Best Midwestern Podcast (Greg Simpson & Scott Heisel) - Sound In The Signals Interview
Before Best Midwestern started both of you have a long storied history with Punknews.org, as well as other publications, and the podcast is promoted on Punknews. How did you guys both get to know each other and how did you guys originally get started at Punknews.org?
Scott: I got my start at Punknews in early 2001, after Aubin had opened up the reviews section to anyone who wanted to submit stuff. I started syndicating all my old reviews I had written for my brother's zine and Aubin reached out after a few months and said, "I could use another editor; want to join?" The rest, as they say, is something-or-other.
Greg: Scott and I met in college, hanging around the music building. This was around 2000 or 2001, and Scott, who was already an editor at Punknews, asked me to become part of the voluntary Punknews staff and start writing reviews in 2002. I've been writing reviews ever since, though they've decreased in number in recent years as I've begun focusing more on our podcast, as well as being the editor and producer of the weekly original Punknews Podcast.
You both have a long history with music both listening to and on the journalistic side of things. What got you both interested in the journalistic side of the music industry and how has that shaped how you've listened to music over the years?
Greg: I've been playing and writing rock music since I was 13, and somewhere around that same time I start delving further and further into music that I wasn't hearing on the radio. I was interested in music journalism because of both of these reasons. As someone who made music, I felt I had the knowledge of songwriting and performing to write an informative review, and I loved the idea of telling people about an off-the-radar band like the ones I was performing in. I also liked the idea of getting sent a bunch of brand new music by my favorite bands and bands I would come to love. I've never made my living off of music journalism like Scott though, just a bunch of free awesome music.
Scott: I've barely made a living off music journalism so I'm not that far ahead of Greg! For me, it was just the next natural extension of being involved in the scene. I booked shows, played in bands, worked at a record store, did college radio... Writing about music was the one thing I kept doing through all of that and eventually earned me some attention from higher-ups at big labels and other companies. My listening habits have definitely changed throughout the past 15 years, but the stuff I listened to when I was 16 is the stuff I'm still championing today—Braid, the Get Up Kids, American Football, No Knife, Texas Is The Reason, Mineral, the Promise Ring, Alkaline Trio, Cursive, Jimmy Eat World, etc. It's exciting to see a whole new wave of people discovering bands I've known about for nearly 20 years.
Best Midwestern focuses on music in the Midwest. You offer up favorites and opinions. I think the idea of focusing on the midwest was really interesting. When you both sit down to discuss starting a podcast did you kind of already know what direction you wanted to take the podcast in or was this a concept you came up with while talking about starting a podcast?
Greg: Well, I actually had a Midwest podcast before this one called Two Gregs One Podcast with my pal Greg Moore, also hosted through Punknews. That ran from March of 2012 to January of 2015. We were very erratic with our posting schedule and only did an episode every other month or so, a total of 21 episodes. Best Midwestern has already eclipsed that number in our first year. Two Gregs was strictly reviews of new and classic albums, only hosting one interview, but had a similar format. Before the last episode of that show even aired, knowing Greg Moore decided to call it a day, I was already bugging Scott to give it a try with me. We had always had funny, heated discussions about music, so I knew it would be a good fit. We aired our first episode a month later and have kept ourselves to a more rigid posting schedule, airing them every two weeks on Fridays. For the most part we've kept that up, and it's helped with our listenership and download numbers. We also decided to mix things up a little more, with not only reviews episodes but more interviews as well as lots of entire episodes dedicated to dissecting classic albums and artists' discographies. We also made the not-so-conscious decision to be a little more loose than Two Gregs with less edits in the conversation segments, just letting the silliness and tangents shine through.
With podcasts becoming so popular over the last couple of years and everyone fighting for their spot, especially with music podcasts, do you think kind of narrowing down and focusing on the midwest has helped not only set you apart from other musical podcast but also helped kind of build a musical narrative for what you guys are talking about on the show?
Greg: When I pitched Two Gregs to Punknews Managing Editor Adam White back in 2012, he was excited for more Punknews Podcast spin-offs--there used to be a couple more different podcasts that have fizzled out over the years--but he was skeptical about such a narrow focus. I convinced him that it wasn't all that narrow since the Midwest consists of 12 states with millions of people in them! Throughout the years he has been convinced and was excited when Best Midwestern started, because getting Scott back on board after a decade away from Punknews was big news.
