Switching Things Up with Josh Mancuso
Josh Mancuso is a TikTok creator based out of East Tennessee who has started his own production company called Switchmen Studios. In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, we discuss Josh’s East Tennessee roots and how he came to become a full-time content...
Josh Mancuso is a TikTok creator based out of East Tennessee who has started his own production company called Switchmen Studios. In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, we discuss Josh’s East Tennessee roots and how he came to become a full-time content creator. Josh walks through his creative process, and why he feels consistency is what changed the game for him. Josh also talks about his future goals for Switchmen Studios, including movies he’s working on, how he’s built a large following by knowing his audience, and so much more.
Highlights
01:07 Josh introduces himself and explains how he has turned his love for video content into a career
02:17 How Josh comes up with his ideas and why he values sticking to his strengths
03:48 Julia and Josh discuss his East Tennessee roots and what he loves about living in the East Tennessee area
08:22 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro
09:00 The audience and habits that have led to Josh’s success and where he hopes to take Switchmen Studios in the future
17:06 The genre that Josh wants to pursue as he expands into making movies
18:45 Ad - Just Homes Group Realty Executives
19:20 How Josh balances his career in media production and his family
21:24 Where the name Switchmen Studios came from
25:20 The three people who Josh would love to be connected with to further his career
28:19 Where you can find Josh and how to reach out to him
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejoshmancuso
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshmancuso/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshmancuso/
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Email: switchmenstudios@gmail.com
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Website: https://switchmenstudios.com
Connect with ConnectTheKnox
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Just Homes Realty Group: www.justhomesgroup.com
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Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley
Transcript
Julia: Hey everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Connect the Knox with me, your hostess with the mostest, Julia Hurley. And today’s guest is one of the most creative people I’ve come across in the two years I’ve been on TikTok, Josh Mancuso—and I said it wrong earlier—he owns Switchmen Studios, and if you have not had the pleasure, we’re going to talk about his TikTok channel, we’re going to talk about his creativity and some of what he does. One of my favorite things, however, is when he creates TikTok videos about SEC college football—or any college football teams—and how they’ve named their mascots. I found this creator on my ‘For You’ page. I have followed him and shared him, and I think at this point, he has over, like, 50 million views. Extremely creative, and friends? From Tennessee. I know it’s shocking. We got talent here. So Josh, tell us about you and how you ended up where you are today, and kind of where we’re going.
Josh: Yeah, oh my gosh, thank you for having me. It’s so, so good to be with you. So, I’m—originally I was born in LA, so I’ve got a family in California, but I lived in Tennessee since I was five years old. So, I grew up in Northeast Tennessee. I live in Johnson City, Tennessee, now.
And I have always been into creating things. Man, I’ll tell you what, even when I was a kid and I had projects in school and th—you know, you had a choice. You could do, like, one of those boards, like, the three… thing board that you could, like, make a what do you call that?
Julia: Oh, like the science experiment thing?
Josh: Yeah, you can do a board like that, or you could do, like, if you write a paper or you could do, like, different things. And one of the choices was, make a video. and I always made a video for every single project. So, I’ve been making videos since I was a kid, and… have been fortunate enough to turn it into a career. So yeah, just been having fun making some videos here with college football season in full scale right now. So, it’s been, yeah it’s been a lot of fun.
Julia: I wish I could figure out—I’m sure—[laugh] I’m sure you could do this—figure out how to insert one of your videos here because I think just, like, a quick play of that. But I really encourage people do. And I’ll put all your links in the podcast as well.
Josh: Yeah, thank you.
Julia: How do you come up with this stuff? I mean, the Tennessee Georgia video is actually oddly what came up on my ‘For You’ page the week of that game, and I was like, how did it know? [laugh]. How do you come up with stuff?
Josh: It’s too smart. It’s scary, smart. Well, you know, I fancy myself a good writer. There’s certain things that I’m really good at. Some things I’m not that good at. So, the technical side, like, I couldn’t tell you how to put one of my videos into this stream right now. No idea. But I’m a good writer and hopefully a decent actor.
So, you know, some of these skits almost write themselves, you know, especially the mascot videos. There’s so much content because it’s great to kind of look at how schools came up with their mascot. But don’t look at the real story; you look at, like, an outsider’s perspective, like, why is Virginia Tech Hokie? What’s a Hokie? What is that?
And so, you just kind of go down a rabbit trail [laugh] and next thing you know, yeah, I’ve written the script. And it’s, you know, I’m lucky I guess, because I love college football and so that world is familiar to me. If I were writing comedy skits about brain surgery it wouldn’t be funny, so—because I wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. So, at least it’s an area that I’m familiar with.
Julia: I do love the Hokie. I just watched the Hokie one this morning, actually, and you’re like—and you ended it with, “And lots of national championships.” And you cut over and you’re like… “No.” [laugh].
Josh: It’s so sad, bless their hearts. They have not won a national championship in football, or maybe any other sport that I can—that I’m familiar with. So.
Julia: No. If that’s not the most southern thing somebody has said on this podcast yet: bless their heart. I really do appreciate that. Tell us about how you ended up in the Tri-Cities.
Josh: Oh, yes. Well… gosh, my mother was from the Tri-Cities. My dad was from California, and his family’s also out there. But yeah, I ended up moving out here when I was five years old and never left. I spent about—well, I spent about a year in Atlanta, but yeah, pretty much East Tennessee bred.
And my wife and my three daughters, we all—we still live here and we’re rooted here, I think. I don’t anticipate leaving anytime soon. So, we love it. I mean, you couldn’t ask for—you get all four seasons, you get beautiful scenery, you get great people. East Tennessee is a great place to live. Yeah.
Julia: So, downtown Johnson City—pre-Covid; I haven’t been since—downtown Johnson City had a restaurant in the—oh my gosh, I can’t—it was like a Cuban restaurant. Is that still there?
Josh: Umm… Sabores. No, it’s not there any longer. Yeah.
Julia: Oh, man. That place was fantastic.
Josh: Yeah. There’s a lot of good restaurants in Johnson City, like in Knoxville. I mean, I think Knoxville’s got a ton of good places to eat. And Johnson City, for being such a small town, has incredible dining. Yeah, they’ve got some great places to go. There’s no shortage of good restaurants and breweries too if you’re into… into the beer.
Julia: I am. We go to Asheville at least twice a year and celebrate [laugh]. Just for—just to go.
Josh: To celebrate what?
Julia: To celebrate [crosstalk 00:05:07] [laugh].
Josh: Just to celebrate?
Julia: Just ‘cause. Just to go [laugh].
Josh: It’s a Thursday. Let’s go celebrate somewhere and have a beer. Yeah.
Julia: Whoo. [unintelligible 00:05:14]. Thank you. So.
Josh: Yes.
Julia: True, though. True. Anyway, all right. So, California to Johnson City. Your family’s from here anyway. Did you go to college here? Did you go to college in the South? What made you fall in love with the idea of this?
Josh: Well, I went to college at Emory & Henry College. It’s a small school in Southwest Virginia. Yeah, small private school.
Julia: We crushed you every year in tennis. I went to Maryville College.
Josh: Oh, did you really?
Julia: That was the only thing that we had against you [laugh]. The only thing we could win.
Josh: That’s great. Yes. I remember playing against Maryville College. So, I went to play football. So, I was—listen, I was nearly enrolled at University of Tennessee, [unintelligible 00:05:59] my roommate from high school, we were going out together, we were going to—I mean, we’re ready to rock.
