# Episode 295: Nate Shivers

**Source:** Pinball Profile  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2021-01-22  
**Duration:** 58m 43s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.pinballprofile.com/episode-295-nate-shivers/

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## Analysis

Jeff Teolis interviews Nate Shivers, founder of Coast to Coast Pinball podcast, discussing his journey into pinball through arcade experiences, his sales career in the music industry, and his decision to end Coast to Coast to pursue work with Stern Pinball. The conversation covers 2020 as a landmark year for pinball game quality across all manufacturers, European vs. US pinball scenes, and the evolution of pinball media.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] 2020 was the best year across all pinball companies for excellent games being made — _Nate explicitly agrees with this assessment early in the interview, citing Stern's continuous improvement, Jersey Jack's Guns N' Roses, Multimorphic's Heist, Spooky's Scott Denise game, American Pinball's Hot Wheels, and Dutch Pinball's Big Lebowski as examples._
- [HIGH] No country in Europe is as good as the United States for pinball locations — _Nate states this explicitly: 'No country in Europe is as good as the United States. It just isn't even close.' He cites spread-out locations in Europe vs. concentrated arcades in the US like Harbor Town Grill and Brewskies in San Diego._
- [HIGH] The Netherlands has the most pinball activity in Europe despite limited location presence — _Nate identifies the Netherlands as having the most happening scene with Dutch Pinball, homebrew games, the Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam with 140-150 games, and the Dutch Pinball Open tournament._
- [HIGH] Eric Stone is the next player most likely to become number one in the world for the first time — _Nate answers definitively: 'Eric Stone, without a doubt. I don't even think that's a hard question.' He notes Stone's ability to find shots and that hosting the IFPA World Championship in Florida makes Stone a favorite._
- [HIGH] Nate ended Coast to Coast Pinball due to lack of mental space, not editing burden — _Nate explains: 'I didn't have the mind space anymore to take this broad look at pinball... I didn't edit my show a lot... But it was the time I needed to soak in all. I started seeing it... this is hard.'_
- [HIGH] Nate is unable to do Coast to Coast Pinball honestly while working directly with Stern due to conflict of interest — _Nate states: 'I think as long as I'm doing the work directly with Stern, I would have a real difficulty doing coast-to-coast pinball in a way that felt honest to me... I was having a tough time separating myself from the people at Stern.'_
- [MEDIUM] Nate plans to do Coast to Coast Pinball again sporadically in the future — _Jeff asks about future episodes and Nate responds: 'There will be.' When pressed on whether it's Coast to Coast or Roger Sharp shows, Nate clarifies 'Coast-to-coast.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "No country in Europe is as good as the United States. It just isn't even close."
> — **Nate Shivers**, N/A
> _Direct assessment of European vs. US pinball location scenes based on extensive travel experience_

> "Eric Stone, without a doubt. I don't even think that's a hard question."
> — **Nate Shivers**, N/A
> _Definitive prediction about next world #1 player, showing high confidence in Stone's trajectory_

> "I didn't have the mind space anymore to take this broad look at pinball and what I liked about pinball."
> — **Nate Shivers**, N/A
> _Explains the real reason for ending Coast to Coast Pinball podcast, emphasizing mental capacity over technical effort_

> "I think as long as I'm doing the work directly with Stern, I would have a real difficulty doing coast-to-coast pinball in a way that felt honest to me."
> — **Nate Shivers**, N/A
> _Reveals ethical concern about conflict of interest between Stern employment and independent podcast critique_

> "You don't have to prepare any questions. You don't have to do any of the editing. You just have to talk. Isn't this nice for a change for you?"
> — **Jeff Teolis**, N/A
> _Jeff acknowledges Nate's transition from producer burden to guest role in interviews_

> "I love that show. It was so fun. I had a lot of listeners... But that wasn't why I was doing it. I was doing it because I really just liked it."
> — **Nate Shivers**, N/A
> _Expresses genuine passion for Coast to Coast Pinball content creation beyond audience metrics_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Nate Shivers | person | Founder of Coast to Coast Pinball podcast; now works directly with Stern Pinball; extensive traveler in US and Europe studying pinball locations and culture |
| Jeff Teolis | person | Host of Pinball Profile podcast; interviews Nate; describes Nate as 'the godfather of all pinball podcasts' |
| Coast to Coast Pinball | product | Podcast created by Nate Shivers; ended after 18 months; known for broad coverage of pinball games and business; likely returning sporadically |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; employs Nate Shivers in direct capacity; noted for continuous improvement by Nate; also referenced as Stern Insiders Pinball Podcast source |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium manufacturer noted for releasing Guns N' Roses pinball in 2020; Eric Stone mentioned as designer |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Manufacturer noted for 2020 game by Scott Denise; sold 750 units quickly |
| American Pinball | company | Manufacturer with Hot Wheels as third game; noted for quality in 2020 |
| Dutch Pinball | company | Netherlands-based manufacturer; released Big Lebowski pinball; noted for homebrew games and community involvement |
| Multimorphic | company | Manufacturer known for Heist game with different gameplay options mentioned in 2020 discussion |
| Eric Stone | person | Currently ranked #2 in IFPA world rankings; predicted by Nate as next player to reach #1 for the first time; known for strong shot-finding ability |
| Raymond Davidson | person | Currently ranked #1 in IFPA world rankings at time of interview |
| Josh Sharp | person | Professional pinball player over 40; Nate assesses his competitive best years as behind him; has family responsibilities affecting tournament participation |
| Escher Lefkoff | person | Young competitive pinball player; mentioned as one of next-generation greats; based in Fort Myers, Florida; known for exceptional shot accuracy |
| Dutch Pinball Museum | organization | Located in Rotterdam, Netherlands; houses 140-150 games from Dutch Pinball Association; hosts Dutch Pinball Open tournament |
| Pinball Hall of Fame | organization | Location in Vegas where Nate's passion for pinball deepened; accessible during his work travel |
| IFPA | organization | International Federation of Pinball Administration; manages world rankings and endorses tournaments; IFPA World Championship upcoming in Fort Myers |
| Stern Insiders Pinball Podcast | product | Show where Nate now participates; easier format than Coast to Coast as he's given topics to discuss by Zach; no prep work required |
| Pinball Profile | product | Podcast hosted by Jeff Teolis; started in October 2016 with Stern Pinball interviews; longest-running modern pinball interview show |

### Topics

- **Primary:** 2020 as landmark year for pinball game quality, European vs. US pinball location infrastructure, Nate's decision to end Coast to Coast Pinball, Conflict of interest between Stern employment and independent criticism
- **Secondary:** Competitive pinball landscape and next world #1 player prediction, Nate's career path from music sales to pinball, Podcast editing and production philosophy
- **Mentioned:** Nate's early pinball exposure and fandom origin story

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.75) — Conversation is warmly conversational with Nate expressing genuine passion for pinball despite bittersweet feelings about ending Coast to Coast Pinball. Jeff shows deep respect for Nate's contributions. Positive assessment of 2020 game releases and European pinball growth. Reflective but not negative tone overall.

