The backstory of Joe Rogan and Brian Redban

Hardcore Joe Rogan fans will have heard of the comedian Brian Redban. Arguably, Brian is less known for his comedy, than he is for working with Joe.

Brian used to work with Joe even before the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. In the early 2000s, he was producing the Joe Show, a Youtube series of short clips, which never really took off.

Come 2009, Joe and Brian started with a small idea to create a podcast, later called the Joe Rogan Experience. Brian acted as something in-between a producer and co-host. From the beginning, Brian’s goofy humour had mixed reactions.

As the Carlos Mencia incident proved, Joe Rogan can make or break careers – and in 2014 a simple decision changed Brian Redban’s trajectory. Just after the show started bringing in lucrative sponsors and started to pick up steam, Joe fired Brian.

But after such a long time working together, why did Joe Rogan stop working with Brian Redban?

When it fell apart:

As the newly-founded podcast started expanding, Joe wanted to increase the number of shows per week, making it hard for Brian to keep up.

This is when Jamie Vernon (today known as “young Jamie”) was brought in as a second producer. Unlike Brian, Jamie was an audio engineer by training and instantly improved the quality of the podcast.

Brian, as the producer, had been living in Joe’s shadow for a while – after all, it wasn’t called the Brian Redban Experience. Looking at Google trends, interest in his persona had been slowly decreasing leading up to the split. It can only be assumed that the breakup wasn’t the most amicable, as Brian was crucial for the show’s creation and early success.

Using google trends to analyse interest in Brian Redban.

If the two comedians still haven’t hashed out differences, they at least maintain a professional relationship as Brian comes regularly on the Joe Rogan Experience. Today even more than in their beginning, Joe’s fame outshines Brian’s – although that will be true of 99% of all comedians.

At the very least, Joe still helps to promote Brian’s work and appearances on the JRE lead to massive spikes in google searches for Brian.

The straw that broke the camel’s back

Towards the end of Brian’s run on the JRE tensions were rising. Joe would get mad at Brian’s continued interjections and tangents. This, plus the fact that Brian wasn’t necessarily needed anymore as a producer, might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The moment Brian disappeared from the JRE photos:

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One video that perfectly encapsulates Brian’s weird/funny tangents is the Ultimate Oh Brian Moment:

In summary, Brian’s personality, the increasing workload and lack of technical know-how led to him being replaced by Jamie. Looking back, it is hard to argue with the decision, as the Joe Rogan Experience exploded in popularity over the last years.

Brian Redban today:

As of 2019, Brian continues to have a big following on multiple social media websites. His humour and personality remain as divisive as ever. Shows produced by Brian today, such as Kill Tony, continue to draw in people with goofy humour, but are still lacking in audio and video quality.

Proof of Brian’s unorthodox editing can be seen in his video of the Carlos Mencia incident, which went viral. This night turned out to be a make-or-break moment for the Joe Rogan’s career.

Has Brian changed?

In the end, Brian’s continued interjections might have cost him his gig at the JRE – one of the biggest and most influential podcasts of today. So, could you blame him for changing the way he interacts with people or in particular, Joe?

How much does Joe Rogan talk?

We found the first evidence that Brian has been talking less and listening more – a lot more. Our speech analysis of his recent appearance on JRE #1238 showed exactly how much Brian Redban was talking: Joe spoke almost 5x as much as him. In fact, Brian’s speaking time was the lowest out of all of Joe Rogan’s 100 guests that we analysed.

Should Brian have stayed the JRE producer? Did Joe treat him unfairly? What do you think?