This is the first episode of Sunspot’s brand new podcast, See You On The Other Side, a new paranormal pop culture podcast. In it, you’ll get a little background as to why we find it fun to talk about the supernatural, paranormal, and general other-worldly topics and their relationship with the entertainment industry.

Mike and Wendy recap some of the strange things that they and their bandmate Ben have witnessed while on tour, including a terrifying post-show excursion into the haunted basement of Ballyhoo’s in Merrill, Wisconsin, visiting the haunted railroad crossing in San Antonio, Texas, brushes with orbs caught on video, suspicions of aliens, and more.

Please contact us if you have any questions or suggestions for show topics! We’d love to hear from you.

Welcome to see you on the other side where the world of

the mysterious collides with the world of entertainment.

A discussion of art, music, movies, spirituality, the

weird, and self discovery. And now,

your hosts, musicians and entertainers who have their

own weakness for the weird, Mike and Wendy from

the band Sunspot. Hey, Mike. How are you doing today?

I'm pretty good, Wendy. I I'm feeling really spooky

today. Really spooky? Oh. Yeah. It's

Halloween it's Halloween week, and I feel like talking

about weird stuff in the paranormal and

the occult and all those lovely things that I

enjoy so much. Well, that's great. This is a good place

for that. Yeah. And and I love the idea that we're working on a

podcast now, and I think it's sweet. And see you

on the other side is cool. I'm all I'm just all excited about it. That's

awesome. I'm in a good mood. I am also in a good mood, and I'm

I'm excited to to talk a little bit about what we're gonna do here on

this podcast. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean,

the the big thing is is that what we kinda wanna explore and see you

on the other side is that relationship between,

the weird stuff in our society, you know, the the fringe

things, whether it be fringe science or

studies of the afterlife or psychic powers and ghosts

and aliens and all Mike all the cool stuff and how it intersects,

basically with the world of modern entertainment. Not even just modern entertainment,

just entertainment in general, because we have that,

well, it's Mike comic book movies. They're all the rage now, you know, everybody loves

Mike book movies are basically about people with crazy,

supernatural powers. Right? Whether it's gonna be Thor and his hammer

or, it's gonna be,

you know, the Hulk that had some weird science and becomes a big green

guy and beats the crap out of things. Whatever that's I mean, that's that

that's the the fake stuff, and then we'd like to say like, well, here's the

time of the fake stuff and here's where it intersects with, the

real world, science we know, and also just cool paranormal

history and and things like that. So I'm excited to talk about that. And,

I mean, not only are comic book movies the rage now, but so are horror

movies, especially given the time of year that it happens to be.

But I think even any time of the year, it seems like there's always

scary movies about ghosts and, aliens and

things that freak people out that probably had a

basis somewhere. I mean It's Halloween

247 in my in my heart. So I am That's right.

Constantly living in the world of Halloween. And,

no. I I think that I think that's right. There's always some kind of,

people are really attracted to the things we can't

understand, the unknowable and that's why you write, you know, that's

why people write horror movies and superhero movies and things

like that. But at the same time, that stuff is really fun to talk about,

but it's all fiction. And there is, you

know, a real side to these things, and, I think that's

that's what's really fun in exploring. Even though it's not, you know,

it's not pyrotechnics. I mean obviously, nothing is pyrotechnics because this is

audio. But it's even though it's maybe not as

flashy or maybe not as, you know, amazing, it

certainly does have, you know, there certainly

are things to talk about in in the real world there. And I think that's

the fun part. Absolutely. Absolutely. So

we're just sitting here today. We're having a little, little glass

of wine as we are want to do. Yes. Revolution, my

favorite Boda. Yes. But

since many of you may not know us, I thought maybe we could, tell

talk a little bit about who we are and, how we

started to get interested in this type of thing that we'll be talking about here.

So, Mike, do you wanna start by

telling us a little about yourself? Sure. I a little about yourself. I'm always when

it comes to talking about myself, I'm always willing to get going. I'm I

love it. But at a mixer and you're you're

showing up to somebody new. I don't particularly have an elevator pitch about who

I am, but no. The the paranormal is something I've always been

interested in. It's just something that's always fascinated me.

