Brad Grochowski, Voice Actor, Podcaster, Introvert

00:00
I felt like theater was this amazing girlfriend that I had in college and then we broke up.

00:13
Welcome to another episode of Chewing the Fat. I am your host, Big Robb. Thank you so much for tuning in, downloading the podcast. I certainly do appreciate that. Thanks to the folks who have bought me a coffee at chewingthefatbr.com. Thank you to Shayna and also Allison. I really do appreciate that. It helps the podcast keep rolling. And the new friends I've met over at chewingthefatbr on Instagram as well. Thank you so much. And the folks that have written...

00:39
reviews and given the five star ratings. Thank you. It means so much to a podcaster to know that what we're doing means something to someone. So thank you so much for being a part of this journey and this podcast with your reviews. I really do appreciate that. Of course, we have our guests in the show that we would not have a show without. Please welcome all the way from Baltimore, Maryland, if I am not mistaken, it is Brad Grohowski. Brad.

01:09
Hey, hi Robb. How are you doing? Good. Good. It is Baltimore, right? Yeah. You are not mistaken. Baltimore, Maryland. Just, just outside. I'm in Catonsville. So for all the local Baltimoreans. Yeah. Talking about. Yeah. Cause I remember when the bridge tragedy happened, I reached out to you to make sure that thing that you were like not, you know, I mean, I'm sure that the area as a whole has been effective, affected by that. But I was just making sure you specifically. Yeah. No, and I appreciate that. Yeah. It's on, it's like,

01:39
If I'm at, uh, nine o'clock around the beltway, the bridge is at like two o'clock. Okay. So it's all it's like on the far side of the city for me. And I very rarely, it's probably been 20 years since I've crossed that bridge. It just, my life didn't take me across it. There used to be, um, Oh, what was it called? There was a big, uh, city lights. No, no, no.

02:09
I don't remember. It was back in the mid 90s in the rave era. Remember when they used to have raves? Yeah, they have big raves under the bridge. Okay. I used to do live video projection so I would yeah, so I would have VCRs in those days VCRs computer and it would all feed into a analog mixing board and I would mix it all and project it up on screens at raves and for bands and that sort of thing.

02:39
And yeah, and Starlight Festival. Now I'm not remembering what it was called, but there was a big one under the bridge there. And it was super cool. Those were fun days. We would get into these big parties that we weren't cool enough to go to, right? But we would get in because we were the nerds with- Right, you were the tech. You were the tech people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. We had friends of- I'm on a rabbit hole. No, it's fine.

03:07
Friends of mine went to Mike at Maryland Institute College of Art, and one of them was a fabrics major and she would make these huge inflatable sculptures. And she made this giant inflatable television, right? And it was probably 12 feet high by 15 feet wide by 25 feet long and inflated. And so effectively it was a big room on the inside. Yeah.

03:35
they would get booked to do raves and they would book us to do the projection. So we would be inside the TV and projecting onto the screen what we were mixing. But they would also let their friends in because it was like a private room inside of a rave, which was a pretty hard thing to come by. Right. It's not like private space like that. And they would have bean bags all in there and they would be dancing. So we would have a camera in there and we would be mixing the dancing into the psychedelic like.

04:02
Oh wow. .. stuff and so it was a very interactive and immersive thing. It was pretty cool. That is really cool. Yeah, and you know, everyone around us was doing all kinds of drugs and of course, you know, we weren't, but we were... It's super fun creating entertainment for people who are balls out stoned. It's like...

04:30
It's super fun. It doesn't take much either. But no, it doesn't. It doesn't, but they super appreciate what you're doing. Really are. Brad is another voice actor that I met at VO Atlanta a few weeks ago. Uh, as we've had several new friends on the podcast here. Um, I was, uh, in the, in the, in the bar at the, uh, Hilton airport there.

04:58
after I think it was like Saturday night or whatever, kind of after all the major stuff had done. And Brad was actually talking to another podcaster, voice actor, and I heard him talking about being an introvert and the difficulties and things like that. And my ears just kind of pricked up and I was like, sorry to interrupt your conversation or whatever, but I feel like I need to talk to you. Because I consider myself kind of a

05:28
ambivert and I can be social when need to be, but once I get drained, I'm drained and I'm just kind of done. But knowing that Brad actually has a podcast about being an introvert in the voiceover industry called Inside Voice, which I was like, we just need to, here's my card, here's your card, you know what, let's talk later. And then.

05:54
Yeah, I'm so glad you tapped me on the shoulder and started a conversation. Of course, that's what Vio Atlanta is all about. I don't know if your listeners know, but it's a big voiceover conference in Atlanta. It's probably the biggest professional conference for voice actors in the world, I think. The world of voice acting is pretty small, so we're talking a thousand attendees.

06:23
big conferences, it wasn't very big, but for the voiceover community, it's a pretty big deal. And it was, it's great. And to make connections like that is, is what it's all about. And so I really appreciate that you tapped me on the shoulder. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and because for me as, as even though I have this history in radio and doing, you know, doing voiceover unofficially, you know, I, it was my first foray into a professional side of it. And it was such a welcoming community.

06:53
and to meet people like yourself and just the other 999 folks that were there. And no one was, no one was very like off-putting about this newb that's walking around and doesn't know who anybody is when these other people are like, Oh my gosh, that's, that's Karin Guilfrey. Do you realize what you know? And it's like, all of our heroes from, you know, the big podcasters in the industry, the big coaches, all of the people that we really look up to are there and you can

07:22
They're just so accessible. Like you have them sitting next to them at lunch and having a conversation. Yeah, I ended up sitting next to Joe Cipriano who I actually knew the name from radio because he was a big name in radio as far as like doing imaging for radio stations and stuff like that. And I just sat next to him and I was like, oh my gosh. So he was kind of like the one that I knew. Yeah, you know, other than like Maurice LaMarche who was there as the keynote speaker, who was the.

