North Texas Daily

It started with four friends gathering around one microphone in the center of a coffee table to talk about music.

Now, local Denton podcast Don’t Feed the Artists has released 21 episodes and has interviewed numerous bands from all over the U.S. Hagen Hauschild, Anby Marin, Jackson Russo and Adam Selby are the brains behind it.

The podcast is hosted in Russo’s room, which is located on the second floor of the well-known Denton house show venue, the Jagoe House.

“When we started this, there were four of us,” Russo said. “We just wanted to get touring bands. We knew touring acts, and we knew people who knew touring acts coming through.”

The group is heavily involved with the music scene of Denton. Hauschild, Marin and Russo are all involved in bands while Selby enjoys the performances as a fan.

The schedule they run on is tentative since every member of the group either works full time or goes to school. Selby is currently employed doing computer services at UNT while Hauschild teaches guitar lessons at Guitar Center. Russo is a mechanical engineering senior, but he devotes the majority of his time to music.

Despite being busy, the group has been releasing podcasts every other Tuesday since January.

The hosts of Don’t Feed the Artists had the opportunity to sit down with the band TOMKAT on Oct. 10. The band released its new album, “Icarus,” on Oct. 13.

TOMKAT consists of lead singer Katrina Kain, guitarist Andrew MacMillan, drummer Johnny Harmon, bassist Mike Luzecky and keyboardist Trenton Hull.

All of TOMKAT’s members are alumni of UNT’s College of Music. Kain, 25, graduated in 2011 with a bachelor’s in jazz studies.

Kain said she immediately felt comfortable in the atmosphere created by Don’t Feed the Artists.

“It was definitely casual, and I did like that,” Kain said. “Sometimes you see people giving interviews on TV and they’re very rigid — you don’t get sense of personality.”

Russo’s room, also known as “the green room,” has a couch for bands to gather around during interviews. Russo’s interest in music is expressed through the posters plastered on the walls. Russo said sometimes during concerts at Jagoe, artists will hang out in his room to avoid being “in the thick of it.”

“I’m a hermit up here,” Russo said. “I avoid everyone.”

The hosts of Don’t Feed the Artists strive to make their interview space comfortable for the artists. Kain said they were also flexible when it came to scheduling the interview.

“It’s comfy, and you feel like you’re talking with a friend,” Kain said.

Russo, Selby, Marin and Hauschild enjoy providing publicity for the bands featured on their podcast. They include links to the bands’ websites and people they mention online, and the show also includes a segment where the hosts discuss their favorite music they’re currently listening to.

The hosts have each taken on different tasks regarding the production process of the podcast.

Russo is responsible for recording and editing the audio. He taps into skills he picked up thanks to prior experience in a studio. Each episode is almost completely uncut and around an hour long.

“It’s nothing special,” Russo said. “I really do whatever I can to just get by.”

Selby is responsible for the publishing of the episodes, show notes and social media. The episodes can be streamed via any podcast application including Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts and RSS.

Selby said they are self-hosted on their server since they still have a small audience. Once the episodes are submitted to a company like iTunes, the podcast is considered for review and is then approved a week later and released to the public.

Hauschild and Marin are in charge of booking bands for the show. They said the music scene in Denton is overflowing with bands who have potential.

Sometimes after shows at the Jagoe House, bands use the convenient timing to be interviewed. Other times, bands from out of state will be in Dallas for a short period of time and make room in their schedule to be featured on a small podcast based out of Denton.

“There are a lot of bands to pull from,” Hauschild said. “The hardest part is just figuring out time for all of us since everyone in a band is busy, and we are busy.”

Don’t Feed the Artists released their latest podcast episode on Oct. 24. It was a two-hour long special that interviewed 10 of the bands which played at Denton music festival Jagoefest. All of their episodes are archived at dfta.show.

Featured Image: Jackson Russo talks about podcast “Don’t Feed the Artists.” The podcast, available on iTunes and other platforms, features interviews with musicians. Mallory Cammarata