### Signals

- **[event_signal]** IFPA World Championship location in Fort Myers, Florida creates home-field advantage for Eric Stone, strong local player, raising competitive stakes. (confidence: medium) — Nate: 'And the home, by the way, of the next IFPA World Championship... Exactly. Absolutely. Definitely. And he's got to be the favorite?'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Nate observes proliferation of pinball media content creators doing similar work (weekly/monthly pinball news) and acknowledges others may be executing better given his current constraints, suggesting healthy ecosystem but also potential saturation. (confidence: medium) — Nate: 'there's so many people doing a great job right now in pinball media... there's endless podcasts that do the here's what happened this week in pinball'
- **[competitive_signal]** Eric Stone positioned as clear favorite for next first-time #1 ranking; younger generation (Escher, Jared August, Colin Urban, Johanna Sostemeier) creating more competitive environment reducing older champions' dominance opportunities. (confidence: high) — Nate: 'Eric Stone, without a doubt' will be next #1, and 'The skills are there [for Josh Sharp]. It's just the level of competition has gone up.'
- **[market_signal]** Pinball media landscape shifting from solo creator model (Nate's Coast to Coast) to collaborative/sourced models (Stern Insiders with pre-selected topics), reducing creative burden but limiting editorial independence. (confidence: medium) — Nate: 'Stern Insiders Pinball Podcast has been so great because Zach teased me up something, usually a brand new pinball machine... I don't have to do the research and do the thinking and do the note prep'
- **[market_signal]** 2020 marked breakthrough year across all major manufacturers—Stern continuous improvement trajectory, Jersey Jack thriving with Guns N' Roses, Spooky quick 750-unit sellout, American Pinball quality, Dutch Pinball entering market. (confidence: high) — Nate: 'Everyone is doing something in pinball that is just stepping their game up' and 'how many different games are on the production line throughout the year' at Stern makes it 'a really amazing year'
- **[community_signal]** Nate Shivers transitioned from independent podcast creator (Coast to Coast Pinball) to direct employment with Stern Pinball, creating editorial conflict that prevents honest independent criticism of Stern games. (confidence: high) — Nate: 'as long as I'm doing the work directly with Stern, I would have a real difficulty doing coast-to-coast pinball in a way that felt honest to me'
- **[product_strategy]** Nate identifies Netherlands as hub of pinball innovation and manufacturing (Dutch Pinball, homebrew games) despite limited location-based play infrastructure, contrasting with US model of distributed location play. (confidence: high) — Nate: 'The Netherlands... there's so many people who are involved... Dutch Pinball's here, lots of boutique games and homebrew games come out of here'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Nate articulates a complex emotional state around ending Coast to Coast Pinball—he loved the show and had substantial listenership, but mental capacity constraints from life/work changes forced the hiatus. Now partially reconciled through Stern Insiders role. (confidence: high) — Nate: 'It broke my heart because I really wanted to keep doing it... I didn't have that like energy and mind space anymore.'

