This time I’m letting Raymond Ian Burns talk…although you’d know him better by his nom de punk: Captain Sensible.

As a founding member of the Damned, he’s a proper punk rock legend and a member of the band who famously released the first punk single in the UK and was the first UK punk band to play in the US. Mind you, he hasn’t been a consistent member of the band throughout the entirety of their existence, but it’s because of that absence from their roster that he was able to forge a solo career, one that provided him with some huge hits in the UK, including “Wot” and the still startlingly-successful cover of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “Happy Talk,” from the musical “South Pacific.” No, for real, it was a #1 hit. Go figure.

These days, however, the good Captain is indeed back with his bandmates in The Damned, and they’ve just released a new album of covers called Not Like Everybody Else, with the songs selected as a tribute to their fallen Damned comrade Brian James, who died in March of last year. It’s a fun album, featuring songs by everyone from the Lovin’ Spoonful to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd…and, indeed, the cover of “See Emily Play” provided the perfect opportunity to for me to ask the Captain about how the Damned once tried to get Syd Barrett to produce an album for them.

During the course of our conversation, we obviously talked a great deal about the Damned’s career as well as the Captain’s solo work, including his songwriting collaborations with Robyn Hitchcock. As someone who’s been a fan of the Damned since purchasing and absorbing every bit of the band’s two-disc best-of collection, The Light at the End of the Tunnel, this was a bucket-list interview for me, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I hope you do the same.

And with that, it’s time to let Captain Sensible talk.

This time, the person I’m letting talk is Kathleen Chalfant.

Kathleen is an actress who got her start in the theater, moved into on-camera acting through the wonderful world of soap operas, and has become a familiar face in films as well as on television, most recently on the Peacock series “The Copenhagen Test.”

In the series, Kathleen plays the elusive character known as St. George, and while I’m not the first person to use that particular adjective to describe her, it’s accurate enough that she agrees with it, too. During the course of our conversation about the series, I tried my best to discuss it in such a way as to avoid spoilers, which means that we danced around a lot of things, but suffice it to say that if you enjoy a good thriller, you should definitely give it a watch.

We talked about a wide variety of other projects from Kathleen’s back catalog as well, including her recurring presence on the various Law & Order series as several different characters, playing the mother of the titular character in Bob Roberts, her stints on The Guardian and Rescue Me, being directed by Bob Balaban and Stephen Frears, and a number of her past theater projects, including Jules Feiffer’s Hold Me!, Angels in America, and Wit.

That’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Kathleen talk.

This time, I'm letting Kyle Vincent talk.

Kyle is someone whose music I’ve been enjoying since the release of his self-titled 1997 album. Appropriately, it’s that very album that brings us into conversation today, since it’s finally made its way to streaming services for the first time.

Kyle has a deep history in music, but things really got rolling for him when he was fronting the band Candy, who you may remember for their single “Whatever Happened to Fun?” It’s arguably one of the catchiest power pop singles of the ‘80s, which makes it all the more cruel that the band never really made the commercial impact that they deserved. From there, Kyle went solo, and although it took awhile for him to find his footing on his own, it helped significantly that he found himself serving as opening act for none other than Barry Manilow.

That aforementioned self-titled album spawned a hit single, “Wake Me Up When the World’s Worth Waking Up For,” and if you didn’t hear it on the radio when it was originally released, you might’ve heard it in some TV series or film, because it’s popped up repeatedly. Kyle’s continued to release solo albums on a regular basis – the most recent, “Sunshine Soul,” came out in 2024 – but he’s also kept busy in other ways, including fronting a latter-day incarnation of the Bay City Rollers. Kyle’s got stories about all of these aspects of his career and more.

And with all of that said, I’d say it’s time to let Kyle Vincent talk.

This time, I’m letting Chris Mulkey talk.

Chris is a character actor whose work I’ve been watching since well before I actually knew who he was, but I do know when I actually started paying attention to him: after he started playing Hank Jennings, the deceitful husband of Double R Diner owner Norma Jennings, on Twin Peaks.

