Matt Stillo

Kendell Kelton (00:00):

Hi, I'm Kendell Kelton, and I'm your host today on The Rough Draft. Featuring honest conversations with folks from across the creative industry, The Rough Draft explores the creative process, tools and resources used by some of the best in the business. From journalists to content creators and business leaders, we shed light on what it looks like to break into the industry, make mistakes, collaborate with others, and the essential tools that help us all along the way.

(00:24):

This week I'm super excited to be talking with Matt Stillo . Matt is the senior director of Audio at Ruby, iHeartMedia's branded audio studio. And Matt has spent his entire career working in audio production as an editor, sound designer, engineer, and mixer, and even created and hosted the acclaimed podcast, No F*cking Way, which tells true stories that seem just too insane to believe. And on today's episode, Matt shares his journey from musician to senior audio director and the lessons he learned along the way.

(01:05):

Hey, Matt.

Matt Stillo  (01:07):

Hey, how's it going?

Kendell Kelton (01:08):

Good. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Matt Stillo  (01:11):

Happy to be here.

Kendell Kelton (01:12):

I am just so excited because even before we started recording we were talking about how this is a new experience for you actually being on that side of the table and me interviewing you. It's going to be fun.

Matt Stillo  (01:26):

It's weird. It's strange to be in this position, but I am going to also vote for fun. Let's make it fun.

Kendell Kelton (01:33):

Okay, let's vote for fun. So speaking of fun, I actually want to start talking about your early days. You were a musician, an actor, but you've been drawn to audio production, and I want to hear how it all started.

Matt Stillo  (01:47):

Yeah, it's funny. I've worked in a couple of different audio post-production facilities, and we all have the same story, which is we were in a band in high school, and we just got as interested in how to record the music as we were playing it.

(02:01):

But yeah, we were all involved in theater and musical theater. We had an incredible theater program at our high school in California, an incredible theater teacher. Her name is Carrie Hader. And she just created this program where we were all accountable and we all had to be professional, and I think it raised everyone to a higher standard for themselves.

(02:20):

And my whole family is in finance or accounting or something like that. And so that was what my parents wanted me to do, but our theater teacher actually came to my house and asked my parents, "Your son is really talented, and I think that going to New York would be good for him." And she, along with some other friends, convinced them to let me do that, and I'm really glad that they did.

(02:43):

And so I had a great time at NYU. I did a lot of really cool stuff, and met a lot of really cool people. We were all in the orbit of this teacher named Elizabeth Swados, who was an incredible ensemble theater creator. And so she started really focusing ensemble theater and teaching it at NYU. And she did this program called, "The Reality Show", where basically every year there was a new cast of about 15 students who wrote, collaborated, directed, choreographed this really, really, really cool musical show that happened during Welcome Week at NYU, where basically it was all the things that you're going to encounter in college life from binge-drinking to, and everything was in service of this health line that NYU has, and so every sketch or a song or something ended in the phone number for this thing.

(03:40):

And that maybe sounds like it could be lame if it were at any other school, but it was NYU. Everyone in the show was top tier, insanely talented. It was very funny. The music was very good, and it just got you really excited about being in New York City and starting your new life. And so I was with a lot of incredibly talented people, and it was the first year that I was in the show and I was super nervous because I had seen all the people in the show, and I loved all of them and thought they were all really talented. And so I got so nervous about presenting my own material in these sessions. And so what I would do is I would write a song and I would record it, and then I would play it for everyone in the room because I knew if I performed in the room-

Kendell Kelton (04:23):

So instead of doing it live?

Matt Stillo  (04:24):

Yeah, I would mess it up, for sure. And so that's actually how I got a couple of songs and things into the show. As I graduated, I was working on new work with musicians. I was helping develop podcasts with artists. That's been the greatest thing for me always. And anytime anyone wants to get into anything, whether it's audio or writing music, I'm like, just go do it. Just start doing it. Be very, very bad at it, but you have to do it because no one's going to teach you the way that you work better than you, and no one is going to explore the way that you're going to explore.

(05:00):

And so that's really how my career started is that I had a bunch of stuff from that time that I could show to people. So I would go into studios and be like, "Hey, I'm interested in getting an internship or being an assistant or something." And they'd be like, "Cool, what have you done?" And I would show them a full recording that I had done with a live band and a live saxophonist, and they were like, "This is really cool." And I got internships that way and just started working.

