The Underknown Podcast

Victoria Bigelow: Songs That Saved Her

Victoria Bigelow joins The Underknown for a raw, vulnerable conversation about the music that helped her survive. From a chaotic childhood and early addiction to becoming a young mother, she shares how songwriting—starting at age 12—became her lifeline.

We explore the stories behind “Oblivion,” “Under the Tree,” “Low,” and “The Age of the Internet,” touching on everything from trauma and healing to the strange beauty of creating music in isolation. Victoria talks about working with her husband and producer, parenting in the digital age, and learning to write more deliberately—without losing the spark.

If you've ever found yourself in a song, this one’s for you.

After nearly quitting music in 2023, singer-songwriter David Ramirez found his way back—through heartbreak, living-room shows, and a pop-up performance in Nashville that reminded him why he ever picked up a guitar. In this deeply personal conversation, David opens up about losing his identity during the pandemic, rediscovering joy in songwriting, and creating his latest album, All the Not So Gentle Reminders, purely for the love of it.

We trace his journey from baseball fields to choir rooms, from church hymns to Russian opera, and from early struggles in Nashville to building a fanbase that’s followed him for nearly two decades. With stories about impromptu house tours, first guitars, and the difference between show business and true connection, David reflects on his evolution as a musician and a man.

If you’ve ever wondered what keeps an artist going when the industry wears them down—this is the episode.

From punk rock dive bars to Muscle Shoals studios, Dylan LeBlanc’s path to haunting Americana wasn’t linear—but it was honest. In this premiere episode, Dylan opens up about growing up between chaos and creativity, landing Emmylou Harris to sing backups on his debut album Paupers Field, and finding his voice over five albums. We dig into the grit, the grace, and the making of Coyote, his most personal record yet.

In this special origin episode of The Underknown, host Yon Perullo reunites with his former bandmates from Toad House—a hard-touring, grunge-leaning rock band that tore through venues in the 1990s. Together with Jeff Soderbergh, Kurt Friel, and Troy Williams, Yon shares the untold story of the band’s formation, evolution, and relentless pursuit of a dream.

From playing college parties to hauling Aerosmith’s old sound system up fire escapes, this is a behind-the-scenes look at what it really meant to be a working band in the pre-digital era. Expect road stories, songwriting battles, gear disasters, missed weddings, and a whole lot of laughter.

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like before the Spotify streams and social media hype, Toad House is the perfect place to start. This is the soul of The Underknown: telling the stories of talented musicians—before the world catches on.