Ever since when I was a little kid, I was always the little kid who

would check out the books about ghosts and UFOs and,

like strange history and archaeology and lost civilizations

and everything like that from the, the school

library. So it was something I was interested in, you know, my

entire life. And at the same time, I've always been interested

in the entertainment industry. I mean, not just in making

music and things. I mean, I remember reading books about sitcoms,

about TV shows, about television production, about, you know, things like Sarnot Live

or Leave It to Beaver. I read a book about Leave It to Beaver

when I say just what I I liked that inside baseball

about TV and film and and understanding that the culture in that

way. And, they were just Mike 2 real

passions of mine. I really I'm really into those things. And obviously as an artist,

as some I I play bass and I sing in our band Sunspot,

and I've been, you know, doing that for now a vast

majority of my life. Mike, I think those

things, have cut and and and those things that I was really into kinda

informed the kind of songs and the kind of songs

I wanted to write and sing about and stuff like that. So I I guess

it's been a lifelong and that's not necessarily an obsession because an obsession means it's

unhealthy. And I and I would say

it's definitely not unhealthy because I also run a

haunted history tour in Madison called Madison Ghost Walks and,

working on expanding it, trying to break it out there, you know, we'll see what

happens. But, we have that haunted history tour too and

so it it would be unhealthy if I wasn't making any money

at it and I just Mike spent all night Mike, you know, instead

now I can, you know, go on haunted history tours on vacation and stuff and

classify that as a business expense. Yeah. And, I mean, the ghost tour

I've been on your ghost tour, and it's it's really cool

that you can share the history in that way. You know, it lets people

use their imaginations and it's, just thought it was really

interesting because I learned things about the city of Madison where I've lived

for half my life, that I never knew. And it

was, you know, in a fun way, in a way that made

me curious about things. And, so I think that's

a neat thing to to share with people, so they can see another side of

the city that they haven't seen before and learn things. And I and I think

it also it it kinda underpins Mike some of the stuff we gotta get at

today. And, you know, I I should say that my sister also

runs the Ghost Tour in Milwaukee, so this is kind of our family business. But

The family business. It is. And now

that we're doing the, you know, the the podcast, it kind of brings the the

band part into it as well. But the the real,

the thing is is that the stories and all the folklore and all the things

that we talk about are real. They're based I'm not not real, like I don't

really know if there ever was a lake monster Madison. Is that real? I'm not

sure. But what I do know is that people have had these experiences, and they

wanna talk about them. And they recorded them,

so that you could find them later. Right. And but the thing is these people

believe and it's when I interview people who worked at who work at

these bars and theaters and stuff and they're, like, well, man, I went to the

bathroom, and I felt this strange presence, and somebody was watching me, and it's always

creepy in there. And they tell you that, they believe that, they feel that, And

it's not I mean and I think that's what's exciting to me. I mean, fiction,

I always find exciting and everything, but the fact is that real people are

having real experiences to them in in

life. That's what that's what drives I think that's what drives a lot of it.

And I think that's the exciting part to explore here is where that

intersection of fantasy land and,

the hairs you get that stand up in the back of your neck. I mean,

depending if you shave your neck or not. I mean, but, the

hairs in the back of your neck like standing up, that happens

to people, you know, in basements, in wine cellars,

in you know, when they're go in their middle of their job. Well,

what's that about? And let's get into that. And I I find that exciting and

that to me is more exciting than some guy in a Freddy mask who's gonna

jump out and maybe tickle you a little bit on a haunted tour.

