We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brian Hopkins & Ronnie Marmo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brian and Ronnie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
RONNIE: I am fairly new to the audio side of music and production so learning how to create, prepare, produce and execute a podcast was rather challenging. I spent A LOT of time on YouTube and Google and even listening to other “similar” successful podcasts. It’s also safe to say that we’re still learning new things every week.
As far as how I could have possibly sped up my learning process, it was more about my lack of action. I’ve been sitting on the concept of Outside the Circle Podcast since about 2015 but never knew where to start. I would bring it up often to Brian but at the time we were living in two different states and while there was video chatting and what not, we couldn’t find the time to devote to it. So yeah, ultimately, I wish I, even though the product looked different back in 2015, just sat down and started. On the other hand, the positive of waiting 4 years to finally launch what you see today is I can safely say it would not have been as successful and well thought out.
We are an interview based podcast so the biggest and most important skill on my end is being a people person, being able to carry on conversations and ultimately lead the conversations. Brian thankfully has the harder part of editing and producing the final product. If I did that, more files would get accidently deleted than uploaded.
BRIAN: I had a deep love of music and creating music from an early age. After I received my first guitar one Christmas, I worked as many hours as I could to afford a cheap mic and a MacBook. I learned GarageBand and started to record. Now it was horrible in hindsight but I was creating. I ended up going to school at the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio and learned the art of recording, editing and producing music.
This transfers to co-hosting and editing the podcast. The knowledge of what it takes in the studio to make music allows me to connect with the guests we have on our show.
There is no shortcuts to be straight forward and honest (a downfall of mine in many ways). There is no easy route to learning. It takes time, effort and passion. If you want to know something and are passionate about the subject you need to find the time, make the money and search out the means to do so.
As for obstacles, self doubt. Self doubt is always something we all struggle with. Is what I’m doing good enough? Am I doing this right? I hear Ronnie use the term “imposter syndrome” a lot. Let those thoughts go and be aggressive with your passion. The best advice I was ever given was “the only person standing between you and your dreams is yourself”. So push aside self doubt and become what you sought out to be!
Brian and Ronnie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Outside the Circle Podcast was created out of a love for country music and the yearning to be in the music industry to some extent. We both come from musical backgrounds, Brian a guitar playing singer-songwriter and Ronnie a bass player. Having spent years focusing on our crafts, the realization of how hard it was to get any traction is ultimately what this podcast was born from. Our tagline and our mission is to be a podcast ‘dedicated to new and upcoming country artists, musicians and songwriters”.
RONNIE: I was born and raised in New Jersey. Growing up, country music was not as dominant in the state as it is now so I spent my youth playing and listening to rock, metal and punk bands. If there was a breakdown, a mosh pit and emo attire, I was there! An unlikely source introduced me to Brad Paisley’s “Letter to Me”, Tim McGraw’s “Don’t Take the Girl” and Garth Brooks’ “Thunder Rolls” and my life changed forever. I was hooked and little did I know what was in store for me. I stopped playing Blink-182 songs on my bass and started learning the Nashville number system.
BRIAN: Very different from Ronnie, I come from a small town in Upstate New York where country music was the ONLY thing I knew. In fact, it wasn’t until my late teen years that I heard a different genre! I got a guitar for Christmas at a young age and immediately attempted to play the greats; Merle, Waylon, Garth, etc. I furthered my love of music by pursuing a career in audio engineering while learning the ins and outs of recording and producing records.
We met in the age of Craigslist when Brian was trying to put a band together. It was instant chemistry musically and a friendship was born in the rehearsal space and out. There was a mutual agreement that country radio was not satisfying us anymore. That led to having conversations about the songwriters and the folks out in Downtown Nashville grinding it out for a chance to be heard. We know all too well how hard that is so we wanted to make sure we can give artists a platform to be heard and share their stories.
BRIAN: Ultimately, we decided on a long form interview format which allows the artists to really express themselves. Sure we can spend 15 minutes only talking about their most recent single or what they’re currently up to but what’s the point in that?
RONNIE: Yeah, your favorite artists are the ones you connect with, know details about and feel an authenticity from. That’s the ultimate goal for Outside the Circle guests. We want our listeners to find their new favorite artists through an experience and not because the national radio station tells us who to listen to. That is easily what we are most proud of and sets us apart from other media outlets out there.
How did you build your audience on social media?
For those of you who are familiar with Rick Barker, his claim to fame was being Taylor Swift’s manager early on in her career, he talks a lot about social media and the importance it plays in the music industry today. We have always struggled with “do we need it?”, “how often should we post?” and most importantly “what do we post?”. It always felt like such a crutch and honestly, keeping up with it is a full time job in itself. But Rick focuses on why it is a tool and why it is important that YOU are the one controlling the accounts.
We see artists and outlets that have teams behind their accounts. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as the content is coming from you yourself. You can’t understand your fans and what your listeners want from you if you’re not the one engaging with them.
That being said, there was a constant doubt of not growing faster. The likes, the follows and the shares paint a picture of “success”. This is where we stand apart from others. We stopped caring about the numbers and focused on the content. Authenticity is the most important factor in our growth, which yes, is slow but steady. There is value in understanding your worth. One Million followers doesn’t mean anything if only 100 of them are repeat listeners. We have been fortunate enough to see that our episode downloads mimic a lot of what our trends on social media have been. I don’t know about you but we’d rather see 1,000 follows next to 1,000 listeners than 1 Million followers next to 100 listeners. We all know social media influencers are now a thing but in our industry, in the music world, followers don’t always equate to dollars in your bank account.
Long story short, the best advice we can give – stop chasing the social media recognition and focus on your craft! We know that goes against everything 2023 stands for but trust us, you’ll never be happier!
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
The music industry climate has shifted dramatically over the years. Artists used to tour to gain excitement for a new album. Now, artists are pumping out single after single hoping to catch your attention and eventually come out to a live show. Live music is the best way to support an artist right now. Buy tickets to their shows, buy merch, tip the merch guy/girl who gave up their full time job to follow their best friends around the country in a van just so you can get a T-Shirt for hopefully your new favorite band.
The podcast world is different in how to support us. We, as well as many other podcasts, have our own merch but mostly our ecosystem revolves around partnerships and ads. So if you own a business or are an entrepreneur at any level, shoot us a message, we’d love to chat!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.outsidethecirclepodcast.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/outsidethecirclepodcast
- Facebook: facebook.com/outsidethecirclepodcast
- Twitter: twitter.com/otcthepodcast