Joel Tobin-White: known in running circles for his blistering 1:02:03 half-marathon time, co-host of highly successful running podcast 'For the Kudos', and top banter. But there are more layers to Joel than initially meets the eye. We recently sat down with him to talk more about his more lesser-known interests and projects that deserve their own spotlight.
I don’t want to take up too much of your time Joel, so let's get straight into it. I want to start off by telling you that a big reason for me starting to run and the reason why I joined Pulse was because of you, so, thank you!
Thanks so much man. I haven't run as fast as Brett (Robinson) and Jack (Rayner), but hopefully I inspire you in a different way.
So, my first question is, did you ever get recognised at university?
I've never studied at university on campus because I was doing it online. I've actually deferred this year. So as a result, no one has. I think somebody in a class did recognise me though. You know when you have to introduce yourself, and I said, ‘I'm a runner,’ and someone commented, ‘Oh my God, I think I've seen you running!’ I probably get recognised a lot less than you would think. I'll have some of my Pulse athletes say to me, ‘Oh, you guys are famous!’ I’m not famous! My girlfriend will also say, ‘You’re not famous! What are you talking about?’ I might be at a bar or a cafe and someone will go, ‘Oh FTK. I love FTK!’ But it feels good. I think I’m the level of recognisable that when I do get recognised, it's a nice feeling. It would be sh*t to be an AFL footballer. At a bar or a cafe and they're getting hassled for photos. They can't do anything. That's not like me.
And your degree is Bachelor of Design and Communication Design. Is that something you saw yourself doing in Year 12 or is that something you found out you wanted to do later on?
It's definitely something I saw myself doing in your 12. So I was a professional triathlete in high school, and I did a year 12 subject in year 11 and did well in that. I think I got a 40 or whatever. Back then I was super arrogant. My first world champs in year 12, so I didn't give a fu*k about school anymore and I was just focusing on sport. I knew that I could go into university as a mature age because, let's be real, your ATAR is only valuable for two years. You need it to get out- but then you can get into anything you want to do. Any human can get into anything. I have success stories that I know. A friend of mine got 80 ATAR, and now he’s one of the top investment bankers for his age in Melbourne, and that's because he just climbed and climbed. And then I've got another friend who didn't make it into uni, and he would be one of the top project managers in construction for his age in Melbourne. He had to go to TAFE and then went to uni from that and climbed. So my feeling was that I was going to become a professional triathlete straight out of high school, which I did. I turned pro and then I lived overseas for the next four years. So I never touched design, but I was always creative. My favourite subject that I ever did in VCE was vis-com. I got full marks for my folio, or maybe 59 out of 60 because I spent so much time on it and did as good of a job as possible. But then I fu**ed up the exam because I didn't care about it. I sort of knew what I wanted to do, and it didn't really worry me.
When I transferred from triathlon to running, I thought, ‘You know what? I'm going to go back to uni.’ I applied to RMIT because I knew that was the pinnacle for design. For a mature age student, for communication design, it's full time for 3 years. But I was going into meetings with the design faculty and the Victorian Institute of Sport (because they look after me,) and in meetings, they were saying, ‘How can we try and help Joel do this?’ But the design school was saying we don't make exceptions for anybody. The VIS said they've never found a school so difficult to deal with. I thought that they were going to make my life hell, and it was going to be sh*t. So I applied for Swinburne online and got the exact same degree and did it in my own time. It's taken me honestly seven years or something, because I've just been so busy with other things, and I just do a few subjects and defer.
Long story short, it is something that I have always enjoyed. I've always loved design. Now though, I don't think I will ever be a designer for somebody else. I'm using my design skills in my own business. For Pulse, Grattan House and For the Kudos, and you see all the things that we design. Posters, Banners, Merchandise, podcast, episode stuff- I pretty much just design all that, so I get to use my creativity and do whatever the hell I want. I'm in a good spot.
I want to talk to you about that, as well. You've got your own design brand, obviously. And it’s named after a song, on an Aphex Twin album?
Vordhosbn, on Druqks. Good job for getting that! Vordhosbn is my design studio. It’s pretty much just
my design brand because I don't want it to be ‘Joel Tobin-White Designs’ or anything like that.
It used to be called something else as well, wasn't it?
Ptolemy Creative? How did you know that?
I do my research!
Fu**ing hell, yeah. There you go. Ptolemy is another Aphex track.
Oh, right. I thought I thought you named it after the actual guy!
I remember a guy sent me a message once and it was a bit of a tongue in cheek thing, but he said, 'Trust
you of all people to make a design studio after Ptolemy, the Greek guy.' And I said, ‘no, it's named after an Aphex track. What are you fu**ing talking about?’ He goes, ‘Oh, OK. You're an even bigger w*nker than I thought!’
