviewing people like, so David where should we start?
Let's dive into that. Maybe you can describe a little bit about your audio narrative work, and then we can dive into that. So what was probably the big piece of work that you did ?
Will Hood: There's been many pieces which have, I would call large pieces, but the ones that you're referring to was a podcast series called The Glass Bead Game, which I basically made for the University of Sussex for the school of global studies which as a blanket term, you could say that's anthropology. I'm sure that there's a lot of academics that would argue that they're not anthropologists. So there are a lot of these words that are weighted and sensitive, however the idea was to create a popular platform for academics to share their work with a wider audience.
And I had actually gone back to the university, which you've had some experience of, The University of Sussex. Just as a, I need to exercise my brain a little bit more. I had done a masters in anthropology and social anthropology, and I just kept on meeting these lecturers that thought would be great in a documentary on this subject or on that subject. And I'd been working and still was at that time in a documentary film. And so to me, it was the most natural leak to talk to these guys about their subjects. The attraction of it being audio, as opposed to a huge film project, which I pulled my blood, sweat and tears into previously was just that it was so much more doable. Right? I didn't have to raise 50 grand to even start the whole process. I could just start having conversations with people. As for the travel aspect of it, I think I made 11 episodes that one never got released because the material was considered too sensitive, but that was 10 different countries in it. So it became a real global tour. And I didn't go to all of them. Some of them, I knew people there, or I knew people were going out there, but there was a huge amount of travel. There was Kenya, Greece. I had some great time in British Columbia for the Canadian piece, which was tied in with the David Attenborough climate change. The other part of that was The Paris cop 21 agreement, the big one with the bomber where they were going to change the world. There was also that there was quite a few as China which is gay rights in China and one day I was particularly pleased with which was surveillance, the subject of surveillance and privacy interviewing an ex Staci in Berlin and I just loved the offset of of Berlin now being this ultimate kind of Bohemian of homeless, like symbolism of freedom and trustafarians were credit cards. Yeah, it has this backdrop of this, heavily political subject of your privacy is not your own. So anyway, big subjects, big unsolvable subjects. That was part of the brief, I suppose,
Graham Brown: Tell me about Berlin. I love Berlin as a city and the history and the wall and walking around the wall and the murals and so on.
Will Hood: Yeah, for sure. I had a friend that had moved out there a couple of years earlier and I don't know if this is the same with you. I think doing this job, there's always part storyteller, part Voya so, I'm always trying to get a hold on what's going on in other people's lives and the interesting things happening. So this couple friend of mine had moved out to Berlin. The girl Zoe was saying, I've started working with this guy whose grandfather was a Staci officer. When I go out and visit them, they are having the time of their lives out there. They've recently moved to Hamburg, I think, to just dial it back a notch, but they were having a real head on a stick time. But here was this young man. He must've been about 24 or so Martin, whose grandfather was a Staci officer.
So straightaway that's super interesting. And it was just around the time that Edward Snowden had basically blown the whistle figuratively on the whole NSA thing. So that I think like a month before, so that subject was in the culture in a big way. And so I thought, yeah, let's explore this. So she actually did a lot of the leg work. That was a case where I basically had her make relationships with this family and then she went for dinner with them, which was amazing. So the tapes from that and we scripted the questions, but his basic line is this Staci officer and do with this information, what you will. Who is pretty sure that the starci weren't that bad. They were no worse that they'd been painted as these monsters of history. But in actual fact, the best way to get information out of people is not to physically abuse them, but is to use the same kind of conversational techniques that any other powers would use.
So all of that is pretty crazy.
Graham Brown: Normalising it. Well
Will Hood: Yeah, obviously there's a huge negative notorious reputation to overcome, but I offset that with an interview with the head of psychology at Sussex who was not having any of that at all. The starci were bad people, so it's interesting how even within that was higher realms of thoughts, which universities hope to be some discussions, with just instantly taboo. To be fair to him, it wasn't like he was a history professional, he was all about psychology, but he had worked for airport security scanning people, as they walked through security. It was basically his thing, what they had been using was this suspicious behaviour routine, which is you look for people that are excessively scratching their nose or [inaudible]. It was actually his whole thing was you need to have this kind of open dialogue of conversation and you can tell whether somebody is fabricating a backstory or not.
Graham Brown: This is a good book actually I don't know if you've read it: Talking to strangers or Talking with strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. It focuses a lot on how we misread people. We have a lot of biases inherent when we interview people. A lot of those are reflected back on us. That actually we're generally people who are good at reading good people but bad at reading bad people. Because that makes us as a species survive. We genuinely trust the people because if we were very distrustful, we wouldn't function. You know, that's why you get those holy full type characters that would Oh no, you can't listen to this guy who calls it out for what it is, but fascinating.
