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Chord Drift with Paul Jorgensen

In Conversation: Joel and Randy Eat the Brick

By Paul Jorgensen
Published April 6, 2026 at 12:00 PM EDT
Joel and Randy Eat the Brick
Eat the Brick podcast
Joel Forlines (L) and Randy Steele

Local music luminaries Joel Forlines and Randy Steele join WUTC's Paul Jorgensen in the studio to discuss their podcast Joel and Randy Eat the Brick.

The conversation wends and winds from the local music scene to the podcast to what's up with them to engaging with people about our fantastic music and entertainment options in the Scenic City.

Guests

Show Notes

Local Organizations & Venues

  • SoundCorps: A 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to growing the music economy in the Chattanooga region through professional infrastructure and industry expertise.
    • Official Website: soundcorps.org
    • Musician Guide: Available via their website for local industry resources.
  • Yellow Racket Records: A record store and artist "academy" located at 2311 E Main St. that focuses on community-driven music and local artist support.
  • Barrelhouse Ballroom: A premier local venue hosting the weekly Tuesday Night Bluegrass Jams and various touring acts.

Events & Competitions

  • Road to Nightfall: An annual competition for local bands to win a headlining slot at the Nightfall summer concert series.
    • 2026 Schedule: The competition began Friday, April 4, 2026, with the final round scheduled for April 18, 2026.
  • Tuesday Night Bluegrass Jam: A community gathering for musicians of all levels.
    • Official Resource: tnjams.com (includes songbooks, Discord access, and a "Survival Guide").
  • Alaska Folk Fest: A week-long gathering of musicians in Juneau, Alaska, held annually in April.

Other Mentions

  • Monuments in Ruin: A long-running music podcast and blog based in Tennessee that explores diverse genres, including heavy metal and experimental music.
  • Snowclones: A notable up-and-coming band in the Chattanooga scene.
  • Nick Lutsko: A prominent Chattanooga-based musician and performer mentioned as a frequent collaborator.

Interview Transcript (generated with AI)

Paul Jorgensen: Thank you for joining me here in the studio. We are cramped in here; we've got multiple interviews happening all over the place, and I'm very excited to have you guys in here. Please introduce yourselves for our listeners.

Joel Forlines: I'm Joel Forlines.

Randy Steele: My name is Randy Steele.

Paul Jorgensen: And y'all are hosting a podcast, I hear.

Randy Steele: That's right. We started a podcast last fall, just doing some test episodes to see if it was something that we thought would work or something we wanted to do. We did a couple episodes last year and then kind of sat back with it. Then about mid-January, we decided to just go ahead and pull the trigger and commit to trying to do as much as we could. So, we've been going weekly here since about mid-January. We just recorded episode 17 and 18 today, so we're still very early on in the game, but we're closing in on the 20s now.

Joel Forlines: And I was always a fan of Randy and the High Cold Wind, so I would go and see Randy play and hang out with them at the Ocoee and things like that. But then once the bluegrass jams started, I just showed up—and I'm not a bluegrass player at all. So Randy eventually looked at me and was like, "Why in the world are you here?" And I said, "I'm so excited about what you're doing for the community. I'm proud of you; you're just making a lot of strides." So over those few weeks, especially upon Randy's retirement, we really started talking more about the music scene and how we could help in Chattanooga and what we saw that wasn't there. A few of the conversations led to the idea of, "Hey, why don't we just start a podcast?" And so that was very welcome to my ears.

Paul Jorgensen: Well, that's fantastic. And for those of you who don't know—the two or three people out there who have not had a podcast before—it's always really important to get past, I think it's number five is the magic number. If you can do five consistently, that's a really good sign. If you get over to ten, then you're good to go. So you guys are... yeah.

Randy Steele: Oh wow, that's good to know. We've reached some metrics at least.

Joel Forlines: Yeah, we ran out of things to talk about at ten, so...

Paul Jorgensen: Just keep recycling them!

Joel Forlines: That's right.

Paul Jorgensen: Talk about how this podcast helps to connect this local music scene together, but then also inform the community about all of the different aspects that maybe they're not experiencing. You know, there's that component of when you go to a show, you're obviously interacting with that performer there, but then kind of that whole scene around it—there's all kinds of stuff that happens to make that performance possible. So, are you guys connecting that in through this podcast?

