The Eternal Sunshine of Kim Taylor Bennett
The Spotify podcast host on motherhood, U.K. vs U.S. media, and her journey in music journalism.
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VANCOUVER – Kim Taylor Bennett is seated on the floor when she answers FaceTime. It’s a morning in June, and though technically lunchtime in New York, she has agreed to take a call from me, just after breakfast in Vancouver. Within the frame of her laptop camera, I can see Kim resting against a large couch that looks like an ideal spot to nap or listen to Chunes. Over her shoulder, I can see a window in their kitchen and that the sky outside is a washed-out sort of white blue. Near the end of our interview her boyfriend, The Chemist, will enter the scene and heat up his lunch in the microwave.
I’ve been a fan of Kim for longer than I can actually remember. I know she came onto my radar during her time with Vice, where she served as an editor for the magazine’s music vertical, Noisey. Beyond that, the timeline is a bit fuzzy. Lately, I’ve been following her life on Instagram, where she posts about raising a baby with The Chemist, interviewing some of music’s biggest stars (Diplo, Charli XCX, and personal pals The Strokes, and Maggie Rogers, to name a few), as well as life behind the mic as host of Spotify For Artists’ Best Advice Podcast.
Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, will span more than an hour and will touch on the ever-shifting priorities of journalism, embracing change and pivoting to video, about the shit jobs that we worked as teenagers, and why it’s good to get emotional during interviews. There will also be several amazing anecdotes from Kim’s journeys through the industry, including the time she might Charlie Kaufman, her side hustle working for Daft Punk, and what good advice Dan Ozzi has given her over the years.
We begin the interview and it’s immediately obvious that Kim is incapable of being anything but upfront and candid. Later she will send me some stray thoughts she had after we spoke and I’ll laugh to myself cause she told me she would do that, and, TBH that is so KTB.
KTB: I don’t get asked to be interviewed very often so I’m like… why?
ES: Well because I’ve been such a big fan of you for such a long time and I think you’re doing exciting work.
KTB: Laughs. Did you know my stuff from Vice or…?
ES: I probably came across you at Vice. But over time it became me seeing your Instagram stories and having a parasocial relationship with you, which has been very one-sided so I’m happy we can finally flesh out the details here.
KTB: Absolutely. It’s just sort of what happens these days. You feel invested in people’s lives and you’ve never met them.
The internet is so weird. There’s one guy that I’ve been talking to since maybe 2007. It started on Twitter and then it migrated to Instagram. He’s also a parent. I know this person but we’ve never met in person ever. He lives in Chicago or something.
ES: For my part, I think I’m trying to foster that feeling I had in the early 2000s internet when you could make lasting friendships with like-minded people.
KTB: Your interview with Yasi [Salek] was very funny.
ES: She makes interviewing so easy, I could talk to her for hours. I think she’s brilliant.
KTB: I know. She’s like “What do I know?” But Bandsplain is legitimately amazing. It’s been really fun to follow its trajectory and see it balloon into five-hour episodes. I can’t even fathom making a podcast that long.
ES: She’s like the Ken Burns of 90s alternative music. I didn’t know I needed, like, eight hours on the Red Hot Chili Peppers but let’s buckle up.
KTB: She’s intimidated by nobody’s back catalog.
ES: She would probably hate me for saying this, but she comes across as very genuine. She’s just herself and it’s refreshing. We probably talk too much in the media about authenticity but then you see someone like Yasi, who just likes what she likes, and it makes her inherently cool and a delight to be around.
How did you two meet each other?
KTB: She used to do some stuff for Vice back in the day and we have some shared old-school music journo connections. Then she was working for Spotify’s video team, and I was really interested in what was happening there. At Spotify, you can pretty much schedule a meeting with anyone so I popped one in the calendar and we started chatting. Then Bandsplain happened. I’m such a big fan of her work and we check in every few months.
ES: You mentioned that you don’t do a lot of interviews. I was watching TikTok and saw a video of Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg being interviewed by Louis Theroux. She told him that she feels uncomfortable being on the other side of the equation. How do you feel about being interviewed?
KTB: I definitely don’t feel 100% comfortable being interviewed because I sort of don’t think of myself as a tremendously articulate person. The idea of seeing my quotes in print, which I haven’t sat down and laboured over is scary. Laughs.
When I interview someone I am fully open and I don’t mind getting super vulnerable with that person and telling them personal details. But I hold the edit control. I don’t mind putting myself in print or the podcast if it feels relevant but for me, it’s always about my interview subject. I started writing because I was interested in what other creative people were up to. Creative, amazing people who are making art. I wanted to know what makes them tick, and who broke their heart. I’m just a nosey bitch, basically. When one of my bosses said they wanted me to be on camera, I was completely mortified.
ES: How did they convince you to give it a try?
KTB: Well, there wasn’t any choice. He said, “You’re going to do this.” So I did. I cried afterward.
ES: Oh no!
KTB: He was like “This isn’t very good,” and I was like “Of course it’s not very good!” Laughs. It was definitely a turning point for me. Like, the reason why you didn’t want to do it and that you cried is because you sucked at it. And of course you sucked. You had no experience.
Growing up I wasn’t someone who wanted the spotlight. When I was 7 I used to go to this rec centre in San Fransisco. We did a whole choreographed dance to True Blue by Madonna. I was wearing my mom’s lingerie. Pearls and gloves and stuff. I was supposed to be Madonna with my backing singers. The day before the show I said “Absolutely not. I’m going to be one of the backing dancers, someone else has to go up front.”
But to finish the thought, after I went on camera for the first time my goal was to practice and be better. I think if you’re scared of something you should do it.
ES: Has it gotten more comfortable over time?
KTB: It definitely does. I really love the immediacy of doing something on camera… It feels natural now which is great. But still, it’s not one of those things that I felt would be good to pursue solely. To only be on camera, to only want to do that, is so dependent on things beyond your skill set, dependent on whether someone likes you as a human. I just didn’t want to go through that. It’s one thing I can do and it’s fun, but I can continue to do other things.
ES: One of the few things I was able to find in prepping for this conversation was your LinkedIn. You have such a diverse array of employment experiences. Does that adaptability come naturally to you, or are you simply following where the market leads you, even if it’s to another pivot to video?
KTB: Laughs. “Hang on guys we’re pivoting to video!”
ES: “Have we considered video recently? I feel like video is an untapped market for us.”
KTB: It happens once every four years.
For a long time, all I wanted to do was edit a music magazine, to be in the print world. And that started to dissolve. I randomly found myself working on this once beloved TV show called CD:UK in London as a website editor. I would go in on Saturdays and interview everyone backstage and it was super fun.
That show ended, so I got a multimedia reporter job at a small U.K. newspaper. It was 2006 and sort of the wild wild west. I had no experience, no credentials. They handed me a camera and some editing software and said “Learn.” I had some director friends who taught me Final Cut Pro. I was shooting on a [Sony] PD170. I thought “I don’t know what I’m doing.” But that’s also around the time that I started ending up on camera and doing red carpets and stuff.
I would do whatever anyone wanted me to do, but I felt like it was all complimentary… The industry is so screwy, I’m always looking for opportunities that sound fun or challenging. I’m just a worker. At 14 I had three jobs.
ES: I started working at 14 too, but only because I worked in Alberta where they have a different view on child labour. Laughs.
KTB: What were you doing?
ES: I’ve had something like 35 jobs in my life. But the first one was holding a sign for Little Casaers on the side of the road in St. Albert, AB.
KTB: We’re twin spirits. One of my jobs was wearing a sandwich board for the local monthly record fair. I handed out flyers for 4 pounds an hour.
ES: That’s amazing. This was probably in 2005. I stood on the side of the highway with my little Discman and fucking worked that sign. I maybe did that for 3 months. It was not great.
KTB: Props to you.
ES: No props to you. Doing it in London probably would have been worse.
