Passion Pod

Dessa is a multifaceted language artist who splits her time between Minneapolis and New York City. Dessa grew up with dreams of having her writings published, but found that to be a difficult task at the start. She instead began entering poetry slams in Minneapolis, which in turn introduced her to the twin cities rap scene. Not long after she became an official member of the hip hop collective Doo...

Shelly Mosman is a twin cities based portrait photographer. Her career began over 30 years ago, but she really found her own lane back in 2011. Her series "Animal Child" is stands out as something truly unique in the extremely oversaturated field of photography. Tune in and hear how she developed her own style, how she maintains her creative energy, how she navigates an ever growing industry, and...

Chris Johnson interviews world renown illusionist Reza in the greenroom backstage at The Pablo Center. Reza grew up in the small town of Brookings, South Dakota, but eventually found a home in Branson, Missouri. Reza has toured and performed all over the world in front of massive crowds alongside stars like Steve Aoki and Trace Adkins , but his success didn't come over night. Reza discovered magic...

Danen Reed and Dillon Jordan make up the other 2/3rds of Charlotte Sands onstage and behind the scenes. Danen drums onstage, but also writes and produces most of the music for Charlotte Sands. Dillon is the guitarist, but also creates a lot of their visual content from photos to their cover art and more. As the day was winding down I spotted them eating some tacos in the lounge backstage and asked...

Chris Johnson interviews Charlotte Sands backstage at Reverb Music Festival 2023 in Eau Claire, WI. In this interview, Charlotte talks about meeting her heroes, writing honest music, performing at festivals, new music coming out, and much more.

Chris Johnson interviews guitarist for of the Plain White T's Randy Winter backstage at Reverb Music Festival 2023 in Eau Claire, WI. In this interview, Randy talks about life personal growth, staying focused, writing honest music, living in the moment, and much more.

Chris Johnson interviews lead singer of the Plain White T's Tom Higgenson backstage at Reverb Music Festival 2023 in Eau Claire, WI. In this interview, Tom talks about all the new music that they have been recording and shares details regarding their new album that is coming soon. He also talks about his newfound love for painting and what keeps the excitement and joy in his music.

Alexander Denning aka Alexander the Great is a Minnesota based male model, influencer, content creator, and entrepreneur. Alexander had a rough time growing up and getting into more than his fair share of trouble. Run ins with the law grew more and more serious before he made a big mistake, and a split second decision changed his life drastically. After spending over a handful of years in prison h...

Milo Rubin is a clothing designer and creative entrepreneur based in New York City. Milo started his clothing brand Takin Over when he was only 14 years old. With his high school career coming to an end a new chapter is about to begin. His journey will be one you want to follow along with. He's accomplished incredible things already, but he's really just getting started. In this episode we discuss...

Walker Ryan is a New York City based professional skateboarder and author. Walker grew up in northern California skating from a young age. By the time he was in high school he was traveling from his small home town to San Francisco to skate the big city. Unlike most professional skateboarders he enrolled in college after graduating high school and that was when he career finally took off. His skat...

imjarons is a comedy content creator based in Chippewa Falls, WI. In just a couple short years he has grown a presence online to include over 3.5 million followers on tiktok and 450k on Instagram. This is the first time imjarons has ever done a long form interview such as a podcast and this is your chance to see who is really behind all the wacky GoPro videos that so many people can't stop watchin...

John Poveromo is a Jersey based comedian and podcaster. John has been performing stand up comedy his entire life and started his on podcast called Dystopia Tonight during the shutdown of the pandemic. Since being able to tour again he now balances both. Oh yeah, he's also a cartoonist who even put out his own book. John's positive attitude and humor are infectious to say the least. I even got to w...

Landon Conrath is a singer/songwriter based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I met Landon when he performed at "The Sandbox" which was a garage venue at our mutual friends old college house. Since then his career has exploded. With over 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify he has taken to the road and been almost nonstop touring all over the country since we met. In the episode we discuss his musical...

