Interview by NERDY Magazine
Images courtesy of the Awful Show

Where did the idea of creating a podcast come from?

Nerraux: Well, we’re both ex-radio guys–missed the fun parts of the old days. I started listening to a lot of podcasts during work.

tha Mike: I didn’t, just reruns of Dan and Scott.

Nerraux: One day I was IM’ing with Mike, and I’m like, “Do you ever listen to this stuff? We can beat most of the stuff in the top 100 of iTunes with no practice! We totally need to do this.”

tha Mike: And I said, “Sho ‘Nuff.”

Nerraux: Mike got all hyped, and bought stuff to set up a studio, and within 10 days we had episode 1. It wasn’t much, but Mike understood that it was important just to get SOMETHING done and let the rest follow.

Tha Mike: I always wanted to do a show with Nerraux and I knew to strike while his iron was still hot. Nerraux understood that we’d sound like dorks, and we did.

Nerraux: We didn’t care.

tha Mike: Hells no.

Nerraux: It was totally to amuse ourselves, we’ve said that over and over, if nobody listens, we’ll still do this.

tha Mike: Still kinda is [to amuse ourselves], all of our great fans are an awesome bonus. And may I add that our Bros and Hos kick ass!

Nerraux: Absolutely!

How did the cast meet up?

tha Mike: I met Nerraux through a friend. We became roommates with said friend, like, 2 day later. Nerraux is boys with Keyz since college . . .

Nerraux: Keyz was a college buddy of mine.

tha Mike: . . . Joel is just some R-Tard we found on a street corner.

Nerraux: Joel is a friend of a friend with a SICK sense of humor.

tha Mike: AND we found him on a street corner, and he is an R-Tard.

Nerraux: Keyz was pulled in because his production skills and his tenacity once he gets into something he likes are UNBEATABLE. Joel submitted so many bits we pulled him in to shut him up.

tha Mike: Yeah, [Keyz is] one committed fucker and quite hilarious. Deep, dark, mysterious . . . Joel just makes us laugh.

Nerraux: Seriously, he’s a great kid. Dry sense of humor, quick wit, intelligence.

tha Mike: His quiet comments fuel our fire during the show. Plus, someone has to be the whipping boy, and Keyz could kill someone, so Joel it is.

Nerraux: Heh, indeed. It would be nuclear if we tried to make a Joel outta Keyz.

tha Mike: Yeah, the world doesn’t need that.

This upcoming Friday is the Awful Show’s 40th podcast. What was the very first show like?

Nerraux: It was, like, 2 guys in a basement BS-ing. Now it’s, like, 4 guys. Not much has changed.

tha Mike: In my opinion, I was so stoked to do it, and we were noobs, and i thought it was OK. Then we started doing more shows and I was embarrassed by show 1. Now, I go back and think, you gotta start somewhere, and it wasn’t all that bad.

Nerraux: Hell no. I still have no shame over the early shows, I like to see the growth.

tha Mike: Yeah, but you’re right we’re just double 2 guys in a basement after 39 shows.

Nerraux: The worst of our shows was better than 75% or what’s out there for podcasts: the best of our stuff, in my opinion, is top 5%, totally 1337.

tha Mike: Nerraux throws down the first gauntlet in the podcast wars! Palpatine is gonna be pissed.

Nerraux: We’ve been really blessed with the people that have come on to interview

tha Mike: Even when we’re laughing so hard I almost pass out and forget where I am for a moment. It’s an ass-load of fun.

How did the Awful Show get turned onto Nerdcore music?

tha Mike: Nerraux sent me a MC Frontalot track, I totally dug it, then he found more and more and the love fest began. It really helps that the Nerdcore community is really cool, funny and a great group of peeps.

Nerraux: Once we jacked into RT, it really snowballed.

tha Mike: I think Hi-C and MC Inadequate do a great job with that site.

Nerraux: I saw MC Chris on some G4 short on demand, so I tracked him down and found Fette’s Vette. We played it, but we didn’t know Nerdcore was a genre, thought it was a novelty that Chris started to refer to himself.

tha Mike: Yeah, man, Fette’s Vette. But we could go all the way back to Fanny Pack.

Nerraux: Yeah, but we didn’t know Rappy fit into any of that.

tha Mike: Yeah, he’s so fucking dope!

