Here i am again stanning for the nine club
I agree that it's softball but it doesn't bother me. The nine club lets the guest go wherever they want. So if it's an interesting guest, it'll be an interesting show. If the guests want to hate or talk about controversial shit, they let them do that. Listen to the episode with Ryan Clements where he argues about contracts with Kelly Hart. That was not softball content. And made me seriously dislike Ryan Clements.
The Puleo, Weiss, Sinclair, Jamie Thomas, Rothmeyer, Suciu, Blabac, Eli Gesner, and Danny Way episodes are all ones that stick out to me that are honestly great listens. They give the guests space to tell their story how they want to tell it and don't assume the listener knows much of anything about skateboarding.
Say what you want about Kelly's laugh but he honestly is the only dude I can relate to on that show. Just a nice dude with real opinions and passion for skate nerd stuff. He asks some good questions too.
I definitely do prefer the more direct line of questioning on the Bunt but those dudes do not interview team managers, filmers, or any industry people, which extremely lame because those people are the backbone of this shit and are usually 5 times more interesting and relatable than the skaters.
Basically, they found a formula that works and they're running with it. Let's not forget all of the skate podcasts that were based on some New Jersey concept of "realness" (thinking everything is wack, being an asshole, and asking difficult questions constantly) that only made it 8 episodes (tim o connor). shit is not as easy at it looks.