7 Lamb Productions (Jack Austin #1)

Conducted by Giallo Julian

(Modified for readability)

Welcome, Lambs! I knew you’d show up eventually. Jack Austin and I talk about a lot of cool stuff, so feel free to sit down, kick your legs up, and join us as we discuss all things 7Lamb!

INTERVIEW:

Giallo Julian: “It’s a pleasure to meet you, man! I just got into 7Lamb [Productions] recently. I was on a road trip to Dallas about four months ago, I needed something to listen to, and I had Tower 4 on my podcast list. And I’m like, Well, I’ve got a four hour drive. Let’s check this out. And it blew me away.

“Dude, I was like, Holy shit! This is really good! What else have you done? I reached out to you guys pretty much as soon as I finished Tower 4…. I didn’t know about this [podcast], and yet you have so much work. I need to at least put [7Lamb] on Dread Central or something…. People need to know about this.”

Jack Austin: “Well, thank you. I really appreciate it.”

GJ: “Yeah, of course, man. We have a lot to talk about… so let’s go ahead and start from the beginning, for our readers who don’t know who you are and what you guys do.

“What is 7Lamb? What are you all about? How did it all start?”

JA: “So, it all started when I complained about hating my job on Facebook. [laughs]”

GJ: “[laughs] Like all great stories!”

JA: “I was in the banking industry for a really long time, and I always had a passion for voices, and accents, and things like that… I complained about my job, and somebody said, “Well, what do you want to do?” And I said, “Voice acting would be my number one thing I probably want to do.” And… he connected me with Robert Lamb, and Rob was in the middle of being at another production company that was petering out, right? He had some folks that had, you know — Life comes along, and they had other things that they wanted to be participating in.

“So he was trying to transition into something else. Then we met, and we just hit it off like wildfire. I wanted to do it, he wanted to do it, so we formed 7Lamb there, and the rest is history, as they say. But 7Lamb as a company, I would say, we specialize in audio dramas. Not your typical podcasts where, you know, interviewer, interviewee. These are narrative driven stories that we tell, and we like to keep it suspenseful, entertaining.

“The best way I say to people when I say “audio drama,” and they don’t know what that is, I go, “It’s like listening to a movie, or listening to a TV show.” That’s the best way to explain what we do, and we’ve been doing it since 2017. So we’re here now, and thriving.”

GJ: “It reminds me of the old radio dramas from the forties and fifties, except more in depth. A lot of those were like a “story-of-the-week” kind of thing, where it’s like, “Oh no, The Shadow has to go take on the cult in New York City! Next time, he has to go fight Doctor Satan!”

“[With 7Lamb], each episode is about a bigger narrative. It’s, again, like a show. It’s like a TV show, except you just listen to it and imagine it.”

JA: “Right! Definitely. It’s a continuation, and that’s what we like. Now, we do have some contained stories that have a beginning and an end, but most of our stories — our biggest ones — are still ongoing.”

GJ: “I’ve noticed! I’ve been looking at a couple of the other [shows]. I’m like, Eight seasons! Holy shit!

“So you say you started in 2017, but Paralyzed was around before then, right? On the other website?”

JA: “Yes, that started back in 2014. I came on, and 7Lamb started, at the tail end of season one of End of All Hope and Paralyzed.”

GJ: “Yeah, because I remember hearing that. The little advertisements in-between [the episodes] said, “Hey, we’re switching over.” And I was like, Oh man, that was a while ago.”

JA: “Again, it was just one of those things. Life happens, and fortunately it bounced our way… Now that I’m thinking about it, my first line ever with 7Lamb is the last episode of season one of Paralyzed, and I’m in the third to last episode [of season one] of End of All Hope. It just goes on from there.”

GJ: “Then you started voicing every character in all these shows. We’ll get to that.”

JA: “[laughs] Yeah.”

GJ: “Oh, actually, I’m curious — How many 7Lamb shows are you actually in? I know you’re in Paralyzed and Tower 4, but — if those are any indication — again, you’re in all of them, it seems like.”

JA: “Yeah, I’m in all of them. Part of it is just because I have such a passion for it, and… I work for free. [laughs] You know what I mean? So I was cheap, and I can do a variety of accents, and I was just always so passionate. I was like, “What do you got? What do you got? What do you got?”… It helps with production when you have somebody who’s right there, who could show up and record. As opposed to sending it off to a third party, having them record what they want to record, send it back, us breaking it down, and things of that nature.

“But to answer your question, I’m in all of them, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

GJ: “I mean, I don’t think anybody would. You have an incredible talent with your voice… So many different accents. Do you like — We’ll get to that in a minute, but holy shit, dude.

“I remember hearing in the recaps a lot of — So, I’m coming at the tail end of [Tower 4]. You guys are apologizing like, “We’re sorry this episode is taking so long.” And I’m sitting here like, Well, luckily, I’m four years late, so I can just listen to all of these. But I did hear you guys talk about how it was hard because you have voice actors literally from across the entire country. You have to send it that way, and then send it back, so forth, so forth. It took awhile to do all that. So the fact that you are able to be there and just get this stuff out as quickly as possible, I’m sure is very much a godsend to all this.”

JA: “Right. So our releases are our top priority at all times. We’re always working on our shows, and, if you’re not in the space — the audio drama space — then I understand why you’re like, Why does this take so long? But you know the old saying, “A minute of audio drama is an hour of editing.” And that’s just the editing. That’s not recording, that’s not writing the stories, which Rob — God bless him! — he writes all of it. So it’s waiting on him to bring in the script, and then that whole production part starts. And I love our lambs we have — “Lambs” are what we call our fans, you know what I mean? [laughs]”

GJ: “[laughs] Okay, gotcha!”

