Jack Antonoff has seemingly cracked the code for producing hit albums, winning multiple Grammys for his work with artists like Lorde, Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift. But for his own songwriting, he leans into the unknown. He studies his anxieties, regrets and grief, and shares those feelings in songs with his band Bleachers — as well as in this game of Wild Card.
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Wild Card with Rachel Martin
Jack Antonoff doesn't believe in 'no regrets'
This message comes from NPR sponsor Mattress Firm. Do you get the quality sleep you need? Mattress Firm will find you the right bed for your best rest, with their wide selection of quality mattresses at every price. Get matched at Mattress Firm's Memorial Day sale. Sleep at night. Hey, it's Rachel. Just a heads up. This episode contains a teensy bit of cursing. How has grief shaped your life? Entirely. Entirely. I almost see it as like an emotional lens. You know, like a contact lens or something that like goes over your eye. It's not like a thing that happens that you sometimes feel. It's like it's how you see things. I'm Rachel Martin and this is Wild Card. The game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest chooses questions at random from a deck of cards. Pick a card one through three. Questions about the memories, insights, and beliefs that have shaped them. You know, I'm not someone who I'm not really doing a bit. You know, I'm really feel very sincere about the things I'm doing and saying. And I think a big part of that is just being confronted with time and fragility. There is this unfortunate trait among some people who work in radio. We tend to edit conversations in real time. I know this because I am guilty of it. It is a super annoying habit that I try to keep to myself. But because I interview people for a living, when I'm having just like a normal conversation with my spouse or my friends or anyone, and they start telling me a particularly long story, I think to myself, oh, you should really leave that out. And yep, that can go, look at that, edit, edit, edit. Sometimes you do a thing for a living and it gets stuck in you and you can't help yourself but to keep doing it. Case in point, famed music producer Jack Antonoff. He's won 10 Grammys most prominently for his work producing Taylor Swift. But he's also worked with Lana Del Rey, Lorde and Saint Vincent. Jack Antonoff's ear is a tune to details in this superhuman way. He wants to shape things, fix them, channel them. And like my constantly editing brain, his producing cannot be contained by his work. In fact, when I was talking to him, he had this moment where he sort of started producing our conversation. This was recorded early on in our piloting of the show and we still hadn't worked out all the kinks. The rules in particular, we have the skip and then we just had, you can make me answer first, no clever name for that one. As you'll hear, Jack heard that and immediately he went, so I get one skip and flip. And I was like, oh, of course, a flip. You just made that so much better, I'm using that and we have ever since. Thank you, Jack. That quickness, that ingenuity, it's what makes him a great producer and it is also what made me excited to play the game with him. Jack Antonoff, I am so happy that you're here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So we're going to do a lot of things. We're going to talk, but I did bring you here to play this game. So we're going to do that in a few minutes. Okay. You cool with that? I'm cool with any of it. All right. All right. We'll see how it goes. So your band Bleachers has a new album out and this is you as the artist, right, as the performer. How did you know it was time to do that? Simply because I'm called to write, but they take me a long time to make and songs come rarely. And when they do, it's glorious, but they're not always attached to albums. So it's like you find yourself writing and then it's kind of like all of a sudden, you're like, oh, there it is. But it's always comes from like a distant place in you. Like I always say that you don't write a lot of things you know, because they're a little boring. You write a lot of things that you're unsure of. So what, what were you unsure of in the last couple of years that you needed to work out this way? Well, now I can answer clearly. If you asked me during it, I would have talked to you for four hours about all the different aspects of my life. Now that I'm all done, I understand what the hell I was saying, which is I was unsure of how to move on with my life. So I lost my sister when I was 18, and I've written so much about grief and the past and the future, what has happened, what could happen, this endless back and forth. And what I realized now is that I was working really hard and having a lot of fear about how to live in any sort of present way. And does that mean I'm giving up on her memory or something? So through the lens of the deepening relationship with my band, my partner, all these things, my relationship, my audience of these sort of like deepening relationships, I was finding myself more and more and more present. It's just a beautiful thing. Getting married is obviously a