I always had the feeling that Bleachers is my soul.
— Jack Antonoff
I feel very, very, very intent on only releasing things that I believe are fully worthy.
I'm not trying to write a perfect record. I'm just trying to nail a moment in time.
I just don't think it's good to be around too much creative energy other than your own.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bleachers comes from a different place. It's personal. It's just me putting myself out there as myself. It's very intense.
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.
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.
When you're in a band, it's like everyone's the CEO, and anyone could destroy it at any moment.
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.
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.
I think it's nice to do work that is vaguely compromising to your health because it means you really care about it.
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.
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.
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.
My grandparents got out of Poland right before the Holocaust and came here, and the only thing that mattered was surviving.
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.
I've been touring through Texas since I was 15, on my first tour ever.
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.
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.
Great songs come out of people's bedrooms; they come out of studios; there's no formula for it.
There was this darkness about being from New Jersey.
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.'
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.'
To grow up five miles outside of the greatest city in the world is a bizarre experience.
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.
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.
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.
I think it's all about making records when you're inspired to make them.
I never understood the idea of canceling a show when you don't like the politics of a specific state.
I'm gonna make my records, whether I release them as Bleachers or something else.
I don't like having to be pushed into a box.
At least for me, any time I've been in hotbeds of creativity, I got excited about something that wasn't coming from me.
Anyone who is awake and aware knows that these quote-unquote bathroom bills or any legislation discriminating against LGBTQ citizens is horrible.
Headlining can be sort of solitary - you're sort of on your own out there, and you start to feel for a change.
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.
Singles, whatever. But selling a million albums feels like an impossible thing to do.
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.
Sometimes it's really quick, and sometimes it's really long. There's no formula for writing songs.
Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can.
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.
I could probably name thousands of albums that I want.
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.
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.
It really is true that when an issue becomes pop culture, it changes faster, and it's really great for the issue.
I'm not super into sports.