07:51
voice of brain from Pinky and the Brain from Animaniacs and of course, so many other characters throughout his career. But for me, it was so cool to just feel welcomed. And you were a part of welcoming me in by not being like, hey, let me alone, I'm talking to this other guy. Wow, that's what I was thinking. That was my inside response. He's like, who the F? Yeah. No, and then it was cool because we're like...

08:20
Cause we had you as a guest on our podcast. It'll run Monday, a week from today recording, not from when this releases, but what will Monday be? Today's the fourth and it's- Like the eighth or something, April 8th or something like that. Yeah, whatever. We usually put them out on Monday. Yeah, so it's hard. It's back from when this airs, but yes. Yeah, and it's hard. And I know we talked about this a little bit on air, but.

08:45
So Louise is my co-host. She's kind of the producer of the show. It was her idea. And she came to me and said, we're like really, really close friends. And we met through voiceover and we just really, she's my work buddy. You know what I mean? You always have that person at work that you like this with and you go to lunch together and your coworkers are like, is there something? You know, you're like, no, it's just

09:15
just clicked at work, you know? Yeah, yeah. And she's amazing. She's so, so talented and so cool. She wouldn't agree with, she wouldn't let me say either of those things without arguing with me. But the podcast was really her idea and she pulled me into it. And not that there wasn't much pulling that had to be done. I was super happy to do it. Yeah. But we're both super busy. I mean, we're on the, sort of on the up,

09:44
Hill on the still the early climb, we've both been doing voiceover for about three, three and a half years and she's been full-time for a while. I've been full-time for three months. But we're both really just at that point in our career where you're grinding every single day, you're auditioning and auditioning and fulfilling, and doing the orders that you get, and email marketing, and networking,

10:14
you know, and trying to find agents and, and, and just, it's, it's so much work. Um, and then to try and manage a podcast on top of that in a podcast itself is a lot of work and we've simplified stuff as much as we can. It's like, we turn the microphone on when we start, we turn it off when we were done, unless, unless there's some thing that happens in the course of the podcast. We don't stop and she doesn't edit it. It's just the way.

10:42
And that sort of honest and that genuine and that open, that's really what we were going for, especially talking about a topic like introversion as a freelance and as a voice actor. So, but it was so good to have you on and you were so kind and so gracious and such a good host and the conversation was just lovely. So yeah, we really, really appreciate having you. Looking forward to getting that one. Yeah.

11:06
Yeah, I can't wait to hear it myself. I'm one of those people who's, you know, have you realized that like as you've gotten into voiceover, you know, it seems like everybody in me, they're like, oh, I hate the sound of my voice. I hate to hear myself recorded. I'm like, I kind of like the sound of my voice. I've gotten used to it for, you know, 30-something years. Yeah. Recorded voice, so it doesn't bother me. No, I know. And I think the reason... My hypothesis, anyways, is that...

11:36
when is that our voices don't sound externally the way we hear them in our head, right? And so a normal person who's not custom to hearing their voice will speak and they'll be expecting one voice because it's the voice in their head, but they'll hear a different voice recorded. Right. But once you've worked with your voice enough, that kind of gets corrected, right? That gets sort of filtered out. Like I know what

12:05
what I communicate with my voice. No, I'm not hearing, you know what I mean? And you also learn to bring those two things closer together, like how, what I hear of my voice in my head and what the microphone picks up. Those come closer and closer together too. And so I think between those things, no, I don't, you couldn't.

12:32
get by in this career or radio or podcasting if you if you cringed when you heard your own voice the way most the way most people do right right and uh um so yeah that's that's a good question but um like i said i think it's a learned a learned skill because you just have to you this is what you want to do you have to get used to it and we're like i said people just aren't used to hearing their recorded voice and what that sounds like or being able to

12:59
you know, optimize it or affect it so that it sounds differently based on the, you know, the product you're doing, whether you're doing a children's narration for a book or you're doing a hard sell, you know, automotive commercial or whatever. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, that's right. And I, in fact, I feel like you have to learn. Cause you, you, you have to hear your, like I'm right now I'm, I'm doing a

13:29
It's eLearning podcast about Italian history. It's so cool. It's, you know, it's, they go back in, the narrator goes back in time and explores the Mona Lisa in one episode or the Leaning Tower or Spartacus. But I'm also doing the sound design for it. So I'm adding all kinds of sound elements. So I'm hearing my voice a lot because if you, if you were uncomfortable with that, it just wouldn't work. And even just, even just.

13:58
you do an audition, you got to listen back to it to make sure it's, it's right. And you haven't missed anything and you've your interpretation reads the way you meant it to. Yeah. Um, so you have to, yeah, no, you have to, in fact, you have to, I think, learn to enjoy your own voice and. Not any weird narcissistic type of way. Yeah. It's going to say, it's going to say to an extent because you know, people who love, love their voice and that gets a little, um, that gets a little

14:27
Yeah. Ostentatious, no. You know it. You can hear it. Yeah. Right. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Right. So Brad, you're in Baltimore. Did you grow up in the Baltimore area? No, no, no. I grew up in rural northern Michigan, in Alpena, Michigan. Where the winters are cold and the women are colder. Yeah. And the summers are shorter and the men are shorter.

14:56
I just made that up. I just add to what you had there. I'm pretty impressed with myself for that. Yeah, so I grew up in the hinterlands, up in deer hunting country and farm country. And I put those two together, I think, not intentionally, but we would spend our summers or late summers baling hay at Uncle Butch's farm so that...

