Ian Wheeler: You need to be able to pivot
A conversation with the Talkhouse co-founder
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, Talkhouse co-founder Ian Wheeler on adopting a bi-regional lifestyle, embracing your outsider perspective, taking life advice from Stephen Colbert, and more.
In the age of silos — where a person can go days, maybe months, consuming only content catered their specific interests — it’s often hard to tell which content matters, and which content doesn’t.
Increasingly, I would argue, Talkhouse matters a lot.
Since launching in 2013, the “creator-centric” media company has become an editorial powerhouse, successfully producing conversations and coverage spanning a variety of media, almost all of it rooted in conversations between musicians, actors, and athletes. My entry point, for example, was Lou Reed’s review of Yeezus, which I think about constantly. I’ve been a fan ever since.
Though the team has always championed great writing, the 2020s have seen Talkhouse embrace yapping in a big way. Its popular podcast network is host to several shows that readers might recognize, including (but not limited to) ’s SubwayTakes, and ’s How Long Gone, and its flagship program, Talkhouse Podcast.
Did I also mention they produce live shows?
With the company announcing some new podcasts this year, as well as something in the newsletter space, it seemed like the perfect time for me and co-founder Ian Wheeler to connect.
And so, we had much to discuss.
Our edited and condensed conversation touched on Ian’s love of the Carolinas, life on James Island, the secret of How Long Gone, how to properly scale an artistic project, and finding success amid a nearly constant array of failures.
ES: You’re living a bit of a bi-regional lifestyle, shall we say, bouncing between New York and South Carolina. Why do that at this point in your life? Why not just live in Carolina full-time?
IW: For starters, it would be hard with my wife's job. I’ve also discovered, after living in New York for 20 years, when I go away and come back, I take advantage of the city more. I set up all these meetings. I’m out and about. When I’m in New York indefinitely, I don’t do nearly as much. I think other people have that experience too. That’s why people start to go upstate or move outside the city. Living in New York full-time is also really hard with kids.
ES: What’s the split looking like right now? Is it six months in New York and then six months in S.C.?
IW: No, we’ve leaned heavily on New York this year, but this weekend we’ll go down to Charleston and stay there most of the summer.
ES: You have a house on James Island, right?
IW: That's right.
ES: Tell me more! I wasn’t familiar with James Island until you mentioned it in another interview.
IW: It’s amazing. It’s my favorite place in the U.S. It’s about 5 minutes from downtown Charleston, but it’s pretty rural. You have the oldest black population in the United States, the Gullah Geechee people1, out there. I vote there, and it’s pretty remarkable. You’re standing in the voting line with MAGA people, this really old black population, but then there are a lot of hippies and surfers, and for the most part, everyone’s voting with the same issues in mind. Everyone really cares about flooding and climate change. Even the far-right people there will admit that they’ve seen the water rising. It feels like a very real place… It’s cool to find common ground with people. A lot of my neighbours are Trump supporters, and we get along fine, which is not something I ever expected to say, but when you’re immersed in it, the rules become a bit different.
ES: I haven’t been to the Carolinas, but we were just watching The Righteous Gemstones, and it’s such a fun encapsulation of a certain section of Southern culture. Have you seen it? I wonder if it accurately reflects that part of the world.
IW: I identify with that show quite a bit. I grew up in North Carolina, and my mom's side of the family are all Methodist ministers, so we lived some of that.
I love that show, and I love Danny McBride. His company is based in Charleston… The show’s filmed there, and so we see them around town all the time. He’s definitely a big part of the community and is really supportive of what’s happening in the art scene. I grew up in the Carolinas, and I think about communities like Chapel Hill, where you had Merge Records and all these different artists. It felt more authentic. It was just very distinct. I think any time you have that kind of special community, and it’s not being taken for granted, it feels better.
ES: The Carolinas are kind of crushing it right now, whether it’s Danny, or Drop of Sun Studios, MJ Lenderman, or Wednesday. It sort of reminds me of Seattle in the 90s. There’s a real scene there.
IW: It feels like a continuation of something that’s been happening for a while. I mentioned Chapel Hill — that’s always been a place where amazing culture has been birthed and has existed. But Nina Simone is from North Carolina, and John Coltrane. There’s something special down there that helps nurture creativity and talent. I couldn’t be more excited about newer talent like MJ and Carly coming out of Asheville, which is another community that has nurtured creativity so well… I think those types of scenes are where we get the best art. I think when you're in a big city, and you're immersed in it, you aren’t getting the perspective that you need to make something capable of connecting with a wide audience.
There’s a tremendous amount of failure. Every week, there’s stuff that doesn’t pan out. You need to be able to pivot or find a different solution.
