Three mics. Two chairs. One inexperienced velvet sofa.

These are the staples of the studio — truly a Rose Park lounge — the place Lauren “Lo” Peterson and Elizabeth Leach document their podcast, “Different Individuals’s Tales.” The visitor sits on the sofa, whereas the hosts sit of their two white armchairs.

The area, in Peterson’s home, is straight away comforting. It’s a well-decorated, ambient space match with gem stones, a sprawling document assortment, classic cameras and typewriters. Three cats — Valentina, Leo and Taco — additionally stroll by way of or hang around.

The ambiance places individuals comfy, which is Peterson’s purpose. “Areas are necessary to me,” she mentioned. “I believe that it tells a narrative about the person who you’re with.”

The lounge has change into the invisible listener to the tales instructed by the podcast’s company — an eclectic group of Utahns that has included former Salt Lake Metropolis Council member Shireen Ghorbani, baker Mandy Madsen (who owns the Mad Dough doughnut store), and Americana band Yard Revival.

Peterson and Leach, of their first two seasons of the podcast, have requested company to share tales of “who’re you as an individual and why you’re the approach that you’re,” Peterson mentioned.

Largely, although, the speak is geared towards sharing experiences, buying and selling tales, and — because the hosts put it — “capturing the shite.”

Capturing human connection

“Different Individuals’s Tales” is the hosts’ second effort for the Utah Podcast Community. The primary, “Alt-Unsuitable,” took goal at “conspiracy theories and scientific fallacies,” Leach mentioned. It additionally took a number of analysis, and the pair was seeking to do one thing totally different.

Peterson and Leach, who labored within the tech business earlier than stepping into podcasting, mentioned they wished to make use of “Different Individuals’s Tales” to deal with human connection — one thing social media, no matter its different deserves, tends to stifle.

The themes come from totally different occupations — amongst them politicians, enterprise leaders, artists and musicians. The purpose, the hosts mentioned, is to interview people who find themselves attention-grabbing, modern and funky.

As Utah is rising, Leach mentioned, the counterculture scene is slowly and absolutely rising. Salt Lake Metropolis, she mentioned, is “cultivating itself right into a Portland or Austin-esque sort of place.”

The hosts aren’t asking topics nearly what they do — however studying who they’re. “It’s like 100 years in the past: Everybody knew their neighbors and everyone knew the household working a restaurant,” Leach mentioned. “That builds a bond of group.”

In a current episode, for instance, Peterson and Leach interviewed Tripp Mims, baker and proprietor of Mims Bakery, a cottage enterprise he and his spouse, Thy Hoang Vu, launched simply after the COVID-19 pandemic began. They talked about bread, however additionally they talked about grief; Vu was killed final October when a suspected drunk driver hit her automobile throughout a police pursuit. Mims instructed the hosts about his work with lawmakers to look at the legal guidelines that govern police chases.

“We as people have so many sides,” Peterson mentioned. “We don’t at all times, from the skin, get to see all the internal workings of someone.”

And so they be taught bits and items that they by no means would’ve come throughout in any other case. In a current episode, musician Kya Karine, aka Bass Princess, instructed them Salt Lake Metropolis is the nation’s capital for canopy bands for weddings.

Leach mentioned she as soon as heard a podcast speaking in regards to the lack of one’s faith — one thing many Utahns expertise, she mentioned. The hosts each grew up in Utah County, the place the inhabitants tends to be extra conservative and extra more likely to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than individuals in Salt Lake Metropolis. Leach’s mother and father are members of the religion, however not significantly lively, she mentioned; Peterson grew up in a strict Latter-day Saint family.

(Although the hosts come from cities only a few miles aside — and even went to the identical junior highschool — they didn’t actually change into pals till a number of years later, by way of an expertise with a mutual good friend.)

One side of leaving one’s faith that struck Leach, she mentioned, is how these individuals additionally expertise a lack of group — and the way that transition, from being related to being remoted, can have an effect on somebody.

Peterson added that she believes “podcasting, particularly over the past 10 years, has change into this enormous, enormous business of connecting individuals with individuals. I believe that one thing that isn’t quite common is connecting with individuals in your [own] group.”

Speaking with pals

There’s no explicit rhyme or rhythm to how the present books its company, Leach mentioned. The hosts have a tendency to hunt out individuals who appear attention-grabbing on social media or in actual life, or individuals who might appear to have a “greater than what meets the attention” high quality, she mentioned.

Peterson added that the podcast “bridges the hole in between being a human and being the individual everyone sees you as.”

The interviews are conversational, much less stuffy and jammed with info as many podcasts are typically. They restrict their prep time, to allow them to maintain the dialog natural and candid. With Peterson’s lounge as a studio, it appears like sitting down with two pals.

“That’s who Elizabeth and I are at our core,” Peterson mentioned.

A query about their dream interview topics units off on the kind of back-and-forth two pals have. Peterson nominates former Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan — and the dialog momentarily derails when Leach confirms that Sloan died almost two years in the past. They tease the concept of discovering a Ouija board, or a medium, which Leach is on board to pursue.

In the end, Peterson suggests the present coach of the Jazz, Quin Snyder, could be a dream interview — however so would any forged member from “The Actual Housewives of Salt Lake Metropolis.” Leach’s dream group consists of James Huntsman, who just lately filed a lawsuit towards The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the church’s funds, and Flamingo Jazz, the New Orleans-style band that performs Wednesday nights on the downtown Salt Lake Metropolis bar and restaurant Lake Impact.

They’ve some concepts for podcasts into the summer time — however, Peterson mentioned, they’re glad to listen to from anybody who wish to be on the present, or can nominate somebody attention-grabbing. “It’s about Utah, which suggests our greatest pool of individuals are the people who find themselves listening,” she mentioned.

The podcast is a real ardour undertaking — neither host will get paid, and although they wouldn’t be against it, they don’t solely thoughts. Not getting paid, they mentioned, means they’ll’t be accused of getting an “agenda.”

“We do it actually simply to do it as a result of we actually do suppose that Salt Lake Metropolis is a bizarre, pleasant, unusual, very modern, very productive place,” Leach mentioned.

“We do need individuals to be the perfect variations of themselves,” Peterson added, “and if [money] had been to ever sway us away from that, I don’t suppose that we may in good conscience generate income off of it. Truthfully, I don’t suppose that we’re simply not these individuals.”

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