The Sounds of Bustown
Not all art is created for an audience. Sometimes, it’s made for the artist. That’s true for William Mount, the host and producer of the music podcast The Sounds of Bustown. Today, we’re unpacking a decade of stories, sounds, and the shifting sands of the Columbus music and podcast scenes. We’ll explore the challenges of keeping a podcast fresh and engaging through life’s ups and downs, the importance of authenticity, and how to keep the creative fires burning.
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Welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week — not all art is created for an audience. Sometimes it's made for the artist. That's true for William Mount, the host and producer of the music podcast The Sounds of Bustown. Today, we're unpacking a decade of stories, sounds, and the shifting sands of the Columbus music and podcast scenes. We'll explore the challenges of keeping a podcast fresh and engaging through life's ups and downs, the importance of authenticity, and how to keep the creative fires burning. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with William Mount, the host and producer of The Sounds of Bustown, a local music podcast, also the proprietor of Loud Cat Podcasts, and also the Instagram handle Sounds of Bustown — Bustown. Downtown, bus. I was gonna go into the whole detail about it, but you started over, so — You reached out to me, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, and said, hey, I want to come on the Confluence Cast, I'm going to wind down this podcast. I didn't ask anything about it. I was like, you're my friend, yeah, come on. In the pre-record today, I was like, oh, so when are you stopping? And you're like, oh, February of next year. And I'm like, oh, all right. Well, we'll get into this. So give us the elevator version of that. I started doing this thing, it was this long ago — I started The Sounds of Bustown in 2014. Had a co-host at the time. He moved to Chicago in 2017. I took it over myself, and have been rolling solo ever since. Get a guest host in there every now and then, been pretty fun. Made it through the pandemic. Release an episode every two weeks, haven't missed a beat. So, even made it through the night we switched to Zoom recordings. And, yeah, we still made it work. I didn't want the podcast to die during the pandemic. It was one of those things where I'm like, well, I need to keep pushing ahead. I wanted to go out, but we'll —
Keep your world normal. I wanted to go out on my terms. And so this is what I'm kind of doing now. I'm approaching the 10-year anniversary of it. I thought 10 is a great number for me to exit. It's a good snapshot of the music scene in Columbus. There's been so many bands that I've got to talk to over the years. But also, I realized I don't have the energy anymore to go to all the shows like I used to, and just do the investigating portion of, I need new bands for the show to reach out to and stuff like that. Now a lot of people reach out to me, which has been nice. But I don't have any extra time to be like, okay, I need to take matters in my own hands and search for a guest right now. And it gets kind of dicey sometimes. Okay, why did you start doing it? I wanted to be able to interview my favorite band.
Well, you were doing other podcasts. Yeah, I've been doing other podcasts since 2011. This is one where I was going to a concert, and it was 2014, and I was like, man, I'd love to interview this band that famously never gave interviews. Well, that will never happen. But I know a buddy of mine in the local music scene, I could just do it on a local level. It'd be cool. It'd be like a nice snapshot. And, plus, people would send me music, as I was looking for free music. Time — I can get credentialed. Exactly, right. So I reached out to my friend Jake Hostettler, who was the lead singer of the Scotch Shank Redemption — a Scott band around Columbus at the time.
I'm familiar. I forget the name — Discussion Redemption. And he was down to do it. And he was pretty much the host of it. I was the producer. So it was that thing where I would chime in every now and then and maybe try to keep people on track, if it got crazy in the conversation. But for the most part, he was the one who knew all the bands, he knew everybody. He was the social butterfly of it. When he left in 2017, that was where I had to be like, can I be the guy who talks to people? And I just kind of fell right into it. There were a couple of nervous episodes, which you could probably hear, as soon as he's gone and it was just me by myself. But, yeah, I made it work. So, for those that haven't heard it, talk us through, like, what the episode looks like, what the format is. The format has been the same throughout the show. I play four tracks, generally — as long as I have four tracks. Sometimes artists don't even have songs recorded, I'll talk to them, and every now and then there's no music, but for the most part, I split up four tracks between the conversation. And I don't call it an interview, because it really is, wherever the conversation goes, it goes. I try to get their plugs in, and outside of that, it's just, like, whatever we want.
Because they, I imagine, tend to have interest in promoting a show, or they have an album coming out. Yeah, an EP, all that stuff. So it's easy — I can get through 45 minutes with anybody anymore, no problem. And it's like, do I want to keep bullshitting with them? Oh, can I curse on this? Yeah, it's fine. I just didn't remember the mayor cursing on this, so —
Well, the President of City Council, sure, did. Hell yeah. All right, cool. So it's just one of those things where I chat with somebody. It's super easy to chat with somebody about their passion. They're fired up about the thing. Sometimes it's not, but it depends. For the people that are super-duper passionate about stuff and have something to promote, yeah. Because people get nervous. And we've definitely had people on that didn't — it was like pulling teeth to get stuff. And that happens. But for the most part, that's few and far between.
What do you do with those? We just end early. Do you still air them? Oh, yeah, for sure. I don't baby — no, no, no.
I've had two people — I won't say who they are — what was super surprising to me is, before I turn the mic on, they were, like, gregarious and interesting and all this stuff. And as soon as it was like, hey, sitting down here with blah, blah, blah, they were like, well, this is how it's — like, oh, I think you got to the final exam and you just choked. I think, once you get to some people who aren't used to it — we interview different people. I see people who record themselves for fun. So there's already an art form. They're doing live performances, they're not afraid of people live, they might be afraid of people's judgments, but they don't care in the moment, they're talking about their album or the show that's coming up. I feel like your lineup of guests might be more so, like, everybody's a professional at what they're doing. It gets a little dicey if they're able to talk to just you. Or they're not used to being on a microphone. Like, not only are they recording themselves for fun, they are performers. That's what it is. So, you keep the conversation free-flowing. I imagine there's some amount of, like, tell me about your music, and tell me about how the band got together, usually the first little bit? And then we just kind of go from there. I don't really take notes. I've stopped taking notes, because for me, if I'm trying to find it out organically, like, I'm the listener finding it out organically. And I don't want it to sound — I'm not a good actor, everybody. I don't want it to sound —
Exactly, that leads me to — Right. So there's times where I'll be editing a podcast and be like, oh, I forgot to ask this. You know what I mean, I'm listening back to it. But that's the downside of me not writing it down. But also, I'm not gonna trade that off. I'll just try to remember if I have them back on again. And you do have repeat guests? Oh, yeah, that's my favorite.
Well, especially with that amount of history, right? Like, you've got enough — what's different from this time that you were on to the last, and what's influencing your music, and that kind of thing? It's always my favorite when a guest comes back, because, one, they had a fun enough time the first time — that's all I care about, validation — and two, they're still doing it. When we first started the podcast, all these bands would start to, like, break up and quit and all that stuff, like we were a curse. And that was where Hostettler had to be like, no, dude, that's just bands around town. Okay, fair. So, you've got this history with the podcast, and you basically announced a year ahead — this being on here is your nine-month notice. Why did you announce a year ahead of time, like, hey, this is enough, this is all I got? Was there an additional reason other than, like you said, not as much energy to go to shows, and, like, we're all aging? Feeling it. But, okay, I just want to go to the movies and eat popcorn now. That's pretty much all I do. So it was me trying to give people a heads-up, because I know a lot of people that do listen to the podcast are musicians around town. And it's one of those things where it is a tool for that. I'm happy — I don't make music, I can't create music, I was never good at that, but I can lend a hand. So that, to me, was always a fun thing, where I'm getting to help somebody promote something. So me saying, I have one year left of this, I wanted to put it in people's ears, like, if you have something coming up this year and you want to be on the show, this is it.