JA: “They’ll come in and be like, “When’s the new show!?” And it started from everybody saying, “Where is it!? Where is it!? Where is it!?” To now, our fans come to our defense immediately like, “They’re working on it!” [laughs]”

GJ: “Well, that’s any sort of show, or movie, or book, or webcomic, anything. It takes time, and people can be impatient… For this, you literally have to script it, you have to record it, you have to edit it, you have to put sound effects in there, you have to find out the best time to put it on the internet. Like, you don’t want to just put it on there, you figure out the whole schedule. And a lot of people don’t appreciate how much work goes into it.

“More people do now! More people are coming around to understanding that art takes work, but there’s still, I’m sure, a few people out there that just want it immediately.”

JA: “Netflix did it for them, man… When it came out you could binge a whole season, they fueled the expectation.”

GJ: “And it’s like, “Well, they have millions and millions of dollars. We’re two guys that are doing this because we love it, and we’re trying our best, so please be patient.”

JA: “[laughs] “Two guys in a garage,” is what we always told people?”

GJ: “Honestly, I think your quality is better than a lot of Netflix shows, so keep doing what you’re doing. Quality over quantity, man.”

JA: “Every time, every time.”

GJ: “Exactly.

SPOILER WARNING: PARALYZED

Paralyzed Synopsis: “This fictional podcast follows David, a chronic sufferer of sleep paralysis on his annual camping trip with friends. But something evil from his dreams awaits.”

“Let’s go ahead and move on to Paralyzed… I didn’t finish Paralyzed yet. I’m a couple of episodes away from finishing up, so I’m far enough that I can talk about it… I started with Tower 4, and then I got into Paralyzed. I wasn’t sure what to expect… Originally, the idea was dealing with sleep paralysis and, you know, paralysis demons, and all that kind of stuff. But… there’s a few extra surprises thrown into this mix. You throw in monsters, you throw in slashers, secret organizations, all manners of evil hidden in dark corners of the world.

“Was that all planned from the get-go? Or is it more like a “make-it-up-as-you-go-along” kind of thing? Where it’s like, “What can we do to make this season more interesting? I know! We’ll throw in the Doll Face Killer! I know! We’ll throw in the Deer Men!”

JA: “I would say it’s a chaotic mix of both, right? We have a beginning, and we have an end. I know Robert’s writing process pretty intimately at this point. When he goes and he’s writing something on the page, if it works, that’s the path it’s going to take. And adding those extra — What are we going to call them? — “variables” to the story, right? The Doll Face Killer, the Deer Head Men. They became so iconic that it was just — It’s something that we had to run with… It made the world a little bit bigger, and a little bit more, you know, widespread. If that makes sense.”

GJ: “It gives it more mystery, for sure. How does all this fit? What does this have to do with sleep paralysis? That was something I wondered for the first two or three seasons until it was revealed that, you know, it’s nightmares seeping into our world. And I’m like, That’s really cool. That’s a cool concept. Again, it really does keep up the mystery, and it keeps up the action, too. It just keeps everything more interesting.”

JA: “Yeah. We’ve had that recently where the action’s been ramping up, and we’ll — I’m sure we’ll talk about that a little bit later.

“You know that, production-wise, action scenes are not easy. You know what I mean? So sometimes we keep that slow burn because we can keep the narrative going… If we get crazy every episode, who knows when the releases would come out?”

GJ: “We have to get to the good part… We have to get to the finale, but for the finale to have impact, you need to have plot. You can’t have your dessert right at the beginning. You have to finish off the other courses of the meal first.”

JA: “Yeah!”

GJ: “According to my notes, you voice — [checks notes] — nearly every character in these shows. So good job! I’m sure you’re really busy. Not only that, but your characters tend to be the more popular ones that people latch onto, like Charlie, and Jake, and so forth.

“Is it difficult trying to find so many voices? Does it come to you naturally? Or do you just watch accent videos on YouTube, and go from there? Just sitting there and being like, “I want to try Scottish!”

JA: “No, I don’t watch accent videos. I’ve just always had an ear for it, and I could tell  you exactly when it started. When I was a young man, I was watching Ace Ventura [: Pet Detective], and watching Jim Carrey doing all those silly voices, and finding out that I could do them exactly like he did. Accents became just a fun thing to pick up on. Languages and pronunciation, which is something that I excelled at. And I was told I was kind of funny, so I would always try to implement that into what I was doing. But it does come pretty naturally for me.

“It’s just one of those things where, if I can hear you for a certain amount of time, after a while, I can start to imitate what you’re doing, or your accent, or your mannerisms, and that’s really the fun part for me.”

“Now, when it came to Charlie, I think I just saw how chaotic the show was, and for him specifically, I said, I want this guy to be funny. I mean, I wanted to really be somebody who sticks out, who does not really want to know what’s going on, or deal with the situation. So I started doing that, and immediately people loved Charlie. They still mention him to this day, which is wild to me. But I’ve played — in Paralyzed alone, I play Joel — who was an investigator in season two — Charlie in season three, and then I picked up Jake Mazzaro — who’s an FBI agent — and he’s been in multiple seasons. And hey, lucky to say, Jake’s still around!”

GJ: “[laughs] Yeah, I noticed that. I was sitting there like, Jake, oh man, he’s lasting a little bit too long. When’s it going to happen?”

JA: “[laughs] Yeah, in Paralyzed, you’re always like, When’s this person going to die?”

GJ: “I was caught off guard in the first season, where everyone in the cast pretty much died. I was like, Wait a minute!

“You develop these doomed characters so well that you expect them to last longer… In a way, that’s just kind of how it happens. That’s life, man. You have all these interesting people, and they just go away… Whether it’s natural causes, or some horrible monsters that come out of the woods and just tear them to pieces.”

JA: “Yeah, exactly. That’s one of those things that if it was that situation, you had to have realistic stakes. If not, everybody can live… then it’s — in my opinion — it can get boring. You know what I mean?