Will Hood: I think that is fascinating, yeah.
Graham Brown: Today is about David Attenborough.
Will Hood: David Attenborough. So David Attenborough The man, The myth, The legend.
Graham Brown: He is.
Will Hood: Yeah, the environmentalist, the celebrity, what a fascinating guy. I met him at a Memorial service. I had to give a speech. I didn't have to, but I was pleased to give a speech for my great aunt who had passed away and she was old school BBC. And he was basically on the bill. I went on and I gave her an address about her after him. So a tough act to follow him and Melvin Bragg. But anyway I made somewhat of a friendship with him. He was a great, very close colleague of my great aunt, but many, many years ago, and I don't think they'd seen each other for maybe 30 years or something. So I basically got this invitation to go to his house, and I sat there and I talked to him for an hour and I was already thinking, how can I put this in a show or in a format that would make use of such a great interview? What a great man and he's interesting and on all sorts of levels, which I can talk about. But as far as putting them into a show, I basically thought he's the storyteller, right? He's the ultimate trusted storyteller. And for the last 50 years approximately he has been coming into our home. As we all sit round our glittering, digital fires, and he's told us these stories of the natural world. So this was the image I had in my head. And at this time, another friend of mine, I was aware that I had moved to Edmonton in Northwest Canada. And so he was loosely involved in the pipeline work out there. So anyway, I thought what a great way to think about David Attenborough as this storyteller, and to superimpose that if you like with the native American storytelling tradition. And how they understand what nature is our relationship to nature, what climate changes, what that means. And so I became obsessed with this idea that how we understand climate and our place in nature is about storytelling. Also managed to [inaudible] Naomi Klein, to talk to me. I called it and they were on a train, which was quite funny, but again, a master storyteller, she had just written this changes everything. Which I had read, and it actually blew my mind because she was really trying to get in there and talk about narrative, talk about the importance of communication for changing paradigms, right? Because unless you're a scientist, unless you're working in that field and you understand some of that hard science behind it, it is just stories.
Graham Brown: How do you get those human stories out of people like David and Nomi Klien, there's always a risk isn't there that they're so good, they've done this so much. They've done so much PR that they're ready on autopilot. They can ease oh, you want a story about that? I can tell you a story. Do you want a story about a train? I've got a story about that and it's just like, How do you work with that or do you try and get behind the veneer a little bit?
Will Hood: With David Attenborough, it was somewhat of a gift in the fact that he was already set up to be what we say emotionally welcoming to me because we had this personal connection right. And I was very fond of my aunt. So we had a lot to talk about with her and , we had already done this, , we thought it was quite a moving moment at this Memorial service. However, it's funny that you mentioned that whole autopilot thing because, set up this interview and I guess I had a month or something like that. And then suddenly it's I have to be prepared for this and exactly what you're saying, I wanted to avoid those questions that I knew he would go into autopilot or that he didn't want to talk about. And in that instance, it was a real gift that there were so many interviews. I was there, I read his autobiography, I read hundreds, it felt like newspaper articles and, listen to a whole bunch of stuff. And so I got a real sense of what had been asked of him before, where he would go and where he wouldn't go. And yeah, that's how I prepared that. But as much as anything, I'm sure this is something that you practice as well. Just trying to leave the questions open and try and leave that dead air. Which again, it was a special circumstance because I was able to do that because we were for all intensive purposes, just having a chat with a microphone on, there were no other bodies there, there was no performative aspect of it. So that was really useful.
Graham Brown: And his voice that spoke to me, it's like the gold standard of an emotionally engaging voice, the way he speaks to capture that on audio. I listened to that and as a kid already, I'm not even going to do an impression of him because there's so many people who've done impressions because it's so iconic and you know how beautiful it is to work with something like that and it's so rare.
Will Hood: The most fascinating thing for me personally, and none of this really made it into the program. Although I did release the kind of uncut interview of that, which I'll send you if you want, because it's a fascinating chat. But He was somewhat surprised, I think at the age. And he just turned 80. At the age of 80 to be a broadcaster, let alone to be one of the world's most famous, most loved broadcasters. He had wanted to be a scientist and he kind of disclosed to me at some point that he had been at some point in his early academic career, trying to absorb some academic papers. And he just came to this conclusion of, I don't understand this, this is not going in. This is not for me. My brain doesn't work in this way. And for him, I suppose that was the next best thing to being close to that subject was to try and, but not try. He's succeeded. I think he's extremely proud. Actually I've got a real sense of pride for his life series, that he had created this document of life on the planet. And although it was as a broadcaster, I felt like for him, that was a serious piece of work, it was his contribution to try and do something serious, like a scientist's work, and it is a serious piece of work right? And it fascinatingly reflects culturally what's going on at the time with the viewer as well. Even down to the way that it's shot and the clothes, but the colours, you watch any of that stuff from the seventies. And it's so evocative of being a kid and that voice and he's amazing, and his [inaudible] his understanding of what a celebrity is on himself as a celebrity, I thought it was very intriguing. And in the last five years, so this was in 2015. He's actually been quite prominent in many ways. So yeah. And again, the world has changed a lot in the last five years, but yeah, he's amazing
Graham Brown: How wonderful it is to meet people like that as well. That's something. It's a monument in your own career isn't it ? And that will never be taken from you. I'm sure there's been highlights, but these things know, you look back on those and think " I did that" that's always there.
