Switched on Pop - Summer Hits: Jack Antonoff on Bleachers “Stop Making This Hurt”

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

We’ve been wanting to speak with Jack Antonoff since we started Switched On Pop back in 2014. We've had countless hours of conversation sound tracked to his productions with artists like Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Ray starting in just our second episode. When we wrote a book about 21st century pop, we devoted a chapter to the song “We Are Young” by his band, Fun.   And so we're excited to finally sit down with him to hear about how he approaches his own work. He has a new album out with his band Bleachers called Take the Sadness out of Saturday Night. And for our series on Summer Hits, we wanted to start our conversation with Jack Antonoff about the song “Stop Making this Hurt.” More Episodes ft. words or music by Jack Antonoff Chained to the Green Light: Katy Perry + Lorde The Oeuvre of Taylor Swift folklore: taylor swift's quarantine dream "evermore" of a good thing Total Request Live! Taylor, Lana, Kim, and More (with Sam Sanders) Song of Summer 2020: TikTok Jams, Protest Anthems, Breezy Bops & Bummer Bangers Carly Rae Jepsen: Meeting The Muse Songs Discussed Bleachers - Chinatown (feat. Bruce Springsteen) Bleachers - How Dare You Want More Bleachers - Secret Life Bleachers - Stop Making This Hurt Bleachers - What'd I Do With All This Faith? Bruce Springsteen - Jungleland Dexys Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen Fleetwood Mac - Bleed to Love Her (Live at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, CA 52397) Fleetwood Mac - Bleed to Love Her Lana Del Rey - Mariners Apartment Complex Television - 1880 Or So The Strokes - New York City Cops Tom Tom Club - Genius of Love Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched-on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.

And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Today we have a guest that we're really excited to talk to, someone whose music has been in our ears since we started the show many years ago. When we wrote a book about 21st Century Pop, we devoted a chapter to the song We Are Young by his band Fun, and we've had countless hours of conversation soundtrack to his productions with artists like Taylor Swift, Lord, Landa Del Rey, and many others. So we're excited to sit down with this guest and hear about how he approaches his own work. He has a new album out with his band Bleachers. It's called Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night.

And for our series on Summer Hits, we wanted to start our conversation with Jack Antonoff about the song, Stop Making This Hurt. Jack Antenoff, thanks so much for being here. Thank you guys for having me. I love your show. Thanks, Jack. So let's get right into it. Stop Making This Hurt is a loud, boisterous summer release. but it's also charged.

It's a bit of a sad summer song. It sounds to me like you're working something out in this song, working out some kind of hurt. What is it that you're working out? The idea of working something out is kind of a hallmark for me. I feel like in my work, if I know something, it's pretty hard to write about it without not wanting to write about it. You know, if I know something well,

you know, like hence why there's so few songs about the way certain current events have turned out. It's like, okay, we got all the facts. and it becomes sort of clinical. And same thing about yourself. You know, I know certain things about myself, and they're deep and important, but I don't feel the need to explore them.

The things that pull me to write songs is when I feel something, and it scares me or fills me with joy or mystery or anything, and I don't know it. Like, I imagine them, like, sandpaper inside of you, these weird feelings, and you know there's a whole world there. Those are the things you write about

because you want to figure it out. My work can come off like a diary entry. It's still all about me, but I used that as a device this time. I started looking around and just seeing so many people in my life on this struggle to sort of hold joy, and this terror to want a better life. And so stopping in this hurt, I had that idea, stopping it's hurt, say goodbye like you mean it in my head forever, and I didn't know where it was going to go. But then I just started to carve it up.

And there's Daniels, my best friend. There's Jimmy, who's Lana, my father. Second verse is my mother and my sister and sort of the political climate and just did like a quick overview of how everyone is just kind of in their own little mess. And then I get to be the narrator who says, stop making this hurt, say goodbye like you mean it. So like fuck it. Like we have to exist and find joy. It's not until the bridge that it wraps back around. And, you know, if we take the Saturdays out of Saturday night, I wonder what will be left with anything worth of fight.

