But this is a build up. Sure.
No. Shit like this, you know,
there's. All these, it's all these little
mobiles, yeah, added up. To it's like, it's like a ban,
right? Oh, we're gonna here's the
tension, tension, tension with these two.
Where's the blowout? Oh dude, I I get it that I'm
still. But it but it doesn't stop
there, it walks by again. Well, clearly it doesn't, but.
Wait, there's more. Hey everybody, do us a quick
favor and hit follow and smash that like or subscribe button
wherever you're listening right now.
It'll help us keep getting great guests and make it so you don't
miss the next episode. Now on with the show.
Welcome to Splintered Spirits, the podcast hosted by me, Gary
and my nephew John Santa from Santa Paranormal, where we try
and answer the question, what are spirits?
Our guest today is one of the founding architects of
paranormal television, a kid from Pelham, NH, who against all
odds, convinced the world to watch 3 guys drive around
haunted ghost towns in a little car looking for something that
couldn't be explained. That documentary became Ghost
Adventures, now one of the most recognized paranormal franchises
on the planet. And the man who shot it, edited
it, and named it is Nick Roth. But this conversation isn't just
about what Nick built, it's about what came after a decade
of staying quiet while other people told his story, the
fallout from a television empire, and what it means to
start over. Where I would be scorched earth,
I think Tessa would be too. Nick rebuilt friends, family,
films, and that's where he is right now, arguably his most
creative era yet. He's got Death Walker wrapped at
80 episodes, a feature film called The Devil's Mark
premiering this spring, and a whole slate of new projects with
his wife on the new service called Brandon TV, capitalizing
on a lifetime of spiritual and ghostly experiences that is
second to none. Nick Croft has been quiet for a
long time. He's not anymore, and we are
lucky to have him. So let's dive into the
conversation. There's so you have such a
career and it's it's so there's so much going on with you.
I don't even know where to start, but I'm going to do my
best here to figure out where to start.
And I think it's in something that we have in common, which is
sort of producing. And I want to and I really want
to get into like sort of how you got into it from that side of
things, right. And you started as a filmmaker,
you know, you, you loved haunted locations and you sort of built
this blueprint for televised ghost hunting.
You know, you're really one of the Ogs here in, in my opinion
of, of this world. So when you walk into a new
location now, do you see it through like a director's eye or
as an investigator? What?
How do you approach a scene? It depends what project I'm
working on, to be honest with you.
So if I'm going in there and I'm telling a story, like on a
documentary for example, I'm going to go on the perception of
OK, I need to get XY and Z to tell that story from a narrative
point. If it's a documentary or a film
or what not that I'm producing. But I also am always open to
what else is happening around me.
So I'm a, I'm a very logical thinker.
So if something dramatically affects me while I'm so focused,
I usually get hyper focused on what I have to accomplish for
film. But if something does happen
now, I'm like, whoa, you know that that took me off guard.
Or I just saw something I know that wasn't my eyes playing
tricks on me or whatnot. Absolutely.
I'm always open to that. But it has to be like very
strong hitting for me to react in that kind of sense to say
there's something else here. If I'm at an actual location
that is reportedly haunted, I think it's my everyday life in
general because I'm living with a medium.
Tessa, it's a psychic and it's constantly at our house where we
go no matter what we're doing. It's all the time.
But that's been me since a little kid.
It's weird because I had a near death experience when I was 8
years old. I fell from a tree, ripped open
my arm, almost died. Mom saved my life.
You see the scar there? Sliced it all open right there,
1/2 inch on my artery. Yeah, it was crazy.
And I remember just passing out, saying, Mom, I love you, you
know, and then blacking out. And then I told my mom later in
life, this is 1988, you know, my mom's on a payphone trying to
scramble out of YMCA to call the ambulance.
And there's some other lady there helping out.
And I said, mom, no, there was all these people hovering around
me, looking down at me. And they were like older people.
And I, I don't know who they were, but I know they were
looking at me as I was laying on the floor inside the building.
She goes, no, that was just me trying to scramble and call the
ambulance. So that always stuck with me.
You know, I think that brought me closer to the other side.
Ever since that moment, 1988, I pursued ghost phenomenals.
I actually got interested in aliens, extraterrestrial
space-time. I was that weird kid, deep
thinking, late at night at stars, seeing the vast universe
and what else is out there. My grandmother in Nashua, NH,
talking about abduction cases from the 19, what was it, 60s or
whatever back there, you know? So I got really involved into
ghosts, phenomena, extraterrestrials at a young
age. And then my sister's godparents
lived in Nevada and they would tell me about Art Bell and
introduced me to Art Bell that would listen to on my little
boom box back in New Hampshire when I would go home from
visiting them in Las Vegas. So I think at a young age, you
know, I was charismatic in the paranormal, supernatural,
everything just encompassed in one cryptids, all that stuff.
And then from there, I think, you know, my, my deep soul
passion has always been film. I'm a film fanatic since the
early age. I was that weird kid that would
ride my little BMX bike to the VHS store to rent every single
horror movie in the section. It's to a point where the clerk
would, when I would check out and try to rent the movie, he'd
be like, does your mom know you're renting this movie?
And I would be like, Oh yeah, she's over there.
It'd be some random lady. You give me the luck, but you
know, we're talking about the 90s now.
And he'd be like, he'd give me a pass, but then my mom would come
home and I'd be watching doctor giggles on the TV, you know, R
rated movie, horror movie. And she'd be like, return that.
How'd you get that? So I was that kid.
I I had a passion for filmmaking.
I was making, you know, VHS tapes high 8, you know, tapes,
production one O 1 classes doing crazy stuff like that with my
buddies making TV production like at high school till we got
kicked off there for just doing like funny, you know, stupid
stuff. Like I'd follow my buddy and
he'd walk outside the production class and we do like report on
weather, you know, what's the weather like today for that?
They would run it on the on TV's in high school and we walked
outside like it's sunny, you know, just stupid stuff, you
know. So I think at a young age, film
was secondary for me and having the passion that I found that I
love because I was such a hyper, hyper kid.
Like my brain was it it, it moved, it vibed on that side of
things rather than I'm doing good in class and let me read
books and regurgitate that. I was never good at doing that.
I was more equipped with the other creative part of my brain.
So I just I had to learn at a young age how do hyper focus on
that so I can achieve, you know, bigger things and stay focused
because I can get like all over the place like that.
So not until I got to UNLV college.
Yeah, Vegas. Vegas is obviously a big part of
your life here, you know, even from it sounds like you even had
a little, you know, a connection to it when you were young and
that. And.
That you went back there and really and set things off and
look, we'll get into all and into that in a in a SEC I, I'm,
I'm curious what you started watching on TV when you started
to combine these two loves, though, right from filmmaking,
paranormal. Like what was your first foray
into it and saying I can make this.
Yeah. What was your inspiration?
I think my so I made my first film when I was 24 years old,
2004 when I just graduated UNLV. It was called Malevolence and it
screened at the Cine Vegas Film Festival.
Dennis Hopper used on it before he passed away.
And it was cool because I was the only like UNLV almost
alumni. I made it like my last senior
year going into graduating and the director of the film class,
he actually was able to push it through to be screened there and
I had a cast of 70 people. I wrote the script, I edit it, I
shot it. We blew up a car in the movie.
It was it was epic. It was cool.
It's kind of like a Pulp Fiction back then, you know, I was the
first one to actually have a Panasonic.
What was it? DVX one, I think it was called
this 2004, so 2003 to 2004. I made this.
It was pre Ghost Adventures when I went through that next.
So I made that film and you know, I was writing comedy
scripts. I was writing psychological
thrillers, horror films, slasher films.
I was making short films at college.
I met Aaron Goodwin from Ghost Adventures at college.
He snuck into my college class. He was helping me on my short
slasher films at college. Crazy stuff like that.
But you know, I've always, always at a young age been into
ghosts, looking for ghosts. Like I was telling bigger into
aliens and extraterrestrials, you know, fascinated by that
whole subject matter. But I think to answer your
question, it was around that time after I made that film, I
was looking at another project to do, but something triggered
me on October, I think it was like 2004 or 2005.
Right after that, around that time, I saw a documentary called
On the Sally House on a show called Sightings.
Sightings, yes, that's what I was.
I was wondering if that's where you were going to go, 'cause
that that's the earliest I remember, which is like a Fox
Show right in like the in the 90s, you know that.
Creepy. Yeah, super creepy.
You know what it was about, that is, I was sitting there in my
little apartment broke, you know, trying to figure out what
to do. I had some offers from Lionsgate
for that Malevolence film, but I was like, I'm not giving it to
you for free because it's kind of like mostly I was nobody, you
know, It's like I didn't have agent, lawyer, whatever.
I just blood, sweat and tears, passion.
I knew what I was kind of doing, being creative.
I built my own computer editing, You know, I did everything like
creatively and it was all trial and error like.
But the business side is a totally different realm.
You know, when you produce, you can produce the greatest film in
the world. You could produce Eraserhead by
David Lynch, you know, he took seven years in college to make
that. But if you can't accomplish to
get it out there and distribute so people see it, you know, on a
on a bigger spectrum, that's a totally different area.
I've met so many creative film makers, documentarians, like so
many great creative people that are just way smarter and stuff.
But I think the crazy part is some of them don't know how to
execute to have their product viewed.
You know what I mean? Absolutely.
You know, it's I, I always say to if I could go back and look,
man, I'm 51 years old. If I can go back and tell my 20
myself in my 20's, the one piece of advice it would be, dude,
sell out, sell out, hard sell out.
Dude. It's like, take that check,
deposit that check, get that money.
Like do it. It's, it's you're going to keep,
you'll always have ideas. You'll always be able to make
new stuff, Sell it, sell that first one.
Do what you got to do to sell it, and then you'll keep making
it. You know what I mean?
It's a good point, but I always say there's a fine balance to
that, right? Like I, I've done lectures at
like high schools and production one O 1 classes and stuff like
that. I think, I think there's like a
big difference because like when you, there's a lot of people
that will sell out and kind of go for that check or that money.
I always say go for your passion 1st and what you believe in with
the film. The money will come if it's
good, right? The money will come and you'll
be able to keep doing what you love to do.
But be careful selling out too soon because that can also
damper and ruin and anchor you down in life, especially with
what you're trying to create or accomplish.
So just be careful with like like I like you.
I know you're using the word loosely selling.
Yes, I am of course of. Course, I think I always tell
people, you know, stay true to yourself, be passionate, but
don't just be so egotistical and hold on to your film so much
that you think it's like a do or die situation.
I think that's where people get caught up to is like, I made the
best thing ever. I could imagine David Lynch
doing this right, like it's the it's the most marvelous or
Quentin Tarantino, this is the best.
No, I I, I will not let you have it for whatever you since you
have to be able to push and budget the industry.
It's crazy how it turns and burns and you know, people claw
each other the top. It's ridiculous.
