Q&A Exclusive with “Inside The Monster” Podcast Host, Joey Copponi: ‘I’m 100% sure that is the exact moment my love for the Red Sox began’
Joey Copponi is the co-host of the popular Red Sox Podcast “Inside The Monster” along with Steve Perrault, and is the host of the Bruins podcast “Bear With Me” with Rob Tocci and is a member of the production team at CLNS Media.
In this Q&A, Copponi breaks down what his daily life looks like, what the Red Sox need to do to accomplish a successful off season, how ITM was formed and more!
Q: Favorite Red Sox player of all time?
A: Nomah.
Q: If you had to take one current Red Sox player and stick them on the Bruins, who is it and what position do they play?
A: I would be stunned to learn that Triston Casas was not a goalie at some point in his life. Anyone who has ever played the game will tell you goalies are, and I say this with love, weirdos. Triston eats in the dugout, he does yoga, he suns shirtless in the outfield, he walks around barefoot, he listens to classical music, he tweets about dragons. He’s such a goalie. Not to mention he’s 6’5” 250lbs.
Q: Favorite Red Sox related childhood (15 years or younger) memory?
A: I’m going to avoid 2004 entirely because that feels like cheating. Obviously my favorite all-time Red Sox memories are those four days in October of ’04, and I’ll never forget where I was during the Dave Roberts steal, but a different memory comes to mind when I think about the Red Sox of my childhood.
I’m not sure if it was my very first game at Fenway, or just the first one when my long-term memory functioned properly, but it must’ve been 1998 or 99. I went to some inconsequential meaningless game in God-knows-which month, it was warm enough to not need a jacket.
I was sitting on my dad’s shoulders when the crowd sang Sweet Caroline and he danced and bobbed to the music. And I so so vividly remember thinking “I want to come back here” and I’m 100% sure that is the exact moment my love for the Red Sox began.
Q: What’s a day in your life look like on a ITM record day?
A: My routine for recording days has changed recently. I accepted a job in October with CLNS Media producing podcasts and running promotion for their shows. So in the past month or so, my routine has been to wake up with my son, make breakfast together and run our usual morning things, drop him off with my childcare provider, and work until about 6pm. Then I spend about an hour running through my notes from the week, and texting with Steve about any last minute changes to the show.
We run the show, I pick up my son, put him to bed, and then edit, publish, and promote the show, before returning to working on CLNS shows until I go to bed. The new schedule has been time-consuming, but working in sports hardly ever feels like working.
Q: How did you and co host Steve Perrault come together to form the “Inside The Monster” Podcast?
A: I dropped out of film school (for the second time) in 2017 after I made a feature film that garnered some attention at film festivals. I believed that I could compound that success into a career in film without finishing college. I was wrong. Once I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I got a couple of odd jobs to hold me over while I finished EMT school before pursuing my newest delusion of becoming a doctor.
Why I thought being an EMT would help me become a doctor is beyond me. I digress. One of those odd jobs was shooting games for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. It was a far cry from being a filmmaker, and I was way overqualified, and it paid $30 a game, but it was 2018 and my days were spent watching the greatest Red Sox team of all time on TV, and going to “work” to shoot Vladdy Jr, Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio down the street from my house.
When that season ended, I looked for other video jobs in baseball because, as it turns out, having a handful of car accidents and even more speeding tickets on your record is a great way for every EMS service’s insurance provider to deny you coverage to drive an ambulance.
I saw a listing for a company called Lumberlend that was looking for a “Videographer/baseball content creator” and thought it was worth going for.
Fast forward a year and the content is taking off, and it’s grown from me making videos in the office, to a team of 13 people managing accounts of several million followers. One day when I came into the office, someone mentioned that Steve Perrault of Section 10 had messaged us wanting to collaborate.
Steve had recently announced he was leaving Section 10 to accept another job with Audacy. I made everyone in the office very aware that I would be the one reaching back out, and that I would be making the collab with Steve, as I was the biggest fan of his content.
We made a BS YouTube video I threw together all in an attempt to chat with Steve and throw my hat into the ring amidst his new co-host search. I told him I had submitted a video audition already, but it would probably need to be redone as I was maybe a tad too drunk when I had recorded the first one.
I was fired from Lumberlend about a month later after personal disagreements graduated to a degree that made that decision an easy one for management. A week later Steve told me I got the gig.
Q: What has been the coolest/most surreal moment you have had since you became a member of the Boston sports media world?
A: There have been some wild ones. Being in the WEEI booth when David Ortiz visited was crazy, being invited to Papi’s All-Star party alongside Chuck Liddell and Albert Pujols was surreal, meeting Bryan Cranston and Bad Bunny in Los Angeles was ridiculous. But honestly the moment that stands out as the most surreal was driving from the hotel to Spring Training in 2022.
It just all hit me that this was real. I had dreamed of doing this forever but never believed it would happen, and up to that point with the lockout and getting canned from Lumberlend, and moving, and starting a new job, and starting to go through a divorce, I hadn’t had a chance to let my new reality sink in.
On that drive in Steve’s rental car along the Florida highways it all suddenly came rushing in and I had a full blown panic attack. When we arrived at the facility Steve asked if I was good because, apparently, I hadn’t said a word since we got in the car.
Within minutes of walking in, I met Jarren Duran, Christian Arroyo, Will Flemming, and Chris Cotillo, along with tons of team staff who made me feel welcome and made my new career feel real. That moment tops every cool encounter since then.
Q: What is #1 thing you are looking forward to most about the 2024 MLB Baseball season?
A: For the Sox to be good, that would be pretty cool. The team has been bad for so long, I’m just ready to feel like they can compete again. 2021 was a lot of fun, but the more removed I get from it, the more I remember it like a fluke. I’d like to believe *all year* that the team has a chance to do something, and not a snowball’s chance of sneaking in.
Q: What would qualify as a “successful” 2024 Boston Red Sox season in your opinion?
A: Spending money on free agents, trading prospects for proven talent, an active trade deadline that improves the major league team, AND making the postseason. I think they have to do all of those things to change the narrative around the team right now.
Q: What’s the baseball off season look like for you?
A: Oddly enough, it is no slower for me at all. With my new gig at CLNS, and the Bruins podcast I do, I somehow feel more busy now than I did this past year. Last off-season came with its own challenges, so this one feels a little more natural. It doesn’t matter if I was working 80hrs/week, I’d still set aside a couple more to talk Sox with Steve any day.
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