Sort of brings it back to this place. So, well, you know, maybe this is this is. as it gets is to exist in it. But yeah, there's a lot being worked out. And sometimes the more I'm working out, the more I want to, not trick, but confuse the song into being something that isn't telling you exactly what it is. That method you're describing of like pursuing the discomfort, the mystery. I don't know if this is good analogy, but it reminds me of something I read Phoebe Waller

Bridge saying, the creator of Fleabag. Yeah. When she's writing a scene and she writes something that scares her, she knows that she's on to something and she has to pursue that. If it's the kind of thing you'd be afraid, embarrassed, or just if your body's telling you to run from it, it might be a really good place to write from. I like thinking about this framework of not knowing.

In the verse here, we go through this barrage of characters, your friends, your family. We have people confronting the issues of the gods must be crazy, right? at the very beginning of the song. People not recognizing their country. Really heavy stuff. And that all feels like people in that place of not knowing. The chorus feels to provide us some catharsis. Do you learn something in the process of writing this song about yourself?

Oh, yeah, but it's later. I kind of, I think writing is sort of this chucking of the goalpost pretty far. It's a little bit like I've never, anytime I've ever made a record, I finish it. And then a little while later, you go back and you're like, you're sort of mind and body have caught up to that goalpost or whatever. It's remarkable. You're like, oh, yeah, like, we were going to break up. Or I was about to, you know, freak out about this. You just, you know, it takes so long to know something.

It doesn't take very long to feel something. And you want to write from that place of feeling, not from necessarily knowing. Is it right to say that the song doesn't mean the same thing every time you play it? Well, yeah, I mean, you start with an intention, right? But look, even as I'm about to release this album, it's like, it does change. And that's something, you know, I think there's different kinds of artists. I've always been one who's really in it with my audience. So there's a lot of room for them to change the feeling of it.

It's also sometimes why I do different versions, and I've always done, like, reinterpreted versions and released live versions. Because, you know, I'll never forget, like, there's a Fleetwood Maxim called Bleed to Lover, which I heard on the dance, the live album. One of the best things I've ever heard, right? Years later, I go back to the recorded version, does nothing for me. Literally, nothing. It's remarkable. And that's a really extreme example of something, in my opinion, working and not working, which is obviously not what I'm trying to do here,

but it does show you how wildly different emotionally. Not just like, oh, man, they played the shit out of that, but just like the way the lyrics hit. It could be down to the way the vocals recorded. there is a lot of space for things to shift. One thing I recognize in your productions is that a lot of pop songs have are just so temporal. They're like of a particular moment. They last a minute and then they fade and we go into another world.

But even in the process of listening to your work, there's sort of a multi-temporality to it. People are very quick to jump on to genre references or artist references, but oftentimes those things aren't singular. It's like I'm hearing this, this and this, but it's also Jack and it's also all these things. I feel like your music puts me into a specific place and time each time I listen to it. And I guess I'm curious for you in thinking about the production of stop making this hurt. Is there a particular place that it's placing you? You know, sometimes you start with ideas of things like that, but at the end, you kind of just end up trying to blur it all until you just like hear yourself the most. Revenges are good because they can sort of like give you almost like some armor, you know, to get off the ground.

so you're not just like, this is going to be fucking great. You're more just like, okay, it's like there's this and there's this. So, you know, I can, I remember moments of thinking of like Dexie's Midnight Runner, talking heads phrasing, Tom Tom Club, or like the way television will record the drums. You start in these places because it can be too terrifying to just say like, that's going to be amazing, so I'm going to do. You know, you have to have some language. But then you shed it pretty quickly.

For me, when I feel like something is ready or done, is when I, I just kind of hear myself in it. And so I got this song, and it's kind of like quickly litigating all the figures of my life with this like gospel chorus casting this like judgment and hope. And then wraps all the way around the bridge where I kind of just realized, well, this is the journey. I want the horns to be going sort of like back and forth on the bar to feel like they're just like some drunk guys who could play better than anyone, you know. But I want to hear the.

the band. I want it to sound like the drummer is about to fly off the cliff, but they never do. So you have all these things and then you're just waiting until you hear yourself in it. And kind of like that fear we're talking about in writing, you're waiting until you hear that thing that's like scares you a little bit. Yeah. Because it's very easy, and this is a bit of a bigger thought about just like the industry and whatnot, but it's pretty easy to know what gives you a leg up. and I think it's almost never, if not rare, that that sound or quality that gives you a leg up out there culturally is the thing that actually is the sound of your soul in that moment. So there is, you know, there's really no other choice or direction to go in if you want to exist as an artist, but you're still human and there is this feeling of sort of like, oh, this isn't necessarily the sound of what's going on. That's scary in a way.