Alright. Well, I agree with you. And,

Wendy, why don't we talk a little bit about, like so you I know I

know you're interested in this kind of stuff because I remember

when we were in college talking to you about

alien abductions, in your dorm room

1 night and Yeah. And then I mean and

obviously, she believes a little bit because she called later a little bit scared

in the middle of the night, because who When you

look on the 10th floor of the dorm, you're really close to the roof, which

seems to me like a pretty good landing pad for a UFO. That's all I'm

saying. It does. They just, like, their claw goes to the ceiling and it grabs

you right out of the bunk bed. It could. But

yeah, no, I don't have, as as much of,

I guess, what you wanna call technical experiences as you do,

Mike. But, you know, these things have always interested me. I've always had a lot

of curiosity for them. When I was a child, I'd read

the the books about, you know, the haunted houses and things like that. And

I just I'm a big fan of I was always a big fan of Art

Bell, and I get frightened really easily by

things. So, of course Yeah. You know, just like people pay to go see horror

movies and they pay to go into haunted houses and fun houses. It's something

that, you know, I just I find it I don't know. Whatever

the the interesting. The unknown, the unexplainable, I

spent I've spent a lot of my life in the science world studying

things that are observable and recordable and measurable

and Drinkable. We'll get to that.

But, I think the things that that

aren't so recordable, measurable, quantifiable, if you will,

I I like that. I like having a little mystery. There's so so many

things we know nowadays or we think we know that those

things are those curiosities intrigued me.

So so I've it's been fun to to see your path

and see you progress and do all the research for your projects and,

certainly as a member of Sunspot because I am the drummer for Sunspot, and we'll

get to that in a little bit. We'll talk about that a little more. But,

we're all songwriters for Sunspot,

and many of the songs feature these types of themes. So I've

learned things, and I've, become more curious about things through

working with and developing the songs that involve

supernatural, paranormal Yeah. Anything, you name it. So yeah.

So I'm I'm kind of, you know, you could look at Mike as the expert,

and I'm Mike of the the sidekick that is terrified

and and having fun. If

if you think that's an okay description of my role here in the podcast.

I think no. I think that's great. And I I would just argue to say

that when it I do know a lot about this kind of stuff, but when

it comes to it, when when I meet people that claim to be an

expert so I say Mike, you might be an expert in folklore,

but, you know, I don't think any of us would ever claim to be an

expert on the thing on the big questions. You know, like, nobody's like, well, I

know exactly what happens to people after they die. It's

like, really? Yeah. Right. I don't, you know,

so I I think that, I definitely, Mike, I think it'll

be fun to explore these different topics and everybody can learn something and we're

gonna be talking to some cool people and, I'm excited about all of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Me too. For sure. So Wendy and I have been

playing together in a band for the better part of

2 decades and our band is called Sunspot.

And I sing and I play I I slap at a

bass. And Wendy is

our I am the drummer, and I also

sing and occasionally play violin. So,

and and we have a our guitar player's name is Ben, and he loves

this he loves this kind of stuff too. And he'll be joining

us from time to time. But he will no. We're gonna have a Great.

We're gonna have a Sunspot song in each episode. And so,

Ben will be showing up in the musical department,

nearly every week. That's that's correct. Yep. So

people will have a chance to hear him playing. Yeah. Absolutely. And,

hopefully, you'll get to meet him soon too on one of these episodes. But listen

for his voice on the songs and for his guitar on the songs and the

piano. And who knows what else? Maybe even a tuba. Yeah.

Maybe it is true. Maybe even a tuba. And,

and so we've played I mean, we've played hundreds of shows and we've

toured, you know, like half the United States

and Canada, and we've, you know, we've taken our time. This isn't our

first podcast. Our first podcast actually was called Sunspot

Road Mania and we started that in 2,005.

And it's still going? It is. No. We still you know, we feature it from

from the road, and we'll do some video shots, and and we'll let everybody know

we're up to. And from the studio, especially, we do the road main. Yeah. It's

actually it's actually morphed into more of a vlog, I think, than a

podcast. That's a good way to put it. You're right. In the beginning, it really

was an audio podcast. And then as soon as we could make

it video, it became a vlog. It's more of a

documentary of kind of our road adventures and, I don't know.

I guess not just road adventures, but stuff that's going on in our

our world and The strange people we meet. Right. And it's not,

like, syndicated over Itunes or anything like that. It's just

it's not just, but it's on YouTube. And and, yeah.