Have you ever bought a record based on the design of the cover?
Definitely. 100%. I've got thousands of records that I've picked up. Most of the time I will pick up a record because of the design and I'll think, ‘I'm gonna go play that at the store,’ and then I'll listen to it and I'll say 'Oh, that’s sh*t,’ and I'll put it away. But I have sometimes taken home a record because of the design without playing it. I like blind buying. There's something exciting about a blind buy where you buy it, and you take it home and THEN you play it. But you can only deal with cheap records, right? You buy $5 interesting record because you don't want to spend $40 and come home and it's sh*t.
And that album that Vordhosbn is on, Druqks, do you have that album? I know that that one's expensive and I know it's a grail.
Course I do! But I don't have the box set. I've got all the analogs as well. I don't know if you listen to Aphex, but on TikTok I've realised so many people use Aphex tracks without knowing. My girlfriend will watch a TikTok, and I'll say, ‘That's Aphex!’ And she goes ‘What!?’ He's pretty much my biggest inspiration in life. You know how you talk about running fans and stuff, I don't really give a sh*t about any runners. I don't care about that. But if Aphex Twin walked into a room, I'd go, ‘Oh my God.’ I like to say he's your favourite musician's, favourite musician. You’ll see Frank Ocean wearing an Aphex Twin hoodie, or Kanye West ripped off one of his tracks on Blame Game, which people don't know. Everyone loves Peggy Goo, right? I don't particularly like her, but she put up an Instagram post wearing an Aphex Twin jumper. It's cool to like Aphex Twin nowadays. My mates who know that I have been obsessed with him since I was 17- I'm 29, so 12 years now- will take the piss out of me and say, ‘Now you gonna stop liking him?’ It's becoming a meme now. ‘You should sell all your records now!’ I liked him before it was cool, and now he's gotten too cool!
Are there any grail records that you don't have that you do want?
So, so many. Analogue Bubblebath I would say is one of my biggest. That's an Aphex album that was never released. That question is too hard to answer. I've probably got about 700 records in my Discogs ‘wantlist’ that I'll probably never be able to buy just because they're so expensive.
There’s an electronic album online. It's by DJ Healer called ‘Planet Lonely,’ and it's 3 hours of music. I reckon you'd like to play it in the background while you're studying. It's a mix of electronic, ambient samples, it's really cool, and I listened to that during COVID and whenever I listen to it now, it gives me shivers because it's spooky- COVID was such a strange time.
Warp Records. That's a record label. Is that one that you like? And they have Autechre as one of their artists.
It is. Do you know what my profile picture on Instagram is? So many people think it's me.
Yes! I thought it was you and Brett.
Yeah, yeah. Good, I love that.
And then you have your own record label. Is that right?
Yeah look, I can't call it a record label until I release music. It will be a record label one day, but yeah, Dart Echo. It's my music project business. I started it in COVID and have been putting up DJ mixes sporadically ever since. But one day, when I've got more money, I will put out music.
Is your music taste something that is gradually grown to how it is now, or have you always enjoyed that sort of music?
I think that most people seem to be inspired by their parents. When you're young, you listen to music that your parents listen to. Luckily, my parents loved electronic music. Not so much club, they weren't listening to techno. They didn't really like that stuff, but they liked electronic influenced music. They would have loved The Avalanches ‘Since I Left You,’ that sort of thing. But Moby ‘Play,’ and Fatboy Slim ‘You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.’
"When people say, ‘Oh, I don't really listen to music,’ it's the biggest shock. It's dismissing a whole sense. What do you mean you don't listen to music? It's sort of saying I don't read books or watch TV."
My parents listened to that a lot, along with rock- The Rolling Stones, Primal Scream. So I was inspired by my parents. When I was super young driving in the car, and then when I first got a Sony Walkman when I was 8 years old. This is about 20 years ago, before iPods, I had Eminem and 50 Cent CD's, and I loved rap. That was when Eminem was huge. I didn't really care for electronic music much. But then I went into high school in 2007. I started listening to electronic music, and one of my best friends and I at the time just sent each other tracks over YouTube. I would just get deeper and deeper into electronic music and it pretty much became my entire personality.
Aphex Twin, I don't even remember how I stumbled upon it, but I was always inquisitive with music, I loved finding new music and listening to music. I was obsessed with it. I was always going down rabbit holes. When people say, ‘Oh, I don't really listen to music,’ it's the biggest shock. It's dismissing a whole sense. What do you mean you don't listen to music? It's sort of saying I don't read books or watch TV. I think you're inspired by the people that are around you. Whether he likes to admit it or not, I got Jack and Smack (Sam McEntee), into electronic music. Brett, a little bit too, but Brett doesn't like the more experimental stuff, whereas Jack really does. If you ask Jack now who his favourite artist is, he will probably say Aphex Twin.