And then there's a pride. And then the fear turns into harm. One of the things I love about this song is also the music video, which is set in a diner. Growing up in New York City myself, like that image just at the very beginning of the music video, I was like, oh, this is about Jersey. Jersey is the diner. Has more diners per capita than any other state in the U.S. I learned researching this conversation. and you actually like sing about breaking free of New Jersey. So can you tell us a little about this relationship?

Like there's like love for Jersey but a need to break free. Where is your home in this song? It's a complicated place. Well, I just, I mean, the root of all this is I've just been drifting more and more towards where I'm from for a long time. You know, you go all the way back to like growing up there and like fuck this place. Yeah. We're a New York band. We're a New York band.

like, you know, like you drive home to New Jersey. And there's obviously tons of Springsteen mythology baked into this. It's dawned on me recently and it seems so obvious now, but I didn't really get it for a long time. You're from a place. And when you're from a place, even if the place you're from is we moved around a ton of as a kid. That's a place in theory. The place you're from is so deeply baked into how you write and how you see the world. And it's not about nostalgia.

It's not about going back. It's just about recognizing where. I like to say it like where you're reporting from. And a perfect example of that is like if you think about New York City music, like if you think about the way the stroke sounds, like they're reporting from the center of the world. Yeah. If you think about New Jersey music,

they're reporting from an inch outside the center of the world. So it's not always, to me, it's a specific state and place. But it's about where you're reporting from it. And for a long time, you know, I just started to realize these parallels of how I feel about where I'm from, how I grew up, and how I feel emotionally. Right outside. There, but not there.

That's one of the opening lines of the album is I'm here, but I'm not. New Jersey is special place because it's not small town mentality. It's an inch from the biggest best city in the world mentality. Most people who grew up in New Jersey can see New York City. They know the smashing pumpkins are playing there and they're not coming to Jersey. They know everything's happening there. then even on a literal scientific level, how much energy is flying off the city and then dying as it hits New Jersey. And how does that feel as a kid? You're so there and you're so not. And

like I said, there's a lot of Springsteen in this in the sense that when I was young, I remember loving music. Beatles, the first thing I fell in love with. But when I heard Bruce's music, that was the first time I said, oh, I not only know the literal landmarks he's talking about, but I know this feeling. The rangers had a homecoming. The magic rat drove his slick machine. Over a Jersey state line. And it gave me the sense of like, oh, there's like a pride to this place.

There's like, you know, this get me out of here. I won't die here. Melancholy, mixed with huge hope. That is a culture. And so I've just wanted to incorporate that as much as possible because it's been a huge factor in me further recognizing myself in my work. And that's, that's what I am. You know, I'm, I'm from there. I've lived my entire life pretty much there. And I, and it's my, it's my lens in which I see the world. And I think there's a torch to carry. And I think it's a

really important sound that, that is unlike Chicago or LA or San Francisco, sort of a little bit less spoken about. But it's this blend, like I said, of like, deep melancholy. because you're not invited because you're out of the vibe and then deep hope because you want to get there opposite to New York City music which is way less hopeful but sort of just like two fingers up welcome to the center of the world but that specific question about break free in New Jersey New Jersey also services as this thing you want to get away from emotionally and also the album literally is designed to go from New York and my apartment across George Washington Bridge into New Jersey sonically and emotionally going to going home to find one's future. So it's a lot wrapped up in this concept. Let's have that Springsteen conversation. You so frequently cite his songwriting advice of blues in the verse, gospel in the chorus. You even talked about it here, about this having a very gospel-oriented chorus. And of course, you got to collaborate with Bruce. He lends his voice to Chinatown. Could you tell us a story of how this came together and how it was to

get to put that track together? It was very organic. Him and his wife, Patty, you're very important people in my life. I was over there one day and just playing each other music, different things. And I kind of had like the demo of Chinatown. They got a studio right there. So then it was sort of, we were all in the studio. Everyone was messing around on it.

