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Radio isn’t just about playing songs—it’s about the people behind the mic, the wild stories, and the grind to make it all happen. Welcome to Talking Between the Songs, where I, Brenden Peach, pull back the curtain on the radio industry with the people who live and breathe it.
Most people think radio DJs just sit around and chat. There's a lot more to it than that. Talking Between the Songs with Brendan Peach, a deep dive with others in the radio business. And here we are, the second episode of Talking Between the Sondons of me, Brendan Peach. For those that don't know, I'm the brand ambassador for Kay Bear one zero one, Alt one zero one, and Cannonball one zero one here in Idaho, and the voice for Cannonball one zero one happens to be this amazing dude named Pete Guston.
At first, I didn't know much about him until one day our operations manager just told me his story. Pete is 100% blind, but he surfs in Southern California. He has a YouTube channel titled Blind Surfer that now has 3,000,000 subscribers. He is also the voice for not only a variety of radio stations, but he's also done movie trailers, TV shows, pretty much everything you can think of, and you've probably heard him at some point in your life. You just didn't know it.
It was an honor to have him on the show. Let's get to it. This is Pete Guston, and you're listening to Talking Between the Songs with Brendon Peach. Hello. Hello.
Hey, Pete. How's it going? Oh, I can hear you. You can hear me? Yeah.
I can hear you just fine. And, also, the camera looks great too. Perfect. Except, it's telling me that it's in, it's in flip mode and I can't figure how to get it out of flip mode. So the p e looks like EE E T E p.
Pito. No. It says Pete behind you. It it's not backwards for you? It's not backwards for me at all.
Oh, that's like, I I clicked the button and it said camera in flip mode. And I'm like, cool. Let's undo that immediately. Besides that, I mean, how's everything going for you tonight? It's been a day.
It's been a well, every day is a day. Can't complain. They're all the same. I was about to ask that. Yeah.
You know, I mean, your life is probably really, really cool compared to most people, including me. It's, it I mean, it gets it gets busy. That's for sure. That's for sure. I mean, there's you're a voice like, you you know, you're the voice guy.
You're a YouTuber, author, so many titles. I mean, it's so funny because I talk with Jade, who you also know, about artist interviews. And every single time I interview an artist, I avoid that stereotypical question of, so how'd you get your start? But the whole point of this podcast is to get to know the guest and how exactly they got their start and what exactly are they doing now. And growing up as a kid, I mean, when puberty hit, did you did you all of a sudden have that voice or what happened there?
I did I did actually. Like, it was it was totally overnight. I I went to bed. My uncle, my mean uncle Jim, when I when I would call to speak to my cousins, he'd say, you know, Mike, it's either Peter or a girl is on the phone for you because I had, like, the highest voice as a kid. I'd be calling, hi.
Can I speak to Mike? Is Mike there? Like, just, like, worse than, like, regular little kid voice. I just had a really high feminine voice apparently. And and one night, I went to bed and I woke up in the morning.
It was a Saturday morning, so I wasn't rushing out to school. And, and I heard my mom downstairs making some breakfast. I could smell some stuff. And so I called down the stairs. I said, what's for breakfast?
And she said she tells the story. She's like, I dropped the spatula. I'd heard him run out the back door because there was a man in the house. She didn't recognize the voice. My voice just instantly, like, changed and, you know, automatic.
Everyone's like, oh, that's a radio voice. You should go into radio. I was about to ask about that because I got that for a short while there too. Like, oh, you have that radio voice, and I'm sure they also say the same. Oh, actually, I don't know because they've the only oh, they've said it to me about the whole face for radio thing too.
Like, oh, you got the voice and face for it. That type of joke. Thanks. Yeah. You're right.
Right. Yeah. But, after you you got yourself, you know, the voice, you were the whole thing, did you I I think I saw on your YouTube channel, at some point, you played sports. It looks like you played football. Yeah.
I did. You know, my vision was going so slowly that as a little kid, like, in, I don't know, second and third grade, I was still playing, baseball, little league back then. And then I slowly stopped being able to see the ball. I remember the last game I played. I was I was playing shortstop for some reason, and the ball was coming.
I could kinda see it, kinda couldn't see it, and it just took a funny bounce at the end and jumped up and got me right in the throat. And I was like, god. It's like, okay. No more baseball for me. I played soccer until I couldn't see the ball anymore.
Of course, slightly bigger ball than a little baseball. And then I ended up playing football in high school. I'm more the size of and built like a half back or a quarterback or maybe safety, but I couldn't see the football. And one of my friends' dads, it wasn't probably the most politically correct thing to say, I guess. He said he said, if there's a fat guy standing in front of you, can you see him?
I'm like, yeah. I can see a fat guy. He's like, then you should play offensive line. So he taught me, he taught me all the techniques and everything, and I worked out like a a maniac at the gym because I just I really wanted to do it. I wanna keep playing sports.
My senior year of high school, I was squatting 495 pounds. Jeez. And, you know, five nine, squatting that kind of weight. It was it was you know, I had the leverage and I had the strength. So I I ended up being a starter as an offensive lineman, a five hundred nine, hundred and seventy two pound offensive lineman.
I was about to ask about that, the whole size difference because, I'm I'm I'm actually I'm six foot nine, and I'm over and I I'm I I've seen some of those NFL players in person, and I go, man, they're huge. And I can't imagine being, you know, so much shorter compared to those guys and thinking you can stand a chance. I mean, I I never played football. I only played basketball. Many people have have tried to recruit me for football, but my mom's like, no.
Too many brain injuries with that sport. Don't do it. And I I also they they wanted me to get even more fat than I am now, you know, that type of thing with the whole offensive lineman thing. Yes. In the movable object.
We're gonna stick you there. We don't want you to move. Right. Yeah. Eat the bananas, eat the carbs and all that and you stand there and push people, that type of thing.
But, you know, after you, because that's that's what I wanted to touch about was the whole eyesight going away. And you have this incredible story of people are I think it was one person in particular saying you couldn't do what you wanted to do with voice acting and or voice narration and all that because of the the blind the blind sight or the the blindness. And you still push through, and you're one of the most successful people in this industry now, which is absolutely absurd. It's great. Yeah.
I mean, I think, you know, when you grow up with a disability, you know, there's two types of people in your that you're going to encounter. There's the supportive people and then there's the doubters. And your supportive people is a pretty small group. It's the people that know you and believe in you and understand your capabilities. And then basically, there's everybody else.
So you kinda get used to it. You know, my my best friend's dad, we're talking about being encouraged to play football. He was a supporter. Everybody else is like, you're blind. You can't see the ball.
You know, I was legally blind at the time. So you're legally blind. You can't see the ball. You're tiny. You're five nine, a hundred seventy pounds.
