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Jay Shetty Podcast

Benny Blanco's Journey From Recording Music in His Bedroom to A-List Music Collaborations

Today, Jay sits down with Benny Blanco. Benny has made an indelible mark on the music industry, contributing to millions of album sales worldwide. He's worked with stellar artists like Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, and Katy Perry.

Benny BlancoguestJay Shettyhost

Apr 15, 20241h 20mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

Hard-edged mentorship: the hard drive out the window
Benny Blanco opens with a story about a mentor who physically rejected his work by throwing his hard drive out a window and telling him to start again. It sets up the episode’s recurring themes of resilience, standards, and learning through discomfort.
- •Benny describes bringing a hard drive of his music to a mentor and having it destroyed as a message that it wasn’t good enough
- •The moment is framed as an extreme form of mentorship that pushed him to rebuild from scratch
- •The story tees up a broader discussion about rejection, drive, and creative growth
Early creativity with boom boxes and “making a mess”
Jay asks about Benny’s earliest creative memory, and Benny describes inventing a DIY multi-track recording setup with two boom boxes as a child. He explains his creative process as experimenting broadly first and cleaning up later.
- •Benny recalls layering sounds by recording back-and-forth between two boom boxes as a kid
- •He says he had no formal training and relies on persistence and experimentation
- •Benny describes his process as “making a mess,” then refining what works
- •Jay highlights how unusual confidence is required to create without fearing imperfection
Amnesia to failure: fearlessness, momentum, and evolving goals
Benny explains he doesn’t care about failure and views trying repeatedly as the only real option. He describes how his ambitions shifted from being a rapper to producing and songwriting, and how success can arrive in a different form than the original dream.
- •Benny says he never feared failure and often “forgets” it quickly
- •He credits his mom’s willingness to let him pursue a dream she never got to chase
- •He argues persistence matters even if the initial goal changes over time
- •Jay connects by sharing his own early dream of being a rapper and reframing skills into new paths
Grief, doubt after success, and learning to savor achievements
Benny shares the one time he considered quitting: after his mentor died by suicide when Benny was young. He also describes a different kind of insecurity—assuming big wins are the last—and how he’s learned to pause and acknowledge achievements.
- •Benny recounts losing a mentor and best friend and briefly deciding to quit music
- •He describes turning grief into motivation to carry forward what his mentor started
- •He admits even major wins can trigger thoughts like “that’s the last one”
- •He’s worked in recent years to take in achievements instead of immediately rushing to the next thing
Chasing mentors: MySpace hustle, New York trips, and brutal training
Benny details how he pursued mentors as a teenager, including messaging a producer on MySpace and paying for studio time just to meet him. He explains working weekends, being tested constantly, and how the harshness shaped both what he learned and how he now mentors others.
- •Benny describes using MySpace to connect with a producer he admired
- •He drove to New York and found a way to book studio time to earn the chance to work
- •He recounts the mentor’s extreme toughness, including destroying Benny’s hard drive
- •Benny says the experience taught him skills and also showed him what not to do as a mentor
Paying it forward: mentoring a teen who became a top producer
Benny tells a story about meeting a 15-year-old who reminded him of himself and bringing him into real sessions with major artists. Over time, Benny discovers the teen’s own music, hears potential despite early songs being “terrible,” and decides to sign and develop him.
- •Benny meets a 15-year-old introduced through a friend and brings him to work in his world
- •The teen is thrown into high-pressure studio sessions and learns by observing
- •Benny says the teen’s early music wasn’t good but he noticed personality and “it factor”
- •Benny signs him and later describes him becoming a major producer with significant awards and hits
Rejection, drive, and loving the climb more than the destination
Jay asks how Benny keeps showing up after intense rejection, and Benny contrasts old-school harshness with his own non-yelling style. He shares that he’s still driven like he has nothing, and that he enjoys starting at the bottom in new creative arenas.
- •Benny says he’d never mentor through yelling or humiliation, even if it worked on him
- •He attributes his persistence to sheer will and refusing to quit when challenged
- •He says he still works extremely hard and wonders why he maintains that pace
- •He enjoys the beginner’s climb in new projects like a cookbook or TV, not just mastery in music
Love, balance, and rituals that keep him grounded
The conversation shifts to relationships and how love can be felt through art. Benny explains that creative output suffers without love or grounding, and he describes routines—like weekly time with his mom and farmers market trips—that keep him balanced.
