Matt Gourley

Matt Gourley has an irresponsible amount of podcasts. He is the creator of the I Was There Too podcast and the co-creator of the Superego, James Bonding, Pistol Shrimps Radio, The Complete Man, Keys to the Kingdom, and Mallwalkin’ podcasts as well as sidekick to Andy Daly on Bonanas for Bonanza and producer and co-host of the Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend podcast. As an actor he’s also been seen or heard on Community, Adventure Time, Kidding, Comedy Bang! Bang!, Blindspot, and has been featured multiple times on Comedy Central’s Drunk History. In his down time though, Matt plays music with his band Townland and works on design and renovation projects at home, where he lives with his wife, daughter and their huge cat, Margaux The Fat Guy.

Describe Keys to the Kingdom in 10 words or less.
An inside look at the peculiar world of theme-park performers. (I strategically hyphenated theme park to get it to 10)

Was it hard to get people to talk?
Some were more than willing to go on the record, speak freely, and even fly in the face of The Mouse while others insisted on either pseudonyms, voice disguising, or both. Their choices were mostly determined by whether they still wanted to maintain a working relationship with whatever theme park they were discussing. But we definitely had people that flat out refused to speak to us for fear of reprisal — even some very close friends. The specter of the major theme parks looms large, and even when you are obeying all the rules as an employee, it can feel like you're always  being watched by a shadowy force!

Share something shocking from the show to get people to listen.
If you’ve been to Disneyland over, let’s say, 20 times you’ve probably inhaled human remains. I’m only somewhat exaggerating, but there is quite a trend for people to smuggle in their loved-ones’ ashes and scatter them throughout the deceased’s favorite attractions — most notoriously (and appropriately?) The Haunted Mansion. It happens quite a bit and the workers that have to deal with it even have their own lingo for the removal of remains. CODE: GRANDMA.

How did you get your start in podcasting?
I co-created Superego in 2006. It was a very loosely improvised sketch-comedy podcast that was then tightly edited and sound-designed in post production. I think because podcasts in the early years were almost exclusively just people chattin’, it was able to slowly distinguish itself.

You also host a mall podcast. What do you like about malls?
That’s right. My friend Mark McConville and I do a podcast called Mallwalkin’ and it’s the single stupidest excuse for a podcast since my last one with Mark (Pistol Shrimps Radio where we called live play-by-play of my wife’s women’s league basketball games even though we don’t know the first thing about sports). Mallwakin’ consists of Mark and myself doing exactly what the show promises – walkin’ a local mall and just saying what we see and taking any conversational fork in the road that comes up. I’ll now reiterate how dumb this is but also note that none other than the esteemed Guardian recommended it, calling it ‘part ASMR journey, pert psychogeography.’ So there’s no accounting for taste.

Pretend you were going to start another podcast. Don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone will like it. What’s the show?
Well, luckily those parameters have never been a hindrance for me! I always have a couple of ideas on deck. And as stupid as this sounds, and as stupid as these nascent podcast ideas are, I hesitate to list them for fear of someone else doing them!

Are there too many podcasts?
Nope! Because who is it hurting? Even if someone does a podcast solely because it’s fun and no one listens, at least the podcaster is getting something out of it. In fact, I think the best podcasts are inevitably the ones where the hosts are doing it for love of the game (to borrow a phrase I learned doing a sports podcast). Luckily, podcasting is still an open sandbox with a low-barrier of entry and those are the conditions best suited to produce some of the most inspired ideas for shows and innovative evolutions of the format. But take that with a grain of salt — I have a podcast that ends every episode in a mall massage chair.

Thanks, Matt!