A look back at the first five years of The SDR Show By Ralph Sutton
Five years, 260 shows, 15 in-studio performances, five drugs tried and 50 debaucherously inappropriate acts performed. In 2013, Big Jay Oakerson and I were on the Shiprocked cruise, and he was telling me about a podcast that he had started called Legion of Skanks, and that he’d been seeing some good response from it and thought he and I would be good together on a podcast. My initial reaction was, podcasts are for people who couldn’t get into radio, and at the time my radio show The Tour Bus was on about 50 stations across the US, but I said I would think about it.
When I came home from that trip, and over the next year, I kept reading about how popular this audio format was getting. When we were both on Shiprocked again the following year, I told him I would love to do it. I suggested the name of the show, based on a morning show I was working on in the early 2000s that never got off the ground, but I already had the logo, some basic audio and the URL thesdrshow.com. I specifically didn’t want to call it a podcast anyway because I was still unsure and somewhat embarrassed about starting one. Regardless, in early 2014 we began taping episodes, but after finishing about 12, one of our first guests, Corey Glover of Living Colour, Episode 4, called me to ask when the episode was being released, and that was when we came to realize that neither of us knew how to publish a podcast. I had the audio end of it covered; because of the radio show, I knew how to do that, but I had no idea what an RSS feed was or how to get listed on iTunes. So, I joined the podcasts subreddit and began researching how to launch a podcast.
In June of 2014, we launched with five episodes, and I called Big Jay saying, “Imagine if we could get 1000 people a month to listen to this nonsense!” Five years, and nearly 5 million downloads later, we have far exceeded any expectations I could have ever had. At the end of every episode, we ask the guest their first experience with Sex, Drugs & Rock n Roll in reverse order, so I figured the best way to reflect and breakdown some of the most memorable moments of the first five years in the same way. Plus, the world is not the same as it was WAAAY back in 2014! So, I think it’s only logical to talk about how the show’s changed, and how I’ve changed since we started SDR.
ROCK N ROLL - I am looking at this as the most memorable moments with a musician. And this is NOT easy to choose. We have been incredibly lucky in snagging some great guests on the music end. Plus, the show was live on both Motorhead’s Motorboat cruises as well as 4 Shiprocked cruises. We had both Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley of Kiss on (separately of course), members of Disturbed, Papa Roach, Megadeth, Anthrax, and so many more, it’s almost too hard to keep track. But a few months ago we started pitching ideas to the bands coming on, instead of just doing interviews and performing. In that short time, we had heavy metal singers do rock versions of TV theme songs, we had a rap battle with DMC of Run DMC as the judge, and then my favorite moment, singing “I Remember You” with Skid Row. It’s probably worth noting that with the rap battle or the sing-along, neither of us claim to have any idea what we are doing but why should that stop us. Watching Dave Sabo cringe as I tried to hit the high notes of the chorus, as he is performing a song that brought his band to arena status was just a magical moment and kudos to the group for being such good sports.
When we first started SDR, all our rock guests came from my radio show. I was doing both at the time, and it made it quite easy to book guests, but it also felt as if the show had the same vibe musically as my radio show. Thankfully we’ve had some guests that I could never have booked on the rock radio show from Charlamagne Tha God, John Popper, DMC, Cipha Sounds and more. The most significant change for me is not being pigeon-holed into just an 80s rock guest. Don’t get me wrong, I live and breathe 80s rock, Jay loves to make fun of my passion for that music but being able to bring on DJ Whoo Kid and have a very different perspective on music is refreshing. Plus now that we’ve started coming up with these fun things to do with musical guests, it feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface of unforgettable moments. Rap battle two is coming this year, and I am already writing lyrics.
DRUGS - In all honesty, we are most often shit on for our lack of drug use on a show called Sex, Drugs & Rock n Roll. Even though Jay smokes pot almost every day and we drink practically every week, I realize for true drug aficionados this is merely a toe-dip in the narcotics filled pool. And when the show started, the worst thing I ever tried was weed. While we’ve had our share of drug-oriented guests, from a weed baker to the editor of high times, along with various comedians who praise the use of hallucinogenic substances, it was in 2015 when I off-handedly said when the show hits 1 million listens I will try a drug I have never tried before, and of course our trusty SDR Addicts held me to it, and we actually tried mushrooms on the air. I don’t remember much of that evening other than being told I was drooling on the episode (my mother is so proud of me). That turned into us trying a drug once a year. We did edibles, we tried Molly, which ended up being crystal meth, and we all were up for two days, then we bought a drug kit, and got pure Molly, and had a real love fest. But, hands down the most memorable moment was just an ordinary evening, back when we were in my home studios. The video is all over YouTube; it’s been made fun of on countless other shows. I blacked out on the air after taking a few hits of weed, and the only thing holding my head up was the mic stand. The most ridiculous part of this is that my mom, who supports everything I do (usually), had no idea what the clip was and re-posted it on Facebook. Then all her friends were asking her, “Why on earth would you share that clip of your son.” Oh, what a fun conversation we had that evening.
