Jack Antonoff talked with The Face in a new wide ranging interview:
Antonoff says that his motivation, and his process, has rarely wavered since he first began producing; he and his collaborators dream “about what a record can be,” and sometimes that results in “really transcendent shit” and sometimes it doesn’t. There is no way, he says, to “optimise” his process, because there’s no formula. “I do think that there’s a misconception about what I do and what pop music is,” he says. “There’s a certain group of people who think it’s about appealing to the masses, [which is] not how I feel. I’ve never made anything hoping that everyone would like it.”
His closest collaborators – like Swift and Del Rey – are people with whom he feels like he can “drill even further” into one sound or idea, a feeling he describes as “crazy magic”. But the goal is never to top the charts, or appeal to every possible listener.
“I remember with Norman, Lana wanted to give the mastering engineer her credit card over the phone because she barely wanted anyone to know that the album was being made,” he says. “These records are so insular, so it’s a little hard to get it up for someone who has a hot take when [these albums] are reaching the people who they’re intended to reach. It’s cool if you get it and it’s cool if you don’t, but also like, there’s always the option to just shut the fuck up.”