KTB: It was in Oxford, actually, which is where my mom still lives and where I went to high school. I used that job to scope out cute boys but I looked like a total dork. Nobody would talk to me. Laughs.
ES: One hundred percent. I’d see a cute girl in a car and then remember I was holding a sign that said $5 HOT-N-READY.
KTB: It was a chastity belt if I ever saw one.
ES: What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
KTB: I worked in a department store where they had all these brand concessions. It was this German brand and everything was made of polyester. It was disgusting, I don’t know who their customer was. Frumpy older ladies? They made us wear the uniform, and they would pipe in piano covers of popular songs over the speakers. It was just for one summer in Oxford but I was in hell.
ES: Good for you for sticking it out. I’m a notorious quitter. I will quit anything.
KTB: I like that, that takes balls.
ES: People were like “How is he going to survive in the real world?” and then I realized I should just be a journalist. Laughs. Like, oh my job can just be talking to people and doing stuff I would do for free anyway? Beautiful.
KTB: My motto has always been “How can I have fun and get paid?”
ES: Has there been anyone you’ve been nervous to interview recently? Or do the nerves go away at some point?
KTB: I’m always nervous before every interview. The people-pleaser in me just wants to do a good job. If I leave an interview and don’t feel like I’ve nailed it I will run that shit through my head for days afterward and it pisses me off. Most recently, I was super nervous about this project I’ve been working on outside of Spotify with Daft Punk. It’s for the 10-year anniversary of Random Access Memories. I’m interviewing all of the collaborators who worked on the record. I was in Paris and I was supposed to interview Pharrell but then he got sick so he had to postpone it. We rescheduled the shoot and it was at 8:30 in the morning which is a rough time for anybody. And he’s a very important interview for the project, I needed to get good shit. I’ve interviewed him a couple of times before and he’s super lovely but I was worried that he was sick and also busy being the new creative director of Louis Vuitton but he did the interview and was wonderful.
ES: You mentioned that you don’t mind getting vulnerable in interviews. I wonder if an example comes to mind and what happened when you let your guard down.
KTB: I had a chance to interview [director] Michel Gondry. You’ve seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
ES: It’s one of my favourite movies.
KTB: I went to the press screening for that and I had just been dumped by this asshole who I dated for way too long. I was 24 and devastated. I cried through the whole movie. I had interviewed Michel before, so after the screening we just got straight into it. We’re talking about breakups and heartbreak or whatever and he started telling me about his next film, The Science of Sleep. He explained that part of the inspiration for that movie was this song that this woman wrote about her cat. He was imagining the song as if it was written about a person she loved. It really inspired him. He put these headphones on me during the interview and said “Listen to it as if it’s not about a cat.”
ES: Oh my god.
KTB: I cried. And he was like “Oh you’re so touched by this, you have to meet [Eternal Sunshine screenwriter] Charlie Kaufman. I said, “He doesn’t have any time in his press junket to meet me.” We go our separate ways. Four hours later I get a call from an unknown number. It’s Michele. He says “Come back to the hotel at 6:30 you have to meet Charlie Kaufman.” I say “OK.” I grab a couple of my girlfriends and we toodle off to the hotel. We meet Charlie Kaufman who is obviously deeply awkward. I’m also deeply awkward. We meet for five minutes and then he goes off. And me and my girlfriends and Michele had this really fun evening drinking and playing board games and talking about devastating relationships.
I’m sorry, this is a massive tangent.
ES: Do not apologize! This is what the newsletter is actually about. Like, I wanna hear about your work, but I really want to hear about one of my favourite directors putting headphones on you mid-interview. That’s so sick.
KTB: That was a wild moment. And it felt super unprofessional but I thought “You know what, the people I interview make incredible art. They put their heart and soul into it. It’s grounded in emotion.” And I’m really emotional. Even more emotional now that I’ve had a baby, which is alarming. So, yes, sometimes I have been known to cry.
I will say, though, that more people cry being interviewed by me than by me interviewing them.
