Double Elvis’s Brady Sadler and the Business Behind Disgraceland

Jeff Umbro: This is Podcast Perspectives a show about the latest news in the podcast industry and the people behind it. I'm your host Jeff Umbro founder and CEO of the Podglomerate. 

Joining me on the show today is Brady Sadler, co-founder and CEO of Double Elvis, the production company behind Disgraceland with Jake Brennan, who is also the other co-founder of Double Elvis, as well as a number of other shows in the music space. Double Elvis is a small but mighty production company based out of Boston that has worked with Amazon Music and Spotify, as well as a dozen other companies, in order to produce podcasts in, around, and about the music industry. 

We dive into all kinds of topics, including how to run a music podcast network in 2023, what that means in terms of creative choices, staffing, and producing original music; and the interesting ways in which the network does co-productions. So let's get right to it.

What is Double Elvis? 

Brady Sadler: So Double Elvis is an audio-first media company, and we specialize in making podcasts and storytelling with an emphasis on music and pop culture. 

Jeff Umbro: Do you view yourselves as a network, a publisher, an agency, a production company? Is it some of all of these things? Do you have a distinction between them?

Brady Sadler: Exactly. It is some of all of those things. So we just say media company and provide context around that depending on what conversation we're in and who we're talking to.

Jeff Umbro: Can you walk me through the origins of Double Elvis? I know that you and Jake Brennan from Disgraceland came together. What I don't know is if you guys were always operating together or if this was something that came after Jake launched the podcast?

Brady Sadler: We met before both of us were working professionally in podcasting. I had spent a long time working in the marketing and advertising agency world and was also working on some side projects in music and connecting artists to brands. That was how I met Jake. Some mutual friends knew that we were both kind of hovering around that. 

Jake, having spent his career as a professional musician, a solo artist in bands, and helping brands figure out how to activate using music. So we came together and did that under an umbrella at my existing agency and had some success. 

But ultimately, we both had moved on and he called and said, “what are you doing next? What are you working on?” And I said, “let's chat. [I’m] curious to hear the same from you.” He played me a pilot of the then unreleased first episode of Disgraceland, and I was blown away.

I already knew Jake was someone that I wanted to work with again, but when I heard the show it was fully formed. He had been working for months and months on it – branding everything was there. 

We actually then got to meet Jake Shapiro, who's now the head of creator partnerships at Apple. But many people don't know [that] he is a pioneer in podcasting to the degree to which he was literally at the table when the first podcast was ever shipped using the RSS technology. And he thought that our collective experiences were right for providing a service and a contribution to the growing medium. 

He was also getting started with something called Podfund at the time, which was going to be a dedicated resource to help get creator-led studios off the ground.

And so put all that together, we created Double Elvis. We were running [sort of] sister companies in parallel with Disgraceland as its own entity. Then sooner than later, it just made sense to bring it all together and have everything operating under one roof with one team. And that's what we have today.

Jeff Umbro: Jake Shapiro always finds his way into these conversations. That's very cool. You guys are now operating as, from what I can see, one of the larger, music-oriented podcast organizations out there. Do you ever run into any obstacles creating a show about, or including pop culture and pop music?

Brady Sadler: Yeah, for the most part, we're a team of artists and musicians who make original music to support almost everything that we do. And one of Jake's original insights was that he could tell stories about well-known artists throughout history and do so with all original music and scoring rather than licensing their music.

And a lot of people told him that it wouldn't work and that if he didn't have those licensed tracks, that people wouldn't want to hear the stories. And he said, “respectfully, I think that if we bring a level of storytelling and incredible original sound design that elevates the story and brings you into whatever experience we're conveying with emotion, it'll actually be better in some ways than the original music might be.” You're one click away from hearing almost any track ever, and that's not why you're coming to a podcast. 

So that's how we've operated. Original music has been core to our strategy and now we have this massive library of original music that we've created as well.

Jeff Umbro: Also I'm sure it helps with a lot of your marketing initiatives because you're working often with music platforms like Spotify, Apple, or Amazon Music. So how does that play into things, or does it at all? 

