INTERVIEW: Investigating the American South in ‘Deep South Paranormal’

By day, Jonathan Hodges works an HR job. On the weekends, he takes to the roads of the American South searching for spirits and paranormal activity. He’s living a normal life, or at least a (para)normal life.

Nowadays, Hodges can also put reality TV star on his résumé. His team of investigators is the subject of the new Syfy series Deep South Paranormal, which airs new episodes on Wednesdays at 10 p.m.

“It is exciting,” Hodges said recently during a phone interview. “It’s a little bizarre every time it comes on. I don’t think any of us has really got used to seeing ourselves on TV.”

Hodges said he became interested in the spirt realm when growing up in a “haunted” house. “I mean we had stuff moving, hearing footsteps, hearing voices my entire life,” he said. “This all started when I really little, you know. And, of course, as a little kid, it would scare you. But then you had your parents. You know, you’d go in there and say, ‘Hey, I saw somebody in our kitchen.’ And your parents are like, ‘Oh, it’s just your imagination. Go on back to bed.’ And you kind of get older, and you hear that all your life, you think, well, maybe it is my imagination.”

The voices in the dark continued to fascinate Hodges, so he started amateur paranormal investigating. “And you notice there’s other people that’s having the same things. And you read books and see shows and stuff. … As a young adult, I was like, look, I can sit here and watch shows all day long, or I can read books or magazines all day long. But there’s only one real way I’m going to know if this stuff is real. And what did I experience when I was a kid? Was that real?”

Hodges started heading out to graveyards with a simple voice recorder. Those initial trips have now blossomed into a full-on passion. He said “helping people and trying to find answers” is what he finds so exciting. “It’s an adrenaline rush sometimes,” Hodges added. “When you get scared, you know, people say, it’s almost like going down a giant roller-coaster. I mean your heart’s pounding when it really gets intense and stuff. It’s almost like a paranormal drug. You just get hooked on it.”

For a paranormal investigating team to work, there needs to be trust among its members. Hodges said this dependability is what the group is built on.

“I’m not going to be in a group or found a group and let members in that you can’t trust,” he said. “If you’re feeling something or you hear something or you see something, we have to be able to trust that you really saw that or really heard that. We can’t have over-imaginations. … If you’re scared, there’s nothing wrong with saying you’re scared.”

The newly minted reality star has a few highlights from the current season. In Jacksonville, Fla., Hodges and the team were helping a family looking for some serious answers. “And one of the main rooms that had the most paranormal activity in it was the son’s bedroom. … So I go in there by myself, kind of do it old school, in a sense of I don’t have a lot of gadgets or nothing. It’s basically just my voice recorder and me. And I go in there, and apparently a lot of the things that he’s experienced was while he was trying to sleep. He would wake up and hear things, or things touching him. So I kicked off my shoes, and I lay on his bed and started inviting this thing to come in and talk to me.”

Hodges said that after he mentioned the child’s name, he felt “something” on his chest, almost to the point where he couldn’t move.

“A lot of times it’s embarrassing because you take yourself as a paranormal professional, but we’re human, and we get scared just like anybody else,” he said. “I kind of freaked out a little bit. I was trying to scramble, because I was in the dark, to find my walkie-talkie to call, you know, some backup in there to help me and help me get out of bed and stuff. And I think I was calling it a telephone. ‘I can’t find the phone. I can’t find the phone.’ I was just totally freaked out.”

Another highlight of the TV season is when the group heads to Selma, Ala., to visit the St. James Hotel. “So to me that was a thrill because I’ve been hearing about and looking at this place our entire life, and finally to get the chance to go do it, it was definitely a treat.”

Hodges said he’s open to more seasons of the Syfy show, adding that he doesn’t investigate for the fame or fortune. With Deep South Paranormal, he’s looking to spread the word about what the South really has to offer. “There’s a lot of stereotypes in the South, and even though some of the episodes, I’m sure some of the people laugh and was like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought the South was like.’ You know, we also want to show that we’re serious in what we do down here and kind of showcase the South a little bit.”

On the horizon, Hodges would love to investigate Graceland, the Holy Grail of sorts for paranormal investigating.

“To us, that would all be, oh my gosh,” he said. “I don’t know even know [how] I would act, probably like a school kid, if there was some way we could get into Graceland. … It’s supposed to have a lot of paranormal activity there.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Deep South Paranormal airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m.