Spotlight: With Confidence, Satire, and Collaborative Bonding, Benedict Releases “Kill Cupid”
ON THE BRINK OF SOMETHING BIG — Benedict is heading toward something new. On one of the first excessively muggy afternoons of the year, he blasts his newest single, “Kill Cupid,” as he cruises up and down the windy hills of east Nashville. It is the kind of track that hits just right at every twist and turn. Every expectation built — the tug-of-war riffs, the flying drum sprees, the colorful ascending chords — collides into the explosive chorus, followed by the perfectly thrilling breakdown and bridge. And Benedict is there to guide you every step of the way. His vocals don’t hide behind any of the instrumentation — confidence spills all over the track, and he wants to make sure you can feel it.
“It’s a satirical take,” he explains about the careful word play of the track’s title. “Normally you think of Cupid in the context of a matchmaker, but no, it’s more like a, ‘Fuck you, Cupid, you made me fall in love with someone who is not good for me.’”
Describing the track’s sound, Benedict remarks, “It’s very rock-heavy. It could be on the Bring It On soundtrack — have you seen that movie?”
Our hour-long conversation in the coffee shop contains many similar topic detours, mostly because Benedict does a little bit of everything and has been to a bit of everywhere. And he certainly picks up many artistic talents along the way. In fact, it was quite a journey before he eventually ended up picking Nashville as his home base.
“I was living in New York before moving here,” he recalls. “I was doing modeling and I worked so hard for a few years. It all happened so fast. It was like, ‘Okay, I can either really stick with this and probably find success but in about five years be really resentful towards myself because I didn’t do what I know I do best.’”
Nashville has always been a special place for the Kentucky native. If you scroll through his nicely curated Instagram, there are plenty of scenes from the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and past summer memories over the years, all while he was traveling anywhere from Lexington, KY to London, England.
But there was one other reason: “I feel like Taylor Swift is the reason why I am the way I am,” he admits, more so in a matter-of-fact way, but also a bit lovingly. “Growing up, I’ve always had an allure for Nashville because of her. When I was 13 I did the whole round of going to a show at the Bluebird Cafe, recording a demo at The Ryman — I don’t even know if they still do that! But just from seeing the rising alternative pop scene in Nashville while it was still so new, I wanted to be a part of that.”
Fast forward to spring ’22 and Benedict’s face is a familiar one among the Nashville music scene. He’s done most of the things you would see on a music industry checklist: concept EP accompanied by really compelling visuals, a Boy Next Door persona that’s both authentic and mysterious enough to lure people to keep tabs on you across socials. While the radars have been blinking for quite a while, Benedict is finally ready to set the alarms off with collaborations and live shows added to his formula.
Not too long ago, Benedict played “Kill Cupid” for the first time at his first set in Nashville. The venue’s setup is one known to expose the shortcomings of artists’ vocal range and live performance abilities, but frankly, Benedict killed it. Among the crowd were his previous and current collaborators, including Tyler Thompson, girlhouse’s alt-pop producer/bandmate, who also produced “Kill Cupid” and Benedict’s previous single, “wasteland season” with the artist.
“I’m so grateful that I found them,” Benedict says of his collaborative relationship with girlhouse and Thompson. “I do like working with a lot of people, but at the same time you want to be consistent. And that can involve finding a select few people that you can always just go to. The story [of us meeting] is so cute. My friend showed me ‘happy now’ by girlhouse, and I knew nothing about them. I looked up the producer, Tyler Thompson, and his Instagram bio says Nashville, but we had no mutual? Which, it doesn’t really happen…”
We both laugh at this comment, as it truly never happens in a tight-knitted community such as Nashville, and it typically feels more like a big red flag.
“Then I found out that they [had] just moved here,” he continues. “The timing of it was just so perfect. So I just pitched myself to him and [was] like, ‘Yo, I have not been able to find someone who nails grungy guitar like you, I want to work with you so bad.’ And now we’ve built such a beautiful friendship.”
Now that he has found and made this bond with the girlhouse crew for this part of his musical journey, Benedict is trying his best to maintain consistency. But he is quite an assortment of different things. In person, Benedict feels a lot less angsty than his unrequited lyricism from cruise-induced tracks like “Sport to You” and “Hotheaded,” but he is also a lot less drowsily sweet than his ballads, such as “Rockaway.” There’s something very magnetic and fun about him that’s exclusive to the offline version of Benedict — at least up till this point, as “Kill Cupid” certainly lets some of that spice shine through for the first time.
“I’m having a lot of fun right now with writing music in a more savage tone,” Benedict says. “Especially with ‘Kill Cupid’ I can explore this Not-Angel-Boy in my music more. Also, it was just the natural progression with the last EP, [All I Ever Did Was Love You], [when] I was still going through a heartbreak. Now I’m on the other side of it, I can have more fun-release writing, versus the [previous] sad-release writing.”
While his visual creative direction for the persona of Benedict can be a lot more intentional — “I always just make it the most Wes Anderson as possible,” Benedict says regarding his very cinematic, often metaphorical music videos — he tries to be as honest with his songwriting as possible.
“You have to view it as therapy,” he explains. “With writing or any form of art you want to dig out the best shit you can do. You are just doing yourself a disservice if you are not saying exactly what you want to say. I typically like to write then go back and think, ‘How can I flip that and make it even more interesting, darker, or more personal?’ I always strive to be as personal as I can.”
Of course, Benedict knows he is absolutely not alone in this school of thought. Especially in Nashville, being a singer-songwriter has been the leading music genre in the local scene. While this city might have the support system Benedict once could never fathom, it has by far the most oversaturated music scene.
“There is a bubble,” he explains of the city’s artist community. “You can get trapped in the bubble mentally and forget that there is a world of music outside of making it in Nashville. This is a great place to be, to meet people and work, but it's not the only place. I love it when I’m in it. I do it because that's the level I'm at right now, but I don't want to get too comfortable.”
He adds, “I’m also a Sagittarius, I’m a rolling stone. I’ve been to so many different places before Nashville, going on two and a half years in one location is super big for me.”
Benedict does seem to feel a bit agitated, and for all the right reasons. In comparison to previous singles and EPs, “Kill Cupid” feels fuller, more eager, and certainly bolder. It might be slightly too early to call it the onset for something big, and at the moment Benedict is still working on finishing the next EP, but the elements are all there — it feels like only a matter of time before the Boy Next Door breaks out of his bubble.
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