- •Benny contrasts achievement-chasing with the unique way relationships can keep getting better
- •He says love and life balance can be felt in music and art
- •He describes cooking as therapeutic and part of maintaining equilibrium
- •He shares personal rituals like seeing his mom every Sunday and grocery shopping routines
Morning routines, meditation curiosity, and learning to accept imperfection
Benny questions Jay’s early schedule and long meditations, leading Jay to explain how practice builds over time and how monastic training deepened his focus. They also discuss Benny falling asleep during meditation and Jay reframing it as the body’s need for rest.
- •Jay outlines his wake-up time, long meditation, and exercise routine before work
- •Jay explains he built up meditation duration over years and during time as a monk
- •Benny shares he often falls asleep when meditating and asks how to stay focused
- •Jay says falling asleep can signal body-mind syncing and genuine fatigue
Therapy, anxiety, and finding relief through CBT, meditation, and working out
Benny describes being overwhelmed when success accelerated and discovering he’d been living with anxiety symptoms he didn’t understand. He recounts a breaking point that led to long-term therapy and a meditation practice, and later shifting toward working out as a form of meditation.
- •Benny says early success brought responsibilities and pressure he wasn’t prepared for
- •He describes not understanding anxiety and reaching a breaking point that pushed him to seek help
- •He shares doing CBT frequently at first and continuing with the same therapist for many years
- •He describes starting simple meditation practices and later using working out to quiet anxiety
Perfectionism pressures and choosing flow over performance
Benny asks whether Jay feels pressure to be perfect as a mindfulness figure, and Jay describes letting go of that self-imposed expectation. Benny shares his own approach: not stressing timelines, treating obstacles as part of the day’s path, and prioritizing comfort and connection in creative settings.
- •Benny raises the pressure of having a “perfect” reputation at the top of a field
- •Jay says the pressure was largely self-created and transparency reduces it
- •Jay explains perfectionism can block genuine insight and create manufactured interactions
- •Benny says he prefers flow, connection, and process over rigid productivity in sessions
Food, health changes, and hosting as a creative medium
Jay and Benny talk about cooking, Benny’s cookbook, and how food builds community. Benny also shares his health journey—losing weight, chasing the post-workout calm, and using challenges with friends to stay motivated.
- •Benny discusses cooking as creativity and therapy, and Jay shares he doesn’t cook while his wife does
- •Benny describes losing weight and becoming committed to working out for mental clarity
- •He explains how challenges and social accountability keep him consistent
- •Benny frames hosting as creating an experience and wanting guests to feel cared for
Friendships across years and generations—and truly knowing your parents
They explore how Benny maintains long-term friendships across different lifestyles and places, including eclectic, multigenerational circles. Benny also explains why he asks his mom deep questions about her past, arguing we often don’t truly know our parents as people.
- •Benny describes long friendships, including friends with non-entertainment jobs and limited travel
- •He enjoys mixing unlikely people in the same room to see what happens
- •Jay praises multi-generational friendships for perspective and learning
- •Benny says most people don’t know key emotional chapters of their parents’ lives and encourages asking deeper questions
Family divorce perspective and capturing family voices in his music
Benny shares that he records family members speaking for spoken-word sections on his albums, capturing perspectives over time. He reflects on learning from both parents’ versions of divorce and how, after years, they became friends again.
- •Jay describes interviewing his mom informally and discovering stories he never knew
- •Benny says he records family interviews and uses excerpts as spoken word in album closers
- •He reflects that divorce ultimately made his parents better people and that they later became friends
- •He says his and his brother’s success helped bring the family together over time
Final Five: failure, fitting in, redefining success, listening, and a kinder world
In the rapid-fire Final Five, Benny shares core beliefs: don’t fear failure, don’t fit in, and value listening in relationships. He also expresses a wish for people to coexist peacefully, then pivots into a playful conversation about vices, weed, and Jay’s supplement-heavy health routine.
- •Benny’s best advice: don’t be afraid to fail; he says people don’t remember misses if you keep going
- •Worst advice: being told to “fit in more,” which pushed him toward making weirder, distinct music
- •He says he values success less than before and now pursues projects more for himself
- •He says his parents didn’t listen to each other, and he learned the importance of listening and admitting being wrong
- •Benny says he loves smoking weed; Jay discusses avoiding substances now and explains why he takes many supplements based on testing

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