I've seen it all for sure. So I think that's you.
You do have to be able to let go is a better word and you know,
accomplish what you need to do. So when you made your first, you
know, doc in the paranormal space, what did you want to
bring to it? What was the thing that you
said? This is what I want to do
differently? Or can you point to something
specific in that first dock or in that first look like?
Or what was your mindset like? Here's how I my vision for this
space now, because at the time of that came out, I guess ghost
hunters was on the air too, right?
So that. Season 1 dress aired.
Yeah, season 1 dress aired, but our so I made the document prior
to Ghost Ghost Hunters and not even knowing OK.
And I didn't really watch much of that.
All I've seen was sightings prior to that.
And then there was another show called Most Haunted from
England. Remember that show?
I I know the show. I don't remember it well, I
remember I remember fear fear on MTV.
Not that wasn't paranormal, but it was that look, that sort of
seeing people in scary places, right like that.
And that was before that was also was before the.
Well, just just backing up when I saw sightings right, that
show, it was based on the Sally House and when the documentary
person went in, you had that reporter filming on one camera
and shooting straight on the guys back getting scratched and
you could actually see the scratches like appearing on his
skin if you watch the actual cut.
Now what I noticed in that because I'm an editor, I was
like, oh, there's no cuts happening.
If there's no trick movements or whatever, I see it like just
appearing on his skin. So I said, man, that's
fascinating. If that is true, I want to go
out there and see if that's actually legitimately and why.
Why is that able to happen? I am huge and ghost been
investigating since I was like around 13 years old.
So I really wanted to see, can something beyond physically hurt
the human body that's living and why?
What are these things? So that's kind of why I got my
start into it. And then I decided to team up,
team up with those guys and basically bring them on board.
And we just hit the road and I scooped up my parents lent me
some money at the time. And because I just wanted to get
a camera. And at the time I was shooting
wedding videos and stuff to just get by.
And I met, I met the other guy there, Zach, who was a wedding
DJ at the time. And that's how.
I met him. He was your wedding DJ, correct?
He was a wedding DJ. Yeah.
Years, years ago. Yeah.
So before that one. There's like a double whammy
there. Both.
But I mean, look, I love, I love that.
I love the sense of like when this started and I know things
went S, but it was there was such a a camaraderie there,
right. This is the the sort of odd way
that the three of you met was kismet.
You know what I mean to making something that has now lasted.
You know that you'll always have, which is what it's it's,
it's incredible. Yeah, so.
Sorry, go ahead. No, though it was, it was
interesting how it came together.
So like I honestly, when I first started, I had the camera gear,
I built my computer. I was already doing stuff.
I understood how to hit the record button.
I understood like certain principles to like what you have
to do to film and put it to digital and edit it and, and I
understood like a narrative and storytelling, but I didn't, I
didn't understand anything about documentary filmmaking.
You know, there's a big difference when you like script
out something and you write something, you, you tell a movie
or you tell a story, but it's a big, big difference when you're
trying to do a documentary filmmaking because you're
capturing raw elements of that and then you're driving a
narrative story. So I was learning, I was, I was
going honestly, and I really didn't know what it was we were
shooting. I just knew that I wanted to go
out there and shoot and film and try to capture and document
ghosts and and try to figure out, OK, can something else
attack or what? It was this on sightings.
So that's kind of how it started is like just three guys, a bunch
of dudes going out there with different personalities and a
little car. And we just hit the roads of all
the haunted Mayan towns in Nevada and just started like
filming everything. We had like tons of footage of
just in the car, just just stupid stuff in the car.
And then we had tons of footage going into locations, eating
food, you know, just all this footage of mini DV tapes just
built up and it was like a clump of mud that I had to like mold
into like pottery or something is how I, my analogy was for it.
But, well, you know. I I'd say I'm, I'm relatively
new to this space. I've been in the look and I and
I worked at Discovery Studios for like 10 years, right?
So, and, and even then I was more, I made more shark shows
and little people shows. I wasn't in the paranormal space
when I was doing it, you know, So as I've been diving into this
and watching a lot of these shows, the one thing that I
noticed about what you guys did that felt that I would say stood
out to me that felt somewhat different is a more it felt very
immersive and almost on the offense to the ghosts, right?
Like that was something and I don't know if that's was a Zach
thing and he you know, but it would it always felt like he was
almost antagonizing him. I am going to sleep in this
place where I am going to force my I'm going to sit here in this
spot with no light. Like it was it, it just all of
those things felt very offense based, which was different.
And I thought, OK, you know, and, and like that's, that's
kind of how I was that on purpose.
Or is that just his personality or your or your approach?
Or is it? Or is it because there's only
three of you and he's like, look, we got to get somebody in?
My my approach was three of us and I fought hard when this
turned into a series with Travel Channel.
So there was the documentary that we controlled and we did it
straight up. And then that I was able to get
on sci-fi Channel to air. And that's when it aired in 2007
on the sci-fi Channel right after Ghost Hunters.
And it did huge ratings on cable back then.
They did like 1.4 million viewership in that night just on
that documentary film. And it just blew up all over
Myspace back then when that was a thing on the Internet.
And I think it was interesting because, you know, we put this
talk together for a very like a good long time.
It was all the collective footage of us going to Virginia
State, Nevada, which previously in two years prior to that,
before I even knew them or anything, I actually went up
there on a spring break just to go check out haunted towns.
And I really wanted to go to the town of Rachel, Area 51 and
stuff. So I hate I went to like, you
know, we can't cross the the line on Area 51.
So I went all through that. So I kind of knew about these
locations and then I met those guys later and I said let's go
look for ghosts and blah, blah blah.
And we hit the road and we went up to Virginia City, NV.
And then I had all this footage and I came back and I'm looking
through everything. And as I started going through
our experiences or what happened to us, I started finding like
evidence, like weird phenomenons and weird stuff like the shadow
figure following me in the Washoe Club or just like weird
stuff at the Myers cabin. We had like playback on some
recorders and some stuff that we experienced in the moment, but
there was other stuff I started. And that's, I think when it got
really interesting and I started molding these moments around the
evidence in the edit. And then I had Zach come in and
do a narrative and front load this story of us and I, I
figured it out pretty quick. I'm like, holy shit, this is
three guys. You got the goofy one.
I'm like the logical series kind of balancing.
It's like a balancing beam effect.
You got this guy over here, funny, goofy, whatever, filming
crazy. You got me in between kind of
like, let's go in there. I'll spend the whole night here.
I'll sleep by myself. I'll go by myself, you know, and
you got the crazy one who's like, come and get me Ghost.
Yeah. You like Macho Savage over here,
like a tight T-shirts. And you know, The funny thing
is, I didn't, I I knew Zach, but I didn't really know him yet.
I was getting to know him too. Like it was, it was still new of
getting to know him because we weren't like real buddy buddies
prior to that. Aaron and I were for years, but
he came in the picture kind of after the fact.
And then we I teamed up with him because I was doing wedding
videos and I tried to get him on like wedding videos stuff
obviously to collab. And I said, hey, let's go look
for ghosts. And he was on board with that.
And that's kind of how. You put a band together.
Yeah. And it is.
It is so comparable to a band. You know, you've got the front
man, he's a good looking front man up there, right?
And it's like he's loud and he's this and then you got the two
and then what happens, right, with all bands and it's.
Almost butt heads. They fight.
They. Fight and it becomes you know
of. Course I'm cool with all that
stuff like I'm so chill when I come I'm I'm usually very like,
hey, I believe in what you're doing like I'll promote you all
respect that. Like I'm super balanced and I'm
willing to like give it all, but like I believe in what I'm
doing. You know what I mean?
So I believed in ghost eventually I believed in the
doc, I believed in the narrative and what we captured and I'm
like, this needs to be bigger. It's so amazing.
I see it like I'm a visionary in a weird way, like I can
visualize certain things and I think.
That's weird, dude. You're a filmmaker.
That's actually you should be. I mean, if you, if you're a
filmmaker and not a visionary, there'd be a problem, I think.
Yeah. Well, I think there's yeah,
there's two things you there's some directors and film makers
that just go off of paper cuts, you know, and then there's some
people that visualize like the big picture, like, you know, the
David Lynch's and stuff like that out there, but.
Let me ask you, let me ask you this, Nick, if you watched, you
know, if you were going to make Ghost Adventures right now based
on all the things you've made since, you know, and you're
doing today, what, what would we see?
That's exactly the same Nick filmmaker.
And what would we see? That's a totally different
filmmaker. What would you?
Oh wow. I honestly I probably won't do
anything different for the times because I really don't have any
regrets with how everything got accomplished.
I think it all happens for a reason.
So I don't think I would backpedal anything that would do
differently in a sense, because it's kind of it's kind of a
catch 22. You know, it alters things in
time. If you start changing thing or
trying to mess with changing things, I think you just kind of
have to let things be as is and look at it as like you're taking
steps up a staircase to bigger success.
So I feel like that was my door opener like success story that
who knew that was going to turn into a phenomenon of like 300
episodes worldwide or something. You know, like none of us knew
that. We didn't know it was going to
be like anything like that. I just knew this was raw, it was
real, it was legitimate like 3 dudes and what you see is what
you get. The story was fascinating.
It kind of had all the bells and whistles of like what it takes
to make something interesting for people to watch.
And then the series hit, you know, like it turned in a series
and we kind of like just brought that and ramped it up.
I don't know what it is now because I've no part in that
since 2014, but it kind of went weird.
Very. Fast well, what well, look, I,
I, I obviously I don't think we can interview without talking a
little bit about this this drama that you can't seem to escape.
It's been years now and it's it still pops up for it
unfortunately. But what would you say?
You know, I'm not going to I'm not going to ask you like what,
you know, where did it go South? But you know, was there a moment
during towards the end where you're like, this isn't the show
I created anymore? Was there a particular turning
was? Can you point to anything
specific? You're like, wait, what are we
doing? Why are we doing this?
You know, like that first thing when you look back on it, like,
oh, that might have been the moment.
I think it was just a matter of, yeah, definitely butting heads.
I mean we were butting heads from Season 1, man, like Zach
and I So I mean it's very obvious.
Obvious, you know, I I'm I'm non egotistical in my sense, so I'm
willing to listen and be open minded to concepts.
On the flip side, he's super egotistical on his side.
So it's like his way or the highway sometimes.
And I think there's a big side of that that has flaws that can
really hurt something. You know, if your team or a band
or whatever we're talking about, if it, if you have a group of
people, doesn't matter who it is and you're doing something that
is like widely recognized, right music, whatever you look at any
dissect any band, dissect anything.
If you look at accomplished bands that are still going the
metallicas or whatever they are, you, you have a band that has an
alliance minus the egos. They all have egos, you know,
creatively, but everyone has an opinion of which direction go,
what to do, what to say. And, and sure, I do too, but
like I'm, I'm able, I've learned able to take a step back and
listen because someone else's idea might be better than my own
idea, right? And you can always adapt that
idea and make it even better. If you're a team player, there
is no team play in there. Is there a specific moment,
though, Nick, that you could think of like when you were
like, were you arguing about a locate?
Like is there is there like a story there I'm looking for like
is there like a specific thing where like I wanted to do this,
he wanted to do that and it just.
Before, before ghost ventures, we were botting heads.
I almost didn't do it at all. I swear to God.
I didn't do it all. I got a phone call.
I was swearing like crazy to me for no reason.
And I was like, what are you? What's the problem?
Just going off the rails and then next day, I'm so sorry.
Can we do this? I'm like, yeah, I, I feel like
it's very narcissistic and very like bipolar.
But I was naive. I didn't grow up in a family
with narcissism. I didn't grow up in a family
that understood the psychology behind how people operate like
that. You know, I had to learn the
hard way through time and being around someone like that for so
long. So it became almost like a
parasite in a sense. But what would you fight about,
man? Was it like just I don't want to
be in this house at night, or I'd rather do this story, This
is that story? Or is it like I want my Eminem
separated? I'll give you an example.
I've never I've talked to people
about this one day location. He wanted to say something
outside was just three of this season 1.
I want to say something. I got my camera.
I'm ready. I used to shoot almost
everything right? So I got camera, never flip
camera. It was just him.
He wanted to say some sound bite for the location.
Really not a big deal. I have to edit it too.
Let me a lot of people don't know.
I edit like 20 minutes of that each episode of season 1.
So you know, The thing is, is like he's like, oh, I need a
wireless mic. I was like, oh, cool, put a
wireless mic on. Like what?
Like it's not the first rodeo. You know, it's not like we're
like partners on this. Like I got the camera, put the
mic on. He's like, and I think I said
something like, oh, I can hear you good on my headphones.
I got the shotgun mic. Go ahead and just say what you
got to say. I I knew it was like a throwaway
sound bite. It's nothing like so important
to be like, let's put mics on. Let's set a setting and like,
let's get like waste time on this, you know, let's capture
the moment, man. It's documentary.
And I got it and he got upset because I would not put the
wireless mic on him. Do you see what I'm saying?
So we got in the location all good.
We filmed it, finally got on, filmed it getting gear ready
with Aaron getting everything set up.
He walks by me. You should have put the mic on
me, kept walking. I'm like, Oh my God, man.
She's but this is a build up. Sure.
No. OK.
Like this, you know, there's all.
These, it's all these little mobiles, yeah, added up.
To it's like, it's like a band, right?
Oh, we're gonna here's the tension, tension, tension with
these two. Where's the blowout?
Oh, dude, I get it that. I'm still that.
Then I listen. I get it OK I that.
But it doesn't stop there. It walks by again.
So. Clearly it doesn't, but.
Wait, there's more. Yeah, go ahead.
Wait, there's more. I let it go the third time, man,
the third time I I'm super chill, but you you push me to my
braking toy. You will feel my wrath.
Trust me. I have no pushover.
I stick to my guns. I've never like sold out in that
sense. I know where I came from.
I'm rooted from New England like I like I'm just that person, you
know. And third time he says it's me,
I'm like I turn on and as quick as he said to me, I said, look
man, I'm going to make this very clear to you.
You're not God. Nobody around here revolves
around you. It's not an issue.
If you had to put your wireless mic on, you could have done that
yourself. I don't know why you keep coming
at me, keep reason by, but you're starting shit with me
purposely. You're gaslighting me right now.
So you're not God. The world doesn't revolve around
you. So grow up.
And he like just like that was his.
That was his moment. So he just freaked out.
So got up in my face. I said, look, dude, I just took
my shirt off slowly and see my face screaming.
Aaron's an old guy. Stop, stop.
He said I'm going to call the producers.
And then he bumped my nose and I threw him back and he just
started freaking out. And he, you know, it's stupid
shit like that, you know, I mean, it became so toxic to the
point where it was not fun anymore.
It was not like it was, it was almost like like pampering, like
just dumb stuff. And I'm like, what are we doing
here? Eventually I came up and I was
like, what? Let's squash it because he
wanted to like run around calling everybody and stuff like
that, producing and stuff. I'm like, go ahead, use my
phone. You want to call him?
Like, what's the man's issue? We could either man up, hug it
out, get it over with and let's move on.
We did and that was it. And it turned out to be a great
episode. When we investigated, everything
was great. It's like you got to have to
have the blowout to be like cool with each other, you know, like
that weird bro thing. Dude, I've never been like that.
I. I get it, man.
I did AI did a weird, I did a weird band thing.
I I was in a band for a while and it was with the things we
would fight over. When I look back on it and we
opened for some, nobody would ever hear of us, right.
But we opened for some national acts and had a little bit of
almost a little bit of an odd run and we're like, but the
things we would fight about, when you look back, we're like,
what are we doing? Yeah, we would fight.
We would have blow up fights about beat like what cover song
we should play. Yeah, yeah, it was and it was
the. Fucking unbelievably ridiculous.
It's so it's. Kind of similar.
So like the whole thing was just years of that and it was like a
divide. And then I I found out he was
doing like other paranormal shows I had no clue about.
He went off and did like paranormal challenge.
He did. Was it paranormal popularity?
He did like all these other shows he wanted to be like let's
do shows together and then he goes off and does a bunch of
shows. I'm like look man, let's just
divide. I'll I'll support whatever
you're doing. It's cool.
It was weird though, like because it was just almost like
this quietness Nick's around don't say anything for what
reason I don't know, but it was weird.
But then I did 1 paranormal show Go Stalker right back in 2014
and he belt and then he found out and it wasn't even my I just
produced it and I produced it. I created whatever and I helped
get a position back then the network I was with, they saw it
first and I have it. I had in my agreement, people
don't realize this, that I had first pass refusal.
So I submitted to the network I was working with Ghost Ventures.
They said this is great, we're not going to do this right now,
but I wish you best luck, which means I could go do that other
networks and I did and that's a fact.
So I went got it picked up, it turned it like 1 and then six
episodes and it got picked up. And then back then Destination
America, they decided to release it and do a whole news and that
was a decision. We got it done and they released
it and they and he heard about it.
He went off the railings and just got super jealous, crazy
and nuts. And a lot of people don't know.
Two weeks prior to that we had a conversation about supporting
each other because I had no clue he was making that Demon House
movie. He did and he told me about it
and I, I was like, that's cool. You know, I wish you the best
luck. I had no clue and a lot of
people thought was a part of that.
I was never a part of any. I didn't even know they were
making until they announced they're coming out with it.
Look, didn't we? Didn't we interview well?
Yeah, I was going to say Full disclosure.
So the guy, one of the producers on that, an editor who now is
producing Ghost Avengers, Mike Dorsey is a good friend of mine.
So yeah, yeah, I've had him on the show and yeah, he's, I, I
believe me. I talked to him.
I was like, Joe, he's, he never crossed paths with you.
He gets along with Zach and he's doing his thing and they're
having a good time and, and and he's working and, but yeah, he
was on Demon House. He sort of helped Zach in the
edit Bay and as a producer, get that in shape.
He was a documentarian, Mike, and much like you, a shooter and
an editor who came in after it was already shot and then fixed
it up. Yeah, I.
Didn't know. I didn't know any of that stuff.
I was literally in the car with them going to a location of
Ghost Adventures and then they were like talking about buying
the house. And then all of a sudden I found
out that way in a weird way. So I was like, oh, that's cool.
Like it's good though. I mean, I look, I support it.
Here's the flip side. He did not support me.
When Ghost Stalkers came out, he went like crazy, called me up.
What is this you're doing? Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I said. I'm just producing another go
show like you did with four, four or five of yours.
What's the issue? And he goes, well, why are you
using paranormal equipment on that?
I go, well, actually I've told you, let's use the Tesla coil
and do different paranormal experiments.
Like this is like season 10, right?
Let's do different ideas, different things that I had in
my mind. And you always said my ideas
were stupid when I would present them.
So he's like, Oh yeah, right. That was his response.
He's like, well, I got to go. I got to wash my car and that
was it. Now, methodically behind the
scenes, he got all the guys basically.
He told them all like if you don't team up and go against
Nick to not come to the next location.
So they didn't want to show up at the next location if I show
up. And that's how he got me pushed
off the show because eventually the network dragged me along for
two months and it became a thing like that.
And I didn't know. Methodically, he worked behind
the scenes to get me pushed off the show to the point where the
network was just like, we got to let you go because actually I
asked to let be let go at that point because they were just
dragging me around. They're like, OK, we'll call you
if we need you at the next location.
For two months they kept doing that and we're shooting 22
episodes a month. And he kept telling the guys,
I'll fire you if you go against me.
Swear to God, I know all this internally.
What happened and then what happened was is I, I just told
my agents stuff just, you know, fight to get me like released
from this like thing and I'm just going to go and make
something better. And that was the best thing my
lawyer said. You could either, you know, go
to People magazine, exploit this, talk about whatever you
can, put your ego aside and go make something better.
It was the best thing I was ever told me.
And I went and I made thermal lockdown a year later.
So Nick, funny enough, funny story.
You might get a kick out of this.
I have never seen an episode of Ghost Adventures.
My wife hasn't either. Dude coming into this, that's
where I know you from. That's funny.
And then it wasn't until afterwards Gary's talking about
this, that and the other. I'm like Ghost Adventures.
I'm like, what? And then I looked, looked into
it and I'm like, oh, wow. So I had no idea.
John was like, you mean Nick Roth from Paranormal lockdown is
coming on the show That's. Well, dude, well, that's that's
you know. I'll speak for John here for a
second. He'll jump in, but it's the the
he has been when he first started and, and it's got his
rise on the social media side of of paranormal.
He was ostracized by many in the for how his approach is.
I mean, look, dude, we're not, you know, we're not the classic
black. I'm wearing a black T-shirt now,
so not so stupid, but you know what I'm saying?
We're not, our arms are not folded.
We sort of have a fun way of going about doing things right,
you know, and it's and people really looked at him and
resented his approach to what he was doing.
And, and he got a lot of heat for it.
And so all the drama, John avoids that drama better than
anybody I've ever seen. It's a I don't know how I can't
do it. Like, I'm new to this.
And I jump in. He gets mad at me for like,
getting into like fights with trolls, but I love trolls.
Nick, how did you stay? Because you stayed quiet about
this for almost. A decade.
How did you do that? How did you let people tell your
story without you telling it? Well, that's what happened.
He was methodically going up. I I know all this because a lot
of my friends told me after the fact like about he was going
around calling people, telling people I did a bad thing.
There was never anything bad I did.
Everything was legitimately to the books and everything was
what it was. The only reason I am off Ghost
Ventures is because they all teamed up and said, well, he
made it happen and pushed me off.
