This is an automatically generated transcript of the PodPod episode ‘No Such Thing As A Fish: Taking facts on tour’. We apologise for any errors in spelling and grammar.
Rhianna Dhillon
Hello, and welcome to PodPod the podcast all about podcasting for podcasters. My name is Rhianna Dhillon and I'm joined this week by Reem Makari who is our PodPod journalist and researcher and Adam Shepherd, editor of PodPod. Hi, guys!
Adam Shepherd
Hello.
Reem Makari
Hello.
Rhianna
Hi, how are you doing?
Reem
Good. How are you?
Rhianna
I'm good. Thank you. I'm so excited because we have got a couple of my favourite ever guests on the podcast. Today, we're going to be talking to Dan Schreiber and Andrew Hunter Murray, all about No Such Thing As a Fish, which I think I mentioned before is one of my all time favourite podcasts. So yeah, there's a lot of a lot of fangirling going on, right?
Adam
Yeah, a lot of it for me.
Rhianna
Yeah. Most of it from Adam.
Adam
Yeah, this was an absolute bucket list interview. For me, the Fish guys have been doing such a phenomenal job for, like almost a decade, and just really one of the absolute grand dames of the podcast world.
Rhianna
I know. We kind of delve into everything from live recordings about how they have managed to sustain this format for nine years. They've just celebrated their nine year anniversary. And yeah, you'll just hear a lot of me, gushing, I'm afraid, sorry, I can't do anything about that. But also in the news this week, it's a pretty important time for podcasting. So Adam, tell us what's going on over Spotify.
Adam
So Spotify had their annual Stream On event, which is basically their big kind of presentation event to show off new features, updates, business developments, all of that kind of stuff. So they announced a whole range of things, a complete redesign of the app and the way that works. New personalization features new discovery features, new previews in the home screen vertical scrolling, TikTok style homescreen. With more clips, and all of that kind of stuff, really geared towards personalization and discovery for both music and podcasts. They announced a whole raft of new partnerships, new content, partnerships, new deals with creators, they announced that megaphone and anchor, which are two of their kind of hosting platforms will be rolling into Spotify for podcasters. But for me, the most significant announcement was that Spotify will be partnering with Patreon. So anyone that has a Patreon subscription programme, as we detailed in our last episode, will be able to make their subscriber only patron benefits available through Spotify natively, they'll be able to have people subscribing to their Patreon from the Spotify platform, and they will be able to offer their bonus content in the form of bonus episodes or video clips available without them having to leave Spotify to do it.
Rhianna
So this is quite a hefty change. Reem, you were there as well, what really stood out for you that you think is going to make an impact on people who podcast regularly?
Reem
One of the features that really stood out for me was that they introduced a new Autoplay feature and Discovery page for podcasts, which Spotify already has for music, and I listen to my music on Spotify. And honestly, there are many times where I've saved a lot of songs to my playlist based on the autoplay feature, because the way they really connect with exactly what you're listening to, or what you're in the mood for. It's always just like hitting the right spot. And a lot of it does end up saved in my playlists. I'm interested to see how they're going to do that with podcasts because podcasts are hard to discover if they're not by word of mouth, or you're not looking at charts. So for something that's going to be as an autoplay feature, it might introduce you to a whole new range of podcasters that you didn't even think of searching before. So very, very excited for that.
Rhianna
That's awesome. So wait, so you use Spotify for your music. Do you use that for all of your podcasts as well? Or do you kind of mix it up with your platforms?
Reem
No, I use Apple Podcasts for my podcasts and Spotify for my music. I think it's just because I like to keep them in two separate applications. So that I'm not too overwhelmed. But maybe now I'll start playing podcasts on Spotify. I don't know.
Rhianna
What about you, Adam? How do you listen to your podcasts?
Adam
So I generally tend to listen via Google Podcasts. I was going through Spotify for a long time. This might end up pulling me back on to Spotify as a regular podcast listener, though, because a lot of the kind of discovery updates and just general quality of life things that are specifically geared at podcast listeners, is really interesting. And you know, particularly for someone who spends so much time trying to find good new shows to watch... watch?
Reem
I mean, watch works.
Adam
That is a real Freudian slip up. The line between video podcasts and audio podcasts is becoming increasingly blurry. In fact, a large part of the announcements from the Spotify event were geared towards video podcasts making video podcasts more accessible for creators, making video podcasts more appealing to Spotify users. But that's another podcast, these updates may end up tempting me back over to Spotify as a consistent podcast user.
Rhianna
I don't know where I stand with the idea of visual podcasts because that's just streaming platforms. That's like YouTube. And it's like that whole thing of how we keep kind of going like two steps forward one step back, and it's like, they remember what was so good about the past and then they try and re up that again, like I keep seeing adverts at the moment for you have like these, you know, your air pods and they keep me like, you keep using your airports. Why don't you try this wire that connects them? Wired headphones, literally.
Reem
It's fashion.
Adam
You've just invented headphones is what you've done.
Rhianna
It's just so odd to me. Because I thought the whole point of podcasts is that something that you listen to while you are on the move and that you've listened to while you're doing a million other things. Yeah, you're right, though. It's a whole new podcast. Let's do that another week. Now, let's get into our conversation all about live podcast shows, with the guys from No Such Thing As a Fish.
Andy Hunter Murray and Dan Schreiber from No Such Thing As a Fish. Welcome to PodPod. I am so excited about you guys. My favourite podcast. I've been listening pretty much since the beginning. The only reason I took this job at PodPod was in the hope of one day meeting you guys.
Dan Schreiber
Sorry, Anna can't be here. We know that's who you really would have liked to have on.
Rhianna
But it's for a good reason. We'll get into that later. Yeah. Congratulations on your nine year anniversary.
Dan
Thank you. Yeah, crazy that it's been going nine years now.
Rhianna
So what did you do to celebrate?
Andy Hunter Murray
Almost nothing.
Dan
Zero. We sent out a tweet. Well, I sent out a tweet. And then Andy just retweeted it. Just adding like three words. So I did the heavy lifting there and then Andy sort of...
Andy
Which is the opposite of how it normally is on the podcast.
Rhianna
So we're gonna be talking about all kinds of live podcast shows, because that's a huge part of what you guys do. I've been to one. So I know your structure intimately.
Dan
What show did you come to?
Rhianna
I went to the Brighton one where again, Anna eluded me because she wasn't able to come. So you had Deborah Frances White instead? Yeah, that one. Yeah. And it was like my best friend's first outing. So she's had her baby. So it was brilliant. It was such a lovely thing, because we both listened from the beginning. But speaking of the beginning, I need to stop fangirling there were a lot of QI Elves. So how come you ended up being you for who made this sort of spin off podcast?
Andy
So yeah, there's Dan and I here, James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski , Dan and I just half of it. Dan, you were the one who brought the group together?
