“Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When you go all over the world for work, your dream vacation is your bedroom.”
― Jack Antonoff
“That’s what is incredible about human beings, is the choice to keep going.”
― Jack Antonoff
“My father played guitar, so I always wanted to play for that reason. But I think the biggest reason was just the ’90s in general – growing up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and bands like that, and going to concerts and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’m not trying to write a perfect record. I’m just trying to nail a moment in time.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’ve worked so hard for so long, and everyone’s reaction has made me feel like… almost like they trust me, which is just a wonderful feeling. It pushes me to write things better and better.”
― Jack Antonoff
“You can be a man who loves a woman but love someone the way a gay man loves another man or a woman loves a woman.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I think that everyone at any age should ask themselves, ‘where do I want to be today, where do I want to be tomorrow, and where do I want to be in a hundred years?’ We all have clear answers to those questions. We only have so much time. It’s a real shame if we don’t spend our lives trying to do that.”
― Jack Antonoff
“It’s really easy to end up on the ‘Daily Mail’ if you put yourself in situations where you’ll end up on the ‘Daily Mail,’ and it’s really easy to not if you don’t do that.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When you’re in a band, it’s like everyone’s the CEO, and anyone could destroy it at any moment.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I want to come and play in cities and states where transgender citizens are not discriminated against, where there’s no hateful bathroom bills at the shows where I’m going to be playing.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I just work a lot. I just remember recording in a hotel room in Malaysia. I work on planes, I work on buses. A lot of times when I’m backstage in the hotel or on the bus, I would have new ideas.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’ve never really identified with the way a typical alpha male views women. It’s always an awkward forum for me to hang out with another guy and talk about girls, because I can’t really find a way to fit in.”
― Jack Antonoff
“For me, a perfect pop song is something like ‘This Year,’ by the Mountain Goats.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The only people playing the roles of classic rock stars are hip-hop artists, now. Kanye’s stage persona, and the way he approaches making albums, and the way he wants to be better than everyone else? That’s reminiscent of Freddie Mercury. That’s reminiscent of the Beatles.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The easiest way I can describe what makes a pop song a pop song is that it’s a song you want to hear over and over.”
― Jack Antonoff
“My grandparents got out of Poland right before the Holocaust and came here, and the only thing that mattered was surviving.”
― Jack Antonoff
“If you’re in a conversation with me, the last thing I’ll probably say when I’m walking away is, ‘Thank you and sorry.’”
― Jack Antonoff
“Human rights, no matter whom they affect, are something that should matter to all of us. It’s always been a part of my life.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Social paralysis is strong and stands firmly in the way of change on the ground level. As allies, we have to prepare ourselves to step into the fire when necessary, even – and especially – when said fire is merely a still-lit cigarette tossed carelessly onto the street.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I went to high school in New York City. So, I grew up in New Jersey my whole life, and I was watching all the people and all the kids that I met there become so jaded.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Anyone who is awake and aware knows that these quote-unquote bathroom bills or any legislation discriminating against LGBTQ citizens is horrible.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I grew up on Raffi. That was my first impression of what a rock star was.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When you start writing songs on your own, there’s no Bible, there’s no one around you, so you’re just writing, and you’re left with, like, the dead space in your head to know if it’s a good song or an interesting concept.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I always had the feeling that Bleachers is my soul.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’ve gone down to the Jersey Shore every summer since I was born. It’s like a second home, and Asbury Park is like the capital – it’s the center of all of it. Musically, it’s incredible.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The first band I was ever in, I played guitar. We did Gary Glitter and Green Day covers at the time. We were called Fizz. I have no idea why we picked that. We were, like, 12 years old.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The best pop music is the songs that a group of people can dance to, but you can also listen to in your bed and cry. That’s something obviously that The Beatles started and… so having that darkness there opens another door.”
― Jack Antonoff
“What sets ‘Some Nights’ apart from anything we’ve ever done is the hip-hop influence. Not so much the actual sound of hip-hop, but more the vibrato and the artistry that comes with it. Right now, the artists that seem to be pushing to be the greatest artists and are trying to change the world are hip-hop artists.”
― Jack Antonoff
“’Glee’ is one of the very few mainstream outlets that is giving a voice to communities of people that don’t necessarily have a loud voice, specifically the gay community. It gives a really positive and forward statement.”
― Jack Antonoff
“So many boys and girls talk the same way, listen to the same music, look the same. If I’m out, I’ll notice the person who looks different before I notice the person who’s, ‘really hot.’”
― Jack Antonoff
“Of course, the majority of us would speak up in the face of outrageous bigotry, but do we speak up in a social situation when someone casually refers to something as ‘gay’? If we don’t, we are standing with the homophobes whom we are quietly fighting.”