Randy Steele: I think one of the main things that we recognized right out of the gate, and what really got us started with the podcast, was talking about how tough it was to build social media campaigns that seemed natural but that were involved with the city or involved with other people besides just ourselves. It's tough to just always advertise about yourself. So a lot of times, one of the things we thought was easier was, "Let's do something where we can make a couple social media ads for our friends or for other people." This was kind of the best way we figured to do that. That was one of the big pushes when we got started: how can we bring light to other bands? Because I think in Chattanooga, I get so tired of hearing it—when you say you're from Chattanooga or you're a musician, or anybody brings up the "Chattanooga music scene," you get people who roll their eyes or say it's terrible. Honestly, typically those people just are not educated as to what's going on in Chattanooga because there are some fantastic musicians around town. Fantastic bands! There are some people who started out here and are doing things on the national level—multiple people who live here and are doing things on a huge national level right now. So, I think Chattanooga has a great music scene. There are just a couple of missing pieces and I think that's where we felt like we could find a place to fit in: echoing what you guys do here at UTC, which is just try to build up as much and shine as much of a light on it. Our goal was to somewhat do that, and then include what it looks like from the first-person perspective to be a musician, which Joel and I can both attest to.

Joel Forlines: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's kind of—it goes back and forth. Half the time we end up spending talking about, you know—we talked in a recent podcast about something that happened in my kid's soccer game in the soccer stands. That ends up going 20 minutes, and that's not really about music. We kind of brought it around because it does pertain to a specific mindset. But that's kind of what it is like: it's a little bit half and half, our everyday lives of being musicians. I'm a father, being in a family, or just being on the road. Joel travels to Alaska and all the stuff that he has going on.

Randy Steele: And I think the most important part in community for any issue, or any lifestyle, or any movement, is the conversation. The most important thing that I think we're doing now that we realize is happening is we're starting the conversation in our local community. So that when we do go to those shows, people know a lot more about our life: people at home life, our "hang life" when we're going to shows and not playing, and then when we're going to shows and playing, and everything in between. So I think that it also personifies the life of a musician in a very accessible way to the listener and thus starting the conversations that a lot of us really want to have, but we don't get to because there's not a platform to have those, you know? And the most important part of the musician's life, in my opinion, what I hope to hone in on, is not what happens on stage, but what happens between the last note and the first note—rather than the first note and the last note. So what we do is we go from the last note to the first note and then walk you through the show as well. So you're getting the whole perspective of a fan, a follower, a band member, a band leader, a manager, a booking agent, a stage manager—all of the production side that you really don't get to catch as an audience member because you're not there two hours before the show. This basically gets the stage and lowers it to the ground level for everybody to be able to be a part of.

Paul Jorgensen: Before we get too carried away, how can people find the podcast?

Randy Steele: The name of the podcast is Joel and Randy Eat the Brick. Anywhere you listen, you can look that up: it's Joel and Randy Eat the Brick or eatthebrick.com has links to everywhere. We usually just do one video episode we put on YouTube, and everything else is audio episodes. Anywhere you listen, anywhere you stream, you're welcome to pull that up.

Joel Forlines: And it's called Eat the Brick as well because at some point in time, you do have to put feet to the ground—put rubber to road. You have to absolutely "eat the brick" and get out in your local community. Somebody has to do it; it's got to be you. If you want to see change in your local music scene, it's up to you. If you go into a house and say, "You know what this room really could use?"—that's your job. Whatever that answer is, that's what you can bring to the table. So what this also does is shows you how you can plug in, makes it very accessible. So if you do want to "eat the brick" with us, if you do want to get feet to the streets, that's a great way to do it.

Randy Steele: We talk a lot about... one of the ones we just ran an ad for last week was Yellow Racket Records. That's a great venue that's doing... it's not a traditional venue, it's a record store. It's not like a bar or a venue. So we haven't done house shows yet necessarily, but I dig house shows and I'm definitely down to cover house shows and do some of those as much as we can. Since we're so early, we haven't covered every aspect yet; we keep finding new things. Even just not too long ago, I saw a Facebook thread that came through and it was like, "What artist is the most popular?" I can't remember exactly how it was worded, but I didn't know anybody on the list and it was because it was basically all hip-hop folks. I sent it to Joel and I was like, "You know anybody on this list?" And it was all... I started looking at them, they're all great artists. And it was like, "Man, we have a huge blind eye to this entire scene that's part of the music scene that we haven't even looked at." I think that kind of goes for a lot of genres. There's a fantastic metal podcast out of Chattanooga—Chattanooga is known for having great metal—and through this podcast called Monuments and Ruin... most people don't really know that. Most people don't know the metal things that are happening here in Chattanooga. Nobody knew about bluegrass stuff until, you know, two years ago when it was just all of a sudden pulled when IBMA made the choice to come here, which was great. So I think there are a lot of shadows in the music scene that for us, particularly, aren't really shadows for other people; we just haven't found them yet. And I think that's the other great thing about doing this thing: we're just constantly discovering new music. One of y'all's—Snowclones! Snowclones was one of our—that's one of my favorite discoveries of this last year was listening to Snowclones. They're great, and I know that you know who they are.