15:22
we could then that was sort of our trade off to deer hunt in the fall. Okay. My dad, um, I'm not a hunter now. Um, uh, but that was my, that was, you know, the culture growing up and all of the schools closed for the first day of deer season and, and, and, yeah. Yeah.

15:41
Were you interested, I know you have a theatrical background, did that start in, you know, in like grade school or high school? No, so yeah, in high school I really wanted to do theater and I would see all the other theater kids doing theater and we didn't have like a super intensive theater program or anything in my high school, we had a drama club like a lot of schools do, but I assumed for some reason.

16:09
I mean, this is me. I still do this to myself. For some reason, I assumed everyone else had lots of experience and what did I know and who was I? I mean, I'm looking at other, you know, 14 year olds. Like what? Right. He's got 30 years experience on me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just let myself be intimidated by it. And I was on track and band and I had another, another thing that's going on. And so, but in college, I was in community college.

16:39
I was in the drawing class and I was 10 minutes late for the drawing class. 15 minutes, well, maybe 15 knowing me probably 15 minutes late at the time. I've worked so hard on, on timeliness and promptness. I was so much better now, but at the time I was a nutball. I just didn't know how to manage that. Uh, so I was 10 to 15, probably 15 or 20 minutes late for this drawing class. And I came racing into the class. Nobody there at completely empty. Like, what the heck?

17:09
And I thought, well, sometimes we would leave the class and go draw around that part of the campus, right? This is at Alpena Community College in my hometown. Okay. And so I'm like, well, I'll see if I can find them. And I start wandering around the building and peeking in doors and I opened a door and there was one person that I'd gone to high school with and a few other people and they're Kathleen Pingle and Kathy Pingle. And they...

17:37
waved me in like, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on in. I'm like, I'm trying to find my class and they're like, well, what time was your class? And I'm like, oh, it started at one. And they're like, Brad, it's noon. So I, 15 minutes late, an hour early that I'm telling you, I was a nutball when it came to like time and giving to places on time and managing myself much.

18:02
My, ask my wife, even my wife would say, yeah, he's figured it out. But it was the community college drama club. Like the beginnings of it, they were forming it and they were talking about doing a show. And I'm like, they're actually gonna do this. And I'm like, well, that's cool. You know, I sat in and I was like, I didn't think too much about it. And they're like, well, Brad, come back next week, okay? It's, you know, we meet an hour before your art class. So it's perfect. And they were trying to just get members, right? It was like.

18:32
I'm like, maybe, I don't know, I didn't commit. But then I did, I came back the next week and the next week and the next week, and then I auditioned, and it was for a collection of 10 minute one act. Okay, yeah, yeah, like a short play festival or something like that. Yeah, yeah, they were doing 10 of them. And let's, you know, for new actors in a community college, that's a great way to start, because they're manageable, they're bite size, right? So I audition, and they cast me in, I think, eight of the 10.

19:02
Not because I was an amazing actor, I think because I was...

19:07
one of the few guys that I think that was. It happens to me sometimes. Yeah, but I took that, right? And I ended up not being able to do all eight of them, but I think I did a fair number of them anyway and loved it so much. I thought, why, how did it take me till I was only 19 at the time to define this? Cause it was, it just scratched so many of those itches for me. It was, it was

19:38
I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't even know what I didn't know then, right? But just the, it was just something I could dig into. It just fit my mental process. I love doing things iteratively. I love doing it once, fucking it up, doing it again, fucking it up, doing it again. Yeah. And just getting it incrementally better and better each time and in theater you get to do that. You get to, you know, the first read through is.

20:06
not it's supposed to suck, right? Like that's the whole point of it. And then you sort of iteratively through the rehearsal process get better and better. And I got to just ingest language and just bite into these things. And again, I didn't even know what I was doing then, but it just felt so good and I just enjoyed it. And it just fit, it just was like click. And then I went away to four year college. I was gonna get major in psychology. That was my plan. I was taking psych classes at

20:34
community college and my parents were out behind that and that sounded good. Thank God. Thank God I found this other thing. I love, I love psychology. I still, you know, watch YouTube videos and, and, and read articles and I still love it, but the career in psychology as a therapist is just, and I didn't want to be a psychiatrist cause that's, you're a medical doctor that, that was way more. I just wanted to be a therapist or, um, probably.

21:04
Children's therapist was what I really wanted to do. But now as having an adult understanding of what that means, just, I thank God I found something different that I was passionate about. Because what a needed and what a, just a essential role to play in our culture, especially children's therapy.

21:30
but how undervalued and unappreciated. And I understand now that that would have been working with kids through abuse and through just horrible family situations. And I think in the end, I'm just a little too emotional for that, a little too empathic for that. And I think it would have been really challenging for me. Plus, you know, when I was in the, I was in the tech industry before this,

22:00
I said, yeah, I worked in tech support and I was making my salary and doing my job. And I thought, let me look at therapy because I'm not super happy with my job. What if I wanted to become a therapist or a social worker or whatever? And I looked at it would be six more years of college to make $20,000 less a year than what I was making. And I'm like, Ooh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that wouldn't work. Yeah. So, so you.

22:30
you found community theater, you found this. So is that what you then, like, did you, is that what you ended up with a degree in or anything? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then, so, and then I wasn't even gonna audition. And another good friend of mine came up to me and she said, Brad, I'm going down to audition for Western Michigan University. I'd already been accepted for their psych program. She's like, you're already going there. Why don't you just drive down with me and we'll audition. And, and I put a couple of monologues together and got a little coaching.