ES: I think about that all the time in terms of this newsletter. It’s hard not to feel a bit of FOMO when you’re a world away from New York, but I do think existing outside that bubble is a bit of a competitive advantage. It enables you to draw new connections that might not be as obvious.
IW: It’s funny, we see it with How Long Gone, which is a podcast we work with–
ES: Laughs. Brother, you do not have to explain How Long Gone to me.
IW: The show is funny for people who live in New York and L.A., of course. They’re talking about Sweetgreen and Erewhon and stuff, and you connect with that. But I think if you live in Cleveland, for example, How Long Gone is your way to tap into that specific type of culture. It becomes so much more meaningful. I know when those guys tour and visit a place like Minneapolis, or someplace that isn’t an obvious liberal enclave, the audience is extremely receptive and excited. They feel so much more strongly about what those guys are doing. It’s a window for people.
I was always looking for something like that when I was young. I loved zines and stuff. I needed to become fully immersed in these subcultures, but they weren’t around. I had to find it.
ES: The show also takes that cultural ephemera and heightens it. Like, Chris and Jason are not exactly your typical Angelenos or New Yorkers. Their experiences are sort of aspirational. The way they reference things is like a VR headset or something. It’s world-building. They’re imposing their universe onto a world that already exists.
IW: It’s also funny because you can come into the show fresh and think “These are two very specific kinds of assholes” but they quickly reveal themselves to be complex assholes. It’s an endless punchline for me. They’re playing these characters, to a certain extent, but the amount of nuance is pretty remarkable.
ES: We’re not here to talk about How Long Gone, but I did want to ask if you’re involved with their upcoming live shows. They’re calling it The How Long Gone Guide To Life, which is a little mysterious. What can you tell me about it?
IW: So we work closely with them on the marketing and some guest bookings for the podcast. I can tell you these shows will be a full presentation. There are visuals. It’s very well put together and thought out, and it's very funny. I’m excited about it, because I think it’s something intentional. They sat down and said, “We want to do a new kind of show, we’re going to present this thing to the audience.” I love it when someone is willing to take a big swing like that. I think it's cool.
ES: You mentioned that you grew up in North Carolina, but your origin story is actually wild. You started out sailing boats.
IW: I’ve been sailing for a long time, and yeah, I did various sailing jobs. I ran a charter company and did boat deliveries. My first career was a boat Captain.
ES: Did you suddenly quit one day to work in entertainment?
IW: No, it’s a weirder story than that. I was running a community sailing center in Charleston, and it was Father's Day. Stephen Colbert, who lives in Charleston part-time as well, came down. He brought his son and said, “We want to go out sailing.” I took them out. It was a quiet day. I didn’t want to bug him. But at the end of our trip, I said, “Look, I think I want to work in entertainment. What should I do?”
He said, “Just move to New York, man”.
Two weeks after that, I was in the city, crashing with friends. I got a sailing job, which helped get me on my feet and able to pay rent. But I started working in the record business pretty quickly after that.
ES: That’s such an old-school show business story. It’s like saying you meet Johnny Carson and he told you to swing by Rockefeller Plaza or something.
IW: I saw him again. I booked a band on The Colbert Report. I was like, “Hey, you probably don’t remember me,” and he said, “No, I do remember you.” He was very sweet about it. I’ve seen him quite a few times since, and it’s been very cool. But yeah, unlikely story.
ES: Why did you want to work in entertainment?
IW: Music was always my third place. It was where I could go. I played in bands when I was growing up, and I understood that language well. In college, I worked with some different musicians and managed bands. I was just really drawn to it, and every experience I had was more powerful than the last. The idea that I could spend my time doing that felt arresting.
ES: A career in the arts is rarely linear, even on the business side. I have to imagine there were some failures along the way.
IW: There’s a tremendous amount of failure. Every week, there’s stuff that doesn’t pan out. You need to be able to pivot or find a different solution. A lot of my path has been rooted in tenacity. Trying to wake up fresh every morning and not feel like the failures of the day before are weighing too heavily… That’s how it is when you’re running a business or getting something off the ground. You’re learning by error, though, hopefully not fucking up too bad, to the point where it’s fatal.
ES: Both Talkhouse and Partisan seem willing to invest in things that are slightly niche. How do you manage the tension of tapping in with small but passionate audiences, but also the demand to scale?
IW: A lot of it is making sure that the investment matches the potential growth. Not overspending on something, being realistic about expectations. The longer I’ve done this, I’ve learned it’s better for the people you're working with to have that information. Some of my favorite record labels had that perspective. Merge Records had the philosophy that all of its artists should recoup. They wanted them to be in the black. The other way to do it is the major label route, which is like just signing everything, throwing money around, and hoping that every year you have a big hit to help cover the losses. But that often leaves a trail of artists in the dust.