And then, sort of last minute, I decided I wanted to—I played football in high school; I want to try to play football in college. And there were some small schools that were giving me some chances and so I was like, all right, I can’t let go of this. I probably should have let go of it, but I couldn’t. So, I went there to play football. Unfortunately, I hurt my back my sophomore year and I could not play anymore after that. But I stayed there for all four years. And it’s a beautiful campus, let me tell you what. It is so nice up there. But, so you play—did you play tennis?
Julia: I did. I did. Emory & Henry was one of our favorite places to visit because we would just absolutely—it was always a [6-0 6-0 6-6 00:06:42] [laugh]. So, I was like [unintelligible 00:06:45].
Josh: That’s awesome. Yeah, I don’t remember us having a very strong tennis team when I was there. It was all football and a little bit of basketball. So yeah, that’s exciting. Well, you need to come back up and visit. I’ve not been in a while. It’s been… I’m not a very good alum, but I need to get up there.
Julia: [crosstalk 00:07:06] Maryville College just 20 minutes down the road. I went for—they did an interview with me, they interviewed me. I was a state legislator and I’ve been ten years elected, so they did an interview with me about, where is she now? And I come 20 minutes down the road and you never see me [laugh].
Josh: I’m still here. Yeah.
Julia: I’m still here.
Josh: That’s good.
Julia: That’s hilarious. All right. So, you went to Emory & Henry. Did you go to grad school after that?
Josh: I went later to grad school. I ended up going to a school called Luther Rice University. It’s like a… it’s like part, part Bible college seminary, and part graduate school. So, I got a degree there in leadership. Yes, you can get a degree in leadership, believe it or not, which obviously makes me the most qualified leader in the world because I have a master’s degree in leadership. So, if you need somebody to lead something, I’m your guy. Here I come. So, that was [laugh] that was great.
Julia: You’re going to have to compete against the Haslam Business Leadership College now in Knoxville because they’re just pumping them out.
Josh: They are pumping them out. Well, I should probably be invited as a guest speaker, a guest lecturer, probably.
Julia: I recommend that.
Josh: Yeah. I think—I mean if they’re looking for some quality entertainment and not so much learning experience, I probably am a good choice. Yeah, so I did get a degree there. What else did I do? What else, what else are you asking me?
Julia: Oh, my God, everything.
Josh: Everything. Okay.
Julia: Basically, what I’m looking for is how did you end up with Switchmen Studios and doing what you’re doing now? I mean, this is… there are very few, I’ll say—I’ll be honest, very few in my generation comedians that are well-written, well-spoken, well-presented, and relatable, and you have all of those qualities. And it’s almost as if you’ve used the same thing we all use in sports as a conversation, to get to know your audience and then your audience automatically feels a connection to you. And it’s like they are now solidified to you. So basically, if you wanted to branch out and do anything else, you could take that there.
And I feel like watching you and watching your channel grow and watching your following grow and your comments in your comment section are hilarious. I mean, people are involved with you. They’re invested in you. And that is leadership. Whether you think that or not, it is definitely leadership, being able to do that.
And I’m really interested to see what your future plans are. Not only other skits because we’re definitely going to get into some Ohio-Michigan, but—
Josh: Oh yeah.
Julia: —what are your future skits for the next year? And where are you planning on going with this and where do you want this to grow?
Josh: Oh, my gosh. First of all, that was all so well said thank you for saying such kind words and for being—will come manage my career? Will you be my PR person? Will do all my marketing appear—because that sounded great. I should have, I should have written that down. So yeah.
Julia: You’ll be able to plus press record. It’s [laugh] totally fine.
Josh: That’s true. Okay. Yea. Thank you so much. So yeah, we’re—uh… wow. You know, I was a little hesitant to start putting out comedy videos because there’s something about putting yourself out there on social media. One, my goal is not really to be a quote, “TikTok star.” Nothing wrong with that; it’s just not one of my goals. And I feel older, too old to say I’m going to be a TikTok star, right? It seems like something a young person would say. But so, but eventually, I kind of get over, I guess, impostor syndrome, like, hey, okay, you are funny, people do think you’re funny, all right, but I’m living room funny. But am I funny enough to put out content every week that people are going to look forward to seeing and do I want to invest enough of my time to actually be doing that?
And eventually, probably two years ago, I started making a couple of videos here and there, but I wasn’t consistent. They were funny, but I just didn’t have the time, didn’t take the time to put, you know, production quality into them. And so finally, I decided earlier this year, all right, if I’m going to do this, I want to do it well and go all in. So, I started making the videos and just had a tremendous response right off the bat. And it was so great to get that.
And I think tapping into certain audiences has been huge for me. I think every time I do a new school, that’s a brand new audience that I’m pulling in because I, you know, I been mainly SEC audiences and now I got TCU, I got their fans, you know, coming in. So, that’s been really cool. And with Tennessee-Georgia, I kind of hit two fan bases at once. So, I’ll probably be doing more videos where I hit multiple fan bases at one time so I can bring in new viewers and followers.
But so I was in—I’ve been doing video production for ten-plus years, I worked in marketing for a little while and then was doing video production on the side. I started a company, it was just called Mancuso Entertainment. And that was a long time ago and I was intending really to simply get to a place where I can make movies, I want to make films. And I started making videos for other people. I did wedding videos, I did, like, business videos, marketing videos.
It just, it built up and I had a couple of employees. It was great and I loved it, but I could never branch off and, like, do, like, original content. And so, actually, Covid kind of changed some of that for me. Covid was—I know it was a really bad thing for all of us, but some, certainly some good things were born out of that for me. I was able to kind of reset and kind of start fresh and I started on this journey, this direction towards really being a creator and an entertainer and less of… a less of a—I’m a business owner, obviously, but less of a client-based business owner. Now, making content that I want to make that other people hopefully enjoy.
And so, I started Switchmen Studios earlier this year and it has been great. Our mission is really to make movies, to make full-length feature films, some short films, TV series, and online, you know, social media content. And so, that’s where I’ve started is with that because I think that’s the greatest first step forward in gaining an audience, in bringing people in and letting them kind of join in with what I’m doing and see what we’re trying to do, and then we can start into some bigger things. And so, I’ve already done some short films, some dramas, some comedies that have been in film festivals, things like that and it’s been great. I’ve loved it.
Won a few awards, I’m thankful for that. And so, we’re working our way towards making bigger productions. I’m actually making movies, but right now, certainly very focused on making comedy videos and just making people laugh—my favorite thing to do is just make people laugh—and see where that takes us.
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Julia: Have you thought about—just throwing this out there—what popped into my head when you said that is, somebody who’s obviously well on their way to getting what they want and not to undercut the amount of work that that’s going to take, for sure—
Josh: Sure.
Julia: I mean, nothing comes easy. Learning how to even cut videos is extremely difficult. And so, I think the younger generation has a leg up on all of us that they wake up with a phone in their hands at the age of, you know, six months and figure out YouTube a day later. And they’re very intelligent when it comes to videos, but it takes work, it takes dedication, and it takes garnishing the attention of the right people. What would it take for you to make a video, like… I don’t know, like, oh gosh, what did that Farrell, the guy—whatever his name is the comedian, the tall, red-haired comedian.
Josh: Will Ferrell?