Brady Sadler: It's a great question. A couple of things come to mind. I believe that as search in podcasting continues to evolve, and podcasts are surfaced next to other content – music, namely in this context – I think that there's an opportunity to bring people into podcasts through music and to have people discover and listen to music as a result of hearing a podcast.

It's really cool – if you search Taylor Swift on Amazon music, for example, and probably Spotify at this point as well, you'll see the Disgraceland episode about Taylor right there next to her official albums and all of her music. So this growing library that we have of 200+ evergreen episodes I think are gonna be an asset in that regard for a really long time.

The other thing that I think about was a project we did with iHeart and a collaboration with Def Jam Recordings and Universal Music Group. We created a fictional story, a limited series, 10 episodes. And these characters – the main character in particular – [were] seeking out interviews with up-and-coming artists. 

We worked with Def Jam to have 10 artists guest on the podcast. In that fictional world the main character would meet them, he'd interview them, we'd cut to a real interview that we did with them doing a cameo in the fictional world – really blending the formats – and then at the end of every one of those episodes, we released an exclusive track from that guest and that artist.

That was a lot of fun, in terms of using actual licensed music. It allowed us to do a lot of interesting things from a content and marketing perspective. 

Jeff Umbro: Yeah and there's so many examples of both of the things that you just mentioned. 

I do think it's criminally underutilized in podcasting for people to kind of game the search engines. There was an episode we published years ago, where a show we no longer work with published an episode about Elon Musk and they called it “Fly Me to the Moon” and we had like 20,000 hits in a month on Spotify because everybody thought it was the Frank Sinatra track.

It's also really interesting to see how different organizations are starting to mix music and podcasting. Whether it's a famous musician as the host of the show [or] Spotify's program that allows you to curate your own radio session with music from the platform. It’s fascinating to see how people are expanding in that space. It terrifies me. It's a sandbox I would rather stay out of because you never know, when you're going to step on toes, but it's cool to see you guys succeeding so well there.

Brady Sadler: Yeah there's definitely some complications to licensing. And then there's a lot of people doing great work to try and create some more ways to have that be accessible and streamlined in podcasting. And I think we'll get there. 

There's also the utility of what can be done creating content – audio and video – around music. We created a show recently with Chris Shiflett, the lead guitar player for the Foo Fighters. It's called Shred with Shifty.

He had this sort of challenge that he identified, which was as a guitar aficionado, he's on YouTube looking up how to play famous solos and couldn't find really accurate versions of those. [So he] decided that he would try to go to the source, reach out to these folks and see if they would show him in real time how to play those famous and iconic solos.

And so Chris sits down with the most incredible guitar players in the world and talks about what was going on in the room. How did it happen? And then, ultimately, the utility of, like, how do you move your fingers to make those sounds that we all know. 

Jeff Umbro: So you guys focus specifically on music podcasts. I don't think you do anything outside of that. How does that impact your business model? Does it allow you to focus more resources on the thing that you do so well?

Brady Sadler: Yeah, it definitely allows us to focus and have people on the team that are truly experts in and around all things music – whether that's producing original music or understanding the history of music in a deep way so that we can then channel that into a variety of different formats, types of shows, content, and also partner with others. There are so many people out there that are passionate about music and looking for teams that can help them bring to life their stories, whether that's journalists, other creators, brands that are in music platforms and media.

The other thing I think that we've focused on and we're best at is just having a really thoughtful system for making our shows. I got some advice very early on that to be a production company that has a long life and can be successful and profitable, you have to really build a system at its core that can do that.

So we've been optimizing this Double Elvis production system, which is this management system that lives on top of monday.com we've customized and built automations into. So when we start a new project we load in all the information, all the relevant dates and deliverables, and then the key team members we're going to work on, and it sets up this really interesting infrastructure that allows us to be really thoughtful, efficient, on time, on budget, and to manage things overall.

And that's something we've even built for other companies in the space because we've spent so much time perfecting that over the years. There's a lot of institutional knowledge now baked into that.

