Speaker 1: With a regard what is your title journalist chicken journalists,
Speaker 1: I would say, just like tea, I would just say hosts,
Speaker 1: and I would just say host host. I know, I'm
Speaker 1: a host.
Speaker 2: I'm a host.
Speaker 1: Let's say, how did you get into hosting?
Speaker 3: So I did go to college for broadcast journalism. I
Speaker 3: went to the University of Illinois, and then after that
Speaker 3: I had a job as a copywriter. But I always
Speaker 3: kind of wanted to keep my eye of the tiger,
Speaker 3: you know. I was like working this job working with
Speaker 3: older ladies you know that are moms, and like, you know,
Speaker 3: it just didn't feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed
Speaker 3: to be doing.
Speaker 2: So I'd always take freelance ladies.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: It was just like I'd have nothing in common with
Speaker 3: anyone around me. Like I wasn't a younger, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was like very you were with a dustier generation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So it just didn't feel like I was doing what
Speaker 3: I was supposed to be doing at that time. So
Speaker 3: I would take any this is a Chicago yeah, And
Speaker 3: I would take any freelance magazine sort of project that
Speaker 3: I could get.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. As a journalist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of times they'd want to do print
Speaker 3: print exactly. So they'd want to, you know, if there
Speaker 3: was like an interview with a player on Chicago Bulls
Speaker 3: or a chef in Chicago or whatever, and they'd want
Speaker 3: to put it in print, they could outsource kind of
Speaker 3: like a boots on the ground person to do that.
Speaker 1: So I would be grant Derek Grose actually Eric Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: And then in twenty fourteen, there was an All Star
Speaker 3: Weekend in New Orleans and I was doing all these
Speaker 3: interviews that were supposed to be in print or you know,
Speaker 3: on digital or in the magazine. And back then every
Speaker 3: magazine turned into like a YouTube channel, so they were like,
Speaker 3: can we put these interviews on camera just because we
Speaker 3: literally just need to put videos on the channel.
Speaker 2: And I was like sure.
Speaker 3: You know, like at that time in my life, if
Speaker 3: I had a two Chains interview on YouTube, that'd be
Speaker 3: like the best thing that's ever happened in my whole
Speaker 3: pathetic career, you know. So I was like, please do it,
Speaker 3: and I kind of thought it would be a one off.
Speaker 3: Did that weekend, did a bunch of interviews on camera.
Speaker 3: They put them out and then liked them enough to
Speaker 3: offer me a full time job. So quit whatever I
Speaker 3: was doing in Chicago, sold all my shit, broke my least,
Speaker 3: moved out to New York thirty days later, and then
Speaker 3: started working at complex And then about a year into that,
Speaker 3: I started working on the first f side of things.
Speaker 2: We had to come up with a show. We were
Speaker 2: in that revie is.
Speaker 1: Like Complexes Food division or something. It's like munchies for
Speaker 1: vice perfect co perfect corollary. So started working with them.
Speaker 1: We had to come up with the show. We're in
Speaker 1: the magazine office.
Speaker 3: You see celebrities walk in the halls all the time,
Speaker 3: so we're like, maybe we can do a celebrity interview
Speaker 3: show just because of our proximity to it. And then
Speaker 3: we needed a food element, and then also solved the
Speaker 3: problem celebrity interviews are boring. You know, why are they boring?
Speaker 3: Because everyone's in a pr driven flight pattern. What can
Speaker 3: we do to disrupt that? Chris Schoenberger was like, well,
Speaker 3: what if we had them eat increasingly spicy chicken wings
Speaker 3: over the course of the interview as a way to
Speaker 3: break them down? And then that was a cupid Zaro
Speaker 3: and my brain and we shot a pilot with Tony
Speaker 3: Yeo and had you in.
Speaker 2: The first or second season.
Speaker 1: I remember Yo from the g Units.
Speaker 3: Yeah, shot the pilot with him and then we haven't
Speaker 3: stopped shooting it since since.
Speaker 2: Been like, it's such a hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a hit. There's people that come up
Speaker 1: to me on the street and they don't even know
Speaker 1: what I do. They just know my interview from Hot Ones.
Speaker 3: But that is an iconic episode that isn't the pantheon
Speaker 3: of great Oh is.
Speaker 1: It up there in the top ten? Yeah? Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: I think because I get who's number One's the number one?
Speaker 3: That's a great meme. Gordon Ramsay's episode has I never
Speaker 3: saw that one. It's amazing it.
Speaker 1: Will said. I loved Guy Fieri's because yes, he took
Speaker 1: spice I think better than anyone I saw on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was great. He was great.
Speaker 1: Alton Brown and Guy Fieri, the guys that had food
Speaker 1: knowledge and know how, seemed to handle spice the best,
Speaker 1: I think. And I really thought it was almost like
Speaker 1: a mental game.