Julia: Will Ferrell versus uh… oh, I hate to say, like, this short, chunky, dark-headed guy that was in Moneyball?
Josh: [laugh] Jonah Hill.
Julia: I think if you did a video impersonating each of them and garnishing some of the attention of comedians like that, they would appreciate that banter. I think that they are kind of the people that play off themselves more than anybody else. And that’s kind of what you do. You play off of your own strengths while creating content for other people to love, which is really hard to do. That’s really hard to do.
Josh: Sure, yeah. It is. It is. I think it works because I’m able to be myself. Even though I’m playing different characters in there, it’s still me, you know what I mean? It’s still me within that. If you look at big actors like, like Will Ferrell, like, you know, Chris Pratt or somebody like that, yes, they become their characters, but it’s really, like, Chris Pratt is still Chris Pratt in every movie that he’s in. Will Ferrell is still Will Ferrell. Like, yeah, they’re a character, but—and I think that’s great. You can do that in comedy, especially, because, you know, I have a certain type of comedic delivery and I stick to that, and I know not to really get out of that lane too much, or I [laugh] could, you know, it won’t be near as funny. So, I’ve tried a couple times. You should see some of the outtakes because I’m like, go okay, no, don’t do that again, Josh. Don’t ever do it again. Like, let’s go back to what you’re good at. Let’s do the, you know, the facial expressions and the way I say things. And yeah, so being able to be yourself and make that is, I’m just so grateful that, honestly, that people think I’m funny because sometimes I’m like, “People think I’m f—” like—
Julia: You are hilarious.
Josh: I don’t think I’m that funny, but people are cracking up.
Julia: You are [hilarious 00:16:36]. It is—you are insanely funny. It’s like what—it’s just… you remind me of, like… what is that—the female comedian [Leanne 00:16:43] from Knoxville?
Josh: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Julia: Okay. She’s herself and ridiculously hilarious. And it doesn’t matter what she says, you can relate to it. You—get that same vibe. It’s like, it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s relatable—
Josh: Yeah.
Julia: —and funny.
Josh: Yeah. Well, thanks.
Julia: So, I found that interesting. Okay. Is comedy, though, the genre that you want to go with all of your movies? Like, what’s your passion there?
Josh: Yeah, I mean, I think like so many comedic actors, you’ll find them saying, “Oh, I love doing comedy; I love being a comedian, but I want to be a real actor,” right? Which means you want to do drama and thrillers and things like that. So, it’s a balance for me. It’s like I know what is my bread and butter, I know what’s going to pay the bills, I know what’s going to get me where I want to go, and it is comedy. So, I would be an idiot if I was like, I’m going to go do drama now.
Like no, it is a comedy, and I—yeah, a lot of the films that we have lined up and that we’re looking at are comedies. But there are some dramas as well because I think that, you know, I’m a creative; I don’t want to get stuck doing only comedy, only one thing, so there is some dramatic roles. I was just in a movie in Birmingham, Alabama. I shot a movie down there and I played, it’s a dramatic character. And he has a little bit of comedic edge to him; it’s very subtle. But it’s—it takes place in 1970s.
And so, you know, we had the bell bottoms and the, I had a mustache that, you know, like, Fu Manchu that came down here—
Julia: the Manchu? [laugh].
Josh: Yeah, ’70s, smoking cigarettes and just doing the whole deal. So, that was fun. And that was a stretch for me, so I like being able to ease into it a little bit. Am I going to get cast in the next big drama with, you know, Kate Winslet playing opposite me? Absolutely no.
Julia: You never know.
Josh: What?
Julia: You never know.
Josh: You never know. But am I more likely to be cast in a comedy tomorrow? Absolutely. So, we want to do both, but comedy is certainly our… that’s our strong suit, right?
Julia: Yeah. Where does the family fit into all this? Do they travel with you? Are they homeschooled? Tell us a little bit about your family if you want.
Josh: Good question. No, they go to school here locally. And they’re great kids. I’m fortunate. My wife works as a nurse, so she has interesting hours, right? A lot of long hours back and forth. So, it’s a lot of, like, working, like, crazy, and then family time for a couple days, and then working like crazy. And so, it goes back and forth.
They don’t travel with me for anything long. Sometimes if it’s like a weekend, you know, we’ll go together and that’s a lot of fun. But I was gone for about nine days recently and they didn’t go there. I went to Nashville; I was in a commercial there and then drove down to Birmingham for the movie, and then came back. So, that was the longest time I’ve ever had to be away from them. But my girls are 13, 12, and 6. So—
Julia: Wow.
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Julia: That’s a spread that’s a spread.
Josh: That’s a spread, yeah. The six-year-old comes by surprise. She was a bit of—she was like, “Oh, oh, we’re going to have a third one. Okay, good. No, that’s good. We’re excited. It’s great.”
Julia: I’m sure the middle child loves that [laugh].
Josh: Yeah. Oh, man. Bless—yeah, bless her heart—
Julia: Bless her heart.
Josh: Because now she’s the middle kid. Yeah, they’re great. And you know that they don’t… you would think maybe they think that I’m cool. I had this conversation with somebody, actually this morning. Like, “Your kids must think you’re so cool.” And I’m like, “They don’t think I’m cool at all. They’re like, ‘he’s just dumb old dad.’” You know, they’re like—like, my oldest is, like, “Dad, my friends watch all your videos. It’s so embarrassing.” [laugh].
Julia: It’s like the bad [unintelligible 00:20:17] guys. My kids hate me.
Josh: I know. I’m like, “Sorry, honey, but it’s only going to get worse from here.” So.
Julia: You’ll love it one day. It’ll be hilarious. It’s fine.
Josh: That’s right. Yes.
Julia: Yeah. [back to cough 00:20:30], everything is fine. Everything is fine.
Josh: [laugh]. Everything’s fine. Yeah.
Julia: [laugh]. Everything is great. Okay, so I’m very excited about, kind of like, what creativity you’re growing into, and I feel like the shift is going to happen for you where you want it to. Do you still—like, tell me about Switchmen Studios. Because I did a little research. Switchmen—did you come up with a name because you switch characters? That’s what I was thinking originally, but then I actually did some research on that and it’s a rail line position. Where did this name come from?
Josh: Well, good. You do your research, man. I love it. Thank you. Yes, so the name Switchmen. It’s such a random name for a studio, so my grandfather, [A.J. Castillo 00:21:12], he was a railroad worker years ago. He’s passed a long time ago. But he worked on the railroad most of his life. And he was in a… I guess a quintet. Is that five? Quintet? He was in a basically—it’s like, gospel group band with four other men, and they all worked for the railroad.
And they traveled around Northeast Tennessee, Southeast Virginia, playing at churches, things like that. And I used to travel with them when I was a little boy. And I thought I was so cool. I thought it was so cool. And so, a switch—and their band name was the Switchmen. That was their name.
Julia: Oh, that’s so awesome. Yeah.
Josh: So, a switchman in a railroad is the one who switches the track from one track to the other so the train can go a different track, then they—you know, it’s kind of a dangerous job, actually. And my grandfather wasn’t necessarily a switchman most of his life; he did other things, primarily, but it was a great name. And for me, I just thought, man, I’d love to just kind of give a little tribute to him. He had a big impact on my life, and so I thought I’d like to—what can I do? And I thought about his gospel band and then I thought, well, you got to connect it somehow to filmmaking. You don’t have to, but, I mean, it’d be nice if I could.