― Jack Antonoff
“As straight Americans we have two choices: we can choose to sit back and enjoy our rights as we have them, or we can realize that it is actually not freedom at all when our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues do not share these basic rights.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I never understood the idea of canceling a show when you don’t like the politics of a specific state.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’ve ended up on some website list or some other list for super right-wing people. They’ve been tweeting some pretty rude stuff at me, so I think there’s a sect of America out there that doesn’t like certain opinions and can really take their claws out when they don’t like what you’re saying.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’m not super into sports.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I think it’s all about making records when you’re inspired to make them.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I think it’s nice to do work that is vaguely compromising to your health because it means you really care about it.”
― Jack Antonoff
“It really is true that when an issue becomes pop culture, it changes faster, and it’s really great for the issue.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The way that people have gotten on board with me is the most encouraging thing in the world, but it’s all very connected to the 14 years I’ve been on tour with Steel Train, even my band before that, Outline, and then fun. and now Bleachers.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When I started playing in bands, we had to be apologetic for what we did. We had to be apologetic because the mainstream was so bad.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I want to be able to do work where I think it’s very forward, but I also want it to exist in a big way and have an effect on a lot of people.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I think that some of the most amazing places to be or to grow up are the places right outside of great cities, because you’re sort of constantly in this suspended state of, like, looking inside the window, wanting to be in the party. I think it breeds good feelings.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The connection I make with being young and growing up is, like, the feeling of not being crushed by the world. Having an idea, thinking you can do it.”
― Jack Antonoff
“There’s nothing more adult than being ripped away from friends and family, you know? Having to manage a life when you’re not fully there, manage a life when you don’t make a lot of money. It’s very adult.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I could probably name thousands of albums that I want.”
― Jack Antonoff
“To grow up five miles outside of the greatest city in the world is a bizarre experience.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When I was growing up, it was a lot of punk and hardcore music going on in legion halls and firehouses, and we’d play those shows, and it was very Jersey. It was very suburban, and there’s just a great pride there.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I started buying vinyl records when I got into punk music because, in the punk scene in New Jersey, vinyl was more like a necessity than a luxury.”
― Jack Antonoff
“It just seems like the most fun thing in the world. I’ve never met people who have kids who haven’t looked me in the eye and been like, ‘It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened.’”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’m 30. I’m not that young, right? I’m not, like, 24 or 22. I’m no longer in the phase of my life where I talk about everything as in the future. Like, I’m in the future.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Bleachers comes from a different place. It’s personal. It’s just me putting myself out there as myself. It’s very intense.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Sometimes it’s really quick, and sometimes it’s really long. There’s no formula for writing songs.”
― Jack Antonoff
“There was this darkness about being from New Jersey.”
― Jack Antonoff
“In this business, it’s important to constantly do things that you don’t know how to do. I love touring and making records, but I’ve learned how to do that, so sometimes you just have to dive in and try it.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Great songs come out of people’s bedrooms; they come out of studios; there’s no formula for it.”
― Jack Antonoff
“It’s a really natural thing: The people closest in your life are the people you want the first opinions from. At the end of the day, if you’re not trying to impress those people first, then I think there’s something wrong there.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Singles, whatever. But selling a million albums feels like an impossible thing to do.”
― Jack Antonoff
“You get to a point where everything is so important. One day you have ‘Letterman,’ and the next day you’re at the MTV Movie Awards, and the next day you have a sold-out show for over 15,000 people. You can’t cancel anything, because it’s just too much to let everyone down, which is an interesting thing about being in a bigger band.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I feel like I missed a whole period of my childhood because I had a bunch of stressful things happen to me when I was like 17, 18, when people usually feel the most free in life, like going to college and like anything is possible.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I need a hobby, and I don’t want it to be basketball. I want it to be music. So to get away from music, I do other music.”
― Jack Antonoff
“My parents had a house on the Jersey shore – I grew up right there, going down there every summer and living there. It is home for me.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Headlining can be sort of solitary – you’re sort of on your own out there, and you start to feel for a change.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’ve been touring through Texas since I was 15, on my first tour ever.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I just don’t think it’s good to be around too much creative energy other than your own.”
― Jack Antonoff
“At least for me, any time I’ve been in hotbeds of creativity, I got excited about something that wasn’t coming from me.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I don’t like having to be pushed into a box.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I feel very, very, very intent on only releasing things that I believe are fully worthy.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’m gonna make my records, whether I release them as Bleachers or something else.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Everybody has this sack they’re carrying. Some are heavier. Some are lighter. But no one doesn’t have it. And if you think someone doesn’t have it, they have a bigger one than you imagine.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When I work with other people, I don’t have to do that – it’s because I love to do it and I want to do it.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I love to stay at home and write.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I have all of these lives that I want the music to live, but at the end of the day, it’s out there.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I don’t really look back or forward too much. That’s not to say I live in the moment, because I struggle with that as well.”