(05:29):

I watched a lot of engineers work and I learned a lot about like, oh, I've never thought to do something that way, and worked my way up to being a senior engineer at a small boutique studio in Manhattan. And then I was able to transition working to iHeartRadio in podcasting, which is it's came full circle because I was working on a lot of advertisements and documentary films and TV and stuff from my work in theater. And then through that work, I realized that working in podcasts is something that I really, really love because of the background that I have in theater and storytelling.

(05:59):

And so now that I'm at iHeartRadio, I'm able to do that full-time, not only from an audio perspective, but from a creative producing perspective. And then now at iHeartRadio, I'm the senior director of Audio for Ruby, which is their branded content studio and work on a lot of different projects. I've built studios for iHeartRadio. I've created programming for iHeartRadio.

Kendell Kelton (06:22):

Well, okay, so speaking of iHeartRadio, do you mind dissecting a bit what exactly, I mean, you gave a bit of a brief overview, but how did you find yourself actually at iHeart, and talk to us about your day-to-day there?

Matt Stillo  (06:38):

Yeah, the other thing that I tell people all the time is your network is everything. I was looking for a job, this was during the pandemic, and I had just updated my website and was talking to literally everyone that I knew that I was on the hunt for a job. And my now boss basically was doing this really cool thing where he did a networking industry speed dating, where basically he would go... I'm forgetting the name of the, it's a service, I think. And he asked my friend's boss, "Hey, we're looking for this person who works in audio that's a creative producer and engineer," and I had literally just updated my website. And so my friend gave his boss my website, and his boss gave it to my future boss. And so I tell people it's a lot of planting seeds out there, and then when that one chance opportunity happened, I was in the position to be able to be there.

Kendell Kelton (07:32):

Well, I think that's a really great testament to just putting yourself out there and settling into the idea of being uncomfortable. You know what I mean? So many people are just hope that somebody comes to them with it versus being like you got to put yourself out there as best as you can.

Matt Stillo  (07:49):

I tell people, I've never gotten a job from LinkedIn. I've applied to 1,000 jobs in LinkedIn. I've only ever gotten a job through I knew someone who knew someone.

Kendell Kelton (07:59):

You know what? I think that's happening a lot. So I mean, you've seen the audio industry transform I think so much. So what do you think are the biggest challenges facing somebody in your role today?

Matt Stillo  (08:13):

I think the challenges are AI. That is a huge challenge. I think that, and also just how ubiquitous audio tools are. I mean, back in the day you needed a console and tape reels and a team of people and all these expensive microphones. And today you just need a laptop really and you can produce any kind of work, not just audio, any kind of work. Everyone with a laptop and a dream is an audio engineer. And so how do you differentiate yourself when the tools are in everyone's hands now. And now that AI tools are going to be able to help you use that computer to do things that you, you don't have to learn it anymore, the AI will just do it.

(08:54):

So we actually did a really uncomfortable project at Ruby where we made an entire podcast using AI. We had AI write the music and AI do the editing and AI write the scripts and AI voice all the parts, and it's a lot of what people are saying. It did it, but it's very uncanny valley. I'm really glad we did it because so much of what's going to be important to the new generation of people viewing this work is going to be knowing the tools. Because if you know the tools, you can use them to help you save time and to get to a better product faster.

(09:32):

And look, in 10 years, 20 years, I think that AI will probably be better than us, but right now it's not, but it can be used as a tool to help you achieve your results faster. And so the people who are going to get ahead in this industry are the people who know how to use these tools and use them in the way that works for them and benefits them and their company or their product or whatever they're doing.

(09:54):

Because I got to say, the full AI podcast, not great, but the AI tools that I learned how to use through doing that have helped me in so many ways and really entirely changed the way that I work and I approach work for the better. I can do more with less time, and I can do more across my team. It's given me the time to focus on other things, to focus on my clients, to focus on making more things more efficient for more people in our company and to educate and do trainings and focus on other projects.

(10:27):

I think that's the big challenge. And I would just say don't think of it as diminishing the work that you can do or making engineers collateral damage. You can use these tools to become indispensable. And I think if you always operate with a mindset of what can I do to make myself indispensable in this industry, you will be, you always will be.

Kendell Kelton (10:49):

So Matt, you mentioned that boredom can spark creativity and that you tend to work best when you're being pressure prompted, you have that deadline. So how do these seemingly opposite forces drive your creative process?

Matt Stillo  (11:05):

So I'll start with boredom. I think that when you're constantly bombarded with screens, with inputs, it's difficult for your mind to do its best work. And so oftentimes where I'm doing a lot of the really, really creative stuff, giving thorough feedback on an episode, I can't be looking at Pro Tools while I'm doing it because it's activating a different part of my brain I think.

