Our Story: Creative Control with Joe Feeney
The self-made man also produces Keepin It 100 with Konnan.
Joe Feeney is the personification of when one door closes, another door opens.
After being laid off from his warehouse manager job, he set out for a career change. In his early 30s, he went back to school, and then took an extracurricular course taught by the “Quintessential Studmuffin” Joel Gertner. The former ECW manager hosted a seminar at The Monster Factory called “The Business of the Business.”
“I was too old to get in the ring and had a back injury from working,” Feeney says. “But I loved wrestling and always wanted to get involved, but never knew how.”
Discovering wrestling at the height of Hulkamania, Feeney, like many fans, fell out of the genre in the mid-1990s and returned for the Attitude Era. Living close to Philly, he attended many ECW events and later supported 3PW. Nowadays, he never misses when House of Hardcore comes to town. As a matter of fact, he’ll go to any indie show if it’s close enough to his house.
So Gertner taught the ECW diehard how to write promos, and from there, Feeney conducted interviews with local talent and wrote show reviews. After a few weeks, somebody suggested he start a wrestling podcast. Admittedly not a fan of his own voice, he was willing to try anything at the time.
Creative Control with Joe Feeney launched in 2014, and nearly four years later, the show has amassed a who’s who of guests, ranging from J.J. Dillon to Matt Riddle.
“At first, I brought on guys I knew from The Monster Factory,” Feeney says. “Then I got lucky and had J.J. Dillon on the show. I was reading his book and saw an email address at the bottom of the book so I just reached out. Any avenue I can use to reach somebody, I’ll use it.”
However, it was when a wrestling legend reached out to him that his life changed forever.
After trying to book Konnan to come on Creative Control, and being declined time after time, the LAX leader actually contacted Feeney for a different proposition. He needed an editor for his own podcast, somebody he could trust and who had knowledge of the industry. Feeney jumped at the chance to rub shoulders with the international superstar, sitting under his 30-year learning tree.
He began producing Keepin It 100 with Konnan in 2017 and has expanded his role into the third man on the team, jumping ship with the show from PodcastOne to Westwood One earlier this year. “I was very, very surprised that he reached out to me,” Feeney says. “He said you’re very dry, but we’ll give you a try and see if you fit.”
Of course, editing audio for a professional production with a huge audience is no easy feat. Initially, Feeney had his own show edited by a friend, but something happened with the billing and his episodes were lost. Realizing that if he was going to make this a success, he couldn’t depend on anybody but himself, Feeney decided to learn another skill as part of his career change.
“I learned from scratch, using Audacity and other editing software as I went,” he says. “If I haven’t gotten better after 100 episodes, I should quit.”
Between recording and editing, Feeney says he puts about three-four hours of work into Creative Control. Because Konnan’s show has more layers and segments, it’s a different beast altogether. Between multiple days of recording and editing the night before positing, Feeney compares it to an overnight shift. “The opportunity and exposure is worth it, though,” he says. “Plus, I have fun doing it.”
It’s taken a few years for Feeney to generate some revenue from his show, but he’s finally there thanks to AdvertiseCast. The free service allows you to add your podcast to its marketplace of advertisers, and pairs you up with partners that would make the best fit for your audience. The revenue is split with the podcaster keeping 70% of every sale.
Now that he has the makings of a growing startup, Feeney is extremely focused on putting out a consistent, quality product – something that he has struggled with in the past. “There are times I’ve gone a couple months without posting,” he says. “You have to post regularly so your listeners can expect it and you can build a following. Don’t be afraid to have a few shows where the listens are low. Just keep working on it.”
Solid advice from a guy who went into his first seminar 50% as a fan, and the other 50% with the hopes of getting something out of it.
You can hear Feeney each week in his role as “JoJo the Producer” on Keepin It 100 with Konnan, and on his own show Creative Control. You can hear both on iTunes, Tunein Radio, Google Play and more.
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