No Prize From God

Jul 31 2024 42 ep. 71 mins 100
No Prize From God Podcast artwork

Conversations with creative people about belief, unbelief, and everything in between. Hosted by Ryan J. Downey (MTV News, MSNBC, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter).

  Religion & Spirituality
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Max Cavalera (Soulfly)

Jul 31 2024 56 mins  
SOULFLY. Max Cavalera talks about getting baptized at the Vatican; his mother’s deep immersion into the Candomblé religion; witnessing rituals and believers "possessed" by saints and deities in his childhood household; the death of his father, and the loss of his stepson, Dana; the spiritualism he finds present in some of the darkest and angriest metal music; the trans

Mark Heylmun (Suicide Silence)

Jul 19 2023 115 mins  
Suicide Silence guitarist Mark Heylmun on psychedelics, Catholicism, the occult, creative hiatuses, the making of the band’s self-titled album with Ross Robinson, losing a close friend in high school, the death of frontman Mitch Lucker, the band's subsequent rebirth, the ego, and much more. Follow No-Prize From God, Ryan J. Downey, and check out Downey's other podcasts: P

Karl Sanders (Nile)

Jun 12 2023 55 mins  
NILE frontman Karl Sanders talks ancient Egypt, his meditative and transcendental solo work, several of the books and ideas that shaped him, and more. "A lot of the [religious] options available to us are restrictive by nature," he explains. "I gravitated to the [ancient] Egyptians because you know what? When those guys did religion, they imagined big." Follow N

Bill Fisher (Church Of The Cosmic Skull)

May 16 2023 81 mins  
Church Of The Cosmic Skull founder Bill Fisher's seven-piece, vocal-harmony-and-Hammond-organ heavy, English prog/psych/rock outfit fashions itself as a spiritual organization dedicated to “The Seven Objects,” which includes instructions to “recognize the hallucinatory nature of reality,” “celebrate and uphold the freedom of art, science and thought,” “meet mistak

Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy)

Apr 20 2023 66 mins  
Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix's band, Liturgy, is a platform for both fine art and theology, delivered in waves of transcendental black metal possessed by the spirit of classical music and the energetic urgency of punk and indie rock. An unapologetic Christian with a love of the Orthodox Church and a spiritual practice many believers would deem decidedly unorthodox, Hunt-Hendrix i

Hasan Oswald (Higher Love)

Apr 12 2023 52 mins  
Hasan Oswald started his professional career as a cameraman for National Geographic’s film Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS. His verité style caught the eye of award-winning filmmakers Nick Quested & Sebastian Junger (Restrepo). His directorial debut, Higher Love, about the opioid crisis in New Jersey, arrived in 2020. He's also covered the water crisis

Dara Molloy (Celtic Monk)

Apr 05 2023 68 mins  
Dara Molloy is a Celtic Monk, Priest, and Druid who lives on Inis Mor, the largest of the three islands that make up the Aran Islands in Ireland. He talks about his journey from Catholicism to the Celtic spiritual tradition. Follow No-Prize From God, Ryan J. Downey, and check out Downey's other podcasts: PopCurse (Musicians Talking Movies) and Speak N' Destroy (Interviews Abou

Sergio Navarretta (The Cuban)

Mar 29 2023 65 mins  
Sergio Navarretta directed Looking for Angelina (2005), The Colossal Failure of the Modern Relationship (2015), and The Cuban (2020), about Mina (Ana Golja), a naive pre-med student who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Luis (Louis Gossett Jr.), an elderly Cuban musician. Navaretta talks about filming in Cuba, the spiritual power of music, and our relationship with our elders.

Devin Townsend

Mar 22 2023 125 mins  
"Making peace with who you are inevitably leads to the recognition that who you are is an illusion." In this revealing and in-depth conversation, Devin Townsend talks about music, meditation, collective unconscious, imposter syndrome, perfect happiness, emotional balance, and "a certain amount of transcendence." Follow No-Prize From God, Ryan J. Downey, and check out Downey's

Satyr Wongraven (Satyricon) II

Mar 15 2023 67 mins  
SATYRICON frontman Satyr Wongraven returns to No-Prize From God. The Norwegian black metal musician talks about the spiritual and creative connections between nature, music, and visual arts, anchored specifically around the Satyricon & Munch - Munchmuseet exhibition, which ran for several months in 2022. Handpicked works of Norway's most famous artist, Edvard Munch, inspir