(11:29):

I'm really like when I'm putting together a show, I'm putting together a puzzle, and when I'm trying to step back from it and give overall creative feedback, I can't be looking at screens and stuff. And so what I'll do is I'll bounce a mix to my phone and I'll listen to it on my phone and I'll take a walk because I actually think that that's how a lot of people listen to shows. They're doing something else, they're doing their chores, they're cooking, whatever, they're half listening.

(11:54):

And so I put myself in that state when I'm doing stuff like that and not just reviewing work, but even when I'm writing something. Sometimes I'll go on a walk and I'll just start talking about the thing, to myself. I do this all the time. People in my neighborhood probably think I'm insane, but I just feel like when I'm not looking at screens and when I'm moving my body and I'm creating a separate space, you start free-associating. It's almost like meditating. People talk about if you just focus on your breath and you let your mind wander, but you always come back to your breath, you really start unlocking the neuroplasticity in your mind and you're able to think in ways that are beneficial to you throughout the day even just doing that small practice in the morning.

(12:35):

And so I feel the same way. When I'm able to let my mind wander and look at the trees and hear the birds and not be bombarded by inputs, I am able to get to that place where I'm free-associating, I'm thinking about something in a freer more open way, and that's where the good ideas come from. People talk about it too. It's like in the shower. You have your best ideas in the shower because you're not actually working. You're relaxing, you're enjoying yourself, and things come to you. So I always try to leave space for myself whenever I am doing highly creative stuff to get into that head space, and being bored is a part of it. Sometimes it's just about taking a walk and forgetting what's going on.

(13:18):

And then deadlines always help because at a certain point, it's go time and you've got to get stuff down on paper. And so I'll set deadlines for myself, even if there's not deadlines, because it's the only way that I'll get things done. And there's a great book called Atomic Habits, which I encourage everyone to read, and it talks about goals are great, but if you don't have a system to get there, you're never going to get there. And so a lot of what I do is just about systems.

(13:45):

And so if I've got a deadline on a project, if I don't have a system, then I'm just going to wait until two hours before it, then I'm going to scramble to do it, and it's not going to be anywhere near as good as it can. But if I have a system for the writing of it, for the recording of it, for the editing of it, and I'm like I have a specific time that I'm doing all those things, then it will happen over time. So it's really, really about building systems and having a deadline that help those two things come together.

Kendell Kelton (14:17):

Okay, so now walk me through some of the tools you use on the daily. So I know you use Descript and then I think you, is it Auphonic?

Matt Stillo  (14:24):

Auphonic, yeah.

Kendell Kelton (14:27):

So tell folks about some of those tools because then we'll link them in the show notes too.

Matt Stillo  (14:32):

Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to talk about Descript. So, and this all came through that project that I was talking about where we used all these AI tools to create the show. Basically through doing that, we found a lot of great tools like Descript. And Descript is, I'm sure a lot of people know it because you can pop a recording in there, it'll auto-transcript. Gone are the days of transcribing anything. It doesn't get all the way there, but it gets 95% of the way there. It's great to just be able to... And for people who think about audio like I do, like a story, it's really great to just see it down on paper because you can understand larger chunks of audio than when you are just listening to it linearly. So that's a great one.

(15:14):

And they also have this tool called Underlord, which allows you to summarize and create auto show notes. It'll find clips for you. You can work with video. You can edit audio like a Word document. I mean, it's just really, really amazing. It's a great entry point for people too, for people who aren't used to working in a digital audio workstation like Pro Tools or Adobe Audition.

(15:36):

But another tool that we found through doing this is Auphonic. And Auphonic has been around for a long time, so I don't know why it took so long for us to find them. But basically they have these algorithms that can isolate and remove noise and reverb from audio files. We don't do anything until we run it through Auphonic because it's just their algorithms are just so good at isolating noise and isolating reverb and improving the quality. I've recorded stuff where people, they don't have headphones, they don't have a microphone, all they have is their laptop and I'm amazed, truly mind blown at the way that it's able to isolate the voice, isolate everything else, and remove them, separate them from each other.

(16:24):

So we do that and then we load everything into Descript, and that puts editing in the hands of producers. If you've got an editor and a producer team typically, now you can meld. Our producers now are doing a lot of editing in Descript, which has freed up our post team and allow them to be a little bit more creative, and so we can get to this final product together before we will export an AIF from Descript into Pro Tools, and that's where we'll do all the bigger sound design and music cues and stuff, but it's a vital, vital part of our time now.