Dan
I was like Nick Fury. I guess. I've been watching a lot of Avengers recently, so i t's probably gonna go over a few people's heads. Samuel L. Jackson, head of shield.
Andy
Oh, great. Thanks. Yeah, that's only in self referential terms that other people will understand if you've also been watching, yeah. Okay, fine.
Rhianna
Which is the rest of the world by the way Andy.
Andy
Yeah, second highest grossing movie of all time, but can you explain it in terms relevant to Avatar The Way of Water?
Dan
Third, highest grossing movie of all time? Yeah. There's been a lot of elves over the years. I joined back in 2004 or three as an elf. Andy, you came in 2008. In between my starting and then Andy starting to now there's been huge numbers of elves all who would have been capable of coming on to a show like No Such Thing As a Fish at the time when the show was being conceived and we were trying to find out why it would work largely to begin with the thought was, me and Andy, were the two people who had performance history, we were both stand ups and he does a lot of improv stuff, it made perfect sense that if we were going to go out into a sort of more public way as the elves, that that would make sense to have us too. James hadn't done too much performance, but he was a producer at that point. And as part of his job for radio four, he would stand on stage and introduce the hosts and you would do some gags, and so on when you're doing that. So he also had a bit of it and also harkens sort of head of research, the Oracle of Qi information, when we were coming up with the show, it felt like you could have an idiot like me on it next to someone like him, and you would have the yin and yang. And then it was filling in the rest. And then obviously, as soon as Andy opens his mouth, it makes perfect sense that no one can sit in his seat. And same with Anna. And then it kind of grew just as its own beast, as soon as we got the Avengers together.
Rhianna
I see. So if you think about your nine year anniversary, your very last show, compared to your very first one, has anything much changed in terms of the structure and the content? And I guess your aims?
Andy
The structure hasn't changed at all, which is embarrassing, but it's true still, for all. Facts.
Dan
Exactly. It's perfect, I think it's a perfect structure. It never gets boring. It needs no fixing. Don't touch it.
Andy
Okay, so that's the structure. Our aim now. Actually, I don't think we've discussed what our aim now is, I don't think we had an aim then either. We just wanted to try it and see if it works, you would be mad to go into it expecting that it would last as long as it has done. I think we just wanted to try it and see if people wanted to listen to it. And the aim now is what then?
Dan
Well, Anna's away, which we'll get into in a bit. But that's a whole new world that we're navigating because we've never really spent so much time with guests on the show. And each week now for the period that she's away. We're gonna have to do that.
Andy
She's on maternity leave. We've made it mysterious, sorry. Just to quickly clarify. Yeah, she's on that leave. So she's gonna be away for some months. And we're booking guests, you know, for every week for when she's away. And we're, we're doing that. Yeah.
Dan
And interestingly, the show that you came to was the only time we've ever been on stage without Anna, and having a guest on and that was a very new experience for us in a live context, because it was an unknown, we just didn't know whether or not the audience were going to engage in in same way, we had a first half, which very much had a... we do two halves to our live shows. The first half is a sort of written almost stand up bit where we each come out and do a piece and Anna had a big piece on it. So we had a hole in our first half as well. That was interesting to navigate. And we're kind of having to do that whole thing again. But so far, it's been we miss the hell out of Anna, obviously, but we're getting to sit down with some of our favourite comedians and friends. We've had Sara Pascoe, upcoming, there are people like Rachel Paris, we just did one today with Athena Kugbleno, and some authors and scientists, it's, it's what we love doing. We love meeting these people. Because we get our facts from largely, you know, when it comes to the scientists, so getting them on the show itself is Yeah, it's really fun.
Adam
So let's talk quickly about the show, then, for people that are just familiar with the podcast and haven't been to see you guys live. Can you run us through what a live show looks like in how it might differ from the experience of just listening to an episode?
Andy
Yeah, I think a really big element of why the live shows are so much fun for us and hopefully, for the audience is that it is that sense of community as in podcasting is such it's such an intermediate, when you listen when you're exercising, or going to sleep or walking the dog or whatever it might be. And then you arrive at a theatre and you find, you know, 1500 other nerds who all like this thing that you listen to completely by yourself. I think it's a it's, I mean, it's a wonderful experience for us too, because we often get to meet the audience afterwards. And, and, you know, we hang out, or we'll sign things, or we'll chat or go for a drink or whatever. And that's amazing for us. But hopefully, it also is nice, you know, going to things where you listen by yourself, or you experienced these things by yourself and finding conventions, almost quasi convention events, like the shows we're putting on, I hope is fun. Yeah, the show is different, really. I mean, it's the same show, it's the same show, we've now done about 470 episodes, and it's, but it's with that first half as well. So it's a chance for us to do the first half.
Dan
Which is great fun, because that is we've done four or five tours and each tour we write a whole new first half. So that is the sort of exclusive bit I guess, because obviously otherwise you're just paying to see something that's eventually going out free.
Andy
The longer, unedited, version of a thing that will be more tightly available.
Dan
And yeah, just better when it's released.
Andy
We should not charge. The audience should really charge.
Dan
We should charge for the first half but then we should pay them back for the second quarter.
Andy
Call it quits.
Dan
When we're thinking of how we're going to put these shows together, we know that people want to come and see the live show. So that's the interesting sorted bit of it. We just know that the second half is always going to be that. And what's curious is that years ago, we were having a conversation with Jimmy Carr in the greenroom of Qi one night. And he was, he was talking to us, he'd been listening to ish in his car. And so he really enjoyed it and just wanted to ask us questions about it and the live show. And his thought was that we should open the show with the podcast and the first half, and then do this extra bit in the second half. And I always found that such a weird way of billing it because the podcast is the headline act, really, this first half is your sort of entree, whereas he thought that the presence of us doing something fresh and original as a stand up thing was actually the main, the main headline and I, I still think it's the other way round.
Andy
I think that the thing about Jimmy Carr is he does not know comedy. Yeah, like we do.
Dan
As Andy explained, he hasn't been on QI since.
Rhianna
Well with that structure because you sort of you know, teased what you do in that first half, but what how actually, do you come to that? So you do kind of have your own separate sort of stand up ideas? Are they kind of themed?
Andy
We sit in a room together for what feels like a few years, just slowly rejecting idea after idea. Someone will say something, and then we kind of start coalescing around that.
