Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Hi there.
And today we have one of the most successful music producers of the last decade and also an incredible singer and songwriter in his own right, Jack Antonoff. He has produced acclaimed albums from Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Florence Welch, and many more.
His Bleachers albums include Strange Desire, Gone Now, Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night, the self-titled Bleachers, fourth, and now the fifth album, Everyone for 10 Minutes, and... I was so grateful for this episode because I was in the dark on bleachers and now I'm in a norm. Now you're in the light. Oh, my God. One song got me. You're staring directly into the sun. As you'll hear.
Please enjoy this very sweet artist, Jack Antonoff. He's an armchair expert. You got a coffee. Do you like Topo Chico? They're very rare now. Do you know there's a shortage? I love them. I'll take one. Yeah. I want you to have like one of our four reserves. Yeah, it's worth like $96 now.
The big shortage that I'm dealing with in my life, and I know there are more important things around the world, but the kind of almond butter I like. Oh, almond butter. The kind I like. Justin's? No. I like a company called Woodstock. The one I like seems to be discontinued. Oh, no. I think I spent more money than people should spend on a homebuyer getting a case. Stockpiling it?
What's so good about it? I'm a stockpiler. Me too. Tell me about it. The texture. I don't know.
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Chapter 2: How did Jack Antonoff's childhood shape his music career?
I just love it. My life outside of my work is so, like, I eat the same thing. I do the same thing. So if I get into something, it's hard for me, which I think is bullshit. I can say that loud. But internally, I'm like, this helps the thing. Oh, I see. You connect it to like your overall. Oh, interesting. Almost a superstitious way. I get really anxious otherwise. I'm painfully the same. Yeah.
I just ate an oatmeal just before you got here that I eat 100% of mornings. I eat the exact same oatmeal. If I'm in a situation where I don't have my protein power or my almond butter. Yeah. I think like, oh, my sanity is really on the verge here. Here's the upside. Yeah. When you are robbed of your little comforts and you're completely fine, you're quickly reminded how fucking stupid it all is.
And it's more if I don't have to think about my life outside of the important things, the people I love, my work. Why blow you tiles on it? You tiles? Yeah, I think this is this term of like energy units for your brain. Oh, I think our friend Eric actually made it up. You tiles? Maybe we learned it from him and he does mispronounce everything. But I'm now like, that's the real term for it.
We've been using it as if it's a real word. And I don't know that it is. But please use it. Sure, yeah. I mean, reality is as we... Perceive it to be. Deem it and say it. We, all of our names for things are just people like us sat and thought of them. That's true. That's that, you know. Just noises your tongue makes. This is how I feel about swearing with my children.
I'm like, it's just a noise that comes out. You assign to it whatever you want. Lately, I've been promoting my albums. I've been on the radio here and there and they're like, you know, no, fuck, shit, piss, all this stuff. I'm like, okay.
And then we're talking and then cuts to commercial and they're like, you know, 11 dead and blah, blah, blah, torn apart by this gut strewn everywhere, shot in the face. And I'm like, I can't fucking just like say like this song was fucking driving me crazy. That is not a problem in the world anymore. Cursing is not. Exactly.
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Chapter 3: What experiences influenced Jack's creative process?
You know, is there a motherfucker at this point is just like means anyone like this motherfucker was talking. It's not even bad. It's colloquial. I just think the stories and words we generally hear in life feels like maybe it's time as a world that we're just like, if a kid says fuck, it doesn't matter.
Let's catch up.
My thing is like, as long as they use it, first of all, they're not allowed to use it out of the house. They got to use it funny. They got to be good at it. And both of my kids are good. They don't just do it for the point of it. It's like every now and then one comes out and it's perfectly timed. And I'm like, perfect. Keep on at it.
Like if I had a kid and they were like, pick up my fucking toy. I'd be like, this is bad. But if they were like, the new whatever is un-fucking-believably cool. I'd be like... Nice use. Or like if they were like, this piece of shit tried to take my lunch.
Yes!