(16:59):

So I would say that those are the two main tools, new tools just in the last year that we've really incorporated into our day-to-day workflow.

Kendell Kelton (17:08):

I think it's really also very interesting, going back to the experiment that y'all run and how that helped influence your current workflow. And it's a testament to this idea of it can be a tool and it could help you work better and smarter, but you still have to understand the tool and you can't let it create necessarily for you, right?

Matt Stillo  (17:27):

Yeah, and another plus to just exploring and doing new things. I think we were all a little daunted by that project, but so much good came out of it. And I think any kind of experimentation you're doing or any time you're giving yourself to experiment, just like being bored, just like letting your mind wander can always yield really, really good results. And I wish that more companies allowed for more time, especially for creatives, more time to get lost and get bored and to get creative.

Kendell Kelton (18:00):

All right, Matt. You created a podcast during the pandemic that landed on Apple's New and Noteworthy List. Tell me about No F*cking Way.

Matt Stillo  (18:12):

I'm just so proud of that show. I'm so happy of how it came about. I mean, who didn't start a podcast in the pandemic, but basically I was working with James Foster who we now, we used to work together. We now work together at iHeart, and we've been friends for a very long time, and we were both in between jobs and trying to figure out the next thing, and we just wanted a way to work together and a way to do fun things. And so we came together and we were like, we should do something. We both went away and thought about different kinds of things that would work well for the audio medium. And a lot of what we were talking about is how we felt as sound designers there was a really big opportunity in podcasting because, like I said, podcasting is a low lift. Anyone with a computer and a dream can make one.

(19:02):

But what we weren't seeing was a lot of really, really highly produced almost movie-like audio experiences in podcasting. And so we felt that we had the tools and the storytelling chops to do that. And so really it all started with I was at a bachelor party and a friend of mine was telling me the story of how he was performing on a cruise ship, and he basically, they were docked in Hawaii, and he went to this beach, and he took a couple of drugs that he wasn't really sure about how effective they would be, and it led into this romp around the island. And he left his phone and he had to go back to the ship in order to perform that evening because he was an actor on the ship. Anyway, hilarity ensues. He gets in a fight with the immigration officers on the ship, and he goes to the hospital and his boss had to come get him from the hospital.

(19:58):

And the whole evening became him telling the story, and we were all wrapped and listening to it. And I remember thinking after that, if I got Keith to say all of that into a microphone, to tell that story, I could then create the sonic world around that story as it was happening, and it could actually be a pretty compelling podcast.

(20:20):

We all have these insane stories, and if we can infuse them with as much tension and drama and storytelling as possible, we could have a really, really great show. And so that's what led to the idea of No F*cking Way where if you, I think what do we say, it's one part campfire story, one part immersive audio experience. And so we found a lot of, just through friends of friends, we found a lot of really great stories.

(20:46):

You talked about the "Missing in Mexico" episode, essentially a friend of a friend, yeah, went to Mexico, they got in an altercation. Her boyfriend got in an altercation with some locals. They hit him over the head. They threw him on the back of a motorcycle. They kidnapped him. And so she went to the US Embassy. They said, "You need a police report." She went to the police. They laughed her out of the building. And so she just realized, I have to save him, and it's an insane story, but over the course of this evening, she ends up finding him and he ends up escaping, and it's just an incredible story of how this one woman did all of this stuff.

(21:28):

And it's a two-part episode, "Missing in Mexico." Go listen to it. The show got a lot of traction. And so it's been an interesting ride, that show. I wish that we did it more often. James and I subsequently were hired by iHeartRadio and our jobs are pretty intense, and so we haven't had time to do it in the last year and a half. I think if we've got some more time in the future, we definitely will.

Kendell Kelton (21:54):

But I will say the episodes that I did listen to, which included the "Missing in Mexico" ones, the sound effects and the music and the crunching of things under your feet as you're going, and the slamming of doors and all of the things, it was a really fun way to listen to a podcast. I want to dig into the process of making that type of episode, like choosing the music and the scoring and how, I don't think people just realize how much of a skill that is.

Matt Stillo  (22:27):

Yeah, it's a whole skill. If you're doing some sound design, and you're sound designing a beach, you could get a simple recording of someone on the beach. But a lot of those are really, really hissy in the high-end and actually just sounds like noise. It doesn't necessarily sound like water or seagulls or sand. And so I think a lot of going about creating sound design or even selecting sound design from libraries or creating music or selecting music from libraries really just depends on specificity and understanding the tone of the moment, understanding what point of the story that you're in and what you're trying to do with each moment.