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## Transcript

 it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teolis you can find everything on pinballprofile.com past shows subscriptions and more check us out on instagram and twitter at pinballprofile, and you can email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. This is a treat for me because the person we're about to talk to is, in my opinion, the godfather of all pinball podcasts. In fact, I'll tell a story about why this person is so important as we get to him. But let's talk to Nate Shivers. You know him from Coast to Coast Pinball. How are you, Nate? I'm great. That's very flattering. Thank you, Jeff. I like that we get to have the dueling announcer voices. I get accused of putting on your announcer voice when you do your shows or do this. So I heard you go into it, so now I have to do it too. I'm here to talk about pinball, Jeff. I don't turn it up a little bit. All I do is project more. The non-announcer voice is just kind of more quiet and just stuff like this. But, I mean, all I'm doing is projecting. That's the only difference in the quote-unquote radio voice. And I know Jerry Thompson and I had a good laugh of turning it on and trying to sound like that. You don't do it. You're sincere. I like that about you. I try not to do it, but I recently did a video for the Virtual Pinball Expo, and it was pretty hilarious watching it back and seeing myself. I could just see myself flip on of like, oh, I'm presenting now. I need to present and, like you said, project and enunciate a little bit better, slow down my speaking if I can. But here's the great thing about podcasting. You can screw up a word, screw up a sentence, cut, edit, do it over again. Everyone thinks you're a pro. That's what I love about it. So you said you edit your show a lot, right? You will go in and do you take out spaces in your interviews like ums and blanks and stuff like that? Absolutely. And we will get to that in just a second. We'll talk about editing. But of course, we have to start off with five fast thoughts. Number one, is 2020, pandemic aside, the best year across the board for all different pinball companies for excellent games being made? I think so. I believe that to be true. My first instinct is yes. I mean, the argument I don't think is going to be any other recent year in the modern era. The argument is going to be to go back into like the early 90s and say, was there a better year there? But discounting a historical look back that I don't care to get into right now because I don't have the knowledge. Yeah, I would think so. I believe that that's true. Okay. Number two. I definitely do, Nate. I think this is spectacular. And not just I mean, Stern has been getting better and better every year. We've seen that. but Jersey Jack with the release of Guns N' Roses. Seeing Multimorphic go to a whole new level with Heist and the different gameplay that you can do with that. Spooky, Scott Danesi, again, a home run there, selling 750 as quickly as possible. I just finally played Hot Wheels, American Pinball's third game. I played it over and over again. I loved it so much. So we're seeing this, even there in the Netherlands. Dutch Pinball, getting big Lebowskis out. I mean, everyone is doing something in pinball that is just stepping their game up, Which is amazing considering what 2020 has been. It is. And it was inevitable, I think, because as you saw the interest in pinball, and I'm trying to not say in the hobby because everyone hates that. When you saw the interest in pinball rise, you saw that obviously price of games moved up. People started finding their niches to make money or just get attention or whatever they wanted to do around pinball. Eventually, the business side is going to catch up, and I think we're watching that happen. And I haven't played a Guns N' Roses yet. It looks really amazing. I love where they've gone with that. I think Eric's a great mind. And in pinball, it's good to see Jersey Jack thriving on this game. And then some of the other indie brands, amazing. Like I'm a huge Spooky fan, so great to see them selling out their runs. But when you do look at what's going on at Stern Pinball and look at how many different games are on the production line throughout the year, that alone to me makes it just a really amazing year. Second fast thought, number two, Josh Sharpe. Really, I just wanted to say number two, Josh Sharpe. But what do you think? Are his best years ahead of him or behind him now that he's crossed that 40 threshold? And I know you just did last year, too. What best years in regards to what? Competitive pinball, because that's easy. They're behind him. They're behind him. I love Josh, but they're behind him. And he would admit that first. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, when you see what the young guns are doing, Escher, Johanna Sostemeier, they're in Europe and Germany and just so many great players. Jared August out of nowhere out of Michigan and Colin Urban. And it's a young person's game, perhaps. Well, I think when you look at what Josh and Zach were doing really before the big explosion, they could go to almost all the, quote, big tournaments pretty regularly, and they could do a lot more local stuff because they had smaller families. They had less responsibilities. It was their vacations together as brothers. And you can see both of them have had to taper that back. They have kids. They've got things to do. It's difficult. There's way more tournaments. There's so many tournaments. You know this. So, yeah, I think Josh has said that many times, that he doesn't think he'll ever be as good as he was in regards to, like, standing among, you know, the whole global thing. Now, can Josh beat anybody in one game? Definitely. Absolutely. The skills are there. It's just the level of competition has gone up. All right. Fast thought number three. I'm going to give you a date. May 1st, 2021. You tell me before or after. Will competitive pinball and the IFPA resume? After, I think. I think that the problem you're going to have, not to get too deep into the pandemic talk here, but I'm really worried about the holiday season. And, you know, humans have proven, especially I think Western Europeans where I'm at and the United States where I'm from, these two groups have really proven to have a sort of like a short patience for staying away from each other and, you know, isolating themselves and, you know, putting everything on pause for whatever reason. not passing judgment. It's just, it's, you can see it this year. And I think the holidays are going to be really bad for that. And I know there's some promising news coming out about vaccines, but I don't think a lot of people are going to trust vaccines until it's really, you know, backed by a lot of science. So yeah, I don't see full on competitive pinball is, you know, and pinball is tough because it's such a, we're all touching the same machines and we're all crowded in. And I don't know, I hope so, but I doubt it. I think it'll be after that. Yeah, tough to say. That's kind of a date that I keep seeing come up May 1st, but who knows? We shall see. Is there an event on May 1st, or is that just kind of the projected timeline? Well, May, you've got the New York City Pinball Championships. That usually happens in mid-May. And I'm certain that there will be some tournaments pop up. I have no doubt that there's tournaments happening now, but I'm certain something big will happen probably around that time, if not before. But as far as full-on schedule and IFPA endorsing it, I'm going to go a little bit after that. Yeah, okay. Fast thought number four. Who will be the next player to become number one in the world for their first time? Oh, you're putting me on the spot here. I could have answered this a few minutes ago. Who's the top five right now? Let me put you back on the spot. Let me do a quick update. You know, I know it changes a little bit there. Oh, look at that. Zach Sharp below me. Oh, well, we don't need to talk about that. But Raymond Davidson, number one. Eric Stone, number two. Has Eric Stone ever been number one? No. Okay, it's Eric Stone, without a doubt. I don't even think that's a hard question. Okay, interesting. He's really, really good. The thing about Eric is, once he gets on a game, especially in something like a pump and dump, where he can play it multiple times, he finds the shots. And if he has rules knowledge, forget about it. But there are a lot of greats in there. I mean, Escher Lefkoff is one. He's one of those guys that I see not miss a lot when I watch the streams of him. He just will get in these zones where he doesn't miss shots, and I'm just like, oh, man. Okay. Yeah, robotic almost. Yeah. And he's in Florida. Is that right? He's in Florida, Fort Myers, Florida. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I would say Eric. The home, by the way, of the next IFPA World Championship. You don't think he's got to be the favorite? Exactly. Absolutely. Definitely. And the final fast thought, and this is good for you because of the travel that you do in Europe. I know you're in France and in Sweden and Germany. What is the best European country for pinball? If you're talking about for playing pinball as just I want to go play some pinball, it's probably, boy, I hate that I don't have an easy answer to that. Let me say this. No country in Europe is as good as the United States. It just isn't even close. I've traveled a lot. Yeah, it's just not. there's just not as much as close together because I'll go to major cities in Europe sometimes and you know places are small over here a lot of the big cities especially and when you get into the city centers they're old buildings and a lot of them are small spaces and they can fit one or two games in a lot of bars cafes pubs whatever you're looking at so you don't have the bigger kind of like location type like I think of like where I was in San Diego where you had like harbor town Grill and Brewskies where there was like, you know, half a dozen games or more, eight games, nine games. I can't think of five places like that that I've been to in Europe that have that. So it's sort of spread out. You know, the Netherlands to me is interesting because there's so much happening here. There's so many people who are involved, you know, pin sides here, Dutch pinballs here, lots of boutique games and homebrew games come out of here. There's all this stuff happening. Not a ton of location. The Dutch pinball museum is fantastic in Rotterdam. I mean, that is like, everyone needs to go there that goes on a European trip if they're into pinball. And they have the Dutch Pinball Association has 140, 150 games in their place. They put on the Dutch Pinball Open. So the Netherlands, I