The biggest change for me? We had a weed company become a sponsor. Shout out to Smoked Honey. And I have been saying for years that I don’t like weed, as it doesn’t agree with me, and I have the video clip to prove it. They made it their mission to create a strain that I would like, and after about 3 - 4 months of testing, I have a low-dose 4x CBD to 1x THC strain of weed named after me. How many people can say that? So if you are like me and think you hate weed, reach out to Smoked Honey and ask for Bronzo’s Blend. It feels like you had about two shots of tequila and that’s it. And for those who don’t know, I was briefly a suntan model for a carrot oil company, so if you want a good laugh google Bronzo Sensuale Ralph Sutton and see a young sexy me.
SEX - First of all, I think if we were starting this show today, the things we’ve done without hesitation would warrant at the very least, a long conversation. While I still honestly believe if everyone’s on the same page, there is no harm in a little childish fun, I do realize in this day and age of the post #metoo #timesup and any other hashtags I may have missed, this does seem a bit bonkers, but keep in mind, everyone is up for the nonsense, and neither Jay or I have the power to offer starring roles in movies. That being said, we knew very early on we weren’t going to be changing the world with this show. We just wanted to have fun. The birth of this show came from Jay and I making each other laugh on the Shiprocked cruise. The name was very intentional. In a landscape of exponentially growing podcasts, what would make someone listen to this show over any other show? We hadn’t even conceptualized any of our stunts shows that we do. We used to play a game called “Up The Ante” on the show. Whenever we had a porn star in we acted like little children and if the last porn star showed us her boobs, we tried to get the next girl to up the ante. This game quickly ended as it escalated quite quickly. From show us your boobs to peeing in our mouths in about two months (again, my mother is so proud). Thus, the question became what now? It started with a stupid idea that I had that to my knowledge was never done. It was simple: let’s hire a very expensive escort, and hire a very budget friendly escort, have oral sex performed on us for 1 minute a piece. But we would be blindfolded, hands behind our back, and headphones on so we would have no idea who is who. Which one would we prefer? It seemed like a solid foundation for an episode, and it launched the concept of the stunt show for us. We didn’t start with that. We did naked porn-star twister, we had the ping pong pussy playoffs, where a girl who could shoot ping pong balls out of her downstairs parts – and we were given a ping pong paddle. There were buckets with various points around the room, and we played best out of 3. As I said, we certainly weren’t changing the world. From Smell My Finger, Dick Pic Dating Game, The Go Down on a girl contest, SDR Jeopardy with Consequences (which launched our live game shows), and the dozen or so others. These have always been just downright ridiculous. I spend hours trying to come up with the next stupid stunt show to see if we can make it happen. But hands down the most memorable one for me has to be The Ultimate Whorrior. The idea was silly enough, a whore-off, so to speak. Where we come up with a few idiotic contests that are somehow supposed to prove the girl’s whorish ways, and there were points associated with each round. The reason this stands out is two-fold; first, we got a cease and desist from the WWE (which I was super proud of). But even more insane was head writer of SNL, Michael Che was one of the judges. He specifically had asked me to come on during a ridiculous contest show, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. So, he and Rude Jude were our two guest judges, and in mid-2017 The Ultimate Whorrior was crowned with a shit covered dildo as part of her reward.
I have had a lot of people ask me about how we do this stuff these days, and how we even get away with it in this climate? I genuinely believe you need a silly show like ours more than ever. We openly admit we are idiots, and really no one should take anything we do seriously. All our games are purely nonsensical, and if you get upset over scoring or anything not being fair, etc., you are certainly listening to the wrong show. Although I am sure if our show started getting a few million listeners a week, Jay and I might be expected to fall in line with everyone else giving half-assed apologies for things they did years ago in the pursuit of funny. To that I say, bring it on!
The idea of being able to do and say whatever we want is what led to me to launch a network in 2016 – GaS Digital, which I started with a comedian I met through Big Jay, Luis J Gomez. Since the launch, we went from 4 shows to 20. 10,000 listeners a week to over 1 million listeners weekly, opened studios in NYC, and LA and now have shows hosted by amazing people, like former UFC middleweight champ Michael Bisping, Lead singer of Twisted Sister – Dee Snider, ECW legend Tommy Dreamer, and a bunch of other amazing shows featuring Comedy Central and Netflix comedians, musicians, political influencers and more. We purposefully built our business model of the network to be both subscriber and advertiser based. The reason being that it allows us far more creative control. In these current somewhat tumultuous times regarding what can be said or what is deemed offensive, letting comedians be comedians is very important to me.
2019 & BEYOND - It’s been a crazy five years. When we started, I produced everything, we were using my radio equipment to record, and taped whenever we could, based on when a guest was available. Now, not only do we do the show LIVE with video every Wednesday night, but we also hit #1 in iTunes comedy once, were in the top 100 for all of 2018.
The SDR Show has been lucky so far in 2019, especially in a time when Sex Drugs and Rock n Roll aren’t popular topics anymore. So far Michael Imperioli, Dane Cook, Megadeth & Anthrax, Andrea Savage, and our Heavy Metal theme songs contest with the Three Tremors started the year off amazingly well, the shows downloads are at an all-time high, and we are planning our 5-year celebration with another game show live event: Wheel of Fortune with consequences! As I write this, I have no idea what the consequences will be. So I think I will stop reflecting for now as I need to figure out another way to upset my poor mother. Here’s to the next five years!