Does the world really need another podcast?

My name is Matthew and I am a middle aged man with a podcast. 

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Did the world need another podcast, like the one I’ve released where I travel to Scotland’s neolithic sites by bike? Why did I decide to add to the sonic landfill of middle aged men indulging their hobbies?

Well the purely practical reason is that, by chance, I have the things you need: editorial skills and audio production skills. 

I began my working life as a newspaper reporter and still head a team of journalists producing daily news and analysis, albeit in not in newspapers any more.

And, bored at work 20 years ago and after years of playing in bands of varying quality, I took myself off to a recording studio to learn how to record and produce music in a studio environment. I’ve dabbled ever since in little bits of my own music (I made all the music you hear in Stone Me), and I’ve been producing podcasts at my day job since 2006.

I was idly thinking one day last year: what would my dream job be? This is something I’ve thought about surprisingly little, having always enjoyed the jobs I had. But I gave it some thought and decided I would love to go around making esoteric little half hour radio programmes about things I was interested in and probably not many other people were. But who on earth would hire me to do that? Nobody, surely.

It was a few days before I realised - I didn’t have to wait around for a radio station to ask me. Podcasts exist - I could just do it myself. 

It didn’t take me long to figure out that I could combine my love of bikepacking with a growing interest in neolithic Scotland by travelling to these amazing places and trying to piece together their stories, with some expert help. 

Many podcasts are just lightly-edited open microphones where people shoot the breeze to a loose structure, often at great length. 

That approach didn’t appeal. I love how good radio transports and envelopes you, immersing you in another world, taking you away from yourself completely in a world of noise, atmosphere and words. 

So that was my aim, to make something that I would want to listen to, to try to keep it short and concentrated (30 minutes is the aim) and to give the listener a little taste of the sights, smells and feelings I experienced on my amazing journeys.