Speaker 3: You know what I think it is is because I
Speaker 3: have it too. It's a familiarity. You know a lot
Speaker 3: of people when they come on show. The spiciest meal
Speaker 3: they've ever had in their lives is and then they're
Speaker 3: doing it in this bizarre context of having all these
Speaker 3: cameras and lights on them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So all of that can be kind of shocking in.
Speaker 1: The right but Chef, but I mean the bomb and
Speaker 1: those like those last doors are are I don't know
Speaker 1: how Guy Fieri or Alton Brown can even like mental
Speaker 1: process their way out of it. It's like they're not
Speaker 1: It's they're just like acid, right, sulphuric acid right, that's uh.
Speaker 1: The second time I did the show, I was like
Speaker 1: laid out on the floor.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel for you because.
Speaker 1: But worse than the first time, because I think I
Speaker 1: got a little cocky and I didn't go like the
Speaker 1: coolio ri ip route, Like I didn't fucking douse it.
Speaker 1: But I still was not as cautious as the first time,
Speaker 1: and I was fucking toast.
Speaker 2: You were just pouring saw.
Speaker 1: I was really I was really in a world of
Speaker 1: hers that throw out my body and it was like
Speaker 1: I took my g I track a couple of days.
Speaker 2: Afterwards to check it.
Speaker 1: That was horrible. It was fucking horrible. I mean, what
Speaker 1: is what is spice? Is it like is it like
Speaker 1: a chemical compound?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it.
Speaker 1: Does singular chemical compound that they all share, all the
Speaker 1: peppers share.
Speaker 3: There's uh, you know, we order the we order the
Speaker 3: sauces by the Scoville scale, So there actually is a
Speaker 3: mathematical way scientific scale.
Speaker 1: What is it actually measured? So it's measuring like is
Speaker 1: there like like weed has THHC.
Speaker 3: Capsation, So that's a capsation per unit, is like how
Speaker 3: you'd get Scoville rating? Right, So then you have, yeah,
Speaker 3: this act of chemical that's sending a message to your
Speaker 3: brain that you know, your tongue is on fire.
Speaker 1: And how were you able to tolerate such a high
Speaker 1: through practice episode? Are you were like a mess? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah when you first started, and we didn't think
Speaker 3: that we'd be programming it regularly, we thought maybe utterly.
Speaker 1: Kind of kind of events. Yeah. So and how successful
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What are the what are the number? Is it can
Speaker 1: brag a little bit?
Speaker 2: Total is over two billion views?
Speaker 3: And wow, we're starting our twenty second season and we've
Speaker 3: shot over three hundred episodes and you have the hot
Speaker 3: sauce on top of that, and it's been kind of
Speaker 3: a perfect creative endeavor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know why because it's relatable. It's relatable all
Speaker 1: over the world, and you do what I try to
Speaker 1: do on my shows. You get guests out of their
Speaker 1: comfort zone. And it's very rare to see celebrities out
Speaker 1: of their comfort zone exactly like you say that pr
Speaker 1: flight pattern, and when you do see it, it's like
Speaker 1: amazing and everybody can relate to, like trying to eat
Speaker 1: spicier and spicy. My eight year old niece at her
Speaker 1: birthday was like eating peppers and like we're at a
Speaker 1: Thai restaurant. She's like, you dare me to eat it?
Speaker 1: And her friend was like yeah, and then she was
Speaker 1: like a spicy It's like everybody goes through that. So
Speaker 1: I actually think spice is the first drug that you
Speaker 1: use as a chop besides caffeine, besides Coca cola, and
Speaker 1: spices the first drug.
Speaker 2: It's a amount with in the sober community.
Speaker 3: Like if I go to a hot Sauce expo, it'll
Speaker 3: kind of look like the parking lot of a Slayer
Speaker 3: concert a little bit.
Speaker 1: They can get high without getting and I do.
Speaker 2: Now frequently get a weightlessness.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, feeling you have so many endorphins released. Why yeah,
Speaker 1: at that spicy head high.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's fun, but it's something.
Speaker 2: It's gotten there for me.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: When I first started, I wouldn't get there.
Speaker 3: And now, like almost every episode around Wing eight, I'm floating.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: Josh, have you ever gotten a endosco beclenoscaped? To make
Speaker 1: sure that you.
Speaker 3: I always go to the doctor. I haven't done that yet,
Speaker 3: but I have them do every blood test and hooked
Speaker 3: me up to everything really figure out what's going on.
Speaker 1: I just recently I turned forty, so I went up
Speaker 1: my button around the corner and the doctor said, I
Speaker 1: was all right.
Speaker 2: At least it wasn't in vain, you know, at least, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: You gotta do it when you and the dot my
Speaker 1: physical I.
Speaker 2: Got my first finger, yeah bug in the butt.
Speaker 1: The doctor goes, whoa you turn forty? You know what
Speaker 1: that means? And I was like, hey on, doc, I
Speaker 1: just got to call it. Then I look back to
Speaker 1: both those guns are in the air, just like that
Speaker 1: hobby with a recondre