_ Snacky Tunes _ is back with a brand new episode featuring Chef Johnny Zone of Howlin’ Rays Hot Chicken and musical guest Jaye Bartell.

Straight from the scene in Los Angeles, host Darin Bresnitz is in conversation with Johnny, talking his serious passion for fried chicken. An LA native, Johnny shares that he has worked under some of the best chefs in the world, including Thomas Keller, Gordon Ramsay and Nobu Matsuhisa.  Last year, during a stage at Sean Brock’s Husk in Nashville, a local chef introduced Johnny to Nashville Hot Chicken. It was instantaneous love. Johnny brought back tales of this hidden gem to LA and thus Howlin’ Rays was born.

In the second half of the show, Greg Bresnitz welcomes musician Jaye Bartell to the studio.  Born in Massachusetts, Jaye Bartell moved to Asheville, NC, in the early 2000s where he began playing music among friends as a parallel activity to his work with poetry and other writing. Writing was his main focus for most of a decade—a time that involved constant traveling and moving around the U.S., mostly between North Carolina and the Pacific Northwest, where he lived on a small island in northern Washington. It wasn’t until Jaye moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn in the fall of 2013, where he began working on the new set of material that will furnish his next release — a set of songs that examine and resist transcendence, dissociation, and departure to “find a home on earth” as Robert Creeley wrote, and take images and inspiration from hot air balloons, Spalding Gray, and the neighborhood around McGolrick Park.

“The beauty to me is its [hot chicken] relatability in all culture… Why I fell in love with it is the heat really opened up my palate, it gave me a different sensation!” [28:45]

–Johnny Zone on Snacky Tunes