Dan
The last one was nerd immunity. We set out the idea that nerds saved the world when it came to the pandemic. And so we wanted to say this is a big thank you show to the nerds, but also time to get your nerd on and tell us why you are as nerdy as you are. So we did a thing where Andy set it up that we are going city by city and town by town looking for the nerdiest person who's coming into our audience. And if you listen to us, you're going to be the nerdiest people in this city anyway. So we then Andy said, We're the judging panel. And each of us had to come up and present why we believed ourselves to be worthy of being on a nerdy judging panel and sort of, so it's a good time to sort of talk about ourselves or just, you know, Andy, Andy, sometimes on a tour, we'll do a sort of a huge love letter to Casio wristwatch, for example, and you get 10 minutes of Andy just really drilling into why this function on the Casio was so great. And it's a nice space to just do our thing without being interrupted every three seconds by the other person who has a fact. It's just that little monologue II moment. So that's always really fun. When we finally find the thing that we want to do for that year, mine often involves a bit of an adventure writing to people. And it is very much a kind of construction. I mean, this year was a departure from what she would usually do . She wrote a piece about how she's actually not a nerd. And so she was just going to show holiday photos of a holiday she took when she should have been writing it. But then as she looked closer at the photos, she suddenly realised I know I'm a nerd look at that, look at that. And so it just became a deconstruction about her, not knowing why she was a nerd, James always likes to do a sort of showpiece, a magic act or, or a song or something that has a bit more pzazz to it.
Andy
Really brilliantly constructed, you know, builds up to the stand up bit and then ends with the act or the song or whatever.
Dan
So it's interesting, even though it's the bit where we feel like it's the most fun because once you've written it, and you can go and do it on stage, you're just tweaking and, and just finding a laugh in a different spot each night. Like doing stand ups. But it also is the highest bit of stress of our whole tour because we can never manage to bring it down to a good time. And, and poor Andy more than anyone really, really just, you know, almost quitting the band level of anger and stuff should be 45 minutes, and I don't think we've ever done it in under 55.
Andy
And often won't get off the stage after the first half and it's been more than an hour. Just think, you know, Fidel Castro himself wouldn't have.
Dan
Yeah. And it's amazing because you can have a great first half. It will be amazing. We're buzzy and we'll watch.
Andy
Their t- shirts and pants flowers were thrown out yesterday.
Rhianna
Sorry about that those
Andy
Mare is waiting in the wings with the keys to the city. Yeah.
Dan
So we'll get off and we'll be looking at each other like Yes. And then after three seconds Andy will go what are you thinking you're running on as long as you did? You put that extra bit in. We said that shouldn't be and you need that we all, all at various different times, play that character well. That's dominated largely by one. That's really fun. That's why we love doing the tour. And as Andy says, meeting the fans, we always get these little moments where you get to experience what the podcast is as someone's as part of someone's life. We, as we were saying nine years ago, I put the tweet out and my favourite thing that came through was from a lady who said it saw me through night feeds were two kids. I listened to episodes almost every night. In fact, at one point the theme music alone was enough to induce a breastfeeding let down. Like that's what we live for hearing those kinds of corvids a brilliant Yeah. And then you just don't know when the podcast is really hitting with people and that's to be in a room and get to hear people Andy making a mosque reference and the audience going ballistic or making a cutting remark and the laughter being of a higher calibre than it maybe even deserves because it's our stick like it's like, yes, she took Dan down. me mentioning a yeti James doing a very laboured pun, like, it's so nice to see that that's so part of the experience.
Rhianna
How much do you edit out? And is there a conversation about what should be left in? Is it still James?
Andy
That's editing? James says yes. Yeah.
Rhianna
So is it his discretion?
Andy
Is it his discretion? Yeah. But we know that he's going to do a really, really great job on the edit as in, you don't get the show back. And it's sort of 80 of James's facts. And none of you sort of have to trust whoever's doing the edit at a certain point. And a lot does get edited out. I mean, we sometimes record for two hours more than broadcast one. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, both Dan and James, have this experience on the radio show the Museum of curiosity, which some recordings are still going on, for that show? started when they were producing it? Yeah. Yeah, they both have that not really a four in particular, but radio in general sensibility of this is gonna be a tight broadcast. I think that's one of the reasons that the show was successful in the first place and has stayed high quality over the years is because there are four people who really care about it every week. Yeah, in various capacities.
Dan
That was another thing with timing, timing seems to have just realised quite a big thing for you. We used to do 30 minute episodes, because James and I, from a radio for background, you do a two hour recording, and you bring it down to 27/28 minutes. And we started doing that. And then we realised quite quickly, we don't need to do that. Because there's so much good stuff coming in here. And there's a longer listening capacity for podcasts. And Andy was fuming. When when we were heading towards the one hour mark on podcasting…
Andy
Sort of presenting me as a fumer. I'm actually really chilled. I'm actually a very calm and fun man.
Rhianna
Because you told us you're fun. So of course you are.
Andy
I think we just worry about that. How many hours are there in a week? I think there's 168. And I just think you're taking one, whatever percentage that is of someone's time.
Dan
Yeah, agreed.
Andy
Yeah, that's a lot of working hours, it's an even higher proportion of that.
Dan
They could pause it and spread it out over two weeks. You're just stacking up a problem for next week on you? Not really, because then you're just doubling the lifespan of the podcast for yourself.
Andy
Yeah, I suppose I just think you have a right to ask for maybe one hour of someone's time each week. And if you ask for much more than that, you might get a diminishing return, the bell curve might start to drop away. You know what I mean?
Dan
And he also wanted us to stop at 100 episodes.
Adam
Yeah. It's a nice round number. You really, really did.
Andy
No, yeah. In hindsight, I still think that would have been right.
Dan
Yeah, 100 episodes, you're like, that's a good number. Let's quit there. You were still getting over the whole expanded to 50 minutes plus situation?
Andy
I just can't remember. Yeah.
Dan
No, I remember these things. Yeah, well, okay,
Andy
We're gonna stop at 500.
Adam
So on the subject of the longer recordings, then something that has proved quite popular with other podcasters, particularly those who have kind of Patreon subscriptions and things like that is offering the sort of Longer Uncut recordings as kind of bonus content for subscribers. Is that something that's ever occurred to you as a sort of possibility?
Andy
Oh, no, I don't, I'm not sure that's ever occurred to us. We have just started Patreon. And you know, the Apple subscription model. And what we do is we do combinations of bits that didn't make it into that. It's kind of similar. Yeah, there are also bonus formats that we've started blasting out, you know, things. There's a thing called Club fish. And we're trying out various different formats of show every couple of weeks, you got a new bit of stuff, or whatever format that is, I think, for the Longer Uncut ones, because we're so fact based and because sometimes things will be cut out because we didn't quite express them right or because actually, there's a mistaken there or whatever it is, and there's a there's a heavy layer of fact checking that goes into every week's edit. And so I think paying for an uncut version of the show might just mean you get one that's less correct. We do have that strong because we all worked on QA various points. We have that really strong sensibility of you got to get it right almost all we will always make slight bloopers here and there.
