Building a Podcast Studio in the Ruins of a Pandemic
With a background as a concert promoter, putting Reno on the map seems to have always come naturally to Brandon Deriso. Also as a small business owner with experience in a variety of industries, he knows what it takes to make things happen in the Biggest Little City. So when the COVID-19 pandemic overtook the country with its subsequent economic fallout for small businesses like Deriso’s, he immediately began looking for his next big project.
“Between concerts and the coffee [shop] and having a street food cart, COVID pretty personally attacked me [economically],” Deriso said during a recent interview with Our Town Reno after he approached us for a possible partnership. “So I was sitting around for a few months trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do with my time and I thought, ‘Well, I've got some contacts with some rock stars. I've got some contacts with some people that can do some cool things. Maybe I should just talk about that for awhile, while people are sitting at home listening.’”
With that, Open Mic Studios was recently built and launched on East 2nd St. Installed with five microphones and phone-in capabilities, Open Mic Studios was made to adapt to users’ needs by functioning like a live terrestrial radio station or for pre-recorded podcasts. Deriso’s goal is to create a space that suits the needs of the community, a goal resembled by his recently-released local podcast: RenoCast. The podcast has been producing a steady clip of episodes, but the existing location is now being lost.
“The first thing that the studio put together was called RenoCast,” Deriso said. “I never had any aspirations of being a podcaster. But what was happening is people were coming in to check out what we're doing over here and they'd want to start their own podcast, but sometimes they would need like an active listener so I just started sitting in the seat and backing people up and I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be like a thing that has to happen.’”
Being Booted Out
Things were going well for his new studio initially during a turbulent year, as Deriso started bringing people into the studio to be featured on RenoCast, including City Councilwoman Naomi Duerr and Tyre Gray, President of the Nevada Mining Association.
“So some really cool people just kind of came out and it was just all personality pieces,” Deriso said. “It was like, ‘Who are you in our community? What do you do? What are we doing here? What's it been like to live in Reno?’ So these things came out pretty cool with these personalities.”
All of that changed, however, when Deriso was notified by Basin Street Properties that he would have to vacate the studio space in favor of a gym being built in the same space. Open Mic Studio has existed for nearly six months under a licensing agreement, not a lease, which means the building is legally able to make Deriso vacate the space. Nonetheless, the notice came as a shock to Deriso, who had paid his rents in full and ahead of time despite the pandemic, as he intended to utilize the space for years to come.
“I was shocked, to be honest,” Deriso wrote in a subsequent email correspondence with Our Town Reno. “Up until this, the building and staff have been somewhat supportive of our efforts. This however, is just such a slap in the face. I let [Basin Street Properties] know up front that I was going to pay ahead and weather the pandemic storm in the hopes that after it was over, we could discern if any concessions were needed and warranted.”
The decision by Basin Street Properties to make him vacate in favor of a gym, Deriso says, will lead to him moving his coffee shop out of the building as well.
“I might understand if they were doing something meaningful with the space, but they’re going to destroy this already iconic radio studio, evict a paying tenant, and lose another lease in the process, all to build a gym for the building. I don’t even think gyms can be open during all this, can they?” Deriso wrote.
“Secondarily, most of the tenants in the building have already vacated as well. The offices upstairs, which outside pandemic would have hundreds of people there daily, are almost completely vacant. I attempted to open the coffee shop and it was more costly to keep it open than closed. So I paid all that rent knowing I’d be closed, just to keep my relationship strong with the landlord, only to be pushed out of the one space that actually was functional.”
While staying local, Open Mic Studios is increasingly looking to online, remote possibilities due to the pandemic, but is also thinking of reviving the in person vibe.
Thinking of Live Podcast Recording
Now, Deriso is exploring his options on where to take his studio next. One idea has been to transition to a live-podcast format.
“We’ve been toying with the live format for a while now and this will give us a good reason to follow through with that,” Deriso wrote. “Reno can expect to enjoy podcasts recorded with a live audience hosted by Virginia Street Brewhouse very soon. We haven’t even announced the move yet and already we have a couple of options for a new location. We have a lot of art in that little 200 sq. ft. space and wherever we go next needs to be prepared to become as Reno-famous as the Awful Awful.”