have a little bit of an affinity for just because there is so much and they have a lot of enthusiasm towards it. I have to say I'm probably selling France a little bit short just because I haven't, through whatever reason, I've probably been to France as much as any other country in Europe. I haven't had a lot of time to go play pinball, and the language barrier is a little more difficult there for me. And maybe I haven't explored it enough, but I hear a lot of good things about, you know, specifically Paris and Marseille. So that's my guess. Germany's got a lot, too. The weak spots seem to be Italy. I'd find, like, a random Stern game in, like, an arcade with a bunch of redemption games here and there. But, yeah, I think, you know, probably the Netherlands. Robert Englunds's pretty good. Manchester is a good city for pinball. You were part of the Pinball Expo, the virtual broadcast, and we'll get to that in a second. But one of the things on there was a European country in Spain. And when we saw that presentation of whatever that facility was, with all of those games, I was just floored. And you talk about the Dutch Pinball Museum. I think I've got to go back to Barcelona. Yeah, there's a few of those. There's somebody else. I think there's another one like that in France, a giant collection, and some of them have turned into more public-facing places. I love to see it. I love the fact that when I started really getting into talking about pinball and starting a podcast about it eight, nine years ago, you could name all the places like that very quickly, around the world, really. It was like, okay, where's their 50 machines? And you could kind of name them. I couldn't come close now. There's so much pinball out on location now. It's grown so far. And some of the places I loved are gone. They've actually cycled through and there's new places popping up. So I love that. Well, before you got to Europe, you were kind of all over in the United States a little bit. You mentioned San Diego. You were in Delaware for a little bit, Pennsylvania. And what was it specifically that gave you the pinball bug? You know, growing up, I grew up in Arizona and Oregon, sort of back and forth. And I grew up in a tiny, tiny town in southern Arizona called Senoita. It's kind of like wine country now and miniature horses and big ranches and stuff. But there was a little video game shop. They rented movies, rented video games, and they had half a dozen arcade games. And they had a Terminator 2. They had a – I want to say it was a Funhaus game. So this is like early 90s. I was like 10 years old, 11 years old. And I would just walk away from my parents if they were going to the little market in the town and just off on my own with some quarters and go play pinball. I was obsessed with it. And then I moved and I was in Tucson and Peter Piper Pizza was the pizza place, kind of a Chuck E. Cheese type place. And they had pinball and I'd play Doctor Who pinball there and just obsess about it and dream about it. And then I kind of got into music and bands and guitars and pinball wasn't around me. I moved to Eastern Oregon for the rest of high school and didn't have a lot of exposure to pinball in college. And one day when I was still living on the East Coast, I was just browsing through Craigslist, and there was a haunted house pinball machine for sale, and it just kicked off this thought in my mind of, like, you can buy those? It just blew my mind. This was probably 2006, 2007. So then I started looking for pinball machines to go play, and I just would travel because I was working at a multi-state sales territory, and I would just go play pinball machines all over, often in terrible states of repair and in bad shape, and play them. And then finally when I moved to California and started going to the Pinball Hall of Fame on Vegas trips because I had Vegas in my territory, that's when it just took over. I was like, oh, man, I need to do more with pinball and I need to own games and things like that. So your time at ASU, communications background, correct? I jumped around. I started out as a poli-sci major and hated every professor I ran into. Thought I wanted to be a lawyer and then realized that all the lawyers I met were like, oh, no, dude, you don't want to be a lawyer. like stay in your band, play in a band. It's way better life. And so I switched majors. I got into theater for a while. I actually did college theater for quite a while. And my dad sat me down one day. He goes, hey, you're really good at this, but I don't think you want to get a degree in theater. And he talked me out of it for better or for worse. And I moved to communications. And before I graduated, I found a sales job that I took and left college and did not graduate. Were you going into communications more because of your music background and more of your kind of maybe a production side of it? I'm just trying to figure out where it was. I give you the real answer and I give you the nonsense answer The nonsense answer is like yeah man I knew I wanted to be like on the radio which didn pan out so I started a podcast And yeah that was it The real answer was I left school a couple times because my band I was in a band that was on a small you know signed record label And we had the opportunity to tour. And there was no way I could stay in school and do it. So I literally got in a 30-foot Bounder Motorhome with four other dudes and toured the country for three months and dropped out of school twice. and when I got back, I had to petition to get back into college, the whole thing. And when I just laid it out in front of me, I'm like, okay, I've been in school for five years and I don't have a degree. What is the quickest degree that all this stuff I've taken over the years funnels into and it was communications. That's the real answer. Okay. So I think I left 15 credits short of a degree, which still drives my mother kind of nuts, I think. Isn't the best education having a great work history that you've had? I mean, really, isn't that why we get the education in the first place? Sorry to all the educators out there who demand you to stay in school and all that stuff. But if you've got a good job and my sister's a teacher, my ex-wife's a teacher, like everyone's teaching on me. But, yeah, I mean, I got I was working in a guitar store when I was getting back into school. I got back from this tour that we did in like I think we left on like January 15th and I got back on like, let's say, April 1st. And during that tour, my band, we toured the whole country. We went from San Diego north to Seattle all the way out to Nashville, Houston. It was a really big three-month tour. But I realized on that tour, okay, the music world's changing. The Internet's making record labels not know what to do. The whole game is a mess. I'm never going to make money at this. Like at the current rate I'm going, I don't see – and I kind of had this realization. My band's not as good as I thought we were. And I just was like, I have to figure out what to do with my life. and I was going to go back to school and I was working in a guitar store and I met a sales rep for Mesa Boogie Guitar Amplifiers and I said to him, so do you like your job? And I'm a 23-year-old dude with dyed black hair and a goatee and I looked like a mess and thought I was very cool. And I said, do you like your job? Because I'm kind of looking at this dude who's kind of cool. He's from L.A. and he's driving a nice car and seems happy. I'm like, so you like what you do? He goes, best job in the world. And I'm like, huh, how'd you get it? He goes, I was working in a guitar store in L.A. and met the right guy. And I'm like, wait, so like I could do that sort of job? He goes, yeah. And he named off some companies that were looking for salespeople at the time that he just happened to know. And I went home that night and I wrote a personal letter to each of the four companies tailored to the company. I looked, you know, companies I knew. It was all music companies. It was Yamaha, St. Louis Music, Fender, and Peavey. and I wrote these long letters basically saying, here's what I like about your company, here's what I could bring to your company. I'm young, I'm super aggressive, and I want to find a place I could spend a long time. I don't want to just jump around jobs. And I got called by all of them. All of them actually did call me, and Peavy was the last one. And they just were like, hey, could you come here on Tuesday for an interview to Mississippi? And I was like, yeah, okay. And they had no idea how old I was. They had no clue. And I flew to Mississippi and got the job. In fact, hardly Peavy looked at me and goes, oh, you're too young. I can't be hiring someone as young as you. And we talked for another hour, and he's like, oh, okay, well, I think I like you, so we'll do this. And I moved to Philadelphia like three weeks later, and I'd never even been to the East Coast before. So I threaded a needle in there somewhere, and I wouldn't recommend that route to someone. I would say get your degree because I have all sorts of friends who have watched struggle by not having degrees or have to go back to school in their 30s. And I threaded a needle, and I got lucky. But, you know, sales is a certain thing in sales. You either kind of have it or you don't. And then managing people, I think you sort of have it or you don't. And all the school in the world doesn't really help you there. And in a niche industry like guitars and the music industry, there were enough people who sort of realized that and knew that. Because a lot of the most successful salespeople in our industry just started out working at a guitar center and just worked their way up. I love that you had that epiphany at such a young age, 23 years old. You know, you've had some life experience. You travel the country. You get to see the sites. You get to have fun playing in a band, getting all that kind of youth experience. That's very, very important in the development in a person. But at such a young age, you realized things can get better. And I just think of where I was at that age. At 23, I was in my second year of radio broadcasting. So here you are in communications. I'm in radio broadcasting. I have this vision that I'm going to be the best rock jock ever, blah, blah, blah, me and my long hair, my Zeppelin shirt, me cracking jokes. I'm doing stand-up comedy at the time. I mean, the world's my oyster. Yeah. The reality is radio is not maybe the greatest industry for excelling in riches. Let's just put it that way. Sure. And the epiphany for me, which I had no idea about this at a young age, was around 29 years old. I came up with an idea for a salesperson. I said, you should go to this client and do this, blah, blah, blah, blah. And here's the idea