Curious Goldfish Podcast

A 23-year partnership, a five-year silence, and why they still play to any size room

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Bradley Cole Smith and Nelson Nolen have made music together in Atlanta for 23 years. They talk about adapting to any room, from Smith's Olde Bar to songwriter festivals, why they are finally ready to release new music after a five-year hiatus, and how positivity and lived experience shape the songs. Ted Lasso keeps coming up as a metaphor for the whole thing. What keeps two musicians going long after audience size stops being the point?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Love for Singing
1:49 New Year, New Musical Goals
2:54 The Craft of Songwriting
3:30 A 23-Year Band History
4:23 Memorable Road Stories
6:21 How the Partnership Writes
10:11 Georgia's Influence on the Sound
12:58 From Band to Solo and Back
14:06 Writing from Positivity
19:12 The Pandemic's Toll
20:27 Venues and Festivals
26:50 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. → State of Music survey summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, and one curiosity prompt each issue. → Subscribe

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast