When I go out in the community, people will introduce me to their friends as, or will mention, "Oh, you're the podcast guy. How's the podcast going? Will does this podcast." And it breaks my brain!
The role of the Rhythm Changes podcast alongside everything else at Rhythm Changes: I could never have predicted the way it turned out. It's really fascinating to me, it's something that's been bugging me for a while, and it's been a thing for a good year now. Don't get me wrong, it's a good problem to have. but I don't know how to deal with the extent to which it goes against my internal view.
The free weekly email, the articles, the gig list, especially the gigs section in the email: on the non-podcast side of Rhythm Changes, the audience is so much larger than the podcast. I've thought about quitting the podcast so many times because of that; because if you look at how many people listen to the podcast, and then you look at the reach of the written side, it doesn't make sense.
That said, I know that the RCP enthusiasts are some of the biggest supporters of my work. The customer is always right: all I want is to understand how you receive my work and to dance with that as best as I can. I don’t want to fight it.
But it just breaks my brain how the number of people who listen to the RCP is an order of magnitude smaller than the number of people who read the emails, and yet I'm the podcast guy when I go out on the town. I've tried to quit it three or four times. But then I end up being terrified that I will lose this one thing that has stuck as a identifier for myself among these people that I end up talking to.
At this point, I'm not burned out about anything Rhythm Changes, and I’m not considering quitting the podcast anymore. I want to make the most of this situation instead of trying to change perceptions. I'm obsessed with trying to understand how people receive what I do, then meeting them there so it gets better.