So I think it was keep your head up and just move on, you know,
and, and that's what I did. I was probably a bad mistake
thinking back. That was one thing I wish I
would have done differently. Is just spoke up and said the
truth of what happened because all these stories start
circulating and assumptions start popping up like, oh, it
had to be the demon at the last episode that got Nick and that's
why he left the show. Oh, oh, Nick, Nick had this
happen. So now he's not doing the show
because he's scared or oh, Nick did a heard Nick did a bad thing
and went and did another show. Like what?
I was like Holy Grail. It was actually amusing at
times. It was very frustrating and mad
because here I am and I just ignored that.
I was told to ignore it. I was told to just like move on
by agents, by lawyers, by the network.
And we may like deal. I'll just be quiet and move on.
There was no like on paper, right down right here in NDA and
you can't talk ever again about it.
There's no NDA. This whole assumption people put
out there about an NDAI didn't. There was no NDA.
That's so funny. I got to imagine the hard part
also is you, you you can't help but sounding like a have not
right. The guy who's not on the show
anymore starts right starts if he starts saying here's all
this, you just sound like a disgruntled employee.
You got like it like it it sucks, right?
It's almost like a lose lose no matter what you do.
So I can, I can see it. I can see.
It that's that's one of my part. And plus I've never been through
this. I was still young and I was also
under the impression if I spoke out hardcore and told what
happened on this hit show, that's kind of happening.
It would almost blacklist me is what I was being told from going
to do other shows, which I was in the works of here.
I have an idea. I'm going to go sleep at
locations. It started with I'm going to
sleep at locations for a month because when I create ghost
adventures, I said, hey, let's lock down dust till dawn just
the three of us. And that's how it came up with
idea. I created the name too.
Not a lot of people know I create ghost adventures.
I was the one that came up with that name exactly the adventure
part. I thought it was too
Disneylandish sounding. I said no, it's awesome.
Let's keep it Ghost Adventures. And that's how it's stuck.
But like when I made Paranormal Lockdown, it turned into 72
hours because I always started to realize, oh crap, we have to
condense 8 terabytes or whatever of footage down to 44 minutes of
cable network television time. So what I did is I just did
three days with a fourth day of wrap around testimonials.
So I would literally stay there for three days in my clothes
sleeping legitimately. Like, Oh my God, it was the
craziest thing I've ever done in my life because the atmospheres,
the environments were such hell. To stand I would get like dust
mites everywhere on like day three I would never change my
clothes my big toes started going white because I would wear
my boots and never take them off for three days.
I like trans, I like caning, just crazy shit like that.
I. Think it was test.
I said this to John. I was like the The Four Seasons
is never the haunted location, right?
You know what I'm saying? You can never you're never
locking yourself in guys. I'm I'm locking myself into the
presidential suite here in the Maui forces in the Grand Wailea
in in Maui to see if I get ghosts.
Exactly. But but that's what paranormal
lockdown was again my it's almost like having my second
baby, right? Ghost Adventures was the first,
Paranormal Lockdown was my second.
And I put my blood, sweat and tears into this.
I could have died making this show.
Like sleeping in elevator shafts and morgue slabs and a bottomy
rooms. Like no thank you.
If you would watch all the episodes and you see every
location I've slept in like bathtubs, like bar tops, like
crazy haunted areas where all this crazy stuff has happened.
I lost like life's like years off my life from the
environment. But the hauntings were scary
too. But my point I was trying to
make is I go on to do this show right Four Seasons.
And when I'm in the four, the the second or third season, what
happens is, is the network over here with Discovery, which was
destination America, it merges with Travel Channel.
So they bought out Travel Channel and they merge and then
that holds. We were already doing the UK
show. I was told to go and do the UK
Param lockdown show because in season 3 they shelfed it for a
second. No one knows this.
And they were holding on to it because the guy there was trying
to go and, and when they merged a Travel Channel, he was going
to position season 3 and let release it on Travel Channel as
one unit. Because it would, it would be a
bigger smash, right? Everyone would see it more
because we had ghost French over there and I was still supportive
Ghost French as I let it all go. I moved on.
He said some stuff on social media about our Param lockdown,
some shitty things that he said, and I put a whole video on this
so you guys can all see it. And this is the only reason I
spoke out and I've spoken out about it because the problem is
when you have somebody who won't stop behind the scenes trying to
stop you, black blacklist you smear your name, say you're
doing bad things when when you're doing unfactual
information and and smearing that about your name to hurt
your reputation and hurt you of doing work.
And now it's raining and affecting my family and our
income and everything, right? That's the reason I spoke out
about when Paramal Lockdowns got cancelled.
And and it was him. He had a methodical hand in
making that stop. And that's what pissed me off
more than anything. It wasn't the Ghost French
thing. It wasn't like all the other
crap. I moved on, cut my head out.
It was because Paramount Lockdown was succeeding bigger
ratings at the time and it was half the budget of Ghost French
at the time. That's what was crazy.
And the network and executives talked to me on lengths.
Hey Nick, we're merging. You got 20 episodes.
We're doing the season 4, we're going to air season 3.
And I and they're having conversations while I'm in a
freaking 15th century castle in England doing the UK paramalock
down and there's bodies over here and I'm talking them on the
phone. They tell me they get, I, I got
all this. It's all good.
We talked to everybody at the network, Everyone's cool about
this acting, everyone's cool. We'll make it work.
That's, that's the conversation I got.
And then radio silence 2 weeks later, somebody there went over
their heads the CE OS of the huge network.
And basically what happened was, and I know this to be a fact
later because I also talked to Dakota Laden from Dakota from
Project Fear and whatever. And he told me off the record
too that he was on set when Zach said I just had to call network
and Nick won't be coming here anymore.
And he stopped me from coming there when he was there with
when I was doing paranormal lockdown.
And another executive at the network told me the same thing
too, who became the general manager.
He said that as long as he's as long as he's here, you can't
come here and do anything either.
So that's how it. Happened.
That's why the lockdown stopped, that's why I couldn't do
anything. It's like, look, I, I, I have,
I've been on the network side. I worked at, you know, USAI
worked in the studio side at Discovery.
I mean, it's, you know, I wasn't in those rooms.
I can't save anything. I was there at that time working
at Discovery when that happened. But I was in no way, shape or
form a part of any of those conversations.
But I can say I have been a part of similar situations with
talent where they have absolutely.
And from a network perspective, they there's there's so many
factors that they have to look at where it's like, what is this
person's contract say, what can they make?
Can they make the life long term miserable?
What are the long what what ads have we sold?
Like they way they do it, it's always a lot and it sucks.
You know, I can tell you, I bet the network did not was not
happy about having to do that to you.
You know the by they get no joy out of that.
He told me one of the head executives I was really close
with, he told me that he goes dude, I'm so sorry it's over my
head and he's like you should go like I know A&E and blah blah.
He was like really trying to help me and he felt like shitty,
but I think I know the real reason what happened.
Basically he said they will all walk off the network ghost
ventures, all of them will walk off if I come there with
Paramount lockdown or anything. And I was backed up with other
people who were on set with them and it was backed up by this
executive producer who was talking to me off like the
network records And, and he basically what happened was
travel shield was in a financial crisis back then.
So there was in a financial crisis discovery bottom out.
It was like this whole thing. And it was like they don't want
to stir the, they didn't want to stir the pot.
They don't want to stir the pot with like two things happening
and they lose this and then that one dips And like they didn't
want to gamble on either 1. So they got, you know, they got
rid of me and plus I was more of a well, like I could talk like
this normal. I wasn't screaming at you and
stuff and going crazy and hanging up the phone or
something stupid. I actually could have a
conversation and I was more of like, oh, he's more the chill
one. And she I always what I found in
this this industry is the louder, crazier, more
narcissistic person usually claws to the top quicker.
Well, yeah, man, this week there's a reason they say the
squeaky wheel gets the grease, bro.
I mean, that's kind of a that's a classic.
Let me ask you this one more question and then we can move on
from this topic for sure. And thank you for sharing all
that. But is and maybe I already know
the answer to this. Is there any part of you that
would be willing to reconcile ever with these guys and like,
let's move on, Let's do a let's do this.
Do you talk to the other guys ever And.
No, I, I haven't talked to them since 2014.
The last thing that Aaron told me on the phone is I'm so sorry.
I can't get in the middle of this was his exact word or exact
words and he was told to just be like chill for a while.
And he said, but I love you man, I love you.
And that was it. And I never talked to him ever
again. But then I found out, you know,
they were all kind of bad mouthing me behind the scene
because someone worked with them at the time.
And I, I know everything that was happening.
So would I like do another project?
I think that's a little tainted. No, I'm sure it is.
But you seem, you seem like somebody who would be, you're
coming across as somebody who seems like they would rise above
it. That's why I asked.
I mean, honestly, you seem very level headed.
I'm just wondering. If I came, let me rephrase the
question. If all the sudden you had a
vision, a project, something that popped into your mind that
those guys were, you know, not needed for but would be a good
fit, would you work with them again for such a thing?
Yeah, it does. It just depends.
I think there has to be a lot of stuff talked about in a
conversation to like kind of get to like this truth stage instead
of like trying to puppeteer stuff behind the scenes and keep
trying to do some weird methodical thing to stop me.
I mean like it goes deeper than what you guys think from like
even my Death Walker series and other other shows that I've done
like even not being able to platform some of those.
So I went the opposite direction.
So I think the great thing is it's time to change.
The whole regime over there has changed.
Everything has changed streaming, all this stuff has
changed now. So it doesn't matter anymore,
you know, So I think ultimately what goes around comes around in
a sense. You know, you do bad things to
people. Eventually stuff is going to
come back just naturally, you know, that's called karma and
whatever. I try to stay true to myself.
I try to stay positive in the right direction.
I there's nothing more. I hate the liars and stuff like
that and people that kind of like trying to take you out
behind the scenes. But yeah, I mean, I would
definitely have a conversation if they willing to sit down and
talk about it. Oh yeah, absolutely.
But I'm not. I'm getting too old for this
stupid drama shit, you know what I mean?
I'm like. 40. Something it's like I, I even
had this conversation with an executive at the network years
ago, Param Lockdown going back then at this moment, I said,
what's the deal? I said get us all in a room
together, let's talk it out. I don't get it because we're all
back then. We're all in like our 30s going
40s. And I said it's like we're in
like middle school or high school and like this weird, like
stupid thing. I said, you know, let's talk
about it and let's get a room bite.
I think it's just more of the posing party.
Doesn't, you know, want to talk and whatever.
But I'm more than willing to just, you know, put stuff aside
if we're talking about that. Other than that, I'm doing my
own thing. Like we're doing huge things
right now with Brandon TV. Oh yeah, don't jump ahead, Nick.
I want to get into all that for you.
I definitely want to touch it. I definitely want to hear about
all these things. It's test told me about it, but
I want it was the perfect segue here for is talking about
working with those guys. And then you went from that
situation to working with your wife, which I don't know.