Jeff Umbro: I will 1000% be reaching out to you about that later. 

But I think you guys operate in this fun space where you have a lot of original productions, but you also have partnerships, distribution deals, co-productions… Do you actually have a breakdown of lke how much of this is original versus everything else.

Brady Sadler: The majority of it is original. As we grow, increasingly we're doing more of the latter in terms of co-productions and even some select work-for-hire projects, if we feel like we can bring something unique to that project, and we're excited about the content. I'm so grateful that we get to be discerning about that. It is incredibly fortunate. We worked very hard, but we're so lucky to be able to work on stuff we genuinely love. And that can be kind of a throwaway line, but in this case, I assure you it is true.

Obviously it's been a challenging year in the podcast industry. Every industry [has] a natural evolution. In the early very exciting days of this last wave, it was a different space than it is today. So being entrepreneurial, trying to get creative, and thinking about ways to generate revenue and doing it with things that we're proud of, that's the sweet spot.

Jeff Umbro: I actually want to do an exercise where we break down what a co-production might look like. So correct me if I'm wrong, but traditionally, if you're going to do a production, the valuable assets will be the RSS feed, the actual production assets – the recordings, the edits, the mixes, masters – there's usually probably some kind of financial situation there, there's the derivative IP, and the revenue sharing of whatever comes from that. Am I missing anything?

Brady Sadler: No, I think you got it. And with the revenue piece, it's important to think about, is there something that if it's being financed, is there some sort of a guarantee? What's the budget? How are you thinking about splitting that up? Who's really doing what in the project? And then any shared upside on any monetization. 

And as you said, there's a variety of different ways that could happen. It's good to contemplate those early on and make sure that you cover your bases with that ahead of time, so everybody's clear on what you're doing going into it – where everyone sits and where they can participate and profit, hopefully – and at the same time being realistic that it is really challenging to get a successful show off the ground. 

So asking oneself: what are you really trying to get out of it? Are you looking to just make a little money? Are you trying to gain a certain type of experience where you haven't done this role before, where you really want to learn these things? Are you interested in doing this ongoing or just getting it off the ground and then going on to your next thing? Do you want to be on the road? Do you hope to do a lot of live work? As an extension of this what are all the things that you're trying to do? 

A lot of your listeners – I would assume just based on the incredible guests that you've had – are professional podcasters who are doing this a lot of their time. But for those who are thinking about getting in the space, I always encourage people to think about those goals and whether or not the core show [driving] revenue [is] the end goal for you. It might be that your business is going to have a product or a service or consult or do something around your show. The show itself [might be] a marketing and promotional vehicle for that. I know a lot of people who have very successfully leveraged podcasting in that way as well.

Jeff Umbro: I don't even want to call it a secret, but I think that's one of the things that is probably less apparent to most people outside of a certain subset of the industry when it comes to what each of these parties actually gain from these partnerships? But yeah, you can use it for a thousand different things to reach a million different goals.

I have this idea in my head that Jake from Disgraceland has created this whole network of shows with Double Elvis that came from the success of that one show. There is also Ashley Flowers from Crime Junkie, even Malcolm Gladwell in Revisionist History… I could give you a dozen examples of big personalities that have turned their project into something much larger that has then mushroomed into full companies, \audiences of millions, derivative properties, books, etc.

Do you think that we're going to be seeing more of that in the future where you just have these breakout stars in the audio world?

Brady Sadler: It's a great question. And I think the answer is yes, we will see a lot more of that. 

I think of friends of ours at Ballen Studios who are building a fascinating media business after the success of their main guy, MrBallen. John is just this incredible talent who had success on YouTube and TikTok, and then in podcasting, and then surrounded himself with a great team. And now they're building out their whole business. 

And I think the key is that the individual can only do so many things. And if they're interested in building that out – they have the vision and they want to invest in that – [they have to] then surround themselves with the right people. Not everything will work, of course, but over time, people who truly love a certain creator will like the things that they also recommend, and will want to hear from them. 