It was just kind of cool. I think a ton of it until a few days later I was listening back and he had sung on the chorus. And I was like, Jesus, this really works. His influence on my writing, the way the song is sort of like quintessentially, bleachers, but also stamped in this place I'm from, the full-circleness of, you know, me sort of in this big yearning and then him taking over the second chorus and everything he's kind of taught me from

before I knew him to knowing him. It was just one of these incredibly sincere moments, and I just was extremely taken aback at how I just loved it. And the only reason why I even say it like this is because it's such a delicate thing to work with anyone, but especially people who have influenced you and who have a very specific stamp on the world. Euforia of Calvin Klein, the new collection elixir, three new exiles perfume intense, solar, magnetic, bowl. Pulsan the banner, do the quiz, and discover your fragrance euphoria. To dig a little bit deeper into the album, maybe we could talk about a song you mentioned earlier. I think you described it as the sister track to stop making this hurt.

It's how dare you want more. We've just been loving the production on this song. It's like big, heartfelt, kind of boisterous. But there's also something like sorrow. Sorrow. Oh, my God. But there's also something like sorrowful, something melancholic in it, too. I feel like these tensions are an important part of listening to this album.

Is it something that you're maybe intentionally putting in the production, the composition? Or does that just kind of evolve organically? Are you like really trying to squeeze your listener between the big and the, I don't know, the hope and the pain or something? Not a ton to be honest. And sometimes people will tell me like, you know, sometimes I'll have songs like that one that I see is like really joyous and like super pop. And, you know, people will be like, oh, like, like it's so great. And there's just such a sadness to it. I'm like, really?

But I think that's these themes we're talking about growing up sort of carrying loss and grief as a lens, carrying this place you're from that feels like it's in some way married to some loss of a thing you didn't have. as a lens. It's just how I hear myself in music. Everyone just has this DNA. So when you're writing, you know, like you could intellectualize it to death of what you're doing. But the end of the day, you just, you hear things and you just, they sound like you or not. But yeah, when I wrote How Do You Want More and then got the band in and sort of produced it, I was like, oh, this is just like a train on fire. And then, yeah, since like, you know, people like have told me like, oh, there's like a darkness to this. I'm like, all right.

It even has that wonderful live sort of quality though. You know, you're someone who so seamlessly blends between writing in a electronic kind of realm, but also a purely acoustic realm. And this feels like bucking trends of how people are producing at this moment. Like it really feels like I'm almost catching a live show of bleachers. You've got the sax going. inter-playing with the guitar in a way that feels entirely spontaneous. Was there something that you were trying to reach for in that sound for this album?

Yeah, and this is sort of the big pandemic story for me, which is I've always been in this interplay of like, I'm playing live and making records. And I've always liked bringing in live stuff, but I've never felt like, oh, the record needs to sound like the show. Like, I think they're very different expressions. And they should be. Right.

You know, playing live, you know, radio, press, TV, all these things that can make an artist bigger. They're just such pies in the sky. And I grew up and every artist did saying all that you can have your hands on in a real way is you can go out and you can play your ass off and you can find your audience. And if you find your audience, you can be with them and you can grow and you can grow. And the audience can grow. But if you're focused on that, that's like the deepest version of this work. so there was never a sense that that could go away ever and so obviously the pandemic was incredibly emotional and tough on everyone for a lot of reasons but in my corner of the world one thing that was wild was oh that that can be taken off the table I never thought that could be taken off the table never occurred to me so it created the sense of it was involuntary I wanted the band in the room and you can I've done it before I said to my band hey play like your heads on fire play like it's your last day on earth those words hit very different when we had a little bit of the band I've done it before I said to my band hey play like your heads on fire play like it's your last day on earth those words hit very different when we actually didn't know when or if we were going to get to play again.

So a lot of the sound of this album, specifically how De We Want More is the guys in a room playing with the knowledge that we don't know when, if, or how it will ever be the same. And now you're performing again, bringing these songs to audiences. Soon. Yeah. Yeah. We got a tour coming up and it's fucked up. It's really intense.

