Hosts of Eden

More About Hosts of Eden

His show description is Hosts of Eden, is a modern radio drama, written and performed by Jay McFarland. The length of each episode is about 10 to 20 minutes long. It’s completely kid friendly. It is a short series. I think there’s about 11 episodes in the first season.

And I think about that many in the second season as well. All of the episodes for season one and two are now available, so you can binge them at your leisure. 

Introduction to Hosts of Eden

Every time somebody mentions Hosts of Eden, I get a little nervous cuz it’s so different than anything I’ve ever done, so far outside of my comfort zone that I’m still like, Oh, what are they gonna say? I’m not sure.

So I’m a huge movie buff. I, uh, you know, and I’m the type of person that always figures out the plot holes. My wife hates me cuz when we come out of the movie theater, I’m like, Oh, come on, that this didn’t work. And they didn’t line that up. Right. And, and, uh, I’ve. Had these kind of stories bouncing around in my head. I’ve got about six of ’em that are pretty well flushed out stories, and so I’ve sat down many, many times to try and write them.

And guess what? I’m not a writer. I’m just not. And. So I’m like, how am I gonna, how am I gonna share these stories without writing them? And I thought, Well, I know how to talk . You know, that’s what I do for a living. So what if I just recorded them? And so I actually went to KSL, who I was working for at the time, and I said, Okay, I got this crazy idea.

It’s a fictional story, kind of sci-fi story, and I would like to release it on your podcast platform. What do you guys think? And they’re. Yeah, we’re all over it. This is when Serial was taken off and you know, all of these other podcasts. And so I’m like, Okay, great. Now how am I gonna do this? Because there’s a couple of problems.

You know, we didn’t have a huge budget and so we can’t afford voice actors or anything like that. And I am a terrible voice actor. In fact, at every station I’ve worked. They always ask me to come in after my first few weeks of employment to put my voice on certain commercials. Not as an endorser, but as a character in that commercial. And every time after my first attempt, they never call me back. 

So I’m horrible at voice acting, and so I’m like, I’m gonna go into this studio and I’m gonna tell this story. How am I gonna do it? And so I decided I would, I would just kind of narrate it in. I don’t know if you would even call it first person, but the other thing is I’m terrible at reading scripts…So instead of writing this thing out, I just bullet pointed it. So for each episode, I would just walk into the studio and I would just have a couple bullet points and I would just try and tell it as if we were sitting around the campfire and I was telling the story as if I had experienced it.

And so that’s what I did. Then I added some dramatic music to the background. Never done anything like that before  and started releasing it and, you know, people really took to it. So I was very surprised. 

The Vibe of Hosts of Eden

I would think sci-fi, um, it starts out with, uh, an individual who is, uh, struggling, uh, with, uh, possible multiple personalities. And it goes from that into, uh, re-explaining the origins of life.

So, making you rethink our entire existence. So I would think you would have to call it sci-fi. But it does take place in, in our world, right, under our circumstances. So it’s not like you’re traveling to a space Western in Star Wars or anything else. And I would also call it a drama.

There’s a lot of intense moments. There’s some car chases and there’s some, you know, life and death situations and hopefully plenty of plot twists for you along the way. Well, truly I would say even like action, there’s a bit of action in there. 

And there’s also comedy. I mean, I tried to put in laughs along the way, and so I’ve got a couple of characters that are there, obviously just mostly for the laughs and they do create some drama in those situations. But I wanted, to have this experience where at one moment, You’re laughing the next minute you are, you’re a little terrified.

And then the next minute you’re cheering for the main characters. I like to think that it’s a roller coaster, that it’s a fun ride where you’ll laugh and, and you may end up in tears at some points as well. 

Hosts of Eden & Kids’ Ears

It does have ups and downs. Yeah. Yeah. And safe. I love it when people tell me they listen with their kids, cuz it’s totally safe for the kids. There’s no monsters in it or anything like that. It’s not a horror, in any way, shape or form. So just a good, fun kind of sci-fi ride. 

Jay’s Favorite Character in Hosts of Eden

here’s a little girl who appears in, in the first season and I fell in love with her and loved telling her side of the story, and I just loved knowing how that would be perceived. And yeah, it is one of those things when you, when you’re excited, when you’re thinking. That moment when people are experiencing it and you’re excited for it. That’s, I think, when you know you’ve reached the storytelling pinnacle. Or when you know you’re writing something, you know, and you’re just like, I cannot wait for them to meet this little girl and to experience things the way that she does.

And so when people tell me, I’m gonna go listen to it, in my mind, that’s what I’m thinking. I can’t wait for you to meet this little girl. 

Where to Find Hosts of Eden

It’s on all of the podcast platforms. If you type Hosts of Eden and then Jay McFarland, you’ll find it there.