Joel Forlines: Well, and I think one thing that we... while we aren't at this time covering house shows on a grassroots level, there is the Road to Nightfall that we are covering. We're doing a six-day promotional campaign for that, mainly because both Randy and I see the essential nature of new bands in a musical culture. I want new bands; I always love hearing new music, especially when it's local live music. So we're doing those small initiatives, and when we do get turned on to a new band or a house show, that's the first thing we're going to announce.

Randy Steele: We talk about it, that's literally the first thing we talk about every time: "What did you do this week?" "Who did you go see?" "What did you talk about?" We talk about that constantly. In those kind of threads, Randy actually kind of just gave me the kick in the pants to move forward and actually take what I'm doing seriously enough to believe that it is worth people hearing. And I guarantee you there's somebody listening—just go ahead and pick it up and do it. And I promise you'll see a positive result. It takes work getting uncomfortable, but somebody has to be uncomfortable in this process, and I don't think it should be the listener.

Paul Jorgensen: I'm with you there. And one of the things that I like about this—there's that new musician guide that they put together... SoundCorps! Yeah, SoundCorps. And then the things that we're doing here and in a bunch of other places is that it all seems to be very cooperative. It's not a zero-sum game: "I'm going to promote this, so you can't promote that." And that kind of energy, I think, bodes well for the future of the local music scene here. But part of it, and I'm curious your guys' take on this, is that being the case then, how are you doing reaching younger listeners? Like those that are stuck in the algorithm, they're only listening to Spotify or Tidal or whatever. How are you working on that, or are you yet?

Joel Forlines: And I think that was our olive branch, was being so socially involved in the Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. We are trying to extend our arm a little bit longer than I normally would mainly because I understand that those mediums are utilized by people of younger age groups. But also the most important thing that I think both of us are doing is we are present physically in our local scene. So that generationally, I think one thing that Brother Randy's doing is his jam on Tuesdays. I do not see an average age there; I see all ages.

Randy Steele: That's true.

Joel Forlines: And I think that's what he is doing immediately physically in his local scene to do that.

Randy Steele: I think too, the best thing you can do is buy a ticket and go to the show. That's how you... we keep bringing up Snowclones, but that's a perfect example of what you're talking about because it's a much younger band and probably wouldn't—without the podcast—it would never have crossed my path. So this is like us learning—we are learning about who the younger folks are coming in. And the great thing about being... we get to do the podcast at Barrelhouse Ballroom. So the great thing about being there is that we are tied in with a bunch of the younger folks who work at Barrelhouse, who do a lot of the booking for the younger bands and the stuff that happens at Barrelhouse, or at Songbirds, or at HiFi Clyde's—it's kind of the same kind of crew. So getting to know what's going on with those folks and following them, going to their jams—like the Monday night jam that they have at Barrelhouse every couple of weeks, and the Tuesday night jam at Cherry Street—hanging out with guys... I think both of us are going out and about and looking for guys that we can at least be in fraternity with that are under the age of 23. I know at least a few guys that I'm calling every week and making sure to invest in that local scene because that's what people did for me. And if you're just now picking up a guitar or you're starting a band, reach out. Reach out to Eat the Brick because we definitely want to know who you are and we definitely want to be able to plug you in if we can. Because that's what I'm trying to do—I'm not trying to build where it's all one genre or everybody's together—I want to be able to plug people into the scenes: the heavy metal scene, the punk scene, all of these beautiful sub-genres that we do have here that I'm even a part of, that we can say, "Hey, come over here, see if this is what you like" and be able to plug people in. Very important.

Paul Jorgensen: Yeah, definitely. So... gosh, there's so much... this conversation is triggering a bunch of other thoughts.

Randy Steele: That's what happens to us every time! You start talking about what is missing or what is an overabundance in the local scene and one road will easily lead you straight down another road.

