Speaker 1: So you've been there yet, Ero dot net, Rroe dot net.
There are so many podcasts to choose from, seventeen total,
all with different subjects, all with different ideas. It's time
to grow forward. Put your voice and your ears out there.
Arre dot net, Erocollins podcasting Missed Opportunity. I love sharing conversations.
Now hosting them requires some show prep. My podcast platform
features thousands of guests. Now what you don't have access
to are my missed opportunities. The show prep was completed,
the conversation did not happen. I keep all of my notes,
and today is a very good reason why you should.
Paths will cross again. Let me explain missed opportunity. It's
my questions and statements without their answers. I'm leaving open
enough space at the end of each question, hoping they'll
download the talk and insert their answers. Missed opportunity is
a lost piece of history. It's like a messy and
a bottle that's been tossed out to see. Now, let's
see if we can locate a destination. This week, we're
putting focus on my missed Opportunity with singer songwriter now
children's book author Scott Hoyn and his husband Mark Okay
Scott and his husband Mark Hoying. So much history has
been lived before creating this Hollywood moment for families this
in every holiday season now. Scott is from the multi
platinum selling a cappella group Pentatonics. You might have also
caught him on this year's season thirty four of Dancing
with the Stars. Now teamed up with his husband Mark,
the collaboration of Creativity has introduced every one of us
to the book Fa La La Family, one of the
first children's books that actually celebrate the spirit of Christmas
through the eyes and hearts of non traditional families. The
invitation to share a conversation with Scott and Mark arrived
on October sixth, twenty twenty five. A limited number of
opportunities were actually available. My reply was absolutely please, let's
go cre eight. I was blessed with a nine to
fifty am ten minute talk on October sixteenth. I quickly
took note of the time and went, uh oh, can
we go a smidge later. I'm booked at that time,
so they offered me ten ten. We all agreed. Then
October sixteenth fell into place. I assumed it was no call.
Because I didn't hear a ring. I reached out to Martha.
She offered eleven ten am. I, without checking my schedule,
messed up again. I was in the center of yet
another conversation. She then suggested one pm. In my heart,
I knew that couldn't happen. Well, it wasn't over yet.
That's when annacartagonist stepped through the tumbling opportunities and offered
to host the conversation for me. This was and is
every bit the reason why we created Missed Opportunity. We
were able to repair the moment. Now, what was the problem?
Verizon way Wireless. They had to totally reprogram my phone
because I hit a tower that silenced everything. I'll let
them do the explaining because I'm not that technical, but
it was the fault of Verizon Wireless. Coming up next,
ann steps up to the microphone like a true Santa
Elf and begins to bring life to the questions that
were once a missed opportunity with Scott and Mark Hoyin.
Her questions and their answers are coming up next. Hey,
welcome back to Missed Opportunity. This week, our Missed Opportunity
is with Mark hoyin and his husband Scott. I didn't
get the opportunity to have the conversation. Modern day smartphone
technicalities kept the conversation from taking place, but the show
prep was done. Stepping in for me like a true champion,
Anna gartagonists Okay, I'm.
Speaker 2: Gonna go to another room so you don't hear my feedback. Okay,
to go rolling, Okay, here we go. Nothing is more
synonymous with Christmas music than Pensatonics. The multi platinum selling
a cappella group is the number one most listened to
musical act of the holiday season. And now we've got
co founder Scott Hoying and his husband Mark. They're funneling
their energy and the groups holiday spirit into this beautiful
new book called Sala Las Family.
Speaker 3: Hello guys, Hello, Hello God, Thank you for having us,
you for having us well.
Speaker 2: First and foremost, I want to say congratulations. The big
news was revealed on the most recent episode of Dancing
with the Stars. You guys are going to be dads.
Speaker 4: We're gonna We're so excited.
Speaker 3: This is a dream come true for the both of us,
and we can think of a more epic, beautiful way
than to announce it on dedication night of dancing with.
Speaker 5: The stars and that was just a coincidence of that
aligned and with this interview, it's all like lining up
in this really beautiful Kismet way and we're just really grateful.
