What is the sound of VICE?
Producer Sam Bonham writes... When Matt mentioned to me that he was talking to VICE UK about making a podcast, I knew I wanted to be involved.
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Hosted by staffer Sam Wolfson, the VICE UK Podcast covers politics, music and relationships. Tbh, the weekly programme aims to have the same scope as the rest of the brand. Whether it’s how much TV was watched by teachers over the summer holidays, the way in which Labour Party activists felt like they’d been pushed out of their own party, or the music industry’s inability to break new musicians; we try to answer two questions, both of which pretty much epitomize VICE UK:
1) is this bullshit?
2) how does this make me feel?
The most production-heavy part of the podcast is the middle section. This is mostly voiced up by someone working at VICE and consists of a pre-recorded piece with interviews, archive and music. In many ways, we’re still trying to figure out what the VICE UK “sound” is. It’s not BBC Radio 4 and it’s not This American Life. Maybe it’s somewhere in between? Maybe. Anyway, it’s certainly looser than both; it’s younger, it’s got more fire, more "FFS".
Then there’s the guest – this is often the most difficult bit to set up (again, something we're working on). Over the past couple of months we’ve spoken to Olympic gold medallist Giselle Ansley, music superstar MIA and even come face-to-face with some of the online contributors who criticise VICE Magazine “below the line”.
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Sam understands the kinds of things VICE UK listeners want to know and is spot on with his questioning. Actually, everyone at VICE has been a pleasure to work with: professional, constructive with their crit and always fun!
I've always found it a pleasure designing a new formatted programme from scratch. It's incredibly exciting. We try something, we pivot, and then we try something else. There's still plenty of things I want to do. More engagement. Some investigative stuff. And also an international story or two.
Series two kicks off in a couple of weeks and we've got some great things lined up, I'm currently talking to a smuggler in Turkey!
The VICE UK podcast is a Rethink Audio production, produced by Sam Bonham, for VICE Media. You can listen to series one here.