So, I thought, you know, the Switchmen changes the train from one track to another, and I really feel like as creators, as storytellers, as filmmakers, we have the ability to take an audience down a certain path and then all of a sudden, yank that line and pull that and take them on a different path. That could be a plot twist, could be a new character you didn’t see coming, it could be a joke, even. And so, I like that ability to kind of take an audience this way and then take them this way and that way, and it makes the journey for them that much more exciting when they are viewing and watching your content. So, that’s how I came up with it. Yeah.
Julia: Hmm. If that’s not a title for a future movie on day, I’m not sure what is.
Josh: Amen, sister. Tell me about it. Yep.
Julia: That’s pretty good.
Josh: Yeah.
Julia: That’s [unintelligible 00:23:05]. That would be a, actually, really fantastic movie. Not necessarily about the training switcher people, but the movie with the thought process behind it itself. That’s very—that would be a very good—that’s exi—you have so much creativity in that brain of yours.
Josh: You’re so sweet. Thank you. Well, I mean, I swear, naming a company is, like, the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s like—because I’ve had other smaller companies in the past and it’s like, the name didn’t mean anything and it was just sort of like… I wanted it to mean something and still be creative and something that I wouldn’t mind putting up and saying, “This is my company,” like, “Here it is.” And it’s great because people ask me what it means, so I can tell them.
Julia: So, one of the things that I do on this podcast, the whole reason I’ve named it Connect the Knox—kind of like connect the dots but through Knoxville—is that I’ve been here my entire life. I’m a First Families of Tennessee, Daughters of the American Revolution, we’ve been here forever. I mean, forever.
Josh: Love it.
Julia: And it’s a very interesting thing [that 00:24:04] to think of people calling me all the time and asking me, “Do you know somebody that does this? Do you know somebody that can do this? Who do you know that does this?” And I connect people—and I’ve been connecting people—20 years of business and have never connected the actual dots between who I knew and where they go. And so, that’s the purpose of the podcast.
So, I’m going to ask you, if you [needed connected 00:24:24] with five or less people, who would you want to be connected with? Put it out there into the world because this podcast, what we have a hu—I mean about 175,000 followers, so not massive, but nothing to shake a stick at—
Josh: That’s huge. That’s awesome.
Julia: [crosstalk 00:24:38] probably get out there. Who are your five that you feel like you need to be connected with?
Josh: Five in Knoxville or five anywhere?
Julia: Anywhere.
Josh: Anywhere. You know, my biggest connections, the five I need to be connected with would be… [sigh] you know, I think you mentioned earlier getting into some schools, right, some colleges. It would be great to get in, whether it’s athletic director or marketing and PR people where I could actually come and visit some schools and be able to, whether it’s talk to the team or do some shows there, do some stand-up comedy, like, whatever I could do to get in with some of those folks would be tremendous. That would be a huge help for me. So, that’s one.
And second would be you know, obviously producers, people that are involved in the entertainment industry. And then just to be fully honest, third is money. It takes money to do what I do. And it’s tough because people want to make money doing their art and it is tough to make money doing art. And while making funny videos is just funny videos, it’s still art, and so you know, sponsorships, it’s investors.
And I have currently one investor in my—in Switchmen Studios, and that is how I’m able to spend all my time doing what I’m doing. And I’m looking for other investors who would be able to come alongside and say, “We believe in you. We think you’re awesome, think you’re funny, think you’re talented, think that—we look at what you’ve done so far and think wow, what if this guy really had the resources he needs to go big, could he do it?” And absolutely I believe I could and will. So, looking for those types of people. I don’t know if you’re asking for specific names of people but—
Julia: Well I—
Josh: Types of people, that’s what I’m looking for.
Julia: No and I think that just putting that out there is fantastic. I think that you have more connections than you probably think about. Quentin Tarantino is from Knoxville.
Josh: [laugh]. Yes. True.
Julia: Never hurts to reach out. And people have and they’re like, “he’s unreachable.” He’s not. David Keith still lives in Knoxville.
Josh: See, I didn’t know that.
Julia: Coaches in Knoxville. Trains kids in Knoxville, acting classes in Knoxville. Um, just so—you know, a couple examples, up in Bristol Johnson City Tri-Cities area, the guy that does the editing for the playbacks and what we, like, to call the chicken salad of the mess that we make on the football field, he’s from Johnson City.
Josh: [laugh]. Really?
Julia: Right here in Knoxville. So, there’s a lot of things that you can connect to right here in Knoxville. And this is what I love about it is whenever I find somebody that I want to interview and I want to bring them on the show, and I’m like, listen, what can we do for you? This is exactly what this is about, finding talented people who are connected to Knoxville and they don’t even know it. And these are opportunities right down the road.
But obviously, Nashville will be, Nashville will be probably the biggest one for you to go to, but you have that capability right here in the Knoxville Tri-Cities market. So, I’m excited to have shared that and your opportunities to grow. Because I feel like we’re going to see a lot more of you and I’m really excited to have had you when you had open time—
Josh: Yes. Thank you.
Julia: —on this podcast because I feel like that is such a huge opportunity for the world to see you and get to know you a little bit. So, we’ve got about three minutes. Break down for us how people can find you.
Josh: Yep.
Julia: Spell it out so we don’t get confused. How they can contribute. Do you have, like, a donations page? Do you have a GoFundMe page? Do you have a requests page for videos? I would love to see, like, realtor versus [fisbo 00:27:56] because that would be hilarious—
Josh: [laugh].
Julia: —[crosstalk 00:27:58] little things like that. And then if they can buy a video from you, like, say, hey, this is something that’s in my industry. I would love a comedic gesture on… let’s find a way to help you grow—
Josh: Yes.
Julia: —get to be known at the same time. So, fill us in. Where can people find you and help you?
Josh: That’s awesome, Julie. You’re so great. Thanks for doing this, for having me on. Yes, obviously the best ways to start follow me is on social media. Most of my handles are just @joshmancuso. And that’s Josh, J-O-S-H, Mancuso, M-A-N-C-U-S-O. TikTok’s a little different. It’s at @thejoshmancuso. And Facebook is also at @thejoshmancuso because somebody took my handle before I had a chance to get there. But Instagram, Twitter is @joshmancuso. So yeah, follow me there.
Obviously, I welcome people, you know, to DM me. I read most of my DMs, not all. I get to—okay, I pretty much read them all. I get to them eventually. It takes me a little bit of time. But I will get to it, so feel free to DM me if you have suggestions or anything. And then email me at switchmenstudios@gmail.com. So, it’s switchmen—plural: M-E-N—switchmenstudios@gmail.com. The website is switchmenstudios.com you can go there as well.
And just drop me a line and connect with me. I’d love to hear from folks and whatever I can do for them as well. You know if someone wants to partner with me in some way financially, there’s plenty of ways that way or if you just want to request something. I’m also on Cameo just recently, so you can book me; 29 bucks. You can book a personalized message from me if someone is interested in that. You have a—
Julia: [laugh]. Oh, God. I’ve already paid for it. Take my money.
Josh: Take [laugh]—
Julia: Take my money. I’m serious. That’s so great. I didn’t even know that. That’s so awesome.
Josh: Yes, so just cameo.com/joshmanuso, and I can send a private message to you or somebody’s birthday or somebody that loves a certain team or something. Yeah, so that’s a lot of fun, too.