Speaker 2: Definitely magical Kismet. And the book can itself celebrates just
the spirit of Christmas and obviously Scotland know Pentatonics is
synonymous to Christmas, but it's such a beautiful book. Like,
how would you describe the overwriting theme of the book.
It's family, but it means something special to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, It's called follow off family and it's about how
family can be a lot of different things. It's not
always the conventional family you see. It can be a
mom and you, a dad, or two chosen family, a
furry friend. Just a family is community and family.
Speaker 4: Is love and those people who see for who you are.
Speaker 5: So we wanted to showcase all types of families in
this book because we're going to have a future child
and we want our child to be able to see
a family that looks like ours two dads in a
children's book, and so we hope that we can inspire
everyone and show that everyone's story deserves to be told.
Speaker 2: Well, I must say the illustrations are just beautiful. You
guys are on the cover as well. Us like you
And in one of the pages, I think you're even
looking into a crib with a little baby.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was like, that was manifesting our future. Our illustrator,
Steph lu is the most incredible illustrator we could have
ever dream to work with. We worked with her on
our first book, How Lucky Am I? That came out
in twenty twenty four, and we instantly knew we wanted
to work with her.
Speaker 4: Again on fallow Off Family.
Speaker 3: And she's just so incredible because she took you know,
she asked for childhood photos of us from our childhood homes,
our parents, our sisters and brothers, and she took those
photos and put them into the books. So you can
see inside our childhood homes. You can see our dogs,
you can see the big Filipino feasts that I used
to have during the holidays. And we are just so
grateful that, you know, our memories and our lives are
just forever immortalized in these pages that we'll get a
show to our kids and our grandkids and our friends
and our chosen family throughout the years.
Speaker 4: We're so so proud of it.
Speaker 2: I must say I love I think Mark it's your
family picture there where into detail. You can see the
food that's on the table. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. That is one of our favorite pages
in the whole book. You can see on the page
I'm Filipino, so you can see my big Filipino family.
You can see the pun sit the pull of book,
but the Lencha flon all of these really cozy feelings
of the holidays on these pages, the kids in the
background during karaoke. It's so funny because she really captured
the essence of being in my family, my Filipino family,
during the holidays. And I am so so grateful and
lucky that I'll get to have these memories forever in
these pages.
Speaker 2: Now, along with the book is a beautiful song that
came out, and there's also a lyric video that's out
and so forth. What came forth? Did the song comes
first or did you think about the words in the book.
How did that come to be?
Speaker 4: Yeah, honestly, it happened very simultaneously.
Speaker 5: Something we learned when writing our first book was that
writing a children's book is.
Speaker 4: Very very similar to writing a pop song.
Speaker 5: It's just like short phrases, very simple, rhyming, rhyme schemes,
and like that was.
Speaker 4: Like a big enlightening moment for us. So for the
second book, we wrote a song with the book.
Speaker 5: In mind and the illustrations in mind, and we just
love to create together, so we went we just kept.
Speaker 4: Going, and we ended up creating a whole album and
then asking.
Speaker 5: Our friends who have beautiful families that were inspired by
Megan Train or Baila Flex. They're on the album and
so it's like this whole universe at this point.
Speaker 4: And then after that we were like, what if people
want to sing together. We love to sing with our
family and sing with our friends, and so we had
a cheap music you can sing along.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was such a fun project, because I Scott
was saying earlier, making a book into a song itself
was just an amazing experience. And then to create a
whole album called My Family that people can listen to
year round because the album actually, even though the book
is a holiday book, the album is a book for
all times.
Speaker 4: Of the year.
Speaker 3: So it's great that you know, families are people of
all ages can listen to these songs that mean so
much to us that was so warm and cozy. There's
covers of songs as You're My Sunshine featuring Baila Fleck.
There's original songs like All I Need featuring Megan Trainer, And.
Speaker 5: We're like really big fans of things, and something that's
fun about being a fan of something is like getting
to dive in and like watch all the music videos
and then watch all the behind the scenes love like
having lots of stuff to consume when we when we
are really a big fan of something like Wicked, we've
watched all the behind the scenes, all the John two interviews,
and so we wanted to like create that with this.
