Kevin Hart is back with a new look, a new name, and a new season of Gold Minds! After giving flowers to the world’s greatest comedians in Season 1 and 2, Kevin’s going even bigger for Season 3 and sitting down with the best minds in entertainment, art, business, and culture. Join Kevin each week as he and his guests share stories and discuss what it takes to navigate their careers to become the gold standard of their industries.
this week’s episode of Kevin Hart’s Gold Minds, which features the comedian sitting down with music producer and songwriter Benny Blanco, who has worked with chart-topping musicians and artists including Ed Sheeran, Rihanna, Kesha, Justin Bieber, and more. During their conversation, the two discuss Benny’s career as a music producer (and sometimes “therapist”), his fear of flying, his love for cooking, and dealing with anxiety.
Benny talks about playing the role of “therapist” to the artists he works with, especially during writing sessions & he shares a story about writing “Love Yourself” with Ed Sheeran
“I feel like at all times I’m a therapist. That’s basically what I do for a living. An artist comes in and insert huge multi-platinum artist that in your head, you’re like they gotta be the most confident person in the world, but they come in and they’re as nervous and as shy as you’ve ever seen…. You have to find a way to make this person be comfortable enough to express this [feeling] and show the rest of the world, and feel vulnerable in that very moment. A lot of people work with people they don’t know, I don’t know how to do that. I only work with people that are my friends. One time I was writing the song ‘Love Yourself’ with Ed Sheeran, for Justin Bieber … we’re exhausted and we’re on a bus together and we’re just like, alright let’s write a song in the back of the bus, and he started writing a song that wasn’t from his heart. And I was like, what’s going on here? He was like, I don’t want to write a song about that, I don’t want to give this girl any more credit than she deserves. So I was like, why don’t we write a song about not wanting to write a song? …There are these moments where if you can just get to what the person is actually feeling and access that, that’s gonna be what people want to hear the most.”
Benny talks about how he never flies due to his fear of flying after a bad flight & how he only takes boats from the States to Europe which takes a full week
“I had a bad flight maybe 10 years ago — it was more like 12,13 — it was right when I had just become so successful. So I could be like, oh I’ll take a bus there. And then I did it a few times and I got in my head, and I’ve really only flown a handful of times since then. Maybe 15 times in the last 10+ years, I’ve only flown like maybe 10, 15 times. But I’ve been everywhere in the world somehow. I’m like John Madden or like how Khalid used to be…
…Bro, first you drive to New York. Then once you get to New York, it’s seven and a half short days. I’m literally on the Titanic, I take the Titanic, it’s the same boat… I’ve been on this boat so many times, it is the worst. You can’t take a private boat. It has to be so big because they want you to be safe so you can’t take a private boat across the water.”
Benny shares that he abstains from any work at all on weekends and his decision behind it.
“Some of my friends feel guilty when they’re not doing stuff, and it’s like, it’s ok. Everything is very important to me, for me it’s all about balance. I’m working really hard today, but then I got a bunch of my friends’ kids coming over and we’re gonna have a pool party tonight…. I never work on weekends. Ever. Don’t work on weekends. It’s just not happening. And the stuff is hard. I remember when I first started doing that weekends thing, I remember there was one time where they were like Rihanna wants to work on the weekend. And it’s when I was first starting to do it. You have to learn to manage these situations. The one thing that I always know to be true after having many different businesses, many different things, dealing with so many people — there’s always time, whenever someone says this is the last possible second you can do it, there’s always more time! There always is! And if there isn’t, f—- it!”
“Gold Minds” broadcasts live on SiriusXM’s Laugh Out Loud Radio on Wednesdays at 7pm ET, and is distributed wide to all podcast platforms at 4am ET on Thursdays.