Despite these recent challenges in having to change locations, Deriso aims to have the studio utilized the same way a record label functions with musicians. A platform like this is particularly important now, Deriso says, considering how much the city is changing not only on the ground-level, but also in the eyes of the world.
“Reno is starting to really show its influence on the outside world,” Deriso said. “This town has so much character, so much personality that when people come here, you can't help but fall in love with the charm. That's why I think it's a little dangerous when we start projecting to the outside world to move here, because you can really destroy that little shining thing in the center that makes us what we are, [represented by] that little star that sits on top of the arch. That [star] is not there by accident, that's what the heart of this city looks like.”
Deriso is having to move his whole setup, but he is used to change while remaining set on Reno’s potential.
Making Amends with the Past
Deriso knows the value of the small-town charm Reno offers, particularly because he admits he’s taken it for granted in the past.
“I really damaged this community before,” Deriso said, in part from his time as an influential concert-promoter. “At some point in my life, I was really wreaking havoc on my relationships and the people who cared about me and I didn't know what I was doing. [Today, I] look back and go, ‘Wow, you were the villain in your own story,’ and I've gotten to this place where I can accept that.”
Reno is a generational town, Deriso says, which is represented by his own family roots, as both of his parents grew up and lived in the Biggest Little City. Therefore, when you fracture relationships in a town like this, it takes time to redeem them, he explained.
For Deriso, his roller-coaster experience with Reno began when his father was murdered, when Deriso was in his early 20s. At the time, Deriso had a good-paying job and was a member of a local band. in 2005, a Sparks man was found guilty of first-degree murder with willful intent of walking into the house of his father, Miles Deriso, and shooting him.
“So this major thing happened and suddenly I became aware of just the normalcy of the office and how that functioned and how people were, and that just wasn’t for me,” Deriso said. “So I quit that job and I went to work at Club Underground and I was in there all the time.”
Deriso became the manager, in part because of the number of people his band was drawing in. Seeing the potential in Reno’s live-music scene, Deriso shifted Club Underground’s direction away from a nightclub vibe, to one more geared toward live music. Inadvertently, Deriso’s career as a concert promoter then began when he made an offer for the heavy-metal band Mushroomhead, to play at the club in early 2004.
“[Mushroomhead] accepted my offer and it was not really a large offer, which was the best part because suddenly we had this massive turnout with a fairly high ticket price and the bar ring was huge,” Deriso said.
Going National and Having Problems at Home
Then in 2005, Deriso booked a co-headline show with Shiny Toy Guns and The Rapture, which also turned out to be a hot ticket in Reno. At the same time, however, he was also contacted by a band called Clutch. When Deriso was told if he was going to book Clutch at Club Underground, that he’d have to make the deal on his own, Deriso took a gamble and went forward with the deal anyway.
“I took the Clutch show myself and you have to understand how stupid that actually was, because I had no money that I was guaranteeing these guys,” Deriso said. “But I put the tickets on sale the day I confirmed [the booking] and the tickets sold out in 37 minutes.”
Just like that his career as a successful concert promoter was launched as he went on to organize over 300 shows a year in various markets. Deriso soon found himself involved in 2,800 live productions in 44 cities across the country over the next few years. In 2012, he even booked and oversaw Andre Nickatina’s nationwide Where’s My Money Tour, featuring Prof.
These high-profile commitments, however, in turn led to the fracturing of some of his relationships at home in Reno. “What starts to happen is this: this nice young kid is getting all this attention and people want stuff from him and he wants stuff from them and so it sort of was this like moving a needle [away] from being a good guy,” Deriso said.
People would often reach out to him, looking to hang out or grab a lunch someplace. When Deriso started passing on these opportunities and taking old friends for granted, he says he felt like that’s when things really took a turn.
“That little dismissal of a relationship is the catalyst for all of it,” Deriso said. “That extends far and wide when you do things that harm relationships. That's the part that people struggle with the most because when you're damaging a relationship, like if I smack you in the face, it's a pretty clear response of what happens. But if I'm like, ‘I'm over you, why don't you go ahead and go now.’ What do you even do with that?’”