So that's been fun, and that'll continue to

be fun, I'm sure. Yeah. So, I mean, we're we're a rock band. We're a

hard rock band, which means we have distorted guitars. I mean, it's I guess

right. I guess it's the way I guess it's the way to put it. It's

so loud. We are? No. We are pretty loud. We have some acoustic songs, which

is nice. Soft side too? We do have a soft side. It's

right. It's soft right around the middle,

especially around New Year's. No. But

we do play like, you know, so hard rock music, like sing along, kind of

fun. We have elements of a little

electronic and metal and punk in there too, but it's basically,

you know, Foo Fighters ish, Cheap Trick ish, Mike ish,

kinda straight up hard rock. So if you like that kind of thing, we'll have

a little bit of music for you all the time. If you don't like that

kind of thing, you can always fast forward or go to the next episode

because we'll put the songs at the end of the episode. That's right. Yeah. So

if you're not in the mood for music our our

feelings Don't don't it, though. Our feelings won't get hurt, but we will

be disappointed in you as a human being.

But, no, I mean, the idea is also I mean, is to is to take

some of these topics that we're talking about and then because create songs around them.

We already have created songs around a lot of these things we'll be talking about.

Yeah. It's fun. It's fun to see what, you know, after especially

after discussing these things, you get new ideas and you get,

little bit of inspiration there. So I think so. I think so. And we're

looking for I mean, if you guys like a certain kind of song or think

one song is great or whatever, let us know so we can tell more people

about it or maybe we'll promote it or something like that. So that that is

definitely something, we want to be paying attention

to, the kind of things that you guys have to say

when you're listening and the kind of music that you enjoy. Or if you think

a song sucks, you can email Ben about that.

Harsh. Alright. So yeah. So

as as a band and throughout our our touring and

experiences, we've we've run into some strange things on the road. We've we've

performed at venues that were, purported to be haunted. Oh, a lot

of them. Lots of them. We've seen we've seen some strange things

ourselves. I'm I mean, driving through,

Pennsylvania or Ohio in the middle of the night. I remember one time

we were listening to Coast to Coast AM. That's right. It did not

help matters because paranoia was was

always makes things weird. Always makes things weird. But, yeah, I

remember we we kept seeing these UFOs, basically. I

mean, we didn't know what they were. They're prop maybe a military drill or something.

We didn't know, but it it was strange. Someone was invading Pennsylvania.

Yes. So that type of thing always gets us talking and it's just kind of

a fun fun stuff that we we enjoy talking about. So. Yeah. Or

weird things at the side of the road, like, did you you know, you see

you pass a kid, and then you pass him again. You're like, did that happen?

Did I do we pass that kid twice? Is that Right. Is that

even possible? And, you know, those little things happen or,

you get I mean, a lot of the times remember that one time, like, a

a piece of the ceiling fell at that theater in Wausau, Wisconsin? Like,

a a piece Mike Oh, yeah. Like, a propeller or something weird came out

of the ceiling. Yeah. Something ridiculous. And this is a place

where, also This place was haunted. Yeah. Completely, it was haunted. This is

the Filmore Theatre in Wausau, and I don't even think that place is open anymore.

But, Nice place, though. And then and they'll be like, oh, yeah. Well, you know,

the spirits at around 11 o'clock every night, they they,

Chuck stuff at the band. It wasn't Chuck stuff at the band, though. Remember, like

It's Mike hot. It stopped well, yes. The the thing that fell from the

ceiling was hot. But you remember, like, the lights flashed at a certain time Yes.

I do remember that. And the guy's Mike, yeah, the lights flash. You know, don't

worry about it. And he's like, it's just something happened here, and that's what happened.

So I'm like, what are you talking about? And then the lights flashed. Completely flashed.

Yeah. And don't forget, and also in

the central Wisconsin area, we actually went

into the basement of a place that was haunted, and we,

it's in one of the Roadmania episodes. It is in one of the Roadmania episodes.

Well, Mike that episode here. But my video my video camera stopped working.