I don't know. I mean, and somehow you're
making that work, which I find I I and I said this to Tess as
well. If my wife and I work together
that often, that frequently, I think we would probably murder
each other faster than you and Zach would want to murder each
other. So what?
So when you're you know what, what is it when you guys are out
there together? How do you 2 negotiate how you
approach a scene? What's and what's the difference
between, you know, doing that with your wife versus doing it
with, with, with a Bunny who's attacking this?
Yeah, I mean, she she's definitely a lot more humble in
in the way we go about things. I think, you know, we so when we
did Death Walker, I kind of met her while I was making like
season 2 or 3 or whatever. And this is back in 2020.
We met and she actually had her own podcast show.
She was doing huge things with the Bears Den Live gallery
readings at Seneca Casino in Niagara Falls, and she was doing
some big stuff. She did Night Night with the
Medium and I came on her podcast show and that's how we met.
We just hit it off. We had that like deep soulmate
connection that we both felt and saw.
And then we started, I was coming up here to film too and
we were obviously dating and we just really headed off.
And I think there's something like a knowing where we've known
each other for lifes like before in general, and that's how deep
our connection is. So we kind of have an alliance
of we kind of know what each other likes.
Obviously you learn more and. Nick Roth, the big romantic over
here. I know, listen to him.
The guy climbing out of a Mort's lab is involved.
You know, like true love, like stars destined.
Throwing out the Borg with a rodent in his mouth.
Yeah, it's like, listen to him riding it on his mighty, Riding
it on his mighty. I'm a tall.
Sucker. I'm a tall sucker for.
Yeah, definitely. I know it's big time.
I'll be the first to admit it. And look, we just, we have this
passion. I think we just have this
understanding with each other when we investigate.
Like I trust and believe in her and she does with me too.
So like if we're both feeling a certain way, we're investigating
together, like she has her ability that's a little bit
different than mine in a sense. So I like to run full blast into
like, oh, there's that evil entity in there, let's say, and
it's terrible and I'm going in to document it and we're all
like, holy shit. Feels sickening and gross and
whatever. And she's like, don't go in
there. I see it, It's right there.
You're going to get hurt. And I'm like, well, I'm going
in. I think that's where the tension
comes sometimes where I'm not necessarily listening to her and
I'm just going for it, you know what I mean?
But after that, it's funny because then we'll document
something and she'd be like, see, I told you, you should
listen to me more often while we're in there.
And she's right, honestly. So I think it's just a more of a
balance how to figure out the balance in between, you know,
but ultimately we don't, we don't really fight about any of
that. Stuff and all this stuff now is
yours, right? Like, yeah, you're now you
don't, you're not getting the network notes you don't have to
worry about, right? You're really the one in charge.
So what is what are the hard have you can you point to like a
really like a hard choice you've had to make to keep that trust
or to now that you're doing it where it's your versus your
wife? Yeah, distributing.
I mean, if we're talking just strictly producing and getting
out there, the content, it's this distribution, you know,
it's not, it's not easy. There's so many different ways
now, you know, but we're talking a couple years ago I shot 80
episodes of Death Walker, self produced all of it, sold it.
You know, it did very well and we're getting ready to release
season 4 and five in America. One through 3 is out on pretty
much every platform that we distributed through another
company. But then it airs in the United
Kingdom on discovery plus, so it streams out there and they're
they're not necessary. I know it sounds weird that, but
there's a divide in America discovery plus them, so that's
kind of why that works back sure I wasn't.
Like, but but talk about creatively.
I'm I'm talking about just creative decisions that since
you are, you know, you're literally could have her
standing over your shoulder in the edit Bay and she's like, no,
you know, like how do you no. She doesn't though.
She doesn't though, No, because she trusts me.
I show her raw clips and I show her the cuts or I show her Oh my
God, look at this evidence. I validate what you were saying
like I'll show her the validation part of her ability
and then us documented at the same time.
So I think it's more fascinating for both of us cuz again, we
love this stuff. It's a passion.
You know, it's just not like let's go off and shoot another
show or something like that or we're casted for some talent on
another show. It's like we're literally doing
the nuts bolt in in all the hard labor.
It's my wife, me and my cousin Justin.
It was my cousin Justin and me for the first couple seasons.
And then I brought her in to kind of mix up.
It would be really interesting to have a psychic, you know,
doing her abilities. And then she just kind of
intertwined with us and became this like family unit where
eventually my wife and my cousin and my cousin Justin is the guy
behind the camera. And we're just like, you know,
cracking jokes or whatever. And and then hauntings are
happening and she's seen things and it just kind of became what
it was in Season 4 and 5. But we shot 80 episodes of that
Death Walker is done. So we moved from that because
we're creating multiple shows now with brand TV, like I was
saying. I feel like you guys want to be
the next Chip and Joanna Gaines, but for the paranormal, is that,
is that fair to say? I mean like really with all the
things you're doing, is that like an A long term goal for you
guys, for the girls? I think, I think it just kind of
fell into that like, you know, people were labeling like Anne
Lorraine Warren of the Next Generation type of thing, you
know, The Conjuring films, stuff like that.
I think we just kind of it became that because I didn't
really necessarily know she was a psychic in a sense, you know,
when we first started talking and stuff.
And she's never watched any episode of Ghost Ventures or
Paramount, locked down anything I've done.
So she didn't actually truly know who I was.
When she had me on her podcast, I was introduced by Daniel
Klass, owner of the Hinsdale House, and he brought me on to
her podcast show to just bring on me on as a guest and I was
filming with him doing other stuff.
So yeah, I think that's how that happened.
It just be kind of became what it was.
You're one of the founders of television paranormal.
I think that's safe to say. I really do.
I think it's, it's fair enough to say.
How are you adjusting with all these other businesses with,
with social media and the new gateway to entry?
How, how are you finding this new breed of ghost hunter?
You know, even like this guy that we're sitting with right
here, he's not a ghost hunter per SE.
He's a, he's not a ghost hunter at all.
He's a ghost documenter, but it's a, it's a whole new set of
media tools and approaches. What is what is your outlook on
what what's happening out there in this space?
And. How are you fitting in with what
you and Tess are trying to do? Yeah, it's interesting because
there is a phenomenal with the YouTube sensation, right?
So all these like paranormal gurus just went off and are
they're making tons of videos. Like you got your TikTok, you
got YouTube, you have all this stuff that they're platforming
now, even Facebook and Instagram and whatever.
But I came from the principle of like, definitely I, I do agree
with like creating this kind of like lockdown 3 guys, you know,
this raw element. And the great thing is, is we
did shoot it all, edit it, you know, like go through the
evidence ourselves, stuff like that.
So that, but then again, that was cable television, you know
what I mean? There was a structure to like
one through 6 acts to tell your story because that's how they
put it out there based on the raw like investigation part that
we're molding around everything. So when like YouTube and
everything kind of popped off what, 10-15 years ago now or
something, it was interesting because I think I was doing
Paramount lockdown and I start seeing all these like almost
higher end YouTube videos looking like cable television
coming out, you know, but like on a obviously shoestring budget
or however they were doing it. And I think that was the turning
phase in the last couple of years where everything is turned
now you have all the networks, everybody kind of like, let's
buy each other up to only two networks, basically coming up,
three networks, whatever it is now.
And everyone's kind of fighting for that position.
And then YouTube has turned into like, there's so much content
out there. But I think it's crazy because
now YouTube is, you know, your monetization on what you're
getting on there. They're taking huge cuts now.
It's not ten years ago, YouTube. So now it's demonetization and
YouTube is like just really gouging.
So one week you could make X amount of dollars, the next week
on your next video, maybe you're making a penny.
Like you just don't know. And I think that's the problem.
There's no consistency with YouTube unless you're like
turning and burning stuff, which I see a lot of people doing.
But I still think that's like a bat.
Like depending on how your brand is or your vision or where
you're going, that's a great Ave. for some people.
But I always say go for some infrastructure to spread it like
producing wise and then work backwards to the YouTube or just
go strictly YouTube and go for it and then try to launch that
to something bigger. Talk to me, Nick, about like how
you tell the story, though with this, you know, like as a
creative, right, because you know, you had 44 minutes to
build to a moment, but now you've got 4 seconds to, you
know, to get them hooked, right? Or else they're just zip,
they're zipping by. How do you you know?
What is your thought on that, especially when it comes to
investigating paranormal activity?
Well, years ago it was a little bit different.
I think you have a concept like Ghost Vunchers, right?
And you have this concept, three guys locked down, dustled down.
What you see is what you get raw.
I mean, there's the concept, and then basically that plays off
with all the raw footage being condensed.
And you have like Act 1 is just the storytelling of interviews,
building up the location. Oh my God, here's the location.
Let's see what happens with these guys.
Here's the conclusion, here's the evidence.
Whatever. Now it's turned into like I
think you had concepts back then.
You know, now I, I'm in the principle when I look at things,
if I'm producing stuff like the Devil's Mark film or stuff like
that, that I'm producing, your story has to be so powerful and
so passionate in some other unique avenue that it doesn't
feel the same old Like I could click on YouTube right now and
say, Oh, there's a, there's 400 things of ghost adventure styles
or whatever. It has to be so different for me
personally to move me and it's all about the story.
Honestly, now I feel it's about the story.
It's kind of like I, I think what you were saying, you go and
you document ghosts, right? Is that what you're talking
about? It's the story you're telling,
right? And maybe it's the history or
it's it's this was seen here and whatever happens you, but it's
not the principle of what's happened to your experience.
It's more or less right. You're kind of documenting
telling a story. John's alive.
John is primarily alive influencer, so he's live 5 or 6
hours a night and he'll stay in a location for years.
He'll go back and forth there and he'll constantly have his
spirit very spirit boxes on and he's talking to his community
and he's talking to to spirits and he's gathering information
and documenting it. That's kind of what he's been
known for. And then he really popped when
he started doing the same thing at cemeteries, cleaning
headstones while learning about the history there, cleaning a
headstone and getting wild feedback from various different
whether it's an app or a spirit box or whatever.
And it's, that's the, that's the thing that blew him up, right?
So that's, that's different than the classic.
Like, you know, let's go. And I'm in this space and and
you know. It's so so we're going off what
Nick was saying, though. It's so true.
Like even now with like, you know, live creators that are out
there doing the paranormal, they're a dime a dozen.
There, there, there's, there's hundreds, if if not thousands.
There's a lot, man, there's a lot, there's a lot.
What, what, what sets you apart? Be a live creator.
You know, is, is personality, right?
So, you know, unfortunately a lot of them are just very, you
know, OK, spirit, can I have your name?
You know, there's no, there's no personality behind it.
So, you know, the ones that are successful in that niche, you
know, throw a little personality and so that that's you build a
community and and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, as you said,
same thing with like you, you can go on YouTube and you can
see, you know, 1000 style ghost adventure videos, you know, and
it's it's it's pretty wild. It's like, yeah, the the idea
being, I guess what is the thing that is going to catch them?