“It’s almost like the Game of Thrones effect, where you think, Oh, when’s this next person going to die? And that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Whereas if you have an ensemble cast that’s been there forever, you’re like, Well, this person’s going to be fine… You ever been in that movie where you’re like, If this person’s there, everybody’s okay? [laughs].”

GJ: “Exactly. You’re sitting there like, Oh, they’re fine, because they lasted four seasons. It’s the Scooby-Doo syndrome, or something like that. A colorful cast of characters that keep coming back each season.

“And this one, it’s like — Again, you mentioned Game of Thrones… and that’s exactly what it’s like. No one’s safe, and not only that — Well, I’m actually going to get into it in the next question.

“Compared to all the other shows you do, this one — as I understand it — is your more straight-forward horror one. But not only that, it also deals with mature subject matter — VERY mature subject matter — especially in terms of depression, and addiction, and so many different things.

“What do you have to do differently when preparing for this show compared to your more comedic and dramatic ones? Do you have to prepare for your voice work differently?”

JA: “I don’t, because the way I try to approach these folks — even though it’s a fantastic story — is that they’re real people. They need to sound like somebody you could hear out in the bar or at work. They need to sound believable. You know what I mean? So I don’t try to make them sound extra nervous or scared unless the situation calls for it, because — I don’t know, it just seems more true to life to me, even though it — like I said — it’s a fantastic story.

“When it comes to preparing for writing, absolutely. I mean, anybody who’s working on a specific thing for a certain amount of time… I think you need a narrative swap or subject matter switch, right? It’s just refreshing. Sometimes you’re in the mindset for maybe writing Tower 4 as opposed to Paralyzed, and then sometimes you want to write one of our comedy shows, like Atlas Avenue Beat. So that narrative switch is something that Rob really, really relies on, which is why one of our shows is currently on a bit of a break, because we just need to focus on something else.

“But in terms of actual horror, I know for this show — specifically for Paralyzed — Rob has done a ton of research on not just sleep paralysis, but, for instance — and this isn’t a spoiler if you know the show — but Jake Mazzaro is an FBI agent, and they start to get pretty heavily involved in the situation. So he [Lamb] sits and totally studies FBI protocols — how they would handle certain things, who would be in charge of a situation, how that case goes step by step — and making sure that it’s pretty true to life in terms of what we’re putting in there. As accurate as somebody who’s not in the FBI can be, of course, with whatever research we do.”

GJ: “That’s really impressive, and an accomplishment to his writing ability, because he could easily just write whatever-the-hell, and no one’s going to question it. It’s like, “Oh yeah, the FBI does this and this and this.” And it’s — unless you’re an actual FBI agent who’d be like, “Hey, that’s not how it goes!” — but most people will go, “Sure, why not?” So the fact he does that, so people can research and actually learn… how the FBI works, is pretty cool. I like that.

“I wasn’t prepared for how mature the subject matter was going to get. I love this shit, though, so I’m not bothered by it, but, especially in terms of Roland —  I got to the part where she was with the trucker and her addiction.”

JA: “Me, by the way.”

GJ: “Oh really? Of course it was. I just assume it’s always you unless someone says otherwise. [laughs]”

JA: “[laughs] Yeah, the trucker is me.”

GJ: “I was not —- I was thinking it was going to go — I knew it was already on the subject of addiction for a good bit of Roland[‘s story]. Roland, from the beginning, has been shown she’s having her own nightmares and issues with this [situation] separate from everyone else. I guess depression has some little seeds in that, but depression — Everyone else’s [stories] seem to be more about depression. Hers is addiction. I wasn’t prepared to see how far into the addiction she was going to go, so that was kind of a twist to me, because I was like, Oh man, we’re actually going all the way. We’re not holding back. We’re not going to stay to the safe levels of this kind of subject matter. We’re going to go hard or go home with this. I think that is really interesting.”

JA: “I mean, that’s life, right? Life is dirty, nasty, and it’s — These are things that happen out there in the world. I understand shying away from it for certain folks, but if you’re wanting to make it feel real and stand out, sometimes these terrible things happen. And addiction is absolutely no joke at any level. It’s hard for people to deal with. So, I mean — Why would we omit that? It’s not — I don’t think it’s too out there. I still think it’s tastefully done as well as it can be.”

GJ: “It’s a horror story. Horror stories are supposed to push boundaries. They’re supposed to go to places that other genres won’t… With the veneer of it being a creature feature, you’re like, Oh man, there’s monsters, but the real horror is depression! Or something like that, you know? You use the monsters to be symbolic.”

JA: “Sometimes when the characters are damned, it makes you like them more. It makes you want to cheer for them.”

GJ: “It’s more relatable… Everyone knows someone that has been addicted to something. Everyone’s been depressed, or knows someone who is depressed, and — to go even further — a lot of people know [someone] who committed suicide, and that’s a big aspect of the show as well. I think that gives it a whole other layer. It brings it from just being a story about a person who can’t sleep and is fighting monsters, to something that’s a little bit more of the — to sound pretentious — “human condition.”

JA: “That’s exactly right.”

GJ: “So, we’re going back to slow burns… You mentioned it in one of your Tower 4 recaps, but the slow burns that your seasons take, narratively speaking — at least in the early seasons — they’re a bit slow. And I mean, they tend to be SLOW sometimes, especially in the first two seasons of Paralyzed.

“I was going to ask — Is that intentional by Robert plot-wise? Or is it just a way to extend the season a bit? I know we’ve talked about how it’s to… get the plot down so we can get to the more action-based stuff, but I want to know the exact method to the madness.”

JA: “In every show that we have, you’re going to find episodes like that. Where you just spend time with the characters, right? That helps build that world, and — like we’ve said before — it makes you care about the person… Even those little minute interactions, it’s all world-building and spending time that way, you know?