There's a moment. But I imagine words are actually very important to you. More than anything. Yes. But I have an amazing split in my head about what I'm thinking in terms of imparting a feeling and when I'm just talking shit. So a lot of times I'm just sitting around being like, you have like two zones. Yeah. I got to tell you something.
I'm sure they told you, but like anything that we talk about that you don't like tomorrow, you're like, I wish I hadn't said that thing about Rachel. We cut anything out. So just start there.
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Chapter 4: How does grief impact Jack Antonoff's perspective on life and art?
It's nice to hear because, you know, my work is so much fun and talking about my work and the interesting experience I have has always been so much fun. And I feel like we crested into this place where it became not fun. And I think we're cresting back into a place where it can be not just when I say fun, I mean, interesting, deep. What was the peak of when it was not fun? What do you think was...
I just think for good reason, the people running the show have been so disappointing that we've all, for good reason, been holding each other to a very intense standard of dignity as dignity has completely gone out of phase. I think...
that's coming back in a way but I try to see things you know I have my own personal feelings about things then I have like my feeling when I like pan back and see like well what are people feeling right now I feel like people are feeling starved for community I feel like people are very bored with things they didn't think were possible to get bored about That's interesting. Yeah.
Well, that's my essential feeling. I feel like people have grown, thank God, fatigued of being angry at everything. Or realize how limiting it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're surrounded by a lot of people who, I think about this a lot, a lot of the people who are meant to shock us, and I'm not in any way minimizing how horrible and shocking their actions are, but them themselves is not shocking.
Do you imagine Trump got up there and was like, I got to talk about my dad. I think there's something wrong with me. Yeah. We'd be like... I know. Even when I see people who I have remarkable differences with having some moment of growth, I'm stunned by it. Growth is everything. It's all we have. And so I think when we're trapped in these...
endless conversations of people who are not going to do anything differently. We know exactly what they're going to do. We know exactly how they're going to do it. It's almost like a new kind of boredom. Yeah. A sadder boredom, not a fun boredom. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, I want to start with saying I'm very, very excited to meet you.
And as we just discussed a little bit off mic, I'm friends with your sister, Rachel. You know my family. Yes, your older sister. You know my family? I was invited to Rachel's fashion show. So I did get to meet her there. Cool. I can't say I know her, but hopefully one day. She's the most well-liked person. Yeah. I've experienced. That holds. The reviews are like pretty. Unanimous. Yeah.
If you got a problem with her, you got to go away. And I remember, so back when we were doing Parenthood, so I don't know if this was 2010 or 11, maybe nine. I was in New York and May and I were there to promote the show. And I was hanging out with May and she brought your sister along. And then I came to like her a lot. And then they were telling me, yeah, Rachel's brother's a musician.
I was like learning about you. This is pre-2000, I guess, 14, everything kind of explodes. Yeah, I'm like in a van smoking pot. Yeah. And you're like, great. And they're like, do you want to go to a show? There'll be nine other people there and you can't leave because he'll see if you leave. True. I don't know why it's so rewarding to have gotten this notion of you back then.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Jack share about the magic of music and its impact on his life?
Very nice. You're like, what are you guys doing?
He's like... Fine. He's just fine. He's a person.
Yes and no. But also I do see all this as magic. I'm like right there. I don't know. There's so many people in my life, different artists who I've had that relationship to not knowing them, but they very deeply got me through a period of time, saved my life in many ways. So I'm just not casual about any of this.
When someone has a wild feeling about someone else, I'm never like, oh, they're just a person. I'm like, yeah, shit's magic. I get it.
Chapter 6: How does Jack describe the creative process behind Bleachers' new album?
I have my own experience there. Okay. So everyone for 10 minutes. Is Bleacher's fifth album. Oh, yeah. Okay. And now here's where I will be very honest with you. And I'm embarrassed to admit, although I've heard all this other work you've done, I've not been consuming a lot of Bleacher's. Very oddly separate audiences. Yeah, sure. And I was completely missing the boat.