part of that. A lot of my collaborators and our work is a part of that. And then the real dark side is, well, if I have this presence about me and my life, and I'm not just someone who, sort of, as I say, tribute lives, am I letting go of this memory, this person, this honoring, right? And so that's the heart and soul of the album. Easy to say now that, you know, you take two years, you're like, yeah, that's what the hell I'm talking about. That's why I'm shouting these things. Yeah. You wanna play this game? So badly. So badly. God, that's exactly the right answer. She's been waiting your whole life to do this, Jack Antonov. In front of me is a deck of cards. Okay. On each of these cards is a question that I would love for you to answer. Okay. I'm going to hold up three at a time and you're going to choose one at random. There are a few rules. Number one, you get a skip. If you use your skip, then I'm just going to replace that question with a new one from the deck. Okay. Got it. And number two, you can put me on the spot and ask me to answer one of the questions before you do. Got it. So I got one skip and one flip. Yeah. Oh my God. A flip. Totally taking that. It's all yours. We're going to break it up into rounds. Round one is about memories, experiences that shaped you. Round two is insights or lessons that you've learned or are learning and three is about beliefs. Okay. The way that you make sense of the world. And because it's a game, there's a prize when you make it to the end. Oh no, really? Yeah, totally. Do I know where to find out? I'm going to tell you at the end. There has to be an incentive. That's how it works. Food. I'm not telling. I hope it's food. I'm telling. Okay. You ready? Yeah. All right. Round one. This is memories. Pick a card one through three. Three. What is something about your hometown you've come to appreciate over time. Oh, everything. Lover of New Jersey. Okay. Real answer. That was the slowness of my hometown. I grew up in New Melford, New Jersey. That's where I was until I was like eight and I just stared at the walls. All I wanted to do was break out. All I wanted to do was go everywhere and do everything and tour the world and you know, make my mark and do all these things and that slow, slow, slow boredom where I grew up made my imagination run wild and I can't recreate it and I can't change it and I never would and I'm just happy I got to have it. My life existed in cars waiting for my mom to do whatever she was doing. I know. My kids today are like, like, come on an errand with me. Now errands. I'm like, you have no idea. That's all we used to do. We used to go on errands and sit in the car and wait for our parents. Okay. Three new cards still in the memories round. Pick a card one through three. Two. If you got a do-over for one decision in your life, what would it be? A do-over for one decision. What would it be? That's a flip. Oh, mine's so heavy. Go for it. So my mom is dying of cancer many years ago now and she was in hospice. She was at home with my brother and sister and our extended family and I left before she died. I kept telling myself a story that somebody needed to be with my dad on the other side and I only had certain days that I could take off from work and in retrospect, it was because I couldn't handle it. I'm sorry. No, that's mine. I would do that differently. Yeah. When my sister was dying, I mean, I was home when she died, but I remember there was like, she was getting really sick. I was going to these tour dates and my family was like, you have to go do them. You have to go do them and I did them and it was just sort of like in hindsight, I was like, who gives a shit? But I think that we have our capacity and it's kind of baked in and then we tell ourselves these stories when we're in these really crazy situations and it's, I don't know, it's just so fascinating years later. Yeah. Why you do what you do? And I don't, I don't know, people are always like, I don't have regrets in my life because it led me to who I am today and blah, blah, blah and no, I regret. That's bullshit. I think people have just, yeah, obsessively like to say they have no regrets. I was like, well, what does that even mean? Like, everyone has regrets. Right. How is that even possible? Everyone has regrets. We look back and think, yeah, I could have managed that in a different way. Yeah. Well, I think that's also baked in like people's obsession with like a version of wellness, like no regrets, like shut up. Everyone's got regrets. Might be more interested to just own them. So is that your answer? Yeah, that would be my answer is that I, but I would even open that up to a bigger concept. There's, there's things in life I missed because I was obsessed with my work that I wish I didn't miss. Yeah. Weddings. Yeah. Weddings, you know, lots of stuff, you know, part of doing what I do is this baked in idea that you're going to miss out on all these things, right? And I don't know if it's true. I don't know. I don't know if it had to be that way. I don't know if it had to be true. I think that's a real disservice that we as a culture like dude to artists where it's like this idea of like, well, you're just lucky to be here. So, you know, go do this, miss