Nerraux: And that was a total MySpace accident discovery, just like WWIII.

tha Mike: Indeed.

Which Nerdcore artists do you guys listen to?

Nerraux: Any I can find, I’ll give a listen.

tha Mike: ZeaLous1, Frontalot, Futuristic Sex Robots, Ill Gill, Beefy, Router, Doc Pop, Logic One are on my iPod at the moment, but anyone Nerraux comes across is pretty sweet.

Nerraux: There have been some misses.

tha Mike: I’m totally on a Rappy McRapperson kick right now when I’m not listening to Collaboc1de. Wait! Can’t forget to mention SDX, DJ Snyder, Metamystiks Incorporated, they are the shit.

Nerraux: I’m not artist loyal, per se.

tha Mike: I am.

Nerraux: I’ll listen to anything with a tolerable beat, but I’ll stay with the ones that have real skill. Mike and I have talked about this before.

tha Mike: I can’t get passed the half-assed tracks some people spit out. I mean, take your time an do it right. Some of these songs could be great, but they are rushed. Yeah, we talk about it all the time.

Nerraux: My two biggest beefs about the lesser Nerdcore artists: 1) the 8-bit stuff is cool, but it’s hard to listen to an album of it. if an artist overuses it, it ruins me for them. 2) if they can’t rap on beat, I lose patience quickly. It’s sloppy, and there’s too much out there to waste time on sloppy

You guys did a track on ZeaLouS1’s Collaboc1de titled “Fuckin’ Chicken’”, virtually becoming Nerdcore artists yourselves. How did that come about and what did you get out of it?

tha Mike: Well I think ZeaLouS offered to do our intro for the show and he loved the fucking chicken sound bite. He asked if we would collab with him, we were totally all for it.

Nerraux: Yeah, that was all Z1. and much love to him.

tha Mike: He threw this sick beat at us and his killer flow and we were inspired from there.

Nerraux: Well, to be fair, he proposed the idea, and we were such geeky schoolgirls about it that we wrote rhymes and sent them to him the next day. If you ever hear us sing on the show, you know we love to hear ourselves on the mic.

tha Mike: Yeah, i can’t sing, but I can’t help it. Captain and Tennille just take over me. A point I’d like to make is, Z1 is so cool, talented, humble and really devoted to the genre, he does all he can to rep everyone out and he should get mad props for it.

Nerraux: Oh, he’s top-quality, no doubt about it. Speaking of, we doing Blister in the Sun this week? iTunes has it on Karaoke.

tha Mike: Yeah, we will be. I’ll grab it.

Nerraux: Cool.

Ha, something to look forward to. On a scale of 1 to 10, just how nerdy are you? Any prime examples of flat out geekness?

Nerraux: So many different kinds of nerdy . . .

tha Mike: I took a keep test on-line a few weeks ago and on a scale of 100 I believe I was like a 32, mostly for web, computer and Nintendo. I have iPods and multiple CPUs and game systems so that bumped me up too.

Nerraux: For computers, I’m about a 7, games a 7, comics a 4, RPGs 0 . . . fat 8.

tha Mike: On that scale, 9, 7, 0, 5.

Nerraux: Long hair 0, caffeine addiction 7.

tha Mike: Fat 9, hair 2, caffeine 5, AOL -199999.

Nerraux: Nah, you’re a fat 8, too, there are some big mutha f’in geeks out there.

tha Mike: True, like Comic Book Guy.

Nerraux: Movies 7, programming 3, web culture 8.

tha Mike: Movies 9, hacking skills 3, programming 6 or 7, web culture 8.

Nerraux: Heh, we can probably do this all night, geeks are a diverse crowd.

tha Mike: True.

What kind of a hardware/software setup makes the actual show happen?

Nerraux: Two turntables and a microphone.

tha Mike: That’s where it’s at.

Nerraux: HA! My man’s on point.

Do your family and friends listen to the show? What do they think of your “colorful” on-air personalities?

Nerraux: No. I don’t want them to, my part of the show would suffer.

tha Mike: My dad loves hanging out with us, my wife is cool about it, but i try to keep the rest of my fam out of it, they’re too fragile.