Yeah. So talk to me about your production schedule. How many episodes are — because you release every two weeks, religiously — how many are in the can right now? So, we get a little hairy on that sometimes. I used to have like six in the can. That's why the bumpers on the show started, because we recorded so far out that they had to be like, okay, your episode's coming out in two weeks, what do you got? That is news since we've talked about it. A lot of times now, it's like, I record on a Tuesday and I'm like, this will be out Friday. If there's anything you want, you just tell me. I imagine you're not super heavy-handed in your editing. No, I just make sure everything sounds clean. And if there's an edit, it's a clean edit. And then make sure I drop the tracks and all that stuff, sounds even, and then export. Pretty much, yeah. I love editing. That's a weird thing. I did make the announcement that if somebody wanted to take it over, have at it. Like, I'll set them up and tell them everything they need to get. And I made the caveat, I was like, I could probably still edit, honestly.
I don't mind that. I don't mind that part of it. It's the getting out and going down and talking to people, and just the whole — Well, it's scheduling, it's a whole nother job. It's basically the job of being a journalist. So, we met doing the — what was it first, the Columbus Podcast Festival? Yes.
And then it became Podfest Midwest. Still getting likes on Facebook out of that, even. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, every now and then you'll get a like, and I'll be like, okay. Talk about what you see as unique or interesting, or what people don't know, about the Columbus podcast scene. There's a little something for everybody out there. And, like, when I first started doing it back in 2011, I didn't know what I was doing, but I didn't know that many people that did it, until about 2016-ish — a year before we did the podcast festival — that I really knew of other podcasts. And then it was just like, Christine had one, Brian had the one like yours. And there was all this stuff where it was like, oh, meeting all these people. It just felt natural for us to be like, what if we just tried to do a thing, or a live show for it? And it was fun. It was super fun. It was work, a lot of work, and a lot of people.
I will say, honestly — and there's nothing wrong with this — it kind of faded because it was like, well, I can't do all this. I mean, I can do all this, but I'm not going to. Yeah. My specialty was the recording of everything. So I could obviously put input in beforehand, but outside of that, it was just like, I have all the equipment to record everybody. But it's the contracts, it's the venue, it's the promotion. Yes.
The merch. It's a lot of stuff. Like, I still have a tub of hats. Sell those bad boys on eBay, see what you can get. I don't know, I don't think I would get much. But it was fun. And I do think — we had, at that time, partnered with, I think they still exist, the Columbus Podcast Awards. Yep. They do their own thing at our festival, and they've kept that going, which is good. I felt like, oh gosh, if we don't do this — They're gonna be bummed. But they soldiered on. That was nice. That's good. I had somebody come across them and be like, hey, you're on here, why aren't you promoting that you're nominated? And I was like, well, we were kind of producing the event along with them, and I thought it would feel weird if I were, like, also vote for me at this thing.
Yeah. Well, it was a little like — I mean, you've got to fill your coffers, you've got to fill your nominations. And so they would, like, at first they were like, oh, well, people nominate themselves. And then it's like, no, no, we're just gonna put them on there, and then they'll show up. Because they have to. It's interesting, the podcasts that have — I've never been to that thing — it's interesting to me the podcasts that have heralded, like, hey, we're a three-time winner. And, like, they're not bad podcasts. I think if you're doing a podcast on your own, you take any phrase that you can get. I got put on a top 10 podcasts, like, to stream or something like that, list a few years ago. I wore that hat, of course. Yeah, all right, dog. It's just — it is a little like navel-gazing. It feels like podcasts, or podcast awards — the audience is basically podcast creators. Which, I get it. But it doesn't feel like it's — It doesn't feel as legit as it should. Or —
Or, like, even a Best of Columbus category, or something like that. So, well, and you were telling me about the other podcasts you do, or have done. So the ones I have done, we can just push them off to the side. One of them you did with me. I did. Sorry, I forgot.
I forgot about yours. I did. A six-episode one. I thought it was eight. We did the — Time Out of Tim. Tim. Which was a travel — a time-travel and culture podcast, where we talked, with four episodes on Back to the Future. I think we had, to be honest. It's called Tim, because of the license plate in Back to the Future. And then, whatever Netflix show was doing time travel at the time. I still have time travel now. Do you see?
I mean, my license plate is "outta time." Because you messaged me when you got it, you're like, this is because of you. All right, if I did one thing. Got a license plate. So, what other podcasts do you work on? I have one called The Max — a Saved by the Bell recap podcast.
I can't wait for the rest of them. Can I guess what it is? Absolutely. Because, The Max — I think I would have — Yeah, absolutely, right. You're in the age range. It makes sense to you. I will say, the cool thing about that is that we got to talk to the head writer, Bennett Tramer. Wow. Twice now. We're friends on Instagram, and he comments on my stuff. He's from Cleveland, Ohio connection, super cool. We didn't think we were gonna get to talk to him for, like, a half an hour or whatever. He talked to us the first time for four hours. I cut two hours out. He was so generous with his time. And then he talked to us again, like, six months later. The first time we talked to him about his career and stuff like that.
And then the next time he was talking about the Jessie drug episode? It was actually the focus on the finale. And we were getting ready to go into the reboot. But we wanted to talk to him — it was right before the wedding that we talked to him. Did you do the podcast sequentially? Like, a friend of mine does a Madonna podcast, and each episode is a track, and it's sequentially from when it was released. And so there's that natural end. Or, I guess there will be, 'cause she's still producing. It could go on forever.
What does she do if they released, like, a greatest hits album? Do you go ahead and go back? Well, or do you just create a new season of it, and then just re-release those episodes in order? Oh, that would be so easy, those numbers. Really say "greatest." That's all you want.
Next podcast. What else are your dreams — Drams and Jams. Drams and Jams. That would be music and — is it whiskey specifically? Close. It's whiskey and fruit spreads. It's jams, with the NES games with a —
It is music. Music. So we talk about one whiskey per episode, and then we pair it with a music theme, and then we all bring a song to the table to talk about. Okay, so have you done any cross-collaboration with former Confluence Cast guests? Dino Tripodo has — Not yet. And he's definitely on our, like, we gotta hit him up. If you could make that connection for us.
Happy to. Happy to. I bring that up just to say, we are doing our first live show for Drams and Jams — sounds of — at the Rambling House, Friday, June 21st, six to 8pm, it's a free show. The Sounds of Bustown live shows, which I've done since 2018, four live shows — it's hard to do a live show for a podcast that's, like, an interview or conversation. Who wants to just sit there and watch people talk? So — I turned — we did a whole festival. We did a festival.
We sold a couple. We sold some tickets. We did all right. Still a fun time. Man, that day after that first festival — we went, I had the day off from work, and I could not move my neck, because of how stressed I was the entire time. It was, like, locked up. I mean, it was like — yeah, I just started drinking. I was like, it's gonna happen or it's not. I can't control that anymore. This live show is way easier. So, the Sounds of — double bands? No, no. What I do for the Sounds of Bustown live shows now is a game show. And it's kind of like Name That Tune, but with Columbus bands. It's Name That — it's track names. And so I start out with 10, if I can, for every band, and then I give clues to what the band is. And then I basically have a guest say, how many bands — or how many tracks — can you name this band in? And it gets into, like, the negatives, where they have to give me track names. It's a good time. I think it's the sixth or seventh one that we're doing this year. Lisa Cave is the current reigning champion, that's coming back to defend her title against Julie R. and Michael Furman.