He first stepped in front of the camera in the mid-1970s, and he’s been working steadily ever since, perpetually mixing things up between film and television but always keeping busy. The amount of TV series he’s been in is kind of ridiculous. We’re talking about a list that includes Baretta, M*A*S*H, Charlie’s Angels, The White Shadow, Magnum P.I., and even the short-lived Vincent Price series Time Express, although I literally had to send him a link to the episode to prove to him that he’d done it, because he had zero memory of it.

During the course of the conversation, we hit on topics including – but not limited to – The Long Riders, First Blood, The Hidden, Patti Rocks (as well as its prequel, “Loose Ends,” and the sequel he’s hard at work on getting into production), Gas Food Lodging, Ghost in the Machine, Bulworth, Radio, Captain Phillips, Whiplash, and a bunch more. He’s a guy who’s full of stories, and he’s happy to share them. There’s definitely enough untouched material for a sequel, so definitely let me know how you enjoy this.

Just a couple of notes up front: Chris did the interview in a cabana, and he shows off his surroundings, so only  those watching the video will really appreciate that. Also, at one point he froze and vanished, and I’ve edited it down so that the downtime isn’t significant, but I kept in the moment, so when it happens, don’t worry, it won’t last long, and he explains what happened, which is pretty funny and the direct result of where he was doing the interview.

And just to speak off the cuff, since this is the last new podcast episode of 2025, with many more to follow in the new  year, God willing, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who’s listened and supported me in this endeavor. It’s already lasted longer than my last podcast, and it’s because I haven’t been limiting myself to a particular niche or gimmick, I’m just been inviting people whose work I enjoy onto the podcast and, like it says, letting them talk. As of this writing, we’re less than 25 downloads away from hitting a grand total of 1,600 downloads, and for a podcast that has zero advertising budget and is strictly being discovered by word of mouth, that seems pretty decent to me. And I have you to thank, so…thanks. And please keep it up. Please share an episode whenever you’ve listened to it and liked it. And rate the podcast. I hear that’s important, too.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro and a thank-you. Happy New Year, everyone. It’s time to let Chris Mulkey talk.

This time, I'm letting Angelo Moore talk.

Angelo is a force of nature, one of the most gregarious individuals I’ve ever had the good fortune to interview, and – it must be said – one of the greatest self-promoters you’re likely to ever come across. And I mean that as a compliment. I need to take notes from this man.

In addition to having been the frontman of Fishbone since the band’s inception, Angelo also works under the guise of Dr. Madd Vibe. I interviewed him years ago, way back in 2001, and it was a decidedly freewheeling conversation, but it was also one that led to him signing my copy of Fishbone’s The Reality of My Surroundings with the words, “Thanks for the accurate article.” Accuracy should be pretty easy when all you’re doing is literally transcribing what someone said, but you’d be surprised how many people are grateful for you simply for typing out their actual words.   

During the course of this freewheeling conversation – and truth be told, I’m pretty confident that freewheeling is the only sort of conversation that Angelo is capable of having, but I’m 100% good with that – we talked about as much of Fishbone’s career as possible, including John Cusack’s support of the band, the time Fishbone opened for the Beastie Boys, Angelo’s appearance in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and much  more.

I should probably mention a few things up front, however.

First of all, this is inarguably the most visual episode of the podcast that’s happened to date, so if you’ve ever thought about joining the ranks of the paid Substack subscribers or the Patreon supporters, this is the one. Angelo spends the early part of the conversation taking me and his camera on a tour around the entirety of his new apartment, and then he later takes me on a visual tour of some of his more recent releases, which are pretty amazing. Given that he’s talking the entire time, it feels wrong to trim it from the audio version, but just know that you’re definitely not getting the full experience without seeing the video.

He also gets a few calls during the course of the interview, but I kept those in as well, since he proceeds to introduce the people who are calling, even holding the phone up to the camera. How could I cut those out? That’s gold, Jerry! GOLD!

