Last month, Jason Bentley, music director of the Santa Monica, California, public radio station KCRW, said he will step down from that post and sign off as the velvet-voiced host of the station’s flagship music show, “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” on Aug. 30.
He’s held both roles for a decade.
“The influence of the show goes beyond the listening at that particular time,” Jennifer Ferro, the station’s president, told me recently. Bentley, she said, has been “a huge tastemaker.”
So what’s next for Bentley?
For starters, he’s the music supervisor for “Top Gun: Maverick,” the forthcoming sequel to the 1986 movie, starring, once again, Tom Cruise, and directed by Joseph Kosinski.
It’s a return of sorts for Bentley; he’s done music supervision on other films, including “Tron: Legacy,” which was also directed by Kosinski.
But Bentley said he’s also looking forward to trying new kinds of projects and taking a little time to decompress after years of a daily grind.
I talked to Bentley about his time on the show, the art of curation and music he loves. Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed:
Q: Tell me about how you got into music — how you knew discovering new music was something you wanted to do.
A: Well, like a lot of people, my parents had a great record collection.
I was always fascinated with radio as a medium from a very young age and had a mock radio station in my bedroom with call letters and a DJ handle. It’s a funny thing to look back on.
It wasn’t really until going to college that I was able to get involved in college radio. That just opened my world up really wide. I got interested in underground dance music, house music at the time, which was not mainstream at all.
So for me, a guy who grew up on more mainstream rock and ’80s New Wave and disco, this was like a secret world that I discovered, and I just became obsessed.
Q: How do you see the function of a DJ — somebody who’s curating in the world of Spotify algorithms?
A: It just can’t be replaced. It’s sort of a handcrafted feel, and people can tell you’re engaged.
The goal is to find that moment to connect with people. It could be something as simple as the weather, or it could be that we’re coming out of NPR news coverage or a press conference and some politics of the day.
I remember coming out of the Trump inauguration with Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World.” I don’t have to say anything — I just have to play a song, and everyone can go from there.
That’s the art of it. I don’t see it yet with streaming-service algorithms.
Q: What do you listen for in a new song? Can you describe what it is that makes you say, “This one’s going to be big?”
A: I think one important thing about being a legitimate curator is certainty and having a point of view. Maybe you’re not right, at the end of the day, but that’s OK.
Q: I know this may be like asking you to pick a favorite child, but do you have any favorite discoveries? Or any artists where you felt like you were way ahead of everybody?
A: It is hard to say — let’s see. Two days ago, we had an artist named Weyes Blood. I first saw her at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever, and that’s probably 200 or 300 people. Then her next show was the Troubadour, and then she’s just announced at the Fonda. So we’re seeing that trajectory.
And she also has just been added to the Kacey Musgraves tour, which would be huge for her.
Then there’s Yann Tiersen. Supporting his recent album, “All,” has been an absolute pleasure. It’s a weird record, but it feels like a magical and spiritual journey.
I guess something else I think of is my relationship with Danger Mouse over the years. I think his career has sort of been parallel, and he’s someone I admire and can call a friend.
Q: Any favorite performances?
A: It was pretty awesome to open our new studio with James Blake. That was totally magic and momentous for us.
Oh, and we are issuing a curated selection of our favorite sessions. It’ll be a tribute to our basement era.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.