And these are musicians, these — These aren't musicians. Lisa Cave works with Ever Met Music. She helps do booking and show promotions and stuff like that. Real behind-the-scenes stuff. And are you doing episodes on that, too? I've talked to Lisa, she's been on the show before. All the guests have pretty much been on the show. That's, like, my — gonna have them on there.
Well, I guess what I'm asking is, this is not just covering musicians. You also cover some business of music. You may talk to a venue, right? Yeah, I've tried to talk to a lot of people behind the scenes. I've tried to get, like, producers, sound engineers, and stuff like that, on, to give their perspective. And I've got a couple of photographers that I want to talk to before the show wraps up, because you meet a lot of photographers when you go to shows. Well, at this point, you've got, like, 17 left? You're counting down? No, I haven't thought that far ahead. I did tell everybody, I'm like, hey, if the content's there, I'll release more than one a week, if I've got it. I'll push my efforts as much as I can towards this before we drop out.
Got it. That's fair. Let's see, the next podcast, Screen Time. Screen Time, I do this podcast with my wife. Is it going to be a — not necessarily all horror, but jump-scare movie — A horror movie.
Okay, you got it. Okay, Screen Time. Yeah. So, my wife really likes horror movies, and I didn't really care for them at the time. And the only way you can really hang out with me anymore is to do a podcast with me, as most people know. Right. Even your wife. Listen, I don't give any special treatment. So we just watch a horror movie and go — I have a podcast room in my house now, so we just go up there and I hit record. We talk for maybe 20 minutes about it, and then, so, super simple, super chill. Something that I can easily have that creation. Like, even if I do wrap up podcasts and stuff like that, I still have this as an outlet to get my creation thing out there.
Any other ones that you're still currently producing? Then we got Sitting with Sy. Sitting with Sy is just, like, a friend, like a conversation? We just did one on underrated movies. Best believe I put Back to the Future Part III on there.
Yeah, underrated. Very underrated. Back to the Future Part III. Okay. Fair. Okay. It's awesome. I don't think it's underrated. It is. Of course you love Back to the Future movies. It is, in the sense that not enough people talk about that movie. The general slander on Back to the Future Part III is —
Is that the third one is not — exactly, because it's the Old West. But it's also, it wraps up everything, it's all of it, it's the end. And that's — to be continued. Fair. And then, the longest-running podcast that I currently have, that we'll get around to — it's called We'll Get Around to Finishing It. It's just, everybody's had big life changes in the last six, eight years. It's called Podcast in a Half Shell. In a Half Shell. Yeah, that's obviously Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and all the culture that goes around it. We recap the cartoon show, but then, like, talk about comic books.
Do you do the movies? We will. We plan on eventually getting into the movies. And, like I said, so far, since we started it, there's been marriages, there's been moving, there's been people having kids. You know what I mean? It's one of those things. So, similar to The Max, which is Saved by the Bell — like, it is sequential. Episodic, like commentary and stuff like that. A recap.
How do you feel about Seth Rogen's? I loved it. The cartoon? Oh, good, great. It was fun. Cool. So, have you monetized at all, or is this just a passion project? Still been a passion project. I do have a sponsor now, but it's not gonna — I don't get money for it. It's like, oh, you know, they give you mics? No. So, if you hear any of the podcast is from — AXS. And so they reached out, and they're like, hey, we'll just do like a ticket thing, if you want a ticket to a show. I was like, yeah, that works.
They're a great sponsor. Yeah, they used to sponsor, like, trivia nights I would do, and they'd be like, here's a dozen tickets, feel free to keep two. Yeah. We give them away, right? It's one of those things where I don't like — there's ethics involved with stuff like that, that I'm like, I need to — I'm not a journalist, but I want to still have that integrity to it. It's like, hey, I'm not making any money on any of this, because it's a passion project. Now, I am bringing in sponsors, but that isn't paying for anything, other than, like, somebody — and it's not just me. Anybody that's on the podcast network, I've been able to be like, hey, I know you're interested in the show coming up, do you want to reach out to me? If I can get you a ticket, that'd be great. Well, isn't that similar to, like, an editor that is also the publisher, like, hey, we got a sponsor for the podcast, here's your cut. And it's like, I'm not gonna tell you what to record, but if it could be in line with kind of what the sponsor does — like, longtime listeners, MORPC used to be a sponsor, and so we would talk about, like, city development issues and stuff like that, not necessarily with MORPC directly. Yeah. I would love more advertisers — advertisers only, just because I love making ads. I like making weird, dumb ads. An old podcast, not around anymore because the co-host has moved to Montana, called Set Boners.
Set — Set Boners. Okay. Was it a Growing Pains — No, it was just a bullshit podcast. Just bullshitting. But we did ads for the Rambling House soda. And, which, I think you can still use the code, if you're able to find the episode and listen to it. I heard it didn't expire. But we got to cut an ad for one of their CBD drinks, or ginger. It was one of the most fun things I've ever done. It's like, let me just create ads for people, in my podcast room, let me say something dumb. Like, I'll still promote your stuff. To me, it's just super fun. And not paid for it? I don't care.
Okay. There's a guy in New York City who, like, goes around and sees signs that are, like, poorly made or hand-drawn, and he goes home and, like, professionally designs a new sign, and then just replaces it. Doesn't tell them he's doing it. Everything from, like, a lost dog sign, to, like — okay, it sounds like you're doing that. No, that guy sounds like he's doing something good. I mean, you're better than an ankle, for sure. And you know how to edit. I know what you're doing here. I'd send it to you ahead of time.
You approve of it before? And so — I'm gonna go, like, crazy here. And so then, do you pay attention to your listenership? No, never. That's also probably part of why I'm not great at the business side of things. That stuff would just — I don't like promoting it. I feel like I'm annoying people. So do you feel like — and there's nothing wrong with it — but I think somebody would say, well, why are you doing it if you don't know if anybody's listening to it? For fun, man. And I think the point that I would make is that not everybody who paints shows their work. Exactly.
But, interestingly, you're at least — The Bustown Sounds — at Bustown Sounds on Instagram. Sorry — The Sounds of Bustown podcast is promoting someone else. And so, do you feel like you have some obligation to them? To let everybody know? Upfront, I'm gonna post this on the Friday that it drops, I'm gonna give you a 62nd — a 60-second clip that you can use and share. I'll send it to you, you can do your thing. And then outside of that, it's kind of up to the world. Some people promote the podcast, some people don't. It's one of the —
People in need — they're using it as a tool, right? And that's why, to me, it's like, I created the thing, what you do with it is up to you. The way I've always looked at podcasting is, it's a fun thing that I'm enjoying getting to do. If people want to listen and watch it as well, hey, great, that's great. But I'm not out here knocking down doors, trying to get people to listen. I'm not forcing anybody. That's one of my things. I mean, so, to be clear, you have more reviews on your podcast than I do. Oh, do I?