Matthew Byas aka Maffyuu is a drummer, producer, and an original member of the popular band Phony Ppl based in Brooklyn, NY. Maffyuu is also the son of hip hop legend DJ Jazzy Jay and was destined to play music from a young age. Maffyuu and the core members of Phony PPL met and formed the group when they were all still in high school and have since signed to the major record label 300 Entertainmen...

Erik Ross is an Austin Texas based artist known for his unique paintings of characters that are easily recognizable as his own. I met Erik randomly in Los Angeles over a year ago and we kept in contact in case I was ever planning to visit Austin. Erik's art career has taken off over the last handful of years and he is finally having his first big show this coming June. Tune in and hear how he went...

DJ Kam Bennett is an established DJ based in St. Paul, MN. Kam grew up in St. Paul, but has grown his career far outside of just the midwest. He started out DJing parties while still in high school. When he got the call from Lil Bibby to be his DJ his career really took off. Since then he has worked with a ton of big names in the music industry and played shows all over the country. These days he...

SonReal is a Canadian music artist known for his unique mix of hip hop and folk music. He originally gained mainstream attention when his hit music video "Everywhere We Go" reached over 400k views in it first week back in 2013. Since then he got signed to a major record label, moved to Los Angeles, and put out several successful albums. In more recent years though he moved back home, got married,...

Michael Sieben is an Austin, Texas based illustrator and the current managing editor of the hugely popular Thrasher Magazine. He is also the co owner and artist behind Roger Skateboards. Michael grew up skateboarder and earned himself a bachelors degree in fine art before finding his way into the skateboard industry. From making little local zines for fun to writing and editing the most successful...

Sprig of That is a tabla, fiddle, and guitar trio that play midwest-raised and globally inspired acoustic folk music. The band consists of Krissy Bergmark on tabla, Isabel Dammann on violin, and Ilan Blanck on guitar. Sprig of That came to Eau Claire and performed at Forage as part of the All Ears Listening Session series. I was lucky enough to catch their live performance and record an interview...

Sol is an established hip hop artist based in Seattle. He has been a full time musician for over a decade and recently went on a cross country tour with his friend and fellow music artist SonReal. I was able to catch him before his show in St. Paul for this interview.

Adam Accola is one of the main people running Colab EC and is also a member of the board of directors for Converge Radio. My show originally premiered on Converge Radio several years ago and has been a weekly, and now twice a week, radio show ever since. Converge Radio is Eau Claire's local independent station that plays a wide variety of music, talk shows, and much more. Colab EC is Eau Claire's...

The Gully Boys are a 4 piece band based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They performed at the Brickhouse in Eau Claire, WI on Saturday December 3rd 2022. I was able to sit down with all 4 of them to record this interview before their performance. In these interviews we discuss how the band was formed, touring the country, playing covers, winning Minnesota's "Best New Band" in 2018, adding a 4th member,...

Daniel Donato is a guitarist and singer/songwriter originally from Nashville, Tennessee. Daniel started busking at the age of 14 and grew his skills considerably when he started playing in the famous Don Kelly band while still in high school. At first his dream was to become a studio musician and play on every major country record, but instead he felt the need to start creating his own music. Stil...

Willy Santos is a professional skateboarder from San Diego, California. Willy's skateboarding career has spanned decades with too many incredible moments and stories to ever tell in one sitting. In this interview we discuss sending in his one and only sponsor me tape, meeting Tony Hawk at a schoolyard, getting courted to ride for Birdhouse, skating in the first X Games, owning a skateshop, buildin...

Lawrence Lanoff, or better known as Lawrence the Energy Master, is a renowned director, author, tantric expert, and shaman. Lawrence grew up in New York and had a pretty crazy childhood to say the least. His career spans decades with way more to cover than possible in one interview. This episode will really get you thinking and open your mind to new ways to look at life.