ES: The ratio is still in your favour. I haven’t cried in an interview but I have this thing where, if I get really excited, I can get a little emotionally overwhelmed. If someone says something that blows my mind, or if I’m too excited to interview someone, the emotional regulation gets a little off and I need a glass of cold water or something.
KTB: That’s wonderful, it shows that you’re invested.
ES: I also think the expectations around journalism, the idea that you’re a blank canvas for people to cast their thoughts and emotions onto, is no longer expected by the audience. I think people want to see genuine connections between an interviewer and their subject. I go back to Chicken Shop Amelia… She’s one of the best interviewers we have because, I think, her approach, her style, is meant to elicit an emotional reaction.
KTB: I love her. I have a Chicken Shop Date hoodie. She’s incredibly deft and so funny. I’m so thrilled to see how she’s smashing it, how well she’s doing, and how her audience has grown. It’s a joy to watch. Especially to see that someone like that – with that very particular British sense of humour – is translating.
ES: It’s also such a testament to doing what you love because she’s been at it for like a decade. It’s a happy story for journalists who are doing stuff off the side of their desks. Not that I would know anything about that.
KTB: I know, truly. Me.
ES: It’s interesting listening to the most recent season of Best Advice and hearing how the energy has shifted from when you were stuck interviewing people over Zoom to now being able to interview them in person.
KTB: Definitely. I always prefer in-person interviews. You can read people’s body language better, they feel more present and engaged. As these video calls become part of the day-to-day workflow, an in-person meeting immediately elevates the moment. You have to commit.
ES: Has there been anything similar to your interview with Michel where something happened that could only have occurred because you were talking to someone IRL?
KTB: Going back to the Daft Punk thing, I did an interview with Julian Casablancas for that. He hates being interviewed. I’ve known him for 20-plus years, so I can be sort of playful and annoying and he takes it and we get good results. But if that had been on the phone, even with all our history, I wouldn’t have got the same reaction.
ES: Why do the guys from The Strokes hate being interviewed so much?
KTB: Laughs. You know, I think there were so many interviews early on and so much press attention, I think it was pretty overwhelming for them. It was just an onslaught. I don’t think all of the guys hate being interviewed but Julian is a crazy overthinker. I think, similar to me, the permanence of print or a quote is too much for him. He says something and then he’s rewinding it back in his head. He just overthinks it way too much.
ES: I’ll have you know, most people who do this newsletter are very happy with my edits.
Circling back on Amelia – you have one foot in American culture and one foot in U.K. culture, which country’s media do you prefer?
KTB: Oh my god. You know, it’s funny. British tabloids are horrendous. Scum of the earth. Terrible writing, terrible opinions, zero morals. Awful. But I do like the way that British media outside of the tabloids has a certain playfulness. When you get a profile in The Guardian, they want to have fun with it while also being serious, whereas The New York Times is so self-serious. Even down to the tradition of referring to people as “Miss.” I appreciate their reporting and some of their profiles are great, but I love the looseness of British magazines and journalism. I really like NY Mag too, for similar reasons.
ES: I’m a NY Mag girlie too.
KTB: It feels like people in the U.K. are more willing to go out of the parameters of what you might expect. The other thing is that British style and fashion magazines are so much better than American ones! I grew up on The Face, Dazed, and iD, devouring all their subculture and fashion and music coverage. But even mainstream fashion magazines like Vogue and Elle are much better over there. Fashion is more experimental and playful than over here. I stock up every time I’m out there.
ES: How did you meet The Chemist? [Editor’s note: Kim says The Chemist is a nickname that started because he wasn’t a musician and that he is fine with it. He also, apparently, responds to Chemmy or Chem which is delightful]
KTB: I met The Chemist in 2018. I was heartbroken and devastated and having my summer of sadness, as I called it. I was running around New York saying yes to all the things, going to all the things, drinking all the things, taking all the things. And my friend [pop-star producer DJ] Little Boots was playing at Elsewhere [in Brooklyn]. Her roommate at the time was this British girl, who invited The Chemist. I was smashed. I had been dating mostly artists because I’m a cliché, and I was like “No more! I’m done. Learn a lesson would you, please?” We got to chatting and I was like “You’re a chemist? We should hang out.”