You know, like, there's a whole new breed of ghost center out
there, but they're not going to get the attention on social
media in the same way that what you did, Nick, is going to get
people invested, right? Like you.
You raise these kids and now they're out there doing
something that has to be very, you know.
Yeah, But you know, you did. It's your fault.
Let the kids out the house. Let them loose you.
Know. Let the boy watch.
Yes, it's your fault and now, but they're doing it in a way
and do you like, you know, I'm curious, do you reject how
they're doing it or are you liking what they're seeing?
You know it's. Yeah, I think there there's a
there's a catch 22. Yes and no right.
So yes, I'm I'm like excited for everyone who's doing the thing.
I always say follow your dreams, follow your passion, whatever
the some people are in for money.
Some people are in for fame. Some people are in it because
they really believe in it or they're just interested in it
like I was. I think we got, I shouldn't say
lucky. I think that's a weird term
because blood sweat, tears. I literally blood sweat and
tears. May ghost adventures from the
all. Your hard work it definitely.
Wasn't man it like it was just? Dedication, fine, and vision.
You know you succeeded. Same thing with Paramal
lockdown, same thing with Death Walker, same thing with the
Devil's Mark that I'm doing right now.
God, like all this stuff, blood, sweat and tears.
And I think it's just follow your passion first, believe in
what you're doing, have that credibility and that balance to
stand behind. Don't just cash in for, oh, this
is what's going to be quick click bait on YouTube or click
bait on something because that's all it is now is click bait.
It's like thumbnails with, oh, the demon is killing me.
You know, I'm like, that's everything.
But it's a young, it's a young kid generation where kids are
clicking out like my kids, I have 4 boys.
Like the boys will be scrubbing YouTube and we only give them a
little bit of time on it and they'll be like, oh, this, this,
this. And it's just like that's what
it is, you know, it's this crazy fast pace I need.
That's that quick sensation. What's insane is all that
trickles like into into what I do.
I can't tell you how many times I'm live so and people come into
the chat. That's a demon.
It's a demon. No, that's just poor Aunt Sally.
That is not a demon, you know, like it's, it's insane.
Everything's a demon, don't you know that?
Everything's there, everything, but that's because of that
YouTube, you know, demon, this demon that it's just so true.
Well, it's, it's funny, right? Because everything honestly is
perception because at the end of the day, we're all humans.
We create what a demon is. But what is a demon?
All right, If you're realistically thinking about it,
you have different parts of religion throughout this whole
world, but we all come into this world in kind of a similar way,
even though we're differently in backgrounds.
But it's what you're taught as a kid or as you grow or older to
believe in and what your perception is on things.
So if you believe that, oh, everything Tessa is talking to,
right, psychically, it's all a demon.
Everything she's talking is demon because ghosts don't do
that, or Joe who passed away doesn't do that or whatever.
So it's all perception in in, it's just background.
Religion is a part, big part of it.
Big part, yeah. But I look at things positive
and negative, right? Positive energy, negative
energy. There's good and bad people that
live and die in this world, from serial killers to people to
innocent people to children, unfortunately.
And I look at all of it as energy.
And where is that collective energy go?
And sometimes it lingers in between realms or whatever is
afterwards. I don't have all the answers.
I'm learning everyday, I'm growing, I'm expanding my brain,
I'm evolving. You have to be open minded
because if you're not, you're just going to be stuck in that
box thinking about just the same thing over and over and over
again until you pass away and figure it out.
But none of us have the right answer, man.
I mean, a lot of people out there claim to know and claim to
paint narratives and whatever, but I think you got to stay
open. You have to have some thought
process with creating a story and telling a story from your
perspective, but you also have to stay well grounded while
doing that. So I mean, you know, when you
dive into it, you kind of have to pick and choose how you're
you, you're just dialoguing this stuff outward.
And I'm a big belief in like storytelling right now,
cinematic storytelling. But if there's raw elements to
take from, that's a big push to but I think people are more
invested in stories today and uniqueness and interesting like
value that you're offering. That's relatable people too.
Hence why I love the Devil's mark.
Because that man. Yeah.
We'll get to that. I want to, I want to hear about
the, I want to hear about your latest, your, your latest movie.
But I, I want to just quickly, before we forget about what you
just said about energy. Is that what you think spirits
are? Do you think spirits are energy
or what do you think? What do you think you're dealing
with over all these years? When I was younger, I would
think different. Like 10 years ago I would
probably think something different.
You know, I had weird experiences from A-Z where I am
now, right? So I had experiences of like
hearing someone say Nick Gruff on a digital recorder when IA
100% know no one else did that How?
And that's not like matrixing. That's like legitimately I hear
that other people hear that, you know, and there was no one else
making that sound under that frequency.
And then I started learning and studying about decibels, like 20
to to 0 decibels below that. We don't hear with our own ears
that frequency and the old Nikola Tesla frequency,
vibration and energy and all that stuff.
I think we do. You know, we produce energy,
kinetic energy when I'm moving, right?
We all produce certain energies. We don't have a complete
understanding of the whole brain.
But what fascinates me is the consciousness in our brain that
we collect and gather and evolve as we grow older, in between
being born, dying, the consciousness, where does the
consciousness go when the body dies?
And the energy, where does that go to?
Are they connected with electricity?
You know all that stuff that goes on without getting too
science heavy here. And does it linger?
Does it? Please do get science heavy no?
Was it able to communicate like from the other side?
And again, I'm not like a doctor, but I've talked to
people that have had near death experiences.
Like I talked to a Doctor Who researched 5000 patients that
had Ndes. You know, my wife and I, we
skated on that. But I've had deep conversations
with some really smart people who are book savvy that are
doctors and know neuroscience and know all this stuff without
me out speaking where I don't know everything.
But I think the simple principle is I do believe that energy is a
big factor, but I don't think it's one thing that happens to
us when we die. At this point in my life, I
think multiple things happened to us when we die, I think it's,
well, it's a transitional phase, right?
So, and this is a big thing I've been learning lately with people
that have passed away around me throughout the years, like my
uncle's, some other people passed away recently.
Sometimes it comes in threes, right?
You'll hear, oh, this uncle's passing, 02 more people are
going to pass. There are nursing homes talk
about it, people passing in threes in nursing home, like
just weird stuff like that. Nikola Tesla, I know it's a
little conspiracy theory here, but Nikola Tesla talks about 3,
you know, 3's, three's magic number, the very songs about it.
But what I'm getting at is the idea that when we pass, multiple
things happen and I call it almost like the Jesus Christ
moment, right? Right before you're dying.
And what I mean by that, if you look at the big old term,
because I don't get too biblical.
I'm very spiritual, but I was raised Catholic.
My mom goes to church, all this stuff, but I'm more like open
minded with everything, every religion, everything.
I love talking to everybody of all walks of life.
I have no, no problems with anything, right?
Because I want to learn. I want to be open now.
If you notice when people pass away, there's some weird thing
that happens to a lot of people. Maybe they went through in their
life, like maybe they did some bad thing or something like
that. Sorry for the interruption, but
did you see John get distracted by the spirits like a dog seeing
a squirrel? We're going to explain it in a
second. I'll rewind it, show you again,
and move on. But don't worry, we'll tell you
what happens later. Weird thing that happens to a
lot of people, maybe they went through in their life like, you
know, maybe they did some bad thing or something like that and
they have to go through this like just terrible phase before
they pass away, like cancer or something.
Something that they did in their life that has reflected on them
that they have to pass through in kind of like this, this
transitional stage. And then when they pass or
before they pass, they have like this vision of seeing somebody
or seeing the uncle or seeing somebody with them or you'll see
them call, was it called the death breath or whatever?
Well, the death rattle. Yeah, yeah.
Rattle, but not even that it's like almost like they start
seeing these people and talking and they have to stare.
You know, the death stare and then they'll pass away.
We had a whole thing on this We're we're going to be
releasing it too on Brandon TV. We produced a live show where
here we talked to ND ES and stuff like that.
But it's weird to me when I start because I, I like to think
and start evolving and I and I almost like do what you do where
you go when you're picking up evidence, you keep going back to
the same location. You're seeing if it changes or
you seen if you get in the same evidence or the same spirit
talking or somebody different coming through, right.
I, I like that where you keep going back to the same places.
That's interesting and I'm looking for patterns similar for
just myself personally. It's not like a quest I'm on
here. I'm trying to do a documentary.
It's just my personal opinion. I think multiple things
happened. You have a transitional stage.
You have to let go of your regrets.
You have to be willing to pass on.
I think some people like when you talk to victims, victims
that like may be hit by a car or they take their own life or
something really tragic there. There's lingering energies where
you have to pass through that phase as energy or as something
else. And then it's like, what are the
beliefs? I mean, we're only human.
We can only expand our brain so much in so little time through
our hundred years of whatever we live, right?
So. If we're lucky.
Yeah, if we're lucky. Exactly.
So what else is there? There's different transitions of
the energy that the energy has to go through to change,
multiply, transfer. Maybe reincarnation.
Maybe they didn't get it right. Maybe they have to come back.
Maybe they there's something that has to happen.
Maybe there is this above higher place.
My understand there is a higher place, you know, from ND people
talking about they float to space and it's all energy
everywhere. Maybe that's the heaven that we
define as. And I've talked to somebody
where it's just all darkness and nothing and so scary and you
can't see anything. It's like you're in an abyss of
just like vastness where you're just like lost.
And he came back to life. He was asked do you want to stay
here? And he said no and he zapped
back to his body after being pronounced dead.
Like I've talked to people like that scary shit.
I love NDS. I've I, I had a whole thing with
people who do distressed NDS, so it's like they go to hell
instead, which is great. And yeah, it's why.
Exactly so. It's always great when people go
to hell. Yeah, it's it's the best.
But it's, it's energy, it's all. Energy.
It is. It is.
If you think about, we're all like, we're all energetically
connected in this vast universe, man as one, but we're so divided
as human beings, you know, for multiple reasons, you know,
money, power, eagle, whatever the hell, religion, background,
whatever it is. It's an algorithm, I think these
days. But we're all connected.
It's like, you know, some people believe it doesn't even exist.
We're sitting in a matrix and everything is just like codes
and stuff. And that's like the that's like
the young, the gravity leaking theory.
You know, we're trying to figure.
Out. Yeah.
We're trying to figure out why gravity is such a power,
powerful force. But where is it all?
We're so strong. Where is the gravity going?
Well, it's a possibility. It's leaking into dimensions
that we cannot see and we cannot perceive in this form.
You know, this is straight science.
This is straight theoretical science.
You know it sounds woo woo, but in reality it's not.
Well, yeah, no, it's been proven that there's multiple dimensions
based on science, based on like real science driven people like
that actually have PhDs and whatever.
Like I think last years ago there's like someone was
claiming factually claiming there was like 15 different
dimensions. Dimensions, yeah, yeah.
Started off as 11 if I remember and then jumped up to 15.