Scott: "Big news" is probably a stretch—I'm not nearly as important as Greg makes me out to be, but I'm flattered nonetheless. After being let go from my former job after working there for 10 years (and having dabbled in podcasting for that company while there), it was very exciting to be able to commit to something like this with Greg without having to worry about someone higher up than me getting mad I wasn't dedicating that time to something else.
What makes Midwestern music so important to you and who are some of the artists you think are integral parts of it that have influenced the genres you enjoy so much?
Greg: We both grew up in Illinois, Scott in Rockford and myself in Arlington Heights, a northwest suburb of Chicago. We both drove into Chicago so much in our youth to see bands, as well as plenty of other small midwestern towns like the Quad Cities where we went to college, Galesburg, IL, Freeport, IL... places people have never even heard of. We saw bands that no one outside of their home state would have heard of that we thought were great and deserved recognition. We still do, and we want to give those bands a chance, as well as showcase bigger indie and punk bands. We want to show everyone that not all of the good music comes from the coasts.
Scott: Discovering great bands from where you're from is one of the best parts of listening to new music, I think. I grew up with a scene full of great local acts like Gods Reflex, the Evergreen Trio and the February Stars Union (bands that most people have never heard of but I still adore), and then once I moved to Cleveland in 2004 I came across a whole slew of incredibly talented bands from northeast Ohio like Signals Midwest, Meridian, Annabel, Runaway Brother, the Sidekicks, Heart Attack Man, My Mouth Is The Speaker and plenty more. There's always awesome music being made in close proximity to you—why go looking elsewhere when it's right under your nose?
If you had to pick two Midwestern artists you think every music listener of the punk/emo/rock/alternative genres should hear before they die who would those two artists be and why?
Greg: Geez. There are way too many, man. I'm going to go with two classic important bands and say Devo from Akron, OH, though I hope everyone reading this already knows them. Then let's go with Dead Boys from Cleveland, a crucial band that eventually relocated to integrate into the late 70s CBGB's scene.
Scott: This is damn near impossible. Can I narrow it down to records by Midwestern artists? If so, then I would say Goddamnit by Alkaline Trio from Chicago and Destruction By Definition by the Suicide Machines from Detroit. Both are 100% flawless and in my all-time top 10.
Do you have a personal favorite episode of the podcast or one you might recommend people check out if they haven't heard it yet?
Greg: I think our recent episode, number 22, came out really funny. Anytime Scott or I bust into an a cappella version of something-or-other, it's pretty goofy and fun. I hope people don't turn off the podcast immediately upon hearing it, because we love to do it. I would also highly recommend Episode 4, where we chatted with Josh Caterer of the Smoking Popes, Duvall and currently Jackson Mud. He gave us a lot of great history and backstories about his youth and songs he's written. There's a great reveal about a love interest featured prominently in some Smoking Popes songs that blew my mind, something I had never known despite being a superfan.
Do you have any big plans or high hopes for the podcast in 2016?
Greg: I would love to do more interviews with musicians. One that for sure will happen is with Pat Ford, the singer of an awesome and underrated old Chicago band called Colossal, along with possibly their drummer Rob Kellenberger (also of Slapstick and Tuesday), to talk about the re-releases of their records scheduled to come out on Asian Man. I won't mention his name, but there is a great music-loving comedian who grew up in the Midwest we hopefully will get on the show this year. Scott has been in touch with him a few times, and he is totally down, but the timing hasn't worked out with his busy schedule.
I guess that about wraps it up. Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
Greg: Just a big thank you to everyone who has given us a chance in this current world of content overload, with so much great music, TV and podcasts to choose from. That they give us 2 or 3 hours out of their month to listen to us blather on about music is amazing. Thanks for listing us on your Top 20 podcast of 2015, Truman! And thanks for the interview!
Scott: We appreciate every listener we have and love getting feedback, so feel free to email us at bestmidwestern@gmail.com, tweet to us (@bestmidwestern) or Facebook message us (also @bestmidwestern).
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