MBW’s World’s Biggest Songwriters collection celebrates the composers behind the globe’s greatest hits. The final installment of 2023 options one of the crucial profitable writers of the fashionable age, Jack Antonoff – a key collaborator with, amongst others, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, St Vincent and, after all, Taylor Swift. World’s Biggest Songwriters is supported by AMRA – the worldwide digital music assortment society which strives to maximise worth for songwriters and publishers within the digital age.
The primary time Jack Antonoff realized he was a fairly good songwriter was when he was in indie rock jam band Metal Prepare.
Their 2003 debut EP, For You My Pricey, featured a surprisingly delicate ballad referred to as Angelica.
“Earlier than that, I used to be writing songs for a hardcore band, so it was extra concerning the reside efficiency,” Antonoff says. “However that was the primary time that I assumed to myself, ‘Oh wow, I can hear this exterior of being the one that wrote it, and I really feel very pleased with it’.
“I’ve been searching for that feeling ever since,” he provides. “Once you get it, you acknowledge it and, whenever you don’t get it, you wait!”
Nowadays, you watched Jack Antonoff doesn’t have to attend too lengthy for inspiration to strike. Through his collaborations with Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Florence + The Machine, St Vincent and plenty of others, in addition to his personal work in Bleachers and Enjoyable, he has grow to be maybe the foremost – and definitely probably the most recognizable – songwriter-producer of the age; concerned in a number of Grammys, billions of streams and maybe the final protector of the album as music’s premier format.
Up to now yr alone, he has labored on Taylor Swift’s Midnights, Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Underneath Ocean Blvd and The 1975’s Being Humorous In A Overseas Language, making him the frontrunner to once more win the Producer of the 12 months Grammy; a gong he additionally picked up in each 2022 and 2023.
Swift’s Anti-Hero and Del Rey’s A&W, each co-written and co-produced by Antonoff, are additionally up for Tune of the 12 months (Anti-Hero can also be shortlisted for File of the 12 months), whereas Swift and Del Rey are each nominated for Album of the 12 months.
But it surely wasn’t at all times this fashion. Antonoff grew up in New Jersey and, as a youngster, turned a minor face on the state’s legendary 2000s emo scene, which spawned the likes of My Chemical Romance and Saves The Day.
Antonoff’s punk band Define didn’t hit fairly the identical heights and, whereas his subsequent undertaking, Metal Prepare, scored a cope with Drive-Through Data and toured prodigiously, Eras Tour-style superstardom remained a great distance off.
“the universe was screaming in my face that it wasn’t understanding!”
“Throughout that point, after all I needed extra,” Antonoff shrugs, as he talks to MBW from Los Angeles, the place his East Coast cool is being “flustered” by the dry warmth. “However I’m pleased with it, as a result of there’s not one second I look again on the place I ever thought, ‘Shall I do one thing else?’ Not one! And Jesus Christ, the universe was screaming in my face that it wasn’t understanding!
“I’m not speaking one yr or two years, however years and years of shedding cash,” laughs the songwriter, who scored his first No.1 in 2012 with We Are Younger, as a member of the pop-rock band Enjoyable. “However that’s all we’ve got in life: imagine in one thing, whether or not anybody else believes in it or not. And, if individuals finally imagine in it with you, it’s very life-affirming…”
Nowadays, after all, musicians and the music trade entrust Antonoff with their most sacred tasks. Some songwriters get calls from determined A&Rs looking for a last-minute hit; Antonoff is the man you enlist to construct a long-term undertaking over a number of releases.
He’s labored on each Taylor Swift album since 1989, the enjoyment they absorb working collectively completely captured by the viral video displaying them gleefully nailing the bridge to 2017’s Getaway Automobile.
At this time, he’s equally thrilled on the belated success of Swift’s Merciless Summer time; co-written by Swift, Antonoff and St Vincent, co-produced by Swift and Antonoff and one in every of 2023’s greatest hits regardless of first being launched on Swift’s basic 2019 Lover album (“You’re at all times writing into the longer term, so it doesn’t shock me when issues have completely different lives”).
However whereas he appears to have cracked pop’s DNA code, he insists that type of studio alchemy stays “endlessly mysterious”, peppering his dialog with presumably tongue-in-cheek references to these often-uncredited studio collaborators, magic and God.
He’s brokered an extensive new partnership with Jamie Oborne and Dirty Hit, with Oborne now his supervisor and Bleachers signing to DH. And he’s gearing up for the self-titled fourth Bleachers album, due out in 2024, and its lead single, the large Dexys power of Fashionable Woman (“Dexys is my greatest affect that doesn’t essentially need to do with the writing,” he grins. “They’re the final word in managed chaos”).
Some producers may shrink back from the highlight that comes with being an artist, however Antonoff is unfazed by the eye. He professes to be unaware – or no less than unperturbed – by the avalanche of assume items, hypothesis and gossip about him and his work on-line, simply as he insists he has no long-term plans for pop domination or, certainly, the rest.
