By David Stone | Special to the Telegram
Two men with deep Temple roots launched a podcast last spring that focuses on people from Central Texas. Through their first 22 episodes, guests have included professional athletes, stars of reality programs and musicians.
The podcast, “Randomness with Heath & Josh,” can be found on streaming sites such as Spotify, Apple Podcast and Amazon Music. The stars of the show — Heath Winnett and Josh Peterson — recently started a YouTube channel and they also maintain a website that includes every episode at randomnesspodcast.com.
“This is something that’s been in my mind for a while,” Heath said earlier this week. “I reached out to some friends, and Josh jumped on board. We started podcasting two weeks later.”
“Temple is more than a small town,” Heath said. “A lot of great people have come from here and the surrounding area. We also like to make people laugh, so for about an hour, we offer a chance for listeners to escape.”
So far, guests have included former NBA player Brian Skinner, “Project Runway” contestant Louise Black, “Below Deck” actor Ashton Pienaar, “The Real O’Neals” actor Jeremy Lawson, ultra distance runners Marc Henn and Jessica Jones, Grammy-nominated Bowling for Soup frontman Jaret Reddick, Cinderella Pageant contestant Cheyenne Thomas and many singers and songwriters.
Today, Josh still calls Temple home, but Heath now lives in the city of Lake Dallas. When creating a podcast, they have only been together one time, and that was for what you might call their pilot episode.
“We were in the same house,” Heath said with a chuckle, “but we were in different rooms.”
For the remaining 21 published episodes — and several more that are ready to go — both have been in their own home studios, and their guests also connect remotely.
While the duo hasn’t ventured into the world of live podcasts yet, Heath does have a potential plan.
“I’m kicking around the idea of doing a live show while getting a tattoo,” he said. “I think that could be interesting.”
New episodes of Randomness with Heath & Josh are released on Monday mornings, and the average show is about 45 minutes to an hour in length.
While the hosts have an unlimited number of interesting people to pull from as guests, getting a person to commit can take a little coaxing. Luckily, Heath is tenaciously persistent in his pursuits.
“You have to be relentless,” he said, again with a smile. “If you bug them enough, they tend to eventually say yes.”
So how did they come up with the name, Randomness?
“Our shows are about random topics,” Josh said. “There’s nothing one-dimensional — we have an outline to keep us on track, but it’s definitely not a scripted show.”
Since launching Randomness, Heath and Josh have landed two sponsors — Brian Stokes of Trick Pony Studio and Mike Washam of Ntrinsic Design. They also are in negotiations with a firm to sell advertising for the show. But, they point out that they’re not in it for the money.
“To me, doing this podcast is very therapeutic,” Heath said. “I love telling stories and listening to stories about Temple. It’s an escape.”
Heath and Josh will be at Barrow Brewing in Salado at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 14 for a meet and greet.
“We won’t be doing a show, but we will be there talking to people and getting to know more of our listeners. Our sponsors will be there, and we hope to have a past guest or two join us.”