Nerraux: My folks would not be proud. My sisters probably listen on occasion. My wife never does; she would if I burned it on disk to listen to in the car, but like I said, my part would suffer in that case.

tha Mike: Yeah i have to give props to my wife Ariana, she does a lot of voice work for the show and supports us 100 percent. A totally cool chica.

What has been your one favorite moment from the all of the past shows?

Nerraux: Schmoopy, and Keyz confession of his sexual predilections.

tha Mike: Nerraux getting waxed, Jimmy Pop, Johnny Brennen, ZeaLouS1 falling in love with me. All great moments in Awful Show history. Oh and telling the that one chick to chew through my ballsack.

Nerraux: Almost all of our interviews have been great, Tim Westergren, WWIII.

tha Mike: Logic One, Dead Circuits. Totally name dropping now.

Nerraux: We’ve been really blessed with the people that have come on to interview.

Where do you see the Awful Show going down the line toward the future?

Nerraux: What’s the future of Public Enemy? Nunna yo goddamn business! Sorry, I’m a HUGE PE fan.

tha Mike: Well, I’d like to see us continue down our current path: great listeners, great guests, more downloads.

Nerraux: Agreed. Guests are our key to expanding audience, if we keep getting lucky to get good peeps on, the audience will follow.

tha Mike: Anyway, sure it would be great to get some rich sugar momma to sink a ton of money into the show and us be in the top 10 shows on iTunes. Maybe one day.

Nerraux: AND, our audience is RABID about promoting, gotta mention them.

tha Mike: Yeah, our fans have been the key to our success.

Nerraux: I think we’ll see growth on iTunes just by longevity. We’re in it for the long haul, and I would be surprised to see a lot of those above us stay longer. I doubt Kevin Smith will keep doing SMODCAST longer than a year.

tha Mike: Yeah, the great thing with us is this is our love, our hobby, our escape from life for 3 hours a week. Have fun, and the rest falls into place. I’d love to have Kevin on the show. And Weird Al, too. Sorry, random thought.

What do you think the 80th show will be like?

Nerraux: I think there will be robots to do all our bidding in the future, and all of our energy will be solar.

If you guys could each invite any one living person to be a guest on the show, who would it be?

Nerraux: Hm . . .

tha Mike: Do we have to have the same answer?

No, separate is fine.

tha Mike: ‘K, good, cause Nerraux’s an idiot.

Nerraux: Forget you, I’m not answering the same as you no matter what.

tha Mike: Weird Al, no doubt about it. Just a personal preference, no one impresses me more.

Nerraux: I dunno. I’d have to calculate in who would be best for the show. I think all-around Weird Al would be the best bet, but I have a Bruce Willis man-crush to satisfy.

If I happen to see Weird Al, or Bruce, for that matter, around Cali, I’ll be sure to let them know you guys think about them. A lot.

Nerraux: Yeah, don’t tell them about the dirty sock by the bed, though.

And any one dead person?

Nerraux: Lenny Bruce or Kineson.

tha Mike: Phil Hartman, he was so funny, so awesome, sad he’s gone.

Nerraux: Good answer.

tha Mike: Thanks.

And, finally, Star Trek, Stargate SG-1 or Battlestar Galactica?

Nerraux: Battlestar. It’s the only show I watch right now. Like, at all, not just sci-fi. In fact, when we’re done, I’m gonna go On Demand it.

tha Mike: Star Wars. If I have to pick from those 3, ST Deep Space Nine was wicked entertaining towards the end.

Nerraux: I’ve seen about every Star Trek episode, except some of Voyager and none of Enterprise. I couldn’t commit to SG-1 after about the third season. Liked it, just couldn’t make time for it.

tha Mike: Yeah, I’ve watched ST, the others, I never really sat down and got into. I spend my TV time with Simpsons and South Park and Science and Discovery Channels. P.S ZeaLouS1 rules!

You guys really are geeks, huh?

Nerraux: I think we’re floaters. I wouldn’t say that’s the biggest part of us, maybe more so a couple years back, but we certainly have the right punch cards filled for some serious geek creds. I’m the only person I know that still uses Telnet chats, first computer I touched was a TRS-80.

tha Mike: I’d agree with that, much like floaters, you try to flush us and we come back at ‘cha. I’ll let the geek community decide for themselves.

To hear the Awful Show and subscribe to their podcast on iTunes, visit awfulshow.com.