Like, that's not gonna work. Whereas he was like, you know, you just gotta get leverage, get strong, just get get strong core muscles and thighs and quads. And he saw a path. And that's why, by the time I was 20 years old and I was down in New York City having a meeting with this voice over agent, I was used to people telling me you can't do it. And what it was the the common theme that I kept getting from people was like, okay, I can't do it like everybody else, but that doesn't mean I can't do it at all.
I just have to find a different way to do it. And when he told me, it it was the year I think it was 1999, and I rushed through Boston University. I graduated in three and a half years because I just wanted to hurry up and get started on my career in radio and voice acting and stuff. And, and I went right down to New York, and I took that meeting or he took it with me and, listened to my tape. He's like, you're good.
And he's like, but no one's gonna wanna work with you because you can't read the copy. And at the time, this is way before the iPhone and text to speech was really available. You know, I was I was devastated. I was crushed. I walked out of there in tears, 20 year old guy just crying, standing on the streets in New York.
Of course, it was New York and nobody noticed or cared. But, you know, what I thought he was telling me was that I'm never gonna be a voice actor. And then I kinda took all the rejection that I'd been, you know, taking my entire life and put it into perspective. And I'm like, okay. What he's saying is no one's gonna hire me because the way I do copy right now is I used to blow it up really big.
And I I'd read it, like, word for word. Like, tonight alright. The next letter is o n on. The next is CBS. Okay.
Tonight on CBS. I had enough vision to kinda, like, squint and put it all together, but not enough to read copy like everybody else. So in retrospect, he was absolutely correct. No one was gonna work with me at that point if it was taking me an hour to learn a pea learn and memorize a piece of copy. I mean, he was right.
So then I had to set about figuring out, okay, how am I gonna do copy differently? How am I gonna be able to get the input of of text if I can't read the text? And that's when that journey began. So at at Boston University, did you go for specifically for radio and communications? Or what was it?
I I kinda knew I wanted to get into radio or at least that was kinda like the pipe dream. So I didn't wanna major in that. Because to me, being in radio, being a I I thought it was gonna be a DJ. I thought it was gonna be a DJ at a rock radio station. That was my goal going into college.
And I'm like, well, what if I get a major in broadcast and then I don't get a job in radio? Because that's not guaranteed. So what I did is I majored in advertising, mass communications, one major, and then I also did psychology. But I immediately took an internship at a radio station my second week of college, and I really, really wanted to work at a rock radio station. But the only station that was taking internships at the time was a talk station in Boston.
But talk ended up being a fantastic format because there was all sorts of opportunity for talk and and and, you know, voice to be used on the radio. Wow. That's that's really cool because I've always wondered how people get into it because you hear all these crazy stories of, like, there's a guy named Jose Mangan on Octane, and he went to school for pharmacology out of all things. And then all of a sudden now he's hosting shows. He's like the the metal ambassador for SiriusXM Octane.
So it's it's great to hear someone. I've been I've been working with Jose since since ninety nine ninety nine two thousand. He and I have been working together. I'm the voice of his channel, of Liquid Metal. So when you when you hear you know, it's usually him into me.
He does all his talking stuff, and then I come with Liquid Metal, the heaviest music on or off the planet. That's crazy. That's so cool. Because I I I've listened to Octane, and I've I've only ever listened to some of Liquid Metal. But every time I've heard it, it's been Matt Haffey of Trivium doing some sort of promotion for his show.
But I never heard the the the voice guy, which turns out to be you out of all people, which is great. It's crazy. It's like because I'm Small world. Yeah. I mean, yeah, even I have been told by coworkers too how small the radio world actually is.
It feels like a lot of people are involved right now, but just to see, like, how everyone knows each other. And it's so funny because, like, we, on KBAR here, try our best to, like, do, radio wars against the other local, quote, unquote, competition, but nobody else wants to fight us. But so it's like because we're all super nice people, and they're they're extremely nice people. It's it's hard to pick a I remember I did that back in the day. It was a 02/2003 or '4 or something.
They were, like, Twitter wars, Twitter battles. And I was like, I've never been in a Twitter war. Does someone wanna do a Twitter war with me? And someone gave me, like, one line, and then they were like, no. This seems mean.
I don't wanna do it. So I couldn't get in a Twitter war with someone. They didn't wanna pick on the blind guy, I guess. Oh, yeah. I guess.
I mean, yeah, it'd be kinda mean to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But when did you start your your blind surfer YouTube channel?
That came, like, so much later in life. And it's it's funny, you know, I I I blow up and get hugely popular to to the the world at large. You know, I've been behind the scenes as a voice actor for years and years and years and years. And then, I moved out to California in 2016. We started the channel on 01/01/2020.
So we actually just, celebrated the five year anniversary of the channel. And it really started to get popular in October of twenty twenty one. And, you know, people will they they they'd watch the videos and they're like, you have such a good attitude. You've overcome so much. You've got all these, like, natural skills and all these things going on in your life.
And I'm like, you you miss the the thirty years leading up to this. Like, all the you know, when you start to lose your eyesight, you don't wake up and go, oh, well, no eyesight today. I'll just, you know, go about and have my Cheerios. Like, it's a it's a pretty devastating thing. And, you know, I I I try and explain to people.
I'm like, I spent a lot of my twenties being really pissed off about it. I didn't know anybody else that was losing their eyesight. I didn't go to a special school. I stayed in my regular school. I went to Boston University.
I I never had any training on how to be blind. Just had to, like, figure it out on my own. And I would look around at all my friends, you know, in high school, they're 16, 17, getting their cars and I couldn't get a driver's license. And, you know, often college, people like, you know, oh, and make eye contact with that pretty girl over there. And, you know, that's how everybody was getting to know each other just by through eye contact.
And I just kind of started to feel isolated and pissed and there's a lot of emotions. You know, when you lose your eyesight, it's like losing anything. It's like losing a family member or, you know, it's loss. It's real loss. So I spent my twenties being pretty angry about it.
It's been my I'm gonna spend my thirties kinda dealing with it and coming up with a better structure of overcoming and and just kinda accepting, like, the five stages of of of grief or of loss rather. And I finally reached acceptance. And by the time the channel became popular, I wasn't a good place. I had good friends. My career was going well.
I just had a lot going for me. And so people, you know, they they want this quick answer. They're like, how do you stay so positive even though you lost your eyesight? And like, oh, give it a couple decades. You'll be okay too.
It just takes a while. Yeah. I mean, that YouTube channel is, so funny. And I I love every single video that you've posted about, you know, the blind the blind guy unboxing is one of my favorites. And, even the the classic video that I think went it's probably the most viral video I think I did see on your channel with 90,000,000 views about, you know, the lady that was like, I came to the gym to not be stared at, and it's the funniest it's the greatest short.