― Jack Antonoff
“With art and the work you do, it has to be constantly dictated by what you’re feeling and where you want to go with it.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Stepping away from Fun. was both exciting and terrifying.”
― Jack Antonoff
“All I have to do to continue to make things work is make great records, and that’s more important than having a crazy master plan.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I have my cousin’s jacket from when he was at war in Iraq. He never came home. It’s incredible to have something that is so personal but that I also feel relatively comfortable wearing.”
― Jack Antonoff
“What song have you played 10,000 times? It’s probably not something basic. It’s probably a song that validates your experience on Earth.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Once you understand that listeners want to be challenged, then you also understand that you can’t take shortcuts.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I hear my songs being sung by females before I change them and make them into my voice.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Tinashe doing ‘I Wanna Get Better’ – it’s a really personal song, and it was hard for me to imagine anyone else doing it, but stylistically her and I are so incredibly different that I was fascinated to hear what she’d do with it, and I completely loved it. It just felt like the different expression of a song that, to me, was so stamped in one way.”
― Jack Antonoff
“What could be better than working with people you love?”
― Jack Antonoff
“I remember immediately – immediately – feeling like, ‘I don’t want to play ‘We Are Young’ when I’m 35. I don’t want to be defined by this.’”
― Jack Antonoff
“The heart and soul of pop is newness, excitement, innovation.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’m a part of your life. You might not know it, but I am.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I love connected culture.”
― Jack Antonoff
“Everyone has something that they carry always, even if it’s just as simple as, ‘I hate myself.’ Everyone’s got a different thing.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When you constantly revisit things, it’s hard to know if you’re freezing in time or if you’re a brilliant adult who’s working through it. I think about that in therapy, talking about the same things over and over again.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I love working with women.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I loved Interpol when they came out, but I never wanted to be in Interpol.”
― Jack Antonoff
“For 10 years, I had a band called Steel Train. We made three albums. We toured like crazy.”
― Jack Antonoff
“One thing a lot of people don’t know about Fun. was that the three of us all came from 10 years of touring with our own projects. That’s how we met, actually.”
― Jack Antonoff
“All of the guys I know from Jersey held onto this feeling of, ‘We’re always just working.’”
― Jack Antonoff
“I have no problem being mainstream. I grew up in the ’90s when the mainstream was amazing.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The music business is filled with some nice people but a lot of strange people, so when you come across someone who’s really genuine at an environment as bizarre as an awards show, you typically gravitate to them.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I think men are, like, repulsive, and I prefer being in a room with women. I think they’re often just more interesting.”
― Jack Antonoff
“When artists get very big, they kind of forget that that’s why they got big.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I don’t really love roller coasters because I feel like they’re filled with germs and make me nauseous.”
― Jack Antonoff
“People identify with other people for different reasons, and I personally am really comfortable around lesbians because, in some ways, we view women the same way.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I think what probably happens when you put two awkward/clunky people together is that their awkward/clunky world seems like a normal world.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I love ABC Family!”
― Jack Antonoff
“It’s pretty easy to tell who’s garbage and who’s not right away, and most people suck, to be honest, or they’re just really wrapped up in what’s going on with themselves.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The exciting thing about Bleachers and fun. are they’re different, and they’re aesthetically different in many ways. But it’s also like my role is very different, and that’s cool.”
― Jack Antonoff
“I’ve noticed that a lot of people in film always seem interested in music videos, like it’s some, like, really exciting thing they’ve always wanted to do or something.”
― Jack Antonoff
“You can look at someone and get to know their music and say, ‘This is someone who I want to work with.’”
― Jack Antonoff
“You have to believe that people don’t want what you think they’re going to like, you know? They want what you like. Once you start doing that, you actually start connecting with people.”
― Jack Antonoff
“The first time I ever got paid to play was 1/18/99, Fire Hall in Bordentown, New Jersey. Played first on the bill – we got paid $20!”
― Jack Antonoff
“If you’re lucky enough to find anything in life that gives you five seconds, let alone an hour, of relief from life, you should try to do it forever.”
― Jack Antonoff
“For better or for worse, I just have to be on tour for some portion of the year. But it’s not easy, you know. It’s not easy on the people you love, and I understand when people look at this life and say this isn’t sustainable.”
― Jack Antonoff
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