23:00
for that and went down and got accepted. And it was amazing. And worked my way up there and, you know, my third year there, I played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, which was an amazing, terrifying, fantastic experience. I wish I knew, I, God, I wish, you know, you have those things where if you just knew then what you know now, right? Right. Oh man, I wish I just wish, and I, I got, we got good reviews. I think everyone was happy with it. It was a.

23:28
really cool, interesting production of it. And then the, so, but then what do you do? I had one more year and what do you do after that? Like you've played Romeo, like the, you know, unless you were doing Hamlet, but I was a ham, you know, I was Romeo. I was an Hamlet. Um, cause I looked, I still, I was 22, but I looked 15 or 16, you know, I was skinny little Anjanu boy. Um, right. Uh, so I direct, I, I directed a.

23:58
an opera, some other students who I became very close with, they had written an opera and they wanted to produce it, but the theater department wouldn't touch it, the music department wouldn't touch it. So they were looking for a student to produce it and I did. It was about Baba Yaga. So it was a lot of Russian folklore and it's very, very cool, very cartoonish,

24:28
with a lot of sort of historical and folkloric depth to it. It shouldn't have happened at all. It shouldn't, it was a big project as a college senior, you know, directing something written by other college. It shouldn't have happened, but it did by sheer will. And it was an amazing experience. And then it was all downhill from there for theater. I graduated and moved to Chicago. And...

24:57
loved Chicago, but especially then in the middle 90s, it was not a good city to live in if you were a broke actor who didn't know. I was working at Radio Shack. I was burnt out on theater and I didn't- Oh wow. I didn't have a lot of motivation at that point. I just wanted to work a job. I ended up tamping and I just wanted to work a job for a while.

25:26
You know, that worked for a while. And I was still doing, at that point, computers were at a point where you could start to do creative stuff with them. Yeah. And I had Adobe, uh, uh, what was the movie editing the Adobe's, uh, premiere premiere, and I was doing a lot of just sort of in my little studio apartment. Uh, while I'd walked the streets of Chicago for hours and hours with a video camera, I'd saved up with my tempting money.

25:53
It was like the one thing that I was able to, I was so broke man, but I'd saved a little spreadsheet and I'd saved up to buy this video camera and I would just walk around for hours just shooting stuff. Very little of it of any interest at all. And then I would come home and I would put stuff together and that's kind of when I started doing the video that we were talking about at the top of the show. That's, that led to that.

26:22
But I didn't, I wasn't doing any theater. It was really hard in Chicago at that time. All the kids were coming down from Northwestern, which is a world renowned undergraduate school for theater. And so they were all coming down from Northwestern and opening their own theaters and they all had their own fix and stuff. And I don't begrudge them for a minute because that's what I would do. But I just didn't feel like they needed me. But I would come to visit my friends in Baltimore. And at the time,

26:52
Baltimore had this really active performance art community, the scene, it was a scene. Like you'd see in a movie, right? Like they, but nobody became famous out of it. So there won't be any movies made, but it was a scene. And all these kids from MICA and University of Baltimore, all these art kids, visual art kids were doing performance art kind of.

27:20
like 60s stuff, but they were mixing video in with it and inflatables like we talked about, and just doing this really just interesting stuff. And so here I'm coming done with theater, like just burnt out on it, and here's these kids doing this crazy stuff, but none of them knew anything about theater or performance. And so I would walk in with that as my background. And they just sort of would mix me into stuff.

27:49
I'd be there here for the weekend and they'd say, can you come back in two weeks? Cause we're doing the, well, I couldn't. So I moved down here. It was way more interesting. My friends and I, we had a 10,000 square foot warehouse space that was the fifth floor of a building that was, our artists had all of the other one floor, one's first floor through sixth floor. So I don't want to interrupt you, but I mean, it's like, as you talk about this, it seems like you lived the musical rent.

28:18
before there was a musical, Rent. You were Mark. You were Mark Cohen, and you had your camera, and you were taking videos, and then you had all the people in the warehouse that were doing all the artistic things. I will confess, I have never seen Rent. Go to Wikipedia, read the synopsis, and go, holy crap, that was my life. I'm just telling you. You see, I did theater, but I did more, especially now, staying into like,

28:48
community theater, more musical theater. I mean, I've done some straight plays and stuff like that, but I do enjoy a good musical theater performance and stuff like that. So just trust me. Look at the synopsis for rent. And then I want you to text me after you've read it and be like, oh, okay, I can see that connection there. Maybe there's like a cosmic, there's a reason for the sort of cosmic blind spot that has kept me from seeing it because like the cosmos, the universe theory, I was talking about the universe.

29:17
I'm an atheist. I believe in what I have evidence for. But sometimes there are things where you just want to attribute something to someone. And so I usually look to the universe fairy as the attribution for when something miraculous or usually a little ironically, but still that's my little pet non-atheist treat that I allow myself.

29:47
So maybe the universe fairy was like, yeah, if you see this it's gonna ruin everything for you because it's too home Yeah, and then you're and then you're gonna be like who stole my story Yeah, or then I'll be too deliberate or I'll feel like The outcome of that show sort of will predetermine my life and I know enough about that show that I don't want that That's funny that's that's great so even on a metaphorical level I don't

30:17
I get that. I get that. So I'm sorry to interrupt you. So you're in Baltimore, you've got the warehouse, you're doing all this art stuff. Yeah. I built a little stage performance area there and we rented out space to other artists for studio space. And that was fun. And that's fun when you're in your early 20s. By the time you've had three or four years of, oh boy.

30:48
I don't want to say there were no rules, but I would come home from, you know, I would be visiting my family for the weekend and I would come home on Sunday at 11 o'clock and I would, I had to work in the morning and I was just dead. But then there was a band starting at 1130 right outside my bedrooms. It was just the lifestyle, you know, and it was awesome. While it was awesome. What's that? Yeah. But we all got a little, it got a little.