Joel Forlines: And one thing that I think is really good for the conversation like this: do you notice that there's no frustration? Like we're dealing with what is, not with what we wish could be. We're saying, "Okay, how is it now, and how can we make this better? What does this need?" Not "What can I bring to the table?" or "This is just what I've done in another scene." It's "Let me take a second and listen." Because as musicians, the first thing we don't do is listen. And I think that when we see those needs, we can easily address them without frustration and open conversation like this. It's so integral for what we're doing.

Paul Jorgensen: So then, how are y'all positioning the podcast in order to cast your net a bit wider, to bring more awareness about the Chattanooga music scene from other places? So like are you guys tied into something like a Big Ears? I mean obviously we've got the IBMAs coming to town and that's always important, but how else are you looking to kind of raise your arm in the air and say, "Hey, by the way, Chattanooga, look at all the things we've got going on here"?

Joel Forlines: I'll give you two examples real fast. IBMA is nationwide—I mean nationwide, international—and Brother Randy's on the leadership committee. So Chattanooga is being brought up in a lot of conversations internationally about specific bands, specific musicians, specific players. That is putting our scene, our local scene, on the map in a way that I don't know if we will see the ramifications of fully until five years from now. It's coming. A lot of the touring that we're doing—I'm taking a tour on the road of Chattanooga musicians across the country—and that's another way that we're spreading awareness because all of those people are being tapped into our social media, thus all of those people are being tapped into Eat the Brick. And I think that not only is there local awareness, but there's nationwide awareness. And when that snowball starts rolling, then I think that it'll get a demographic of people that you don't necessarily get the interest of all until you get the interest of others. And we're getting that interest of others seeing, "Whoa, this is exactly what they're doing in Chattanooga. How can I get plugged in?" because there are touring bands coming through all the time. And once those touring bands show the necessity of what a local podcast is doing, then you get the local awareness as well. So I think it takes that broad net in a way to get that local scene realizing kind of what we're doing. The momentum of what Chattanooga is doing is insane.

Randy Steele: I think kind of in the transverse, really I think what we've done lately—the most that we've done—is try to... "Hey, this is how you can get out to tour." Like this is how you can... so it's more about like exporting Chattanooga to Huntsville, Knoxville, and Atlanta, and Asheville. The bands—to try to convince the bands like, "Hey, go to these places and play." Go be missionaries! Go sing the virtues of Chattanooga.

Joel Forlines: Exactly!

Randy Steele: And to kind of set it up where that you could take advantage of what Chattanooga has to offer which is—you have like five major markets within two hours of here: Birmingham, Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville. You can do all of those... well, not all five in one night.

Paul Jorgensen: Right, you can just do three.

Randy Steele: Unless you're Tyler Martelli. If you were Tyler Martelli, maybe you could do all five. There we go, we got Tyler Martelli in the studio; he's nodding. But yeah, and I think that's kind of where we very first started, that was like: "We do have this knowledge. We have the knowledge of how to tour and how to make... how to hit those markets because we've both been doing that for a while." And that was one thing that felt like we were subject matter experts kind of on that because you can go out from Chattanooga and play out a lot. I think that's probably the... kind of with what Joel described in trying to hit a bigger audience with the podcast, and then with us trying to focus on teaching people how to get out into markets, I think that's kind of the best way that we can build. That's how we're trying to expand our circle of influence. You know, we have a circle of influence that's only so far in diameter right now, but I'm hoping that our Chattanooga scene, we can just expand that circle of influence a little bit more. And the more we do, then all of a sudden the concentration of great music inside the city just gets better and better and better.

Joel Forlines: Yeah, self-represented delegates. And I love what you said about missionaries—I grew up in that world—and what you're doing locally and what you're doing as foreign missionaries too, it all plays together because you're getting that cultural exchange. When you go to another country and bring what the Southeast United States is doing, I'm telling you, it is unlike anywhere in the world. We live in a cultural goldmine for music, and people... we don't understand that people don't have this 4,000 miles away. They don't have access to the best bluegrass pickers in the world; they don't hear a Southern rhythm section with the bass and drums—like we're from where Clyde Stubblefield got his rhythm. I'm telling you, this is just magnificent stuff to share. And when you take that on the road and you see the value of what we're doing here as a foreign export, you'll see immediately the change of what we just take for granted every day. And so I really do appreciate what you said, you know, locally and as a foreign musical missionary what we can do. And cultural exchange is the best.

Paul Jorgensen: Agreed. So as we wrap this up, what is some upcoming performance that y'all are excited about?

Randy Steele: Well, we'll be talking about this in a couple days because I've got a ballet—I'm doing a thing with the ballet coming up here shortly, which is going to be cool.

