For the past five years, Pete Turner and Jon Leon Guerrero have hosted the podcast “The Break it Down Show,” where they bring on guests from all walks of life— some of them world famous— to talk about art, culture and combat. And just where do these two men hail from? Why Benicia of course.

Turner is a 1987 graduate of Benicia High School who also worked for the Benicia Herald in 1986 where he helped sell advertisements. Turner’s fellow classmate, Kristi Brinkerhoff, married Guerrero and both have lived in Benicia for more than 30 years. Turner and Guerrero hosted a radio show on Ozcat in Vallejo but felt bound by what was available there.

“It was great, but we wanted to get local people, famous people,” Turner said. “It’s hard to get people over to Vallejo at that time of night, so we thought let’s just take this thing and go in a fully new direction and that’s when we decided we would do a podcast.”

Over the course of 275 episodes in the last five years, “The Break it Down Show” has had a wide variety of guests, including athletes, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, Nobel Peace Prize winners and more. Among the famous faces who have appeared on the show are comedian Jay Mohr, Olympic Gold Medal skier Johnny Moseley, the late Mic Gillette of Tower of Power, Dexter Holland of the punk band The Offspring, and Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers of The Police.

“We’d love to get Sting but haven’t had a chance to do that yet,” Turner said.

The podcast has also featured a variety of guests from Benicia and Vallejo who have achieved success, whether the legendary Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone, Jeff Campitelli who has drummed for Joe Satriani and Benicia’s very own VOENA, Solano County concert promoter Jeff Trager, travel writer Teresa Rodriguez, MC Hammer producer James Earley and more. One of Turner and Guerrero’s most recent guests was Raul Vega, a 2005 Benicia High School graduate who wrote and produced the online mystery series “Rose Drive Podcast,” which is set in a town heavily inspired by Benicia.

“It’s neat to have people go abroad and have this all this success in creating things,” Turner said. “We love telling those stories.”

The podcast is usually recorded wherever the guest is. Sometimes the interviews take place at Guerrero’s house, other times the hosts conduct it in places like the guest’s kitchen.

“We love to be mobile and deployable and flexible,” Turner said.

Turner attributes his ability to book guests to skills he learned when he was a spy in the Army.

“I spent a lot of time to come and meet whether or not they would normally want to,” he said. “The first thing is I ask. I just show up and say ‘Hey, do you want to talk about the thing you’re working on?’ and people say ‘Yes.’ I ask for referrals from people. I be persistent, and if you ask enough people you get a whole bunch of yeses.”

In other cases, though, the guests or public relation companies will come to them to request a spot on the show.

“We’ve become a destination,” Turner said.

In addition to its guests, “The Break it Down Show” has been experimenting with other ideas. One of these has been a series called “Album Fight,” in which the hosts and a guest judge pit two popular albums together in a tournament to determine what the greatest record of all time is.

“At some point, your album is great and that’s really all that matters,” Turner said. “How do you measure that? We thought about, ‘How do you measure great albums?’ and we came up with this idea of using the boxing format and going round by round to see what album stood out in that format.”

The debates have turned out to be one of the most popular features on the show.

“It’s been a roaring success ever since,” Turner said.

Guerrero is also planning to incorporate a true crime show titled “Justice,” in which he looks at real cases from his time as a private investigator, and Turner is looking to do a show where he goes to different places in America to understand the viewpoints of Americans in other parts of the country. He also said the show is looking for sponsorships to allow for more content.

“It’s just a matter of which corporation wants to work with us,” he said.

Overall, Turner is grateful for the interactions he has had on the show.

“It’s an incredible way to see things in a new light and experience life the way it’s meant to be with a lot of color and texture and different points of view,” he said.

“The Break it Down Show” can be streamed at breakitdownshow.com.