Childhood Best Friends Have a Podcast About 'Nothing,' Now They're Selling Out Radio City Music Hall (Exclusive)

Joe Santagato and Frank Alvarez open up to PEOPLE about their decades-long friendship and building "The Basement Yard" podcast

Joe Santagato and Frank Alvarez have absolutely no structure to their podcast, The Basement Yard.

They sometimes plan out topics in advance (but rarely get to them), the ad reads can be endearingly sloppy — Santagato accidentally referring to sponsor Shopify as Spotify became a running joke among fans — and they aren't an authority on anything, nor do they claim to be.

Yet somehow, they currently have the 7th most popular podcast on the membership-only platform Patreon, boast 830,000 subscribers on YouTube and this week, they’ll play to a sold-out crowd at Radio City Music Hall.

Santagato and Alvarez, both 32, are still processing the magnitude of their success, which began as a childhood pipe dream. The cohosts, who grew up on the same block in Queens, have been friends since preschool and started making comedy videos with their friends at a young age.

“I think we're still trying to figure it out,” Alvarez tells PEOPLE of the show’s trajectory. “It's going to hit me a ton of bricks at a certain point.”

For Santagato, who started making YouTube videos over a decade ago and went viral through his “People of Walmart” series, this was always the goal — but it doesn’t make it any less overwhelming.

“I didn't know that it would manifest in the way that it has,” he adds.

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After four years of cohosting The Basement Yard, Santagato and Alvarez embarked on their first tour in January 2024.

What started with a handful of East Coast shows spawned tour dates across the country and culminated in a milestone debut at Radio City on Tuesday, Oct. 1. After quickly selling out the iconic N.Y.C. venue, they even added a second show on Wednesday, Oct. 2.

“We don’t have 25 live shows under our belts yet, and we're doing Radio City, which is extraordinary,” Santagato says. “But I do think that we've worked really hard with the shows that we've had so far to just get good at doing our show.”

In the oversaturated podcast space, The Basement Yard exists in a league of its own. Santagato and Alvarez don’t dole out advice, discuss social issues or share information. They don’t really do anything — and that’s exactly what their audience loves.

“Anyone that has ever asked me about this show, I always pitch it as you, your oldest friend, you sit down, you talk for an hour about wherever the conversation goes,” Alvarez explains. “And I think that in its core is so relatable in the sense of like, ‘I have people that I would do the exact same thing with.’ ”

“[The listeners] enjoy that we're not trying to tackle the same topics as everyone else,” says Santagato. “If something happens in the news, well maybe we'll touch on it, but a lot of the time we don't. It goes into our preparation too, which is none…. so it's very loose. There's no real structure to it. It really will feel like just two people who are talking to each other, because that's honestly what it is.”

The Basement Yard might seem like an overnight success to some, but the journey has been nearly a decade in the making. Santagato started the podcast in 2015 as a solo show and eventually brought on comedian Danny LoPriore as a cohost (Alvarez, as well as other friends and family members of Santagato, often appeared as guests).

When LoPriore left to pursue other ventures, Santagato says asking Alvarez to come on board was a no-brainer. “It wasn't even a question,” he recalls. “It was like, ‘Well, there's literally no one else that I think can actually have that same sort of special rapport that me and Danny had.’”

For Alvarez, who was working a full-time job after graduating from college and obtaining a Master’s degree, there was “no doubt” he was going to take the opportunity, but he was initially worried about filling LoPriore’s shoes.

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“I remember just being like, ‘I need to be as funny as Danny. I need to be as good, as witty, as quick,’” says Alvarez. “And I credit my wife because she said to me, ‘That's not why he's asking you to come in.’"

He continues, "And then [Joe] and I had a conversation, and he said the exact same thing. He's like, ‘I don't want you to be anybody else but yourself, because yourself is what has created our relationship and our history and stuff together.’ ...I was just like, ‘Oh yeah, I don't need to be anything outside of who I already am and who he believes I can be.’ And then we just kind of hit the ground running.”

Four years, 25 shows and a Radio City Music Hall debut later, Santagato and Alvarez are living their dream.

“I have everything I've ever wanted in life,” Alvarez says. “I’m doing what I always wanted to do with the person I've always wanted to do it with. I have a family at home. That’s everything I've ever wanted.”

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“I think as long as people will have us, we'll be there,” adds Santagato. “If the audience starts to feel like, ‘You guys have had your chance,’ and we're able to sort of walk away on our own, then we would. But that sounds like 30 years down the line to me.”

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