Roll of the Dice: 6 questions with Peter Tanski and Nathaniel Shannon of the Shadowtalker Podcast

Taking its name from the Ink & Dagger banger, the Shadowtalker Podcast has started to become a top notch podcast within the punk scene that isn’t necessarily a punk podcast. Discussing personal encounters of UAPs and paranormality with members of Ministry, Coalesce,The Locust and more… and that’s just the first 5 episodes! TGEFM was able to have a close encounter with show hosts Peter Tanski and Nathaniel Shannon for our latest Roll of the Dice Interview

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Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats on the early success of Shadowtalker!  What can you tell us about the show, how you two came together and your goals for the pod?

Peter–  Thank you so much for thinking of us! We appreciate it! The premise for the show was born of our (Nathaniel and I) coming together on my other podcast, The Book of Very Very Bad Things. He had recently published his book about the former, legendary Saint Vitus Bar. As we are both preoccupied with the Unexplained AND Music equally, our conversation naturally led to talk of such things. 
I had a thinly drawn plot to meld the Paranormal and Punk/Metal in an interview format that is still in the pipeline. Nathaniel had similar pre-existing ideas. Our conversation served as a catalyst for our unholy union: A show dedicated to speaking with artists that create music we love and respect who just so happen to have had experiences with the Unexplained, Paranormal, Otherworldly, etc. 
Our goals at the moment include branching out into video format, opening minds the the possibility of the ethereal and extraterrestrial, and creating a safe and accepting venue for honest discourse.
Nathaniel- Thanks! So far – we are pretty happy with the result of ruminating on our past experiences and meeting new friends along the way. Peter and I were set up via Damien Moyal as I was doing press for my most recent book, SAINT VITUS BAR: THE FIRST TEN YEARS, AN ORAL AND VISUAL history, and Peter had me on his podcast. What was going to be an hour or two conversation turned into us talking for about 4 or 5 hours. We quickly realized there was a lot in common we shared beyond being fans of similar music. 

I hear that your bond was strengthened over a shared fandom of Art Bell.  I, personally, didn’t discover him until I became obsessed with George Noury on Ancient Aliens.  When and how did you first get into Coast to Coast?

Peter– My love for Coast To Coast and Sightings was sparked by my father. He and I would watch the Leonard Nimoy show “In Search Of” when I was a young lad. He discovered Art Bell when his format switched to the unexplained and we began carrying a small transistor radio to monitor weather and listen to Art on our frequent camping and fishing trips. It was a common thread that stitched together a rather embattled relationship. It struck chords for us both specifically due to the strange goings on in our family home.
Nathaniel– That was not only something we bonded over, but throughout the last 25 years or so, Ive found more often than not, if someone is an Art Bell fan, then they will probably become a friend. It’s also just fun to dissect the show, discuss favorite episodes, time and place of how they resonated with you when you heard them, etc. There is a common shared experience with long time fans and how the show impacted us in the 90s and beyond. I discovered Coast 2 Coast in the late 90s, when we had our first home computer. I believe it was a gateway 2000….and as soon as I dialed up the internet the first time I ran straight to the UFO / Paranormal section of the web, which was still very much in its infancy for streamlined information. I immediately found some message boards discussing Coast 2 Coast and found that his show was broadcast on a local Michigan AM station where I grew up, so I started tuning in as much as I could. 

What experiences have you personally had with the paranormal?

