Host - Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. 

Every week in 2022, The Moth has been celebrating its 25th anniversary, by taking a look back at each year along the way. In this episode, we're at 2008. We had our first international Mainstage show in Perth, Australia, and our first foreign language Moth night in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, with stories told in Russian and Tajik. And then, we started a podcast, this one, which you're listening to right now. Here's the origin story of The Moth Podcast. 

In the early days of podcasting, I had been a guest on Jesse Thorne's podcast, The Sound of Young America. Back then, you went to Jesse's apartment in downtown Los Angeles, and that was it. That was the studio. I only had a very basic understanding of what podcasting was back then. 

After the interview, Jesse asked if I'd like to stay and be a guest on another podcast of his called Jordan, Jesse, Go! I had this moment where I thought, this is punk rock or indie music all over again. Everyone's producing their own work. There's no gatekeeper to getting on the air anymore. This is going to change everything. And of course, it did.

From Los Angeles, I flew to Perth to do our first international Moth Mainstage show, literally on the other side of the world from our usual downtown New York stomping grounds. I got an email from Apple. It was about a book I was promoting, a comedic book about my getting hired Atlantic Records, and about how the music business as we knew it was about to change completely. 

Apple was starting to invest heavily in audio content on their still relatively new iTunes music store. They wanted to record this live event at the Apple store in SoHo, where I'd be in conversation with someone about my book. In Perth, I was with Leah Thau, The Moth's then executive director, and also Sarah Austin Jenness. I asked Leah if she'd be on stage with me at the Apple event in SoHo. I thought the conversation could be bigger than me and the book that way. It could be about podcasts, how everything's changing and storytelling and what we were doing at The Moth. But then, I said, “This could also be the moment where we announce that The Moth is releasing a podcast.” 

Never mind that we didn't have one yet or that none of us knew how to make one. Hadn't we all just seen Steve Jobs announce the release of the iPhone 5 months before it was ready to be available? How hard could a podcast be compared to a phone that would change the world? Leah Thau and Sarah were excited. And Leah called The Moth artistic director, Catherine Burns. And Catherine said, “Yes, let's do it.” And the rest of the team, Jennifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, everyone jumped on board, which was a big deal, because we were still selling actually a good amount of CDs at our shows on the merch table. So, I was basically the person saying, “Hey, I have a great idea for us. Will give the stories away free every week, forever.” 

I remember all of us in Paul Ruest's studio in Chelsea asking each other the question, what is this? What does it sound like? We knew what the Moth sounded like on stage, but what about in people's headphones? Somewhere along the line, we got it right. Kate Tellers volunteered to edit it in GarageBand. We launched the first episode ever, and got 1,700 downloads. We were over the moon. We had not anticipated that success. 

Almost six times the amount of people who would come to the Nuyorican Café for one of our SLAMs. And then, we realized, “Oh, my God, more and more people are showing up to listen to this thing.” The numbers weren't stopping. We'd created a radio show before we had a radio show. Nobody giving us permission, nobody telling us how something like this should sound. And 1,700 people around the world had showed up for it. Last time, I checked, the podcast was downloaded almost 100 million times in an average year. The weirdest thing about all of it is it's nothing anyone could have ever planned. Like, 90% of outsized success, we were all part of a perfect storm. 

A storm that started clear back when founder George Dawes Green, first invited his friends over to tell stories on his friend Wanda's porch on a little island in Georgia. Working hard figured into the success, sure. Hard work from storytellers, staff, hosts, volunteers, the support of you, the listener and the audience. But here's the thing. Lots of people work hard. Basically, everyone in the world works hard. Talent and stories figure in. But again, millions and millions of people are talented, and everyone in the world has a story. 

The fact is, and someone way smarter than me, Malcolm Gladwell, has written beautifully about this, “Outsized success has a lot to do with all of the things that I mentioned, but also simply being in the right place at the right time and somehow also millions of tiny, lucky things happening against all odds.” 

