Rick and Paul of 'Rick and Paul Heal the World'

What is your creative mission?

Rick – Aha. A tricky start. I’m not sure how I can convince you that the aim of setting up a podcast that no-one requested and features me talking 50% of the time is to enable a fun time for all whilst avoiding all semblance of self-indulgence. So I won’t. Instead the mission is to improve our show each and every week. Better sound quality, better pace, better rapport. The moment that stops I’ll hang up my headphones and enter myself into the international yodelling championships. There’s a clear creative mission there. Be the best yodeller.

Paul – Could we do an episode where we heal yodelling? Too specific?

What do you love about what you do?

Paul – Love is such a strong word; I love staring into Rick’s eyes each week, but I’m not in love with his peepers. I do rather enjoy the challenge of coming up with new ideas for the show. I particularly like to nervously deploy a particularly weird idea during recording and watching the dawn of realisation wash over Rick’s face, will it make the edit? Yes, if I do the editing. Getting great feedback about our podcast really makes it all worthwhile too. It’s great to have a vocal and engaged listener-ship, especially when they don’t vote for Rick’s idea. That; I’m in love with.

Rick – I love the yodelling. I’ve decided. I’m in it for the long haul.

What have you learned from your successes/ failures?

Rick – I suppose for us, we first have to define what successes and failures are. The only way we’ve really found a of measuring where our pendulum is a’swinging is to look at the growth or reduction of listeners from episode to episode. At the moment we’re in the midst of some exponential growth, like a dinghy on a wave machine in the baby pool. If our trust vessel plummets then we may well have had a weaker show. We’ll analyse it and try to discuss possible points of failure. Oh, and if I’m walking home after recording and everyone I see wafts at me with palm leaves, that’s a success too. What do I learn from that? Well my friend, it’s time to start selling t-shirts and embrace the filthy lucre.

Paul – Luckily we get some great feedback from people through Twitter and that helps steer our ship. Getting the audience involved early on really helped shape our show, long may our dinghy remain audibly buoyant.

How do you keep pushing ahead after a difficult challenge?

Paul – Wow, this is like a job interview! Did I mention I work well as part of a team? We often record, edit and publish our podcasts on the same day, and that’s a big challenge. How do we do it? We both just really want the same things, children, a puppy, and a high quality podcast, so that gets us through. We’re pretty ruthless about editing our podcast; we endeavour to keep the finest of golden tones for your ears. We’re constantly looking at our podcast and trying to figure out what we can do better, so it’s more of a wibbly-wobbly play-doh process, rather that facing a big challenge wall, perhaps we should take some more risks. Rick; make a note, we should do an episode under water.

Rick – A commitment to each other too perhaps. Sorry to go all woolly and make the ‘goo goo eyes’, but when I write stuff (in my other life) my commitment is often only to myself. Here I know part of my role is to keep Paul’s spirits up as I lisp my way into a microphone and he certainly does the same for me.

Have you ever encountered resistance from family, friends, or the world in general? How did you overcome those kinds of blocks?

Rick – Recording a show every week is a bit of a commitment. To strip it down to its nuts and bolts. I’m an adult. Regardless of what adult business I have to take care of at home or work, I need to head out once a week and talk to my chum with an unspoken arrogance of assumption that other adults may choose to listen. Friends and family, as friends and family are wont to do, do occasionally point this out. But they have to understand that a) it’s not hubris and b) I OWE IT TO THE WORLD.

Paul – When other commitments come up we make it all fit. We haven’t missed a week yet, and I’m very proud of that.

How has your art and creativity healed you?

Paul – Hey now, wait a minute…Who is healing who here? ‘Art’, I don’t think anyone has described our podcast as art, but we healed art in episode #20, so it’s unlikely we have the art critics vote piece of cake. But yes, we have to get creative and I’d say that having an opportunity to vent the often ridiculous items that lay in wait in my head, then recorded for all time, deployed to the internet; that”s like therapy. Wow, we’re healing ourselves!

Rick – In so many facets of the day to day, most of us dance to the tune of others. This outlet allows us to hum our own tune. And yodel. Potentially.

What are your NFA Bullet points? What steps would you recommend for anyone who wants to kick some ass and get their creative dreams off the ground?

Rick – Forget the artsy fartsy “I want to put a lobster on a telephone” notion. At least forget it until you’ve decided you’ve at least got the energy to try and complete it. You may have to get to the lobster pots yourself. Dressed as a crab. Doing the luring dance of crustacean temptation. If you’re willing to put them claws in your personal contract then boom. You’re away.

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