Julia: Oh, my God. I’ve got somebody on my football players that have birthdays coming out, so that is, like, take my money.
Josh: Please.
Julia: All right. Please. Everybody, thank you so much. This has been one of my favorite podcasts to record so far. I’m very excited about it. I’ll let you know when it drops. We drop about every two weeks, so we’re starting to film as many as—we’ve got 15 in the pipeline so far. I’ve been very lucky that people have sent me the right people.
I am lucky to have found you and that you responded. I cannot wait to see what happens in your future. Everybody, please follow @thejoshmancuso or @joshmancuso, and whoever bought his stuff, give it to this man. Please give him his name. Thank you for Connecting the Knox. I’m Julia Hurley. Thanks for visiting.
Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.
Julia: Hey everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Connect the Knox with me, your hostess with the mostest, Julia Hurley. And today’s guest is one of the most creative people I’ve come across in the two years I’ve been on TikTok, Josh Mancuso—and I said it wrong earlier—he owns Switchmen Studios, and if you have not had the pleasure, we’re going to talk about his TikTok channel, we’re going to talk about his creativity and some of what he does. One of my favorite things, however, is when he creates TikTok videos about SEC college football—or any college football teams—and how they’ve named their mascots. I found this creator on my ‘For You’ page. I have followed him and shared him, and I think at this point, he has over, like, 50 million views. Extremely creative, and friends? From Tennessee. I know it’s shocking. We got talent here. So Josh, tell us about you and how you ended up where you are today, and kind of where we’re going.
Josh: Yeah, oh my gosh, thank you for having me. It’s so, so good to be with you. So, I’m—originally I was born in LA, so I’ve got a family in California, but I lived in Tennessee since I was five years old. So, I grew up in Northeast Tennessee. I live in Johnson City, Tennessee, now.
And I have always been into creating things. Man, I’ll tell you what, even when I was a kid and I had projects in school and th—you know, you had a choice. You could do, like, one of those boards, like, the three… thing board that you could, like, make a what do you call that?
Julia: Oh, like the science experiment thing?
Josh: Yeah, you can do a board like that, or you could do, like, if you write a paper or you could do, like, different things. And one of the choices was, make a video. and I always made a video for every single project. So, I’ve been making videos since I was a kid, and… have been fortunate enough to turn it into a career. So yeah, just been having fun making some videos here with college football season in full scale right now. So, it’s been, yeah it’s been a lot of fun.
Julia: I wish I could figure out—I’m sure—[laugh] I’m sure you could do this—figure out how to insert one of your videos here because I think just, like, a quick play of that. But I really encourage people do. And I’ll put all your links in the podcast as well.
Josh: Yeah, thank you.
Julia: How do you come up with this stuff? I mean, the Tennessee Georgia video is actually oddly what came up on my ‘For You’ page the week of that game, and I was like, how did it know? [laugh]. How do you come up with stuff?
Josh: It’s too smart. It’s scary, smart. Well, you know, I fancy myself a good writer. There’s certain things that I’m really good at. Some things I’m not that good at. So, the technical side, like, I couldn’t tell you how to put one of my videos into this stream right now. No idea. But I’m a good writer and hopefully a decent actor.
So, you know, some of these skits almost write themselves, you know, especially the mascot videos. There’s so much content because it’s great to kind of look at how schools came up with their mascot. But don’t look at the real story; you look at, like, an outsider’s perspective, like, why is Virginia Tech Hokie? What’s a Hokie? What is that?
And so, you just kind of go down a rabbit trail [laugh] and next thing you know, yeah, I’ve written the script. And it’s, you know, I’m lucky I guess, because I love college football and so that world is familiar to me. If I were writing comedy skits about brain surgery it wouldn’t be funny, so—because I wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. So, at least it’s an area that I’m familiar with.
Julia: I do love the Hokie. I just watched the Hokie one this morning, actually, and you’re like—and you ended it with, “And lots of national championships.” And you cut over and you’re like… “No.” [laugh].
Josh: It’s so sad, bless their hearts. They have not won a national championship in football, or maybe any other sport that I can—that I’m familiar with. So.
Julia: No. If that’s not the most southern thing somebody has said on this podcast yet: bless their heart. I really do appreciate that. Tell us about how you ended up in the Tri-Cities.
Josh: Oh, yes. Well… gosh, my mother was from the Tri-Cities. My dad was from California, and his family’s also out there. But yeah, I ended up moving out here when I was five years old and never left. I spent about—well, I spent about a year in Atlanta, but yeah, pretty much East Tennessee bred.
And my wife and my three daughters, we all—we still live here and we’re rooted here, I think. I don’t anticipate leaving anytime soon. So, we love it. I mean, you couldn’t ask for—you get all four seasons, you get beautiful scenery, you get great people. East Tennessee is a great place to live. Yeah.
Julia: So, downtown Johnson City—pre-Covid; I haven’t been since—downtown Johnson City had a restaurant in the—oh my gosh, I can’t—it was like a Cuban restaurant. Is that still there?
Josh: Umm… Sabores. No, it’s not there any longer. Yeah.
Julia: Oh, man. That place was fantastic.
Josh: Yeah. There’s a lot of good restaurants in Johnson City, like in Knoxville. I mean, I think Knoxville’s got a ton of good places to eat. And Johnson City, for being such a small town, has incredible dining. Yeah, they’ve got some great places to go. There’s no shortage of good restaurants and breweries too if you’re into… into the beer.
Julia: I am. We go to Asheville at least twice a year and celebrate [laugh]. Just for—just to go.
Josh: To celebrate what?
Julia: To celebrate [crosstalk 00:05:07] [laugh].
Josh: Just to celebrate?
Julia: Just ‘cause. Just to go [laugh].
Josh: It’s a Thursday. Let’s go celebrate somewhere and have a beer. Yeah.
Julia: Whoo. [unintelligible 00:05:14]. Thank you. So.
Josh: Yes.
Julia: True, though. True. Anyway, all right. So, California to Johnson City. Your family’s from here anyway. Did you go to college here? Did you go to college in the South? What made you fall in love with the idea of this?
Josh: Well, I went to college at Emory & Henry College. It’s a small school in Southwest Virginia. Yeah, small private school.
Julia: We crushed you every year in tennis. I went to Maryville College.
Josh: Oh, did you really?
Julia: That was the only thing that we had against you [laugh]. The only thing we could win.
Josh: That’s great. Yes. I remember playing against Maryville College. So, I went to play football. So, I was—listen, I was nearly enrolled at University of Tennessee, [unintelligible 00:05:59] my roommate from high school, we were going out together, we were going to—I mean, we’re ready to rock.
And then, sort of last minute, I decided I wanted to—I played football in high school; I want to try to play football in college. And there were some small schools that were giving me some chances and so I was like, all right, I can’t let go of this. I probably should have let go of it, but I couldn’t. So, I went there to play football. Unfortunately, I hurt my back my sophomore year and I could not play anymore after that. But I stayed there for all four years. And it’s a beautiful campus, let me tell you what. It is so nice up there. But, so you play—did you play tennis?
Julia: I did. I did. Emory & Henry was one of our favorite places to visit because we would just absolutely—it was always a [6-0 6-0 6-6 00:06:42] [laugh]. So, I was like [unintelligible 00:06:45].