Like, you got to start from the understanding that live music is the least cynical place in the world. right? As soon as you go play live, you have just like strained away anyone casual. No one goes to a show cynically. I've said this so many times. It does not happen. You know, people stream songs cynically. People listen to things cynically or watch things, but nobody goes to a show cynically. So you have taken out its church. You know, you have put a bunch of people in a room. This work means a lot to you. It means a lot to them. You've come together to celebrate it and keep growing it. So that's already a place that like I could cry talking about. I honestly don't know what's going to happen when Torres starts again. I don't know

what that looks like. I mean, I don't know how it could get bigger or less cynical than it is. And I think it will somehow. And I love that about live music. If you like dislike something and go to a show cynically and go through all the, we buy the ticket, wait on the line, drive there just to be like, I fuck this, then even that's awesome. Like even that is sort of like an amazing act of faith. Yeah, slightly sociopathic, but yeah. Yeah, but I'm kind of here for it. And I just, I look for that because there's just so much, you know, nothing, and this is a bigger concept I think about, but like, you don't want to do anything for the world. Like, that's absurd. You know, there's so many people out there. Like, the highest form of this work is to just find your audience. And they could be smaller, they could be

big. But there is this tendency nowadays with how things work to just sort of like appeal to everyone. And I feel like I'm just on this mission and just sort of like weed away. as much as possible just focus on my actual people. I think in observing your work, one could say, wow, Jack is a real traditionalist.

He records albums. He focuses on projects. He records organic instruments. It makes references that are not necessarily or like nodding to things that are not necessarily the thing that is happening right now. And you're interested in serving

that 10% of people who care just so deeply about the music who are not cynical who are going to the show. And yet I actually, I get the sense, though, like, it's actually not a traditionalist perspective, but rather you have a perspective that this is clearly the best way to do this thing, both for the art and for its own commercial nature. And I'm curious how that developed for you. Where did you get that perspective? I think you're right. That speaks to me. Like, I'm not, I'm not shut off sort of, you know, in some, like, crazy traditional place. I'm pretty, like, aware of everything's going on because I think it's important to me. You know, like, you can resent the Internet and you can. can resent how information spreads, but it's still what's happening. So, like, I think it's weird to be an artist and not be aware what's happening in the world, or at least the kind of artist that I am.

You know, I do think social media is a net negative. But the point is this, that's where a lot of conversations are happening. And that's the world we're living in. I stay very connected to what's happening. And then I make my choice after. You know, this is how people are communicating. This is our world. Cool. Well, then I like to sort of get traditional on top of that. I think evoke that idea of traditionalism within music because I feel like I can identify when you are

producing a song not necessarily because of the sonics or the core progression or the melody but rather because it's the song on the album or it's the album which is kind of somehow nodding to what's going on but then just saying no no no we're going in this other direction and like let me open this other

door that's exciting that we maybe have it ignoring for a while and I think that can read as as traditionalist, whether that's, you know, just like taking out an acoustic guitar and a piano and writing a song when all we've heard is 808s for a few years, there's a way in which it maybe opens up that idea of like, okay, this feels old. But in fact, it feels like it's very much in conversation with where we are at this moment. And it might just be the opposite of what you might be hearing. There's a difference between reactionary and conversation. Or reaction and conversation.

Like, a few years ago, I started just hearing all these like tronic things everywhere, which I loved. and I was just like so cool, you know, like, amazing. And then when I would sit down to make music, and this was sort of the beginning of, the real sort of start of that phase was kind of when I was making Norman and Rockwell with Lana, where I was just like, both of us were like, man, like, these sort of sloppy live room drums

and this 12 string, it just sounds so cool. It wasn't like, fuck everyone, they're doing this, we're doing this. It's just sort of like, it's a, natural thing. Like, you hear something over and over again. Kind of like the way writing, you don't want to talk at the part of yourself that you know. It's like, well, you get to a point. And now I'm kind of

reaching that point, or have reached, which everyone will hear in some things coming out soon, where I'm like, cool, like, did that. And it's, look, production is just, I mean, it's a, it's a whole universe and it's fascinating and beautiful, but at the end of the day, it's inferior to, you know,

this feeling that it's meant to design, right? So you could intellectualize and talk about why, how, what you're using at the end of the day, but it just doesn't really matter because it's sort of like the sum of its parts are meant to be so much more than the sum of its parts. So whatever it gets you there, it gets you there. But it's pretty natural. Like you just, you hear things around and you just kind of, like I said, it's not like, fuck you. I'm in left field. It's kind of like, great job. Why would I try that? Because you just did a great job.