There's a lot of conversation in the podcast space, of course, about the role of video – YouTube in particular. What a lot of YouTubers are really great at, and really get, is community. The best ones are interacting in the comments, on the community page on YouTube, and really understand that that fan base is critical. 

There's a couple of folks who create this show – Colin and Samir are their names – and they make The Published Press. 

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, I read it every day. 

Brady Sadler: Yeah, [it’s a] newsletter and podcast about this kind of thing. So if you're interested – in addition to getting more of this from you, Jeff, and your team on your show – check out The Published Press. That's an incredible resource for businesses that are building around creators. 

I just get excited, obviously, about people [who] figure out their lane and their ability to build something around creating content and creating interactions with communities. To me [it’s] so exciting and that's why I'm so bullish on there being room for that to work as individual shows and as companies built around that premise.

Jeff Umbro: So you just answered my next question. I was going to ask you if you're optimistic about the future of podcasting. 

Brady Sadler: For sure. The underlying metrics are great in audio and remain fantastic in terms of listener growth, domestically, globally, huge opportunity in other other markets outside the US. With the addition of a video, when and where appropriate, I think that's going to continue to grow the industry. But I think pure-play audio is a very specific use case as well, and one that people are going to continue discovering and loving. 

And there's a lot of people who aren't [there yet] – they don't know the magic of what have in this industry. 

As the content grows, [there] really is something for every passion point now. And I talked about the functional side of it, the utility side of it – you can learn almost anything you need to learn now in podcasting. I think we're just going to continue to see that grow the audience. 

But the advertising community continues to invest even in an otherwise down advertising market, we are way up in ad dollars. And that is incredible. There is no other industry in marketing that looks like this in terms of growth in a counter cyclical time. At least not [at] this moment. So that's very, very exciting. 

Jeff Umbro: I couldn't agree more. I think it's easy to look at the pessimism in the industry because I think that it's been a very tough year. A lot of people have gone through it, but I think ultimately that's because a lot of big companies got overeager when it came to the boom times for the last couple of years.

I had one question for you regarding a conversation we had last year. You had just launched a local Boston podcast that would tell listeners where they could hear local concerts and bands and that kind of thing?

Brady Sadler: Yeah. We ran a pilot of something called Lust for Live and picked our hometown of Boston to do it in. And the feedback was great. 

The challenge was audience size and figuring out the monetization. We got some quick sponsors on board right out of the gate and we think we figured out a formula that can work. What we need to be able to continue that and scale is a partner who has shared goals in terms of reaching that local audience with discretionary income looking to go out… That's companies that sell concert tickets, or have venues, restaurants, credit card companies, Uber – there are so many companies out there.

I think this is really tailor made for a brand or a set of brands to activate, across endless markets in the US and across the world. So we think it is a really workable format and an exciting format [with a] business model around [it]. We're interested in talking to people who might want to activate that to be able to have it grow and continue here in Boston, beyond the pilot that we did last year and across other markets.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. I've been really fascinated by the local media in general and applying that to audio is kind of its own beast. 

Well, thank you so much for joining us, Brady. This was awesome. It was great to hear more about what you're up to. 

Brady Sadler: Thank you so much for having me, Jeff. It's great what you're doing here.

That really is something that I think is special in podcasting is that there are a lot of people in this space – the majority of people in space – [who] are really willing to engage, share what they're learning, and help people. I hope that we can continue to foster that foundation, which is really unique [to this industry]. We need to do more and continue to grow, spread that out, and bring more and more people in. I'm really grateful to know you and everyone else working in the space.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you so much to Brady Sadler for joining us on this episode of Podcast Perspectives. You can find more from Brady and Double Elvis at doubleelvis.com. 

For more podcast related news, And takes. You can follow me on Twitter @JeffUmbro. Podcast Perspectives is a production of the Podglomerate. If you are looking for help producing, distributing, or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at podglomerate.com. Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com or follow us on all social platforms @podglomerate. 

This episode was produced by Chris Boniello and Henry Lavoie. And thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, Annabella Pena, and Vanessa Ullman. And a special thank you to Dan Christo.

Thanks for listening, and I will catch you next week.