Josh: That’s awesome. Yeah, I don’t remember us having a very strong tennis team when I was there. It was all football and a little bit of basketball. So yeah, that’s exciting. Well, you need to come back up and visit. I’ve not been in a while. It’s been… I’m not a very good alum, but I need to get up there.
Julia: [crosstalk 00:07:06] Maryville College just 20 minutes down the road. I went for—they did an interview with me, they interviewed me. I was a state legislator and I’ve been ten years elected, so they did an interview with me about, where is she now? And I come 20 minutes down the road and you never see me [laugh].
Josh: I’m still here. Yeah.
Julia: I’m still here.
Josh: That’s good.
Julia: That’s hilarious. All right. So, you went to Emory & Henry. Did you go to grad school after that?
Josh: I went later to grad school. I ended up going to a school called Luther Rice University. It’s like a… it’s like part, part Bible college seminary, and part graduate school. So, I got a degree there in leadership. Yes, you can get a degree in leadership, believe it or not, which obviously makes me the most qualified leader in the world because I have a master’s degree in leadership. So, if you need somebody to lead something, I’m your guy. Here I come. So, that was [laugh] that was great.
Julia: You’re going to have to compete against the Haslam Business Leadership College now in Knoxville because they’re just pumping them out.
Josh: They are pumping them out. Well, I should probably be invited as a guest speaker, a guest lecturer, probably.
Julia: I recommend that.
Josh: Yeah. I think—I mean if they’re looking for some quality entertainment and not so much learning experience, I probably am a good choice. Yeah, so I did get a degree there. What else did I do? What else, what else are you asking me?
Julia: Oh, my God, everything.
Josh: Everything. Okay.
Julia: Basically, what I’m looking for is how did you end up with Switchmen Studios and doing what you’re doing now? I mean, this is… there are very few, I’ll say—I’ll be honest, very few in my generation comedians that are well-written, well-spoken, well-presented, and relatable, and you have all of those qualities. And it’s almost as if you’ve used the same thing we all use in sports as a conversation, to get to know your audience and then your audience automatically feels a connection to you. And it’s like they are now solidified to you. So basically, if you wanted to branch out and do anything else, you could take that there.
And I feel like watching you and watching your channel grow and watching your following grow and your comments in your comment section are hilarious. I mean, people are involved with you. They’re invested in you. And that is leadership. Whether you think that or not, it is definitely leadership, being able to do that.
And I’m really interested to see what your future plans are. Not only other skits because we’re definitely going to get into some Ohio-Michigan, but—
Josh: Oh yeah.
Julia: —what are your future skits for the next year? And where are you planning on going with this and where do you want this to grow?
Josh: Oh, my gosh. First of all, that was all so well said thank you for saying such kind words and for being—will come manage my career? Will you be my PR person? Will do all my marketing appear—because that sounded great. I should have, I should have written that down. So yeah.
Julia: You’ll be able to plus press record. It’s [laugh] totally fine.
Josh: That’s true. Okay. Yea. Thank you so much. So yeah, we’re—uh… wow. You know, I was a little hesitant to start putting out comedy videos because there’s something about putting yourself out there on social media. One, my goal is not really to be a quote, “TikTok star.” Nothing wrong with that; it’s just not one of my goals. And I feel older, too old to say I’m going to be a TikTok star, right? It seems like something a young person would say. But so, but eventually, I kind of get over, I guess, impostor syndrome, like, hey, okay, you are funny, people do think you’re funny, all right, but I’m living room funny. But am I funny enough to put out content every week that people are going to look forward to seeing and do I want to invest enough of my time to actually be doing that?
And eventually, probably two years ago, I started making a couple of videos here and there, but I wasn’t consistent. They were funny, but I just didn’t have the time, didn’t take the time to put, you know, production quality into them. And so finally, I decided earlier this year, all right, if I’m going to do this, I want to do it well and go all in. So, I started making the videos and just had a tremendous response right off the bat. And it was so great to get that.
And I think tapping into certain audiences has been huge for me. I think every time I do a new school, that’s a brand new audience that I’m pulling in because I, you know, I been mainly SEC audiences and now I got TCU, I got their fans, you know, coming in. So, that’s been really cool. And with Tennessee-Georgia, I kind of hit two fan bases at once. So, I’ll probably be doing more videos where I hit multiple fan bases at one time so I can bring in new viewers and followers.
But so I was in—I’ve been doing video production for ten-plus years, I worked in marketing for a little while and then was doing video production on the side. I started a company, it was just called Mancuso Entertainment. And that was a long time ago and I was intending really to simply get to a place where I can make movies, I want to make films. And I started making videos for other people. I did wedding videos, I did, like, business videos, marketing videos.
It just, it built up and I had a couple of employees. It was great and I loved it, but I could never branch off and, like, do, like, original content. And so, actually, Covid kind of changed some of that for me. Covid was—I know it was a really bad thing for all of us, but some, certainly some good things were born out of that for me. I was able to kind of reset and kind of start fresh and I started on this journey, this direction towards really being a creator and an entertainer and less of… a less of a—I’m a business owner, obviously, but less of a client-based business owner. Now, making content that I want to make that other people hopefully enjoy.
And so, I started Switchmen Studios earlier this year and it has been great. Our mission is really to make movies, to make full-length feature films, some short films, TV series, and online, you know, social media content. And so, that’s where I’ve started is with that because I think that’s the greatest first step forward in gaining an audience, in bringing people in and letting them kind of join in with what I’m doing and see what we’re trying to do, and then we can start into some bigger things. And so, I’ve already done some short films, some dramas, some comedies that have been in film festivals, things like that and it’s been great. I’ve loved it.
Won a few awards, I’m thankful for that. And so, we’re working our way towards making bigger productions. I’m actually making movies, but right now, certainly very focused on making comedy videos and just making people laugh—my favorite thing to do is just make people laugh—and see where that takes us.
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Julia: Have you thought about—just throwing this out there—what popped into my head when you said that is, somebody who’s obviously well on their way to getting what they want and not to undercut the amount of work that that’s going to take, for sure—
Josh: Sure.
Julia: I mean, nothing comes easy. Learning how to even cut videos is extremely difficult. And so, I think the younger generation has a leg up on all of us that they wake up with a phone in their hands at the age of, you know, six months and figure out YouTube a day later. And they’re very intelligent when it comes to videos, but it takes work, it takes dedication, and it takes garnishing the attention of the right people. What would it take for you to make a video, like… I don’t know, like, oh gosh, what did that Farrell, the guy—whatever his name is the comedian, the tall, red-haired comedian.
Josh: Will Ferrell?
Julia: Will Ferrell versus uh… oh, I hate to say, like, this short, chunky, dark-headed guy that was in Moneyball?
Josh: [laugh] Jonah Hill.
Julia: I think if you did a video impersonating each of them and garnishing some of the attention of comedians like that, they would appreciate that banter. I think that they are kind of the people that play off themselves more than anybody else. And that’s kind of what you do. You play off of your own strengths while creating content for other people to love, which is really hard to do. That’s really hard to do.