Will Hood: A lot of people have said this, but I suppose they mean it as a broad customer, as an individual he's incredibly sincere and he's very, he's got that kind of honest face, Which again, a lot of people experienced that through the screen, but in person it deescalates the situation. You know what I mean? So after, after you'd met him, it's not oh Jesus, I'm talking to David Attenborough, and you're talking to this lovely guy. Who's really fascinating and had this really interesting life right?
Graham Brown: Yeah. Amazing. I had an interview where I was not David Attenborough, but my celebrity experience was Tony Fernandez who owns AirAsia and QPR football club. And he used to own I think it's Force India Racing the formula one team. And again , he's a billionaire, but as a person he was extremely authentic. I met him by mistake in a Hawker centre, one of these outside food courts and, same with a dinner table and he sat and he talked for an hour and then I pitched him the idea of doing a podcast and he said, yeah, let's do it. And then, several months later I was out there, AirAsia, HQ doing it. And he's like something about those people. There's something also about them and how they do on these formats on podcasts. They actually, I feel like them because in many ways it's liberating. They can be themselves, they can not have to worry about the PR handlers, they can speak in their own voice as well. And suppose if you get to a level where you're constantly doing PR, the fact you can actually do it in a very raw, authentic way is probably quite new to them. And I feel that's a really interesting part of creating this kind of content as well, is that we're not just doing another interview. We're giving them a chance to speak in their own voice, which is often not found in the media.
Will Hood: I think that's a massive appeal of the media, right? In the sense that you can have what kind of long rambling conversations, but they're honest human interactions. And I think that when they're done well, obviously, that is very enjoyable for a listener, but I think you're absolutely right for people taking part, it is far more, it allows them to be far more sincere. Can you think of anything worse than being through the whole drama and the hype of going onto a TV show, I dunno, Wogan or something like that.
Graham Brown: It's old school.
Will Hood: And then you've got five minutes essentially. And you're there selling a book or you're selling a film or whatever it is right. So you can't really go off script. And so you've got to squeeze yourself into the package of what you're pumping out there. It doesn't allow much bandwidth for personality, really does it ?
Graham Brown: No. I know you were talking about the film aspect being, , the sheer, the heavy lifting, done creating a film version of what you would be doing. I was listening to Tim Ferriss say that he did something for Nike or so I can't remember. But, the 10 hours and for 30 seconds and they didn't even use the 30 seconds, they cut it right down. He said after that, I committed myself just to doing podcasts because I was just fed up with it. It was not a good use of my time. You know exactly what you're saying.
Will Hood: And it's so hyper manipulated and it can't help, but be, and which isn't to say, I don't consume a fair bit of screen time, but I think I tell you is that I have a slight tangent, but I think this kind of illustrates the point that you're making the great aunt that I mentioned that worked in the BBC. So she was that really at the birth of television. And there's some tapes that she had, which I've still got somewhere, which are absolutely amazing of very early TV, magazine, and interview formats. And there's this interview with WH Auden and he smoking a pipe which is fine. But I mean that in itself is slightly anachronistic, smoking a pipe. It is obviously there to read one of his poems. So he starts relaying this poem to the camera. His whole face is covered in pipe smoke, so you can hardly see it. But then about 30 seconds and he says oh, I'm sorry. I've made a mistake. I'll start that again. And so goes back to the beginning of the poem and it's wonderful to see, right. But it's real life and it makes you really like him and it gives you this affection for everybody there because it's wait, what are the, what are these people up to? Yeah.
Graham Brown: Imagine him sitting there smoking a pipe.
Will Hood: But everything is edited to the ninth degree, isn't it? Especially in film.
And I think the beauty of a podcast or radio is that it doesn't have to be that way. It has its own tricks of manipulating you, but at least it gives the impression that this is a real interaction between human beings being human.
Graham Brown: Yeah. So what we need. Who's doing some interesting work at the moment. Who do you listen to? Who do you get inspired by in the world of audio?
Will Hood: I think I've got a wide and varied listening taste.
Graham Brown: So try me.
Will Hood: Okay. So one that I love, which I'm slightly embarrassed about, but I think is genius is absolute genius. Are you familiar with Dan Savage?