Mike, as soon as we went downstairs, the video camera stops work and it stopped

it started working as soon as we came back upstairs. But we recounted the tale

in in one of the episodes. So I'll link that here in the show notes,

which by the way will be at othersidepodcast.com/0.

And that's the numeral 0. That's not the word.

Right. But yeah. And you can find the show notes for every episode that way.

So just No. I'm I'm not saying everything that we see in the middle of

the night, especially when we're on tour, can be trusted. In

fact, I would say most things cannot be trusted if we

see them after a certain time after a show. It's possible. But they

are cool. And now that we're doing this, I think, you know, next

time we do experience something like that, we'll crack out the microphones and we'll

record Absolutely. With you. Yeah. We we'll definitely we'll

definitely Brian, we had a a weird orb happen in the middle of the Road

Mania podcast too in the middle of, James Madison Memorial High

School. So we've had a whole bunch of weird stuff, and this has been part

of what we've been doing since 2005 is seeing weird places

all around the country. And, and now it's

something we're gonna be doing on purpose. And getting freaked out.

Yes. We do get From city to city. We do get freaked out from place

to place. It's like Scooby and Shaggy when they're crying or whatever. You know,

they get all like, we will get all scared. Yep. It's true. That's why

Ben can't be on the podcast actually today. It's because It's scary. He got too

scared just talking about it. Oh. He did. And I'm he started crying. I'm like,

it's okay. It's okay. And he's like, it's not okay. It'll never be

okay. And right. We had to stop.

Okay. So we've done some stuff. Right. We've played we've seen

some weird things. It really is some of the fun stuff. The most fun

stuff of going on the road, meeting people, and going places is discovering those

interesting, haunted, and paranormal stuff.

Remember that time in San Antonio where we went to the place where the the

Oh, the railroad tracks. The railroad tracks that the ghosts of the dead children push

your car across the railroad tracks and you can I do? You can see their

handprints on the back of the van. We'll talk about that in a future

episode. We'll save it. Save it. We can't let everything out now, but come on.

We got episodes to record. There's a bunch of cats and a bunch of bags,

and we gotta, you know, get some of them in there even if they're plastic

and they'll choke. So I think I think that's a

pretty good, background for everybody. But if you have any

questions for us, I mean, please don't hesitate to contact us, and you can

do so either through the website, othersidepodcast.com,

or you can email us show at othersidepodcast.com.

And you can also reach us by phone. What's the number, Mike?

608 561-2263. That's

the sunspot hotline. Yes. 608-561

band. If you don't wanna use your long distance minutes

get it? That was a joke. You can also Long

distance is folklore now. You can also leave us

a message on our website, via

the other Mike podcast .com/contact.

And there'll be a a form on there where you can record a message for

us, and we'll we'll play them back and we'll do our best to answer them

for you. And if there's a topic, if there's a song you wanna hear, if

there's a burning question you have, anything. Just even

if you just wanna say hi, that makes us happy too. So Absolutely. Just do.

And if you listen to a song that you like or and you wanna hear

more about Sunspot, we always have our newest songs available. Download

for free at www.sunspotuniverse.com.

So you can check out some music there and get that on your your pods

eye. No prob nobody has an iPad anymore, I guess. So you

can put it on your mobile your mobile device. By the way, you

can also text the the band phone number. But all the stuff will be

at othersidepodcast.com/contact. So don't worry if

you forgot any of the the number or the websites or

anything like that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Just use the Internet. If you talk to talk to the Google, you'll

find us. That's right. So anyway

well, Wendy, I think that we covered ourselves pretty well. Yeah. I think so

too. If people wanna know more about us, use those contact forms and

we will tell you as much as you would never wanna know

Exactly. About us and the band and all the stupid crap we've done.

Alright. So Mike, I guess we'll, get heading out here and

looking forward to many fun, exciting, and

scary episodes ahead. Sounds good. Gwen, we'll see you

in episode 1. Adios.

Today's featured song is We Are the Darkness. A

song about being weird and loving it.

And we will stand against the wind and watch the rain against the

night.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. You can find us

online at othersidepodcast.com. Until next

Mike. See you on the other side.