I started with the new album and I listened to all those songs. And then I was like, oh my God, there's so many things I like about Bleachers. I hear so much General Public in it. Oh, cool. Did you like General Public? Fuck, they got some John Hughes drops, I think. I was so into New Wave and Junior High. That's what I regulated with. I was just so in love with people and so heartbroken.
All that music was so perfect for me. Yeah, it's so dramatic in the best way. The horns. I fucking love the saxophone so much. You couldn't make a song in the 80s without a saxophone. It was illegal. It became frowned upon. Got a little cheesy. So then we lost it. But it's like anything.
Chapter 7: What reflections does Jack have on grief and creativity?
It's how you use it. I mean, look at the guitar. It's like you could make the guitar so cheesy or it could be the most interesting transcendent thing ever. I love the way Neil Young plays solos where he's like fighting it. Saxophone is the same thing. Synths are the same thing. I love playing with things that have been distasteful and finding a new voice for them. Just in order.
I love Dirty Wedding Dress. Take You Out Tonight. I'm going to say there's a lot of Springsteen in that song. Dirty Wedding Dress and Take You Out Tonight literally take place where I live at the shore in Jersey. I can feel it. That's my music. New Jersey has a sound that is one of the most important sounds in the world, but not documented the same way that like New York, London, Manchester.
People obviously know Bruce, but there's so much more to it. There's Southside Johnny. There's that whole shore sound. We're a I'm learning so much. Charlie is like a historian on New Jersey musicians. And he went to like some famous jazz pianist workshop. Yeah, like camp or something. It's crazy jazz.
The way I articulate the way I use horns, which is very New Jersey, is horns are coastal, right? Because when ships come in, you got to blow a horn. You know, no one like hits a harpsichord. when the ship's coming in, like you got to blow a horn. So you think of horns, you think coastal. You got like New Orleans type jazzy horns.
Chapter 8: What are Jack's thoughts on the importance of community and connection in music?
You got sort of New England, like Crab Shack, deep, deep horns. I love this take. Yeah, this is interesting. You got LA, sort of Captain Geech and the Shrimp Shark shooter type, another, that thing you do reference horns. But then you got New Jersey, which is coastal horns, but big and sad. Big, soaring horns.
sad horn lines where it's like there's a duality of there's a saxophone here which is supposed to be like a wink but they're playing this super sad long line very springsteen like god that line secret garden when it's just like hanging over i love that stuff okay and then This happens to me almost quarterly. Monica will know this. I find a song and I listen to it thousands of times.
I can listen to songs on repeat. Me too. For hours and hours and hours. I never tire of it. And upstairs at Elle's is fucking. Oh, really? Oh, my God, dude. I can't tell you the word. I've been going through the last 24 hours. E.L.S. Electric Lady Studios. E.L.S. Electric Lady Studios. I didn't put periods in it, did I not? Oh, so I did pronounce it wrong. No, you're correct.
No, everyone says upstairs at Elle's. Because there's no periods. I didn't put periods. I had to figure out. Yes, I did put it together afterwards. This is on me. But I was like, oh, is Elle's the friend's house? But then when I listened to the lyrics, I'm like, no, this is definitely where you record. Finish up a track, send a text, party on the roof, everybody get dressed.
This feeling, if you're artistic, I feel like I just got zapped. It's like to me when I finish a script and I'm like, I fucking did it. And I wonder if we have a similar emotional state where it's like I have to earn joy. Oh, yeah. And when I earn it, the heights of joy I can reach. I want to party. I will let it fucking rip.
When I'm there and I get something I like, by the way, that space up there, it's such like a secret rarefied place because it's all my friends. Like no one's going to come and go live. So we're just actually completely loose and having fun. And so those nights when it's summer, you feel yourself from something you just made.
And then you just kind of group text a bunch of people like, let's have pizza and drink on the roof. Oh, those are the nights. And I'm a believer that it's always the good old days. But I'm like, we're like living in the good old days. And I want to write a song about that. The album ends with I'm Not Joking, which is very intense love song. And then upstairs at ELS is like the credits rolling.
I finished the album. Here we are.
Yeah.
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