We were like, we'll do cheat music, We'll do a
whole album, and people can discover this and like and
so it's kind of like a world you're diving into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think you said that perfectly. Like when
I look through the book, it feels like I should
have a cup of hot coco next to me because
it gives you this woman and fuzzy feeling inside.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: That was definitely our intention for sure, is to have
a cozy book you can read with your kids as
you're putting the you know, to bed.
Speaker 5: Ethnically, and those are like some of the best memories
you out as a kid, to be like the soundtrack
and all also just to be the children's both in
those memories that kids have in their formative years.
Speaker 4: It's like that, I mean, that's an honor.
Speaker 2: Now, Scott, I would be remiss if I don't ask
you about, of course, two things. One you guys, your
national Christmas Store coming up next month. Any surprises for
any of the audience style who's going to be coming
out to see the concerts?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: We have so much new stuff and we have the
most beautiful epic set we've ever had.
Speaker 4: We're like playing a game with the audience we've never.
Speaker 5: Played and there's like really really beautiful arrangements that we're doing.
I'm more excited for the store than I've ever been
for a tour.
Speaker 4: I like truly can't wait.
Speaker 5: And this album Christmas in the City, is like really
inspired and we were all together in the studio and
it just came from this magical place that like remind
me of some of the early Panasonics days. I'm just
like really excited for this new era. It might be
a little.
Speaker 4: Bit difficult to do tour and Dancing with the Stars
at the same time.
Speaker 5: But I am energized right now because it's such a
beautiful era of life that I think I.
Speaker 4: Can do it.
Speaker 2: Anything that any music can give. Our listeners about Dancing
with the Stars, we saw you obviously with the dedication episode.
Anything else that's fun coming up?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: I've literally had the best experience over the past six weeks.
I can't believe it's already halfway. It's been the most intense, beautiful,
like like scary but in a good way, vulnerable experience
I've ever had. And I'm just I'm just treasure it.
And next week's Wicked week, and that's my favorite. That
is our favorite show, our favorite movie. It's just on
repeat at our house. And like when we were talking
in the interview about Wicked, I was like going in
because I'm like a dramatic of that musical, and so
I am really excited.
Speaker 4: For the dance this week.
Speaker 5: I think it's going to be a big moment and
then and just like I'm excited to see how it
pans out. The cast is so amazing, everyone's so sweet.
I'm just treasuring every single moment and just trying to
make the most of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's be a part of that all on Dedication
night Mark, Me Love God and our Scott's partner Riley,
who we adore so much. It's it's it's been so
much fun and you like don't want the experience to
end because we're having so much fun watching Scott live
this incredible dream.
Speaker 5: And I am practicing cooreo all the time because it's
so when you're out there, it is terrifying and your
mind goes blank and you have to rely on muscle memory,
and so I just have to drill it, drill it,
drill it, like and yeah, but havn't you out there
made a lot of patu?
Speaker 2: Well you make the dancing look so simple. And lastly,
just for all of our listeners, is there for both
of you guys? What is there? How many message you
just want to share with your fans?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, spend time with people you
love and you connect with.
Speaker 4: Who are your family? And family can mean so many
decide I'm.
Speaker 5: Gonna go ahead and take that on again. We love
you so much. We hope you have a wonderful holiday season.
Family can be anything, your chosen family, your family at home,
your friends. Just find the people and the things you
love to do, and I hope you celebrate and have
the best sam our.
Speaker 3: Them truly, And we hope our book is speaking of
hope and representation for families that look like yours. We really,
really really wanted to make sure that this book incorporate
all types of families, all types of love. So hopefully
when you're reading Fallow Up Family, you're seeing your herd.
Speaker 4: You feel the love, you feel.
Speaker 3: The joy, and we love you and we will always love.
Speaker 2: Awesome and good luck Scott to dancing with the stars
and all your travels with concertation. Thank you, guys, and.
Speaker 1: There you have it, another edition of Missed Opportunity. The
majority of the time we don't get their answers to
the questions and the statements that we make. Thanks to
Anna again for taking the time to ask the questions
and then question the answers. It was my missed opportunity
turned around. This message in a bottle found its destination
through Anna