This makes me want to ask about something you said before. for about like making your own music feels sometimes like a hobby when you need a break from making music for other people with other people. So I'm curious like how is it different making a bleachers project than collaborating? I take that back. Okay great. This is a switch on pop exclusive or a retraction. Yeah, I take that back. I think I said that. Strike it from the record. No, no, no. Or add this to the record. Great. I think there was a period of my life when I felt a need to contextualize things that was probably born out of like, you know, just trying to make it easier for people to understand something.

Like, yeah. You know, because it was always like this question of kind of like, well, this is this and this is this and what's more important and how do you do both? And the truth is I really love working on all these things and they're the same and they're different. The better way I can put it now is, I think in life, specifically in art and work is this big line. Things give you life or they take life. And it doesn't matter. It's not like, oh, I'm given life by being in the studio or writing songs. Fuck that. I can be in the studio and

like fucking walk into traffic. I could be working with someone who seems great and my heart is dying. If you find things that give you energy and give you life and inspire you, then you then you fucking go. Otherwise, you're really wasting space on the planet. And with my work and with certain people I collaborate with. I've found those relationships. But yeah, I don't find myself working harder than friends or collaborators. I find myself kind of working when I feel it, which is kind of all you have. But no, I have no hobby.

My hobby is walking. I love that we got the chance to meditate on that a little bit. What's interesting about the phase I'm in is you're in the studio and you're making records. You're not talking about the records. Right. You're making them. It's sort of like, you know, if you're like cooking something, you wouldn't be like,

and I choose this. You just be like, doing it. Yeah. I find a lot of things start off like, you're a busy guy. And I'm kind of like, I don't know. Like, maybe. I guess at the end of the day, if I go real deep, I could, I guess sometimes when starts that way, it feels like a little reductive.

It's to me, it's like, is that what's interesting to you? Or is it the music? Because I think it's the music. Definitely the music. You know what I mean? Totally. But to tie it all back around, the hobby comment was me trying to, I don't know, make it more comfortable for people or something.

Yeah. It's a fascinating insight into the gap between the process, the creative process, and then the sort of the id and the ego, right? Like the creative process and then like turning it into something that can be analyzed and discussed rather than just having it be. I mean, that's the line that we're constantly walking on this show where we're like, are we reading too far into this? Like it feels good, but it also may be complete bullshit.

No, it's designed that way. All these things are designed to be little worlds in themselves and read into, and every Easter egg is probably real. And if it isn't, then it still is. Because like I said, this kind of goes back to the conversational aspect about music. It's almost like when someone dies and everyone talks about them. And then you're like, whoa, like, we never talked about this person. They were just there and they were complicated and great and bizarre and had this effect on

me and all these things. I also feel like there's like this mythology of the studio where it's like these like conversations and it's just this, you know, it's so much more, you know, I see writing and producing as two phases. There's this like trying to find it, just trying shit, almost free association

of production and writing where you're literally. And this is when I'm alone, this is a film with a collaborator, the same. And then at some point, and I've said this before, you could have a million songs and not have an album. But at some point you see the framework of the album. And that's when, that's boom, as soon as you see that, it's phase two.

and it's immediate. And it hits you. It's interesting. Usually when I'm working with people, it's, I mean, you're so tapped into each other, just hits you at the same time.

Oh my God, this is it. This sounds. This is how this sound is connected to this emotion. Blah, blah, blah. And that's actually the harder phase

because then you know what it is and you know what's missing and you know how to finish it. The reason why I bring this up is because both of these process, both of these process A and B, they leave very little room of sort of like meditating on what's happening.

All of that happens after. there's so much lightning in a bottle in process A when you're just trying to find ideas there's nothing even talk about you're just throwing stuff against the wall and be like huh that's weird that's interesting and then one day you sort of wake up and realize you're further along than you are which is when process B starts

and that's when you're like oh my god we're in this we have to get it across the finish line because if we don't we never will and we could you know it's not it's not an endless well it's not something you can put away and grab again you're holding that

What was that game when we were kids where the ball turns into fire? It's like a video game and the basketball turns into fire and you can't miss. Oh, NBA Jam. Is that feeling? Once you know the context of an album and it doesn't last forever, you're like, okay, got it, go, go, go. And you can't miss it. He's heating up. Yeah.