Josh: Sure, yeah. It is. It is. I think it works because I’m able to be myself. Even though I’m playing different characters in there, it’s still me, you know what I mean? It’s still me within that. If you look at big actors like, like Will Ferrell, like, you know, Chris Pratt or somebody like that, yes, they become their characters, but it’s really, like, Chris Pratt is still Chris Pratt in every movie that he’s in. Will Ferrell is still Will Ferrell. Like, yeah, they’re a character, but—and I think that’s great. You can do that in comedy, especially, because, you know, I have a certain type of comedic delivery and I stick to that, and I know not to really get out of that lane too much, or I [laugh] could, you know, it won’t be near as funny. So, I’ve tried a couple times. You should see some of the outtakes because I’m like, go okay, no, don’t do that again, Josh. Don’t ever do it again. Like, let’s go back to what you’re good at. Let’s do the, you know, the facial expressions and the way I say things. And yeah, so being able to be yourself and make that is, I’m just so grateful that, honestly, that people think I’m funny because sometimes I’m like, “People think I’m f—” like—
Julia: You are hilarious.
Josh: I don’t think I’m that funny, but people are cracking up.
Julia: You are [hilarious 00:16:36]. It is—you are insanely funny. It’s like what—it’s just… you remind me of, like… what is that—the female comedian [Leanne 00:16:43] from Knoxville?
Josh: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Julia: Okay. She’s herself and ridiculously hilarious. And it doesn’t matter what she says, you can relate to it. You—get that same vibe. It’s like, it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s relatable—
Josh: Yeah.
Julia: —and funny.
Josh: Yeah. Well, thanks.
Julia: So, I found that interesting. Okay. Is comedy, though, the genre that you want to go with all of your movies? Like, what’s your passion there?
Josh: Yeah, I mean, I think like so many comedic actors, you’ll find them saying, “Oh, I love doing comedy; I love being a comedian, but I want to be a real actor,” right? Which means you want to do drama and thrillers and things like that. So, it’s a balance for me. It’s like I know what is my bread and butter, I know what’s going to pay the bills, I know what’s going to get me where I want to go, and it is comedy. So, I would be an idiot if I was like, I’m going to go do drama now.
Like no, it is a comedy, and I—yeah, a lot of the films that we have lined up and that we’re looking at are comedies. But there are some dramas as well because I think that, you know, I’m a creative; I don’t want to get stuck doing only comedy, only one thing, so there is some dramatic roles. I was just in a movie in Birmingham, Alabama. I shot a movie down there and I played, it’s a dramatic character. And he has a little bit of comedic edge to him; it’s very subtle. But it’s—it takes place in 1970s.
And so, you know, we had the bell bottoms and the, I had a mustache that, you know, like, Fu Manchu that came down here—
Julia: the Manchu? [laugh].
Josh: Yeah, ’70s, smoking cigarettes and just doing the whole deal. So, that was fun. And that was a stretch for me, so I like being able to ease into it a little bit. Am I going to get cast in the next big drama with, you know, Kate Winslet playing opposite me? Absolutely no.
Julia: You never know.
Josh: What?
Julia: You never know.
Josh: You never know. But am I more likely to be cast in a comedy tomorrow? Absolutely. So, we want to do both, but comedy is certainly our… that’s our strong suit, right?
Julia: Yeah. Where does the family fit into all this? Do they travel with you? Are they homeschooled? Tell us a little bit about your family if you want.
Josh: Good question. No, they go to school here locally. And they’re great kids. I’m fortunate. My wife works as a nurse, so she has interesting hours, right? A lot of long hours back and forth. So, it’s a lot of, like, working, like, crazy, and then family time for a couple days, and then working like crazy. And so, it goes back and forth.
They don’t travel with me for anything long. Sometimes if it’s like a weekend, you know, we’ll go together and that’s a lot of fun. But I was gone for about nine days recently and they didn’t go there. I went to Nashville; I was in a commercial there and then drove down to Birmingham for the movie, and then came back. So, that was the longest time I’ve ever had to be away from them. But my girls are 13, 12, and 6. So—
Julia: Wow.
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Julia: That’s a spread that’s a spread.
Josh: That’s a spread, yeah. The six-year-old comes by surprise. She was a bit of—she was like, “Oh, oh, we’re going to have a third one. Okay, good. No, that’s good. We’re excited. It’s great.”
Julia: I’m sure the middle child loves that [laugh].
Josh: Yeah. Oh, man. Bless—yeah, bless her heart—
Julia: Bless her heart.
Josh: Because now she’s the middle kid. Yeah, they’re great. And you know that they don’t… you would think maybe they think that I’m cool. I had this conversation with somebody, actually this morning. Like, “Your kids must think you’re so cool.” And I’m like, “They don’t think I’m cool at all. They’re like, ‘he’s just dumb old dad.’” You know, they’re like—like, my oldest is, like, “Dad, my friends watch all your videos. It’s so embarrassing.” [laugh].
Julia: It’s like the bad [unintelligible 00:20:17] guys. My kids hate me.
Josh: I know. I’m like, “Sorry, honey, but it’s only going to get worse from here.” So.
Julia: You’ll love it one day. It’ll be hilarious. It’s fine.
Josh: That’s right. Yes.
Julia: Yeah. [back to cough 00:20:30], everything is fine. Everything is fine.
Josh: [laugh]. Everything’s fine. Yeah.
Julia: [laugh]. Everything is great. Okay, so I’m very excited about, kind of like, what creativity you’re growing into, and I feel like the shift is going to happen for you where you want it to. Do you still—like, tell me about Switchmen Studios. Because I did a little research. Switchmen—did you come up with a name because you switch characters? That’s what I was thinking originally, but then I actually did some research on that and it’s a rail line position. Where did this name come from?
Josh: Well, good. You do your research, man. I love it. Thank you. Yes, so the name Switchmen. It’s such a random name for a studio, so my grandfather, [A.J. Castillo 00:21:12], he was a railroad worker years ago. He’s passed a long time ago. But he worked on the railroad most of his life. And he was in a… I guess a quintet. Is that five? Quintet? He was in a basically—it’s like, gospel group band with four other men, and they all worked for the railroad.
And they traveled around Northeast Tennessee, Southeast Virginia, playing at churches, things like that. And I used to travel with them when I was a little boy. And I thought I was so cool. I thought it was so cool. And so, a switch—and their band name was the Switchmen. That was their name.
Julia: Oh, that’s so awesome. Yeah.
Josh: So, a switchman in a railroad is the one who switches the track from one track to the other so the train can go a different track, then they—you know, it’s kind of a dangerous job, actually. And my grandfather wasn’t necessarily a switchman most of his life; he did other things, primarily, but it was a great name. And for me, I just thought, man, I’d love to just kind of give a little tribute to him. He had a big impact on my life, and so I thought I’d like to—what can I do? And I thought about his gospel band and then I thought, well, you got to connect it somehow to filmmaking. You don’t have to, but, I mean, it’d be nice if I could.
So, I thought, you know, the Switchmen changes the train from one track to another, and I really feel like as creators, as storytellers, as filmmakers, we have the ability to take an audience down a certain path and then all of a sudden, yank that line and pull that and take them on a different path. That could be a plot twist, could be a new character you didn’t see coming, it could be a joke, even. And so, I like that ability to kind of take an audience this way and then take them this way and that way, and it makes the journey for them that much more exciting when they are viewing and watching your content. So, that’s how I came up with it. Yeah.
Julia: Hmm. If that’s not a title for a future movie on day, I’m not sure what is.
Josh: Amen, sister. Tell me about it. Yep.
Julia: That’s pretty good.
Josh: Yeah.