With Talkhouse, the podcast network, we’re using the same philosophy. We’re focused on “How big can this thing be?” and if the property achieves that, we scale up even more. We view it as an iterative process. It’s building in blocks as opposed to throwing everything at the wall all at once. Sustainability is key.
ES: Are there certain metrics you consult when signing someone? Or is it all intuition? I’m thinking of someone like Kareem Rahma from SubwayTakes.
IW: For me, I’m looking for unique voices. What’s the story? With Kareem, his story is just remarkable. His father came over from Egypt and was a cab driver, and when he passed away, that’s what got Kareem interviewing cab drivers, which sort of launched everything. He’s also someone with limitless ambition, which I love. He bounces around from music to video. It’s cool.
ES: I interned for a record label after graduating from university, and my only lesson was when the guy running it told me, “It’s not the 1970s, I’m not really here to break a band. I'm looking for people putting in the work, and then I try to take them to the next level.” Would you agree?
IW: To an extent. Once you’re in the big leagues, it’s hard to find those projects that you can grow from day one. You start looking at things that are already kind of established and working.
The one thing I stay away from is the idea of signing “The next X.” If someone tells me a band is the next Led Zeppelin, that terrifies me because it’s probably not unique enough to stand on its own, and it's probably always going to be that way. I think about that a lot with the podcasts and films we’ve been doing. I want to support things that are unique and not derivative of anything else.
Part of it is finding things that are hard to explain and then putting in the work to be able to explain them easily. Anything that you can explain easily off the bat probably is not very good.
We’re focused on “How big can this thing be?” and if the property achieves that, we scale up even more. We view it as an iterative process.
ES: Or it will appeal to an audience that maybe you aren’t interested in. If someone likes Benson Boone because they think he’s the next Queen, they’re not someone I want to hang with.
IW: That is someone whose songs are gonna have to be really fucking good forever, you know, to deal with all the rest of the stuff.
ES: He’s gonna be backflipping until he's 50.
IW: Exactly. That motherfucker needs to stretch four times a day.
People sometimes ask, “What’s a dream band for you?” And for a long time, my answer’s been Drive By Truckers. That’s a band that consistently is going to sell 2,000 tickets in every fucking market till the end of time. The fans are always going to be there; it’s not a fleeting audience. They've developed this real relationship with them, and the fans derive so much meaning from it.
ES: You mentioned podcasts and films. Where does Talkhouse sit on newsletters — is that an area you’d like to expand into?
IW: Definitely. This summer we’ll make a big announcement. We have some moves coming up there. I think there’s an amazing ecosystem that exists, but it’s not well curated. It’s the Wild West. My favourite newsletters are probably undiscovered at this point.
You can’t rely on platforms for curation. I open Netflix, and it feels like it takes me forever to find something to watch.
IW: As good as the algorithm can be, it doesn't work on me. It doesn’t know what I want to watch on a random Tuesday night… The other thing you realize is that these platforms want you to be looking around and browsing. We know that from Web 2.0, time on page is a huge metric for them.
ES: Before we go, I wanted to ask you about Billy Jones, who recently passed away. I didn’t know him, but it sounds like he leaves behind quite a legacy in the New York music scene.
IW: Billy and I were close for a long time. He was a total ray of light. In the New York music community, he was one of the most important guys. If he believed in something, he put it on the stage. He was the ultimate music fan, always so upbeat, such an amazing presence. He grew with the music scene in New York, and it grew with him. The two were lock-step.
For the last few years, he has operated this amazing record store that he opened. I think it was because his girlfriend told him he needed to get the records out of their apartment. So he opened the store. Billy's other businesses did extremely well, but I think the record store was a thing he had because he loved being surrounded by his records, and having a space where he could play music and have his friends visit. That was the last iteration of most people’s friendship with him, going into that space, which was called Billy’s Record Saloon, and spending time with him there.
Our friend Sebastian was really important to Billy at the end of his life; he looked after Billy, and so that was wonderful. I think Billy was really happy in his last days. The last time I saw him, he was happy and had a great outlook on life. I don’t know. To go out on that kind of note is, I think, all anyone can ask for.
Ian Wheeler is the co-founder of Talkhouse. He splits his time between James Island and New York City.
The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of Africans who were enslaved on the rice, indigo and Sea Island cotton plantations of the lower Atlantic coast. Many came from the rice-growing region of West Africa. The nature of their enslavement on isolated island and coastal plantations created a unique culture with deep African retentions that are clearly visible in the Gullah Geechee people’s distinctive arts, crafts, foodways, music, and language.