“I went to the studio yesterday, I’ll go to the studio right this moment and that’s what I’ve received!” he chuckles. “I’m actually solely centered on the day forward.”
Fortunately for us, right this moment entails him sitting down with MBW to speak Taylor Swift, synthetic intelligence and the high-quality artwork of co-writing…
WHAT WAS THE THINKING BEHIND YOUR NEW PUBLISHING, RECORD AND MANAGEMENT DEALS?
Jamie [Oborne, pictured with Antonoff, below] is one of the best. He’s modified my life in nearly each constructive approach. And Jen [Knoepfle] is the one that understood me as a songwriter earlier than that was a preferred idea!
If I play Jen music, she hears my music; she doesn’t hear my success. She heard it earlier than anybody cared and she or he hears it now, and people are the individuals I need round me. Quite the opposite, Jamie’s a brand new determine and he simply will get it.
Credit score: Jared Christiansen
There’s a deep feeling behind the data and he’s excellent there with me. I really feel extra proud and impressed than I ever have – and it’s as a result of he loves what he does and he’s sensible at what he does.
Our brains are so linked; he’ll ship me one thing I haven’t heard but and I’ll simply fucking adore it. I’ll play him one thing and he’ll completely perceive what I’m making an attempt to perform. Jen, Jamie, my viewers, my band… I really feel very fortunate to be surrounded by individuals who I’d be glad doing this with if no one cared.
ARE YOU CONSCIOUS OF HOW PROLIFIC YOUR LAST DECADE HAS BEEN AS A SONGWRITER AND PRODUCER?
I’ve had intervals of my life the place I am going out and in of feeling impressed, and this decade simply will get higher and higher. I really feel nearer and nearer to what I’m making an attempt to precise. Placing out music is a bit like shouting one thing on the road: you wouldn’t stroll out and shout, ‘I’m going to have lunch!’
However you could have these concepts and this deranged a part of your self says, ‘I wish to shout this to the world’. It’s loopy, as a result of this stuff are so advanced, take so lengthy and there are such a lot of child steps to get to them.
But it surely’s really not that deep. You’ve a sense, a thought and a sound and it’s important to create it. After which, in the event you can create it the way in which you dreamed about it, it’s important to launch it.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM ALL THOSE YEARS IN ALTERNATIVE ROCK BANDS?
It totally formed me. It’s a must to have a agency line within the sand of what you assume is OK, and what you don’t. In any other case, you received’t acknowledge your self in just a few days.
WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR PARTNERSHIP WITH TAYLOR SWIFT HAS BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL?
It’s very exhausting to speak about, as a result of it’s quite a lot of magic. I’ve been in a position to articulate and intellectualize it to a degree the place I can discuss literal issues that occur, however the true reply to that query has at all times been exhausting to entry.
As a result of, like all of the good magical relationships in a single’s life, I don’t sit round and take into consideration that magic, I work together with it. I at all times assume to myself that, if I might clarify it, then it wouldn’t be it.
Credit score: Brian Friedman/Shutterstock
WAS THAT MAGIC THERE WHEN YOU FIRST WORKED WITH TAYLOR?
Sure. Immediately. That’s one thing I’ve observed in any of the good relationships in my life: whether or not it’s with individuals who I’ve made data with, whether or not it’s with my band, whether or not it’s with my finest buddies or a relationship I’ve with a bit of music or a portray, I can’t develop that magic, it’s there instantly.
It at all times has been. I don’t have a narrative the place I used to be bored by somebody after which one thing occurred; that spark is alive from day one.
HOW DO YOU RECOGNIZE IT WHEN IT HAPPENS?
You may’t pretend the sensation and you may’t get good at it, it’s simply magic. However what you will get good at is capturing it when it occurs. Simply ensuring, once I’m within the studio, that issues are fairly actually plugged in a sure approach, so if I get the factor, I’ve received it in a approach that I’m going to be prepared to present it to the world.
In case you have an incredible lyric, you don’t wish to be fumbling round with Professional Instruments or having a problem with the mic. It’s a must to nearly be like a fisherman; have your instruments arrange so, if it bites, you’re proper there.
IS THERE AN ARTIST YOU HAVEN’T WORKED WITH YET THAT’S ON YOUR BUCKET LIST?
No, I’m actually glad. I’m actually into these lengthy relationships [with artists]. It doesn’t imply I received’t work with new individuals, it simply means I don’t take into consideration this. I simply take into consideration the place I’m going with my individuals.
CAN THOSE CREATIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE LIKES OF TAYLOR, LANA AND LORDE LAST FOREVER?
If the magic’s there, this stuff final so long as they need to. It’s to not me, it’s as much as… God? [Laughs] I don’t give it some thought in any approach, it’s simply what comes out of the room. You’ve it otherwise you don’t and each time we’ve got it, I’m grateful.
YOU SEEM VERY FOCUSED ON MAKING ALBUMS. IS THAT DIFFICULT AT A TIME WHEN THE INDUSTRY SEEMS TO BE MOVING AWAY FROM THE FORMAT?
