What's The Reason For This Podcast

🎧 This week on What’s the Reason for This?, Kodi and Shay welcome the chaotic, brilliant, cello-slinging string sorcerers of High Horse into the dungeon and things go from bluegrass to banjo science to Narcan policy to glizzy marketing in about 12 minutes flat. 🪕🔥😂

Fresh off a high-energy Dungeon Session (yes, there was a cannon… no, they weren’t prepared), High Horse sits down to unpack how a band of Boston “massholes” with Colorado ties came together in grad school, built something wildly genre-bending, and decided to bet on themselves, no label safety net, no handbook, just vibes and unpaid labor. 📚➡️🚐➡️🎶

High Horse dives into: 🎻 Why adding a strap to a cello changes everything 🪕 The lineage from Rashad Eggleston to modern percussive string chaos 🎸 Growing up around the jam-band scene in Connecticut and old-school bluegrass traditions 🏆 Winning RockyGrass competitions (yes, multiple instruments… because of course) 🎨 Designing their own posters, merch, and album art in-house 📱 The brutal reality of being your own label, booking agent, content team, and social media department 💸 Paying to tour while building an audience in new markets like Colorado 🤝 Why the merch table conversations and community moments make the grind worth it

The band also opens up about how technology has shifted the music industry giving artists more control while demanding more labor than ever before. Being in a band today means rehearsing, writing, touring, filming, editing, booking, marketing, and somehow still finding time to actually practice. 🎥📧📈
And through all of it? Personality. Chaos. Humor. Deep musicianship. And a shared commitment to making music that doesn’t neatly fit a box. High Horse isn’t trying to replicate a genre they’re stitching together bluegrass roots, classical training, jam energy, and experimental textures into something that only makes sense once you see it live. ⚡🎶
The episode wraps with details on their Colorado run including Chautauqua Community House (with Joy Adams & Gus Trisch), New Terrain Brewing, Society Hall in Alamosa, Cottonwood Cottage in Greeley, and Avogadro’s Number with Silas Herman. Plus: a new EP Swim Before You Fly and a live record on the way. 🚐🏔️💿

At its core, this episode is about building something from scratch, embracing the chaos, and figuring out how to survive and thrive in the attention economy without losing the soul of the music.
🎧 Listen now wherever you get podcasts. And if you’re in Colorado this week go see High Horse live. Trust us.

🎧 This week on What’s the Reason for This?, Kodi sits down in the dungeon with Torrin Daniels of The Kitchen Dwellers for a powerful, wide-ranging conversation that blends music, identity, politics, mental health, and what it really means to not “shut up and sing” when the moment demands more. 🪕🔥🗣️
The episode centers around Torrin’s now-viral onstage speech at the Mission Ballroom during the Kitchen Dwellers’ Colorado run. Delivering the cherry on top moment at their biggest indoor headlining show to date. What began as a gut-level response to real-time events in Minnesota quickly became a defining moment, not just for the band, but for a scene grappling with fear, division, and silence. ⚠️🎤
Torrin opens up about: 🧠 Deciding earlier that day he needed to say something and being more nervous about speaking than performing 🔥 Why using the stage felt unavoidable given the political climate and recent shootings 📍 Being in Minnesota while chaos unfolded nearby and trying to create art under an “impending sense of doom” 🛑 Why “just shut up and sing” stops making sense when people around you are scared to exist ⚖️ Coming from a ranching, gun-owning background and rejecting the false binary of values vs empathy 🗣️ The responsibility artists carry when they’ve seen the country up close, coast to coast 🧩 Why this isn’t about partisanship it’s about recognizing danger when history starts repeating itself
From there, the conversation widens into who Torrin is beyond the speech. He talks candidly about growing up in Wyoming and Montana, his early love of drums before banjo, discovering punk, metal, reggae, and jam music, and how those influences shaped Kitchen Dwellers into the genre-blurring, “non-bluegrass bluegrass” band they are today. 🥁➡️🪕⚡
They dive deep into: 🎸 How metal, punk, and grunge techniques inform Torrin’s banjo style 🎶 Why the band records live together to preserve feel and honesty 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Evolving as bandmates choosing unity over blame through hard seasons 🧠 Advocacy for mental health and normalizing therapy in music culture 🌱 Reaching a place where the band no longer plays “first-date shows,” but fully trusts who they are.
The episode closes with a reminder that community is the antidote go to shows, buy tickets early, meet people, dance, sweat, argue, heal, and exist together. Because art only works when it’s honest, and silence only helps the wrong things grow. 🌈🤝🔥
🎧 Listen now wherever you get podcasts. This one is raw, thoughtful, challenging and a reminder that authenticity isn’t always comfortable, but it’s always necessary.

