about

Five years ago, I spent most of my life in a Chevy 3500 passenger van…

I was traveling upwards of 200 days a year to play my songs in nightclubs around America. At a certain point on those long drives- Indianapolis to Madison, Des Moines to Kansas City, Boston to Charlottesville- I had listened to so much music that I became oversaturated with it. That’s when I discovered podcasts; they would keep me company on my long drives. And there was one podcast in particular that I wanted to hear: working songwriters talking to one another about life on the road, life in the studio, and life in the writer’s room. But that show didn’t exist.

So I decided to make it myself.

Since then, we have hosted punk rock great Ian Mackaye (Episode 33) and commercial country hitmaker Shane McAnally (Episode 57). We’ve hosted my mentor Steve Earle (Episode 21) and the contemporary that I admire most, Brandon Flowers of The Killers (Episode 24). We’ve hosted my good friends Strand of Oaks (Episode 13) and Hayes Carll (Episode 8).

What began as a casual chat between myself and some artist pals took on a life of its own. It eventually attracted listeners who weren’t necessarily songwriters themselves and the audience grew. The show has now been downloaded well over a million times. That’s over a million hours of listeners being reminded that “reverb is not a song”.

Thank you for listening to the show. We’re five years in, and I feel like we’re just getting started.

-Joe Pug, January 2021