And it's it's funny because I my I tell my family all the time that I'm the brand ambassador for Cannonball. And I'm like, oh, by the way, the voice guy, he he is blind, but he has this great YouTube channel. And he has, like, all these funny videos, and I'll share them to my family, and they're sharing them with their friends. So I'm sort of spreading the word about blind surfer in a way. Cool.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. That video, the the the girl at the gym video, I mean, that one has I think it has 90,000,000 just on my channel, like the one that I did on YouTube. And then it got shared so many times, and then I posted across other platforms that blew up with, I think, another 13 or 14,000,000 on Instagram, oh, no.
On TikTok rather. And I was at a YouTube event, a bunch of creators, and, a couple of guys recognized me like, oh, you have the you have that one video. And these were, like, really popular YouTubers that everybody had millions of subscribers. But to have a video, like, one single video that that got that big, the guy pointed out to me, he's like, not a lot of creators have one video that basically everybody in the country has either seen or heard of. I was like, oh, I didn't think of it that way.
That's kinda kinda interesting, though. Yeah. It always takes it takes one. And that grind to that one, it's ridiculous because we talk about social media quite a lot here in the building just trying to find out what sticks with the crowd and what doesn't. And for your YouTube channel, do, does some of I'm I'm assuming someone else does the edits for those videos for you?
I actually so I posted a video on this, and I think even after explaining it to people sometimes I explain to people and sometimes I don't because they just don't get it. But I do the editing myself. And if you'll notice, none of the videos have any setup shots. There's no if it's a 60, it's a 60 wall to wall with audio. And so what I'm doing is I'm just telling a story.
And I film the stuff myself as well for the most part. And, you know, I know I was either pointing the camera at myself or I'm pointing it in the direction of the voice of my surf coach or Banana or Josh, whoever's there. So I have a good sense and an extraordinary memory of what I did that weekend. And then I immediately go into my studio and I take what happened that weekend and I start cutting it up by audio. You know, here's here's me talking to this random surfer person.
Here's me explaining what I'm about to do. So then the whole piece is done. It's a sixty second piece. I put the music under it, the sound effects, you know, big audio editor. I've been doing that since I had eyesight.
So I master it and EQ it and compress it and everything. And then I have Banana, my my fiancee, either take a look at it or one of my, other friends that works on the channel. And and I say, how are the shots? Are the shots in there? And we work I shoot everything in a super wide GoPro, like, super, super wide.
And so if I miss it, then they just adjust it left or right, you know, kinda get the thing in screen or zoom in a little bit. So that's just it's kinda like a little bit of post tweaking. But for the most part, I'm actually putting them all together myself. Which is funny because I I this whole podcast is to have a a deep dive into what people do in, in this industry and how they do it. But I'm more so asking these questions just because I'm so I'm just so curious about it.
And I must have missed that video because I do love how you explain to people how you go through your whole process. And, you know, I think you are the absolute fastest guy when it comes to sending back the voice over because, I mean, I I send in Jade is the voice guy for Alt. We have a guy named Brian Christopher who's the voice guy for, Kay Bear. And, of course, we have you for Cannonball. And, you know, everyone has their own paces when it comes to sending back the VO, but I I know within, like, ten minutes of me sending it to, all of a sudden, I just get that link back to me.
Hey, Peaches. Here's your here's your VO for you all edited. I'm like, oh, wow. That was fast because there's a coworker in the building. I I forgot I forgot how long.
I think it took, like, six days. It takes, like, six days for them to finally get their VO back, and I'm just like, man, that must. I'm glad to have Pete, you know, to help me out here. I see. There's, like, three reasons for that is, one, I was a creative services director for a long time.
I worked at a sports radio station in Boston. I worked at Sirius satellite radio. And, I've done a bunch of things where there was another voice person and I was the production person. And there to me, there was nothing more for you. Write the copy, especially if it's timely or topical, and you're just kinda sitting there like, mhmm, mhmm, tapping your fingers.
Well, you can't really do it until the voice guy sends you the thing. If you're a better organized person, maybe you write the copy and then do a bunch of other stuff. But a lot of times, I'd write the copy and be like, I wanna get going. I wanna get going. So I, like, I know what it's like to be on the other side of that.
The other thing is, you know, I really wanted to show people, especially that took the chance on working with a blind guy, you know, oh, how is he gonna be? Is he gonna be slow? So, you know, right off the bat when I was starting my career, I just made sure to give everybody, like, the fastest turnaround time I could. And and the third reason I do it these days is because I'm so busy. I'm doing 50 to 70 sessions a day during a election season.
You know, the football season had started up. The and Major League Baseball was coming to an end. I I work for a lot of sports organizations, obviously, then politics. I did on one day, I did a 17 different sessions. And if you get behind on a work schedule like that, if I, you know, go take a long lunch or screw around on my phone for a while, then there's five, six, seven, ten sessions deep and you don't catch up.
That's why when you send me something, jump out of my seat and I go into the booth and I read it. You gotta edit it as fast as I can because there's already one or two waiting. So I'm literally just kinda trying to go as quickly as I can and, of course, giving everybody the appropriate amount of attention. I don't just bark it out. I I I do it with as much passion as I can and get it back to you and then move on to the next one.
So it's kind of a a matter of necessity at this point. I think I saw a recent YouTube short of yours where you have that that circular object of where you can, like, stick your head in and actually it's it's soundproof on the inside. Is that something you actually use, or is that just like a a product that you'd like, it it was a really, really cool video that you posted about the about that specific product, and I'm like, that's that's weird. You can just cut a trailer on, like, the beach, for example. Yeah.
It's it was called the Eyeball. Company called Kautica sent it to me and basically, there's no real people laugh. They're like they're like, you keep, like, hours or, like, the demand of a surgeon. Like, you know, is it I gotta run, run, hurry up, but that's an emergency voice over. And, like, the idea of an emergency voice over sounds kinda ridiculous.
But when you work in news and, like, you know, someone takes shots at someone running for president or if there's, you know, a big tragedy in New Orleans, like, this has to be put on the news immediately. Like, immediately. Like, they they're not gonna wait for you to come back on Monday. So wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, I get copies sent to me twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. And so I was working with a a cooler that I had Auralic sound padding in, but it was, you know, kinda open in the back and sort of have to go run to, like, the quietest part of the beach or the quietest area where we were and try and record it because they seriously I'm like, I can get home in half an hour or I can try and do it in the cooler.
Like, just do it in the cooler and get us the other one later. That's for, like, real rush jobs. But if I get booked, like, right now, I'm doing the UEFA Champions League on CBS and Paramount plus, and those are big prestigious spots. You know, they spent a ton of money promoting soccer and and paying for those leagues. And and same thing, like, if I get a movie trailer, movie trailer is not gonna be like, stick your head in a cooler and and let's just get it done.
Those are for, like, down and dirty rush jobs. But that that ball that got sent to me, I was kinda surprised. A lot of people that watch that video are like, oh, you stunted that. That was, you know, that was that was obviously recorded back at your house. Like, no.