There's not a lot of space where you're sitting around contextualizing it because you're just on this crazy marathon. And then all of a sudden one day it's all over and you deliver it. And then you enter this phase of discussing it. It's not good or bad or anything. It's just real odd because you're discovering your own things in the process. Was there a moment like that with this record where you had that like kind of light bulb, light switch, it clicked, you're like, this makes sense to me. I see this album.

Totally. Every record I've ever done, there's that moment where you're like, got it, see it, balls on fire, let's throw as many in as we possibly can before we lose that fire. Could you describe that moment in this record where all of a sudden you're like, oh, now it caught on fire. I had Chinatown, 45, Haddaer, a song called Secret Life. And then, believe it or not, it was sort of when I started to get this song called What Do I Do With All This Faith? I don't know what to do.

Which is the last song where I was like, fuck, I get it. I see it. It was also kind of this idea of leaving New York. York going into New Jersey, going home, taking someone you love home, going home to find the future. I saw it as, sometimes visual. I saw this doorway. This is a little literal, but, you know, me with all this baggage. And I got obsessed with this idea of like, you can't take it all.

You can't leave it all. The pieces you choose to take are going to define your future. It's so easy for me to gravitate towards darkness and sadness. But I loved this doorway, kind of knocking at the door to the next phase of your life because I was like, there's so much joy. There's so much joy in that concept, but there's also so much anxiety. And it's right where I not was, but wanted to be. You talked earlier about the exhilaration of making something and finding something. And also, maybe I detected like a little bit of fear of the idea of like not having that need to write, that need to create, losing that.

Maybe we could talk a little bit more about that before we go. is there ever going to be a point you think when you won't feel compelled to write music? And if so, do you see that as like, oh, man, I've lost something or like, oh, I've worked out the things I need to work out. And I don't need to put them into song anymore. Like, I'm curious what you think about that. It's a huge mystery to me. It's a huge, huge mystery. and it feels like an abyss.

I don't know if when you get there you are left empty and broken or if you've ascended to something else. I think it's probably different for everyone. I think writing and making records is, it's just a tiny thing that's a part of this much bigger concept of doing things that make you feel alive and valuable. And I can imagine, or I'd, have seen, I guess, other people drift into other things in life that do that for them.

Right. But it's really hard to know because it's not a thing you do. It's a real way of life and it's constant. You know, so it's with you. I sometimes imagine a little bit like, you know, this sort of like here but not feeling where you're clocking everything because you're always writing and you're living because you need to live to write. But you're an inch out. There's a hazard to that in terms of like whatever kind of work you do is a hazard. I think the hazard in this work is like, you know, becoming complicated and not being able to have good relationships.

I don't want that. It's another reason why I love spending time with Bruce and Patty. They're so emotionally vibrant and artistically vibrant. There's so few people that can seem to hold both. A lot of people in my life in my friend group or people that I work with is a lot of people that I see kind of holding both and they give you a lot of hope that you can. But I don't know. It's like it's weird. Like I think about it.

but then I also sort of just like get back to writing whatever because you're just kind of, you're there and you know it's fleeting in some ways, so you just want to grab it. Jack, I want to thank you for being so candid with us and sharing about the process of making this album, music, the bigger stuff, all of life. It's really meaningful to have you on the show. Yeah, I love talking to you guys. Anytime. Okay, great. Well, you're sure to hit you up again. Really appreciate it, Jack. It's been really fun. Take care, guys.

Switched on Pop is produced by Nate Sloan, Megan Lubin. You meet Charlie Harding. by Julia Myers, engineered by Brandon McFarlin, social media by Abby Barr, and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our executive producers are Nashat, Karwa, and Hannah Rosen, were a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. And thanks to JBL for hooking us up with the gear that we need to make the show on the road this summer. We'll link in our show notes to some of our favorite episodes featuring music that Jack Antonoff produced or co-wrote. And you can find that also on our website, switchedonpop.com, and we're at Switchedonpop on social media.

Tune in next Tuesday for a really fun conversation with the producer Mark Ronson. We'll be talking about a modern classic that he has picked for us. We'll be discussing some of his new projects. We'll see you on Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening.