[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are. [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media. [SPEAKER_03]: If you've got to change, you can be consequence of sound, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And welcome to another edition of Kyle Meredith with it's the interview series presented by WFPK at WFPK dot org consequence and the consequence podcast network.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We of course have had some great guests on lately including a Maya Hawke who is just here to talk about her latest album Courtney Barnett to discuss creature of habit Natalie Allen [SPEAKER_02]: They're starring in Amadeus, the series on Stars, Jenna Malone, actress also a musician, who has a new album called Flowers for Men, Sean Colvin, Peter Capolli, and Chris Jumbo. [SPEAKER_02]: They're starring in Criminal Records on Apple TV.
[SPEAKER_02]: We hung out with the cast of the Audacity, Barbie Ferreira, and Devon Bostick, Joe Bata-Masson, George Benson, John Ham, Olivia Munn, Amanda Pete, James, Marston, Justin, example of what you get. [SPEAKER_02]: when you subscribe to the Kyle Mareth with podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: That's me Kyle Mareth today, catching up with Jack Antonoff. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, the lead singer of Bleachers, who has a new album called Everyone for 10 Minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's also been part of fun and still train and producer extraordinaire to the stars behind albums from Taylor Swift and Lord and Lana Del Rey to name just a few. [SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to get heavy into this this new record from bleachers again called everyone for 10 minutes and instantly jumping into the deep end to a heavy conversation about grief ancestry community religion and how the record accidentally more or less became an origin story for for Jack will get into the.
[SPEAKER_02]: ancestral pack of leaving home to chase art. [SPEAKER_02]: Springsteens advice about building a life around music, the weirdness of becoming famous enough to watch your own history rewritten and why Jack thinks concerts are closer to church than actual churches. [SPEAKER_02]: There's also plenty on balancing the producer side with the artist side and finding the magic and recording sessions. [SPEAKER_02]: Demoitis and a whole lot more. [SPEAKER_02]: So let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about the record everyone for 10 minutes It's Kyle Meredith with Jack Antonov of bleachers Let me compliment you on on everyone for 10 minutes. [SPEAKER_02]: 5 down by the bleachers congratulations. [SPEAKER_02]: It's such a good listen Thank you So it it plays as like a like like it plays linear almost right like we start on this record and what we get is kind of the origin story [SPEAKER_02]: of your life and music. [SPEAKER_02]: Why, why is that?
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you land on that? [SPEAKER_03]: Well, the answer is I don't know, but now that I'm talking about the album, I'm starting to get some clues, because you got to understand you make things and you don't know why you're making them, and that's precisely why you make them, right? [SPEAKER_03]: You wouldn't make something that you knew.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now I'm in this phase of like what the fuck am I talking about and I understand now a little bit more a little bit like doing analysis where it's like
[SPEAKER_03]: you know the first two songs are very specifically about leaving different lenses of it and then right away in the third song it cuts to the present time and it's almost like it's not almost like it's exactly like I explained this choice I made in the 15 years old and then I cut to today and talk about you know three different people I don't speak to really much and so how fucked up and complicated your life gets by the choices you make
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think I just got really two things. [SPEAKER_03]: Sorry to give you a long answer right away, but you got to give me the long answer. [SPEAKER_03]: I think I got, you know, there's a line I started with in the first song, which is, um, shouted hello bastard as we left our ancestors. [SPEAKER_03]: The hello bastard is a lifetime reference tongue out, leaving for the first tour. [SPEAKER_03]: But the line really has to be left our ancestors.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like my ancestral pact as a, as a lot of people, [SPEAKER_03]: were, you know, two generations back, three generations back, serious hardship. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, immigrant stories, you know, for my ancestors, it was playing Europe for a lot of people. [SPEAKER_03]: It's finding life and then, and then the point of life for generations was just to live.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then a lot of our parents, the point of life that all they could ever want for us was just to have a steady job to be able to have a house and live. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, this idea of dreams and passions were so dangerous. [SPEAKER_03]: And I remember leaving for my first tour and I, like, leaving the ancestral pact. [SPEAKER_03]: So I found myself burning about that a lot. [SPEAKER_03]: That's the deep reason.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then the dumb reason is, I feel like the more people know who I am, the more my origin story gets rewritten without me there to annotate it. [SPEAKER_03]: And so, something happened where it's weird if it's a funny experience, you know, you think about your life and your growth and people know you, but then imagine that, you know, when you're in your late 20s or early 30s, more people start knowing you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then your mid 30s, like lots of people start knowing you, it's like, [SPEAKER_03]: It's just a funny moment life for people to be introduced to you. [SPEAKER_02]: So I think I felt some need to put it on paper Fine, I'm gonna go for the really deep part of the questions since we're already there Deep end at the beginning here. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean you got your MPR ties go all in Do you find that this has giving you a new reference to what the point of life might be?