Yeah. But also, yes, certainly you've been — but, like, orders of magnitude. I know, only. By the way, this is a reminder, please go rate and review the Confluence Cast. First off, it should be an automatic five stars, because that banger theme song. Oh, yes, I meant to tell you, I listen to all my podcasts now — not all of them, but most of them — on 1.5, because they're, like, three hours long. I never listen to yours at that speed, because I need to hear that theme song. Robinson, for that. I gave him very little direction, but I gave him specific — You know the story? I think you might have told me one time.
I told him I wanted something that was instrumental, had a lot of bass, and sounded like Nike Court. Yeah. It's perfect. You can't get — There's a transition — the bumpers are good. It's solid. He did a great job. So, do you think you will keep doing podcasts? Like, there's just no — Part of me wants to. I've already thought of, like, three other podcasts that I jokingly — so, yesterday, for the complete —
Was that you? I saw that. So, I made a joke — it was $9 or something. It was incredible. I was looking through, like, the tops of stuff, I'm like, why is Mr. Bean the number one spot? And it's, oh, $9, that's pretty fun for the entire series. So I might have made a joke on Twitter about "Coming 2025, Being There, Seeing That, Mr. Bean recap." Oh, that's good. Being There, Seeing That. Do you ever, like, gut-check, like, has somebody already done this? I do usually look it up to see if there's something similar. I mean, we did it when we were doing our time-travel one, and there were already other time-travel stuff. And it was like, whatever. So it gets — when I did the Sounds of Bustown, there weren't any other music podcasts at the time. Coincidentally, one released three days before we released our first episode. And then, from then, there's been like one or two kind of out there as well. And I always tell people, I guess, on my show, I'm like, hey, these other people's, for more promotion, they'll have you on the show as well.
And they don't exist anymore. So, I mean, it's a lot to produce a podcast, right? Absolutely. And, like, one thing — someday I'm gonna write a book, maybe a couple. But, like, I'll listen to the audio of it.
The book I want to write, it's a business book, or, like, maybe a life — a life-slash-business, an efficient-life book. The general metaphor running through it is, like, you can have as many cats as you want. And I think I'm going to change that to animals, pets. Because what I used to say is, you can have as many cats as you want, but you have to feed every single one of them. You can't write a whole book on that. So I'm going to change it to pets, and then add in, like, you have to really train them, you have to keep them in your backyard. How do you bring them out into the world? And, like, it's basically like, don't take too much on, don't get another social media profile just because you want to, don't spread yourself too thin. How do you manage that? I try to make sure that everybody's on the same page with who I'm recording with. So, not only Bustown, but all the other podcasts and stuff like that. So basically, there's dedicated days, like, okay, Thursdays at 8:30 I'm going to record The Max with Julian, because we're just going to jump on Zoom. And we'll have already watched the episode earlier that day, or a couple days before, and we're just gonna spitball it for a little bit. The whiskey one, Drams and Jams, is a little harder, because there's three other people, and we all live spread out. I'm in Delaware, one's in Columbus, one's in Canal Winchester, the other one's even further out than that. So it's harder for that one, and that one we shoot for — trying to shoot for 26 episodes a year, but two of the members are in a band. So now that they've picked back up, it's been harder. So scheduling that, I have to let that go, that I'm not going to have an episode for that one all the time. And then the other ones are just, like, when can we do it? The Screen Time one has been every week, but that's just because my wife and I are literally — super easy, that's the easiest one. Sometimes it's hard to watch the horror movie, but for the most part, it's the easiest one. And you're not huge — you personally are on social media, but for the podcasts and stuff, you're kind of just cranking it out. You've got your template, you put the thing up. And do you host through Libsyn? Yeah. Tried and true. I don't think I could ever go away from it.
Okay. So do they provide stats? Oh, yeah, they do. You pay for it. There's a tier where they don't. And some of the ones that I'm cranking out, I've also gotten very efficient with, because they used to charge by, like, size of file, and now it's time. So they got my loophole on that, where I was like, oh, I can make this sound real good at a real small file size. We're pretty long. But now they've kind of circumvented that. But they do still have, like, stats and everything like that. So, if you're getting into podcasting, if anybody is listening to this and going, I want to do a podcast — Libsyn, just L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. Well, and I'll shout out Blubrry as well. But yeah, that's what you use. It was based in Columbus, right? So, anything else you wanted to talk about? No, I just want to say thanks for having me on here. If it's not one of the —
Well, I'm going to wrap up with my final two questions, as I normally do. Do I get my plugs one more time? One more time: June 21st, six to 8pm at the Rambling House, that's 310 East Hudson Street. Free show, the Sounds of Bustown and Drams and Jams. I'm really hoping a lot of people come out for Drams and Jams, because it's our first one. So I'm pretty excited about that. And then, Loud Cat Podcasts is the podcast network, find it wherever you get your podcasts. And I say that, and somebody is going to comment on this video and be like, you don't have it for Potato Bun or whatever. There's always 9 million podcast apps that I've never heard of, that as soon as I try to promote on something new, somebody's like, well, it's not on this. And I'm like, hold on, let me submit my — Let me submit my — Like, listen, just modify your Apple. What's happening?
I end every interview with the same two questions. One, what do you think Columbus is doing well? Well, let me talk — I'll just — the Columbus music scene is phenomenal. I wouldn't have been able to do this podcast this long without it. A lot of great musicians, a lot of talented people around town. And just the diversity in sounds is phenomenal. And what do you think Columbus is not doing so well? I'll stick to my realm. I would say they could do a better job of, like, building the scene up. And I know that GCAC gives out grants, which is great. But I feel like the city has something here that they're squandering. Columbus, to me, is — I was just thinking this on the way here — whenever I go to another city, I feel like I'm in a big city, I feel like I'm in a city. I should say, welcome to Columbus. I don't know if it's just because I come here all the time, or what, but I'm walking downtown, and it's okay. Like, I love Columbus, don't get me wrong, but I feel like it doesn't have an identity. And I feel like the music could be an identity. It has an identity in a college team, but I could care less about that. Sorry, everybody listening. It's just one of those things where I feel like they're kind of squandering something here that might slip away from them if they don't manage it better. There's already tools in place, I just feel like it's right there. They just gotta tend it better.
That's fair. Billy, thanks for your time. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, and share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite podcaster. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.
Transcript6,790 words
Tim Fulton Welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week — not all art is created for an audience. Sometimes it's made for the artist. That's true for William Mount, the host and producer of the music podcast The Sounds of Bustown. Today, we're unpacking a decade of stories, sounds, and the shifting sands of the Columbus music and podcast scenes. We'll explore the challenges of keeping a podcast fresh and engaging through life's ups and downs, the importance of authenticity, and how to keep the creative fires burning. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with William Mount, the host and producer of The Sounds of Bustown, a local music podcast, also the proprietor of Loud Cat Podcasts, and also the Instagram handle Sounds of Bustown —
William Mount Bustown. Downtown, bus. I was gonna go into the whole detail about it, but you started over, so —
Tim Fulton You reached out to me, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, and said, hey, I want to come on the Confluence Cast, I'm going to wind down this podcast. I didn't ask anything about it. I was like, you're my friend, yeah, come on. In the pre-record today, I was like, oh, so when are you stopping? And you're like, oh, February of next year. And I'm like, oh, all right. Well, we'll get into this. So give us the elevator version of that. I started doing this thing, it was this long ago —
William Mount I started The Sounds of Bustown in 2014. Had a co-host at the time. He moved to Chicago in 2017. I took it over myself, and have been rolling solo ever since. Get a guest host in there every now and then, been pretty fun. Made it through the pandemic. Release an episode every two weeks, haven't missed a beat. So, even made it through the night we switched to Zoom recordings. And, yeah, we still made it work. I didn't want the podcast to die during the pandemic. It was one of those things where I'm like, well, I need to keep pushing ahead. I wanted to go out, but we'll —
Tim Fulton Keep your world normal.