“If you just meet the special ops guy and he ends up going on a mission, all you really know about him is he’s a special ops guy. When you know those minute things — about what might be going on with his family, how he interacts with people — it adds depth when the big train finally hits, right?

“Rob’s a big fan of classic movies. Old movies with really, really slow burns, so that’s probably something that influences him. Compared to new blockbusters — where something has to be happening every thirty seconds — we like to have a slower burn, and focus on the progression of the story, and live in the world where the story is taking place. Because I think even though sometimes people go, “Oh, well, this is boring,” I think that can be indicative of media right now… Everything’s meant to be exciting and high adrenaline and all that stuff. Where we like to slow it down and have you get to love these characters.

“I mean, I don’t want to spoil anybody — and any of our longtime fans are going to know this — but we still get nasty emails about things that have happened to some of our characters. Like, “I will never listen to this again! I can’t believe you did this to this person!” And that is part of getting to know that character at a personal level as opposed to just having them be part of the story. I think it just adds depth every time.

“So yeah, the slow burn is a hundred percent intentional, and not really — I mean, some people are going to say, “Oh, this is a filler episode. Nothing really happened.” But maybe you learned a lot about Roland and the way she processes things, or how she’s going to interact with this person in case that comes back later… It’s going to add depth to how she reacts to a situation… You know what I mean? Everybody’s got that best friend that you KNOW them… You see something on the internet, and you go, “Oh, this person would love this!” That’s because you know them. So when you know that character, and you hear something [they weren’t there for], you’re probably going to think to yourself, Oh, Roland’s not going to like that.”

GJ: “Yeah, I get that. I noticed his love for old movies in the show, because there’s several instances where one of the characters is like, “Oh, I love the old stuff. Citizen Kane’s the best. New movies aren’t the same anymore.” And, being a film guy myself, I tend to agree, but I definitely see that coming through there. Also, given the medium where you’re telling these stories, you’re given a lot more freedom… to do these more in-depth character analyses, and more slow burns and stuff. In a movie, you only have, like, two hours at most. Maybe an hour and a half. And this — much like a book, almost — the world’s your oyster… You can make these chapters last as long as you want, you can get as in depth as you want, because there’s no time limit to it. There’s not a producer breathing down your neck, telling you, “Hey, put more action in this! Hey, cut this part out! We don’t care about this!”

“And I think… that throws a lot of people through a loop, because [they] aren’t used to that anymore. As you said — In new media, you learn what you need to know about the character, and then you get thrown into the mix. [MCU’s] Captain America — he’s a superhero that has a star on his shield, and he goes and fights Nazis. There you go! That’s all you need to know about him.”

JA: “Right.”

GJ: “And I think… you get nasty emails because people that do listen, that do appreciate these slow burns, get attached. They spent a whole season with this character, slow burn, sitting there learning everything about them, learning their favorite food, learning their favorite movie, learning what they do at 6:20 in the morning when they wake up and don’t know why they can’t go back to sleep — only for them to get brutally killed in the season finale, and it hits. It hits hard. This is your friend, almost, that you just got to know, and now they’re gone. And the thing that you guys do, that I appreciate, is you don’t bring people back… Once they’re dead, “Sorry. Get a new favorite character. You’re out of luck.”

JA: “Uh-huh! Nobody’s pulling the old switcheroo with us. You know what I mean?”

GJ: “And I really appreciate that because a lot of people do cave in. They’re like, “Oh, don’t worry, they’re going to come back! They got a secret spell from the dream world that they’re going to use to bring their body back, and they’re back now! Everyone’s happy!”

JA: “And we also have the benefit [that] we’re not big enough to where somebody’s going to say, “So-and-so renewed for season six!” Because automatically we know, “Oh, well, they’re coming back.”

GJ: “I feel it’d be like, “Jake will return in Avengers: Endgame,” or some shit like that. [laughs]”

JA: “[laughs] Yeah! Hey, I’ll be Jake in Endgame any day!”

GJ: “There you go! I think that would have made it better, honestly. I think if Jake just showed up at the big ending — He shows up, like, “What the fuck am I doing here!? What’s going on!?” I think it would’ve gone from five to six stars. [laughs]

“On the other side of the scale, though, the ends of the seasons are always so action-packed. They contain some of the best set pieces and climaxes I’ve heard in an audio show. I was incredibly impressed. Robert Lamb knows how to land a finale!

“You all do a great job acting it out, and we’ve talked about it briefly before, but how difficult is it to do those arcs? And do they tend to be more fun or more tedious?”

JA: “I mean, that’s a tough question. It’s — Okay, so when it comes to acting it out, it’s fun. It’s very nerve-wracking because, you know, this is the finale, so I’ll tend to throw three or four more takes on each line, just to make sure that we’ve got it. But in terms of editing, it is extremely tedious. I’ll go back to that quote I said earlier, that “a minute of audio dramas, an hour of editing,” and we’ve had several over-an-hour-long finales, so just do the math on how much that takes for just a handful of people to do. Right?

“You’ve got your actors, and then you’ve got whoever’s editing, which sometimes for the finales, Rob will say, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to do this. I can’t let anybody else do it.” Because he’s such a perfectionist with his stories, and that’s what I love about him. But, you know, he’ll sit there and say — When we did the most recent Tower 4 [episode], that was probably the biggest beast of a finale we’ve done in any of our shows. And so after that one… I remember we had our typical Monday morning meeting, and I could just see the defeat. It was like, “Is it done?” [Lamb said] “It’s done, man. It’s finally done. I’ve listened to it so many times, I’ve got every take, I’ve got every little minute detail.”

“I mean, that’s the thing people don’t think about. When you’re walking over gravel in our story, you hear that. You know, they are jumping in a vehicle or something, you hear everything. So those details, I think, really separate us and set us apart in terms of quality, and what people like to hear and feel immersed in. But the time it takes — Yes, it’s incredibly tedious, but I think worth it.”

GJ: “I think so, too, because that season three finale for Tower 4 was, again, unexpected… I was like, What the fuck? Why is this like an action movie? Holy shit, it’s really good! You can imagine it in your head completely!

“As you said, you put in all the sound effects… You make it so immersive, [in a way] that a lot of other shows don’t really do… They mainly focus on music, they focus on tone of voices, they focus on the odd sound effect for very important things, like, “A door creaked open.” [mimics door opening] Or, “A gunshot was fired.” [mimics gunshot] They don’t think about walking on gravel… One thing I also noticed you do is that, sometimes, you do sound effects as the explanation, without actually giving one. Like, “I moved around the watchtower, I moved around my room,” and you’ll hear sounds of them moving things, and you don’t precisely know what it is, but you can kind of make it out in your mind… Oh, I’m sure he’s moving a cup, or he’s moving something like this, and it’s opening a cabinet, and it’s really good. That’s what I’m getting at. I really like it, it’s really good, it’s really well thought out.”

JA: “It’s also very intentional. We do that kind of stuff, and we’re also vague with descriptions of our characters a lot of the time because, for me, it’s like reading a book. You make it up in your mind, and then it's yours, right? I mean, you have that description, like — Anybody who’s read a book and then sees the movie adaptation, they’ve gone, I don’t picture this guy looking like that, or that one looking like that. And I think that’s what helps give our listeners a little bit of agency and ownership.

“And, you know… we get fan art all the time, and somebody will comment to go, “That’s not how that person looks!” And we go, “Yes it is. If they look like that to that person, that’s how they look.” Same with those sound effects, right? We will just throw them in there to add depth to a scene, and it really, I think, puts people in the shoes of that character.”

GJ: “I agree! One thing I appreciate, that you guys don’t do too often, is — One thing is when I’m reading a book, and I get this idea of a character — They introduce a character, don’t really explain anything looks-wise about them — which is how I prefer it — and you’re reading the book. Then, like, chapter seven, they’d say, “They stroke their beard.” And I’m like, Fuck, I didn’t imagine he had a beard this entire time. Now I have to rethink all the past chapters and put a beard on him, or else it’s going to bother me. So I really appreciate you guys keeping it vague, letting other people… come up with an idea of how they look, based entirely on their personality, on their mannerisms.

“And again, you said a lot of fan art… You see one you like, you could be like, “Well, this is how they probably look, the closest they look.” Let the fans do the work! Don’t do it yourself! Let them do it. You do enough!”

JA: “Exactly! I couldn’t draw a stick figure with a ruler, so I’m glad those folks are out there and bringing people to life.”

GJ: “I know, right?”

“Another thing that caught me off guard about Paralyzed was from its title. One would think this would be kind of like a Nightmare on Elm Street story. Some sort of, like, “The paralysis demons are going to come in and get you!” But it turns out it’s more along the lines of — The movie that really stuck out to me the first season, that came to my mind while listening to it, was Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, which also has a bunch of people in a place — in that case, it was a hotel — with a demon outside bringing other skinny demons out of the ground to go kill our main heroes. But not only that, also… I get a lot of Evil Dead vibes from it.

“So I’m curious — What are the actual inspirations for Paralyzed? What horror — or any [genre] — inspirations came into making this story? And I’m assuming Slender Man’s not one of them, because according to your recaps, it’s the “Very Thin Man”, not the “Slender Man.”

JA: “Not Slender Man. No, no, no. So I actually had a chance to talk with Rob about this a little bit, to get what the influences are, and he sent me a… list of horror movies that have inspired him. And he listed — He said [laughs] “Including, but not limited to —” The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, The Thing — which is one of his favorite movies, I know that.”

GJ: “Oh, it’s a great one.”

JA: “And, oddly enough, Evil Dead, Zodiac, Hereditary, Night of the Living Dead — one of my personal favorites — The Seventh Victim, It Follows, and The Descent. I mean, Slender Man and Shadow Man types typically are what people associate when it comes to sleep paralysis, but… we don’t necessarily, like you said, Slender Man is not one that really was on the list, but it’s been mentioned so many times that that’s where people always are going to go.”

GJ: “Well, anyone who’s tall and has no face, they consider Slender Man. He really ruined that genre for everybody. Now, it’s the Slender Man rip-off genre. No, these sleep paralysis demons existed way before Slender Man! Stop giving him all the credit! If anything, you should say Slender Man’s like the paralysis demons.

“I could definitely see The Descent in this, and The Shining… Paralyzed is a lot of different subgenres of horror. You have the psychological [horror], you have the creature feature, you have the slasher, you have the eldritch locations… It blends them all so well that you don’t even notice that you’re switching subgenres within scenes of each other.”

“Let’s go ahead and switch to Tower 4 now, which is the first show I listened to.

SPOILER WARNING: TOWER 4

Tower 4 Synopsis: “Mike Archer is a newly appointed fire watcher in the Wyoming woods. While he’s never done anything like this before, he needed something new after his mom passed.”

“I remember when we first sent emails to each other, you mentioned that you don’t consider Tower 4 a horror show. I was wondering why that is?”

JA: “Well, when it comes to horror for me personally, I think of what we just listed. The Thing is definitely up there. For me, Event Horizon was another crazy horror film that was the first movie to truly scare me out of the room. And typically, straight narrative horror to me always has that sense of dread, and that sense of the unknown being out there.

“And while Tower 4 deals with that a lot, I felt like it was more suspense and more — I don’t want to say true crime, because that’s not accurate — I mean, we definitely have horror elements in it, but it’s more of Mike and his perception, and him trying to figure out what’s going on in the Wyoming woods… But without getting too far into it, I just didn’t see [prominent] horror elements. I didn’t see a lot of people getting chopped up and killed in situations. Were we tense? Absolutely. Scary? I’m sure for some folks. But in terms of horror and scary for the sake of being scary, I just didn’t get that vibe from Tower 4, and Rob doesn’t either. We don’t write it as horror, but it’s going very well.”