I at all times hear that, however it’s not likely the individuals I do know. There are very completely different music companies: within the music enterprise I’m in, I don’t actually know many individuals who don’t imagine that the album is God. I’m certain there are lots of people on the market that may assume otherwise and do it otherwise.
I’m most practical once I take into consideration issues from a chook’s eye view. I at all times see issues as a complete and see albums and the way albums must be greater than the sum of their components.
It’s essential to be sure to’re staying within the lane the place what to do and methods to do it. I understand how to make albums, and that’s what I do. I don’t assume individuals ask me to pop in and do that or that, as a result of I wouldn’t be very useful!
SO WHAT DO YOU SAY TO PEOPLE WHO SAY TIKTOK-FRIENDLY 15-SECOND SNIPPETS ARE WHAT WORKS IN MUSIC AT THE MOMENT?
You’d need to again up and say, effectively, work for what? Does it work for having one thing be widespread for 2 weeks? Certain. Does it work for an artist’s profession? By no means as soon as has.
“By no means put one thing out you’re not in love with, as a result of it’s unattainable to win. Even when it’s the most important hit on the earth, you’ll be unhappy.”
If something, quite a lot of one of the best artists on the earth typically wrestle after they have these moments. By no means file one thing you’re not in love with, by no means put one thing out you’re not in love with, as a result of it’s unattainable to win. Even when it’s the most important hit on the earth, you’ll be unhappy. It’s a really difficult course of however a quite simple idea: simply do you, that’s all it’s important to do.
THAT MIGHT NOT BE EASY FOR EVERYONE…
The worst factor that will get dangled above individuals is the power to proceed to be an artist. That occurs so much within the music trade, individuals will say, ‘Oh, simply do that, then you are able to do no matter you need, since you’ll be all good’. You simply make a alternative early on in the event you’re going to make a cope with the satan or not…
DOES THE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEED TO CHANGE THE WAY IT TREATS SONGWRITERS?
Surely. Each trade wants to deal with how they deal with their artists.
“It’s quite common to be a broke artist, however there usually are not quite a lot of broke music enterprise individuals.”
It’s quite common to be a broke artist, however there usually are not quite a lot of broke music enterprise individuals, as a result of that’s a job that you simply get a paycheck for. In our tradition, we’ve got this concept that in the event you’re an artist, you’re fortunate to be there, so to be paid a good wage is a luxurious, not an apparent little bit of equity.
Traditionally, what artists and writers do is, they go and make artwork. So, they’re very straightforward individuals to screw over, as a result of they’re interested by an even bigger factor. I don’t sit round and take into consideration cash, I sit round and take into consideration songs and albums.
ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT THE IMPACT AI COULD HAVE ON SONGWRITING AND PRODUCTION?
I don’t give a shit about what it’ll do to the artwork, as a result of I don’t assume it’ll do something. To be within the presence of one thing made by a human is a large a part of the supply. However I believe it’ll fuck up the commerce for lots of struggling artists.
That is the issue with the enterprise facet of issues; they’ll typically work out a strategy to ‘disrupt’ or break one thing, however what they’ll’t appear to ever work out is, it was by no means damaged. So, then we simply go on these cyclical journeys and it’s exhausting and unhappy that the individuals who get fucked probably the most on the journey are the artists themselves.
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT TODAY’S MUSIC INDUSTRY, RIGHT HERE AND NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
I’d utterly dismantle what’s occurred to reside music and convey again native promoters. I’d make it attainable for an artist to promote a ticket with a really tiny charge and have that be that, and no fucking bullshit, free market absurdity.
What’s occurred to the touring trade is heartbreaking. And nobody wins besides just a few assholes. The artists don’t win, the followers don’t win. Exhibits are lovely locations and so they’ve received to be protected against this gross capitalist madness.
IS THE REST OF THE NEW BLEACHERS ALBUM AS UPBEAT AS MODERN GIRL?
Fashionable Woman might be within the high three most joyous, enjoyable songs on the album. There’s quite a lot of unhappiness on there too, however that’s not how I needed to introduce individuals to the album. Proper now, unhappiness has grow to be such a go-to expression that it felt extra thrilling to precise some pleasure and humor.
THE WORLD COULD PROBABLY DO WITH SOME OF THAT RIGHT NOW…
Once you get to reside in a time the place it’s anticipated that everybody is all the things on a regular basis, sooner or later you do take a step again and assume, ‘I don’t wish to be all the things, what do I do? What do I like to do? And what do I try this issues?’ And I’m not speaking about firing off the appropriate tweet, I’m speaking about one thing that actually issues.
So, in case you are fortunate sufficient to know the reply to that query, it feels absurd to not go at 100mph down that highway. Greater than ever proper now, I do know why I’m right here, I understand how to do it and I don’t wish to be distracted from it.
THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD PHILOSOPHY FOR LIFE…
It’s good for a band! I’ll let you understand how my life seems, however it’s certainly good for a mission assertion of what it means to be a songwriter and band chief…