31:18
tough. Yeah. And so, you know, I moved out and then I met my first wife and we had got married and had my son and then got unmarried and I met my current wife and yeah. And in the meantime I worked at Center Stage as an assistant company manager for a little while and that was one of the worst jobs I ever had. That was terrible.

31:46
everybody knows what a stage manager does, they manage everything that happens on the stage with the cast. Company managers manage everything that happens with the cast off stage. So that meant all of the contracting, but it also meant center stage is a, what do you call it? The- Equity? Yeah. It's an equity house and it's a Lord theater, it's a regional. So all of our actors were coming in from New York.

32:15
and they would stay, we had apartments. And so as the assistant company manager, the company manager was in charge of deciding who was staying in which apartments. The assistant company manager was in charge of getting all their shit in their apartments and make sure they had clean linens and doing the laundry after they left. Not their laundry, but the linens and all that. It was awful. It was heartbreaking because I had no less training than the actors who were coming through. I had just made a different.

32:43
choice, right? Like I chose not to be a professional regional actor, right? Like not to pursue that I should say. And, but to just

33:00
They were all lovely with one exception, but I'm not going to say who it was. They were all lovely actors, lovely people, but there is still a cast system there and I don't mean cast is, but I mean with an E on the end. Yeah. And it was just really hard and heartbreaking because none of them knew what my background was that had I made a few different choices, I very well may be standing with them, but instead I'm

33:28
I'm driving them to the chiropractor or and I don't know maybe it was ego, you know, I try to live ego Free life as much as I can it's impossible but that's that's a goal and so maybe some of that but you could only set that aside for so long and and I did it for a while and it was it was it was tough. It was really hard for me Yeah, yeah, but so getting out of that getting out of that

33:57
toxic environment. Again, and that's one of those hard things when it's something that you love, but you see the dirty kind of underbelly side of it, and it's like, oh, this is the crap that I didn't see on the other side that I really loved about this. But it takes both sides to make the machine work. Yeah, absolutely. And the guy who did the job before me loved it, and I'm sure the guy who worked after, the woman, loved it.

34:26
But for me, it was just a horrible fit. That was miserable. And that just nailed the coffin, put the last nail in the coffin for me on theater. I was already, I felt like at that point, theater, and still kind of do, I felt like theater was this amazing girlfriend that I had in college, and then we broke up. And we'd like hang out every now and then, and we'd both be like, no, I love you. And it breaks my heart that we can't be together,

34:56
I just can't deal with your shit. Yeah. Right. And that's what I, and I still feel that way a little bit. You have this desire to be creative, to entertain within you. I mean, I can see it on your face. It's in the trail of your past. The trail of my past, that's a good way to put it. Yeah. No, I mean, seriously. It's like, it's these little...

35:25
little breadcrumbs all throughout your history that all have to do with entertainment and performing and for you to find something now like voice acting to be able to connect the best parts of all of those things into something that you can absolutely love. You know, that's, I mean, that's what I'm hearing from you. And make a living doing it, right? Yeah.

35:55
And that is all silver lining, 100% appreciate how tragic it was and how many, how much, how many people lost. But it was COVID that put me where I am. I was playing with my band. We had just recorded our first teeny tiny album. It's on a 45, it's I think nine songs, but they're all two seconds to a minute long, I think.

36:22
Two seconds? Yeah, the shortest track is two seconds, I think. Okay. And we had printed it to vinyl. And it's on all the streaming, you know, it's Stanley Bother and the Very Serious Band's Teeny Tiny album. So you can hear it. And then COVID hit and we couldn't practice. There were some, I mean, what do you call it? Amino Compro.

36:51
Yeah, you know, compromise issues. So we couldn't even practice anymore, let alone play out. And, um, while we were in the darkness of all of that, um, I, I got a, someone emailed me about a, um, audio drama and I auditioned for that and got a part in it and thought, I wonder if there's more to that. And I started looking into it. I assumed.

37:19
I think a lot of people might, but I assumed this is sort of the same thinking that I had in high school. I had assumed that you had to be a super fancy, like you had to live in LA or you had to live in New York and you had to like have a limousine driver come get you to take you to the studio. Like I assumed that's what the life of a voice actor was, right? Turns out only the top 3% live that life. But I started to find that you...

37:47
it was possible to work from your home as a voice actor and to build your own studio. And I knew from my years working with computers and audio equipment and video equipment, I knew I had all of the technical skills I needed. I just needed to figure out specifics. And I had the performance background and so it just sort of fit. And it felt like that first audition for theater back in

38:16
community college. It just, it was that same like it just, it snapped into place. So I, I think I'm in the right place. I think I am. And I love it so much. It's so, it's such a good fit for me. That's so cool. So aside from the voice acting and the hustle and everything like that, how do you, how do you own mind? What's, what do you like to do outside of that? If you have time to, to do that. I mean, so like what's, what's bringing you joy?

38:46
Yeah, thanks. I've been thinking about that a lot. I'll be honest. That's really actually a timely question. Having just transitioned from... So I was working over 40 hours a week at a very sort of intense, emotionally demanding job. And I would finish at five and I would spend a couple hours having dinner with my wife or having dinner with my son who lives with his mom.

39:15
He's 20, so it's not like he's 12. He's 20 and he and his mom are roommates, essentially. So I spent a couple hours with my wife or with my son, and then I would come back down to the studio and I would work from eight until two in the morning. And dude, as much as I loved doing it, I did that for almost three, for about three years. And it was hard. And

39:42
So now that I've built my business up and I've built my income from voiceover up enough that I was comfortable leaving my hourly, my day job.