this, work yourself to the bone. Don't get paid. You know, that's just sort of what it is. It's the same journalism, by the way. Is it? Yeah. Oh, my God. I didn't miss so many things. And I just kept telling myself if I didn't miss it, then I was going to miss this opportunity and then. Yeah. And you can start to wonder, you know, this anxiety that's placed on us in certain careers is born from this. You're just lucky to be here mentality. We're going to take a quick break when we come back. Jack talks about his rituals around cleanliness. I haven't touched my eyes, no smell their ears with my hands unwashed in probably 20 years. This message comes from Apple Card. Reboot your credit card with Apple Card. It has no fees and gives you up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase. Apply for Apple Card now in the wallet app on iPhone. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch subject to credit approval. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 19.24% to 29.49% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of February 1st, 2024. Terms and more at applecard.com. This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana with thousands of options under $20,000 plus customizable financing terms and down payments as low as $0 down. It's easy to find a car that fits your lifestyle. Visit Carvana.com or download the app today. Terms and conditions may apply. This is Sam Brigger, longtime fresh air producer and sometime interviewer. In a special extended podcast episode, I talk with Maggie Rogers about nostalgia, her new album and her decision to go to Harvard Divinity School. I think at its core, music has always been the most sacred and most spiritual thing that I've ever been a part of. Find NPR's fresh air wherever you get podcasts. What's happening with NPR podcast? Money, power, talkouts, white colloquine, green parts, black reparations, more of the perspectives that make your world a more vibrant place. NPR podcasts, more voices, all ears. Find NPR wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're in round two now. This is insights, lessons that you've learned or stuff you're still figuring out. Pick a card one through three. Two. What is proof that somebody really knows you? Proof that somebody really knows me is they understand my rituals around feeling clean. Oh, so many, so many follow-ups. Yeah, and it's not, and it's not basic. Like, it's not like, he's a germaphobe. It's very specific of my definition of what is and isn't clean. Okay, tell me an example of what that looks like for you. My only concern with cleanliness is around my face. Okay. You can fucking put me or anything on my body. It's my, I haven't touched my eyes, no smell their ears with my hands unwashed in probably 20 years. So it's, it's very specific. But how is that even possible? I realized as you were talking, I was like rubbing underneath my eyes. I don't do it because it's very, I'm very scientific. I'm not a germaphobe. I just, that's how you get sick. That's how germs spread usually is. I go play from a ton of people, but I have no need to rub my eyes. My nose, my mouth, and my hands, if they're not washed. So you don't pick, if you have like a zit or like a little scab on your face, do you, you don't feel inclined to pick those things? Well, if I do, it would be like after I've washed my hands at the shower or something like that. You know, you look around, you're at a bus stop, the restaurant, anywhere you are, and people are just touching their nose, touching their eyes. And it's like, this is how it's all happening. And there's no upside besides, you know, for me, for me personally. Have you always been like that? Like as a kid? Yeah, but it's, yeah, pretty much. Okay, that was fruitful. Three new guards, still an inside, pick a card one through three. Uh, three. What feels unreachable to you? It feels unreachable. Um, you know, I always, I always want to not have a certain amount of anxiety. And it feels a little unreachable. It feels like it's just kind of baked in. Has that been for a long time? Yeah. I always like, I want to like reach this like, pureness of no anxiety. But yeah, but it's still one, one of the few things in my life that feels unreachable is it, I mean, how does it manifest in your life? Is it a helpful creative force? Is, is, does it wield good in your life? Or is it mostly a negative thing? I don't think it's, I think, I think productive things have come from it, but I think it's a net negative. Um, I think, you know, like in the face of it, I've had to figure some things out and create some habits or write some songs that, that kind of like fly in the face of it or whatever. But I do think it's a net negative. I don't think it's who I am. I think it's sort of like this weird layer that is a byproduct of things I've been through. I don't like it, doesn't feel like me. And I think that, I think that's why it's anxiety. You know, I think it's because it's like, what is this? This isn't me. I want to, I want to beat it and I, and I can't. Do you go for a run? Do you meditate? Are there things that are sort of fireways to get you out of it? There used to be when it was much worse. No, it's not like, but I've had like moments in my life where it was more like debilitating and I had to have methods. Now I'm just like, uh, it's like this old annoying friend or something. I know it. I know how it goes. I know where it goes. I know it doesn't last forever. I think that's one of the glories of age is how you can kind of, like, I love when you get to that point with some of the things that bother you about yourself or you become almost like bored and angry about it. Like, stop. Great. I have that anxious feeling, you know, separation of self is helpful. But I'd like to just kind of drift past it and that doesn't seem fully possible. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be back with The Beliefs Round with Jack Antonov. Are you by nature an optimist? Is that how people would describe you? I think all the songwriters are. Huh. This is an optimistic act. Jasmine Morris here from the StoryCorps podcast. Our latest season is called My Way. Stories of people who found a rhythm all their own and marched to it throughout their lives. Consequences and other people's opinions be damned. You won't believe the courage and audacity in these stories. Hear them on the StoryCorps podcast from NPR. The economy right now is bewildering, impenetrable, inconceivable. Not when you have the indicator of our guys in your ears. In under 10 minutes every day, we simplify the complicated news, like, how does inflation drop? What the heck is this back? Why are trendy little high fiber sodas suddenly dominating store shelves? And more. Listen to the indicator from Planet Money and NPR. Feel like the world is on fire? Shortwave is your antidote. We find joy and beauty in the science of the planet we live on. How people are taking action in the face of climate change. The many weird and wonderful ways animals have adapted to a changing world in the past and present and how technology is pushing us forward. Listen now to the shortwave podcast from NPR. What's happening on NPR podcasts? More neighborhoods and more perspectives. The more of the world that you hear, the more you hear the world as it really is. NPR podcasts. More voices. All ears. Find NPR wherever you get your podcasts. How are you feeling? You're doing okay? Yeah. I'm feeling... Do you need any water? No, I'm feeling good. Okay. I don't have any to give you, but I just... Okay. Thank you for offering for me to go get myself some water. That's exactly right. Okay. So we are now in round three. This is the beliefs round. Pick a card one through three. One. One. Well, you talked a little bit about this. How has grief shaped your life? Entirely. Entirely. I feel like you have these things in your life. Some of which are like before you're born. Some of which are things that happen. But they're almost like... I almost see it as like an emotional lens. You know, like a contact lens or something that goes over your eye emotionally. It's not like a thing that happened that you sometimes feel. It's like it's how you see things now. So grief is just... I assume it'll be the rest of my life. It's just part of how I see things. How old were you when your sister died? I was 18, but she was sick since I was five. So it was a big part of my life. And then... So I just... I don't know. You know, like a full... And I was caught on by my things in my life, a little black and white. Like this is something that happens and I'm dealing with. Or this is something that completely colors how I see the world. So how does that manifest in how you see the world? In my life, I can understand that I don't have that kind of grief that's lived with me for that long. Like all of your adult life and most of your childhood. But does it... I mean, for me, I see a kind of constant impermanence in things. Yeah. Is that how it shows up in your life? When you say shapes are really about it? I think that things are really fleeting. The thing about sick people, people who are unsure how long they'll get to live, especially kids in that position, I mean the lack of cynicism, the obsession with creation, joy, love, family, you know, it's just... When you might not have a lot of time on earth, you don't define yourself by the things you hate. Quite put, very simply. And so that just lives in me. I'm not someone who moves through the world. I'm not really doing a bit. I'm really feel very sincere about the things I'm doing and saying. And I think a big part of that is just being confronted with time and fragility. And yeah, that was always on the table. Especially when she actually died, you know, she was dying and actually died when I was 18. So then the years before, obviously, we were pretty tough. So it's like, there's a pretty powerful life moment. I remember very clearly seeing everyone in my world kind of like planes taking off. And I was not, you know, that's a very specific moment in time when you're supposed to feel like free. And anything's possible. It was said that, you know, most people, you're graduating high school, this is the moment when you're supposed to be like, I can do anything in the world. You know, those are really those, as I've heard, because I didn't really have them, those few years you get where you're just sort of like endless stamina, endless possibility. Yeah. You know, those are the years that