Dan
Yeah, yeah. And also there are just bits that were cut immediately if we tried to just go on a riff on something, it doesn't quite land. And yeah, it's a less good show now if you keep that in so yeah, as Andy says, the whole point of the show to begin with was let's blow your mind with interesting facts. And so let's just keep the correct ones in. And let's bring it as tight as possible. So it's just back, back, back, back, back. And we obviously get as we've grown, and our personalities have been more injected into the show that creates a loser show and a better show. But yeah, we still have a quality level. And on the point of editing with James, what usually works is the other way round, where we'll just say to James, I really didn't like that bit. I said, or I thought that that was incorrect. Can you double check? We'll give him the edits, as suggestions, or we'll feel really strongly like I said, a terribly unfunny joke there. And he's not relating, but I did. And can you take that out and kind of thing?
Rhianna
And so what happens if you kind of repeat the fact? Maybe down the line? Because you can't remember nine years worth of facts? But somebody must kind of pull you up on that? Or is there like, you know, a layer for James to well…
Dan
Do we have a secret weapon?
Andy
Oh, yeah. It's a spreadsheet that I keep, which contains every single factory I have ever said. Amazing. Um, we're on actually how am I? I had to think on my own laptop. Now. We are on line 27,139. And as all the episodes every every kind of discreet fact, someone has started saying
Rhianna
That's incredible. So that's always because you come in with one fact each, but then you obviously do so many little kinds of jumping off ones. Yeah. And so all those are in there?
Andy
Well, yeah, every every headline facts and every supplementary fact basically,
Dan
What we'll do is pre pre-show if Sara Pascoe is on the latest show that's just gone out. She did a fact about Pringles, we just do a keyword search for each of us individually, find out all the things we've said about Pringles before, make sure not to say that again. Sometimes we slip up and we because we'll, obviously, the key word is what you're searching for. And sometimes maybe when the fact was originally said, the full name of a person who said this thing, well, you'll get accidents where we do double up. But our attempt is to not do that. Yeah. So in theory, that's 27,000 unique facts. In that document,
Adam
What level of Patreon? Do I need to subscribe to get access to that spreadsheet? Because, honestly, that is my dinner party conversation sorted forever.
Andy
Elon Musk himself, it is very proprietary. Yeah, no, it is mad looking at it, you just start doing something. And then nine years later, yeah.
Rhianna
When you're thinking about the fact that you're finding your live shows, do you have a process of finding ones for those shows that you don't have for the podcast? Do you kind of like to pick and choose very carefully?
Andy
We do. We have to be a bit funnier, rightly. The aim is for it to always be a bit funny, even in the office shows, but something that'll get a laugh from our audience just sets you off much better.
Adam
When you do a lot of regional facts as well, right? Yeah,
Dan
Yeah, that's quite fun doing that, because often you'll know that you 've got two mindsets whenever we do these shows. One is you want to make the best show possible for the audience in the room. But you also have to remember that when the show goes out, it's a global show reaching far more than the people that were in that room. So we've got two shows we're making and the regional stuff always just feels really fun because there's something about the adventure of going to Doncaster and, and finding out Doncaster facts and loving him into that episode, there's just there's something that gives it I think, with like, when you see a great stand up, and the room becomes part of the act that always makes for a better show, anywhere. It says that this is not just a prepared thing. And I guess at some times, a lot of people ask us questions about how prepared are you when you go on to a show in terms of knowing what each other is going to say, and we used to in the live shows, I don't really do it anymore, but I used to always have to say you're gonna see that we have lots of bits of paper up here, and you're gonna see us reading from it. But what we do is we send each other the headline fact, that's it, that's all we know about what's going to happen tonight, we go and research it. And this is just so that we don't get names wrong or dates wrong, and just make sure the details are right. But everything on my paper no one has seen and that's a part of trying to make sure that everyone knows that you're in a room of something that's happening live. There's no prep, in terms of us coordinating jokes or facts or anything like that.
Rhianna
That whole idea of prepping for the whichever region you are or whichever theatre you're in, that's kind of that feels quite radio four as well, right? You know, thinking about things like, I'm sorry, I haven't a clue. Going to live recordings of that, you know, they'll always make sure that there are some jokes included about that particular day. Tyrol area. So how much do you think then? Because you've kind of talked about it earlier, but how much do you think that your radio background has informed you when you do live performances? Because that's a very different beast. But do you have a live audience as opposed to a podcast, which is more similar to the radio?
Dan
Yeah, I've never thought about that. I did, I did seven years of producing the Museum of curiosity. And as part of doing that was the creation of it, which took basically a year as well, doing a pilot for it. I mean, it took a long time to try and work out how to make a comedy show where guests were coming on who weren't comedians, what's the best environment, what's going to appeal, you know, there's so many factors of trying to work out how that was going to work. For me, the radio bit kind of is not as important as the mentoring of John Lloyd in that process. Because John has very high standards for every element of every bit of a show that he makes, the script needs to be the best. And even when it's in the best, when it's in the best shape, do another draft, get it even better, the editing needs to be tight, you need to make sure that you're looking after each guest. And that they come across as perfectly as possible. They were all these little lessons for me as a producer before doing this, that I picked up very much wanting to show that I was capable of meeting the high standard of John's and James had to do the same thing. And he has a different side where his standard high bar is on a performance and writing side. And he'd worked with John on Qi books at this point, so knows the side of delivery, not in a broadcast sense. I mean, you would have QA, I guess doing that. But I don't think radio itself had anything I never really even listened to because I'm not from Britain, and I didn't really know it that much. But what I knew was standards, finding handlebars, hence the format of Fish. There's not just one fact, if you don't like this one fact, we got three more coming. So don't worry, you can't lose as a format in that respect. It was finding those things where you just go what is watertight and that's why I'd rather be egotistical when I talk about the format. I genuinely think the fish format is the most beautiful, simple format that could be created for the kind of thing that we do. I think we just nailed it with that simplicity. It's why we haven't had to touch it.
Adam
And it's been obviously globally successful. You know, you mentioned you've got a global audience, and you've taken the live shows on tour around the world, right?
Andy
Yeah, we've we've done we've done Australia and New Zealand, the USA briefly sort of dip our toes in there, Europe, and lots of the UK.
Dan
Yeah, the live shows have been amazing. internationally. The European ones are always interesting. Because you think what the language barrier is gonna be like, and they always are fine. We never really had to do much.
Andy
It's of varying heights, I would say.
Dan
Where was the one where you felt we had to work hardest?
Andy
Paris or Berlin?
Dan
Yeah, but that's because no one came.
Adam
Really?
Andy
No, no, no Dan’s exaggerating for calming effects. Yeah, the Paris one in particular sold quite poorly.
Adam
Yeah. That was quite surprising to me, I think because I'm used to you guys kind of selling out so many tours on such a regular basis. I'm curious, though. Have they always been that popular kind of from the start of when you did live shows? Was the reception always kind of that strong?
Andy
I don't want to say a religious experience for the people that have the gigs. But no, actually, I think it has always been when we started really gently. We started with a 40 seater in North London, called aces and eights, which is lovely.
