Stephen Montoya
Radio and podcast personality Lacey Gee really know her Taylor Swift facts. So much so, she and a group of like-minded "Swifties" have the #1 Taylor Swift Fan Podcast on Spotify.
It’s almost impossible for Taylor Swift fans — Swifties— to get enough of the pop icon due to her constant output of new material, and merch i.e. new concert film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.” Add to that the many easter eggs she has fans pining over, hidden in her songs and more.
It’s for this very reason the North Texas-based podcast “13: A Taylor Swift Fan Podcast” was created. The irony is, that when it was first aired in April of 2021, the hosts for this podcast weren’t even sure if they would have enough material to fill the half hour to hour-long show. But as fate would have it, they’re still combing through the sundry of material Swift continues to produce.
This popular North Texas-based podcast consists of Nick Adams, Ana Castillejos, Amy Nichols and — last but certainty not least – Lacey Gee. You may remember Gee from her days as a DJ on the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show on 106.1 Kiss-FM. Currently, Gee and cohorts have the number one Taylor Swift Fan Podcast on the Spotify Podcast Music charts.
And the numbers don’t lie.
On any given week, this podcast gets 40,000 streams, with upwards of 200k per month. When an episode has aired, it then gets posted multiple times a week on various social media platforms, thus adding a global listenership to this North Texas creation. Since this podcasts’ inception, it has been featured in The London Times, Yahoo Sports and has hosted events with the likes of People Magazine on X Spaces formerly Twitter Spaces.
Stephen Montoya
The podcast is recorded in Irving at the Kidd Kraddick studios, the exact place where the idea for this podcast was born.
“The company always prided themselves at being at the forefront of everything,” Gee says. “Kidd Kraddick was the first to get Snapchat before it was a thing. He made everybody sign up for social media as soon as anything would happen.”
So, when an opportunity to jump on the podcast bandwagon presented itself eight years ago, Gee says the owner of the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show encouraged his staff to start their own individual podcasts to stay ahead of the curve.
“We all had individual podcasts for years and they were fine,” she says. However, Gee explained that she would cohost with other Kidd Kraddick podcasters whenever Swift would come out with any new material.
Gee says this is what sparked the idea of a collaboration in lieu of the guest appearances on each other’s shows. “We thought, why don't we just start a new podcast with Taylor Swift as the theme? As it ends up no one cares about my personal life and my friend's personal life, but they are definitely into Taylor Swift. So, we just happened to be at the right place at the right time when starting this podcast.”
For those of you unfamiliar with this podcast, it’s anything but a willy-nilly Swift fan fest. Each episode is planned, which usually consists of a two-song breakdown that could come from any and all of Swift’s prolific output. “We've had to rush through our schedule to line up with Taylor's never-ending releases,” she says.
Besides the song breakdowns, Gee says she and her cohosts also discuss other Swift-related topics they call “SwifTea." Trademark this name and sell it.
“We're still picking up momentum,” Gee explains. “People will come on and say, hey, I found you since the tour or I found you since the “Eras Tour” movie. “That’s cool, because we're still talking theories and Easter eggs and all the clues that Taylor Swift trains us to look at and do. She makes it so fun to be a fan.”
Stephen Montoya
When asked what she would ask Swift if she was ever on the popular podcast, Gee says she and her cohosts already have a list of questions created that cover things like why wasn’t “Cruel Summer” ever released as a single to what she likes on her charcuterie board.
“I know if I ever meet her, I'm going to flip out and I'm calm and cool most of the time,” Gee says with a glint of excitement. “I'm going to cry; I'm going to snot, and I’m going to want to know if she'll be my best friend.”