Shortly thereafter, then, Deriso says he hit a low point. But it was also a time that he met his wife, found his faith and has been working to make amends with the city of Reno ever since. He says he’s only able to do so today because of his understanding of what’s already been done.
“I was in a lot of pain because most of these relationship damages were done amongst people at home, people that were investing money into my company or people that were trying to be my friend, so that's still a struggle,” Deriso said. “The first way to overcome that, when you're so painfully fully aware of who you were, that there’s only one option for who you can be and where you can go. That [understanding is] helpful because this town has been a little forgiving and it's also been a little unforgiving.”
Deriso is behind a wide range of initiatives locally, working to keep culture and the entrepreneurial spirit alive in the Biggest Little City.
Paying it Forward
After his concert promotion success, Deriso went on to own local a women’s fitness studio and his perspectives changed even more. Now, he says, he doesn’t see employees as working for him, but working with him. He wants to find a way to pay it forward, in a sense, by creating opportunities like having university students and other community members at his new Open Mic Studios.
Now that he’s eight years removed from that low-point in his life, he says he just wants what’s best for the city of Reno, particularly as it continues to change and evolve. Sometimes that brings him into the foray of city politics, where he admits being vocal in this most recent election cycle. He wrote an opinion piece which was published on This is Reno last year, criticizing Mayor Hillary Schieve and a now disappeared Reno centric Facebook page. Although change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Deriso hopes Reno can maintain the core of the character it’s always had.
“Over the years, thinking back to the mid-to-late 90s to now, even that evolution is very noticeable and you find yourself as an old-Reno type trying to fight for what looks like old Reno, against people who are saying, ‘This is progress,’” Deriso said.
“I think ‘progress’ is sometimes a deceptive word, just because it's moving doesn't mean it's progressing and I think that's something that we really have to look at when you start talking about the development. Development is key here in how we develop and why and where,” Deriso said of a changing Reno.
Wary of Some of the Change We are Getting
When the city revealed a plan for a ‘New Reno’ back in 2014, Deriso was very supportive of it. In the six years since then, however, he feels Reno’s been duped by bringing in development projects that aren’t true to Reno’s character and is instead trying to be like everywhere else.
“Reno was a town really and truly run by the people of the town,” Deriso said. “There's a funny dynamic that happens with Reno because you get people who have this incredible, authentic, artistic sense of self, but then they want to use that to mimic the outside world a little bit and I think that's where Reno hits its glass ceiling frequently.”
So Deriso would like to see opportunities for other industries as well as a focus on the arts, while also making housing available for those who are already living in Reno, as opposed to courting those from outside the city to come live here.
“When Reno outgrows the self-aggrandized piece of its personality, it just changes things,” Deriso said. “I want to show what Reno is and what I am and what this is, because that's what's going to spread the right kind of message and love.”
Spreading the right message specifically for Reno will be an element of his new Open Mic Studios, where he aims to host a number of ongoing, locally-focused projects. One such project that’s being discussed right now is having someone who will run a Q&A podcast where people can write in questions on how to navigate local government systems at the state, county and city level. These podcasts will cover a range of topics from how to get a marriage license to navigating the foster care system.
By providing a platform for those in the city of Reno to share their voice as well, particularly on local matters, Deriso hopes to bring back the small-town relationship element that has always been inherent to the Biggest Little City.
“Relationships and how we relate with one another is everything,” Deriso said. “We have to do everything we can to be able to look at a person that you think is a scumbag and wonder why they're not. That's what makes Reno, Reno. We're all a little bit scumbag, a little bit high-class. We're all a little bit Pabst and we're all a little bit champagne. So I think if anything, we've got to abandon the notions of the things that are breaking us apart in the moment.”
It’s that small-town relationship element, after all, that Deriso understands and now appreciates all too well. So although the location of his new Open Mic Studio will have to change, he says his mission to provide a platform for voices in an evolving Reno will continue.