(23:07):

The way that our process works is we'll record the episode, which is a straightforward interview, and typically it'll be about an hour long. And then we'll do a heavy, heavy story edit where we really think about the introduction to the show, the rising tension, the building conflict. We'll identify some serious points of, especially sound design, because when you don't have the visuals, it's really, really important to isolate what moments are going to be really sound-heavy.

(23:39):

And so it was difficult to find people for the show because a lot of what we were looking for in stories is movement, where you were in the car and you went here or you ran over there or in stories that unfold in a big, long journey. It's almost like every story has to be a road trip story.

(23:57):

We had some episodes where people told us about, oh, this thing happened, but there were in a bar all night and there wasn't really any movement or rising or falling action. It was all just a funny story that took place at a bar, and we ended up not doing it because it was a great story, but it didn't really move anywhere. And because it didn't really move anywhere, there wasn't any way to tell it through sound.

(24:15):

So it became very difficult also to find stories that were appropriate for the genre because there needed to be a lot of sound and movement and different landscapes involved. And so stories where people were getting in cars or driving here or running through this kind of environment or walking through that kind of environment, and then getting into this house and going underground, getting in the elevator because you could hear the gates closing and the elevator turning on, and there's so much more that you can do. We really needed a really big palette to paint sound with for those shows.

(24:47):

And so once we really had those moments isolated of he gets hit by the gun and thrown on the motorcycle here, that's a big moment. He wakes up in the room where the dog is biting his leg. That's a big moment. He's able to escape and run into a bush. We could hear all that stuff. And so once we got that edited down to the most compelling 30 minutes, that's where we start finding all those beats through music. Typically, the stories open with, oh, we were going to Mexico and it was beautiful, and what is the vibe of getting on a plane and starting an exciting journey? And then moments where it starts getting a little bit more ominous, like what's going to happen? We're not quite sure. They get split up when they're going to this parade.

(25:35):

And a lot of it is obviously them being in Mexico, we wanted to use Mexican artists and Mexican music to really build the world of that place that they were in. We wanted to use different audio libraries to get the sense that they were in this crowd of people, that there's this parade happening, that there are fireworks shooting all around them. It's not necessarily, I mean, it's obviously something you think about in a visual medium, but everything becomes so much more important. Every detail becomes important to consider when you only have the audio.

(26:13):

So once we get through the entire music pass, that's where we start filling in the sound. And basically we're typically going from environment A to environment B to environment C, and so we have all these ambience layers that we're layering in to indicate different movements from this kind of environment to that kind of environment.

(26:32):

And then you really hit your big ticket items, which is the moment where he gets hit on the head and thrown on the motorcycle. And we'll use different libraries. But we'll also use, we all have microphones and recorders, and so we'll go out into the world and things that are very specific, we'll actually record those things and layer them in on top of everything, and so our sessions really get really big.

(26:56):

And one of the most difficult things about it is it's easy to produce a podcast where two people are talking and there's no music. But when you start getting into a heavy edit, a heavy music pass, a heavy sound design, it expands because you're coming back to every single moment again and again and again and trying to get it right and using different automations for the people who are on the phone. And anyway, so it can get unwieldy, but it's also really, really exciting and fun, and it's when you take care and craft of every single moment in a story, that's where something really special can happen.

Kendell Kelton (27:34):

I think I'm going to leave it there because you have done such a wonderful job articulating just the power of sound and encouraging folks to be brave and lean into that uncomfortable space by putting yourself out there, so I really appreciate it. I think folks are going to really enjoy hearing everything you had to say, so thank you so much for joining us.

Matt Stillo  (27:57):

Of course. No, thank you so much for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Kendell Kelton (27:59):

And so before we go, can you please let folks know where they may be able to find you or your work?

Matt Stillo  (28:06):

Yeah, you can find out more about what our team at Ruby is doing at ruby.iheart.com, and you can find out more about me and the things that I do on my LinkedIn page, which just search for my name, Matt Stillo .

Kendell Kelton (28:22):

And we'll also link to No F*cking Way.

Matt Stillo  (28:26):

Oh yes, and No F*cking Way on all the podcast platforms.

Kendell Kelton (28:29):

Well, that's it for today's episode of The Rough Draft. To learn more about our guest and to find links and resources related to the conversation, check out rev.com/podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to rate and subscribe in order to stay up to date with the latest episodes. Thank you for listening, and we look forward to seeing you again on the next episode of The Rough Draft.