Graham Brown: Dan Savage. Well I know the name.
Will Hood: Okay. So Dan Savage, he does a thing, does a podcast called Savage love, and I believe it's also a[inaudible] and it's been running for years, right? It's a syndicated newspaper thing. So he's a gay, super cool, intellectual living in Portland. And it's basically a relationship sex advice phone-in show. But it's off the scale in its perversity. But it's also off the scale and it's insanity. Just again, you wouldn't be able to do this with film, right? It's the tone of people's voices and it doesn't allow you to set up a prejudice that you would allied unwillingly to watching somebody confess these things that they're talking about, but the sheer array of human sexual behavior, it just blows my mind. And I've been listening to this for years and I am not living in Bryan. But you would think there will be a limit you think that'd be a fairly finite number of combinations. And so that is amazing, but it's often people really struggling with the moral aspect of what it is they're trying to do. And he's very good. And basically a thousand different ways to reiterate the idea of everything's up for grabs. Just don't be an absolute RSO. Let me go somewhere else with it on a slightly more family view, conservative audience. There's a wonderful podcast called the memory palace. I think we might've talked about these meetings before. What does it say? I'm a single guy, a single voice service or monologue, which he's obviously written. The guy's name is Nate DiMeo. I could have that wrong,Nate DiMeo. Anyway, great speaking voice, but it's more, this lovingly concocted, his painting, really with scientists, this music and sound design and a beautifully written script and of lovely sense of research. So he's basically telling little historical vignettes. He's creating little historical vignettes for you, but they're so lovingly done. And when they get you, that's amazing. And they vary in length and they vary in subject matter.
Graham Brown: Nate DiMeo.
Will Hood: Nate DiMeo. Sorry, Nate for getting your name wrong.
Graham Brown: [inaudible] that is such an evocative word isn't? It's a vignette. Like to use it the right way. You know what you're doing?
Will Hood: That stands up for his pieces. I think his geezer he's part of Radiotopia. Group. I know that and they do some really interesting stuff. And so normally I don't really stray into the kind of fiction narrative and his, it is fiction, but it's also historical. So I think he's quite special. He's the only person I know that is occupying that place specifically. .
Graham Brown: Yeah. That's a really cool one.
Will Hood: Yeah, they're really going to check that one out.
Graham Brown: How does it appeal to you? Is it production? Is it storytelling? What works for you?
Will Hood: I think it is probably the production. The production values are so high in that, that it speaks to the musician in me, I feel like he's releasing an [inaudible] or lovingly crafted single each time you sit in an episode. So yeah, there's something quite special. And again, it doesn't always interest me, but when the subject matters. And it's really good. And then somebody other bigger ones, I've got a real thing for Sam Harris. I think he's exceptionally interesting. Again, the subject matter is not always what I want to hear about at that moment, because they can be quite heavy and quite dark. I love his bravery to try and talk about subjects, which are so politically loaded at the moment. And actually that's worth talking about, we're talking about formats. He's gone to great lengths to be in his own words: unconsolable and counsellor cancel a bowl on cancelable in how he's done his funding system. And I find that quite interesting because he switched to a direct subscription model right after years of putting this stuff out for free, which honestly pissed me off at first because it's okay. I feel like I've had this relationship with this guy, which has been, hasn't been a capitalist. It hasn't been an extension money and now he's asking me for money. So like where it's funny how these things evoke particular feelings. And you're not that I'm a kind of screaming Marxist and don't want to pay for anything, but it was no, suddenly he was asking me to pay, but what he actually did, which made me end up paying for it was, he said, look, I don't want money to be the reason why anybody can't listen to this. So it's a subscription model, but if you can't pay, write to me and tell me that you can't pay and I'll give it to you free for a year. And then at 12, We'll check in again, and if you still can't pay, then we'll do the same thing. And again, that, that way to get, squeeze humanity through these platforms, these applications that spoke to me, I already had a relationship with this guy and his content that really worked for me, just that offering of, I'm not trying to foolish you. It's just time I'm offering you the chance to support this regularly.
Graham Brown: That's pretty cool. And it worked with a bit of honesty.
Will Hood: Yeah, again, I don't know anybody else that offers that cause I find the whole pay wool thing. Quite interesting. I don't know where you're at with all of that, but it would seem to me you would need to be offering something exceptional to put a paywall on and I don't often pay for content because my life is so rampacked with digital content. I can't get through it all right. So the idea that I would pay for more stuff I'd have to, the perception would have to be that it was essential, listening and stuff that I really needed.
You've been listening to The Age of Audio with me, Graham Brown from the award-winning podcast, agency Pikkal & Co. To get access to all the audio conversations and book content for the age of audio, go to www.theageofaudio.com. One more time. The age of audio.com.