🎧 This week on What’s the Reason for This?, Kodi and Shay welcome David Weingarden, Vice President of Z2 Entertainment, into the dungeon (virtually) for one of the most important ticketing conversations we’ve ever had — breaking down the real forces behind ticket prices, scalpers, bots, and why fans keep getting screwed. 🎟️⚠️🔥
If you’ve ever been 19,000th in a virtual queue 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♀️📉, paid triple face value for a ticket 💸😤, or accidentally bought from a fake site that looked legit, this episode explains exactly why that’s happening and who benefits from the chaos.
Fresh off testifying at a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the proposed TICKET Act, David pulls back the curtain on the ticketing ecosystem from speculative ticketing and bot armies 🤖📈 to deceptive URLs, unchecked marketplaces, and the massive lobbying power protecting the status quo. This isn’t conspiracy talk it’s documented reality. 🧾⚖️
David breaks down: 🎟️ What speculative ticketing actually is and why it should be illegal 🤖 How bots scoop tickets instantly (sometimes from overseas IPs) 🧑‍⚖️ Why enforcement, not just laws, is the missing piece 🏛️ What really happened when Colorado tried (and failed) to pass strong ticket reform 💰 How scalpers outspent independent venues 75 to 4 in lobbyists 📢 Why marketplaces claim “we’re just the platform” and why that excuse wouldn’t fly anywhere else 🏟️ How monopolistic control over venues, ticketing, promotion, and resale hurts fans and artists 🎸 Why independent venues are the ones taking the blame and the abuse for a broken system
The conversation also zooms out to spotlight the human side of independent venues 🏠🎶 how places like the Fox Theatre, Boulder Theater, Aggie, Chautauqua, and 10 Mile don’t compete with billion-dollar corporations by throwing money around, but by treating artists and fans with real care. High-touch service, community trust, and long-term relationships are how they survive. 🤝❤️
Kodi and Shay push hard on the fan perspective too, why artists sometimes take massive tour deals 💼, how perception becomes reality online 📱🔥, and why fans need better information before directing anger at venues and musicians who don’t control the resale market.
At its core, this episode is about consumer protection, transparency, and collective action. This is a bipartisan issue 🟣🔵 that affects everyone who loves live music. The solution isn’t yelling into the void, it’s learning, organizing, and advocating together. 🌍🗣️
🎧 Listen now wherever you get podcasts. 📣 Follow NIVA (National Independent Venue Association) 🎟️ Support independent venues 🛑 Demand fair ticketing
Because live music doesn’t survive without fans — and fans deserve better. 🎶✊