39:57
It's not much different except now I spend, I'm usually in the studio around nine and I finish around 5.30, but I'm spending that time doing voiceover instead of doing my day job. And then I usually come back down eight or nine, but I'm not up as late. Like I'm just, if I have a thing to finish up or I need people getting stuff out. So I have more bandwidth now and I'm spending a lot more time with my wife and.

40:26
And, you know, and that was challenging. Um, there were definitely some challenging points in our relationship when you're that committed to something, but my God, Rob, I don't know how to say it other than I, there is nothing in my life that I've ever wanted more or worked harder for than to succeed at this. And you have to, because it's so competitive. It's so challenging and there's so, it's so much hard work.

40:56
But now I have more bandwidth and I can take an afternoon to have a podcast chat with you and it's amazing. Like, I could have done this before. And so I've started to think about what really makes me happy. Like what do I really enjoy? Like what brings me joy? I don't mean... I don't know. Like I play some video games. I really like Baldur's Gate.

41:26
And that's sort of my treat. Like if I have all of my work done and I have auditioned enough that day, like I've gotten all the auditions done that I needed to get done and all my marketing I got done that I had planned. I use a Trello board and so I know what I need to get done. Um, then, and if it's not too late, then I can spend a little time in, in Tamriel and, and Boulder's Gate. Uh,

41:56
throwing around some, some doppelgangers. No spoilers meant, but you know, there may be some doppelgangers as well. So, but does that really bring me joy? I don't know. And that's kind of what I'm going through right now. I love spending time with my wife and I love spending time with my son. I love robots and I love sci-fi. And so I like reading classic vintage sci-fi from the fifties. And

42:24
If you saw my studio, it's all filled with robots and puppets and musical instruments and stuff. And I love music, but I haven't really gotten back to it since COVID. I'm not a musician. And if you listen to my album, you may be like, yeah, he's right. But I was a performer using music as a means to perform, right? And so I had a lot of catch up to do. I was taking piano lessons and voice lessons and really taking that pretty seriously.

42:54
still the circle of fifths was just on the edge of mysterious to me, right? Like just beyond what I understood as far as what I was able to... I could do key changes. I got to a point where I could use a circle of fifths to create a key change in a song and it hit. So that's something I think about a lot right now and I don't really have a good answer other than, you know, traveling with my wife and going to...

43:23
Chipotle with my son for dinner on a Thursday and playing boulders gate or watching a show on, some sci-fi show on Netflix.

43:39
All right, Rad, so this is the second segment of the show. This is the time now we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into your mental health journey. I believe that, you know, we all kind of go through those days, whether you have diagnosed depression or anxiety or whatever. I think it's something that we all deal with, whether we want to admit it out loud or not. And the more that we talk about it, the easier it is for all of us to realize that we're not alone in that. So for you.

44:07
How do you keep the darkness at bay? Yeah, I knew this question was coming. First of all, I'll say I'm not diagnosed with anything. That doesn't mean I don't know. I probably have some ADD or adult ADD or ADHD undiagnosed stuff to some degree. My ex-wife, as we were getting divorced, she's like, I think you have adult ADD. You should really end my... And I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe. And then a year or so later, talking to my...

44:37
Now my wife and told her she's like, yeah, she's just your ex-wife and she blah blah blah blah. Now, 10 years later, my wife's like, maybe she had a point there. So, I don't know. I probably need to look into that. I don't know if I do keep the darkness at bay, honestly. And we talked about this a little bit on our podcast when we had you there. I mean, I don't know that I do.

45:06
Open up and let it in and ride it out, man. Like, I'm 50, I'll be 52 this year, so.

45:17
I'm not saying I have any answers, but I'm old enough to know that I don't have answers. I think that's where wisdom comes from. Being old enough that you know you don't know. But at the same time, I've had a lot of experience with what tends to work for me. And I've found in my life that really facing, like accepting the darkness.

45:43
And I think an example of that was the divorce, going through the divorce. And our marriage was, in some ways it was great and I didn't think it should end, but in other ways it definitely should have. And regardless, I didn't have any say in the matter. So it wasn't my choice. And that was very painful at first, until I just, and I don't remember all of the steps of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, but there's denial. And I'm like, I'm booking through these as fast as I can because this is bullshit.

46:13
But I let that pain come in and I said, hey, I see you man and you don't feel very good. Let's sort this out and figure out why it hurts and what it really is about this situation that's painful to you. Had I kept pushing it away, had I kept saying, I don't feel it, I don't feel it, I don't want to feel it, I'm going to drink so I don't feel it, I'm going to do drugs so I don't feel it, I'm going to bury myself in other women so I don't feel it.

46:42
It would have taken years and instead it took, you know, from when I understood for real that she was leaving, you know, it was much, much more, I was able to manage the process much more quickly than I would have been had I been avoiding it.

47:11
So I really think, and I took a lot from that lesson-wise, and I took a lot from the idea that if you acknowledge and accept the darkness and the pain, now that's setting aside the realities of mental health. Right? And I understand that that's a privileged place and a privileged outlook to have, because I understand that there are people who...

