Capital Breakfast’s “secret mission” for Taylor Swift album release
Taylor Swift’s latest album release and interview on Capital Breakfast was treated like a top-secret operation according to Jordan North and Sian Welby.
Talking on the Capital Breakfast: After The Show, Show! podcast, the pair shared exclusive behind-the-scenes details from their recent interview with the global superstar, highlighting the extraordinary lengths taken to prevent leaks of her new music.
Sian revealed that Capital’s music programmer, Chris Chilvers, manually loaded the album into the station’s system at 4am using a secure laptop kept in a company vault.
“Chris said he’d been staying in a hotel across the road,” she explained. “At 4am he had to go to the safe in the boss’ office to get out a laptop with the music on it.” Jordan added, “He was even offered a security guard to walk over with him, it’s like MI5 stuff!”
The presenters also described a private listening session the day before the interview. Taylor’s longtime publicist, Tree Paine, personally brought a physical iPod containing seven unreleased tracks.
Jordan recalled, “It wasn’t a phone, it was an iPod. Tree had a headphone splitter so we could all listen together.”
Sian added, “We were plugged in like school kids, taking notes and not sure if we were even allowed to type on our phones in case something leaked.”
The session included Jordan, Sian, Jamie Theakston, and their creative producer, all sworn to secrecy until the album was released.
Jordan said the experience gave them a new appreciation for Taylor’s status as one of the world’s biggest stars. He described the early-morning preparations and the careful handling of her music as “a surreal and unforgettable moment,” showing just how tightly controlled one of the year’s most anticipated album releases was.
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Capital Breakfast: After The Show, Show! is available now to listen to on Global Player and all major podcast platforms.