everyone talks about. I didn't really get them in the same way. And I think that colored my life a lot. How do you feel most connected to her? Um, probably, probably through my family. That's why we, you know, I think when you have a great loss, people either kind of like run or go themselves to each other. We definitely did the glue method. Okay, last set of cards. One. One, I haven't even put the cards out. Okay, hold on. Hold your courses. Okay, when do you think, um, okay, yeah, you just went for it. You didn't know, but you just went for it. Do you think there is order to the universe or is it all chaos? Uh, oh, there's definitely, definitely order. Where do you see order? I see it everywhere. Sometimes you got to look for it, but I see a lot of good things happening to people who deserve it. I see a lot of people finding each other in the most random experiences. I just see, uh, I don't know, I'm always looking for opposites. So this conversation about how horrible the world is rightfully so sometimes compels me to look for a lot of beauty in it. So lately, I've just seen a lot of beauty. Are you by nature an optimist? Is that how people would describe you? I think all songwriters are. Huh. It's an optimistic act, even if it's the darkest hellish, sad song in the world, the act of doing it and the act of sharing it, you can't, you can't divorce it from the optimism. Otherwise you wouldn't do it. Especially when it'd be so easy to not do it. You made it to the end, so you remember that there's a prize. Yes. What if I won? Okay. You have won. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, a trip at our memory time machine. Yeah. Your time machine to revisit. Yes. One moment from your past. So this is a moment you would not change anything about. You just want to spend a little more time there. Which moment would you choose? I want to be the house where we grew up in New Milford. I want to be hanging out on the lawn with my family. I could use some more time there. What does it look like? Jeff trees? Is there good landscaping? It's like one tree that's not good landscaping. It's just like rows of houses, completely, mundane, classic suburban setting. My whole family is there and my neighbor Jean Marie was tie dying shirts and she was a little older. And we were running across the street like tie dying shirts together and just being as a family. And it was just, yeah, before anyone was anything was too complicated and no one was. Yeah. Things were just quite simple. Thank you for playing the game. You tried me. I really loved it. Did you? I'm so glad I did too. I think it's so fun. I hope you keep the slip. I like that. I like that being my contribution. It was pretty good. Jack Antonoff, award-winning musician, songwriter, producer, his band leaders has a new self-titled album that is out now. Jack, this was super fun. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this. If you want to hear more with Jack Antonoff, we've got one more question with him in our bonus episode. It's available right now, just for our Wild Card Plus supporters. I've learned like, well, unless I don't mind this being like a saying, maybe don't make this joke. Did you piss someone off recently? I think I'm constantly pissing people. We've also got more with last week's guest, Poet Laureate, Ada Lamone in that same Wild Card Plus episode. Ada reads a poem of hers that is engraved on a NASA spaceship, and that spaceship is heading to a moon of Jupiter in the fall, which is just totally amazing. Wild Card Plus is a new way to support our work here at NPR, and you get perks like sponsor free listening and bonus episodes with more from our guests. Check it out by going to plus.npr.org/wildcard. Next week on Wild Card, we talk to Saturday Night Live star, Bo and Yang. How do you get in your own way? I get in my own way by like, over-privaging the presents. That's so interesting, because everyone wants to be in the present. Right, but sometimes I feel like being present is overrated. This episode was produced by Lee Hale, and edited by Dave Blanchard, who was fact-checked by Katie Dogger and Will Chase, and mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Wild Card's executive producer is Beth Donovan. Our theme music is by Rom Tean Our Bluey. You can reach out to us at wildcard@npr.org. We'll shuffle the deck and we'll be back with more next week. See you then. There's a lot to stay on top of on any given day. You might have to break things down into smaller pieces in order to keep up. That's why we're introducing the new Consider This News Letter from NPR. Every weekday we sift through all the day's news and bring you one big story in an easily skimmable format. So you become a mini-expert on a major topic each day. Sign up for free at npr.org/considerthisnewsletter. Want all of NPR without relying on your radio? Visit npr.org to be connected to your local station wherever you are and wherever the news takes you. Get your vital mix of rigorously reported, local and national stories, all live free and at your fingertips at npr.org. The news can feel incredibly overwhelming. For a breath of much needed fresh air, head to npr.org's culture section. 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