That was really on the beach. And, you know, listening to it on YouTube, on your phone, holding it a little away from your your your ears, it sounds about 90% of the way there. If you were to put it into your Pro Tools or or whatever you're editing with, you'd be like, I still hear some noise. I mean, it's not there's no replacement for a real sound recording studio, but in a pinch, that goofy little black ball did a surprisingly good job. I can't imagine being somebody walking by when you're doing that, and they just they just go like, what are you doing?
You're like, oh, I'm cutting the next trailer for this major motion picture. Like, that's that's so cool. Yeah. A lot of a lot of times too, like, I'll I'll get the news because the the news outlets that I work for, I I they have people you know, I work for major brands that have people embedded and entrenched all around the world. I'll I'll get I was where the heck was I?
I was definitely in a weird location when, Ukraine First got invaded and no one knew about it. It wasn't on anybody's phone. The news wasn't out there. I immediately had to cut something really quick, and they're like, what's that guy doing? What's going on?
I'm like, Ukraine just got invaded. And everybody's, like, grabbing their phone like, no. It didn't. No. No.
No. It didn't. I'm like, you'll you'll hear. You you turn on. You'll hear what I'm doing right now.
You'll hear me telling you about it in about thirty minutes on TV. That's so cool. That's such a great like, because, like, there was one cool moment where I had where I pulled into the drive through, and the guy at the first window is like, oh, hey. How's it going? Are you, like, what's going on today?
I'm like, oh, I'm on my lunch break. And he goes like, so what do you do? And I turned up the radio and it was me talking. And I'm like, that's what I do. And I think about, like, people, like, just like yourself in that situation.
Like, oh, that's me in in the movie trailer. Just that's oh, man. That'd be super cool. Most of the times, they don't believe me. Like, the especially the movie trailer ones.
You know, a movie trailer read I I did a I feel like I've done a video on everything at at this point. Like, I did a video on how a movie trailer is, like, you know, something like a two brothers against the rest of the world. It's, you know, it's quiet. It's really let's lean in and listen. And so people be like, well, what do you mean that's your trailer?
That's not your voice. I'm like, yeah. Because I'm talking like this. And, you know, they're five feet away from me. Like, I can't hear you.
You're just whispering at me. That's not you. I'm like, alright. Fine. It's not me.
Whatever. Never mind. I don't need to prove it, do you? Yeah. I get some people too that are like, because I I sound exactly the same on the air as I do in real life.
And people will sometimes come up to me and go, do you put on a voice for the radio? It's like, why would I put on this pukey fake radio voice, and then in everyday life, I'm somebody completely different? Like, as I think about it, if I were to go through the drive through with a pukey radio voice, like, what's wrong with you? Are you okay? Like Yeah.
Yeah. That was one of the things I learned about voice overs a long time ago is is, you know, I actually tell people, they're like, well, you know, it was easy for you to get into voice overs because you have that voice. And I I think, you know, there's there's two sides to to every coin. Like, yes, it did help having a big voice getting started in the nineties. But then I I had to spend a long time learning.
Voice acting is is two words. There's voice and there's acting. And I went into it just doing voice, you know, cannonball one zero one. Like, I thought everything and to sound like that that big and draw it out and vocal fry. And then it took years to realize that there was also acting involved with voice acting.
And then it took me even more years to realize that the acting comes from your life, your personality, the well of experiences and emotions that you've had throughout your life. And so the whole idea of putting on a voice, even when I was talking about doing the real soft trailers, like, it's not a voice. It's just me relaxing my voice and getting a little quiet, but it's still my voice, my personality. You know, when when people tell me, they're like, I wanna get into voice acting. I do a thousand voices.
I'm like, that's 999 voices too many. You need to do one voice, your voice. That's so funny because Jade was just telling me the exact same thing about, like, something some commercial that came up, and I was straining myself trying to do, like, some crazy, like, movie trailer type thing. And he legitimately said the same thing to get quiet and close and do that technique and it makes it a whole lot better. But, you you in one video said that, you got lessons from the, like, the legendary Don LaFontaine and meeting that guy in real life and learning from, like, the master essentially, what was that whole thing like?
It was crazy. And I was just I was so young and dumb and just didn't, like I I'm not entirely sure that I appreciated it fully at the time because I was I was 19 years old. I was in college. I had my internship at the radio station. And I'm like, I wanna get into voice acting.
I'll call the best guy in the world. Yeah. That makes sense. And then the fact that he called back. I'm like, oh, this is how the world works.
You wanna get a job in an industry. You call the top guy, and he helps you out. Like, I didn't really realize what a what a privilege and and, it was at the time. But, yeah, he he called me up and we, like, got right into it. He he asked a bunch of questions, like, what I wanted to do, and I had no idea.
I'm like, I wanna do what you do. I didn't know what what fields I wanted to where he's like, do you wanna do radio? Do you wanna do TV? Do you wanna do trailers? I'm like, oh, I wanna do trailers like you.
And he's like, okay. Good luck, kid. But he was never condescending. He never made me feel dumb for asking dumb questions, which I did nonstop. He just got in the lessons and he was the one that really started explaining to me that voice acting was about acting.
You think about Don Luffa in a world. Like, his voice was, like, epic to begin with. But if he didn't do anything with it, like, I remember watching, because I had enough vision at the time, I used to watch the intro to Xena, Xena Warrior Princess in a time of ancient gods and warlords. You know, like, that was that was dawn. And he just made me feel like I was in that time.
And he wasn't he wasn't puking it out. He had he had a it was a different style, so it was a little bit of push to it. But he got into the role that he got into every role that he did. And that's why the first lesson that he gave me, he told me I need to learn to recite the pledge of allegiance to the point that I make myself cry. And I'm crying because I really feel those words.
And, again, I was 19. He was, you know, 50. I'm like this crazy old LA, you know, woo woo guy. I'm, like, crying during his copy. What's he talking about?
But years later, I finally the advice started to sink in. I was like, oh, you really do have to put yourself into each piece of copy. I get what he was saying. Wow. Well, I if if that's did you end up crying trying to recite the pledge of allegiance?
I you know, when I was, like, 19 and 20, I was trying it and and I was trying to, like, think about, you know, the the the people that wrote it and the time. And I tried to get emotional, but I just I wasn't there. Honestly, you know, it it takes, you know, when when when there's young actors in Hollywood or people in their teens and twenties and and they're amazing actors, you know, people call them prodigies or they're they're astounded for a reason. You know, becoming a good actor and and bringing up human emotions that you're not actually feeling or or bringing them up on call so that you do feel them in the moment. It's it's either a gift or it's something you really, really, really have to work at.
And I really, really had to work at it. My first emotion, my first voice coach, Maurice Tobias, that got me, really working, my first emotion that she had me drawing on was anger. She's like, you're best when you're mad. And she told me to, like, draw on the mad. Like, all the people that told me I couldn't voice act, all the people that doubted me, all the people that treated me poorly, all the the the horrible girlfriends I had, you know, everything in my life that was bad.
