The Art & Science of Becoming a Great Podcast Host with Gary Scott Thomas

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Being a podcast or radio show host involves honing your skills as an interviewer. There are things successful hosts do differently than the average ones. I discuss some of those things, along with pitfalls to avoid, in this episode with my guest, Gary Scott Thomas.

Gary found radio at thirteen and never looked back. Thirty years later, he is the morning voice of Silicon Valley on KRTY-FM in San Jose, one of America’s most influential country radio stations. He has interviewed everyone from Garth Brooks to Jelly Roll, Walker Hayes to Charley Pride, Hall of Fame athletes to Pulitzer Prize winners.

The names are impressive. That was never the point. The point is what happens in those conversations, and what his audience feels when they listen.

We dive into topics including:

The importance of being genuinely curious about and interested in your guests.

How Gary prepares energetically for interviews before he even meets his guests.
Where a great interview starts and how to successfully start one.
The importance of staying focused on your guest and not your own opinions and thoughts.
Why it pays to be a great listener first as an interviewer.
How to know how far to go down a guest “rabbit hole” of information and when to move on.
How to avoid negative conversations or get out of them so as not to kill the positive, uplifting energy in an interview.
How to uncover conversational paths during an interview that your guests are excited to go down with you.
The difference between open-ended questions and specific, targeted questions and what you can expect from each of them.
How to start winding down your interviews without killing the energy of the interview.
The one thing, above all else, you need to do to successfully embrace the art and science of interviewing.

…and other golden nuggets of advice!

The Key to Success Starts with Genuine and Unbridled Curiosity

Gary believes that everyone has a story to share and most people don’t realize it. It’s your job as a host to bring those stories out of people and then amplify their stories in your interviews.

People often don’t realize it because it’s your story, you lived it. It seems too commonplace to many people because they’re too close to their own stories. Rarely do they see the specialness that we are. All of us have a special thing about us, a special moment, that if you just take the time to be a part of you’ll find something special there. Gary has always found the stories of what people do and take for granted and, he’s learned to pull those stories out.

Whatever’s going on with you today, whatever’s happening in your life, Gary finds it fascinating. He can’t tell you how many mind-blowing stories he’s heard just because he took the time with interviewing not just about day to day life, but because he took the time to pause and say “…and then what?” To go deeper.

Gary does that to let people discover their own greatness. Because that’s what you’re doing when you’re really sharing a story. When you’re sharing your story with someone else because, Gary doesn’t think any of us want to be seen as that ego maniac that just talks about ourselves all the time, and there’s a distinction on that. But on the other hand, all of us have gone through something awesome, hard, interesting and so on, and that makes for a fascinating story.

Where Does a Great Interview Start?

When you have a guest it all starts with the initial interactions. There’s no wasted space. There’s no wasted seconds. It all starts from the moment you initially engage, even if it’s through email. Gary tries to let people know, he’s excited, he’s thrilled. He’s looking forward to it. He can’t wait.

Gary believes that a great interview starts with the greeting right before you go live or hit “record”. When somebody steps into Gary’s studio virtually or in person Gary always tries to make them feel that he’s excited that they’re there for an interview. That changes the tone.

He can’t tell you how many people would say, especially in radio, you had a lot of guests who were trying to be “too cool for the room”. So, when a big-name star comes in, Gary’s not gushing, but he’s going to let them know he’s so glad they’re there. Even starting with a simple “What’s going on, man? How are you today?” with genuine enthusiasm goes a long way.

And that changes everything from the moment you meet someone, how you interact with them from that moment on. When they feel like you are excited to talk to them, if they feel like you are again, using that word, invested in the conversation you’re about to have you’re probably in for a great interview that day.

What Does a Successful Podcast Interview Look and Sound Like?

Gary has a weird way of preparing for interviews because as a host sometimes you deal with publicists and staff and they want to know what you’re going to ask in your interview. Gary will do a lot of research before his guests get into his studio. He will know a lot about them; but he has no questions prepared because they’re just going to have a conversation.

If you went to a dinner party, you wouldn’t go with a list of questions to ask people. Now; that’s not besmirching anybody’s style of doing it. The famous interviewer, David Frost, would come up with his line of questions and they would go down that list of questions, and it was fascinating.

But for Gary, what he does is have a conversation and when something comes up that he finds relevant that he knows from his research then he asks an open-ended question to drive the conversation forward. That’s where the research comes in. That’s where the research comes in that leads guests to tell Gary more about the story at hand during the interview.

For Gary, the way he does it is by looking for those conversational rabbit holes and he looks for guest oriented conversational rabbit holes. When they lead somewhere and the guest gets really excited, that’s what you want when you’re an exceptional interviewer. Gary doesn’t want to lead them down his rabbit holes; he wants the interview to stay focused on the guest.

And that’s just the beginning of the story!

Watch or listen to this episode for the rest of the story and more golden nuggets of advice!

You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”

About My Guest

Gary Scott Thomas learned to read people early. His father came home from World War Two a decorated veteran and a broken man. The horrors of war took something from him that he never recovered. That left a woman to raise five children alone, and she did it with a strength of character that found its way into every single one of them. That upbringing gave Gary something no broadcast school can teach. The ability to truly listen. To find the humanity in people at their best and at their worst. To sit across from someone, a country superstar, a Silicon Valley CEO, a pastor in crisis, and make them feel genuinely heard, sometimes more deeply than they expected.

He found radio at thirteen and never looked back. Thirty years later, he is the morning voice of Silicon Valley on KRTY-FM in San Jose, one of America’s most influential country radio stations. He has interviewed everyone from Garth Brooks to Jelly Roll, Walker Hayes to Charley Pride, Hall of Fame athletes to Pulitzer Prize winners. The names are impressive. That was never the point. The point is what happens in those conversations, and what his audience feels when they listen.

Gary is the creator of Look Forward, a philosophy rooted in the belief that the happiest and most successful people always have something they are looking forward to, and that leaders who give their teams something to look forward to unlock something powerful in the people around them.