It must feel pretty good being Jack Antonoff right now. He’s just won his third straight producer of the year Grammy Award; his work with artists such as Taylor Swift and Lana Del Ray is both critically acclaimed and commercially successful; and he’s just dropped a new album with his own band, Bleachers.
No surprise, then, that Apple Music’s Zane Lowe wanted to catch up with him, and when he did so, in New York, he was treated to a tour of Antonoff’s creative space at Electric Lady Studios.
In fact, the two men even made a bit of music together; as Antonoff fired off synth arpeggios and pads, Lowe jumped on the Mellotron and played a few notes of his own.
“I’m excited to go into the studio,” Antonoff reveals as he steps through Electric Lady’s doors. “As soon as I walk in. I feel pretty removed from the things I feel stressed about”.
There’s certainly a homely feel to Antonoff’s room, and the producer says that this is something that appeals to him.
“What I like about this place is we can make some of the best recordings in the world, we have all the best gear, but it’s basically an apartment like it's not overly treated,” he explains. “It's a little funny. It's small, it's, you know… there's this feeling sometimes when you walk into a big studio, and you feel like Mariah Carey. And it's just a feeling that doesn't resonate for me; I like to be in like a home environment - like a little more connected to where people are going to hear the music. And so that's what makes this place perfect, because it's truly both.”
Elsewhere in the lengthy chat, Antonoff discusses his remarkable run of success, particularly with Taylor Swift, and says that, when the pair start work on a new project, he tries to “forget what’s come before because all it can do is weigh you down.”
“Every time we do something new I joke, ‘I guess we still got it,’” he continues. “Because there's no reason for it to keep coming the way it does. There’s a lot of magic there. I feel that way with Taylor, I feel that way with Lana [Del Rey] I feel that way with my band. There's people I've had these long relationships with where I'm just like, the opposite of expecting it. It's almost like the more we do, the less I expect it, because I often think to myself, well, how much longer could we really keep having this spark? And I'm just grateful that it’s there and I don't know where it comes from or where it goes. But the one thing that I've noticed is that anyone who claims to know where it comes from and where it goes burns out pretty fucking quick.”
Check out the full interview in the video above.