The other thing is that when I asked Angelo one of my stock questions – the one about the first person who ever made him have to fight to keep from going full fanboy – he thought I was asking about Fishbone fans who went full fanboy on him. Given the title of this podcast, I didn’t interrupt him, I just let him answer it the way he thought was accurate, and the end result was still a really great story, so…no complaints whatsoever.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. Now brace yourself accordingly, because I’m going to let Angelo Moore talk.

This time, I’m letting Rizwan Manji talk.

Rizwan has successfully carved himself out a career as a character actor, one who’s frequently comedic but has also had the opportunity to show off his dramatic chops on occasion. I first met him when he was in the cast of the NBC sitcom Outsourced, which was set in a call center in India. It met with a decidedly mixed reaction at the time, but I enjoyed it from the get-go, for reasons which I explain during the course of today’s episode. But I interviewed Riz and his co-star Parvesh Cheena at the TCA tour, and I’ve stayed connected with the both of them via social media ever since. As such, when I saw that Riz was in the cast of a new Adam Saunders film called Re-Election and was doing virtual interviews to promote the film, I immediately reached out to get on the list to chat with him.

Since our initial meeting, Riz has been a part of a ridiculous number of impressive projects – these days, I think most people may recognize him from his recurring role on Schitt’s Creek – but he’s been doing high-profile stuff even before I met him. During the course of our conversation, we talk about his work with Mike Nichols and Tom Hanks on Charlie Wilson’s War, auditioning for Scorsese for his role in The Wolf of Wall Street, and his reflections on having done a few episodes of 24.

Of course, we also talk about Schitt’s Creek and the surrealness of working with two of his comedic idols on his very first day of shooting, his love of the underseen sitcom Perfect Harmony, his son’s reaction to his appearance in the opening credits of Peacemaker, embarrassing himself in front of Antonio Banderas, and much more.

Okay, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Rizwan Manji talk…

This time, I'm letting Jerry Ordway talk.

Jerry is one of my favorite comic book artists and writers, going back to the early ‘80s. If you listened to my interview with Mike Carlin a few episodes back, then you already know that I’m a certifiable comic book nerd, but I will admit that I got even nerdier while talking with Mr. Ordway.

If you came of age with DC Comics anywhere within the ‘60s through the ‘80s, then you’re aware of the existence of Earth-2, a parallel version of Earth where superheroes started to emerge in the late 1930s, i.e. when DC Comics first started publishing their adventures. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then…you probably never even started listening to this episode in the first place, so let’s just keep moving.

Suffice it to say that my formative years of comic book reading involved falling head over heels with the characters of Earth-2 thanks to an ongoing series of crossovers with the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America, so when DC decided to launch a book about the World War II era adventures of Earth-2 called “All-Star Squadron,” I was all-in. And a few years later, when they decided to spotlight the children of some of these heroes in a series set in the present day called “Infinity, Inc.,” I was even more all-in.

This is how I became a fan of Jerry Ordway,  and it’s why I’ve remained a fan of his for lo these many years. In addition to being a great writer and artist, he’s also one of the best inkers in the comic book business. You’ve seen his work in comics for both DC and Marvel, including inside and on the covers of titles like The Adventures of Superman, The Power of Shazam, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Maximum Security, and more.

Jerry is a talker, and given that the name of this podcast is “Letting Them Talk,” I was happy to fulfill his destiny throughout this episode by allowing him to do just that. If you’re a comics nerd like I am, you’ll love his stories. If you’re not a comics nerd… Well, like I said before, you’re probably not even listening at this point anyway.

As such, I’m going to go ahead and let Jerry talk…

This time, I'm letting Mat Bradley-Tschirgi talk.

Mat's a fellow pop culture writer - because, you know, we’re all in this thing together, you guys - and he and I follow each other on social media. We have a number of similar pop culture likes, but I was still surprised and honored when he asked me if I’d give a read to his latest book and do a blurb for it. I happily agreed, because, c’mon, when someone says, “I’ve just written a book called ‘The Films of Eddie Murphy’ and I’d like you to read it,” who’s gonna say “no” to that?

As it happens, it turned out to be a very worthwhile “yes,” since Mat did the full deep dive into Murphy’s career, either revisiting – or, in some cases, watching for the first time – every film in his filmography. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve seen them all, but this is one of those cases where he could say, “I did this so you don’t have to.” He didn’t say that, mind you, but it stands true nonetheless.