She's like, think of all that. And I started booking stuff for MMA, Bellator, started getting a lot of rock radio stations, like hard, you know, hard rock, early two thousand stuff. And she she really she's like, that's an emotion and people can feel it. And then over the course of the next two decades, I started, being able to pull from the different well of the happy moments that I've had in my life, the accomplishments, the achievements, the sad moments. You know, I I I I almost it it's, like, even hard for me to relive now.
It's the I lost my service dog, Superdog, whose picture I think is somewhere over there if he's in the screen. And I'll tell you that was one of the biggest emotional hits that I'd ever had. And not to say that, you know, I'd trade the life of my best friend for getting work, but I will tell you that my serious reads, my emotional reads when I had to pull from a well, I I I could pull from that moment, that experience of losing him and then put that into my copy. I actually I I got a a % I give I give, correlation to having the experience of losing Superdawg and booking the trailer for a film called One Life, which is a very emotional film about a man that was saving people, during the Holocaust. And that was something that I never would have been able to get in the right headspace had I not had the appropriate amount of loss and feeling in my life.
And what's funny is I watched that short this morning, and I actually teared up myself watching the the whole loss of Superdog, and it's a great, great short video over there. It's, you know, it's real tragic. I did I do see the photo in the little cape next to you there. That's just a nice little commemoration there. But, for voice acting, many people think you just put on the, like you just said, the the regular voice, and you don't really put you don't there's no technique to it.
People are so, you know, they don't know the whole process of it. And, I mean, I still barely know anything about it, and it's so tough. And I wish I could, like, you know, learn something like it, you know, the the whole diaphragm movement and things like that because, I mean, here on K Bear, we play a lot of metal songs, like, extreme metal stuff, and one of my main goals for the year is to learn how to do those vocals. And I don't know if you've heard of the channel. I think it's, oh, there's this one lady that analyzes vocals, and she decided to shove a camera down to one of the lead singer's throats.
And you can see the vocal cords twist in a certain way, and it's mind boggling to see how it works like that or how people can develop all these different voices like what you mentioned with the a thousand different voices, like what Mel Blanc could do and other legendary people. Yeah. And and not to I I should have caveated that. Like, if if you're trying to get into animation or video games, it certainly helps to do a ton of different voices. But I I come at things from the the the perspective of a promo trailer narration.
And, you know, someone when when I when I very first started to compete at the level that the trailer guys were at, you know, that's that's top tier. You know, I I was doing radio, commercials, some TV, and then I I was getting kicks at the can to do some trailer stuff. And at the time, I was listening to guys I don't know if it matters to drop their names because most of your viewers won't know them, but, like, Bill Ratner, Scott Rummell, Brian Lee. Some of these guys that I was, like, really looking up to, Ben Patrick Johnson. And and I would get a trailer audition.
I'm like, oh, this is one that Ben Patrick Johnson would do. I'm gonna read it like him. And I'm like, oh, this is a Scott Rummel one. Like, I would definitely hear him on that. I'm gonna read it like him.
And that same coach that I was working with for years, Marie, she's like, if they want Ben Patrick Johnson, they will hire Ben Patrick Johnson. She's like, you have to come up with your sound. And that's that's what I always harp on to anybody that's trying to get into promo trailer narration is, you know, what is your sound? You know, I've I've had I've had a handful of people be like, I can do your voice great. I'm like, I can do it better because it's my voice, and you're not gonna take my clients away by doing my voice.
That does that's that's not how it works. You have to come up with your own sound. I was wondering because, like, yeah, I was thinking about, like, the guy like Patrick Warburton who has that one signature voice versus a guy like Mel Blanc or anybody else who can do thousands of voices. I wonder if there's any jealousy between people like that. Like, this like, Patrick does the same voice for every character.
Like, he has no there's no catalog there. It's just him talking. I well, I I interviewed a woman, Courtney, Courtney Taylor, for for the the the course I I I put together for people on how to get into voice acting called Voice University. I think the sticker's on my microphone. And she is a video game animation, specialist.
And she told me, like, as per the contract, when you get hired to do a video game, I forget the exact number, but they hire you and then you're you're supposed to be able to provide at least three different characters for that main rate. And then they can add on, like, you get paid extra if you do a four or six or seven, something like that. And if you pay attention to the Simpsons, like, you know, one person does multiple voices on the Simpsons. And that is kind of an animation and video game thing. For me, I just I when she was talking about it, I'm like, ugh.
Like, getting in the headspace of seven different characters kinda sounds exhausting. And then her, like, her headspace is she's like, yeah. Don't you get bored doing your, your your one voice all day every day? I'm like, no. It's not like that.
You know, there's a bunch of different, my coach always said, you know, you you figure out your your voice, the way you deliver. She's like, think of it as a color. If your color is blue or green or whatever. She's like, you're not gonna you as a promo trailer narration person aren't expected throughout the day to provide blue, green, orange, brown, gray, purple, yellow, cyan. She's like, you provide blue and a whole different slew of shades of blue, if that makes any sense.
It it it made sense when she explained it to me. I'm not sure if I'm I'm relaying it properly, but find your sound and work within gradients. Whereas the video game and and animation people, they're literally working in a whole palette of different colors to to provide as many different sounds as they can. Jeez. Yeah.
It's it's crazy how, like, in-depth this whole world is, and that's that's why I was like, I need to start this podcast to talk about people on the radio who, you know, people when people listen to the radio, they just assume that people like myself just sit here all day and talk between the songs and just go on rants, and that's about it, and they play the next song. And there's no anything else behind it. If it was that easy, it'd be it'd be great, but, you know, it's not anything close to that. Yeah. I god.
When I when I got into you know, I was still I was a teenager. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and I was interning for a show called Two Chicks Dishing in Boston. And there was this woman, Leslie Gold, that was, one of the two hosts of the show, and she was a Harvard graduate. She'd started a, a glass company in Connecticut and made millions of dollars. So she's a very successful, very intelligent, business oriented, highly educated woman.
And she did not just walk into the office and go bloop, you know, open up the microphone. Like, not only did she do a ton of research before the show, you know, it was it was a three hour show and she did four hours of research ahead of time. But she and this is where I learned a lot of my work ethic and that entertainment isn't just entertaining. It's so much more. She had this huge book.
And after every show, we talked about this in the first hour. We got this many calls. These many people seem engaged. This topic seemed to do really well at this time, and and it was a Tuesday and a Wednesday. And she was correlating all of it.
Like, you know, what why was this topic hot on a Tuesday? Why didn't it work on a Friday? Should we have opened up the lines on a Wednesday or is Wednesday a time when people don't call? And she just knew her audience, knew her show, knew which, things were gonna work and which ones weren't. And the show became very successful, and it wasn't just an accident.
She doesn't just show up and talk for three hours. It was very, very businesslike for her, and she taught me a lot about how to be in the business. I also overthink, like, the same way. I'm like, okay. What what what because I do this segment called The Peach Their Own because the last name, Peach, you gotta make a joke with everything with the peach related puns and all that.
And I asked I asked the listeners a question every single weekday, and they just call in. And some days, it'll be, like, the same one guy or they're just the one guy that calls in regularly or it could be everybody. And I was thinking, like, exactly what you just said with the whole, like, write it down on the sheet. Okay. Why is this question so much better compared to the others?
And maybe it was just a people were driving around that time. I don't know. But it's it's crazy how radio is so different like that. Social media makes it a little easier because you get so many analytics and they're so real time. It's it's I say easier, but it did take me.
It was like learning another language. And I'll tell you if we wanna bring this, almost full circle going back to the the gym girl video before I dropped the story of the girl who thought I was staring at her even though I'm blind. Most of my content was about being a blind guy that surfs. And to me, I thought that was a really evident thing. Like, I'm blind.
Like, can't see. I feel I felt like everybody understood that, and they didn't. And then I felt like they'd understand how difficult it was to surf blind and they didn't get that. And then when I watched the gym girl video blow up, I've I've been trying a few different things here and there. That was that was kind of my first, like, outside of a blind surfer, story.
And and and I started looking at the metrics, of my old videos. I'd start the videos like, I'm blind and I surf, and you'd watch the the charges go whomp. You know, like like, 500 people, like, went to watch it and they were gone after two seconds. They're like, I don't understand blind guy surfing. It makes no sense to me.
And that one, I started with a different hook. It was like, I'm blind. If you understand what those two words mean, you're smarter than the girl I encountered in the gym. And then that that was a whole different hook. And I started to understand hooks and getting people involved and, like, why did that video work?
Okay. You know, there was a cons there was a story. There was there was a villain and there was a stupid person. Everybody loves to look down on a stupid person. And I started to understand within the context of creating Shorts, whether it was Reels or TikTok videos or YouTube Shorts, I started to understand the metrics informed me what people really wanted to be engaged with.
So and, you know, that's that's something that I learned by going behind the scenes and and and and figuring out from looking at those numbers that they provide to you. That's very interesting because I was testing that sort of, like, hook theory that you said. There wasn't a I didn't have the name for it, but I was thinking, like, what can grab somebody's attention? And my friend Levi, he works at Subway, and he wanted to take one of the, pieces of wall art on the wall there. And, the owner was like, well, we you can't have that one, but there's a sign waiting for you at another Walmart that we have here in town or another Subway we have here in town at the Walmart.
And we we somehow, someway, were able to get a full on, like, eight foot wide lit up subway sign just completely free. So I put that on the reel. I'm like, we just took the subway sign. And sure enough, everyone was like, did they just steal it? Like, what's going on?
Like, it just it get gets to your so the whole hook thing, I need to write that down. Yeah. Star, they say you gotta you gotta grab people within the first three to five. And within the third first three to five, you have to promise something that's gonna happen a little later. And it can't be too late because then they're gonna feel like they got jerked around.
So you gotta get a hook, pay it off a little bit, then hook them again. Then, you know, the the the I I always utilize all sixty seconds of the 60 that they provided to you. That was the the length until just this year they've opened it up. But it's like you're just constantly reeling them in. And and even if it's a a a a something that like, I have a I have a a coach, a friend, a filmer, Nisha, who will intentionally look for if she's filming me, she's like, turn, turn, turn, turn.
Okay. Good. She's like, there's an old man who just get out of his wet suit and he's in his Speedo and he's like pouring gallons of hot water over his head and it has nothing to do you know, I could be doing a story about, you know, this the new surfboard that I got. But there's this little thing in the background that isn't part of the story. But, you know, then the comments will blow up and they'll be like, what what's with the guy in the background?
What's going on there? A lot a lot of my videos have blown up for reasons other than the main point of it. And, it's fifty fifty. Sometimes something funny just happens. Like, I had a video blow up the other day because there was a feather on my shirt and I didn't know.
And, you know, YouTube and all the all the social media platforms, they like comments and they were just I was getting, like, comments spammed like feather, bird must have exploded. Where's the goose? Where's the duck? Like, all the and I'm I didn't know. I didn't know a stupid feather on me.
But if the people are gonna engage and they're gonna start watching it for something like that, I'm like, okay. Cool. That works too. So being a guy who's big on social media, you really have to know the not only the analytics, but, like, just the, science behind it, like what we just talked about there. Are are there any hashtags you include, or are you just putting some sort of title there?
Or how do you determine a title of, like, a YouTube short? I stopped doing hashtags on on all platforms, basically. I I learned something, from Instagram. They said if you if you put your own hashtag, you're forcing that video into that category. And it might you might think it's right, but it might not be.
You might think you're doing a video about cooking, but it's actually about health food or, you know, like, the the the AI behind all of these platforms now, they will find the audience better than you can with a hashtag. But the the titles the titles are super important, especially, it might be a little harder when you're not super popular, but, you know, my my stuff gets fed to a lot of people. I have a lot of subscribers now, so my things will come up on their screen. And, you know, there there will be a title like, I I I pounded that guy. And they'll be like, what?
Like, look who what does that mean? Like, what and in in in the video you watched that, you know, he he was trying to shake my hand and I I gave him a pound by accident or something like that. So so comments that people this is this is it's it seems obvious. I mean, I can give you, like, literally the golden key to any video, but actually doing it is harder than it seems. But it's just once someone sees the title, they have to watch the video.
They have to like, you give them something, and they're like, well, now I need to know what happened. Like, that's really the the main goal for any video. But even on YouTube shorts where you barely see the title on, like, the bottom part of the screen because I know, like, TikTok, YouTube, and I mean, I think what I've noticed is that people like to put the caption of the title real big on the thumbnail and the profile. So that way, when it when you're looking at the profile, there's all these similar videos or not similar, diverse videos, but with the same sort of title on every single one of them. Like, we just said I pounded that guy or, you know, I'm I missed my surfboard, something like that.
I don't know. But, like, do you also keep the titles short and sweet and just keep, like, the whole be short and they gotta fit on that one line they provide for you. Now now this is something really interesting. We're giving you, like, all sorts of, like, behind the scenes, metric stuff, and I hope your audience finds it interesting. But, you say that most people don't read them.
That's true. But here the people that comment and the people that like and the people that engage are your most important audience members, the people that share as well. Those are your most important audio. They're the ones that drive your metrics that make it look like your video's, really engaging and that keep it going in the algorithm. Those people read titles.
I'll tell you that for a fact because, I know that the titles don't show up on Shorts in in any other way other than this little thing at the bottom left. But if I have a video, and there's a question in the title, like, should I have done this? And I I don't ask, should I have done it, in in the video. You know, I just I do it. I go ahead and do it.