GJ: “So it’s, like you said, just horror elements. Some horror bleeds through in there, but only in certain parts, certain scenes where it comes in. Overall, it’s more of a mystery thriller that just happens to have [some horror].”

JA: “Mystery thriller is probably a really good — I mean, but there’s also — You’ve listened to Tower 4. There’s a lot of aspects of romance in that show.”

GJ: “For sure! To the point where fans are disappointed when there’s not enough romance in the season.”

JA: “They’re very angry, right?

“I put that lightly because I love all of our lambs, and I get where they’re coming from, but the end of season three — If you listen to it, you know why the Tower 4 fans are angry right now.”

GJ: “Hey, listen — When that happened, I was like, Yes, this is exactly what I wanted… Without getting too far into it, I was pleasantly surprised with the direction you took… You went that route no one wanted you to go, and I’m like, Perfect. You guys are breaking the mold. You’re going your own way. You’re doing what you think is best — which I also think is best — and I cannot wait to see where that goes.”

JA: “I’m very, very excited for season four to go ahead and get started, because I obviously know a lot of what’s going to happen. And I think the Tower 4 fans are really going to love where we go with it. They may, they may not, but yeah, I really like where things are going right now, and I’m excited to get back to it. But it’s getting its break.”

GJ: “There we go. You know what? The fans don’t like it? It’s not their show.”

JA: “It’s tough. It’s tough because people are so passionate about it, and I can’t ever fault them. I love — Like I said, I love our fans, though it’s sometimes just a little bit of — “deep breath.” [laughs]”

GJ: “The best art doesn’t pander to expectations. It’s okay to throw your audience a bone sometimes. Sometimes it’s good to follow what they want in your story, but if it compromises what your vision is, if it’s not what you want... then you should entirely go the way you want to go and not pander or give in to where everyone else wants you to go.”

JA: “Yeah, we agree.”

GJ: “So, you start off the show as the main character as opposed to a side character. Did you have to prepare differently for this? Being the main character instead of someone who’s just in there every so often? I imagine the workload was way more.”

JA: “It’s way more. The amount of voice-over that needs to be done for Mike — Oddly enough, I wasn’t originally going to be Mike, for the exact same reason that you were like, “You’re in every show.” And when it came to Tower 4, we were like, “Well, you’re in every show. We’ll have you be somebody who’s a supporting character, and we’ll get somebody else to do it.” And I was like, “That’s great.”

“And then the guy that was going to do it — Great guy, he just wasn’t getting back to us. I don’t want to get into details — I don’t want to throw him under the bus at all — but he actually was going for a [The] Dark Knight, really dark, Batman voice. After a while, we’re like, “I don’t think this is going to work.” And then Rob said, “You want to do it?” I said, “Let me do one episode, and we’ll see if we like it.” Obviously, we liked it.

“But to prepare for that, I mean, yeah — Ninety-four pages for that finale we had, and most of that was me… It definitely is one of those [jobs] where you need to pace yourself, and sometimes it’ll take multiple recording sessions. Because if you’re going in there, and you’re doing every line three, four, five times, after a while you’re going to start the episode with Mike sounding one way, and it’s going to end with him sounding like he has no voice every time. So you have to take a pause and step back, and do a couple of sessions.”

“Preparing for it, I have to — I usually like to read the script before I do it, obviously, because sometimes you’ll walk in and just go, Okay, what am I doing? But for Tower 4, I’ll definitely make sure I know where the narrative is going, what’s happened outside of Mike, and make sure I nail the tone for him, because people love it so much. You can’t wing Tower 4 and Mike Archer.”

GJ: “It has to be perfect. That’s the one. Everyone’s listening. You have to make it flawless. I can only imagine you getting the script to the finale, and being like, Ninety-four pages!?”

JA: “And then seeing just pages that say “voice-over”, and looking at everything that’s on there, and being like, Alright! Alright, man! Well, we’re here all day! Let’s go!”

GJ: “You type in “find-and-replace: find-Mike,” and it’s all just colored in yellow. And you’re like, Oh great.”

JA: “[pantomimes highlighting] Yellow line, yellow line, yellow line.”

GJ: “Perfect. I’m going to go ahead and make some coffee right now.”

JA: “Coffee, lemon water, all the things to try to prepare. A little bit of honey to help. My wife taught me that trick, honey in the water. She does honey and cayenne pepper in water.”

GJ: “Oh wow!”

JA: “She’s a singer, so her voice needs to recover sometimes, but she’s fantastic. She showed me that little trick to keep my voice fresh.”

GJ: “I knew the honey in the water, but the cayenne pepper, that — I got to try that now, it actually sounds pretty delicious.”

JA: “Novel experience for sure, the first time.”

GJ: “For sure.

“This came out during the influx of “fire watchtower media” that happened a few years back, which — I’m going to be a little bit pretentious — It was all predated back in 2005 by It Waits, which is a film by Stephen R. Monroe, starring Cerina Vincent… According to the recaps, none of that inspired the show.

“In that case, what did inspire the show?  Personally, I am getting some Until Dawn vibes, and even a little bit of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, with a giant monster moving through the trees.”

JA: “I love that. And Jurassic Park — Little fun trivia about Rob, that’s one of his favorite movies. Jurassic Park, the original.

“So for that, actually — and we get linked to this a lot — the game Firewatch. It was pretty close, and Rob played that for a while. Dear Esther was another inspiration for him, although it was heavier for our show, The Stone House, but it still kind of helped… The movies The Most Dangerous Game and — one that I ended up bringing up to Rob, because I love this movie so much even though it’s probably not that great, but whatever, everybody’s got their own — The Island of Dr. Moreau. One of my favorites.”

