The pair met while studying television in graduate school at Boston University and became close after moving to Los Angeles. "We became friends truly out of desperation and not knowing anybody else," Schulz says. "We didn't run in the same circles, but we were the only two people to end up in Los Angeles and to be living here permanently. I needed a friend, and I was like, ‘Christine is out here, so I should reach out to her.’ I texted her very bluntly and said, ‘We don't have anybody, so this is your last chance for a friend.’ It was fall, so we went to a harvest festival and went on a tractor ride. We were making small talk, and since it was kind of the spooky season, we started talking about ghosts and scary stories. Very quickly, we realized that we only ever talked about true crime and ghosts, and our friendship bloomed from there."
Schiefer says the show was inspired in part by three podcasts she suggested to Schulz early in their friendship.
"I was listening to Astonishing Legends, which was the first podcast I ever listened to, and they do really deep dives into paranormal and mystery stuff; My Favorite Murder, which is obviously like the juggernaut of the true-crime podcast world; and Jim Harold's Campfire, who is like the OG podcaster," Schiefer says. "We had no idea it was a paranormal true-crime show; we were simply looking for something to talk about for a few hours, so we did a lot of brainstorming. Finally, we said, 'Well, I guess no one has ever combined true crime and paranormal into one show.' I believe we were among the first, if not the first, and we sort of took off from there."
Christine Schiefer and Em Schulz met while studying television in graduate school at Boston University.
Courtesy of Hailey Simone (@thehaileysimoneproject)
And take it off it did. Since the show's debut, each new episode has delved into whatever paranormal and true-crime stories the hosts are obsessed with that week. The podcast has 364 episodes to date, has received over 184 million lifetime downloads and is consistently ranked in the top twenty of the comedy podcast charts. It also won the People's Voice Webby Awards for Best Comedy Podcast in 2019, 2021 and 2022, and has 93K followers on Facebook and 201K on Instagram.
But the duo didn't stop there. A few years ago, Schiefer and Schulz ventured into the literary world with A Haunted Road Atlas, a New York Times bestseller that's a treasure trove of America's most haunted locations. The idea for the book arose during the pandemic.
"We were sort of reminiscing about when we could go travel and do tours," says Schiefer. "Since we had already done so much research for the podcast about so many different cities, we decided to put together a compendium of every town's most haunted places — their haunted bars, haunted hotels and whatnot — so that once restrictions started to lift, which thankfully they did, people would be able to have a reference for where to go that's spooky around the country. Every town has places that are haunted, so we decided to write a true-crime story and a paranormal story for each town."
If readers are intrigued by a particular story in A Haunted Road Atlas, they can scan a QR code on the page that will take them to a full podcast episode on the subject. The structure and design of the book were designed to be accessible, even for people such as Schulz, who struggled with reading.
"It wasn't easy for me; Christine is a much more gifted writer than I am," Schulz says. "Reading and writing are not my forte. I told Christine, ‘I'll write a book with you, but even people like me need to be able to want to read this thing.’ It ended up working out well in the writing process because all of the stories are byte size, like a page or two max, so if you have some attention deficit problems like I do, it’s still palatable."
They have been working on a second book designed to serve as a companion piece to A Haunted Road Atlas and are targeting a fall 2024 release. It will include "more content, more cities and more places," says Schiefer. "For example, in the first book, we had New York City, Los Angeles and a lot of the big hubs; the second book was our chance to kind of delve into towns and places that aren't necessarily big metropolises."
And That's Why We Drink has 364 episodes to date.
Courtesy of Hailey Simone (@thehaileysimoneproject)
"We've learned a lot of things over the years, especially about running a business," says Schiefer. "It's not just comedy, fun, entertainment and spooky stuff; we also learned the hard way about taxes. We learned some business lessons the very, very cold, hard way, but we never ended up in jail, so that was nice. ... We also learned to drink your coconut water when you're in Denver, because we've performed there before and got altitude sickness. There's a photo of us somewhere with our heads between our legs, and people are bringing us coconut water. The staff was like, ‘Yeah, we get this a lot. People don't take it seriously,’ so that was the only kind of culture shock."
"Yeah, I remember looking around and thinking, 'They're all going to watch us pass out,' but we pushed through it," Schulz adds. "I've learned a lot about myself and my mental health because one of the things that this podcast has thrust upon me is performing. I have debilitating stage fright, so I feel like it's forced me to pay attention to my own mental health and am more aware of feelings when communicating, which has probably helped me and Christine a lot, too. When you spend seven years with the same person, you hope that you will still like each other after that. We're just very lucky that we both try to practice open communication and honesty — and we like each other."
Future plans for Schiefer and Schulz include more podcasting and the rest of their On the Rocks tour. Additionally, they hope to do an international tour and expand their offerings to television. As the Newman Center prepares to welcome these podcasting powerhouses, one thing is certain: Denver is in for an evening of chilling tales, hearty laughs and perhaps a new perspective on the eerie and unexplained.
And That's Why We Drink, Saturday, January 28, at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 East Iliff Avenue, Denver. Learn more at andthatswhywedrink.com.