Peter– As I’d prefaced in my previous answer, I have had a literal lifetime of experiences, beginning with my pre-Kindergarten years. My first memory of life is of a shadow figure. The entire family, after having relocated to another home in the same neighborhood (Avoca, Pennsylvania) experienced events of increasing intensity over a 10 year period. After leaving that home, the subsequent owner lasted approximately 8 months and sold. Ultimately, our neighbors on either side purchased the property, raised the home, and made it a parking lot!
Nathaniel– The house I lived in as a child was supposedly haunted, though only my mother really had any experiences outside of questions my sanity of turning lights and off, noises as the house settled…but nothing I would ever express as “experiences” –  but people in our neighborhood told us stories, and other people my parents me along the way of my youth who all knew a handful of the same stories told by previous inhabitants of the property. I think that definitely sparked an interest in me at a young age of the urgency to digest as much of that myth or anything else I could get my ears in proxiety of and fell in love with the lore of trying to explain the unexplained. I had an apartment in Brooklyn many years ago that I lived in with an exgirlfriend – who we had some strange encounters with a mirror jumping off a wall (nail and fastener on the back was still in tact) – and objects being moved about (an entire drawer full of silverware dumped on the kitchen floor with no noise, and the drawer still in place rolled into a cabinet) and a handful of other unexplained things that could have been the result of peak stress between two humans trying to survive in the world.

Beyond the podcast, you have some time within the scene, choosing Ink and Dagger to help name the show. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should? What podcasts would you recommend to our readers?

Peter– Insofar as bands that should be on your readership’s radar, Burial Clouds is making a major dent for me. Of course, vocalist Michael Malarkey (the Vampire Diaries, Project Blue Book) is a compatriot of mine, but their brand of post-rock informed Doom Core hits all of my sweet spots. Aside from my other podcast which deals with mental health and addiction within the music sphere, I really dig Bloody Disgusting’s Boo Crew Podcast, and Enough, a podcast that deals with sexual impropriety and a dudes within music culture.
Nathaniel– The Arned – old friends from my hometown area of Detroit, MI, who are doing radical things with the use of cult based marketing to collage and create a new medium of audio and visual representation by blurring the lines of band and fan.  
Morta Skuld – classic old school midwest death metal whos Dying Remains album is a classic. 
Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult – classic german black metal featuring Yvonne Wilczynska on vocals, whose vocals are punishing. I’m excited to see bands like this influencing younger female musicians to explore extreme music, and not just boring ass white dudes screaming about evil shit all the time. 
Jazz is dead – the entire label featuring Adrian Younge and Ali Saheed Muhammed (a tribe called quest) who have curated the greatest collection of the whos who of jazz legends that are still alive – recording albums with them all. 

Now that the world has gotten a taste of paranormal and punk,  what’s next for Shadowtalker?  Who are you most hopeful to have share some experiences with you?

Nathaniel– I don’t know that I personally have any future plans for the podcast as it’s just a really refreshing block of a few hours every week I get to sit aside and escape from the world and share in storytelling, meeting great new people, reconnecting with old friends, or making new ones, which regardless of belief in the paranormal or not, this shit is way more fun to talk about than politics, the weather, aging, how lars ruined metallica or anyone’s opinions spit as facts. With all of these topics we make fun of because…at the end of the day, who gives a shit? Let’s talk about ghosts and fun stuff. Not everything has to be formulaic or have some grandiose meaning or agenda. Sometimes it’s just fun to talk about, or listen to people (especially artists you respect) talk about anything BUT their art. I dont have any hopes really, I think that the universe will present itself with guests as it’s meant to, or we can be that dark street that you want to finally walk down if you’ve never told your story publicly before, because you can see how interested in the guests we are, and that this isnt about sensationalism, but friendship and late night in the van tour companionship. 
Peter– We have been garnering interest across genres and cultures. My hope is to open the playing field beyond Punk/Hardcore/Metal/Post-Punk  into Hip Hop and beyond. I have aspirations of including our listenership, authors, filmmakers…Artists of all stripes. We are intent upon creating a quality experience for the listener as well as the guest, and place a premium upon conducting the show responsibly, respectfully, and with empathy. 
That said, Director Mike Flanagan, get in touch! I have a feeling you’ve seen things!

What do you wish I asked about or that you had more of an opportunity to speak about during this interview?

Peter– For a brief foray, I found it to be succinct and all encompassing. The crux and impetus of this show if my bond with Nathaniel, who I love creating with and simply being friends with. That’s the story of the show, at its heart… it’s 2 men becoming friends in real time under the guise of interviewing cool bands about ghosts and aliens.

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Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.