Of course, we talked about this book during our conversation, and we also talked about some of his other work, including his book about the video-game adaptations by Uwe Boll and his deep dive into every Star Trek video game ever made…and if you’re like me, you’ll do a double-take when he tells you how many there actually are. I’m a Trekkie, and it *still* surprised me. I also asked him to offer up some of his favorite pop culture obscurities, which he happily did.

And with that, I’ll let Mat talk…

This time I’m letting two people talk. Better yet, it’s two people who starred in one of my favorite sitcoms in recent memory, and now they’re the hosts of one of my must-listen podcasts.

If you’ve ever watched The Middle, then you already know Eden Sher, a.k.a. Sue Sue Heck, and if you watched The Middle on a semi-regular basis, then you also know Brock Ciarlelli, who played Sue’s bestie, Brad. I think just about everyone who listens to this podcast already knows this, but I reviewed The Middle for the AV Club from season three through season seven – plus the series finale – and during the course of that time, I was able to interview Eden a few times and Brock once, but the last time I interviewed either of them was during season seven for Brad’s coming-out episode, and that episode celebrated its 10th anniversary back in October, so...it’s been awhile.

As you might reasonably expect, I end up talking about my connection to The Middle a decent amount during the course of this episode, but in my defense, I was interviewed two podcast hosts, and Brock did not hesitate to turn the tables on me to satisfy his own curiosity, and I have no complaints. We talk about how both of them got onto The Middle in the first place, we talk about the Middle spinoff, Sue Sue in the City, that never made it to series, and, of course, there’s a whole lot of Middling…albeit in a general, non-episode-specific way that in no way steps on the toes of what they’re doing on their wonderful podcast.

I’ll also give you fair warning that there’s a point in this episode where Eden’s dog makes a cameo appearance, and at the time it was happening, I was considering editing it out, but after the fact, two things occurred to me: 1) it’s actually going to be pretty funny for the people who are watching the video version, and 2) it felt more than a little bit like a sitcom moment, so given the episode, why would I edit it out? So if you’re feeling lost as you listen to that portion of the proceedings, just remember:

If you sign up for either a paid subscription to my Substack newsletter – http://willharris.substack.com – or for my Patreon campaign – just go to Patreon and search for "Letting Them Talk" – then you’ll get access to the video version.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. Let’s get to…letting Eden and Brock talk.

This time I'm letting Thomas Jane talk.

The last time I talked to Mr. Jane was in 2011, when I interviewed him for the AV Club’s Random Roles feature, and I won’t lie to you, I was downright giddy when I got word that I’d secured him for an episode of this podcast.

Thomas Jane has been acting in front of the camera since he was 15, and the story about how he got that gig is one that we talk about during the course of our conversation. A lot of people know him as The Punisher, others know him from the HBO series Hung, still more of you may have been traumatized by watching him in Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist. I know I sure was!

The film that brought him onto the podcast today is Frontier Crucible, a western based on the 1961 novel Desert Stake-Out by Harry Whittington. I was able to check the film out in advance of talking to Mr. Jane, and he delivers a tremendous performance, as does the rest of the cast, frankly. If you’re a fan of westerns, I highly recommend it.

Over the course of our interview, we touched on a number of projects from Thomas’s back catalog, from Arrested Development to The Expanse and much more, including what he learned from working with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman on the same film. I’m not going to say that we tackled everything that I wanted to tackle, nor did we get to many of the things that you probably wanted me to ask him about, but it was a conversation that kept me guessing throughout, and it led me to jump around to match the topics that were coming up, from film and TV to music and comics. I even got a chance to ask him about the best show he ever saw at the 9:30 Club, which… I mean, who else is going to ask him that?

Anyway, I’ll just say this: if we didn’t end up talking about something you were hoping we’d talk about, don’t worry, because he’s already said that he’s up for doing a sequel in the future. Whatever it was, we’ll get to it then.

And with that, it’s time to let Thomas Jane talk.