“It started going into a certain narrative at parts of Tower 4 before I went, “Hey man, this is reminding me a lot of The Island of Dr. Moreau.” And he’s like, “Funny you should say that.”

“So yeah, there’s parts of that, and I can see every single one of his inspirations in Tower 4, for sure. And Lost is another one, too. That was a great show. Near the end, people are split on that, but I felt the mystery of that show is really well displayed in Tower 4.”

GJ: “Lost is very formative to a lot of shows… It’s to the point where I think some shows actually do it better… but Lost is definitely the catalyst that really brought it out. And I can definitely see the vibes carry on through Tower 4, and I see The Island of Dr. Moreau in there.”

JA: “That’s a great movie. I don’t know. It’s just one of those that I remember watching many, many moons ago with my dad and just being like, This is so unique and wild. To me… I had never seen anything like it, and that just made it so much better… Just the visuals of it, I was like, This is crazy. I just love this movie so much. It’s always kind of hung with me, and I never really talk about it, never really brought it up. And then, all of a sudden, here we are in Tower 4, and I’m like, Hey, it reminds me of that movie.”

GJ: “[Lamb] was like, “Yes, it should!” [laughs]

“Well, that’s the thing. [Films] that are not traditional, that are not easily digested… they tend to not really hit when they first come out. But then many, many, many years later, they tend to find new life, like The Thing, The Island of Dr. Moreau, so many different movies. Shock Corridor… Sometimes, you just have to let these movies ferment for people to get their taste for it.”

JA: “Completely agree, completely agree. That happened to me with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, because I was a big reader, and I was like — When I first read it, I was a real snob about all the movies. And the more I watch them now, I’m like, These are masterpieces.”

GJ: “I can see why he cut that part out! I can see why he did this! It makes so much more sense!”

JA: “I get why this character is acting like this, because they didn’t act like that in the book, but if they act like they did in the book in the movie, you wouldn’t take it as seriously.”

GJ: “Exactly. I’m the same way with Who Goes There? and The Thing, because it’s also one of my favorite movies. I’m like, Oh, it’s more personal when they cut it from thirty people to twelve people.”

JA: “Much more intimate.”

GJ: “Oh yeah.

“In Paralyzed, the progression of production value is gradually noticeable with each passing season. In Tower 4, its production value is consistent all throughout, so I think it’s safe to say that you all had a lot of experience that you brought full force into the show. How did you go about Tower 4 differently than Paralyzed production-wise, story-wise, all that?”

JA: “I mean, it really is just — What I always tell people with Paralyzed or End of All Hope is go listen to the early stuff, because at the end of the day, it’s two guys in a garage — one guy who wanted to be a voice actor, the other one who’s a writer. So editing, post-production, that’s not there.

“It was all a learning process. As each season would go on, we’d find new tips, new tricks, and go, Oh, that really works! And so throughout the seasons, you’ll watch us grow as a company as well, because of all the people that we’ve learned, and wonderful, wonderful editors who have helped us out with some of these shows as we kept going… It has made this level of polish that we’ve come to expect.

“And we didn’t know what we didn’t know, right?... In the early goings, we did a show, finished it, and released it. We didn’t necessarily always take those final steps to go, “Okay, let’s do a final read-through.” Or we weren’t wanting to ask another voice actor, “Hey, could you re-record this? We didn’t really like the way this went.” We just pushed it forward and set it out, because we didn’t really think that far ahead.

“So when it came to Tower 4, it was such a benefit to have gone through all those lumps before we started that show. Now we’ve got that level of polish that we've come to expect, and that starts from the first episode of Tower 4. It’s just been a benefactor of our trials and tribulations, to be honest. That one, Crystal Blue, and any of our new seasons that we put out now of other shows, have really continued to grow and evolve. It really wasn’t something that I’d say we’ve done differently, but it’s just, you know, it’s learning a craft as we’ve kept going.”

GJ: “A natural evolution of just figuring out how to do everything… You can tell that the beginning — it’s a little bit rougher, but you didn’t give up. Each season got better. You kept learning all the stuff. When Robert didn’t have an editor, he learned to edit himself, and you can see it gets better and better each time. That’s a real dedication to your craft, because a lot of people would not even bother, like, Well, I’m going to give up right now. We’re going to wait until we get another editor. We’re going to wait until we can get someone better to do this. But you guys went, No, I’m going to do it myself. We can do it. I want to get this out there.”

JA: “Well, at the time when we started, he and I weren’t thinking that this would one day be our jobs. This was a fun way to blow off steam, and be creative, and create something. Now for Rob, he always wanted to be a writer. We were both working full-time jobs, families, friends, things going on in our spare time. We would do these shows. Whereas we started to grow and grow and grow, and it’s become more successful. We have been extraordinarily lucky — thanks to our lambs — to be able to do this full time.

“And so now it matters. Now that kind of stuff is expected, so it’s no more of us learning and trying to grow together. It’s us trying to put a product out there that people are going to like, because their listenership is important to us, and it’s our lifeblood. Us putting all that extra love into these episodes, it’s definitely for a reason. You know what I mean? And I think it shows in the final product.”

GJ: “For sure. The fact that it started off as just a product of love — just a love of creation, a love of creating — and just happened to turn into something you’re able to profit from… Now you make money off of it, which is always nice, but even if you guys weren’t making money, I can tell you would still do it, because it’s what you guys do. It’s love. It’s your craft.”

JA: “And we’re proud of it… It’s something that we’re happy to tell other people that that’s what we do, and we want people to listen to it and go, Holy smokes! There’s a reason you guys do this for a living!”

GJ: “Because you guys are good at it! And you guys love it… You got picked up by Bloody Disgusting, right?”

JA: “Yes, we did. They are our hosting site.”

GJ: “That’s right, because I remember hearing that like, Oh man! You guys really made it!”