Now it's like 50 or something. I don't know, something crazy I
didn't like too much. But he's getting all this data,
you know, and it's, it's, it's wild.
Well, look at, look at the ghost particle.
Look at the ghost particle. You see that?
Yeah, we started, we started talking to people about that
recently. Yeah, a lot of people more and
more are starting to talk about what that is, right, that
quantum sort of tube, right? Is that we're right?
That's that ghost. Yeah, yeah.
Well, they have all the cameras and they dissect that one little
particle that they call the ghost particle for that instance
because you can't see it. But we live in a spectrum,
right? Here's our spectrum, here's the
animals, and then here's the spectrum of everything.
We don't see everything. We don't feel everything but.
This is a book. This is a book you should read
if you haven't, if you like consciousness, the conscious
universe by Doctor Dean Radin. I've read it.
I'm like reading it again. I it's like my go to like I the
the thing what you said about what I've learned doing this.
I've I've been leaning more into this idea of consciousness and
what is it and what creates it and what what is it that's
happening and is it? This is the wrong word, but it's
the best word. Like manifestations from
consciousness. That is that what we're all?
I don't know the answer. Nobody does but this one, Nick,
you'll, you'll. This is something you should
pick up. I've heard that book The
Conscious. Universe.
But anyway, like. Yeah, I mean, it's a great
answer to figure out. And who better than you who've
been in all these places to have had experienced in multiple
forms to help us paint this picture?
We like to call it like a mosaic of what are spirits.
To get these different perspectives and to hear your
side of it is really valuable from everything.
By the way, did you Nick? When you were talking, did you
hear me start yelling at the spirits?
Yeah, what was that? Dude, I've been having they have
been I have a bunch of dolls. Some of them aren't wanted.
Some of them aren't. Dude, they haven't just fallen
over and moving and I don't even know what what they moved.
I was looking and I I couldn't even tell what they moved over
here, but I don't know if you heard the the sound.
I heard it. Yeah, I was just like, you know,
this where I'm at is a a very haunted spot.
Yeah, I can tell. I I was looking at the back of
like, where are you right now? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's. Like you in the Lizzie Borden
house or something like, look, it looks cool.
Yeah, No, that, that's awesome. Man, Nick, first of all, thank
you so much for your time today. And I want to talk about let's
let's, we could sort of close this out by talking about your
latest feature. Tell us about the Devil's Mark.
What went into making it? What, what's what's your love
for it? Why this story?
Yeah, so 2 twins, Joel and Scott Klingensmith, they grew up in
Michigan and they come from trauma, physical and mental
abuse from their father and a house from age 6 all the way up
into present time. Father left him at like 14.
And I told the whole story and why I got fascinated with this
book. Actually, we investigate a
location with them for a Twins Haunting that they're, they're
coming out with 20 episodes of Twins Haunting.
And then he had a book and it was actually handed to me by
another friend of mine. And Tessa looked at it and
psychically, just off the bat, she was like, that's your next
project. Just out of the blue without
reading it, she looked at it and she goes, that's it.
Because I was looking to do another film for like 2 years
straight and I had a couple ideas.
And she's like that. It's not it.
For two years she was telling me that's not the one, that's not
the one. And I kind of, I listened to her
and I was going to like frustrate.
Like I, I, I'm getting there. I need to make something.
And then this happened. We crossed paths.
It happened for a reason. I'm a big believer and like non
coincidental things. And I took a stab at the book
and I was like. This is really fascinating.
I saw, I think I just saw the whole vision how I could adapt
this book and just make it how it is now.
So what I did is we just, I broke it down and I broke from
his book and I added on to it and I talked to him in lengths
for months. I talked to Joel and Scott and
just learned more and more and more and I dug a little bit
deeper from the back history that was not in the book.
So I got more information and I just started writing into this
format of what I do is I tell the whole back story with
basically reenactments and I shot everything.
So I'm telling his whole story as we're intertwining his
interview as he's talking about it, and we're cutting to the
storytelling kind of rhythmatic cinematic breakdowns of his
certain parts of their life that were very impactful from the
father, from the trauma to the spiritual happenings in their
house to what they believe the hauntings could be.
Now, what's creepy is we get into this attachment that he has
this negative attachment. Some might claim it's the devil,
some might claim it's this negative ancient entity.
He definitely has an attachment, let's put it that way.
And he? One of the brothers.
Joel Scott didn't get an attachment.
He did. Now here's where the story gets
interesting. So Tessa, my wife and I, we
decide to meet him in 2025 to investigate certain locations
where he believed the attachment came from.
We found out it wasn't from Mackinac Island in Michigan.
We found out wasn't from this hotel he went to back in 2015.
He got hit so hard he blacked out.
He had these things after him. He was at bugs everywhere.
He was like the same. All this crazy stuff, man.
Now this story is very relatable to people because it has trauma.
The paranormal was almost like a niche to me.
Like, how do you make paranormal a little bit different than
what's been done a gazillion times?
And what attracted me to this, it was so relatable to people
because of the trauma, because of the psychology behind it, and
also because he he was an addict at one point of his life with
drugs. And then he got clean and then
he got better and then boom, it hit him full force.
This this dark negative thing that hit him is.
He still alive. Yeah, he's still here.
He'll be at the premiere coming up.
Is he fixable? I mean, is it?
Well, here's here's the crazy part.
So we investigate with him in 2025 to try to figure out does
he have an attachment or is it something else, right.
And we realize with equipment and psychic abilities and stuff,
he has an attachment. And you'll see in the story, we
go from six years old all the way up to present time 2025,
where we meet him and go back to these tracing these footsteps of
where he, he thought he had it, not knowing we realized that he
does have, we bring him back to Buffalo, NY and we do this
massive experiment. We bring in a Native American to
cleanse him and try to get rid of this negative entity.
It's Wildman. And we did a psychic dive into
his childhood home with astral projecting where they do a
psychic read on the House and everything.
It's, it's a wild documentary, hard hitting.
It's, it's wild. It's relatable to people and
also the haunting side of it is super scary so.
I'm excited to see it. Where are people going to be
able to see it? So double Mark May 23rd.
We're premiering it at Riviera Theater in North Tonawanda, NY.
It's a beautiful theater. It's a haunted theater.
You guys are more than welcome to come.
So May 23rd, it's coming out in the theaters and then will it be
available for streaming or? Yeah, worldwide.
So we're positioning it right now, and I'm going to announce
that really soon after the premiere, we'll have a position
where worldwide you'll be able to stream it everywhere.
And the great thing is my wife and I, we teamed up with Brandon
TV now too. So Brandon TV is an amazing
another streaming service, but we're producing multiple shows
with hams and we have big projects that we're working on
right now too that we will be coming out with.
So yeah, we have a lot of stuff in those works.
That's great. I'm excited to see that.
I assume if I was going to say I'm assuming that this kid, I
don't want to spoil the ending, I didn't see it, but I'm
assuming if this guy's showing up at the premiere, maybe he's
either got this thing in Bay or he's under the wraps.
Otherwise I would have said take him out in the boat and throw
him overboard because he's lost like anybody with that kind of
darkness. To do that.
I mean, dude, anybody with that kind of darkness or that kind of
thing, after you 2 investigate it and say it's there, it's
almost like, hey, you know, it's like.
It was it was scary, man. I won't lie like because I I go
and very logical and I try to balance it right.
But it was scary at times because we were interviewing and
Tessa was sitting there and she had the laptop and we were
talking and I was interviewing here with the camera and her
laptop just being pulled off her body like literally, and she was
freaking out about it. You obviously don't see, it's
like it's like off camera and stuff, but there's stuff behind
like the scenes that we that's not in the document or anything.
But there's other things that were happening, you know, that
were pretty scary that there is some sort of like gravitational
pull to whatever he has that has stuff and his his twin brother
Scott talks heavily about it. But we believe it was
transferred from the father to him in the moment of him, his
father strangling him and almost killing him real story.
And he blacked out wound up. So it's it's a deep, deep story
and Tessa without even knowing anything, without even knowing
anything, Tessa goes, we didn't even know any of this stuff.
This is all in the dock as we're pulling back the layers and
we're discovering it. Tessa literally said this came
and I got look at the goosebumps came from you.
I got you too when you said that.
Yeah, it came from your grandfather and the grandfather
was in war. She's like your grandfather was
in war, didn't know anything and they're both twins were like,
holy shit, yes, our grandfather was in war and he was this and
that and she was saying everything is like he picked it
up there ancient entity or something negative brought it
back, transferred it to the father.
The father father has had it. They've had all this stuff
happening and we believe they transferred to him and that's
sort of the twist. Listen, this whole family's
fucked. Throw them overboard.
Every single one of them. Like to certain people, it's
like, look, we tried. You seemed like good people, but
you got these attachments from like World War 2 and it's time
to go like just push them off the boat.
It's like, why? We don't need them around.
We don't need that thing spreading around.
I'd rather get COVID. I think, I think I think it's
attached to him and I, you know, The thing is, is Joel is such a
humbled, I really like him. He's actually a good person,
man. And he's he's struggled to life.
He really, it's takes so much dedication and mind power to
overcome certain things in life that he's done.
So I he's, he's a real good guy. And I think there was a part of
us that like sincerely wanted, like we wanted to help him.
It wasn't just about telling the story.
It was also like we wanted to help him.
So we went the distance. And you'll see all that in, in
the Devil's mark. And it's just, I think it's been
a long time since I've been fired up and passionate about.
Wow, here it is. I'm kind of like talking you,
right? As like if you came in my
apartment back in 2000 and like 5 or 6, I'm like, guys, come
over here. I want to show you something.
I have all 5 hard drives hooked up my computer.
Bill, I'm showing you Ghost Adventures clips.
That's what happened. I had people in my apartment,
not on my side of the family, other side of the family back
then are like, what are you going to do with that?
It's like, go make, go get a job, make money.
And I was overqualified. I couldn't get a job for
production companies in Las Vegas at the time.
Isn't that funny? I, I was high honors graduate,
top of my class. I was the only one who knew back
then how to digitally use a Panasonic camera to operate for
films. And I, I like you know, if you
talk to me about that stuff, I can, I'm like photographic.
But like I couldn't even get a job coming out of college and I
said screw this. I was working at Comp USA.
You remember that place, Comp USA electronics store.
And I, I was making ghost ventures and I'm like, screw
this. I was getting $400.00 like every
week or something. I like, I quit and I just went
after it and I was like, this is all I'm going to do.
And I just grinded on Ghost Ventures documentary, kept doing
it, kept doing it. And I couldn't even like I was
like, all right, we entered the film fest.
What are we going to do now? No one was seeing it was on the
news and stuff. So I someone gave me a Hollywood
agency book, right? Remember those things I?
Bet it was the Hollywood Creative Directory.
Yeah, it was like a it was like a gift or something for my
birthday. I was like 150 bucks someone
gave me and I was like, it's screwed.