47:37
were they to indulge themselves in the darkness that it could take them to some very difficult places. I recognize and acknowledge that, but that's not me, right? For me to live, to just let it come in and live with it and own it and partner with it, that sounds weird, but to partner with that darkness or the pain or the fear or the anxiety,

48:06
is the best way, is the best way to live with it. And I still, you know, we all do, I'll have, it's usually triggered by, at this point, triggered by work, but right? Like if I'm, if I'm auditioning and I'm not getting any responses, I'm not getting any positive feedback from it, I'm not getting any work, I know the end of the month is coming and I know what I wanted to earn this month and I didn't, like then I start to just get this icky feeling. But, again,

48:33
I understand that that happens and I'm able to at least try to acknowledge it, understand why it's there and, and move through it instead of trying to juke around. Yeah. Well, you know, and I mean that is in its own way, you know, accepting the darkness, you know, is a way to, to keep it at bay as well. You know, I tell folks all the time, you know,

49:02
You know, I was the fat kid. I started to own the name fat, you know, so that you couldn't hurt me with it, you know? So for, so those times when you're down and for you to go, hey, darkness, depression, I see you there. I recognize you there. I want to learn from this time that I'm in, from this moment that you're here for whatever reason, what is the lesson I can learn from you in this? And then move through that.

49:32
and keep going, you know? Yeah. So I definitely understand that. Yeah, exactly. And shadows are scary, right? And you can either say, those shadows are scary, I don't want to know what it is, or you can say, those shadows are scary, I'm going to shine my flashlight on them and find out. Exactly. And again, this may be a completely privileged position to be in, but in my life, I've found

50:02
that shadow, it's far less scary than what my imagination had built up to be. And I know there are people who, there are actual demons out there that are stocking them down and that's a whole different scenario. So don't listen to me if you're one of those people, I guess. I don't know. Well, I mean, but I think you can still shine the light on that too. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, hey.

50:30
You know, I'm recognizing that this thing is really, you know, got me in, you know, in the chokehold. How can I release this chokehold? You know, there's, you know, I definitely think that, that recognize, you know, recognizing when you're in a situation helps you then realize I need to get out of this. I need to figure out a way out of this, you know, so. Yeah.

50:58
I think the recognition part of it is a key step in any of those things that might be weighing down on you. It's not you. It's what's the cause of this.

51:18
Yeah, and you can spend a lot of time sort of following that down, right? Like and understand and trying to understand where fear comes from and where anxiety comes from and it's so human and it's so, it's so, it is, it has been evolutionarily necessary for our survival.

51:42
We now live in a world where it's not necessarily evolutionary necessary, evolutionarily necessary for our survival, in most cases. But we still have it and we still, like, you know, if you're an early human and, you know, you hear rustling in the bushes, you can either be afraid and run away.

52:07
Maybe it wasn't a lion, but you're alive. Maybe it was a lion, you're still alive. If you weren't afraid, if you didn't have that anxiety and it was a lion, you got it. So I think it's just part of being human and it's necessary, but we're, we're programmed for a whole different environment. And, and so now we project that or we misplace or displace those same survival instincts.

52:37
onto things that not getting as many shortlists on your auditions isn't the same as keeping yourself from being eaten by a lion. But we don't have lions roaming around anymore, so that same mechanism just gets reassigned, right? And we still have the same fear and the same anxiety, so.

53:06
What are my thoughts on it?

53:12
It's the third segment of the show. It's time now for the fast five. The fast five. It's time now for the fast five. I don't like random. Like, you know, fast five. Look, I mean, I mean, I talked to him. No, that's fine. That's fine. It's like, I forgot that I just do it live. I, cause I, I don't. I love it. No, I love it. I don't, I don't like random. And we were talking about iterative, like enjoying things iterative.

53:42
And I do, I like to know what I've done and how to make it better. I was in an improv troupe for a while. Oh, well there you go. I loved it in some ways, but was miserable in other ways. Like it was not my style of performance. Well, unfortunately for you, that's what this segment is. The Fast Five. Five random questions. Yeah, seriously dude, I gotta go. I got bunch of stuff to get done. Uh huh, uh huh. Well, I guess this episode just won't air then. So, because I don't... Okay.

54:12
All right. Let's do your worst. All right. Here we go. Fast Five is powered by Poddex, an app created by my friend Travis Brown. If you go to chewingthefatbr.com slash poddex, it'll take you to the links to download it yourself. Five questions. No wrong answers. I don't understand it is no wrong answers. So no stress, no stress at all in this. OK, so here we go. Question number one.

54:35
what would you like to accomplish in the coming year?

54:40
Oh lord. Um...

54:44
Just to continue building my business to the point where, in this business, you're always hustling. Yeah. But I think you reach a point where you're not hustling just to make, you know what I mean? Yeah. I would like to, by the end of the year, feel a little more comfortable with where I am in my monthly revenue.

55:14
and where my business is as my voiceover business. That's great. I think that's great. All right, this is easier than I thought. Absolutely, absolutely. Question number two.

55:26
What's the most annoying bill you have to pay?

55:32
Um...

55:36
So, part of being able to leave my day job was that I had to have all of my debts paid. So by the time I left, I had no car payment, no student loan. We have a mortgage on the house, but that's it. No credit card debt. I've trained myself to be a really good credit card person. These are all, again, really privileged position to be in. I know a lot of people are really struggling and I feel for them. And I've been there. Oh man.

56:06
I used to be, we were talking about me being always late for things, but financially I had no clue what was going on and I worked really, really hard to be a grown up about those things. I commend you on that. I think that's great. And truthfully, your point of view is very valid on the fact that you're appreciative of the things that you now can pay for and don't find annoying that do help you do your things. It's, I mean, I think it's right. I think it's right.

56:34
Alright, question number three.

56:38
If someone made a movie about your life, who would play you? I always do this one in a two part. Who would who would actually get the job? But who would you want to play you as two different people usually? Yeah.

56:58
Um...

57:01
Maybe I would want Bob Odenkirk to play me just because he's so fucking cool and he would have to like because if he's gonna play me he would have to spend some time like shadowing me and interviewing me, right? So just to get to hang out with Bob Odenkirk for a few hours as he's preparing for the role would be make it worth it. I don't know who would pay me. Who's...