Joel Forlines: Bluegrass ballet!

Randy Steele: The bluegrass ballet. But I think we're in here in like two days so we can wait to talk about that. He's got so many things he could promote! Little teaser there. But you know, every Tuesday we do the bluegrass jam at Barrelhouse Ballroom. That's free; go from 6:00 to 9:00. At 6:30 PM we start a slow jam, which has an eight-song setlist and that setlist we put out the week before on our Discord, but you can find all of that at tnjams.com—that's T-N-J-A-M-S dot com. And we do that every Tuesday. It's free, it's at Barrelhouse Ballroom, doesn't cost anything. 6:30's a slow jam, 7:30 is an open jam. We end up having bluegrass people from all over; it's turned into something much bigger than I ever thought it would be. I thought it was going to be 12 of us on a porch and we're having between 70 and 80 people showing up basically every Tuesday and about 30 or 40 pickers from all levels: people who don't play or who are just learning how to make chord transitions to national recording artists are each—all of those keep showing up on Tuesday. But you know, I think to talk about this thing, we're trying to put this Eat the Brick out every Monday, so that's our goal right now is to try to keep it going every week. We've done pretty well so far, but we're fixing to hit road time. I'm going... I have an East Coast tour that I'm fixing to start up so I'll be with Nick Lutsko on the road all the way up to New York and Boston and Providence, Rhode Island—all those places. Then right when I get back, Joel heads off to Alaska and he's gone for a couple of weeks with Tyler and Dan. And then when he comes back, I go to Midwest tour, and then I have a West Coast tour at the end of the summer. So trying to find time to get all the stuff in is going to be the challenge over the next few weeks.

Paul Jorgensen: That is always, when you've got a podcast and you start having to have folks going out and doing their own thing. I know that that can be a challenge. So are you guys booking a bunch of episodes in advance? Are you planning on doing some while you're on the road and then cobbling them together?

Joel Forlines: Yeah, we just recorded an episode right before we did this. We're going to go record another one after we do this. And I'm also going to take—while we're both on the road, I think both of us are going to take a camera and a microphone. I'm going up to Juneau April 6th through the 13th and taking Tyler Martelli, Danimal Pinson, and Zach Jones and we are playing for Alaska Folk Fest. We're playing a show every day and that cultural exchange is the goal. The goal for my music is to use music to influence culture in the way that it was meant to from the beginning of time. And I think we'll do that during Folk Fest. All the musicians in Alaska meet in Juneau and we get to meet every single Alaskan musician in one place and network and encourage and see how we can empower and give gear—whatever we can do, fix guitars—and that's the ultimate goal of what we're doing up there.

Paul Jorgensen: I can imagine that's going to be kind of just a general outpouring of all this creativity that happened during the long winter up there, then all of a sudden it's just going to come kind of pouring out. That's going to be...

Joel Forlines: And then when you've got—and they play... they're a bluegrass capital of the United States, old-time capital of the United States. So when you have Tyler Martelli and Danimal Pinson go up there and show them how to, you know, a better technique—we go up there and do songwriter workshops. And none of these are official; these are just what we do because we're here to share music and what we're doing. So being able to do Eat the Brick interviews up there with those guys... Alaskans look just like us, they talk just like us, they play just like us, they have the cares, worries, and concerns of us—and to be able to make that, once again, personify the life of a musician to people and answer those questions that... man, it's just a beautiful thing to exchange that culture.

Paul Jorgensen: Agreed. One more time, where can folks find the podcast?

Randy Steele: You can find it at eatthebrick.com or you can find us at Joel and Randy ETB on Instagram.

Paul Jorgensen: Hey, by the way, thank you so much for the opportunity and thank you for what you do.

Randy Steele: Oh, well, you're welcome and it's been an absolute pleasure. I'm enjoying this conversation; we're going to have to do this again.

Joel Forlines: Yeah, to be around somebody that cares about the music scene is just so good. Thank you.

Randy Steele: Yeah, we appreciate the phone call, thanks.

Paul Jorgensen: Yeah, thank you. All right, so thank you for coming in and dear listener, all the info that we've—well, all of the links and stuff will be in the show notes as well as all the places to go find the podcast. So thank you all.

Joel and Randy: Thank you!

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and spot edited. Email wutc@utc.edu with corrections.

Chord Drift with Paul Jorgensen
Paul Jorgensen
Paul tends to the website and podcasts and other technical kit at WUTC while he pursues a Master's Degree in Cyber Security. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree at UTC.
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