Adam
I love aces and eights.
Andy
And, and we just thought, let's just see if anyone likes it at all. And the tickets sold. And so then we tried to, you know, 100 seaters or something like that. And that was quite early on. It was only a year or two.
Dan
Yeah, I think we very cleverly did. We slowly built up, we didn't just jump into a deep end. Like there's quite a few podcasts that just go for like a podcast festival. And they're like, well put you in the big room with 500 seats. We may have been able to get a bigger audience to begin with, but it just was more comfortable. So one of the things that I spent quite a lot of time doing in the early days was trying to convince Anna to do the live shows because she really just didn't have an intro Anna. Anna came to this completely not not reluctantly for the idea. She thought it was fun and it was great. But she didn't want to be a performer that was not part of her life plan at all. She was going to be someone who was doing facts which she still loves doing and she does a lot of charity work and that's her. That's her big goal. And when we sat down for the first time we did the podcast, and it just blew us away with the wit and the soul Storytelling and the brevity that anyone who listens to our show just knows how special she is. And so that then became a begging game. Just Anna, please can you do more? Can you be in the fourth seat? Can you go live? Can we do more shows? Can we? And she had to do it.
Andy
I didn't want to go past 100 episodes?
Dan
No, no, I had to drag you guys into this. But then Anna kind of hit a moment where she realised that it was still she I mean, even even to a point where we were getting advertising stuff. I remember Anna feeling really guilty about the time away from doing her main Qi job. She was always so concerned about the money that was being lost for the company. Because we didn't get any advertising. We started at a point where advertising didn't quite exist for podcasting, certainly in the UK. And we did I think, outside of one sponsorship we did with there was visit England Yeah, we there was zero money coming into the podcast for like, seven months.
Andy
quite like a huge number of adverts recorded over a long period of time. It's so weird that we can remember a time before there was advertising, but it isn't. It does sometimes feel like saying to people and then you had to take your 50 Bitcoin, you had to go to the internet cafe over the 70s. Yeah.
Dan
But it's even weirder to me knowing where we came from in that respect of hearing a new podcast launch. And before you even get to the beginning of the show. This week's episode is sponsored by like, where did you get sponsorship? Yeah, don't even get ahead of yourself.
Andy
Yeah, do for yours first.
Rhianna
When did that happen for you? Because I remember I had to host a panel a few years ago at a podcast festival. And I remember sort of using you as an example of adverts that I didn't skip over because you were reading them. And it was sort of one of the earliest examples of hosts reading adverts or something that I listened to. So was that always the plan? Was it, you know, kind of broached to you? Did you come up with that idea?
Andy
We tried a couple of different versions of it. I think there were in the early days, we started 2014. The hit show in general, I think in 2016. We did some plays in adverts, you know pre recorded ones. I think that due to administrative error or some foul play, we ended up playing adverts for Donald Trump's presidential campaign on our show. We said border control and border control. Do you like working for border control? Is it uniform and some authority? And I think that point except right, you shut it down. Every single level? I think it was because I don't want to slander the Trump campaign. But I think they might know, because you can uncheck various boxes when you advertise. You can uncheck gambling. Yeah. Or arms dealing but I think the Trump campaign may have not categorised themselves as politics. Anyway, That's weird, I'm not gonna do any of that. I think that was what we later found out.
Dan
interesting is that Trump got into power not long after that. And so it was interesting to see our influence on the global community.
Andy
It was three specific states, wasn't it? Yeah, well, yeah.
Dan
Because we know that when they voted, they all used the offer code Fish. So it's good. You can monitor this, just on the international tours and just talking about the building up higher and higher to bigger gigs. And one of the things which is the beauty of podcasting is you get the data in a way that you can never get as a stand up comedian who's playing clubs, we can look into the computer and work out exactly where we have listeners, which means we can do a European tour. And we know that if we book out a room, that's a 500. Cedar, we're going to fill it in this town that none of us have any family or ever been to or anything we can rock up assured that that's going to happen. And curiously, the France gig particularly the Paris one, we were advised against doing it because famously, gigs don't sell well for British acts in Paris. That's what they told us. We were like, no, but We're different because we can see the numbers and that's the only time where the numbers I think when against every other gig we sell out because it's like Moneyball, we can see the science of it. We know that this is going to work in this tiny town or this or this large city. You know, wherever that's always so fun. You know, God, a week or two people know us and Sydney. Yeah, they do. Let's book the Sydney Opera House. And we managed to sell out the Sydney Opera House. That's an inconceivable idea. If we didn't know the numbers, it's a hell of an achievement. Yeah, that'd be that's got to be for me as an Aussy that was absolutely the highlight of our live side of Fish.
Andy
I think it was. I think it was your second ever gig in Australia. was a 10 minute stand up in a pub before you left. I set out to you know, travel the world and seek a fortune coming gig was.
Dan
It was the second second time my dad ever saw me on stage. The first time was bombing at the Comedy Store in Sydney when I was at the second gig was bombing on stage sold outside the Opera House.
Rhianna
I think that's so interesting, though, just thinking about the difference between something really intimate, it's a much smaller place than the Sydney Opera House. How does that affect your live shows? Because, like you said, the whole point of podcasts generally is the intimacy of them that you're, you very much feel like you're part of a conversation that you're listening just with you guys. When you have 1000s and 1000s of other people, does it lose some of that intimacy? Or how does that work for you guys?
Andy
Yeah, I think it does. Maybe a tiny bit, but we'd never play anywhere like the oh two, because we simply couldn't sell a space like that. You can't sell 10,000 seats in one night?
Adam
Oh, you don't know until you drive? Yeah, we'll book it.
Andy
Will you tell them you're sharing it? Yeah, no, I think. So I think the biggest gig we've ever done is probably about 3000 people. And it does, it does lose a little bit of intimacy. But it's mostly depending on the shape of the room, as in the people who build these Victorian theatres that you're often appearing. And they were so good at constructing them so that everyone has you know, that people are kind of leaning or that they're at a rectangle or they're on, they're on a balcony, but they're really good at making the audience feel quite close to the stage. And the other nice thing is that I often describe the podcasters as a club and the four of us are the steering committee. If you like, we're the ones who are actually on stage, but everyone is part of the club, everyone is a member of it. And so when you're watching a show, you're, you're watching the individual facts and jokes. But really, you're more watching the four of us, making fun of each other and being interested in each other's facts and laughing at each other's jokes. And so, so that intimacy is always preserved. No matter where we are.