William Mount I wanted to go out on my terms. And so this is what I'm kind of doing now. I'm approaching the 10-year anniversary of it. I thought 10 is a great number for me to exit. It's a good snapshot of the music scene in Columbus. There's been so many bands that I've got to talk to over the years. But also, I realized I don't have the energy anymore to go to all the shows like I used to, and just do the investigating portion of, I need new bands for the show to reach out to and stuff like that. Now a lot of people reach out to me, which has been nice. But I don't have any extra time to be like, okay, I need to take matters in my own hands and search for a guest right now. And it gets kind of dicey sometimes.
Tim Fulton Okay, why did you start doing it?
William Mount I wanted to be able to interview my favorite band.
Tim Fulton Well, you were doing other podcasts.
William Mount Yeah, I've been doing other podcasts since 2011. This is one where I was going to a concert, and it was 2014, and I was like, man, I'd love to interview this band that famously never gave interviews. Well, that will never happen. But I know a buddy of mine in the local music scene, I could just do it on a local level. It'd be cool. It'd be like a nice snapshot. And, plus, people would send me music, as I was looking for free music.
Tim Fulton Time — I can get credentialed.
William Mount Exactly, right. So I reached out to my friend Jake Hostettler, who was the lead singer of the Scotch Shank Redemption — a Scott band around Columbus at the time.
Tim Fulton I'm familiar.
William Mount I forget the name — Discussion Redemption. And he was down to do it. And he was pretty much the host of it. I was the producer. So it was that thing where I would chime in every now and then and maybe try to keep people on track, if it got crazy in the conversation. But for the most part, he was the one who knew all the bands, he knew everybody. He was the social butterfly of it. When he left in 2017, that was where I had to be like, can I be the guy who talks to people? And I just kind of fell right into it. There were a couple of nervous episodes, which you could probably hear, as soon as he's gone and it was just me by myself. But, yeah, I made it work.
Tim Fulton So, for those that haven't heard it, talk us through, like, what the episode looks like, what the format is.
William Mount The format has been the same throughout the show. I play four tracks, generally — as long as I have four tracks. Sometimes artists don't even have songs recorded, I'll talk to them, and every now and then there's no music, but for the most part, I split up four tracks between the conversation. And I don't call it an interview, because it really is, wherever the conversation goes, it goes. I try to get their plugs in, and outside of that, it's just, like, whatever we want.
Tim Fulton Because they, I imagine, tend to have interest in promoting a show, or they have an album coming out.
William Mount Yeah, an EP, all that stuff. So it's easy — I can get through 45 minutes with anybody anymore, no problem. And it's like, do I want to keep bullshitting with them? Oh, can I curse on this?
Tim Fulton Yeah, it's fine.
William Mount I just didn't remember the mayor cursing on this, so —
Tim Fulton Well, the President of City Council, sure, did. Hell yeah.
William Mount All right, cool. So it's just one of those things where I chat with somebody. It's super easy to chat with somebody about their passion. They're fired up about the thing.
Tim Fulton Sometimes it's not, but it depends.
William Mount For the people that are super-duper passionate about stuff and have something to promote, yeah. Because people get nervous. And we've definitely had people on that didn't — it was like pulling teeth to get stuff. And that happens. But for the most part, that's few and far between.
Tim Fulton What do you do with those?
William Mount We just end early.
Tim Fulton Do you still air them?
William Mount Oh, yeah, for sure. I don't baby — no, no, no.
Tim Fulton I've had two people — I won't say who they are — what was super surprising to me is, before I turn the mic on, they were, like, gregarious and interesting and all this stuff. And as soon as it was like, hey, sitting down here with blah, blah, blah, they were like, well, this is how it's — like, oh, I think you got to the final exam and you just choked.
William Mount I think, once you get to some people who aren't used to it — we interview different people. I see people who record themselves for fun. So there's already an art form. They're doing live performances, they're not afraid of people live, they might be afraid of people's judgments, but they don't care in the moment, they're talking about their album or the show that's coming up. I feel like your lineup of guests might be more so, like, everybody's a professional at what they're doing. It gets a little dicey if they're able to talk to just you.
Tim Fulton Or they're not used to being on a microphone. Like, not only are they recording themselves for fun, they are performers. That's what it is. So, you keep the conversation free-flowing. I imagine there's some amount of, like, tell me about your music, and tell me about how the band got together, usually the first little bit?
William Mount And then we just kind of go from there. I don't really take notes. I've stopped taking notes, because for me, if I'm trying to find it out organically, like, I'm the listener finding it out organically. And I don't want it to sound — I'm not a good actor, everybody. I don't want it to sound —
Tim Fulton Exactly, that leads me to —
William Mount Right. So there's times where I'll be editing a podcast and be like, oh, I forgot to ask this. You know what I mean, I'm listening back to it. But that's the downside of me not writing it down. But also, I'm not gonna trade that off. I'll just try to remember if I have them back on again.
Tim Fulton And you do have repeat guests?
William Mount Oh, yeah, that's my favorite.
Tim Fulton Well, especially with that amount of history, right? Like, you've got enough — what's different from this time that you were on to the last, and what's influencing your music, and that kind of thing?
William Mount It's always my favorite when a guest comes back, because, one, they had a fun enough time the first time — that's all I care about, validation — and two, they're still doing it. When we first started the podcast, all these bands would start to, like, break up and quit and all that stuff, like we were a curse. And that was where Hostettler had to be like, no, dude, that's just bands around town.
Tim Fulton Okay, fair. So, you've got this history with the podcast, and you basically announced a year ahead — this being on here is your nine-month notice. Why did you announce a year ahead of time, like, hey, this is enough, this is all I got? Was there an additional reason other than, like you said, not as much energy to go to shows, and, like, we're all aging?
William Mount Feeling it. But, okay, I just want to go to the movies and eat popcorn now. That's pretty much all I do. So it was me trying to give people a heads-up, because I know a lot of people that do listen to the podcast are musicians around town. And it's one of those things where it is a tool for that. I'm happy — I don't make music, I can't create music, I was never good at that, but I can lend a hand. So that, to me, was always a fun thing, where I'm getting to help somebody promote something. So me saying, I have one year left of this, I wanted to put it in people's ears, like, if you have something coming up this year and you want to be on the show, this is it.
Tim Fulton Yeah. So talk to me about your production schedule. How many episodes are — because you release every two weeks, religiously — how many are in the can right now?
William Mount So, we get a little hairy on that sometimes. I used to have like six in the can. That's why the bumpers on the show started, because we recorded so far out that they had to be like, okay, your episode's coming out in two weeks, what do you got? That is news since we've talked about it. A lot of times now, it's like, I record on a Tuesday and I'm like, this will be out Friday. If there's anything you want, you just tell me.
Tim Fulton I imagine you're not super heavy-handed in your editing.
William Mount No, I just make sure everything sounds clean. And if there's an edit, it's a clean edit. And then make sure I drop the tracks and all that stuff, sounds even, and then export. Pretty much, yeah. I love editing. That's a weird thing. I did make the announcement that if somebody wanted to take it over, have at it. Like, I'll set them up and tell them everything they need to get. And I made the caveat, I was like, I could probably still edit, honestly.