Julia: That’s [unintelligible 00:23:05]. That would be a, actually, really fantastic movie. Not necessarily about the training switcher people, but the movie with the thought process behind it itself. That’s very—that would be a very good—that’s exi—you have so much creativity in that brain of yours.
Josh: You’re so sweet. Thank you. Well, I mean, I swear, naming a company is, like, the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s like—because I’ve had other smaller companies in the past and it’s like, the name didn’t mean anything and it was just sort of like… I wanted it to mean something and still be creative and something that I wouldn’t mind putting up and saying, “This is my company,” like, “Here it is.” And it’s great because people ask me what it means, so I can tell them.
Julia: So, one of the things that I do on this podcast, the whole reason I’ve named it Connect the Knox—kind of like connect the dots but through Knoxville—is that I’ve been here my entire life. I’m a First Families of Tennessee, Daughters of the American Revolution, we’ve been here forever. I mean, forever.
Josh: Love it.
Julia: And it’s a very interesting thing [that 00:24:04] to think of people calling me all the time and asking me, “Do you know somebody that does this? Do you know somebody that can do this? Who do you know that does this?” And I connect people—and I’ve been connecting people—20 years of business and have never connected the actual dots between who I knew and where they go. And so, that’s the purpose of the podcast.
So, I’m going to ask you, if you [needed connected 00:24:24] with five or less people, who would you want to be connected with? Put it out there into the world because this podcast, what we have a hu—I mean about 175,000 followers, so not massive, but nothing to shake a stick at—
Josh: That’s huge. That’s awesome.
Julia: [crosstalk 00:24:38] probably get out there. Who are your five that you feel like you need to be connected with?
Josh: Five in Knoxville or five anywhere?
Julia: Anywhere.
Josh: Anywhere. You know, my biggest connections, the five I need to be connected with would be… [sigh] you know, I think you mentioned earlier getting into some schools, right, some colleges. It would be great to get in, whether it’s athletic director or marketing and PR people where I could actually come and visit some schools and be able to, whether it’s talk to the team or do some shows there, do some stand-up comedy, like, whatever I could do to get in with some of those folks would be tremendous. That would be a huge help for me. So, that’s one.
And second would be you know, obviously producers, people that are involved in the entertainment industry. And then just to be fully honest, third is money. It takes money to do what I do. And it’s tough because people want to make money doing their art and it is tough to make money doing art. And while making funny videos is just funny videos, it’s still art, and so you know, sponsorships, it’s investors.
And I have currently one investor in my—in Switchmen Studios, and that is how I’m able to spend all my time doing what I’m doing. And I’m looking for other investors who would be able to come alongside and say, “We believe in you. We think you’re awesome, think you’re funny, think you’re talented, think that—we look at what you’ve done so far and think wow, what if this guy really had the resources he needs to go big, could he do it?” And absolutely I believe I could and will. So, looking for those types of people. I don’t know if you’re asking for specific names of people but—
Julia: Well I—
Josh: Types of people, that’s what I’m looking for.
Julia: No and I think that just putting that out there is fantastic. I think that you have more connections than you probably think about. Quentin Tarantino is from Knoxville.
Josh: [laugh]. Yes. True.
Julia: Never hurts to reach out. And people have and they’re like, “he’s unreachable.” He’s not. David Keith still lives in Knoxville.
Josh: See, I didn’t know that.
Julia: Coaches in Knoxville. Trains kids in Knoxville, acting classes in Knoxville. Um, just so—you know, a couple examples, up in Bristol Johnson City Tri-Cities area, the guy that does the editing for the playbacks and what we, like, to call the chicken salad of the mess that we make on the football field, he’s from Johnson City.
Josh: [laugh]. Really?
Julia: Right here in Knoxville. So, there’s a lot of things that you can connect to right here in Knoxville. And this is what I love about it is whenever I find somebody that I want to interview and I want to bring them on the show, and I’m like, listen, what can we do for you? This is exactly what this is about, finding talented people who are connected to Knoxville and they don’t even know it. And these are opportunities right down the road.
But obviously, Nashville will be, Nashville will be probably the biggest one for you to go to, but you have that capability right here in the Knoxville Tri-Cities market. So, I’m excited to have shared that and your opportunities to grow. Because I feel like we’re going to see a lot more of you and I’m really excited to have had you when you had open time—
Josh: Yes. Thank you.
Julia: —on this podcast because I feel like that is such a huge opportunity for the world to see you and get to know you a little bit. So, we’ve got about three minutes. Break down for us how people can find you.
Josh: Yep.
Julia: Spell it out so we don’t get confused. How they can contribute. Do you have, like, a donations page? Do you have a GoFundMe page? Do you have a requests page for videos? I would love to see, like, realtor versus [fisbo 00:27:56] because that would be hilarious—
Josh: [laugh].
Julia: —[crosstalk 00:27:58] little things like that. And then if they can buy a video from you, like, say, hey, this is something that’s in my industry. I would love a comedic gesture on… let’s find a way to help you grow—
Josh: Yes.
Julia: —get to be known at the same time. So, fill us in. Where can people find you and help you?
Josh: That’s awesome, Julie. You’re so great. Thanks for doing this, for having me on. Yes, obviously the best ways to start follow me is on social media. Most of my handles are just @joshmancuso. And that’s Josh, J-O-S-H, Mancuso, M-A-N-C-U-S-O. TikTok’s a little different. It’s at @thejoshmancuso. And Facebook is also at @thejoshmancuso because somebody took my handle before I had a chance to get there. But Instagram, Twitter is @joshmancuso. So yeah, follow me there.
Obviously, I welcome people, you know, to DM me. I read most of my DMs, not all. I get to—okay, I pretty much read them all. I get to them eventually. It takes me a little bit of time. But I will get to it, so feel free to DM me if you have suggestions or anything. And then email me at switchmenstudios@gmail.com. So, it’s switchmen—plural: M-E-N—switchmenstudios@gmail.com. The website is switchmenstudios.com you can go there as well.
And just drop me a line and connect with me. I’d love to hear from folks and whatever I can do for them as well. You know if someone wants to partner with me in some way financially, there’s plenty of ways that way or if you just want to request something. I’m also on Cameo just recently, so you can book me; 29 bucks. You can book a personalized message from me if someone is interested in that. You have a—
Julia: [laugh]. Oh, God. I’ve already paid for it. Take my money.
Josh: Take [laugh]—
Julia: Take my money. I’m serious. That’s so great. I didn’t even know that. That’s so awesome.
Josh: Yes, so just cameo.com/joshmanuso, and I can send a private message to you or somebody’s birthday or somebody that loves a certain team or something. Yeah, so that’s a lot of fun, too.
Julia: Oh, my God. I’ve got somebody on my football players that have birthdays coming out, so that is, like, take my money.
Josh: Please.
Julia: All right. Please. Everybody, thank you so much. This has been one of my favorite podcasts to record so far. I’m very excited about it. I’ll let you know when it drops. We drop about every two weeks, so we’re starting to film as many as—we’ve got 15 in the pipeline so far. I’ve been very lucky that people have sent me the right people.
I am lucky to have found you and that you responded. I cannot wait to see what happens in your future. Everybody, please follow @thejoshmancuso or @joshmancuso, and whoever bought his stuff, give it to this man. Please give him his name. Thank you for Connecting the Knox. I’m Julia Hurley. Thanks for visiting.
Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.
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