for the radio promotion commercial, whatever it was. They loved it. They went out that morning, got a huge contract, sales, took me out to lunch. I'm on top of the world. I'm getting a free lunch here. And they said, okay, thanks very much again. I appreciate all your help. I'm going to go to the cottage for the weekend. Take care. They go off in their nice sports car. I'm in my beater going back to my rental property. I'm going, that was my light that went off. Why am I not in sales? Yeah. How old are you, Jeff? I just turned 50 this year. Okay, so picture this. Picture six years from now or four years from now, you meet a woman 33 years younger than you, and you decide it would be a great idea to have three kids starting at age 56. That's my dad. That's my dad. So I grew up with a dad who was in my youth in his, basically in his 60s and 70s. And so by the time I was 23, my dad was, do the math on that, late 70s, 78. And I could see the future there. My parents were divorced by that point. And I was living with my dad in Arizona, going to college and quitting college. And he was still working full time. He was like, you know, director of a construction company. But I could see the writing on the wall in the next few years. I'm going to need to take care of this guy because he spent all his savings on me and my sister's educations or lack thereof. And just kind of taking care of us and taking care of put my mom through nursing school after they were divorced. Like he was a great guy and he just worked himself till he died, basically. And I just could see it. And I had this panicked moment of like, oh, my gosh, should I be a firefighter? Should I get into real estate? Should I, cause I'm going to need to like have some sort of earning, you know, life's not about money. I've never wanted to say chase the money. And I've seen people really screw up their careers, just jumping and chasing money for sure. But boy, it's, it's nice when you can find something that you enjoy and you like, and you're good at that does pay well or pays enough even. And I was really fortunate to get into that. For me, the three most important things about a job. Number one, the most important, do you like what you're doing? because if you do, it's not work. Number two, do you like the people you're working with? And as you know, in sales, you get to work with a variety of different people and everyone has their own set problems. You're a psychologist, you're a counselor, you're a teacher. It's interesting what you can do in sales with different clients. So I appreciate that. And the third thing, which is the least most important, do you like what you're getting paid? You need to be able to pay the bills, whether it's rent, whether it's a mortgage, maybe to have nice things. There's a value proposition there, and you have to know what your value is. I have actually a friend right now who works for a very, very small guitar company. I mean, very small. Taylor Guitars is going to make, I don't know, we'll build 180,000 guitars next year in a real year. And this company builds, let's say, 15 a week, something like that. And he's really frustrated because he can't make more money, but there's just a value prop. You have to say, well, what's the company doing? What are you driving? How much do the numbers work? The numbers simply don't work. At the same time, if you go to work at Amazon, one of the richest companies in the world, and you run the finance department at Amazon, well, what are you worth there? You're not worth $15 an hour. You're worth a lot of money because of the responsibility. So you have to have that equation has to be there, and you have to be realistic on we hire people in the same position at different wages. And some might say, oh, that's not fair, but one person's bringing experience and knowledge and maturity, and one person has all sorts of potential that we see and we want in our company, but they need to get there first. So the value of what that implies. And I tell people all the time, if you don't feel you're valued, talk to us. Tell us that. And if we just simply don't agree and your end game is I need to go somewhere else, I totally respect that. Nate, how great is this? You don't have to prepare any questions. You don't have to do any of the editing. You just have to talk. Isn't this nice for a change for you to just get to just sit back and no heavy lifting. Just give me your thoughts. You know, Coast to Coast Pinball had to end because I didn't have the mind space anymore to take this broad look at pinball and what I liked about pinball, which was playing and the games and the business of pinball. I didn't have the mind space anymore to funnel all those thoughts and all that input from the Internet and from people I knew into me being able to press record and talk for 45 minutes and hit stop and walk away. I didn't edit my show a lot. It was very much often zero edits, I would say, in probably 70% of the shows. And most editing was minimal, and maybe I just wanted to cut out something awkward. But that's why I ended it. It wasn't the editing that bothered me. It wasn't the time I spent on the show, because I could do a 45-minute show in an hour and a half. Wow. But it was the time I needed to soak in all. And I started seeing it. I started doing shows towards the end and going, this is hard. Like I'm having to work too hard to get excited about these things that I am interested in, but to get them distilled into something that somebody wants to listen to. It was just getting really hard because my work situation and life situation changed. I didn't have that like energy and mind space anymore. And it broke my heart because I really wanted to keep doing it. And that's why the Stern Insiders Pinball Podcast has been so great because Zach teased me up something, usually a brand new pinball machine. and I'm like, okay, I'm a kid in a candy store. I can talk to the people who made that all night long. Let's do this. And I don't have to do the research and do the thinking and do the note prep. I just go. And that's been a great transition. It has been 18 months since Coast to Coast Pinball. I know there's been the Roger Sharp interviews, which are fantastic, by the way, to hear those great archives of some incredible historians. I always, I guess, hold out hope that there'll be another one, maybe just sporadically here and there, maybe something comes to mind? There will be. Okay. Another coast-to-coast or another Roger Sharp show? Coast-to-coast. So I think as long as I'm doing the work directly with Stern, I would have a real difficulty doing coast-to-coast pinball in a way that felt honest to me. And I felt that once when I put the show on hiatus because I was so close to the people at Stern. I was having a tough time separating myself from, like, I know the people that really slaved away on this game, and am I supposed to now try and critique it? I'm going to give this four stars out of ten wagon wheels. I don't know. It felt sort of just – that didn't feel fun anymore. So for me to do – I would love to do Coast to Coast Pinball again. I love that show. It was so fun. I had a lot of listeners. I had a lot of listeners, like a lot, and it was flattering. But that wasn't why I was doing it. That was never why I was doing it. I was doing it because I really just liked it. and if I could do it again and had the time and the mind share, I probably would. But the other thing is there's so many people doing a great job right now in pinball media. You're doing a great job. There's endless podcasts that do the here's what happened this week in pinball, here's what happened this month in pinball. I don't think it might not be as fun to me because I think somebody's probably doing it better than I'm going to do it given my current situation. That's interesting. Now, I'm going to tell you how I started Pinball Profile and how I got to know about coast-to-coast pinball. So I, just with my iPhone, went to Stern Pinball in October of 2016, was fortunate enough to interview a bunch of people there, and put out these 10, 15-minute interviews. I'm like, there you go. That's a podcast. Having no idea about any other podcasts in pinball at all, I just thought, well, I interview rock stars and whatnot on my radio show, and I can talk to people. I mean, it's no different than even being in sales for that matter. Sure. I'm just going to talk about questions that I have for these people, things that I'm interested in. No research back then. And then after about five or six episodes, I interviewed a great friend of mine named Dan Beeson. And he said, you should really check out Coast to Coast Pinball. And I'm like, oh, what's that? And he said, well, this guy does podcasting better than anybody. And he does interviews. He has different tidbits of the news of the week, if you will. just opinions and just a great delivery. So I did, and I went, okay, I got to step my game up. But I guess it was kind of the carrot for me. If I can ever get close to that point and that quality, I think I will be doing a good service in this pinball world, media, whatever you want to call it. If I can do even a 10th of what Nate does. Oh, that's really too kind. You do great. I love what your show has really ended up being because you've – I was listening to the Laura Fraley interview the other day, and I was just like thinking, like, man, this is so cool that like you can have this great conversation with someone who's so excited about pinball and doing a bunch of stuff in pinball and just do a 45-minute interview. Because I tried to drop those shows in here and there where I did that, but I still have this ego and just want to talk myself for 45 minutes too. I actually love what you do. I love that you've kind of kept the focus on highlighting different people from around the hobby. I think it's fantastic. I'm glad you're still doing it, and that's why I said yes, because I want you to be excited about your show. I've said no to a lot of other podcasts because I don't really like the story being about me because I don't really think I'm the story in pinball, and I don't want to be the story in pinball. But I do love your show, and I do love how you highlight all these different people, and it tells the story of the growth of pinball in the last four or five years. Thanks, Nate. Very kind words. I really appreciate that. It means a lot to me. When I think of Coast to Coast Pinball and what you did, let's put things into perspective. So it the summer of 2013 You put out your first podcast And by the end of the year you done over 50 basically hour podcasts That is an incredible pace that you kept up for a long time and it's just, like you say, your thoughts. There wasn't This Week in Pinball back then, Pinside, there were forums and