Tim Fulton I don't mind that.
William Mount I don't mind that part of it. It's the getting out and going down and talking to people, and just the whole —
Tim Fulton Well, it's scheduling, it's a whole nother job. It's basically the job of being a journalist. So, we met doing the — what was it first, the Columbus Podcast Festival?
William Mount Yes.
Tim Fulton And then it became Podfest Midwest.
William Mount Still getting likes on Facebook out of that, even. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, every now and then you'll get a like, and I'll be like, okay.
Tim Fulton Talk about what you see as unique or interesting, or what people don't know, about the Columbus podcast scene.
William Mount There's a little something for everybody out there. And, like, when I first started doing it back in 2011, I didn't know what I was doing, but I didn't know that many people that did it, until about 2016-ish — a year before we did the podcast festival — that I really knew of other podcasts. And then it was just like, Christine had one, Brian had the one like yours. And there was all this stuff where it was like, oh, meeting all these people. It just felt natural for us to be like, what if we just tried to do a thing, or a live show for it? And it was fun. It was super fun. It was work, a lot of work, and a lot of people.
Tim Fulton I will say, honestly — and there's nothing wrong with this — it kind of faded because it was like, well, I can't do all this. I mean, I can do all this, but I'm not going to.
William Mount Yeah. My specialty was the recording of everything. So I could obviously put input in beforehand, but outside of that, it was just like, I have all the equipment to record everybody.
Tim Fulton But it's the contracts, it's the venue, it's the promotion.
William Mount Yes.
Tim Fulton The merch. It's a lot of stuff. Like, I still have a tub of hats.
William Mount Sell those bad boys on eBay, see what you can get.
Tim Fulton I don't know, I don't think I would get much. But it was fun. And I do think — we had, at that time, partnered with, I think they still exist, the Columbus Podcast Awards. Yep. They do their own thing at our festival, and they've kept that going, which is good. I felt like, oh gosh, if we don't do this —
William Mount They're gonna be bummed. But they soldiered on. That was nice. That's good. I had somebody come across them and be like, hey, you're on here, why aren't you promoting that you're nominated? And I was like, well, we were kind of producing the event along with them, and I thought it would feel weird if I were, like, also vote for me at this thing.
Tim Fulton Yeah. Well, it was a little like — I mean, you've got to fill your coffers, you've got to fill your nominations. And so they would, like, at first they were like, oh, well, people nominate themselves. And then it's like, no, no, we're just gonna put them on there, and then they'll show up. Because they have to. It's interesting, the podcasts that have — I've never been to that thing — it's interesting to me the podcasts that have heralded, like, hey, we're a three-time winner. And, like, they're not bad podcasts.
William Mount I think if you're doing a podcast on your own, you take any phrase that you can get. I got put on a top 10 podcasts, like, to stream or something like that, list a few years ago. I wore that hat, of course. Yeah, all right, dog.
Tim Fulton It's just — it is a little like navel-gazing. It feels like podcasts, or podcast awards — the audience is basically podcast creators. Which, I get it. But it doesn't feel like it's —
William Mount It doesn't feel as legit as it should. Or —
Tim Fulton Or, like, even a Best of Columbus category, or something like that. So, well, and you were telling me about the other podcasts you do, or have done.
William Mount So the ones I have done, we can just push them off to the side.
Tim Fulton One of them you did with me.
William Mount I did. Sorry, I forgot.
Tim Fulton I forgot about yours.
William Mount I did. A six-episode one. I thought it was eight. We did the — Time Out of Tim. Tim.
Tim Fulton Which was a travel — a time-travel and culture podcast, where we talked, with four episodes on Back to the Future. I think we had, to be honest. It's called Tim, because of the license plate in Back to the Future. And then, whatever Netflix show was doing time travel at the time.
William Mount I still have time travel now. Do you see?
Tim Fulton I mean, my license plate is "outta time."
William Mount Because you messaged me when you got it, you're like, this is because of you. All right, if I did one thing.
Tim Fulton Got a license plate. So, what other podcasts do you work on?
William Mount I have one called The Max — a Saved by the Bell recap podcast.
Tim Fulton I can't wait for the rest of them. Can I guess what it is?
William Mount Absolutely.
Tim Fulton Because, The Max — I think I would have —
William Mount Yeah, absolutely, right. You're in the age range. It makes sense to you. I will say, the cool thing about that is that we got to talk to the head writer, Bennett Tramer. Wow. Twice now. We're friends on Instagram, and he comments on my stuff. He's from Cleveland, Ohio connection, super cool. We didn't think we were gonna get to talk to him for, like, a half an hour or whatever. He talked to us the first time for four hours. I cut two hours out. He was so generous with his time. And then he talked to us again, like, six months later. The first time we talked to him about his career and stuff like that.
Tim Fulton And then the next time he was talking about the Jessie drug episode?
William Mount It was actually the focus on the finale. And we were getting ready to go into the reboot. But we wanted to talk to him — it was right before the wedding that we talked to him.
Tim Fulton Did you do the podcast sequentially? Like, a friend of mine does a Madonna podcast, and each episode is a track, and it's sequentially from when it was released. And so there's that natural end. Or, I guess there will be, 'cause she's still producing.
William Mount It could go on forever.
Tim Fulton What does she do if they released, like, a greatest hits album? Do you go ahead and go back?
William Mount Well, or do you just create a new season of it, and then just re-release those episodes in order?
Tim Fulton Oh, that would be so easy, those numbers.
William Mount Really say "greatest." That's all you want.
Tim Fulton Next podcast. What else are your dreams —
William Mount Drams and Jams.
Tim Fulton Drams and Jams. That would be music and — is it whiskey specifically?
William Mount Close. It's whiskey and fruit spreads. It's jams, with the NES games with a —
Tim Fulton It is music.
William Mount Music. So we talk about one whiskey per episode, and then we pair it with a music theme, and then we all bring a song to the table to talk about.
Tim Fulton Okay, so have you done any cross-collaboration with former Confluence Cast guests? Dino Tripodo has —
William Mount Not yet. And he's definitely on our, like, we gotta hit him up. If you could make that connection for us.
Tim Fulton Happy to.
William Mount Happy to. I bring that up just to say, we are doing our first live show for Drams and Jams — sounds of — at the Rambling House, Friday, June 21st, six to 8pm, it's a free show. The Sounds of Bustown live shows, which I've done since 2018, four live shows — it's hard to do a live show for a podcast that's, like, an interview or conversation. Who wants to just sit there and watch people talk? So —
Tim Fulton I turned — we did a whole festival.
William Mount We did a festival.
Tim Fulton We sold a couple.
William Mount We sold some tickets. We did all right. Still a fun time. Man, that day after that first festival — we went, I had the day off from work, and I could not move my neck, because of how stressed I was the entire time. It was, like, locked up.
Tim Fulton I mean, it was like — yeah, I just started drinking. I was like, it's gonna happen or it's not. I can't control that anymore.
William Mount This live show is way easier. So, the Sounds of — double bands? No, no. What I do for the Sounds of Bustown live shows now is a game show. And it's kind of like Name That Tune, but with Columbus bands. It's Name That — it's track names. And so I start out with 10, if I can, for every band, and then I give clues to what the band is. And then I basically have a guest say, how many bands — or how many tracks — can you name this band in? And it gets into, like, the negatives, where they have to give me track names. It's a good time. I think it's the sixth or seventh one that we're doing this year. Lisa Cave is the current reigning champion, that's coming back to defend her title against Julie R. and Michael Furman.