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... yes and no i mean like i think when i'm writing i'm always vacillating between like the depth of existence and the joke the only the only thing i've mustered up in all of my writing and living my personal experiences that all the matters is getting the joke [SPEAKER_03]: If you get the joke, then it allows everything to rush in, it allows all the love, all the fear, all the things to rush in if you just get the joke.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and the joke is the randomness of things. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it does the randomness of things make you feel nihilistic or does the randomness of things make you feel magical and you vastly back and forth. [SPEAKER_03]: In my writing, no matter what I do in my life, it always, um, hope always appears. [SPEAKER_03]: That's not something I'm doing intentionally. [SPEAKER_03]: This just, I just noticed that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I write something really dark or nihilistic. [SPEAKER_03]: I look back on it and there's a lot of hope there. [SPEAKER_03]: But I think the active writing is hopeful. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you wouldn't do it if you didn't believe. [SPEAKER_03]: Um, and so I stay there. [SPEAKER_03]: Whereas there's a lot of other things that may be feel really not hopeful, and I don't spend my time there.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why I stay on tour, it's why I stay in the studio, and you know, one of the greatest bits of advice that I've been lucky to get to know Bruce Springsteen here ever told me was this sounds simple, but it's very serious. [SPEAKER_03]: She's been your life touring and making albums, that's a great life.
[SPEAKER_03]: sounds silly but you know nowadays it's like you have to do all these things like I don't want to be an actor I don't want to do this I don't want to have a fucking clothing line but but but this what once used to be called a Renaissance you know person is now become almost the norm and I really just always every day every day I say I just want to make records and to work as if that's like some fucking tragedy [SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate that a lot though. [SPEAKER_02]: I arrived, you know, we're about the same age, I believe, I was born in 81 and I think I arrived somewhere in my late 30s and early 40s of the none of this means anything, you know, and, but, but not in the dark way. [SPEAKER_02]: It's almost anyway to talk about the joke, you know, like that didn't make me feel hopeless.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just took the weight off of everything, you know, it's [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's not taking chances, and if you're not having a laugh, I mean, I've written about it a lot, but I had some pretty big losses in my late teens, and you know, got a taste of the harshest, the harshest parts of life early on. [SPEAKER_03]: Some people do some people don't, and what emerged from that was, you know, a lot of grief, a lot of pain, but also a fearlessness.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, [SPEAKER_03]: what's going to happen, what I'm going to fail, you know, try to try holding a dead person. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you mean like failures, not that big of a deal. [SPEAKER_03]: And so I have no relation, which is part of the theme in this album to giving any time to anyone who isn't really my people.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's probably to go back to the first question, why I got so intent on even doubling down on my [SPEAKER_03]: I, you know, me talking to you, me doing press for this album, it's like a sifter. [SPEAKER_03]: I want to find my people. [SPEAKER_03]: It's all I want to find. [SPEAKER_03]: And we're we do live in a bit of a grace of the age of of of marketing. [SPEAKER_03]: So I just like that intention is so important to me. [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll be right back right after this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back. [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Mears with Jack Antonov. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean those three words, the three words that community love and art, that seems to be the three words, the thesis of the record. [SPEAKER_02]: But it's interesting that you certain words, like one way ticket, I believe you use that phrase at least a couple of times. [SPEAKER_03]: Any breath of that, there was a song called one way ticket.