🎧 This week on What’s the Reason for This?, Kodi and Shay welcome Alabama-born bluegrass firestarters Mountain Grass Unit (MGU) into the dungeon for a long-overdue hang that dives deep into friendship, hustle, growing pains, and what it really looks like when a band is mid–rocket ship. 🚀🪕🔥
What starts with laughs about canceled Colorado shows, tooth pain from hell 🦷😖, and internet rumors quickly turns into a full origin story — from childhood friendships and rival middle-school friend groups 😅 to rock bands, borrowed upright basses, and getting voluntold to play bluegrass before fully knowing what bluegrass even was. 🎸➡️🪕
MGU opens up about: 👬 Growing up together in Alabama and building trust long before the band existed 🎶 Learning instruments the hard way through YouTube tutorials, borrowed gear, and first gigs days after touching an upright bass 🏫 Juggling college life across Berklee, ETSU, and Alabama while trying to keep a band alive from different states 📧 Cold-emailing venues, losing money on early tours, and why investing in yourself matters more than profit early on 🤝 Landing an agent and management and how that changed everything (without magically fixing everything) 🧠 The mental shift from “students who tour sometimes” to “this is the job now” 💿 Signing with Dualtone Records and heading into the studio with Vance Powell to record a new full-length album 🌍 What’s next: WinterWonderGrass, recording all of February, Australia dates, and a stacked 2026 touring calendar
The conversation also digs into MGU’s identity — how they balance traditional bluegrass roots with high-octane energy ⚡, crowd-moving covers, and a jam-friendly mindset that works just as well for seated traditionalists as it does for dancing Colorado crowds. 🕺🪑
Kodi presses on merch stories (yes, the infamous khaki shirts 😬👕), slap-koozies, DIY marketing, and the band’s hilarious social media videos — showing how personality, humor, and authenticity can pull new fans in just as fast as blistering musicianship. 🎥😂
At its core, this episode is about putting in the time and earning it on a long road from backyard jams to festival stages, the willingness to lose money to gain momentum, and the power of sticking together when things get uncomfortable, uncertain, or downright painful. 🌱🤝
🎧 Tap in wherever you listen to podcasts. This is a must-listen if you love bluegrass, band origin stories, or catching artists right as things start to really take off. 🪕🔥

🎧 This week on What’s the Reason for This?, Kodi sits down in the dungeon with viral artist and musician Justin Barona (Just Tat Em) for his first-ever podcast appearance — a necessary, difficult conversation that directly addresses a real controversy and the consequences that followed.
The episode centers on the backlash sparked by posts shared by Justin’s wife, which circulated widely and included harmful, inflammatory references tied to Adolf Hitler and antisemitic rhetoric. The response was swift and justified: public outrage, accusations of hate speech, canceled shows, and Justin ultimately taking his Instagram offline. This conversation does not frame the situation as a misunderstanding or a matter of nuance — it acknowledges that the content was wrong, damaging, and incompatible with the message Justin presents publicly. ⚠️🛑
Justin addresses the situation directly: 🚫 Making it clear the posts do not reflect his beliefs 🗣️ Acknowledging that silence and delayed response worsened the situation 📉 Accepting that accountability comes with having a platform — even when the words aren’t yours 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧 Talking honestly about how the fallout affected his family, career, and mental health 📴 Explaining why he stepped away from social media and what he learned from it
From there, Kodi intentionally widens the lens — not to excuse what happened, but to understand the person now navigating the consequences. Justin shares his life story in full: running away from an abusive home at 12, living on the streets, incarceration at a young age, and how music, drawing, and tattooing became tools for survival and connection. 🧒➡️🎨➡️🎶
The episode also explores the pressure of sudden virality 📱🔥, the grind of producing nonstop Cameos, the strain of balancing creativity with fatherhood, and how quickly a feel-good internet narrative can unravel when personal lives intersect with public platforms. Justin speaks candidly about missteps, ego, burnout, and the need to draw firmer lines between his values and the content associated with him.
At its core, this episode is about accountability without deflection. It doesn’t ask listeners to forget what happened — it asks them to understand how it happened, what was wrong about it, and what moving forward with clarity and responsibility actually looks like. 🔍⚖️
🎧 Listen now wherever you get podcasts. This is a heavy, honest conversation — and one that doesn’t shy away from the reality that words, associations, and silence all have consequences.