If you asked us to name a few producers that really know what they’re doing in the studio – music-makers with years of experience and expertise under their belt – Jack Antonoff would be pretty high up on the list.
This is a man that has a trophy cabinet stuffed with 13 Grammy Awards, having been named Producer of the Year three years in a row, worked on three of Taylor Swift’s Album of the Year winners, and this year, become the only producer/songwriter in history to have triumphed in the “Big Four” Grammy categories: Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, and Record of the Year.
Undeniably one of the most influential producers in modern pop music, Antonoff has worked with everyone from Lana Del Rey, Lorde and Sabrina Carpenter to Kendrick Lamar, Miley Cyrus, Paramore and The 1975, all while recording his own material with Bleachers, a Springsteenian solo project that has grown to become a six-piece band.
It’s fair to say Antonoff knows his stuff, then. But in a recent interview with the Tape Notes podcast around the new Bleachers album, Everyone For Ten Minutes, the man himself told host John Kennedy that he believes proficiency in production and songwriting is overrated, implying that the best music is often made by inexperienced musicians that are still learning their craft.
Answering a question from a Tape Notes listener on his creative process, Antonoff argues that music-making is “not a job that expertise is interesting in”, and that a little bit of ignorance can go a long way. “You want to be scared and afraid and unclear, and hear yourself in new ways,” Antonoff says.
“I hate when anyone claims to be someone who knows exactly what to do with a song or with an album. If someone says ‘I know what to do with this’, I think, ‘well, that can’t be the most interesting idea, if you’re sure.’ That’s how I approach all this stuff – it’s a bit frustrating sometimes.”
Antonoff claims that his best ideas arrive when he veers off his established creative pathways into uncharted territory, discovering happy accidents along the way. “I try to do things, but I fail when I try, you know?” he says.
“The things that I try to do, I always end up fucking with, and then they become something I wasn’t trying to do – and that’s when they’re interesting. To know what you’re doing in the studio is a bit boring. You’re always trying to find the accidents. Once you know what you’re doing, the magic leaves!”
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