INTERVIEW: The Podcast Overlord team sat down with Adam Murciano to talk about his podcast, "Cascadia", which is under the 911 Podcasts banner.


OS: Good afternoon, Adam. Tell us, what makes your Podcast unique?

AM: It's a fictional, immersive adventure. Listen with headphones and get ready for the ride of your life to the bottom of the ocean!

So, how long have you been at this?

We've been working on Cascadia since Christmas last year. The concept just hit me and my friend Hanna Christmas morning and I started writing it the next day.

Are you able/hoping to do this full time?

Yes! Cascadia is our first project under 911 Podcasts, a production company I founded. We have begun work on other shows that will go into production early 2022!

Give us a memorable moment you can share.

There are so many great memories, but one SCARY one was after our first day of recording I came home from the studio, plugged my hard drive into my computer to review the takes from the day and saw there was NOTHING on there. I thought 8 long hours in the studio was all gone to waste! I called my director Antonio almost in tears thinking nothing got recorded. He told me to calm down and that the studio's engineer most likely has it saved. So when we went to the studio the following day to continue recording episode 1, I remember arriving late to the studio and the cast all sitting there telling me that the takes from day 1 weren't saved...but I saw right through them instantly and knew they were pranking me LOL! Thank god our engineer saves everything!

That's a heart dropping moment, though. What was it like working with the cast?

SO fun! We recorded episode 1 and 2 remotely. Everyone recorded from their own space over zoom. However, when I started editing, it didn't sound right. Everyone had different background noises and ambiances and it just didn't feel like we were in the same room...because we weren't. So I scratched everything and decided to take everyone into a studio and record live, in real time, together. Best decision ever because we got to feed off each other's energy and work together as a collaborative effort. We would talk about the characters, scenes and make changes to the script along with improv'ing! It was so fun and magical.

It's amazing what people can do when they connect like that. Have you had any good/bad/ridiculous feedback?

So far the feedback has been awesome! I'm so happy people like it. Although...I do love hate mail ;) makes me laugh.

If you like, we can send you some nasty comments. Lol. What happened in your life that transformed you from a Podcast listener to a Podcast creator?

I've always been fascinated by fictional podcasts. In 2015, I discovered my first one - 'Tanis' and 'Black Tape Project' and always wanted to make my own...flash-forward to 2020, when the pandemic hit, I felt creatively frustrated and needed to put that energy somewhere so I decided to take the leap and start my own show. I went to college for sound design and engineering so I figured why not put my skills to the test! I'm so happy I did. This project made the last year fly by.

Oh, yeah. I loved the "Black Tape Project". That was super fun. I can imagine the writing sessions for that show must have been pretty interesting. What was the writing process like for you?

HARD! This was my first ever project I wrote, so navigating through the series was tough, but we would have so many breakthrough moments where the show would literally just write itself. I can't give away any spoilers but the show has so many plot twists in the upcoming episodes that really just happened in the moment while writing or in the studio. It was really cool to watch it all unfold.

Nice. We all can't wait to see how this turns out. Based on the first two episodes, Declan seems to be a problem. Will he continue to cause chaos for the rest of the series?

You'll have to listen and find out ;)

Fair enough. But maybe answer this. Holden and Declan have an intense power struggle in the first two episodes, was that fun to perform?

The most fun ever. Lee J. Poichuk, who plays Holden, is one of my good friends in real life so to perform those scenes with him was truly a joy. He really is so talented.

This is also probably something you can't talk about, but I'm going to ask anyway. Can we expect in Episode 3? Is Declan Dead?

**SPOILER** We left off episode 2 with Declan being attacked by a mysterious giant sea creature, however episode 3 is from the crew's POV of the attack and their reactions. It was really fun to do it this way and the other actors in this episode are KICK-ASS! Some of the best acting I've witnessed in a long time.

Very cool. Congrats, by the way, you just hit #1 on the Sci-Fi charts! Have you begun working on season 2?

Thank you!!! We have not started Season 2 yet, no. But we have a lot of ideas of where the story will go...once again, it's nothing like what you'd expect.

One last question: Do you believe in another life under the sea?

I do. We have only discovered about 5% of the ocean - There must be more than just sea animals and fish...

Final thoughts: Is there anything you'd like to tell the world right now? (Such as links/webpages/etc)

Thank you so much to everyone who listened to our first two episodes! We air every Wednesday in pretty much every podcast store! You can find all our directories here: https://linktr.ee/911podcasts


Adam on Twitter: @AdamMurciano
Interview: @pcast_ol