whatnot, but you were gathering all this information and talking about different places, your travel, and then, like you said, you would sprinkle in interviews, your Evening With series with whomever it was in pinball. And that was an incredible pace to keep up. I see a lot of podcasters today that I don't know if it's a burnout factor or life changes or whatever the case may be. Maybe nothing left to say. And they just go away. It runs its course. It's tough to maintain this. I guess the reason I have success on Pinball Profile and not seeing an end for this is because of people like you, the guests that I have on. I could never do a show if it was just about what my thoughts were. I would have been done long, long ago. So it's amazing the mix that you put together with Coast to Coast. You know, I loved radio. I called it Coast to Coast Pinball because of Coast to Coast AM. I don't know if you're super familiar. I'm sure you like Coast to Coast AM. Yeah, Art Bell. I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it because I love aliens. I want to think that there's aliens out there. I don't want us to be alone in the universe. I really, really want that. And I loved Art Bell as a kid. I used to travel with my dad. My dad built things. He worked for companies that would build banks or restaurants or whatever, and he would often drive a long ways to go be a part of supervising the first one to build, and I would go with him. And inevitably, we'd be on some highway in the middle of Utah or Texas or Oklahoma at 2 in the morning because my dad would just drive all night. He was crazy like that, and we'd be listening to Coast to Coast AM, and I just thought it was the best thing in the world. So I always wanted to do this late night. I'm in a dark room. That was the radio DJ I wanted to be. I wanted to be the overnight guy who was playing songs and telling you why this song is great and wishing you the best out there. I had this romantic idea of before the Internet brought us all so webbed together and being out in a car on a road out in the desert and listening to this radio broadcast and you're alone and that's your only connection with the world. I love that. So I called the show that, and I was traveling a lot, and I was finding myself in hotel rooms three to five nights a week and not a lot to do, just not a lot to do. And I didn't have a band anymore. Not having a band, that was my creative outlet for basically my whole life to that point. And so when pinball just started taking over, I was listening to the old Silver Ball podcast with Rob and Steve and all of it, like the pinball podcast with Jeff and Don originally. loved it, but it drove me crazy because I would hear their monthly episode and then I had to wait a month before another episode. And so I just thought if I'm feeling that there's other people feeling that, so I'm going to do as many as I can. Wow. And it worked. It totally worked. Like quickly it worked. And I remember some of the early shows I tried to do like some sort of sillier stuff, like talk to myself with a different voice, you know, like have this omnipresent voice telling you that, Hey, you're being stupid, Mr. Podcast guy. And I thought it It was kind of funny, but I got a lot of mail. People were like, drop the silly gimmick thing and just talk about pinball. And I was seeing 1,000 downloads, and I was like, oh, my gosh. So I remember emailing the podcast garden guys who were hosting my free podcast. I'm like, am I really getting 1,000 downloads? He goes, oh, yeah, you're getting more than that. It takes a couple days to update. I was like, whoa. And so then I got really into like, okay, now people are listening to this, and I need to do my homework even more because there's early shows, there's mistakes, and I didn't know what I was talking about in some of those. Well, it's funny you should say that because when I created pinballprofile.com, I had to archive old shows. I got off Podcast Garden because I wasn't really happy with their service. And it was great for the beginnings, but it would be nice to actually host it myself. So having to go back and archive now almost 300 shows, and there's still about 80 I haven't put up there. I have the actual original copies, but I want to clean them up a little bit. So I'm kind of cheating. I feel like George Lucas re-releasing Star Wars in a way, adding a few digital effects here and there, but you were talking about just recording it, a 45-minute podcast, and you could have it done in an hour and a half. Yeah. It's a fear for me to do that. I want to make sure it sounds good. I mentioned Dan Beeson earlier. I think my earlier levels, I didn't pay attention to that. So if I was coming in soft or hot and the guest was at a different level, you got to kind of level them out. Maybe there's some compression there. If you make a mistake in a sentence and you want to redo that sentence, I take that out, which I think gives the guest, it makes it a lot easier for them too, because you and I are used to talking on a microphone. Most people are quite nervous in an interview situation. So I just try to make it sound like, you know what, we're just talking on the phone here. If you make a mistake, we do it over again. And that puts them at ease, I think. Yeah. I, you know, I would often mess up like a number or a fact, or I would say something wrong and I would literally just hit the space bar, stop, back up and keep going again. And then just heal the recording where it is and move on. What I would do sometimes, and there was a few I remember because there was one I remember, I literally spent 90 minutes ripple editing the ums out of an interview because the guest, he couldn't go three words without saying um. Was it Josh? And so I'm cutting. No, it wasn't Josh. He says I know every other sentence for God's sakes. I don't even remember exactly who it was right now, but I remember the night doing it and just, I must have cut out 200 ums and made it sound pretty natural. And the very first comment when I posted that show was, man, that guy says um a lot because I'd left a few in and I was like, oh, my gosh. I'm glad I cut out the 200. Yeah. So I did a little bit of that because it just helps that it sound better to a listener because I have that experience when I listen to podcasts and the guest is nervous and I'm sort of like, okay, I get it. It's natural. It happens. It's fine. And that I do respect completely. But I'm sort of – I'm impatient. If I record a show, I want it out there. I want it to be like – I remember going home, going to my hotel from the first night of the first Midwest gaming classic I went to, and I was so amped up because it had been such a fun day, and I'd met all these cool people, and I'd played new games. It was 2 a.m. I was tired. I was sweaty. I was exhausted, and I went back into my hotel and just recorded an hour-long show and had it posted by 4 in the morning. And people were seeing me on the floor of the show the next day at 9 a.m. And they're like, dude, your podcast just updated on my phone. I'm like, yeah, I know. That's just, I wanted it to be that way. But again, back when you were doing it, there were so few podcasts. And like you say, the wait for pinball podcast to come out or top cast or whatever the ones of the day were, it was a little frustrating. At least now, I mean, you don't have to worry about it. Sometimes there are two, three, four podcasts that will come out on a day. But I think if I were to do news stories, I would have to speed up the editing and get it out earlier because it would be dated. Where we do an interview, if I release this today, if I release this a month from now, nothing's really changed. We're talking about history. And as long as nothing really big has changed in the world, I think it's timeless. That's why that was kind of the goal of doing this. Kind of these, Walter Day called it oral histories. Just doing some sort of, if you want to know a little bit about Nate in this case, here's an example other than obviously Coast to Coast and Stern Insider and Wide World of Pinball. Boy, you know, I talk about me doing podcasts. You did another one there. I know there were only five, but that was fun with Steven and Josh doing that. So that one could come back at any time. Oh, really? So I've had moments, Jeff, seriously, in the last month or two where I've had Steven Bowden's Facebook profile up and I've gone to say, hey, Steve, you want to record a wide world of pinball tonight? I've thought about it. Do it. I haven't done it because, well, that show was born out of people who I really respected telling me that my show was getting too into competitive pinball because I was getting into competitive pinball. I was starting to really get excited about it. So I wanted Coast to Coast Pinball not to be just that. And also, I'm not as knowledgeable and I don't speak as well about rules and strategy as Josh or Steve. So I was like, hey, guys, why don't we do a show just on competitive pinball? And I still think it was probably should have done it longer and done more of them. But I could see that coming back when competitive pinball was back because there's still, I think, there's an audience for that, limited as it may be. But I think that's still interesting. And Steven Bowden is one of the best personalities in the whole pinball hobby industry, whatever you want to call it. And I'm so glad he actually landed a gig in pinball because the pinball world needs Steven Bowden, whether or not they know it. And Josh, obviously, what can I say about Josh that you haven't said five times about Josh, right, Jeff? Know what I'm saying? So, yeah, I thought it was perfect, and we should have kept going. And I wanted it to be Wide World of Sports, but just Wide World of Pinball and really dive into it. And I don't even remember why that trailed off, to be quite honest. I don't know if that was the same time I trailed off the first time with the show or what, but we didn't keep it going. I always liked my show to not have a co-host, and it was really because I didn't want to be beholden to anybody else's schedule. I wanted to see something and go, I'm recording a show about that. And that proved itself a little bit with that because you know this, getting one person sometimes is tough enough. You and I have been talking for a week trying to like, okay, what day can we do it? Getting two people to then join you, it's even more difficult. Yeah, with the time zones as well. I do the final round with Martin Robbins. We're in Australia, yeah. Yeah, so we're now, because of Daylight Saving Time, we're 16 hours apart. So a lot of times I'll record late at night while it's midday for him, and it works out. And the funny thing about the wide world of pinball is flying around, the idea was we're