This is what I'm going to do. I started reading through every
agent, everything, and I just started cold calling all of
them. Like I got the best documentary,
every university, and I was rapid firing.
And then someone said, oh, come show it to me.
And that's how it all kind of that's.
How I have to do it, man, The the getting your start and it
just shows you, you had to be tenacious to, to get your start
in this, in this that when I first moved out here, so I came,
I came out in LA. It was 96 and I didn't know
anybody and I got my start by back then.
This is pre 911. I could sneak on the film lots.
And I had that very book, that Hollywood creative director who
told me where all the production companies were.
And I would drive up to the lot And I had, I kept a clipboard
and a bunch of fake padded envelopes on my, and I roll up
to them and I go, I just, I'm making deliveries, dailies or
whatever scripts and they're like, just go, 'cause I was like
21, you know, literally, literally 21.
And I drove on, I'd walk to the production company and I'd go,
I'll PA for you for free for a day.
If you if you like me, you can hire me for the rest of the
shoot. And that's.
How I started as a as. A dude that's that's it.
I've worked every position. I was APA on a horror film in
Vegas at one time. I was APA on.
Remember that show inked that dude that was on for one day.
First of all, wait. Did it?
Wasn't that?
First of all I created inked. Yeah, no.
You're talking about you're talking about the Heart and
Huntington Tattoo Parlor at the Palms Hotel.
Hotel. I was part of the team that I
was part of, the team that created that show.
I was at Fox TV Studios at the time, so we were working with.
Oh my. God, I'll give you, I'll give
you the quick history of it. So we were work.
That was the time. So the restaurant just came out
on NBC with Mark Burnett. Then there was a thing called
the nightclub that came out. That was in Vegas.
They that was another show on Spike.
So we had this guy John Huntington that we had to deal
with. These producers brought him in
and we were going to do a show about he owned the pimp and hole
ball that used to run at the Mandalay Bay, right?
And he was like, he would be setting up.
This was a giant rave event, travelling rave event.
We're like, OK, let's see if we can do something like that
behind the scenes and set it up. We're setting up pitch meetings
for that. And he's like, I can't make it
to that. I go, we're like, why?
He's like, oh, well, we're we got a, a meeting about our build
out for our tattoo parlor. I'm like, what do you mean?
We what? What is this tattoo parlor?
I'd always wanted to do another big show at the time was Taxicab
Confessions, if anybody remembers.
Yeah, Yeah, I always wanted to do tattoo confessions.
And it was just people telling their stories.
And so it's like, OK, what is this?
So we found it. I'm talking to the producer.
So like, can we do a show here? And then he was partnered with
Carrie Hart and we did it. We made a one hour build out
show and then it turned into like a three season thing that
had multiple spin offs. And then you had Miami ink,
which is a RIP off of us. And then but we started, I
started the whole tattoo with these with these producers that,
you know, brought that to us. And it was just a wonderful
experience and and a weird one because we learned first of all,
the tattoo stories were like boring as shit.
People get tattoos for like 3 reasons, which is like a death,
a child or the death of a child. Those are like the three main
reasons people get tattoos that we found out and in vague and it
turned out. Drunk, yeah.
Drunk, yeah, and. Then why did I get?
And then we learned real quick that the the artists were
really, you know, characters of themselves in Vegas, you know,
And I mean, it was like. That's cool, man.
See. This money that you were on that
for a day. Small world coincidences, no
coincidence. And this was full circle coming
around. Here we are.
But I worked on it for one day. What was I doing out of college?
Buddy of mine, you know, and I was APA and I took it because I
was like, oh see, I want to be in the scene of the film makers
making stuff. Like I wanted to be around that.
So I thought, oh, if I take this job, any film thing I was on, I
want to take get on those because I was making my own
stuff. But I come to find out, like I
got up there, I was like, where the Hell's the office?
So I go up the elevator, I'm trying to find the office and I
walk in, think it's going to be exciting and fine.
I'm working with cameras behind cameras and stuff.
That's on my back wall behind. Me.
Oh, that's sick, man. Yeah.
See, that's supposed to be. That's how funny is that this.
Is meant to be I, I literally get in the room right, to take
the job and she's like, oh good, you're here OK with any #2
pencils, we're going to need notepads.
We're going to blah, blah, blah, blah and goes down a laundry
list. I'm like, OK, and I never did
this before. So I was like errand boy.
So I went off, went around town. It took me like, whatever.
And I come back and she's like, oh great.
And I'm like, this really is not for me.
I'm not errand boy. And I literally, I finished the
day I wasn't a jerk and just walk off right?
I I, I held through, got through it and I just, I told her, I
said, look, I'm not going to be coming back.
And I was just straight, I'm like, I need to be making films.
I like this is not me, man. This is that it might be cool
for some people, but I did PA stuff, but I found out really
quick, that's not me. I need to be.
They're like shooting cameras or behind.
They're doing my own thing or and that's what I did.
I just went off. I'm like, screw this.
I'm just going to go and do it. And that's what I started doing.
Good for you and it worked out. Thank you for doing that.
Thank you for quitting and starting.
Thank you for, you know, being a founder of a genre, you know,
that really has shaped really what most people know of, you
know, to their either to their benefit or detriment, what most
people know of as how to investigate, you know, that's
what they go to. It is it is a you ghost hunters
are really sort of the OG Bibles of what people of all.
Yeah, I appreciate it and it's true.
There's really no denying that. I am a big person on always
treat everybody on a film set good because you never know who
that person's going to be next. So always treat people because
I've seen some real I've met some shitty people, man, like,
you know, a treat just P as or people just terribly.
And I'm always like, man, you never know who's going to be
like, you know, imagine if I was working on Inked and you're
like, where's my #2 pencil If you're there and you got.
Pissed. Then as soon as he gets off,
I'll be like, dude, I fucking fired.
As soon as Nick leaves John, I'll be like, dude, I'll be
like, dude, I do remember Nick. I fucking fired him.
He brought fucking #1 pencils. This.
What an idiot. You got the wrong pencil, yeah.
You you want a pencil short. I mean, it's like 20 years
later. How?
Hard is it How hard is it to find a number 2 pencil?
This idiot could This kid couldn't bring it back.
It's like get rid of. Him turn me into an Eraserhead.
Yeah, 2020 years later, here we are.
And you're I'm like, I'm not doing this podcast show.
It's you, the number 2 pencil. I never forget you, you son of a
bitch. You took my #2 pencil.
That's all about the contractions.
I want my $2.00 you. Know, but you know, I get I
quit, I quit APA job. It was a commercial PA job where
I had to do like 150 like whatever I had to do printouts
and then staple them and then I stapled them and then the the
coordinator took like this stack of things that I stapled
together and correlated and goes, I don't like the staples
like this. I like them at an angle.
Can you redo it? And I said absolutely not.
And I fucking left. And that was just that.
That was the, that wasn't the reason.
That was the straw. Like that was the one that broke
the candle's back. It was like a day of, of
meaningless nonsense. Like she was just completely
rude. And it was almost at the end of
the day anyway. And she's like, I need you to
undo all the staples and re staple them so the staples
aren't straight but at an angle. And I'm like, there's no fucking
way I'm doing it. And I'm not like.
I've seen all sorts of stuff, like I've filmed Oh man,
everyone Penn and Tellers, Sickfree and Roy.
Like I've been like behind scenes and filmed them.
I used to do, but I went to like production company in Vegas as I
was doing Ghost French, as I was doing other production companies
because I launched my own stuff and I was doing the red carpet.
I was filming all of them for like on Sigfried and Roy's Heart
Association that they did. So I put that whole video
together for them when he got mailed by the the tiger and
stuff. So I did all that stuff with all
those people. I've seen some weird stuff and
you know, it's interesting what I realized and going back to the
paranormal ghosts and we live die in the in between kind of
what we're talking about energy and people and how they are.
It's interesting what I've learned through my quest because
I've met all walks of life from massive celebrities.
Like I've I've chilled with Bert Kreischer, you know, comedian
there. Like he has that laugh just like
he does and like I've chilled with a lot of people and it's
interesting, man. Like how fame, money and stuff
can just alter somebody. I think people are always kind
of like that in the in the beginning in a sense, and they
lose themself even worse as they go.
And I've seen it all from top to bottom.
And in just talking about life, I say just be a good person,
man, because like, you never know what happens when you die.
And that transitional phase and that positive to positive,
negative to negative, and the certain things that come full
circle around everything is energy.
So what you put out is what you're getting back.
And it's a tough life to live. Everyone goes through their own
situation challenges. They have to conquer one thing
after another, depending on if it's personal or whatever it is
on your path. But I think ultimately just be a
good person because like you never know who that PA is going
to be. You never know what you know
something turns out to be or or it could bite you in the ass in
the ending part, you know, on that transition.
So. Listen, man, I don't want to.
I want to end on that. There's no way to top that.
That's listen, Nick, that was thank you so much.
I am asking. So much fun Nick So.
Much fun, I really appreciate you giving us the time.
Yeah, not. Really.
I could talk to you guys for hours.
Nick Roth, John. Awesome, awesome dude.
I mean, I can't speak enough enough.
What a what an excellent interview that was.
What an excellent guest that was.
What an honor to have him on. You are 100% correct.
You say he is one of the, you know, forefathers of the entire
paranormal, Chandra. You know what he is, dude.
I mean, he's like, you know, listen and look, you know, I
would love to have Zach on the show.
We're, you know, just to be clear, we are not in any camp.
We are, we're, we're curious, but you know, his feelings are
valid. And I, I, I can certainly, you
know, I can certainly believe I, I don't have any reason to
believe that what he's saying is not true about any of it.
It's really sad when friends like that have a falling out
after a decade of making greatness.
And it's really good to see Nick thriving and.
Yeah, I was about to say that he's thriving and he seems to be
in a very good place about. All yes and so he has every
right to talk about it I don't think it's sour grapes the way
he talks about it no, I think in fact at.
Times. It was almost like he was
speaking highly of them, you know, like, at least that's what
I gathered from it all. Of course there's disappointment
and, and it's it's like he's, you know, it's not a good scene
to get, you know, for all that to happen to him, but.
He is in a good place and he is a great storyteller, moving on
and working hard at something. But you know, wow, for him to
share all that with us is really.
That was great. That was awesome.
He's a good dude. And it's like him and his wife,
I, it's like, yeah, I could see them being really fun.
You know, I'm looking forward to their new shows and their.
Paranormal power couple. They are a paranormal power
couple for sure. For sure.
It's going to be great to see what they come up with next, you
know? Well, you know what else is
going to be great to see What comes up with next?
Splintered Spirits. What guys do a lot of good
stuff. What?
What?
All right, my man, that was a great one.
That was a great one. Awesome.
All right, guys, we'll see you next time, dude.
Later, guys. Well, that's it for another
episode of Splintered Spirits. Be sure to like, share, and
subscribe to our YouTube channel, Spotify, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Until next time, stay curious.