JA: “That’s how I felt when they first emailed us. I got an email, and I said, “This is some kid messing with us. Somebody’s just trying to pull one over on us.” And they wanted to do a Zoom call, and we’re like, “Okay.” Then, when it was real, we were like, “Oh yeah, no, I know who you are. That’s really cool! Thanks! Yeah!”

“And then, when it was real and we started getting more into those negotiations, it was like, Okay, this is for REAL. So that’s cool, and we just hope to keep on growing.”

GJ: “You will… As I said, you see it every season, you get bigger and better each time, and I cannot wait to see where you guys end up a year from now. I can’t wait to see the production value of the next season of Tower 4 or Paralyzed, or — I got to check out your other shows, too. Not just the horror ones.”

JA: “We’ve got every genre you could possibly want out there.”

GJ: “I’ve noticed! You’re like, “Oh, we got drama. We got sci-fi. We got comedy. We got horror. We got mystery-thriller.” You guys are just covering your bases like, “Listen, we’re going to throw a net of genres into the public, and just catch as many audience members as we can.”

JA: “It’s so funny you say that, because we get this comment a lot… because people love Tower 4, so they go, “Why don’t you just focus on Tower 4?” And we were like — Well, when we were first getting started, this didn’t matter.

“There weren’t people banging down our door for releases, so we just did what we thought was fun and threw them all out there. And now so many of them have caught fire that people are just rabid fans about them… We can’t forget about them, right? So Paralyzed and End of All Hope, they took about a year off, now they’re just getting back into it. And all of the Tower 4 fans are upset, but the End of All Hope and Paralyzed fans are like, “Yay! Finally!”

“We have all these [shows], and we have — again, so, so blessed to be successful, and have people enjoy our content — that now we can’t abandon any of them. So sometimes it takes away from other projects, which is why Tower 4 is currently on a little break, but I think it’s very, very necessary, and it’s just one of those things that we didn’t know we were going to be in the position we’re in.

“So now that we have so many that work, it’s really great, because somebody will find one of our shows and go to our Discord, or our Facebook, or something, and go, “Oh, well, you know I like this, but it’s over.” And somebody will come in and go, “Actually, you should check out Paralyzed. Make sure that you follow The Stone House [and] Crystal Blue!” The catalog is there, and our fans really tend to like it, so that’s good.”

GJ: “You’re there like, “We are the shepherd. We have to tend to all of our lambs, not just one group.”

JA: “Well said! I might have to take that one.”

GJ: “By all means! All yours!

“Also, it keeps you from burning out. They’re like, “Why don’t you just do Tower 4 all the time?” Because you’ll get tired of it!”

JA: “Because we’ll get tired of it, and then you’ll notice it in the narrative… You’re absolutely right. You hit the nail on the head, as we get tired of working on the same thing all the time. Let’s narrative switch. Let’s go to something else.”

GJ: “Mike is going to sound like he doesn’t give a shit, no matter what happens like, [mimicking boredom] “Oh no. It’s happening again.” Or something like that.”

JA: “Season four, Mike is just going to get a cab and be like, “You know what? Nevermind.” [laughs]”

GJ: “Yeah! It’s like, “We want to talk to you about what you don’t remember.” [And Mike says] “I’m good. I like where I’m at right now.” And he just leaves. [laughs]”

“Alright, last question! This one — I’m sure it’s not going to have a real big answer or anything, but I just have to ask it because it’s been brought up.

“In the last season, it was revealed that Tower 4 takes place not only in the same continuity as Paralyzed, but concurrently with its narrative. Was that just a fun cameo, or is there something bigger brewing? Are you allowed to say? Just a hint?”

JA: “I can vaguely answer, which I’m sure is what everybody wants.”

GJ: “Yes, of course!”

JA: “In all of our shows, they’re in the same universe in some aspect. So most of the time, it’s a fun cameo for the fans, and they pick up on everything. It’s incredible. There’s certain shows that they’re like, “Hey, I saw that!” They hit the nail on the head with those little Easter eggs in there. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be something more.

“But as of right now, we’ll just call it fun cameos, you know? But yes, the worlds are somewhat connected.”

GJ: “There’s a little bit of a universe, kind of like the Shin Godzilla/Shin Ultraman universe where they’re all connected to a degree, but not fully.”

JA: “Right, right. Batman might show up, but he’s not going to be in every episode.”

GJ: “Exactly, and I think that’s fun. Keep that door open just in case. You never know when inspiration might hit.”

“Alright man, so that’s pretty much all the questions I have. Is there anything else that you would like to add?”

JA: “I mean, first of all, I appreciate you giving me the time and the platform to talk to all the fans out there. I hope you go check [our podcasts] out, give us an opportunity. It’s something to do and pass the time, so hopefully you’ll come check us out. We’ve got End of All Hope and Paralyzed releasing right now. We have a brand new show called One Block, that is exclusive to our Patreon. That’s a zombie survival show. That one’s a lot of fun. Be ready for the slow burn is all that I’ll say. It’s great.

“We are having so much fun, and we’re not trying to slow down any time soon. We’re going to keep releasing, I promise you that.”

GJ: “Hell yeah, man! That’s what I like to hear. And again, of course! I appreciate you taking time out of your day to talk to me about this, and giving me a chance to learn a little bit more, and just getting this all out there on the internet for people to read and get interested. Hopefully, you’ll get a new influx of fans, so you guys can have even more lambs.You got to get a bigger pasture now!”

JA: “That’s right. Bigger pasture.”

GJ: “Alright, Jack Austin. It’s a pleasure talking to you, and I hope we get to talk again whenever a new show comes out or anything.”

JA: “Sure! Maybe we’ll circle back when Tower 4 is coming back out.”

GJ: “That sounds fantastic. I’ll keep in contact, and you have yourself a great day. And again, thank you for everything, man.”

JA: “Thank you. Appreciate you having me.”

GJ: “Of course!”