Doing Donuts with Nolan Sykes and Joe Weber

**Spike Feresten** (0:05)
Welcome to Spike's Car Radio. Here we are with the collab. No one asked for, but it's happening anyways.

**Joe Weber** (0:12)
We asked for it.

**Spike Feresten** (0:13)
They asked for it. It's the Donut Media, Spikes Car Radio collaboration. I'm here with Nolan Sykes and Joe Weber. Gentlemen. Hello.

**Joe Weber** (0:20)
Hey, thanks for having us.

**Spike Feresten** (0:20)
Nice to meet you both.

**Nolan Sykes** (0:21)
Very nice to meet you, man.

**Spike Feresten** (0:22)
Yeah. So tell me, why was it important that we met?
What's the impetus behind this collaboration?

**Joe Weber** (0:30)
Oh, I don't know. We're just in the same space, and we're very close.

**Spike Feresten** (0:34)
You guys are huge. I mean, Donut Media is a giant thing.

**Joe Weber** (0:37)
Oh, I see it. You're like your car podcast. It's like the one to aspire to.

**Nolan Sykes** (0:43)
Wow.

**Spike Feresten** (0:43)
This is this is working out pretty well, except their their whole your whole situation was sold by venture capital at one point, which means it has to have been super profitable and super profitable for founders.

**Nolan Sykes** (1:00)
But yeah, that was a long that was like yours.

**Joe Weber** (1:03)
That was 2021, so five years ago.

**Spike Feresten** (1:06)
But you guys are established car, you know, legacy media at this point.

**Nolan Sykes** (1:10)
Yeah, it's weird to think of us that way because we did not start out like that at all. I mean, yeah, we have a channel called Donut Media. We have a podcast on our Donut podcast channel.
But Donut very much, you know, we thought of ourselves as like, I wouldn't say fighting, but definitely competing with the legacy media at the time. You know, like MotorTrend was really big at that time. The drive, you know, when it was still under the control of Matt and, who else was that? Smoking Tires, Matt, Farah, and-

**Spike Feresten** (1:45)
Zach.

**Nolan Sykes** (1:45)
Zach, yes. But his partner, I forget. But you know-

**Spike Feresten** (1:50)
Who were part of the drive, the original drive team.

**Nolan Sykes** (1:52)
The original drive.

**Spike Feresten** (1:52)
Oh yeah.

**Nolan Sykes** (1:53)
So, you know, like we kind of came in and were like, this stuff's too, a little too bottomed up, felt a little full of itself sometimes. Just, and that's not those two channels. I'm just saying like the existing car media at the time was a very-

**Joe Weber** (2:08)
Like the Petrolicious vibe of like super pretty shots.

**Spike Feresten** (2:12)
Right, right.

**Joe Weber** (2:12)
And beautiful million dollar cars. And we were like the scrappy underdogs at the time.

**Nolan Sykes** (2:17)
So when you say legacy now, it's like, yeah, it has been 10 years.

**Joe Weber** (2:21)
It's crazy to think.

**Nolan Sykes** (2:22)
And we are much bigger than we were back then. And yeah, it's like, how do you, how do you keep bringing your original attitude in a time when that you're not the new kids on the show?

**Spike Feresten** (2:35)
Right, right. Well, it starts, you guys are first on my radar when our friend James Pumphrey was out in front of all the videos and then he leaves to start his own channel, Speed, which is doing really well. And hands off the reigns to you guys, essentially, right?

**Nolan Sykes** (2:51)
Essentially, yes.

**Spike Feresten** (2:53)
Did you work with James? Did you have a chance to work with him before he left?

**Joe Weber** (2:56)
I knew James from comedy from 2010 on.

**Spike Feresten** (2:58)
There he is.

**Joe Weber** (2:59)
Yeah. Oh, that's James. Yeah.
I started doing comedy with James. Or actually, the first improv show I ever went to, James was hosting it. And I went on stage to do some sort of like, they asked me about my life so they could use that in the improv. And I remember James like asking me questions and laughing and being like, and he said, I want to hang out with this dude. I don't want to do this show. And from that point on, I was like, I got to do comedy. I got to hang out with this guy. And then we ended up doing a bunch of like sketch shows together, becoming friends. And then there's a funny story. I don't know if you want me to get into it right now.

**Spike Feresten** (3:36)
Is it the email story?

**Joe Weber** (3:38)
The text story?

**Spike Feresten** (3:39)
Yeah, the text story.

**Joe Weber** (3:40)
Yeah. How do you know about that?

**Spike Feresten** (3:42)
I do my research. Go ahead. Tell the text story.