So it hasn't really changed since you've been 17?
It's definitely developed. I would say it's constantly evolving and developing. There are records that I
bought 8 years ago that I don't play anymore, that I should probably sell. Aphex Twin was my
favourite artist at the age of 18, I'm 29 now, and he's still my favourite. For me to say that my music
taste hasn't changed from 11 years ago is saying I don't care about new music. I think that's also bullsh*t because there's so much new music coming out that's amazing.
Favourite 3 record stores. I noticed one of them is Discos Paradiso. Is that right?
That’s in Barcelona, right? Where did you find that? You've done your research. I haven't been there for years now, so I would say it's not my favourite anymore. Look, Japan is one of the best places to go record shopping. Without a doubt, Tokyo was insane. Disk Union. Then all these other small little record shops in Shibuya, or near Shibuya were just unreal. But in terms of Melbourne, HUB301 is probably one of my favourites. I really love Alley Tunes too, which is in Glenferrie.
We have like a segment on the podcast where each of us name 3 songs, we've listened to a lot this week. Do you have 3 songs, or maybe five songs?
So what I've been listening to heaps is one of my favourite ‘rocky’ kind of pieces of music. ‘Carry Me,
Ohio,’ by Sun Kil Moon. I absolutely love it- that's one of my favourite tracks of all time.
This is again another rock track: ‘This is the Day,’ by Ivy, and that's off ‘There’s Something about Mary,’
the film.
I've been listening to Max Cooper remix of his own track, called ‘Penrose Tiling- Max Cooper Remix,’ which is really sick.
‘Can't Wait,’ by Olan Monk, which is from one of my favourite record labels, 1893.
And the last one that I will list, which is one of my favorites that I've been listening to again while
working this week, is ‘Baltic Beat,’ by Bartosz Kruczyński. So those are just a few that have been in my
rotation the last few days.
We put the question thing out yesterday as well, so we got a couple of general questions from there. Did anyone ever buy the FTK trampoline? The $3000 one?
I can't comment and answer that, however, I have good Photoshop skills.
Was there also a gift bag or something?
The gift pack was real. The reason we put it there was because it was a prize pack that we had, but we wanted people to be able to look at it. There were only 5 ever made. I got one, Brett got one, Riley Wolff got one and then we had two to give away. But we wanted people to be able to look at it online. So we put it there and we put the price at $2000. If someone was gonna spend that, then it's their loss! Probably worth $100k now, though.
Now that FTK is in a bit of a break, and that means Things We Have Seen on Instagram This Week That We Aren’t Too Sure About is also on a bit of a hiatus, is that the reason why you decided to put this up?
That was funny. Did you have a laugh at me putting up Flo Rida on my story yesterday? I was just chilling at home with my girlfriend, and I started singing that song somehow. And she said, ‘Why the f**k are you singing Flo Rida?’ and I said, ‘Oh my God, is that Flo Rida?’ I searched it up and then I put it on my story and then thought, ‘what does Flo Rida look like?’ There's that photo of him, and I thought I've got to put this on my story. It's so funny man. I'm always taking the piss, most of the time.
Alright, last one here. Do you have anything to promote, anyone to shout out or give a few words of wisdom?
Alright, the only thing I want to promote is FTK Patreon. Because you know that you said our podcast is on a break at the moment? We're not. We're still putting out heaps of content on Patreon. So if you're a fan of FTK, I would say just sign up to Patreon just once. $17, for a month. It's not much. It's basically one lunch and it lasts the whole month. Go and listen to all our stuff, and if you don't like it, delete it. I think a lot of people don't realise what sort of the content is on there, but it's pretty valuable, for runners in particular. You heard this here first, we're giving away a Garmin 965, the top of the line Garmin on Patreon.
Look, if we go back to running words of wisdom, I would say take things slow and easy and think about consistency, because if you can train for five or six years without ever getting injured, you don't know how good you can get. But if you train for six months, get injured, train for six months, get injured, it's just totally different. I used to get injured all the time, but I've learned. If I was a young runner aspiring to make it to the top, I would not rush, and instead try and take things slow. That's my wisdom for runners.
For general life wisdom. I would say don't take life too seriously. That's probably my parting wisdom. We only get one life. How fun is it to laugh and f**k around and take the piss. I love it. It's the thing I love to do the most, I love to surround myself with funny people, people that make me laugh, people that make me smile. I probably value a sense of humour and mucking around more than the average person, but it makes me happy. I feel especially with young people, with all the stress. None of us can buy houses, we're all poor, we're struggling students trying to find work. It can get quite daunting and depressing at times, but hey, we've only got one life- unless you believe in reincarnation, I suppose. But I think people should take the piss, have fun with it and not take life too seriously.
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