Tim Fulton And these are musicians, these —
William Mount These aren't musicians. Lisa Cave works with Ever Met Music. She helps do booking and show promotions and stuff like that. Real behind-the-scenes stuff.
Tim Fulton And are you doing episodes on that, too?
William Mount I've talked to Lisa, she's been on the show before. All the guests have pretty much been on the show. That's, like, my — gonna have them on there.
Tim Fulton Well, I guess what I'm asking is, this is not just covering musicians. You also cover some business of music. You may talk to a venue, right?
William Mount Yeah, I've tried to talk to a lot of people behind the scenes. I've tried to get, like, producers, sound engineers, and stuff like that, on, to give their perspective. And I've got a couple of photographers that I want to talk to before the show wraps up, because you meet a lot of photographers when you go to shows.
Tim Fulton Well, at this point, you've got, like, 17 left? You're counting down?
William Mount No, I haven't thought that far ahead. I did tell everybody, I'm like, hey, if the content's there, I'll release more than one a week, if I've got it. I'll push my efforts as much as I can towards this before we drop out.
Tim Fulton Got it. That's fair.
William Mount Let's see, the next podcast, Screen Time. Screen Time, I do this podcast with my wife.
Tim Fulton Is it going to be a — not necessarily all horror, but jump-scare movie —
William Mount A horror movie.
Tim Fulton Okay, you got it. Okay, Screen Time.
William Mount Yeah. So, my wife really likes horror movies, and I didn't really care for them at the time. And the only way you can really hang out with me anymore is to do a podcast with me, as most people know.
Tim Fulton Right. Even your wife.
William Mount Listen, I don't give any special treatment. So we just watch a horror movie and go — I have a podcast room in my house now, so we just go up there and I hit record. We talk for maybe 20 minutes about it, and then, so, super simple, super chill. Something that I can easily have that creation. Like, even if I do wrap up podcasts and stuff like that, I still have this as an outlet to get my creation thing out there.
Tim Fulton Any other ones that you're still currently producing?
William Mount Then we got Sitting with Sy.
Tim Fulton Sitting with Sy is just, like, a friend, like a conversation?
William Mount We just did one on underrated movies. Best believe I put Back to the Future Part III on there.
Tim Fulton Yeah, underrated. Very underrated. Back to the Future Part III.
William Mount Okay.
Tim Fulton Fair. Okay. It's awesome. I don't think it's underrated.
William Mount It is. Of course you love Back to the Future movies. It is, in the sense that not enough people talk about that movie. The general slander on Back to the Future Part III is —
Tim Fulton Is that the third one is not — exactly, because it's the Old West. But it's also, it wraps up everything, it's all of it, it's the end. And that's — to be continued.
William Mount Fair. And then, the longest-running podcast that I currently have, that we'll get around to — it's called We'll Get Around to Finishing It. It's just, everybody's had big life changes in the last six, eight years. It's called Podcast in a Half Shell.
Tim Fulton In a Half Shell. Yeah, that's obviously Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and all the culture that goes around it.
William Mount We recap the cartoon show, but then, like, talk about comic books.
Tim Fulton Do you do the movies?
William Mount We will. We plan on eventually getting into the movies. And, like I said, so far, since we started it, there's been marriages, there's been moving, there's been people having kids. You know what I mean? It's one of those things.
Tim Fulton So, similar to The Max, which is Saved by the Bell — like, it is sequential.
William Mount Episodic, like commentary and stuff like that. A recap.
Tim Fulton How do you feel about Seth Rogen's?
William Mount I loved it. The cartoon? Oh, good, great. It was fun.
Tim Fulton Cool. So, have you monetized at all, or is this just a passion project?
William Mount Still been a passion project. I do have a sponsor now, but it's not gonna — I don't get money for it. It's like, oh, you know, they give you mics? No. So, if you hear any of the podcast is from — AXS. And so they reached out, and they're like, hey, we'll just do like a ticket thing, if you want a ticket to a show. I was like, yeah, that works.
Tim Fulton They're a great sponsor. Yeah, they used to sponsor, like, trivia nights I would do, and they'd be like, here's a dozen tickets, feel free to keep two.
William Mount Yeah. We give them away, right? It's one of those things where I don't like — there's ethics involved with stuff like that, that I'm like, I need to — I'm not a journalist, but I want to still have that integrity to it. It's like, hey, I'm not making any money on any of this, because it's a passion project. Now, I am bringing in sponsors, but that isn't paying for anything, other than, like, somebody — and it's not just me. Anybody that's on the podcast network, I've been able to be like, hey, I know you're interested in the show coming up, do you want to reach out to me? If I can get you a ticket, that'd be great.
Tim Fulton Well, isn't that similar to, like, an editor that is also the publisher, like, hey, we got a sponsor for the podcast, here's your cut. And it's like, I'm not gonna tell you what to record, but if it could be in line with kind of what the sponsor does — like, longtime listeners, MORPC used to be a sponsor, and so we would talk about, like, city development issues and stuff like that, not necessarily with MORPC directly.
William Mount Yeah. I would love more advertisers — advertisers only, just because I love making ads. I like making weird, dumb ads. An old podcast, not around anymore because the co-host has moved to Montana, called Set Boners.
Tim Fulton Set — Set Boners. Okay. Was it a Growing Pains —
William Mount No, it was just a bullshit podcast. Just bullshitting. But we did ads for the Rambling House soda. And, which, I think you can still use the code, if you're able to find the episode and listen to it. I heard it didn't expire. But we got to cut an ad for one of their CBD drinks, or ginger. It was one of the most fun things I've ever done. It's like, let me just create ads for people, in my podcast room, let me say something dumb. Like, I'll still promote your stuff. To me, it's just super fun.
Tim Fulton And not paid for it?
William Mount I don't care.
Tim Fulton Okay. There's a guy in New York City who, like, goes around and sees signs that are, like, poorly made or hand-drawn, and he goes home and, like, professionally designs a new sign, and then just replaces it. Doesn't tell them he's doing it. Everything from, like, a lost dog sign, to, like — okay, it sounds like you're doing that.
William Mount No, that guy sounds like he's doing something good.
Tim Fulton I mean, you're better than an ankle, for sure. And you know how to edit. I know what you're doing here.
William Mount I'd send it to you ahead of time.
Tim Fulton You approve of it before? And so — I'm gonna go, like, crazy here. And so then, do you pay attention to your listenership?
William Mount No, never. That's also probably part of why I'm not great at the business side of things. That stuff would just — I don't like promoting it. I feel like I'm annoying people.
Tim Fulton So do you feel like — and there's nothing wrong with it — but I think somebody would say, well, why are you doing it if you don't know if anybody's listening to it? For fun, man. And I think the point that I would make is that not everybody who paints shows their work.
William Mount Exactly.
Tim Fulton But, interestingly, you're at least —
William Mount The Bustown Sounds — at Bustown Sounds on Instagram. Sorry —
Tim Fulton The Sounds of Bustown podcast is promoting someone else. And so, do you feel like you have some obligation to them?
William Mount To let everybody know? Upfront, I'm gonna post this on the Friday that it drops, I'm gonna give you a 62nd — a 60-second clip that you can use and share. I'll send it to you, you can do your thing. And then outside of that, it's kind of up to the world. Some people promote the podcast, some people don't. It's one of the —
Tim Fulton People in need — they're using it as a tool, right?