[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't make the album, and it was a different, and earlier version of the album that was called one way tickets, in which it may be a later, which is album, which was a much more like just the band live in a room, squawking around. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm interested in that now, too, but the other thing is, like, you make a choice, whether it was intentional or not, it feels intentional, like nearly every song also has some kind of religious phrase, not in the Christianity sort of way, but it is, like, and that does seem like it would have to be intentional at some point, or, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think a lot, you know, what's religion? [SPEAKER_03]: It's community, it's shared values, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's gathering. [SPEAKER_03]: It's also obviously, we know what it's turned into in the modern age and forever. [SPEAKER_03]: I think what I do and I think what the band does on stage is closer to Jesus Christ's version of church that I've been reading about my whole life than any of these fucking mega churches I see, you know, [SPEAKER_03]: We deliver something religious to ourselves and to our audience and they deliver something religious to us and it goes back and forth.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's that is as simple as that, which is love, community, honesty, taking care of each other and grew up. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the fucking experiences I had going to show is was closer to anything godly than I ever felt in synagogue.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, you know, no one starts a war in the name of music, but you idiot fans online, but you know, no one's no one's dying and At the end of the day, you could say a lot about culture and how we communicate, but you go to a show. [SPEAKER_03]: almost, you know, for the most part, these are places where people gather to see each other, feel seen, and have an experience that is life affirming or one way or the other.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's not something we're necessarily delivering in the back and forth. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's very intentional. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, quite literally. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, was there a point? [SPEAKER_02]: Was there a point where you actually made the decision, like, oh, I want to put those words in more of the songs?
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, no, you know, a lot of this stuff is like, I would say the best way to describe the decisions in writing are when you just feel like, oh, that's it. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, like, I'm not like, I want to talk about religion. [SPEAKER_03]: I want to talk about my ancestry. [SPEAKER_03]: It's more like you start, you know, you're me in entering and you're writing different things than, and then you land on things.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're like, oh, that's a, that's a real tent full here. [SPEAKER_03]: I want to focus on that. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, because, you know, when you make an album, you're not. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a vastness in one way in the conversation. [SPEAKER_03]: Sort of like we're talking now. [SPEAKER_03]: We're touching all these different things, but it's planted, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And as soon as you start, or at least when I start realizing where it's planted, then I just start doubling down on those concepts. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, hard, just like really driving them home because that's just where I'm at. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, at different time, the second thing there's album gone now, I just I wouldn't shut up about that kept saying this way as I got to get myself back home soon.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to get myself back home soon, and that was a very lost point in my life. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a great album, and I love the songs that wrote for it, but I that spoke to me that I was like, I wasn't in the right relationship. [SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't delivering everyone's lives. [SPEAKER_03]: I was [SPEAKER_03]: not like if your self is a venn diagram when you're at your worst I was itching to come together, you know, getting that middle part and I was dancing on the outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you ever find that does your producer brain ever get in the way of your artist's brain? [SPEAKER_03]: No, it's helpful. [SPEAKER_03]: It's um, you know, I've noticed [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's not a lot of people who do what I do, and that don't mean it arrogantly. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just sort of factual. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of producers who, one day decide, they're going to make their own work.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of artists who, one day decide, they want to be a producer, and that's awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: People should do everything they want to do, but this is what I've done my whole life.
[SPEAKER_03]: There hasn't been a day in my consciousness when I have written music, perform music, [SPEAKER_03]: Um, and so yeah, sometimes I think that, you know, it doesn't make me special, but it is rare, you know, it's like there's very few people who truly live in both, you know, some people like we can do it on one side, but that's what I spend my life doing is just, you know, kind of a 50 50 thing. [SPEAKER_03]: And so I love it to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, [SPEAKER_03]: to help, you know, I know how to production is an interesting thing, because there's like a esoteric part of it, and there's a literal part of it. [SPEAKER_03]: And both are really helpful when I'm producing or when I'm making bleachers music. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the esoteric part is like, what is the feeling? [SPEAKER_03]: Where am I? [SPEAKER_03]: What is this? [SPEAKER_03]: You know, am I walking down the street?
[SPEAKER_03]: Am I crying in my bedroom? [SPEAKER_03]: Like, where am I putting people? [SPEAKER_03]: Where am I telegraphing from? [SPEAKER_03]: That's so much bigger than anything, right? [SPEAKER_03]: You know, why does one piano vocal recording sound totally different than another piano? [SPEAKER_03]: the feeling. [SPEAKER_03]: And then there's the literal, which is, okay, why do I make that feeling? [SPEAKER_03]: And then when you do hear it, how do I compliment it?