Dan
I think we have an interesting relationship with the listeners of the show, I often really hesitate to say fan, because I do think when you meet someone who likes fish, more often than not, they want to tell you an interesting fact. And we've become buddies to a lot of these people, again, the messages that we get whenever we send out something like it's our anniversary, happy birthday, that we get these extraordinary messages that come back with people who've taken us into their lives in quite an intimate way. And I often find that the live shows hold true. Like if there's a relationship of me getting the piste taken out of me on stage by the guys, that transfers to the listener. So anyone I meet is just really happy just to rip the shit out straight away. Like they've known me for years. And there's there's a beauty in that because I think the opposite is is a bad place to be I think the opposite when you have what musicians have with fans, you can have zero conversation with those people because they don't have anything to say they're too busy thinking that they're in front of a god they're this rockstar is their God. So the intimate gigs for me slightly are a bit more intimidating in that respect. Because you get heckles, which are sometimes hard to hear or people are listening in different ways. And then the bigger gigs have their own other intimidation, which is you can usually get most of a crowd on side with a laugh, which is the benefit of any large room that the laugh carries over and people feel comfortable doing it. But at the same time, as I said before, we don't know what we're going to say on stage that night. We don't have a Polish show that we know is guaranteed labs. And if you get into a place where you feel the show's not going as funny as you wanted it to. That can be a nerve wracking place when you've got 3000 people sitting there because you think we brought 3000 people out to see this. And we're not quite gelling tonight. And then you get off and then they go, Wow, that was so interesting. And you forget that people liked the show for as much of the interesting chat as the comedy for us. The reason we pick funnier facts for the live shows is that laughter is what lets us know the show is going good. So when that's not there, and there's 3000 people there you think, Oh God, Are they enjoying this?
Adam
You can't really hear 3000 people being interested in something.
Andy
There's no noise. There's well that. But people don't really think I'm. I think I'm nervous about shows which have, because I'm absolutely mad and probably quite vain. But I think I'm nervous. The shows which have under 200 and more than 2000 people under 200. And more than to make sense. Our natural Furlong is roughly within there. You can still keep the intimacy 3000 is a bit intimidating. Yeah. Because you aren't necessarily going to be put geographically quite far away from some people. Yeah, it's harder.
Dan
Yeah. And when you play iconic places like the Hammersmith Apollo or the Sydney Opera House or the London Palladium, you do feel like it needs to be better . I feel like I feel like we were on here talking about a charity that I kept just dropping. I feel like it's quite down the line relevant to say the places.
Andy
We should talk about our comic relief work.
Adam
That was a big part. Part of what we did. Yeah, tell us about that.
Dan
Well, that was amazing. That was a really fun thing to do. For me it was a dream come true. Working with comic relief as a kid obsessing over comedy. You always imagine being in a place where you can help with charity and this huge Richard Curtis Emma Freud establishment that was so golden. And so yeah, to get into a spot where we were able to do something was, which was so amazing.
Andy
We did the 35th year of comic relief. So we have 35 guests on each for 35 minutes, which worked out at about I think, 20 or 21 hours of broadcasting. And we did it from noon one day to when it was eight or 9am. The next day. Yeah. And it was amazing, because we had, you know, wonderful people coming on the show and we travelled around the world because obviously there's a certain bit where people are asleep and you need to go to Australia for a bit and then to America for the Sunday morning shift in the UK. S
Dan
So each guest brought a fact. And so we opened with Michael Palin who had the most incredible technical difficulties. We had him repeat his opening fact I think four times. Oh, wow. And the guy was a pro like he just didn't, he didn't flinch. He didn't get angry or anything. And yeah, and it was gone. It was everyone from Stephen Fry and Michael Palin to Philip Perry, who's coming back onto the podcast soon. Richard Osman, we had people like the Freakonomics writer, Stephen Dubner in America, we had Rhys Darby in New Zealand, we had Tim mentioned in Australia, we just were just dancing all over the globe. And, and that was, you know, to the enjoyment of coming up with a podcast and doing just the podcast is the dream gig anyway, the fact that the offshoots of doing live shows or we released a vinyl record with a special episode on Oh, wow. And we did a TV show with BBC Two where we did two series of what was called No Such Thing As The News, a topical show of Yeah, and then getting to do things like the comic relief thing. It's a wild journey, you get to have off the back of this one thing, which is just for people, Dorking out, it's extraordinary. The opportunities that have come our way and in those nine years, we have a jumper. I don't know if you've ever spotted Andy's jumper. It's brilliant.
Adam
I know what's going on my Christmas list.
Dan
Well, you should see the back. It's full of facts. It's really isn't actually
Adam
Actually, yeah. Oh my god. That's amazing.
Dan
So it starts off for the last month of his life President James Garfield ate everything through his anus. And I remember that episode on the Knights of the Round Table included Lancelot, Gwaine, Galahad and Garrus.
Adam
I must have that.
Rhianna
You know, when you were doing your comic relief, then you had to get so many guests on? Was that a really good kind of roster? Do you have another spreadsheet for all your guests that you can that you're able to sort of like us now? Because obviously like you said, Anna is away for quite a while. So you're having to pull in a lot of people and you're mixing up every week?
Adam
I'd imagine you have people beating your door down?
Dan
Surprisingly not. But we've had some requests. We're kicking a
Andy
a lot of doors in, you know, we're getting complaints about you. Yeah, we at the moment, we haven't repeated anyone, but I'm sure there are people who will come back just because it's so much fun recording with them. But at the moment, we're trying not to have anyone on twice. And hopefully we're going to do a run of live shows later in the year. And that'll be a run of live shows where it's not the four of us. It's going to be really strange, but I'm sure it'll be lots of fun as well.
Adam
Yeah, so anything?
Rhianna
Do you always have to sort of think because obviously there are the three of you then who are guys? Do you try to get women in that fourth seat as often as possible? Is that always kind of at the forefront of your mind?
Andy
Yeah, definitely haven't books, man yet, and we've recorded or scheduled I think seven or eight shows? I think we will have some guests who are guys. We're trying as much as we can to make it even fractionally less. Yeah, completely. Yeah, we also match Oh, that's the problem. Like it's gonna step away from the barbecue. Yeah, yeah. As guns away. Ya know, is, is something we're aware of and doing a tiny bit about, but never enough, you know?
Rhianna
Yeah.
Adam
So I just want to quickly go back to the first live shows that you did, because that's something that a lot of podcasters are kind of interested in, you know, increasingly now that podcasting is becoming so much more widespread. How did you go about setting up those kinds of first lives, like test projects effectively? Were you kind of reaching out to venues kind of cold basically, or did you have people coming to you?