William Mount And that's why, to me, it's like, I created the thing, what you do with it is up to you. The way I've always looked at podcasting is, it's a fun thing that I'm enjoying getting to do. If people want to listen and watch it as well, hey, great, that's great. But I'm not out here knocking down doors, trying to get people to listen. I'm not forcing anybody. That's one of my things.
Tim Fulton I mean, so, to be clear, you have more reviews on your podcast than I do.
William Mount Oh, do I?
Tim Fulton Yeah. But also, yes, certainly you've been — but, like, orders of magnitude. I know, only. By the way, this is a reminder, please go rate and review the Confluence Cast.
William Mount First off, it should be an automatic five stars, because that banger theme song. Oh, yes, I meant to tell you, I listen to all my podcasts now — not all of them, but most of them — on 1.5, because they're, like, three hours long. I never listen to yours at that speed, because I need to hear that theme song.
Tim Fulton Robinson, for that. I gave him very little direction, but I gave him specific —
William Mount You know the story? I think you might have told me one time.
Tim Fulton I told him I wanted something that was instrumental, had a lot of bass, and sounded like Nike Court.
William Mount Yeah. It's perfect. You can't get —
Tim Fulton There's a transition — the bumpers are good. It's solid. He did a great job. So, do you think you will keep doing podcasts? Like, there's just no —
William Mount Part of me wants to. I've already thought of, like, three other podcasts that I jokingly — so, yesterday, for the complete —
Tim Fulton Was that you? I saw that.
William Mount So, I made a joke — it was $9 or something. It was incredible. I was looking through, like, the tops of stuff, I'm like, why is Mr. Bean the number one spot? And it's, oh, $9, that's pretty fun for the entire series. So I might have made a joke on Twitter about "Coming 2025, Being There, Seeing That, Mr. Bean recap."
Tim Fulton Oh, that's good. Being There, Seeing That. Do you ever, like, gut-check, like, has somebody already done this?
William Mount I do usually look it up to see if there's something similar. I mean, we did it when we were doing our time-travel one, and there were already other time-travel stuff. And it was like, whatever. So it gets — when I did the Sounds of Bustown, there weren't any other music podcasts at the time. Coincidentally, one released three days before we released our first episode. And then, from then, there's been like one or two kind of out there as well. And I always tell people, I guess, on my show, I'm like, hey, these other people's, for more promotion, they'll have you on the show as well.
Tim Fulton And they don't exist anymore. So, I mean, it's a lot to produce a podcast, right?
William Mount Absolutely.
Tim Fulton And, like, one thing — someday I'm gonna write a book, maybe a couple.
William Mount But, like, I'll listen to the audio of it.
Tim Fulton The book I want to write, it's a business book, or, like, maybe a life — a life-slash-business, an efficient-life book. The general metaphor running through it is, like, you can have as many cats as you want. And I think I'm going to change that to animals, pets. Because what I used to say is, you can have as many cats as you want, but you have to feed every single one of them. You can't write a whole book on that. So I'm going to change it to pets, and then add in, like, you have to really train them, you have to keep them in your backyard. How do you bring them out into the world? And, like, it's basically like, don't take too much on, don't get another social media profile just because you want to, don't spread yourself too thin. How do you manage that?
William Mount I try to make sure that everybody's on the same page with who I'm recording with. So, not only Bustown, but all the other podcasts and stuff like that. So basically, there's dedicated days, like, okay, Thursdays at 8:30 I'm going to record The Max with Julian, because we're just going to jump on Zoom. And we'll have already watched the episode earlier that day, or a couple days before, and we're just gonna spitball it for a little bit. The whiskey one, Drams and Jams, is a little harder, because there's three other people, and we all live spread out. I'm in Delaware, one's in Columbus, one's in Canal Winchester, the other one's even further out than that. So it's harder for that one, and that one we shoot for — trying to shoot for 26 episodes a year, but two of the members are in a band. So now that they've picked back up, it's been harder. So scheduling that, I have to let that go, that I'm not going to have an episode for that one all the time. And then the other ones are just, like, when can we do it? The Screen Time one has been every week, but that's just because my wife and I are literally — super easy, that's the easiest one. Sometimes it's hard to watch the horror movie, but for the most part, it's the easiest one.
Tim Fulton And you're not huge — you personally are on social media, but for the podcasts and stuff, you're kind of just cranking it out. You've got your template, you put the thing up. And do you host through Libsyn?
William Mount Yeah. Tried and true. I don't think I could ever go away from it.
Tim Fulton Okay. So do they provide stats?
William Mount Oh, yeah, they do. You pay for it. There's a tier where they don't. And some of the ones that I'm cranking out, I've also gotten very efficient with, because they used to charge by, like, size of file, and now it's time. So they got my loophole on that, where I was like, oh, I can make this sound real good at a real small file size. We're pretty long. But now they've kind of circumvented that. But they do still have, like, stats and everything like that. So, if you're getting into podcasting, if anybody is listening to this and going, I want to do a podcast — Libsyn, just L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.
Tim Fulton Well, and I'll shout out Blubrry as well. But yeah, that's what you use. It was based in Columbus, right? So, anything else you wanted to talk about?
William Mount No, I just want to say thanks for having me on here. If it's not one of the —
Tim Fulton Well, I'm going to wrap up with my final two questions, as I normally do.
William Mount Do I get my plugs one more time? One more time: June 21st, six to 8pm at the Rambling House, that's 310 East Hudson Street. Free show, the Sounds of Bustown and Drams and Jams. I'm really hoping a lot of people come out for Drams and Jams, because it's our first one. So I'm pretty excited about that. And then, Loud Cat Podcasts is the podcast network, find it wherever you get your podcasts. And I say that, and somebody is going to comment on this video and be like, you don't have it for Potato Bun or whatever. There's always 9 million podcast apps that I've never heard of, that as soon as I try to promote on something new, somebody's like, well, it's not on this. And I'm like, hold on, let me submit my —
Tim Fulton Let me submit my —
William Mount Like, listen, just modify your Apple. What's happening?
Tim Fulton I end every interview with the same two questions. One, what do you think Columbus is doing well?
William Mount Well, let me talk — I'll just — the Columbus music scene is phenomenal. I wouldn't have been able to do this podcast this long without it. A lot of great musicians, a lot of talented people around town. And just the diversity in sounds is phenomenal.
Tim Fulton And what do you think Columbus is not doing so well?
William Mount I'll stick to my realm. I would say they could do a better job of, like, building the scene up. And I know that GCAC gives out grants, which is great. But I feel like the city has something here that they're squandering. Columbus, to me, is — I was just thinking this on the way here — whenever I go to another city, I feel like I'm in a big city, I feel like I'm in a city. I should say, welcome to Columbus. I don't know if it's just because I come here all the time, or what, but I'm walking downtown, and it's okay. Like, I love Columbus, don't get me wrong, but I feel like it doesn't have an identity. And I feel like the music could be an identity. It has an identity in a college team, but I could care less about that. Sorry, everybody listening. It's just one of those things where I feel like they're kind of squandering something here that might slip away from them if they don't manage it better. There's already tools in place, I just feel like it's right there. They just gotta tend it better.
Tim Fulton That's fair. Billy, thanks for your time.
William Mount Thank you, Tim.
Tim Fulton Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, and share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite podcaster. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.