As if you haven't heard enough of me yammering on, here's one of the first stories we ever played on The Moth Podcast. It's a story I told in 2007 at Bumbershoot in Seattle. This is called I'm Paid to Write Love Letters to Phil Collins. Here it is, live at The Moth. 

[cheers and applause] 

Dan Kennedy: [00:05:57] In my 20s, I worshiped at the altar of punk rock. I listened to bands like X and Circle Jerks and a handful of bands like this. And later on, the Pixies and a band I liked called Vomit Launch. I thought a lot of 20 somethings worshiping at the music altar that I should possibly just become one of these punk legends. I didn't let the fact that I didn't have any predisposition to musical talent or songwriting enter into that decision. So, I thought, it's really time I become one of these punk rock legends. I need to quit my day job. 

So, I quit my day job at the record store in very Northern California where I was working. And this is just two weeks before the music scene in Seattle exploded. I took what meager savings I had, and I filled up the gas tank in my secondhand car. I bought a secondhand acoustic guitar. I drove for 12 hours in the opposite direction of Seattle [audience laughter] on a tip that the music scene was going to explode in Austin, Texas, not Seattle. Right. So, I get down to Austin and I'm lucky. I book a gig right away. It doesn't really occur to me that this should be terrifying news, because I don't have any songs and I'm not much of a guitar player. 

I figure like, well, I've got a journal with stuff in it that has pissed me off over the last year or so. I'll weave that into whatever I'm doing up there, and the songs will happen and they'll explode out of my soul like angst, and the revolution will begin and I'll be on the front lines of it. [audience laughter] Yeah, it'll be fun. So, I went and played the gig. It did not go well, to put it mildly. I like to think it was a matter of being ahead of my time, but I just remember playing an open E and just being like, “Oh, my girlfriend talks to her ex-boyfriend too much on the phone.” 

I'm looking out to see if the revolution is starting. [audience laughter] And it's like, so not starting. Although, there's an older man at the bar who's extremely drunk, who yells out that I'm a genius. [audience laughter] This was not enough to stoke the fire of the dream, however. On the way back to where I was staying that night, I see a cover of SPIN magazine, and it says in big letters, “SEATTLE MUSIC SCENE EXPLODES.” 

So, I'm out of money and I'm on the wrong side of the coast, basically. I really couldn't be further away from where I need to be. I turn around, I pack up, I start heading back up. I get to Northern California, and I need to get my job back at the record store to save up some money to get up to Seattle. It's a little bit humiliating, because it's only been four days. [audience laughter] Yeah. So, I'm like, “Hey, guys, how's it going? I totally remember what I said, and I feel bad about that. Going to be a legend or whatever. You guys can stay here if that's what you want to do. But I need some shifts, and if Gary is not working the closing shift, I'd cover it.” 

By the time I get to Seattle, it's like a year and a half later. Everything has already happened. And as everybody in this room certainly knows, by the time something's on the cover of SPIN magazine, it's over anyway. So, there's really nothing going on for me, because I don't have any real songs or talent, and the scene's already exploded. Everyone's out on tour getting famous. So, I instantly decide I'm going to become the guy who's not going to sell out. [audience laughter] Yeah. Never mind that nobody is asking about buying, [audience laughter] and never mind that I have nothing to sell anyway. I'm not going to sell out. 

I get a couple day jobs, prerequisite, and I talk to anyone who will listen about how I'm never going to sell out. One of my day jobs was counting--- I forgot that I made a note not to mention this in front of a lot of people. But one of my day jobs was counting forks at a catering company for large parties. I count them into batches of 100 for the Microsoft party and stuff like that. I did this with a Middle Eastern man, God bless him, named Atif. He didn't speak a lot of English, but he did have to listen to my diatribes about how I was never going to sell out. 

