Jad Abumrad loves a butterfly knife and a good springy pillow

The Radiolab creator and host of Dolly Parton’s America answers The Verge’s weekend questionnaire.

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The Radiolab creator and host of Dolly Parton’s America answers The Verge’s weekend questionnaire.

If you buy something from a link, The Verge may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

It’s hard to overstate Jad Abumrad’s impact on the podcasting world. He created and hosted Dolly Parton’s America and Fela Kuti: Fear No Man , two Peabody Award-winning shows that offered unprecedented looks at the lives of two of the most important music icons of the last century.

Before that, though, he created Radiolab , an experimental NPR show that leaned heavily on creative sound design and eventually helped redefine what a podcast could be. In the early days of podcasting, shows were often just a couple of people talking at each other at a table (some still are), or lazily repackaged radio broadcasts. Radiolab instead told deeply reported stories in themed episodes with original music and cinematic sound effects that helped enhance the storytelling. And often, the sounds and music were created by Abumrad himself.

Abumrad retired from Radiolab in 2022, leaving it in the capable hands of Latif Nasser and Lulu Miller. But he’s been plenty busy since then, not only producing Fear No Man , but also composing for film, theater, and dance, and serving as a distinguished research professor at Vanderbilt University.

Despite his intimidating resume, however, he’s a man of simple pleasures who collects an ungodly amount of audio plug-ins and loves the satisfying clack of a butterfly knife.

My pillow. I need a flat, springy pillow, and I don’t understand this new hotel / airbnb trend towards giant fluffy pillows that wreck your neck for a week (I’m that age). So, a good travel pillow. In terms of digital tools: it’s rare to say you love a calendar app, but I truly love Fantastical . It takes the most annoying task in the world — scheduling a meeting with many busy people — and makes it actually fun. In terms of digital audio tools: I am addicted to audio plugins and have a thousand too many, but the one I come back to over and over is a little granular synthesis app called Granite . It’s 15 years old at this point, but it’s just so musical . I’ve used it to score dozens of OG Radiolab pieces.

Which is the most underappreciated? I think indoor plumbing is wildly underappreciated. I have a whole talk I give about the miracle of indoor plumbing.

What is the first app you install on a new phone or computer? Alfred . It’s a super lightweight do-everything replacement for Apple’s built-in Spotlight. Like Raycast but without the annoying AI features.

What is one thing you wish you could change about your phone? I wish I could eliminate all the buzzes and dings.