Dan
That was all ours? I used to do a lot of stand up in aces and eights. And it was run by the person who I think basically had total control of the programming down there was a guy called Harry Dean's way. And so I used to get down there a lot. And I said to Harry, we're looking for somewhere where we can just try this out and his whole thing was doing experimental alternative comedy, so it fit perfectly if it was a shambolic gig that only lended to the theme of his whole operation. So yeah, so we tried that out there. We had with us my best friend Ash, who Ash is a musician he ran while living in London, a recording studio in East London. He was in a band called emperor. Yes. And it's Emperor Yes, is Song wasps that we use as our theme tune. So ash as the CO writer of the theme tune, and I said to ash, we want to do a live show. What do you reckon? He said, Well, I can get microphones. I mean, all the equipment that we started with using to make the podcast we only ever had one microphone, and it was Asher's microphone. And we had a dual thing that was ashes. Ash was like, Ash just gave me all his tech. And whenever I had a question, he was there to make it happen. So we just say to him, I want to do aces and eights. And he'd say, Yeah, I'll make that happen. And so we did our first I think like three or four shows there. We did a Christmas special, we booked comedians to open for us because we didn't have a first act, you know, a first half to do. So. I know some of the names of the people that we had, like Cattier, giving a, we had we'll see Word, we had just a bunch of our Canadian friends do it. And then we'd come on for the second half only. Then I also did stand ups a lot up the creek in Greenwich. And I was very good friends with gelee, who runs up the creek management as well as the venue. And he was like, you guys got to try it down here. And, he and Nash worked out on the technical side of things. So we were always really lucky because particularly between Andy and me, we always had friends who did this stuff, and wanted to help and, and through ticket sales, we were able to pay them even though there was no advertising at the time. So there was that funding, or Qi was taking the bulk of any financial costs completely on their own. So they would just pay people to do whatever it was needed. I mean, it was a beautiful thing. And the very lucky thing for us is that we were able to turn this into a weekly show, because John and Sarah Lloyd who run Qi saw the show and saw that it was good. And John particularly preferred Qi to be making something that was so different. And something that he was proud of, that was making no money, rather than doing something that was making money that he thought wasn't good. So they gave us everything we needed. The purchasing of microphones and the editing software and stuff. Purely because John was proud of this show. That's that's all it was. It's a very lucky situation we found ourselves in. So what it is, is surrounding yourself with brilliant friends. If you ever heard of it, if you've heard of this, you know the Rodriguez Liske? No, it's Robert Rodriguez. It's this idea that when he was making his first movie, he had zero budget. So he made a list of all his friends who in some way could contribute. My uncle owns a bus. Great. I'll write a scene for the movie that's on a bus. Oh, my friend owns some chickens. Okay, well, I have a scene where they have chickens. And then I can put my friend down as a chicken Wrangler, which means that sounds like there's production. And that's kind of what we did. We did a fish list where it was sort of, you know, who can do the live side who can do the art side, which was Alex Bell, one of the elves who appears often on the show. We brought in all the buddies and just made it a family thing. And yeah, so we were very lucky, we didn't have to learn anything new.
Andy
And we didn't. And we refuse to,
Dan
aA you learned, just as we were trying to set up this podcast recording with you guys.
Rhianna
Thinking about the podcast industry as a whole array is pretty much like the OGS of podcasting, or at least one of them really is out there. How has the podcast industry changed since you first started just in terms of the community and the listeners? And apart from it getting bigger? Have you noticed any other kind of ways that it's evolved?
Andy
It's sometimes quite hard to be aware of what the industry is, especially, you know, if you're listening to this podcast, you'll know how much work it is to make a podcast, there's so much to do. And if you're recording it regularly it's a big job. It's a huge up to date on so often the industry can kind of pass you by while you're working on your show and building your audience and it can be quite hard to notice. So I mean things like the the podcast festivals that have sprung up and the Podcast Awards have been wonderful because you get to you can just go and hang out with people who understand exactly what you're going through with a nightmare edit or whatever it is or question, you know, question of one kind or another in terms of the changes since we started. I've not really been aware of it apart from as you say things getting bigger and And yeah, every one having a podcast and particularly, its more famous people isn't a huge wave of celebrities having podcasts. You know they'll turn up and you'll think well we'll see if you're still there in nine years. Yeah. Well make it through I mean, you have to have time on your hands to make a podcast and and you know, make that time useful. So, you know, not a fairly famous person has got this really really busy life and making a podcast is bloody hard. Yeah. And it's if you're Peter Crouch, you're busy. You got a lot on.
Dan
Is he retired?
Rhianna
Make sure you're paid by me for having a lot on.
Andy
Okay, so maybe I'll pick the one worst example.
Rhianna
Very busy people.
Dan
The OG would be Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington, Stephen Merchant were those who introduced the world to podcasting. Then there were people ahead of us like Helen Zaltzman who answered me. Helen Zaltzman, who's a friend of ours. You know, she was a huge inspiration. Because at that point, when we were starting, she'd been going for a while already, she'd done a book with Ollyi, which was a book of the podcast. And so that was really inspiring to sort of see where you can take it.
Andy
And we saw that they had 300 episodes. And I thought, well, we're never going to do 300
Dan
sets. Yeah. But I also remember at the time, the stuff that was coming out was very much the phase of two male comedians sitting down turning a microphone off, sorry, turning it on, and just riffing for three hours. And it really felt like they were making a show just for them. Almost don't edit it out. Because there's like three hours in which I make this gag and I don't want to be rude to them. But that was how it was back then. And I think that's where podcasting got a bit of a reputation of people just waffling away. When we came in, I think we were part of the wave of bringing editing. Certainly we were in the if you looked in the charts, it was us. And then eventually it was my Dad Wrote A Porno a few months later. You know, Jamie, who is a very good friend of ours. The author Jamie James and Alice are all good friends of ours. But Jamie is basically..
Rhianna
Godfather to your child.
Dan
Godfather to my son. Yeah, and he very much was the same thing, high standard the three of them, Allison James, we edit edits, you know, that's, that's the big thing. So I think we were part of this new change where it suddenly turned into polished shows. And that's what it feels like it's evolved into more now you get comedians coming with a big theme like off menu, you know, they've brought themselves a theme or parenting hell, which is brilliant. Those guys are so funny. And they found the perfect packaging back in the day, it might have just been them just riffing on whatever happened that week, and it wouldn't have been as big because there's less of a grip on it. Would that give you a theme and you've locked yourself into a good place? For us it was a very simple sale. Who are the people behind the QI facts? Well, for them they are getting around the microphone each week and telling their favourite ones they found that week, and it's a show about enthusiasm . It was such a packaged thing that you could get your head around immediately. So for me, that's where the industry has changed slightly. There's a lot of investment now and the idea behind the show, whereas before it was a space just to reach out with ideas.
Rhianna
I feel like you've brought us on perfectly to our closer, which is a really hard one. What are your favourite facts that you've ever found out? That always springs to mind? Because you must have been asked this. But as a film critic, I get asked all the time what my favourite movie is, and it changes from week to week but at the moment, what is your favourite fact?