So, we'd be counting our forks and I'd be like, “This is sad. You know what I mean, Atif?” What all these bands are doing, man? It's like, I would never do that. I'd never take the corporate money, man.” He's just like, “Oh, he can't understand” [audience laughter] I'm like, “You know, Pearl Jam and Nirvana. It's sad.” When I say like those band names, he gets visibly excited, because he recognizes and he's like, “Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. Nirvana, Pearl Jam.” I'm like, “No. No, dude, bad what they did not. Good. God.” 

So, I come out of that blackout, a 35-year-old man living in downtown New York City. I have a very tiny apartment, and it's furnished with a chair and a wooden table and a futon on the floor. I think this proves I'm pretty intense, right? [audience laughter] I am keeping it real. I'm a badass, like, look at my house. It doesn't have anything in it and it's tiny. [audience laughter] Yeah. And I'm 35. [audience laughter] 

And so, I am clearly, I'm suffering that disease that some men suffer when they turn 35, the one where you think you're still as cool as you were when you were 20. And it's tragic. [audience laughter] And so, I'm really thinking that I'm pretty cool. I literally have this thought process that when people who are 25 look at me, they're like, “Here's their thought process,” I actually think, “Oh, there's a guy, he's a little bit older. He's 35, but you can tell he's cool still.” [audience laughter] Yeah, he's cool 35-year-old. Yeah. 

So, I'm on the phone with a friend of a friend who's offering me a job as something called a creative director at Atlantic Records. And I'm like, “That sounds like corporate bullshit or whatever.” But at the same time, I'm like, “Fuck. Seriously? How much is it? Wow.” And so, I'm like, “No, I could try it, dude, but I'm going to have to do my shit my way a little bit.” [audience laughter] My friend's like, “Whatever that meant. Do you want to come in and talk to these people?” I'm like, “Yeah. No, yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely.” So, I'm thinking, I literally am convincing myself like, “Oh, the way this adds up is they can tell I'm still really cool.” 

So, they're hiring me to be this like 35-year-old guy who is going to work there, but keep it really intense, because I'm still got my feet on the street type of thing. I'm thinking I'm going to go there and I'm going to take these really sonically challenging bands that no one's ever heard of, and I'm going to make these these advertising and marketing campaigns and videos, and my role is I'm going to introduce these intense bands to the other 35-year-olds who don't get it. [audience laughter] 

So, day one on the job, my first big assignment comes down. I find out I'm going to be writing a national ad campaign that will celebrate 25 years of heartwarming love songs by Phil Collins. [audience laughter] [sighs] So, I'm like, “All right, all right. Okay. Whatever. I can do this. I can do my take on this, find a hardcore angle here.” 

So, just then the phone in my office rings. I have an office, which is sadly huge news in my family at age 35. I have an assistant, which was startling to me, and she brings me little bottles of chilled water when I need to do stuff. This is apparently really important when you need to think that an assistant brings you a little thing of water, I'm like, “Thanks, man.” And then, I thought, no, I'm selling out. So, I started telling her, “I'll get my own water.” That was my version of keeping it real. [audience laughter] So, I was like, “Sarah, don't worry about it. I'll get it. Yeah, thanks. I could use a water though. Thank you. Thanks for [unintelligible [00:15:00].” 

Just then, the telephone in my office rings and it's the president of the label and he says, “Listen, Dan, I just wanted to remind you, whatever you're working on for Phil Collins, his audience is 40-year-old women to 50-year-old women. So, you need to be writing in that voice.” I'm like, “Oh, okay, sir.” Awesome. So, now I'm a man in an office writing like a 50-year-old woman, [audience laughter] which I'm finding harder and harder to make seem like I'm keeping it real to myself. I'm like, “All right, let's see what we got here.”

So, I wrestle this thing to the ground. I'm in the office for nine hours on day one. At the end of the nine hours of pacing around wondering what the hell I've done with my life, I'm going, “Okay, I got a headline.” And the headline was, who was really your first love? Yeah. And I'm panicking. Day two, lock myself in there for nine hours. [chuckles] The headline I come up with was something, “Oh, here's to the voice of love.” Yeah.

