Jack Antonoff Talks With Rolling Stone

Bleachers

Jack Antonoff talked with Rolling Stone about the upcoming Bleachers album:

While making Everyone for Ten Minutes, Antonoff was also working on Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend. And though he often taps the members of Bleachers to play on his other projects, making them both band and Wrecking Crew, he notes that “there’s almost zero sonic crossover” between his own records and those he’s producing for others. The sounds and tones are generally not what inspire him, anyway. 

“If I’m in a room with Kendrick… I think, ‘Oh, the way he’s telling the story about his past is so vivid. I’ve been trying to do a story about my past.’ Or the way Sabrina can vacillate between the most brilliant, sad poetry and comedy — which are really linked — I was like, ‘Maybe there’s a moment I could put a wink in.’ It’s the broad strokes of someone’s honesty or artistry.”

Jack Antonoff Slams AI Music

Jack Antonoff

Jack Antonoff has shared some thoughts on AI music:

You don’t have to write music, you don’t have to record it and you don’t have to bring out the band and play it. And yet for us, the idea of optimizing what we do is a complete miss of the entire point of what compels us in the first place. We (myself, the band and everyone I know, frankly) have never been looking for this work to become quicker or easier. We were never frustrated by the randomness and magic it takes. We do it for that exact reason – and without the process itself ::: nothingness.

New Jack Antonoff Profile

Jack Antonoff

Jack Antonoff was featured in a new profile with ID:

Still, even inadvertently, I’ll discover by the end of our conversation one aspect of that “magic.” The new Bleachers album is laced with references to Qualley, and when I ask what married life has given him (a sense of security, perhaps?) Antonoff gently turns the question back on me, the way he might in a studio, luring a song out of someone else. 

Jack Antonoff, Mustard and Sounwave Reflect on ‘GNX’

Kendrick Lamar

Jack Antonoff talked with Variety about work with Kendrick Lamar in GNX.

Antonoff, for his part, densely laid in bits of guitar and Mellotron to build out the world of “Luther.” “If you really listen to the record, obviously Kendrick and SZA are right there and the beat’s right there and the melody,” he says. “But there’s all this stuff dancing around, like in between them. I wanted to go overboard with the presentation of how special it could be. I ended up sitting alone for a really long time carving out all these little spaces.”

The meticulous nature of “GNX” only intensified as the record sped toward completion. Antonoff recalls working on final mixes as late as four in the morning, just hours before the album’s release. Its impact was instantly tangible — “Luther” held court atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 weeks, while “Not Like Us” picked up Grammys for song and record of the year. But for the producers who helped bring “GNX” to life, it signified that taking risks — sonically and creatively — was the only path forward.

Jack Antonoff x Hayley Williams Interview

Hayley Williams and Jack Antonoff interviewed each other at Rolling Stone:

Antonoff: The album gave me this feeling which I’ve been having about music. In this hellscape of only marketing, marketing, marketing, it’s become very clear what matters and what doesn’t. [The album] made me feel happy.

Williams: That’s so sick. Thank you. We got to experience this coming from the scenes that we came from, and the kind of music that really kick-started us. It’s so communal, and you’re always being fed by and feeding back into the community. When the world feels the way it does, I find myself wanting to plug back into what’s local. I’m wanting to go to smaller shows. I’m wanting to feel like I can see the blood and the bone.

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Jack Antonoff Responds to Live Nation Head

Jack Antonoff

Jack Antonoff responded to the head of Live Nation, Michael Rapino, who said on a recent earnings call that concert ticket prices were too cheap:

I always joke: Sports – it’s like a badge of honor to spend 70 grand for a Knicks courtside [seat]. They beat me up if we charge $800 for Beyonce, right? We have a lot of runway left. So when you read about the ticket prices going up, it’s still – average concert price is $72. Try going to a Laker game for that, and there’s 80 of them, or whatever the hell. So the concert is underpriced, has been for a long time.

Antonoff responded on Xitter:

answer is simple: selling a ticket for more than its face value should be illegal. then there is no chaos and you give us back the control instead of creating a bizarre free market of confusion amongst the audience who we love and care for.

Jack Antonoff Named Songwriter of the Year

Bleachers

Jack Antonoff has been named ASCAP’s “Songwriter of the Year.”

Antonoff was recognized for his co-writes on songs like Sabrina Carpenter’s smash hit “Please Please Please,” as well as for his work on Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” “Fortnight,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)” and “Karma.” One of the most prolific songwriter-producers in the industry, last year he produced Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, as well as several tracks on Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet.