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Sixteen years ago, Claudia Meza was the lead singer of the punk band Explode Into Colors, which earned the esteemed title of “Best New Band” in WW’s pages.
Now, for the past three years, she’s been the host of City Cast (portland.citycast.fm), a podcast that focuses on explaining local headlines and interviewing local politicians and movers and shakers. Ask any City Hall politico and they’ve most likely listened to a City Cast episode in the past week.
The podcast began as a feel-good place for Portlanders to depart from the doom and gloom of headlines in WW or The Oregonian or on Oregon Public Broadcasting and consume news in a more accessible, lighthearted manner. But over the past two and a half years, City Cast has carved out a place that’s both fun (producers John Notarianni and Giulia Fiaoni offer smart, incisive takes on local issues) and a place where politicians seek to be interviewed. And, in doing so, Meza has asked some of those politicians, including Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, tough questions but with gentleness and humor.
Meza transitioned from music to radio in 2018, taking a role at OPB, where she co-hosted and helped produce and report for various shows and podcasts.
“At a certain point, I didn’t have anything to say musically anymore,” Meza says. “What brings me joy is being involved in my community.”
She co-hosted the weekly podcast State of Wonder at OPB and won an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2021 for her feature “Battle Hymns: From Founders to Today, Protest Music Is American Music.”
Meza left for City Cast in 2022 after it reached out, asking if she’d like to host the show, which was expanding to Portland.
“I knew it was exactly what Portland needed,” she says. “Everyone felt really factioned off, especially during that political climate we had. People were either for Rene Gonzalez or for Carmen Rubio. It felt really weird, and I was like, ultimately we’re all going to see each other in the bike lane, so, like, stop being a dick.”
Meza brought a levity to the media landscape that was sorely lacking. She asks difficult questions but she also cracks jokes (sometimes uncouth ones) with her co-hosts and contributors. Her cackle often gets even the most cautious of guests to giggle alongside her.
Meza knew the podcast had legs when instead of begging politicians to come on the show, politicians started pitching City Cast on why the show should bring them on. Two recent examples: U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter. (“To Ron Wyden, we were just like, why?” Meza says.)
“It’s because people know we’re going to be fair. We’re not dicks, and we’re also going to make them look like a human being,” she says, adding that she and her team try to recognize the complexity of problems and avoid absolutes.
“It’s never one person’s fault—except for maybe Nazi Germany,” she says. “But it’s usually not one person’s fault. It’s a series of dominoes that fall.”
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2025 here!