90% of the comments are, yeah, you totally should have done that. Oh, I wouldn't have done that. You should have done it but maybe in a different way. They are all responding to the question in the title. The people that write comments also read titles and that's important to know.
Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Because I I did notice when I was because we have these social media meetings quite a lot. Me and my coworker, Victor, because he's the social media director of the building and, will oftentimes wonder why exactly our YouTube videos are not doing so well and why, they're working on other places and stuff.
And I posted a a video of me asking the question, why is Caillou one of the most hated TV characters? And it was us talking about the whole ranker list of the top 10 most hated characters on TV of all time. And, we we did debated it. And I think people like that whole whole debate almost to where they're watching it, and then they'll add their 2¢ into the comment section like what you just mentioned there. Yep.
Yep. Those are you know, a lot of those, it's gotta be, like, general, more than it's hard for me. Like, I can't do, like, which surfboard should I ride this weekend? Because even as, technically, YouTube's most popular surfer, more than all the pros combined, if you wanna look at the numbers, my audience doesn't actually understand surfing. So it's gotta be a wide appeal thing.
I can't ask them specifically. Like, what fin setup should I use this weekend? It has to be it has to be a question that everybody's interested in. But I think everyone's extremely interested into, like, how you just conquer every day doing exactly what you do, but also as the blind guy, like, giving people, like, some sort of, like what's the word I'm looking for? Like, you're showing people in the world of Pete, like, what exactly is going on.
You know, how can you surf? How can you do this voice over? How can you, do certain things? Like, the blind guy unboxing was such a hilarious original series that, like, you know, people unbox to see the thing, and you're over here, like, feeling it and the whole cactus thing you pulled out of the box, which I thought was hilarious. I think at one point, you you said, like, did someone send me a dead squirrel?
Like, what's what's this, like, beef jerky? What's what's this it was just a funny it's a funny type of series there, and you found this original idea that just blew up. Yeah. That that one was almost an accident. I mean, I guess I had to do the follow through.
I I just had a fan. His name is Brian Murphy, and he was from Dublin, Ireland. And one day, he just decided to send me this massive box of stuff from Dublin. And he sent me, like, 40 things. And because at that point in my life, everything was on tape, I'm like, well, tape this too.
Tape me opening it and, like, trying to figure out all this stuff. And then people people just like, that was great. That was super cool. And, just kinda opened up. We got a a PO box for people to mail me stuff.
Of course, after the second episode, I I I got, like, a 30 adult toys sent to me. I'm like, okay. This this can't be that channel. I was gonna ask that too of, like, have you ever had some crazy stuff sent to you? Because there's bound to be, like, that one guy that sends, like, live crickets to mess with you, which would be horrible thing to do, but at the same time, there are others people out there.
Yeah. We had I had to start having the stuff screened after a while because there were a couple of things that went bad. The one the one that, like, still sticks in my head, and it was it was last Christmas, Christmas twenty twenty three. There was this handwriting that Banana described to me afterwards. She's like, it looks like either a little kid or a crazy person.
And it was an envelope. And in the envelope, she's like, yeah. It looks like it used to be Christmas trees. Little little things like this big, like, like, half the size of a dime. And they were little Christmas trees, and they were all, like, smashed to bits.
Like like, there was a couple you know, I put them together, and she's like, okay. I think it's a Christmas tree. And, and he's he's like, enjoy these sweat tarts. He wrote instead of writing sweet, he wrote sweat. He's like, made them self.
Like, you're trying to say he made them himself. So, like, the kid apparently made so either a kid tried to make some sweet tarts and really wanted me to enjoy them or some crazy person made some, like, cocaine or something and smashed it into them. Like, yeah. Here. Try this blind guy.
That was the beginning of the, like, woah. I cannot trust everybody that sends me stuff. To this day, I don't know what those were. They went right in the trash. I'm like, I'm not I'm not trying these.
Nothing knows my fault. Well, thank you, Pete. Big time for joining me on this podcast today. I don't wanna take up too much of your time here. It's it's really cool to see to hear you outside of just Cannonball one zero one and the greatest hits and all the stuff that I I send your way.
Again, you know, you'd somehow are ill. Oh, yeah. I have one last question here. Consider you do you're you, do a lot with sports. When you come across an athlete's name like Giannis Antetokounmpo, do you hear that in your your the the robot that speaks to you and you go, is that how you properly say it?
Or how do you find out how to properly say, like, an athlete's name that could be international? The robot's the worst. The robot barely gets, like, like, normal town names wrong. It's it's just it produced it I actually I have this, like, catalog in my head of, like, when I hear this, what it means is this. And, like, at this point, I've been using the same robot voice since, like, 02/2012, and there's so much better ones now.
But I've been programmed to, like you know, when I hear that one, this is what it means. I, I work for the NFL and, like, at at draft time, I what year was it? I think it was, like, 2013 or 2014. Literally, they they they send me copy for, like, 40 or 50 people that they think are gonna get picked in the first, you know, first round. And I have to do a little breakdown from what school they are, what position they are, their weight, their height, what they're, you know, supposed to be good at.
And and, like, literally, I went through 50 names. I'm like, I couldn't pronounce any of these names. So what you have to do is, I would have to go to YouTube and, like, try and find interviews with the people. And it was, you know, it was 50 people. It was, I don't know, seven or eight pages of copy.
Should've taken me maybe an hour, but it was like it was like a six hour project because I'm trying to find, like, this dude from Boise who came out early his junior year. And there's a lot of film on him, but no one says the first and last name. I was like, god, this is taking forever. Well, you don't wanna be the guy that messed it up. You you don't wanna be like the yeah.
The guy who says, Ndamukong, sir, Ron. I think I'm just even saying that one wrong, but it's funny hearing those play by play commentators even mess it up. And hearing people mess up Giannis' name is always a crack up too or they you know, it's it's it's always great. But yeah. But thank you, Pete.
Big time for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
There's one of them. Said that one a handful of times. Giannis Antetokounmpo. And I think his I think his brother I'd know it if I his his brother has a podcast somewhere, and he also has a real fun name to say. Is it like Thanassis or something like that?
Yeah. Yeah. That that wow. Bullet. If I had a prize, I'd give it to you.
Thanassis Antetokounmpo. That's his name. Yeah. No. I I I'm all about basketball.
I've been playing it since I was 13 and went to the college for basketball. I went to Fullerton College, then they had this new coach came in and he's like, I'm kicking all of you guys off this team. I have a seven footer from Australia coming in. And so then I went to another college, another JC, and, that's when I was, like, told, oh, you'll gray shirt for the entire year. And then the coach, like, three months later said, we we don't think you love the game.
You're off the team. And then so after that, I was just devastated because I was like, oh, my whole life's over. I'm a six foot nine guy. It's gonna be in accounting or something like that. It's gonna be terrible.