going to talk competitive pinball. Well, we started the show in February. Competitive pinball died in March. And now we'll get to it once it comes back. But now it's just about two guys just taking jabs at each other and having fun with the backdrop of pinball. So there's always something to talk about in pinball, whether it is competitive, whether it's the manufacturers. You do well with the Stern Insider. You were once offered a job at Stern. How close was that to happen? Oh, I mean, it was closer than I think. So that's such a tough subject for me because I really like the people at Stern Pinball. Like, I just genuinely like them. I think that working there would be fantastic. I think I could bring a lot of ideas and energy to them. Not that they don't have all that, but I think, I don't know, I just think it would be a great fit. And when they met me, I was actually there filming one of the Pinball with the Pros videos that I did with them. And I met Gary's partner in the business, Dave. And Dave said, hey, I want you to meet John Buscaglia. He kind of runs our sales and everything. And we just started talking. And as I'm talking to these guys, they're telling me, yeah, we're really looking to bring somebody in to work this side of sales and do this and do that. And I'm like, yeah, you guys should do this and do that. And like, we're just kind of going back and forth. And John's like, so are you interested? And I was like, oh, you're talking about me. And it was really that dumb like TV moment where I'm like, oh, no, not me. And I literally said to him, I said, no, I'm not moving to Chicago. And he goes, really, you wouldn't move to Chicago? I'm like, no, I don't think so. And then I walked away and Josh was actually there at the filming of that video with Lyman. And I said, I think they're talking about me interviewing for a job here. And he's like, oh, my gosh, do it. And then I started getting excited because I'm like, I could work in pinball. Like, yeah, this would be awesome. So I left and then I flew back. And I was very happy at Taylor. I was working the same place as the same company I am now. I was very happy at Taylor. But I had been a territory-based sales rep since I was 23 years old, nine years with PV and then about five years with Taylor. And I was ready to do something else. I was ready to manage people and, like, lead a team and really drive growth on a little bit larger level. And so the more I talked to Stern, the more I realized it was kind of exactly what I was looking for, and it was pinball. And, hey, Chicago's a cool city. I've got nothing really against Chicago. I've lived all over. I can be happy anywhere if I'm happy doing what I'm doing. So I flew in. I interviewed. We went back and forth for quite a while just about what it would look like and what the timeline would be. They made me an offer. I accepted it, and I flew to Chicago. I rented a house. I put a very expensive deposit covering a couple months' rent on a house, and I was leaving. And they pushed the date out a little bit because of some things they needed to do in-house and just sort of like getting it set, getting it ready. So I had given Taylor two months' notice, I think. I said, look, I'll give you guys two full months. We've got events planned that I'm in charge of. I will stay on as long as you – if you want me to. And they're like, yeah, please. And I was very close to everybody at the company. And I just randomly was – my credit card got stolen. My work card got stolen, so I had to walk across the street at Taylor into a building I never go into in the finance building, and I had to get my new replacement card, and the VP of HR was there. And she says, sit down. And I'm like, uh-oh. And so I sat down. She goes, why are you leaving us? And I said, look. And her name is Sean, and she's amazing. And I said, Sean, this opportunity is really great. I have a passion for pinball. These people are hardworking. They're driven. They want to make Stern better, and they want somebody who has the same exact experience kind of resume that I have. And, you know, I'm going to be working on a global level, working internationally with Gary. I'm just this whole thing. And she's like, so it's not money? And I said, no, it's not money. And she's like, can I ask you something? I'm like, sure, what's that? She goes, if I had an opportunity for you here, would you listen to it? And I'm like, well, I'll listen to anything. And I was like, but I've already rented a house. And so in my head, I was thinking they were going to like offer me a bigger tariff. I don't know. I didn't know at the time. But when she said, we want to make a change in Amsterdam and offer you the director of sales for Europe, like my whole world started like flashing around me because that's kind of like, I don't know, that's a dream for a lot of Americans. I think like, hey, you can move to Europe and have a job that you're going to absolutely love and get that experience while you can. I'm still young enough to enjoy it, et cetera. So I was just like, oh, my gosh. So I talked to them about that, and I had to make the most difficult phone call in my professional life, certainly in calling John at Stern when I decided I was going to take the job in Amsterdam. And I dreaded it and called him and said, hey, man. And before I said a word, he goes, you're not coming, are you? And I'm like, man, I'm sorry. I was like, I'm so sorry. I got offered this position in Europe. And he like oh Europe He was so cool about it And I thought these people would never talk to me again I thought Stern was going to be like F Nate Shivers get rid of this guy He just drug us around and I felt so bad But it was just one of those things when timing and things lined up, and the Europe thing was big. Taylor was so good to me. It's a great company, and I couldn't not take this opportunity. I'm so fortunate to have the two jobs that I really, really wanted. So how close was I to Stern? I was there. I knew where I was going to be sitting. I had gone and met everybody. I'd had dinner again with Gary. We talked about all the themes that you're seeing released. I sat there across from him at dinner and said, you've got to do Iron Maiden. And he goes, what? And I'm like, Iron Maiden, they've got monsters. I don't know if anybody, I think Jody probably remembers it, but Jody's like, yeah, Iron Maiden. And Jody and I are sitting there going, dude, Iron Maiden would be great. And Gary was looking and I was like, I don't even know what that is. And I'm like, I'm telling you, it would be great. And he's like, okay. So, yeah, anyway, so I was there. And then I wasn't. And I'm pretty confident in saying that I'm in the right place right now. The world work experience I've gotten is invaluable. And someday, if I find myself at a pinball company, I will be so much better off for having done this if I ever do end up somewhere else, which I don't see at this time, but you never know. Well, thank you for pressing that Iron Maiden be made because that is a great theme. It's obviously a fantastic pinball machine. And I don't know if it's thinking outside the box because there have been music pins before, but maybe it's not as mainstream as something like ACDC. Metallica was probably the heaviest thing they had before that. Yeah, yeah. But you realize in your industry the fan bases that are out there for these bands. And again, if it's good pinball, the theme certainly is attractive. And there have been a lot of pinball machines that have great themes. Maybe it's not the great pinball machine. There are themes that don't give you the wow factor, but they are great pinball machines. And so I don't really, for me, I care more about, I personally, as someone who is not an operator and not a hardcore collector, I care about the machine itself being a great pinball machine. I can get on board anything. I think I'm the same way. You know, I think like, yeah, would I rather have Iron Maiden than, you know, ABBA? Sure. Yeah, I would rather have Iron Maiden than ABBA. But if ABBA is Jurassic Park, Keith Elwin design with those rules and that sort of progression, and Iron Maiden is, come on, let's name a not very good pinball machine that won't make somebody mad, Jeff. Name one. Come on. The home pin one, the Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds. Okay, I got no problem dissing on Thunderbirds. And if the Iron Maiden game is Thunderbirds, I'm going to take the ABBA game every day as far as like owning it or putting a lot of my money into it on location. I agree. I know that you certainly get around to different places. Also in Europe, I know somebody who uses Taylor guitars whenever he comes to Europe, and certainly in the Amsterdam region, Ed Ed Robertson, Bare Naked Ladies, a good friend of yours who uses Taylor guitars. You like to find different pinball locations. Yeah, yeah. Ed's a Taylor guy. It was funny when I met Ed through pinball, it was kind of this thing like, oh, yeah, and by the way, you play the guitar as my company builds. He's like, yeah, I do. I'm like, cool. And that was sort of the extent of our Taylor talk. He's been to the Taylor offices and he meets with my co-worker. It's just not a thing because Ed and I are friends through pinball. And, yeah, and Ed, you know, Taylor's interesting because we, I was telling you this before we started just for full disclosure, we don't pay artists to play our guitars. We're very much like, hey, if you like our guitars, we'll support you as an artist and get you a great price on a guitar. We'll loan you guitars. But we don't really pay anybody to play our guitars, so you'll see artists come and go with us because they're using Taylor now and then they might move on to something else. And that's okay. So when you see someone like Ed who's been playing Taylor for a long time, it's because he really likes the guitars, and that's fantastic. So Ed's son has an album coming out, right? Lyle? Lyle, I think his band has an EP or an album or a single or something coming out. Oh, good for him. High Flyer. High Flyer Music. Okay. We'll have to check that out. There's a shout-out. Very nice. Yeah. So you still get your hand in pinball in the way of the Stern Insider. I think you said there might be some more Roger Sharp interviews to surface? There certainly will be. The recordings that Roger did in the 70s are absolute. They're like a treasure, really. He was so far ahead of what he was doing at the time, you know, with a tape recorder, recording these people in an industry that was getting like there was no like fandom for pinball designers in 1976, really. And yet he's there with Harry Williams talking about, you know, the history of pinball and what can still change and happen. It's absolutely amazing. and when Josh and Roger kind