We hung out in a group setting and then we went on a hilariously awkward, semi-disastrous date a month later. I decided I would go on another date with him, to tell him I couldn’t go on more dates with him because I was too fucked up. I wanted to do “It’s not you, it’s me,” but be able to actually look him in the eye and tell him “Look, you’re a cool person. I just don’t know what I’m doing.” And he was like “That’s OK. Let’s be friends.”
A few weeks after that he had tickets to the U.S. Open. He knows I really like tennis so he invited me as a friend. But it was this match with Rafael Nadal that went on until 3 A.M. I was a little drunk by that point. I thought “Maybe if he kissed me, I’d be open to that” because before it was like “Nobody come near me!” We made out and that was it. He was a booty call that accelerated into a baby daddy.
ES: I actually remember that tennis match – wasn’t that famous for how long it went?
KTB: It was so great. Serena Williams had played earlier that evening. We had great seats and it was balmy. September. That sort of weather where you’re still wearing a t-shirt at 3 A.M. and it’s fabulous. It was a really fun night.
ES: You found love courtside with a guy who can clearly isn’t afraid of commitment if he’s willing to get his doctorate.
KTB: I didn’t even think about that.
ES: I wanted to ask you about motherhood. You seem to love being a mom. Can you confirm this?
KTB: Confirmed, I do co-sign motherhood.
ES: Has it changed the way that you approach work? You mentioned it has made you more emotional, can you expand on that?
KTB: I love Harrison Ford, and we were watching that show Shrinking recently. It’s a comedy, but it’s based on a character who has lost his wife. I cried multiple times in certain episodes. Like, “God! Get a grip. What is wrong with you?” But it’s true. You have a baby and you’re just this open heart walking around in the world. It’s really disconcerting.
Even before I had a baby, if the person was a parent I would ask them about it. It’s a seismic thing. And that goes for men and women. It wasn’t the subject of my interview with Fetty Wap but I could’ve been like “Damn bro, you have five-hundred kids.” He doesn’t, I’m joking he has like seven, but it’s a lot.
But you are made more aware of how precious your time is.
ES: Does that awareness of time make you more selective in what you focus on? Or does it go beyond that, into a real shift of priorities, where you’re not giving everything you can to journalism and to work?
KTB: Oh definitely. Your time is more precious, you have less time. I’m turning down other side hustles that I know will eat up a lot of time because I know I simply don’t have it.
As I get older, I get less ambitious and I’m okay with that.
ES: Great to hear, I’m hoping that happens any day now.
KTB: My work is so centralized but there is a big space for this tiny human. I come from a very fractured, broken family and I wanted to make my own. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to do that. It wasn’t a cakewalk having this kid, in terms of actually getting pregnant and her coming into the world healthy. I’m so lucky. I don’t take that for granted for a single second. And I’m also very grateful that we have great daycare. I have days to work on stuff. And then she comes home and I’m thrilled.
ES: I really admire your friendship with Dan Ozzi. Has he ever given you advice that you like?
KTB: Laughs. No, because I’m always giving him advice.
ES: “No! Absolutely not! That is not what he provides to this friendship whatsoever!”
KTB: Dan is so funny, he’s very [makes a face that implies gruffness] and I’m more [makes a face that implies zaniness]. Dan is great though. He’s always down to talk about emotions.
ES: I find that shocking.
KTB: Oh yeah, Mr. Emo: Dan Ozzi.
I did hear some good advice recently which was “No experience wasted.” I really believe that. Every shit experience is not a waste. There’s something in there that you’re going to carry with you that will inform your life, or make you a better person. Or make you a worse person on the way to being a better person.
Kim Taylor Bennett is a Production and Editorial Lead with Spotify for Artists and Host of the Best Advice podcast. She lives in New York (and probably Brooklyn but I forgot to ask her).