You know, people were already saying, like, a waste of height before, but now it's like, okay. Now it's really evident. But then, short shortly after that, I was listening to the LA radio stations. I grew up in Southern California, and, I was listening to one hundred point three The Sound, which no longer exists, unfortunately. But Mark from Mark and Brian was their morning show host, and he was asking, all these hilarious questions to this one lady on the phone.
And I'm like, I kinda wanna get into that. And then I said I wanna get into radio. And, of course, when you're a person my age saying you wanna get into radio, they're like, why? There's Spotify now. There's Apple Podcasts.
Like, why do you wanna get into old timey radio? And are they saying like reality. Yeah. And it's it's I'm so glad I made it out here to East Idaho because this is, like, not only the like, it was a great escape from California, but the station that I'm on with K Bear and all that is the music that I listen to the most. You know, I'm glad I'm not doing, like which is rare, by the way.
I remember learning that when I was that was one of the first lessons I learned in radio, the the the DJ that I met. I was like, do you like this? It's classic rock. Like, it was on a station that was playing, you know, Zeppelin and and and Skynyrd and all those. And I was like, do you like this?
He's like, no, man. I hate this stuff. He's like, I like country. And I was like, wait. You're a DJ for a station that you hate?
And he's like, yeah. You know, sometimes you just gotta go where the work takes you. I was like, oh, what? Close. Yeah.
I had it over. Stuck listening to music all day that I don't like. So if you're if you're at a station playing the songs that you dig, like, that's a that's a double thumbs up win. I had a radio, teacher that did a whole project like that in college where he was like, okay. What's your favorite genre of music?
And I said rock. And then he gave me country. And then he was, like, purposely giving the wrong genre to everybody. And he was like, okay. Now cut a commercial make a commercial with the the proper bed and, you know, do some research on the artists and stuff.
And it was pretty cool, though, because I actually was not only doing middays here on Cabir, but I was also doing afternoons on the Hawk. And it's like what Jade said is a split personality thing where it's like, okay, I gotta be like my sarcastic self here on Ka Bar. And then the Hawk, I was kind of the same, but at the same time, like, I wasn't insulting I mean, because you can't say you're from California here in Idaho because it's like a huge ordeal. So I'm just, you know, I'll just keep my mouth shut on the Hawk station for for the whole time. And, and people still make fun of me for being the California guy.
And, just recently, unfortunately, I I turned into the work parking lot, and I my my car went into the snow pile. And I'm gonna make a whole big California joke out of that. Like, oh, there's the out of Stater trying to make a turn without snow tonight. Know how to handle it. Yeah.
By the way, just to think back, two or three minutes, one one of my favorite takeaways from your story of your your time at junior college is that you were six foot nine and it wasn't tall enough they wanted the seven footer. Oh, no kidding, dude. When you get to college, it's a whole other level. People always say, like, why aren't you in the NBA? It's like, well, height has nothing to do with it.
It's the skill for sure. And the 1% of the 1%, make it to the NBA. I I, grew up with, Christian Wood who's now on the Lakers, and he was in my PE class. And he was, like, the only guy taller than me. But he was, like, three years older.
And, I was, like, looking at him and, you know, he's now great because when he was trying to get drafted the first time, he went undrafted. His girlfriend left him, and then he was just, like, left alone. He practiced for many for, like, a year or two, got back into it. Now he signed for, like, a four year eighty eighty million dollar deal with the Lakers, and it's like, take that. You know?
And now that now that girl wants them back all of a sudden. Right. Yeah. Hey. When I left you, I did it to motivate you.
Look. It worked. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a I I'm I'm I don't know if you're I'm sure you're familiar with Jeff Van Gundy.
I don't know if it's Jeff Van Gundy or Stan Van Gundy. That's the the coach. But, I forget which one got choked, but I think that was I think that was Stan. Yeah. There's a guy another guy I grew up with named Stanley Johnson, and he was he went to modern day high school.
He was, like, the the it guy. He scored four like, there I remember one game that he there was a tournament going on at my high school that he his team was a part of. He scored 40 points by halftime and then left the gym to go to another game at another school. And so he was like the it dude. He went to the University of Arizona afterwards, did the one and done thing there, declared himself for the draft, went to the NBA.
And I believe it was one of the Van Gundys that just looked him in the eye and said, hey, dude. You suck. You're gonna be a bench player if you don't improve your game. And it's like, that should show you how big of a difference there is in the professionals versus just high school and especially college too. Yep.
I mean, it it's like that it's like that in the business we're in. People think that they're funny, and they think they can talk. And, oh, I could host a I could host a radio show or I could do a voice over. You keep you keep jumping up levels and you keep realizing that they there's there's natural talent and that gets you in the door. And that's about it.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And I always encourage people who say, like, oh, I don't have the voice for radio.
I'm like, just pursue it if you really want to do it because you can still learn and develop that personality and be who you wanna be. And who cares if you don't have, like, the stereotypical, like, radio voice? I mean, I think most people nowadays, they're looking for something different compared to everything how it used to how it used to be on the air too, especially when you see, like, giving radio a chance for the first time in a long time. It's like that five minute long imager with the lasers and all that fun stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, thank you, Pete, again, so much for joining me here today for this podcast. I mean, I just started this and I interviewed my buddy John who's an LA Radio Personality. And then I was, like, going through my my whole list of, like, who I wanna ask. I'm like, oh, there's Pete, of course.
Like, he's the the voice guy of Cannonball. I gotta ask him and then talk about the YouTube channel and everything. So I appreciate it big time for joining me today. Sure. Glad to be here.
Excited excited to to help you kick off something new for 2025. Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate, you giving me the opportunity to be the first interview of the new year for you because I don't wanna hear you. It was it was a little bit of a break.
Hopefully, I hadn't I hadn't done an interview for a while, so hopefully I didn't verbally diarrhea. I I I haven't said so much in a while, so hopefully I didn't do too much this time. Oh, I'm just I'm the worst when it comes to, like, listening to myself back on these things, and I go, man, I kept saying, yeah. Cool. Definitely.
Awesome. I hear all my crutch words and oh, yeah. It's bad. It doesn't it doesn't help when you do an interview sometimes with other people that don't know how interviews work and then they sit there and then they just don't say much and you're like, okay, I need to go to the next question that I prepped. And then pretty soon, I'm like, out of questions on the piece of paper that I wrote.
And I'm like, okay, I got an improv now. No. I love that we just had a conversation. You're obviously really skilled at this because there was no there was none of those, oh, what do I do now? What do I do now?
So that was that was super smooth, and I'm I'm really pleased that we got to do it. Thanks for listening to Talking Between the Songs with Brendan Peach. If you enjoy the show, please share, subscribe, and rate the podcast. Talking Between the Songs is hosted by Brendan Peach and is a production of Riverbend Media Group. For more information and to contact the show, visit riverbendmediagroup.com.