Co-hosts Dan and Dave reveal Small Town Dicks podcast success story
Ahead of the launch of season 12 of Small Town Dicks, co-hosts Dan and Dave sat down with PodcastingToday to talk about the podcast’s huge success.
It follows big-time crime in Small Town, USA, with all cases told by the detectives who investigated them. Each story is crafted through first-hand interviews and primary source materials including suspect interviews, 9-1-1 calls, and other audio assets that allow them to explore the case from all angles.
Dan and Dave are retired police detectives and identical twins. Dan is married to actress Yeardley Smith, who is also a co-host of the podcast. During his time as a detective, Dan investigated violent crimes and is an expert in crime scenes and how to connect the seemingly random dots that will ultimately lead to the right suspect.
Dave investigated sex crimes and child abuse; he has given hundreds of talks on how sexual predators groom children IRL and online, and has a special skill set that gains him the trust of his suspects and gets them to open up about their crimes.
The first question to the pair has to be about them both having been police detectives. That’s unusual for brothers, but for twins, it’s remarkable! Does working as a police officer run in the family? Dan answers that it doesn’t, although they do have cousins who work in the Fire Department.
From police detectives to podcast hosts probably isn’t a usual move, but Dave explains: “The best types of ideas happen during maybe a wine inspired night, or a Scotch or whiskey, that’s kinda how Small Town Dicks was created!
“It was just a conversation, Dan was telling a story and another person heard it and said, ‘you know what, why don’t you do a podcast?’
“Neither of us had ever listened to a podcast, let alone recording one, so it really was thrown into the fire and a sink or swim type of scenario,” added Dave.
“The original format of our podcast was going to be Dave and I maybe having a finger of Scotch and talking about our cases using gallows humour,” Dan explained. “We tried that for the first episode, and it just left a bad taste in our mouth.
“I think Dave and I having lived these cases; we wouldn’t be able to sleep at night talking about them without giving them the gravity and reverence they deserve.”
That led Dan and Dave to discuss how they might do the podcast in a different way so they could feel good about it and that led to a format change.
“We wanted to honour the victims, we wanted to keep everybody anonymous, so we changed names, we changed locations, we changed certain details to offer a few layers of protection for victims so they’re not revictimized by going onto social media,” Dan explained.
Many of the crimes Dan and Dave investigated over the years were horrific and it’s taught them that normal people are capable of doing terrible things. Always in their mind when working on a case was that they are working with someone on their worst day. The goal is to get the case to the finish line doing a thorough job while being compassionate and empathetic to victims and their families.
These experiences change the person you are, and this has a unique effect on the podcast. Dave says: “You learn very quickly the things police look out for, for safety reasons, they are lesson learned over decades of experience. You see types of behaviour over and over again – I used to be able to tell when someone going to run, seconds before they took off – you can recognise it.
“This is the kind of practical experience that police officers bring to the job and we wanted to highlight some of the more nuanced skills, talents and character traits police officers have that you never see on the big screen.
“Hollywood always throws hyperbole seemingly at everything that’s police related. We wanted to ground that and bring it back to what reality is – what you can expect when you call the police and what good police work looks like and what lazy police work looks like.”
Deciding on which cases to feature in Small Town Dicks comes down to those which detectives are most proud of or they find most interesting.
“When someone is speaking from that space, when it’s a case they’re proud of, they’re going to remember most of the details of that case,” says Dan. “They’re not going to have to go back and read a report, it’s at the front of their mind and they can speak to it with clarity and conciseness.
“Also, when you’re sitting across from these detectives when they’re speaking, you can tell when a certain moment of the case hits them. People hate awkward silence, but I think it’s powerful and we just let the detective work through that moment where they’re reliving a terrible moment in their lives.”
Dave adds: “Some people believe that we operate from a script, and it’s all written out, but in reality, these cases are told from the detectives straight from their recollection.
“Every once in a while, you may see a detective or myself refresh our recollection by looking at a report, but its minimal, it really is a testament to what sticks with these detectives. It’s amazing how much detail will come to mind, plus Yeardley is really good at asking questions.”
Yeardley is the one who always teases out a little extra information from people – they say she “ambushes folks” because she’s an unassuming, sweet generous woman who then hits with an uppercut, a question that pulls at emotions. They believe she’s their secret sauce!
Podcasts are normally for entertainment but that’s not the goal for Dan and Dave, their aim is more about informing and educating.
Dan explains: “Some of the stories we tell on our podcast are cautionary tales. Life can go wrong very quick if you make bad decisions. For us, I think I’m also speaking for Dave, the feedback we get from people when they say they’d never thought of this scenario or I’m going to change my behaviour when walking out to my car, checking text messages while sitting in my car.
“From experience, Dave and I know that a lot of muggins and carjacking happens in those situations, so check under your car, get in your car, back out of your spot and when you get to a red light, check your text messages. That’s one of the nuggets we’ve gotten from this podcast over the years that was unintended on our part, but it’s turned into that for us.”
(Sidenote: Don’t check texts at a red light in the UK – you’ll get 6 penalty points on your licence and a £200 fine).
Dave adds that the podcast is an opportunity to humanise police officers to show the more emotional and less formal side of them. The details they reveal, they’ve probably only recounted them in trial. This, he says, gets down to a depth of detail and emotion of these officers, showing they are real people like all of us – they just have a badge, and they have to use it responsibly.
“We want to hammer that home as well,” Dave continues. “Police truly have to be servants to the public and the whole goal is the greater good. This isn’t about power, it’s do the right thing for the community. We felt that True Crime wasn’t really pounding that home, so it gives us a way to give the law enforcement side that shows there’s more depth there than people imagine.”
Season 12 is due for launch on 21 April, building on the huge success of previous seasons. Small Town Dicks achieves an incredible 1m+ downloads each month.
Dan says he never fathomed they would have the success they’ve had: “I think it says something about people want to the police and investigator’s point of view and like Dave said earlier, Yeardley is our secret sauce – she can find her way into the investigators heart and get them to open up in a way that Dave and I can’t,” he adds.
Rounding off, Dan says that having had international guests on the podcast, including from Scotland and Ireland, he’s come to realise that police work is very much the same across the board.
“No matter which country you’re in, you’re looking at men and women who really care. This job is a calling, it’s not just punching in and punching out on the time clock, you have to care about it. That’s the one thing about the investigators we speak to, everybody really cares.