Credit: Penumbra Foundation Michael Thompson is not the sort of man Nick van der Kolk expected to find in a notorious neo-Nazi prison gang. Thompson wears Native American-style jewellery. He speaks softly, often on spiritual topics. “Without sounding pretentious,” Van der Kolk explains, “he has kind of the soul of a poet.”
Fifteen years ago, Van der Kolk watched a 2007 documentary by National Geographic about a gang called the Aryan Brotherhood. It was, by his own standards, wildly sensationalized. Between the short run time and fuzzy footage, the show wouldn’t have left an impression if it were not for Michael Thompson. “Every single time he would pop on screen, I was gobsmacked. I’m like, ‘Who is this guy?’ He sounds completely different from any of the current or former Aryan Brotherhood guys.”
The question ate at Van der Kolk. After first reaching out in 2012, he finally met Thompson in person in 2018 while still incarcerated, eventually beginning formal interviews a year later. Interviewing inmates can be a complicated process, especially in California at the time. You could make requests for “types” of inmates. Members of a particular gang, for instance. But you couldn’t request time with specific individuals.
“You can only speak in fifteen minute increments and you’re constantly being interrupted by a voice that says, ‘This is a call from such and such prison.’” Van der Kolk tells me. “So if you’re doing dozens and dozens of hours of interviews, that’s just not going to work.”
In the intervening years, Thompson became infamous for defecting from the Aryan Brotherhood and testifying against other members in several high-profile criminal trials. His legend grew, as did Van der Kolk’s curiosity. Were Thompson’s actions a reach towards redemption or a masterstroke of manipulation? For a man with a seemingly “bifurcated personality,” it was hard to tell from a distance.
As soon as Thompson was released from prison, Van der Kolk began in earnest to interview the former gang member about his life, as well as the lives he had taken. So began a fourteen year fascination for Van der Kolk that would culminate in a sprawling documentary podcast, Love + Radio: Blood Memory. Since the series launched on February 2, it’s clear that the ten-part audio epic doesn’t merely defy genre conventions, but asks important questions of the wider podcasting industry.
Blood Memory is Van der Kolk’s first foray into the true crime genre. When we speak, he seems hesitant about the descriptor. Despite its wide appeal, true crime carries certain connotations, namely that the industry profits on the suffering of strangers. Van der Kolk seems more comfortable with “documentary.” This might also be why Blood Memory has stubbornly remained an audio-only project despite the appetite for murder and mayhem on video platforms.
Then again, would you really expect anything less from an audio pioneer? Love + Radio, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year, was named by The Guardian as “one of the greatest podcasts of all time.” Van der Kolk has also won multiple awards, including Gold at the Third Coast International Audio Festival. His was the first podcast ever to do so.
Love + Radio is one of the longest running podcasts in the world, and yet Van der Kolk still feels he needs to carve out its place in the industry. “I think there’s been a real disappointment in some of the creative ambitions of podcasts of the last ten years. The temptation becomes to make stuff that sounds exactly like what was successful previously. […] There is a premium on being unique and not sounding like everything else. And that takes real risk.”
Much to its credit, Love + Radio is still an independent production. Does that give more flexibility when investigating subjects, or does it force difficult financial choices? Van der Kolk is candid about the implications. “To be totally honest with you, I feel like there’s a lot riding on this. Not just for myself personally, but I think that this is a proving ground for this kind of storytelling […] I still really believe it is those limited series that got people into podcasts in the first place. I think that there’s always going to be some space for it.”
Credit: Love + Radio / Chris Visions
Blood Memory’s format is rare in the true crime genre. From first listen, it’s easy to hear the influences Van der Kolk cites: Sons of Anarchy meets S-Town. The series is composed of interview clips kitted together with an American Gothic Folk score. It draws on musicians like También, Audiobulb Records, RVNG, the works of Dutch composer Michel Banabila, as well as American and Irish gothic folk. The medley of folk music and intimate accounts of misdeeds brings up memories of the first season of True Detective, where Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cohle testifies about a decades old investigation while rambling about time being a flat circle. They share a similar combination of the dark, the farcical, and the sublime.
If you’re looking for a comparison for Thompson in contemporary culture, Rust Cohle isn’t a bad comp. These men are enigmas. They are wiry, long-haired men of violence. Haunted by their pasts, they cope by adopting a brand of personal philosophy built around experiences most of us will never have. That is how they resist criticism. And, for some, that is also the appeal.
Episode 1 opens with Thompson describing a fight that ended with him tattooing a circle above his opponent’s heart. “A lasting circle,” Thompson calls it. He claims the act was “intimate,” and goes on to describe the spiritual philosophy that underpins all of his actions. He treats his kills like notches on his bed post. His victims are intimate to him, as lovers might be to you and me.
There is a seductive quality to Thompson’s voice akin to a guru’s sermon. Our reluctant host, by contrast, opts for sparse questions directed towards his subjects. Without the clutter of narration, Thompson’s voice unfurls in long, uninterrupted stretches. I found myself listening with a rapt, almost involuntary attention, as if every word were part of a larger incantation.
What does killing a man teach you? Over the span of the series, Van der Kolk does the unthinkable: he doesn’t give an answer. Instead, he allows the listener to make their own determinations.
Van der Kolk’s approach to his complicated subject, while novel and creative, wasn’t an easy sell. “I pitched it around like crazy, got a lot of interest. Ultimately, I think people felt like the subject matter was too controversial,” Van der Kolk admits. “I think at least the people who control the purse strings were very nervous about a morally complicated person who was tied with the Aryan Brotherhood.”
And Thompson is certainly complicated. As a prosecutor notes in the first episode, ‘Calipatria,’ this man is handsome. She accuses the women in his parole hearing of being beguiled by his looks. He’s also deeply charming — an effect that clearly works on all genders. Van der Kolk insists that he’s not part of the story. But a fourteen year investigation into one person? That certainly tells us something about Thompson’s charisma.
Van der Kolk has seldom flinched from a subject. He’s made episodes on all manner of intimate and fringe topics: a man running an illegal strip club; a professional cyclist who turns to petty crime out of boredom. But I can’t help pointing out spending a decade interviewing a former neo-Nazi is above his typical scope. It certainly isn’t a topic most media outlets would allocate resources to. Van der Kolk shrugs, but his response is anything but apathetic. “I’m just much more interested in stuff that makes me confused. I want to know more.”
How much more? Thousands of documents. Hundreds of hours of recordings. The real challenge for Blood Memory wasn’t just finding its place in the market. It was condensing several books worth of research into a clear portrait of an enigmatic killer.
But Blood Memory is more than a character study. It invites us to broaden our understanding of other human experiences, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s also a mystery without a straight answer, one that I look forward to hearing debated in the coming months. Like the recent CBC series Uncover: Allison After NXIVM, there is something decadent about letting “bad” people speak, especially while victims encounter erasure. It doesn’t excuse Thompson’s actions to acknowledge that many people who harm others were once harmed themselves.
But what do we do with that information? Van der Kolk’s answer is clear. We avoid reactivity. We embrace complexity. We return to longform media.
Blood Memory is an admirable, stubborn project rooted in empathy and skepticism. In turn, it is our challenge as listeners to make space for both.
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Alice Florence Orr is the Managing Editor of Podcast Review and Daylight.
Love + Radio is part of Daylight’s network of podcasts.