It's all Hallmark cards that aren't filed under a holiday. They're just filed under like, because or we're friends, huh. This is vague stuff that generally feels good. What's that? And so, it's like I'm freaking out. I need a break. So, I walk down to the corporate kitchen there in the hallway, make myself a cup of coffee, I'm thinking. I walk in, and there's this dude, and he works there. I've seen him around. He's got tattoos from his fingertips all the way up to his neck. I'm like, “Oh, my God.” I look at this guy, and he's got piercings that are not-- I feel old fashioned calling them piercings. They're just violently doing things to his skin. He’s got like-- plumbing parts are jammed through his ear like a wrought iron chaise lounge is hanging from his head. [audience laughter] 

He has fashioned his hair into this situation where you shave just a little spot about the size of a half dollar, and you dye it green and you spike it. Make it a spike. So, he's got a green spike right here. I look at this guy and I'm like, “Here's somebody I can relate to.” [audience laughter] I'm like, “All right.” Finally, somebody like me, intense, a little bit older, who cares though. And so, I really wanted to impress this guy. I'm like, “Hey, man, how's it going?” And he's like, “Pretty good. How are you?” I'm like, “All right.” And so, I go, “Yeah, I just need a cup of coffee and I didn't want to go downstairs. So, the corporate bullshit, sellout coffee place, six bucks, whatever. I'm just going to make my own.” 

And he's like, “Yeah, we actually just got a machine at home that makes them. It's 600 bucks, but it's so sweet. You can just make your own lattes and stuff.” And I was like, “Oh, my God.” [audience laughter] I was like, “Oh, that's cool.” And then, he's like, “Yeah, we're just remodeling our whole kitchen, so we're getting all this stuff. We have granite countertops. I bought this big place, and my wife is like, ‘Oh, I want to do a good Kitchen.’” So, I'm like, “Okay, honey.” I'm like, “Jesus Christ, what's happening right now?” [audience laughter] 

I'm like, “I have this shift inside of me.” Like, I came in for a cup of coffee and I got an identity crisis. [audience laughter] I'm thinking, like, I want that stuff. I want stuff. I want furniture. I want a nice kitchen. I didn't know we were allowed to want that and still be intense. [audience laughter] You know that moment when you found out we can like Prince. It was like, “Oh, seriously.” Like, “Well, fuck, I've liked him since Purple Rain. [audience laughter] Why didn't you guys tell me? I was hiding that shit forever.”

And so, I'm like, “Okay, this is a major shift. I want to make this work. Let's nail this Phil thing, because I came in, there going like, I'm just ducking in. This is a port in the storm and the high journey on the high seas. My intense one-man solo finds his way across the world is going to continue. But I'm just ducking in here for a minute.” So, I talked to that dude and I'm like, “Oh, my God, I don't want to go back out there,” I don't want it. Fuck the high sea. I don't want to go on the high sea. I don't want to do the journey alone or whatever. I want to be here with these guys. This is good, nice stuff, lots of money. [audience laughter] 

So, it was really sad when that guy met that-- Like, I'm going to keep it real guy, because I just a spasm walking. I want a kitchen. Oh, fuck it. Keep it real. “Oh, no, no.” [audience laughter] So, I get back in my office and my boss is sitting in the office, and I'm like, “Hey, how's it going?” “Really good. Have you had any time to work on the Phil Collins thing?” And I'm like, “That's pretty much what I've been doing for three days. I've been locked in here Martin Sheen and fucking Apocalypse Now. 

I'm thinking, yeah, I think I've had a little time. But then, I also had this quiet panic where I'm like, “Oh, my God, am I supposed to be doing other stuff at this job too?” [audience laughter] And I was like, “Yeah, I have. I have.” She goes, “You can stop wherever you are with it.” I was like, “Okay. Yeah, what's up?” And she goes, “Well, I just talked to Phil on the phone, and he and his manager, Tony, don't want to make a big deal out of this. They know it's the 25th year. They know it's a big thing. But their words we're not curing cancer. This is just pop music, let's keep it low key.” 