[SPEAKER_03]: That to me is like, that's more like the learnable part. [SPEAKER_03]: Like, what does this reverb do? [SPEAKER_03]: What does it close mic do? [SPEAKER_03]: What does a room mic do? [SPEAKER_03]: Am I trying to make where am I putting you? [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so that's the technical part [SPEAKER_03]: Dreamy part is so clear to me all the time. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: I know what this is now.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like technically figure out how to illustrate that and we'll be right back right after this. [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back as Kyle Meredith with Jack Antonov. [SPEAKER_02]: It feels like it'd be such a tightrope of losing the pure magic that could be in a song. [SPEAKER_02]: And you don't, there is so much magic in this record, and I think that's why I was asking that it's surprise. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: It truly is. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a simple, you know, the biggest thing in anything, but for sure, my work is just the gut feeling. [SPEAKER_03]: Right? [SPEAKER_03]: And I would say every day, wake up in the morning and when I go to the studio or go to rehearsal [SPEAKER_03]: um, what I put into this means nothing. [SPEAKER_03]: All that matters is what I hear back. [SPEAKER_03]: And what I mean by that is I could spend 10 hours on the perfect drum sound and it won't be better.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is this is not a quantifiable work. [SPEAKER_03]: This is not like private equity. [SPEAKER_03]: This isn't like capitalism or more, you know, like you have to completely release yourself to the idea that you're only tool. [SPEAKER_03]: and anything I do is being able to recognize magic, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And where it comes from is out of your control.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I took the band, Italy, because my wife was working there, and so I said, oh, let's all go to Italy and record there. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a fucking fun idea. [SPEAKER_03]: We had the best time. [SPEAKER_03]: And in those few days we caught more magic than we did in months in New York or LA or wherever it was where we're just grinding away. [SPEAKER_03]: It's something grinding away. [SPEAKER_03]: You know we go to the studio an hour outside of Rome.
[SPEAKER_03]: No one even speaks English. [SPEAKER_03]: Drama starts playing drums the way they sound or fucking great. [SPEAKER_03]: And if that's a problem for you, if that makes you anxious, then you should work [SPEAKER_03]: Man, the stories I could tell you on and on and on about spending time, money, heart and soul and something only to realize that the demo was it. [SPEAKER_03]: But that's the journey. [SPEAKER_03]: Easy to talk about now.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you caught me six months ago in the middle of making the album, I would have blown my brains out. [SPEAKER_03]: Sorry. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a fantastic record. [SPEAKER_02]: I know I got to wrap it up. [SPEAKER_02]: So let me compliment you once again and I'm looking forward to seeing. [SPEAKER_02]: bleachers and sincey on my birthday by the way, I appreciate that. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know you had nothing to do with it, but it really a birthday.
[SPEAKER_02]: September 30th will be. [SPEAKER_02]: That's when you're in sincey. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've been you. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I've been. [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't been in that venue me. [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll both think we're in the venue. [SPEAKER_03]: I've toured so much that I'm so adamant about like where I want to play. [SPEAKER_03]: And so there's very few nights on the tour that's like a place that I can't picture in my head. [SPEAKER_03]: And so it's just exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: And since an audience of weird ass place in a good way, it feels like a very like that line between Louisville and Cincinnati is like two worlds. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like to me it's like the Midwest to the south. [SPEAKER_03]: Like. [SPEAKER_03]: That's pretty touristy. [SPEAKER_03]: And the low level scene is amazing. [SPEAKER_03]: Since that scene is amazing, a little dark, I think Ohio is like rich darkness there. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, is that fair?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's fair, and we'll celebrate that rich darkness together, I guess. [SPEAKER_03]: One in half. [SPEAKER_03]: I'll see you that makes sure, yeah, come say hi to the show. [SPEAKER_03]: I'll see you at the cover of Mars. [SPEAKER_02]: My thanks to Jack, the new bleachers album is called everyone for 10 minutes, thanks to you for checking on the episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hit that subscribe button before you get out of here to keep up with all the interviews that we put out every single week. [SPEAKER_02]: And Spotify, Apple Podcast, NPR, WFPK.org. [SPEAKER_02]: Consequence, YouTube for the video versions or anywhere you get your podcast from subscribe to Kyle Mayard with. [SPEAKER_02]: Please to give this series a rating, leave a review where every listing from.
[SPEAKER_02]: After that, you can head over to wfpk.org, or I do a show Monday through Friday. [SPEAKER_02]: It starts at 6 p.m. Eastern, classic alternative, new indie rock in Americana. [SPEAKER_02]: You get bonus interviews, lots of music and film news as well. [SPEAKER_02]: One of my recent shows featured some classics and favorites from Crout at House, Beck.
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