57:28
Sac aliphonakis maybe? There you go. Uh, uh, um, uh, oh, oh, what's his name? Oh, I can't remember his name.

57:39
He was just in...

57:45
What's his name? I really like him. He was... Okay, this is gonna be a little journey. He was in the movie some years ago where they were in like the Sonoma Valley. It was like about wine and stuff. Crap. And he was just in a movie where he played a historical guy. Do we know which historical guy? That will help. There are a lot of historical guys out there.

58:14
It was a guy. Oh, and he was history guy from history. Oh, do you mind? No, do you mind? That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think he'd, I think he'd have a good shot at getting the role. Yeah. That would be good. That'd be good. He'd have to get the beard. If he could get the beard, that'd be, he was great. If you've not seen the Holdovers, he was amazing in that movie. If you haven't, I don't know if you're a movie guy, but he was amazing. Holdovers, but I could see that. Yeah.

58:43
Yeah, that's I think he would stand a good chance of getting cast. Is it if his agent? Like, hey, we got the script. Because I mean, you know, we got Bob Odenkirk over here. It's just like chomp. That's true. All right, question number four.

59:04
If you could pick only one lesson to tell a new business owner, and they could be, you know, a voiceover business owner, someone starting a voiceover, you can tell them one lesson. What would it be? Um, if it's a business where coaching is available as it is in voiceover, uh, find a good reputable coach.

59:34
And if not, find a mentor, find somebody who's in the business that has some generosity. Hopefully it's not a cutthroat business. And listen to them. Like work with them.

59:53
That's the number one thing, like everything else can follow, but you can't, because here's the problem. Okay. This is something I faced in voiceover when I, everybody does. You don't know what you don't know. And you're not looking for somebody to give you all the information. You're looking for someone to help you sort out, to help you understand what you don't know so you can then start to educate yourself.

01:00:22
in theater and performing and music, which all helped me. It's all beneficial coming into voiceover, but I did not know what I didn't know. It's only been through coaching that I've been able to unlearn a lot of the things from live theater that aren't helpful and learn the things that I need to know. That's what I would say, find a mentor or a good coach.

01:00:49
to help you find the things that you don't know, you don't know, and then you can start to fill in the gaps from there. And hopefully they can help you with the things you don't know, but that's the first. I love that, I love that. That's great. And question number five.

01:01:06
Where do you go when you need to blow off some steam?

01:01:12
Uh, I used to go to Tamriel, but now I go to, uh, Baldur's Gate. Um, I, I love, I love, uh, I love immersive games. Um, and, uh, Skyrim. I love that game. I've often said if, if the only, if, if all of a sudden video game technology stopped in the

01:01:41
Skyrim was the only game that was ever left forever. I would be okay with that, right? Now that Baldur's Gate is a thing, I'm, well... If I had a choice between the two, it would still be Baldur's Gate. I mean, it would still be Skyrim. But I don't know. So I like to disappear into video game worlds. And that's what I like most about games, is you can kind of live in a different world for a long time.

01:02:10
while. Um, uh, I could say I like to go out in nature and go on hikes and go for long exercise walks, but those would be lies. I think your answer was great. And that is our fast five. And that is the show, Brad. Thank you so much.

01:02:38
Thank you so much for indulging me. I now I'm a little embarrassed to have spoken of myself for so long, but I guess that's why I'm here. That is it's it's it's Louise. Louise is good at rating me in is, you know, from being on the show, I tend to rabbit hole a little bit and she's really good at like pulling me back on topic and keeping things moving forward. Well, you know, the thing is, is I wanted to get to know more about you and.

01:03:02
And that's exactly what you did. You help us get to know more about you and where you're at and what you've got going on. And if folks want to keep up with you, what's the best way they can do that? They can go to thevoiceofBrad.com, which is funny because you're thevoiceofRobb.com. Yeah. Purely coincidence, I assume. It is. I didn't realize it until like you know, I know. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. The voice of Brad dot com. And from there, you can get to my.

01:03:29
somewhat neglected Instagram, I completely neglected TikTok. I love LinkedIn now and I'm on Facebook. And our podcast is Inside Voice, Freelance and Voice Over Success as an Introvert. Turns out there's a couple other podcasts with very similar names. And I just wrapped the last episode of my personal podcast was Gentlemen's Spaceman's Atomic Hideout and every episode I narrate

01:03:59
a short story of 1950s, 40s, 50s, 60s from science fiction Golden Age. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. And I just, I just enough projects going on that I just, I released the last episode Tuesday and I was like, yeah, that's the end of the season of season two. And I think it's going to be the end of the podcast for a little while.

01:04:22
Well, that's great though. I'll definitely make sure that we put the links to all of those things in the show notes so that folks can keep up with you and what you've got going on. Yeah, thanks. And of course folks can find you. Thank you so much. It was really wonderful being able to talk to you today and

01:04:37
the other day when you were visiting us, I really, I really appreciated that. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm glad we're connected now and we're going to stay best friends and really stay in touch. Absolutely. You sure are. We sure are. And I just appreciate you being here and being open. I wish you nothing but success and all that you've got going on and that stuff that you want to happen this year happens. And I'm going to be calling you and asking you questions about how I can make that stuff happen for me too. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get you going. I need to get that going. We'll get you going.

01:05:07
I really appreciate it, Brad. Thank you again for being here. Yeah, thank you. And if you would like to support this podcast, I'd appreciate it if you bought me a coffee at chewingthefatbr.com. But until next time, I look forward to the chance we have to sit a spell and chew the fat.