of presented me with this concept of like, hey, could we do something with these? I like saw it instantly. Yes, we absolutely can. The reason they've come out sort of slowly is twofold. Sometimes it's just scheduling. Sometimes it'll take Roger and I a few weeks to find a date where we can set aside and do it. And I just will not go into one of those episodes, like the Sam Stern episode. I knew the Sam Stern story a little bit. I could kind of tell you how it went from Sam Stern to Gary Stern and roughly, but I don't want to talk to Roger Sharp and not know the dates, not know who the people are that are there referencing, not know the games. I want to be pretty dialed in to what we're talking about. And that takes me, I need to listen to these interviews maybe four or five or six times so that I really feel confident talking to Roger, out of respect to Roger, that I'm able to be, you know, much younger and not having lived through those times, but still be able to discuss it with him on a competent level. So it sometimes takes a while. We already know which one we're doing next. The editing of the audio takes a while because those tapes are sometimes a little noisy. And we have some pretty special audio that's really, really noisy. And hopefully one day we'll be able to clean it up enough so that you can make something out of it. But, yeah, there will be more Roger Sharpe. They're absolutely amazing, and I love that I've gotten to be a part of that with him. I know you want to clean them up as much as possible. And, again, we're not talking about digital recordings here. We're talking analog that has to be transferred into digital. The Harry Williams one, I think they're eating or something like that in the background. You can hear all kinds of background noise. But you get used to it. And once you have that kind of background noise that you can't do anything about it, your ears kind of just let it go and you're focused in on the conversation. So it didn't bother me at all. Well, and that's after a lot of cleanup, too. Because the original, there's a lot of hissing in there that you can filter out with really good EQs. But, yeah, when you hear the plates and the coffee cups hitting the counters, You can't take those out. Those are just there because they're over there speaking and stuff. But it's some of the room noise, and maybe there's a high-pitched frequency. Like, I go in, and I'll change it, and then I'll go back and listen, and I go, okay, is that better than the original? And sometimes it's not, and you start over, and you go, okay, I made it worse. We recently saw you on Virtual Pinball Expo live from Rotterdam talking about all great things that are Dutch pinball. That was an incredible presentation and some pretty decent homebrews too. I mean, it was funny when they asked me if I'd help them because I think they had the vision. They had this idea of like, hey, we're going to go to the Dutch Pinball Museum and we're going to show off all these things that are happening in the Netherlands because the Netherlands is a small country. It's about the size of Maryland and there's 17 million people here. And they've got all this stuff going on with pinball. And it's funny because the list of people that were going to be a part of it was even longer than what we got. There were some people that just couldn't make it. J.P. Devin with Jersey Jack is here. Pinside is here. Robin was going to try and be a part of it. There was more. So they wanted someone who was a native English speaker since it was being shown at a very United States-focused pinball expo online. They just wanted someone who spoke English and, hey, look, I'm right here. So I knew some of the people a little bit in the group. But as we got into the process, I got to know the guys producing it pretty well. And first of all, great people. They're like the nicest people. you could hope to meet. No surprise the pinball community is generally pretty friendly like that and passionate. So much passion. You look at what Gerard has done there with the Dutch Pinball Museum. It's fantastic. They just moved into this new building that's like a beautiful old historical building on a canal in Rotterdam. Fantastic. And the first time they pitched it to me, I really thought, okay, this is going to be like a Zoom call and we're going to have a Zoom talk about Dutch. Sure, I can do that. And then I said, no, no, no, we're going to film it at the thing. I'm like, oh boy. Cause I, you know, I got a face for radio if you hadn't noticed. So I went there and it was way more pro than I expected. And I was instantly like, okay, I need to like do this right. And we, we, it was a long day into a long night, but we got it. And I'm really proud of the way it came out. And I was happy to help them show off what's going on in the Netherlands. Cause there is a lot. And I have not done a great job of integrating myself into the Dutch pinball community just from my schedule and what I've got going on. And sometimes Sometimes the language can be tough. My Dutch is terrible. It's tough language. But, yeah, so many cool things going on here. And I thought, you know, I probably knew Barry from Dutch Pinball the best out of anybody that was on the show. And Barry and I had spoken multiple times over the years about the Big Lebowski. And I had kind of been there since the very beginning when they showed it off at Pinball Expo 2014, 15, whenever that was. So I thought it was actually pretty kind of cool to loop that back around to talk to him about, hey, like he's kind of going to pull it off on some level. And it looks like where we're at now, people are going to be made whole and games are going to get shipped and they're going to be able to sell some games. And and out of that stretch of kind of bad pinball stories we had, by the way, my show got very popular off of, I will admit, whether it was Predator or the J-pop stuff. It's really cool to see one of those big stories finally sort of circle around and have this successful, I don't want to say ending, it's not an ending, hopefully it's just, it's back on track. Shifting from video back to audio and your podcast with Coast to Coast, you've had incredible shows over the years that I know you're proud of and that really have stood the test of time. There have been some interesting ones too. You mentioned just J-Pop, John Trudeau with his arrest. You did an excellent broadcast on that and maybe that there was some foreshadowing to that. Yeah, that was weird. Yeah, when you look back, I know I'm asked this, and it's difficult for me, so maybe it is for you too. Is there one or a few podcasts that you have created that you go, okay, I'm the most proud of those ones? Yeah. Honestly, I think maybe it's just recency bias, but talking to Roger Sharp about the history of pinball is probably the thing that comes to my mind the quickest. I thought there was a lot of good stuff with Spooky Pinball early on. I really felt that that was this interesting moment with this group of people who, man, you can have all the opinions you want on any of the games they've made, good, bad, biggest fan, don't care for it, whatever you want. You can't deny the American success story of the Emery family in Wisconsin and that whole story. So being able to sort of document that over different sets of news and then buying their game and just kind of falling in love with the game, still own the game. I think that's all really cool. The John Trudeau thing that that was terrible. I hated that. Like that was I didn't like that, but it needed to be, I think, talked about and discussed because it was such a big shock because I think people really viewed this guy as this like really nice older dude in pinball. And it was like, oh, man, here's the dark side. But as the show went on, the J-pop thing was tough because I liked J-pop in person, but listening to his take on everything was like alternate reality, and I was just sort of along for the ride with him on that. Really, the things that I liked the best started to be the interviews, and I started to get way more into talking to Gene X. Wong for 45 minutes about just what was going on, talking to Steven Bowden about what's happening, having Bo and Karen come on and just break down some games. I just started to get more into talking with people, and certainly all the shows that Josh came on for were awesome, and I really liked that side of it. And it's probably why you are going to have such a long, successful run with Pinball Profile, because you are engaging with people who are excited about the hobby, and you feed off that, and you keep it going. So I think those are the ones. George Gomez' interview was amazing, and Mark Ritchie live at the Texas Pinball Festival. I thought it was really, really fun because we got up in front of everybody. Was that at Texas? Now I'm blanking on if that was at Texas. That was at Texas, yeah. And I just thought that was so cool. I thought he was so good. See, if I have my location wrong, I'm just getting old. I think it was. I've heard that one. Was it Texas? It was Texas or somewhere else. Okay. That was awesome because I didn't really know Mark, but I knew his games really well, and I felt like this conversation that we had in front of people, I could see people so happy to hear Mark talk about this, And I watched Mark go in the first minute from like, who is this guy? What am I getting myself into to like, oh, this is going to be fun. We're going to enjoy talking about him. I really loved that night. That was a lot of fun. Well, I look forward to whatever you do next, whether it's Stern Insider, whether we get another wide world of pinball or a coast to coast pinball or a video, whatever it is. I think myself, all other pinball podcasters owe you, Nate, a bit of gratitude for setting the standard and really even paving the way for many of us. So thank you very much. You're overly kind. Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate you having me on. And I have a gift for you, by the way. Oh, really? It's so disappointing to hear you every episode say, I'm a man without quarters. Well, Nate, those are for you, my friend. Unfortunately, they won't work in the Netherlands. They're Canadian quarters. I don't think they'll work in the States, too. So it's the best I can do. Well, I appreciate the thought. Fingers crossed. Vaccines soon, and we can all get back to competitive pinball. And I look forward to seeing you again, hopefully soon. Thanks very much for coming on today. Thanks, Jeff. Take care of yourself, man. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. Past episodes, subscriptions, and more. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teels. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: a0fffd3e-4370-4714-a913-a49a618de4ef*