Dan
Well, ours does change week to week as well. Yeah, it's hard to know I have one which I love. Sometimes the ones you love most are the ones where you made the connection rather than it being just a fact and for me it was the fact that the whoopee cushion was invented by a Roman Emperor called Pupienus obviously, that's not how you pronounce it, but that's how it looks when it's written. It's basically and he was called Pupienus and I just was reading his wiki and I saw that he had invented the whoopee cushion and I just couldn't believe it is otherwise known as basically anus you kidding me? So that for me has always been one of the highlights. My favourite one of Andy's just while you're thinking of one is the Finnish budget meatball yeah and you want to say that or you say so Andy found this on the show. It's probably on the back of this jumper. Finnish budget meatballs contain so little meat in them that they were forced to rebrand themselves so now they're just sold as bowls. They no longer meet bowls. Yeah, that's definitely one of my favourites from Andy
Andy
as well. as doing the archive, I'm in the Fish inbox at the moment we get sent brilliant facts. You might like to know that there was also a Roman Emperor called poopy anus.
Dan
What did he invent?
Rhianna
The toilet paper surely. Yeah. I love how Amos has come up with all of your facts. When you were going through Anna's sort of highlight show and the prolapsed. Oh my god, I was actually gagging on my walk. I think it was a bit hungover.
Dan
That yeah, it's a prolapsed ox rectum, wasn't it?
Andy
It's hard to describe now, but that's maybe my favourite bit in nine years of the show. The sheer, awful hilarity of the whole thing when we were discussing it, yeah, a few moments that stick in the mind like that.
Adam
For my part, my favourite fact, I think is the one that the show takes its name from, it's such a lovely thing to introduce to people who have never kind of heard it before. And just watching them kind of mentally unpack it is always just an absolute delight.
Dan
That was also when we were coming up with titles for the show that was on the list, but it was never a leader. And it was very interesting how, when you talk about the show, you naturally just start giving it a thing. And we just kept saying, you know, the Fish show if we were because various different ideas were floating around the office. And so it kind of gravitated towards that. But also what we loved was we're a show about facts. And the name of the show is a fact that there was something so delicious about that. And then, when we started I think this was a moment where we knew that we didn't have to be as prescriptive with the podcast as we thought we were. We used to open up the shows. And I think if you listen to the first 20 or so episodes, maybe James and I had recorded a bit where you get before the theme chain, you get this bit of James going. So you know that thing. There's No Such Thing As a Fish. What do you mean, there's no such thing as a fish? No, seriously, it's in the underwater encyclopaedia, blah, blah, blah, that says no such thing as a fish. And then our theme tune comes in. And we thought we needed to do that to explain the title. And that lovely moment quite far in 20 weeks or whatever where you just go, we don't need to explain the title, just let it get rid of that bit. And let's just begin the show and see it's weird what bits you remember over the nine years as kind of as being Pivotal, important things and losing the explanation for me was one of them was a felt like you'd made it and that you don't no longer needed to feel the need to explain yourself
Andy
Should be called there's No Such Thing As a Fish. No Such Thing As a Fish isn't a sentence, really.
Dan
Yeah.
Rhianna
Well, on that brilliant note.
Dan
Where were you 170 episodes ago?
Rhianna
Crying that it wouldn't go further than just the first one, apparently. Dan, Andy, thank you so much for joining us on PodPod. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you both.
Andy
Thanks for having us.
Rhianna
That was Dan Schreiber and Andrew Hunter Murray talking about No Such Thing As a Fish. I sort of feel like it's pointless asking me what my favourite takeaway from that interview was just because I loved the entire thing. I mean, I hear their voices more than anybody else in my family even. So it's really weird sort of having a conversation for the first time and not just wanting to sit back and listen to them talk to each other, which I was very happy to do as well. REME you were listening. What did you take away from this particular interview? What really stood out?
Reem
Well, besides the fact that I enjoyed watching you guys fangirl interviewing. One of my interesting takeaways from the conversation was when they were talking about advertising. And they spoke about the fact that when they started, which was, what, like, nine, nine years ago, because I just had their ninth anniversary, the access to advertising wasn't as big as it is now. And I think for new comer podcasters, advertising is so easy. And there's so many different options that they can go through. So it's hard to imagine starting out when really it's just kind of like doing it out of something that you love, and not really looking for sources of revenue or not having to get super creative in the way that you do get revenue. And it's like a reminder of where podcasting has started and how much it has evolved now.
Rhianna
I guess the idea of them saying that really intimate gigs are quite intimidating, and they're really massive gigs are intimidating. And that there's a sort of happy medium, I found really fascinating because for an audience member, it must be such a thrill to be part of something where you're only sort of like 50 100 people, like if you're going to a live concert even or you know an acoustic session where it's there's something incredibly special about that. I've never really thought about the impact that it would have on a performer or in this case, a podcaster who might actually struggle to get the same sort of repartee going as they would with a crowd of 200 or more. I really liked hearing about Andy's perspective on that. Adam, what about you?
Adam
I was really interested in the fact that the live shows were pretty much self started. I had kind of assumed, I guess that it was the result of the success of the podcast and someone listening to it. And you know, like a booker or, you know, an events planner or something, reaching out to them and going, hey, you know, we'd love to have you on our venue for live recording. But the fact that they just basically thought, yeah, this, we think this has legs as a live show, and particularly, at a time when live shows one, as much of a thing as they've now become, probably thanks in no small part to the success of Fish's life to us. The fact that they just reached out off their own back and made it all happen, I think is really interesting.
Rhianna
And yeah, I suppose you can say that about their entire podcast, it feels like Dan particularly is such a driving force of kind of knowing where he wants his podcast to go.
Adam
He's very much an elf made-man.
Rhianna
Oh, God. Can we get a tumbleweed sound effect anywhere? I don't know it's quite inspiring to think that podcasters shouldn't sort of sit back on their laurels and wait to be discovered, but they should be deriving all of that themselves. It's quite tempting, isn't it to think, oh, one day I could be playing that. But that's got to come from you. I think that's great.
Adam
Yeah, and I think it's a real inspiration for other podcasters to do the same. You know, we've talked a lot on this show about some of the challenges inherent in kind of monetizing a podcast with maybe not enormous but very highly engaged audience and the fact that Fish have managed to build really quite successful kind of touring live by God's business, just off the back of taking a chance on booking a small room and seeing how they did. I think there's a lot of podcasters that could follow that example and just put themselves out there and see how it goes.
Rhianna
Well, I hope that I get a free hoodie out of this at least.
Reem
They are nice hoodies.
Rhianna
They are lovely hoodies. Thank you so much to Dan Schreiber and Andrew Hunter Murray for joining us on PodPod this week. And thank you to Adam and Reem as well for sharing your insights. And you can find out so much more on PodPod.com and look for the articles that Reem has written because Reem's a great writer. She's not gonna say it but she really is. Sign up to our daily email bulletins, and you can follow us on social @podpodofficial. The podcast is produced by Emma Corsham for Haymarket Business Media and she's going to have quite the job cutting down this particular week's interview. I'm your host, Rhianna Dhillon, thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next week. Bye.