And then, the weirdest thing happened. I was like, “Oh, my God, Phil Collins seems cool.” [audience laughter] I was like. “Really? He said that? That seems pretty cool. He seems cool. I like him,” or whatever. [audience laughter] I'm like, “What is happening to me?” [audience laughter] I'm just like, “You know what? Here's the thing. I've been in here for three days already, straight. I have somebody who wants to bring me bottles of water. You guys are paying me this money. All of a sudden, what am I doing? Nothing. I have an assistant to help me do nothing.” 

And she's like, “Well, here's what we're going to do with the ad. We're just going to make it a picture of Phil and the number 25.” And I'm like, “Oh, my God.” I'm thinking, like, seriously? And she's like, “It's just number 25.” And I was like, “Where's the craft in that? Where is the writing? There's no line. You don't even need me here. This is a sham. It's bullshit. This is everything adulthood is built on.” I completely refused to participate, basically. This is what I was thinking. [audience laughter] What I heard myself say at that moment was, oh, okay, yeah. Just a simple, elegant, sort of. I like it. [audience laughter] Tonight could be a nice way to go. Sure.

Right that moment, that's the second I drank the corporate Kool-Aid. I basically realized at that moment, [sighs] if you're forced to be someone else and do someone else and act like someone else and look like someone else and dress like someone else, just to succeed, you got to walk away. That's what you have to do. And that's what I did. I didn't walk away, per se. [audience laughter] But however, 18 months later, I was laid off in a series of job cuts. But the point is, I'm back out here and I'm keeping it real. So, rock on. Thanks. 

[cheers and applause] 

Dan Kennedy: [00:22:32] A couple decades and change go by, and you learn a lot about stories and story structure, what makes something work or not. I completely wouldn't tell this story the same way today. I could feel where the punchlines worked in telling this story and where they didn't. I held back certain things I knew or left out certain things altogether. That's what we do as people. It's your life. It's your movie basically. 

I knew I was actually super excited to get this assignment the first week on the job. I knew I loved the music of Phil Collins. That love affair started with the 1978 Genesis album, and then there were three, an album that my sister and I would play endlessly growing up. Practically, 30 years later, I read Phil Collins autobiography cover to cover in a trance the week it came out. Then I read my favorite chapters over again. I've since obsessed over the type of vintage Ludwig Concert Toms he played on that iconic part on In The Air Tonight and the gear he used to record the very first solo demos in that house he bought in the country. 

I write in film and television now. And obviously, never feel guilty about writing what I know will make a scene funny, leaving out what will weigh down a punchline. But over the last 15 years, I've felt bad about having done that same thing on stage. And in my book, when telling the best Phil Collins story, I'll probably ever have in my pocket. My boss at Atlantic Records, she in fact hired the perfect writer for the job. I still to this day play in then there were three, or Abacab or Duke, all at full volume in the middle of the night in my studio when I need to feel happy and inspired. 

And also, so many of the hits off the solo albums, Easy Lover, his collaboration with Philip Bailey from Earth, Wind & Fire, Take Me Home, I Missed Again, One More Night, and on and on. I love Phil Collins, since 1978. 

That's all for this episode. We hope you enjoyed our look back at The Moth Podcast. From everyone here at The Moth, have a story worthy week. 

Marc Sollinger: [00:24:49] Dan Kennedy is one of the original developers of The Moth Podcast. And a longtime host and performer at The Moth. He's the author of three books, Loser Goes First, Rock on and American Spirit, and the cocreator of the new comedy fiction podcast KPODD 101.3, with Maximum Fun Network's Benjamin Ahr Harrison. KPODD is available wherever you get your podcasts. 

This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Lee Ann Gullie, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. 

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.