ANOTHER PODCAST TALE
Arkansan develops ‘This Country Life’ podcast after mentorship by Clay Newcomb.
Dwain Hebda | Photos Courtesy of MeatEater
podcasts, has spun off his own “This Country Life” podcast under the Bear Grease umbrella.
Reaves grew up in Warren and had a lengthy career in law enforcement before entering the world of podcasting. Here, Reaves and Newcomb are shown after a successful squirrel hunt with Newcomb’s feist dogs in the Arkansas Delta.
Arkansas native Brent Reaves remembers the moment he understood how universal humanity is, an epiphany he experienced after hearing from a fan of his “This Country Life” podcast.
“I’ll never forget it,” Reaves said. “The guy said, ‘I want to tell you how much I enjoy your podcast and how relatable it is to me, even though I’ve never hunted, never fished, never done anything outdoors. When your dad was taking you hunting and fishing, my dad was taking me to see the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Your show is so good at describing those relationships.’
“At the time, to receive a message from someone like that who was listening to me talk about growing up in Arkansas, it might as well have come from SkyLab, but it was exactly right. What our show is about is the relationships we have in life.”
Reaves has been a student of the human nature for far longer than he’s been producing a podcast. A farm kid from Warren, he spent 32 years in law enforcement — serving time as a deputy sheriff, working for the State Capitol Police, with undercover narcotics, as a SWAT team leader and as an Arkansas tobacco agent — where he got an up-close-and-personal view of the good, bad and ugly in people.
For his life’s encore, he started producing content for MeatEater and, notably, sitting in on Clay Newcomb’s “Bear Grease: Render” podcast, to which he credits for preparing him for “This Country Life.”
“The first time I ever heard of a podcast, my son, who was probably 12 at the time, said, ‘Dad, you should listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast.’ And I’m like, ‘What’s a podcast?’” Reaves said. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would be doing something like that.”
“This Country Life” takes listeners through life in Arkansas as seen and lived by Reaves.
“It’s not a how-to hunt and fish show, although there is some of that stuff in there,” he said. “It’s more about the roots of me growing up, the experiences I’ve had as a human being, interacting with others and the lessons that I’ve learned from it. “It’s just observations that I’ve made from my experiences with people in the outdoors and really anywhere.”
Reaves said what he enjoys most about the venture is reaching the hearts of people through common sentiment and experiences.
“People are starving for this kind of content, I think. We always put something out there without any profanity or anything like that,” he said. “I’ve got messages from people who say they save the content up for family travels and they will listen to it in the car as they’re riding down the road.
“I’ve heard from a family up in the Northeast somewhere who sits down Friday night at supper and listens to my podcast and they talk about what each of them liked and they’re sharing back and forth while they’re sitting at the table.
“When I think about how they’re sitting there looking at one another and talking to another and not staring at a cell phone screen, I get emotional about it. It’s pretty cool.”