If I hear that then like I can start to get very inspired and even if it's tiny yeah it's so subtle on the record it can just it really brings it [Music] in oh keep that keep that where's your um where's your metal these days of my life are feeling very Reminiscent of the days of when I started playing music I don't want to step outside of what I love to do I want to drill further in what I love to do I really desend to work with people who just have a gut feeling about
something and just want to find it that's all making an album is kind of music I'm writing and the stories I'm telling the magic is honestly like right [Music] now we all know the achievements three time consecutive award-winning Grammy producer of the year his hands touched music that's reached billions of people but Jack Anon off's true gift to the world is he's able to draw deep truth through ART whether and his work with others are on a brand new bleachers album self-titled and easily their best yet so how does Jack antinoff do it well every
great producer will tell you they Should hide their hand but my job is to get Jack Anon off to show it well I mean I love being in New York in the rain I'm happy to experience it with you yeah New Jersey's finest New Yorker am I the UN I guess I'm the unreliable reporter no I'm the unreliable reporter you're the you're the opposite you're the reliable reporter we'll see I'm the one who can say um what I want in the song and it doesn't have to be anything But besides whatever the hell I said
and yet people hear it and they decide to hold you accountable for these things and I wonder what the relationship is like between honesty in the moment and then this kind of a analytical approach to your honesty later on by people who with songs you know well that's why I sort of remove afterwards because it's like um if you write the song then you wrote the song and it kind of it's a little bit like Dreaming or or if You do therapy or analysis or anything like that do you kind of feel accountable for your
dreams yeah it's like it's like you know people always like I the craziest dream like I murdered my grandmother and then this happened that happened what does it mean and it's like well it's like no no no no you wrote it and I I like remembering when you wake up like you wrote all of that no one else is a part of it but you can't separate yourself all together Like surely you can't finish an album as personal as this one self-titled as this one and then just leave it for the world to absorb and
not somehow no I have to I like I feel like at this point in my life I I feel like I'm really like every night when I get into bed sometimes I think about like all these things going on and then I literally in an absurd way just have to be like it otherwise I'll get caught up in it and finishing an album is like the perfect example That like it's so much and there's so much anxiety and you shared so much and you could like run stock about all the things you said about people
who are real people in your life and things you said about yourself things are so personal you wouldn't even share them in conversation yet you blast them out to the world and you have no choice or I I have no choice if I'm going to like emotionally survive then just be like I really a lot of my days I'm with Just going like cool like dinner time turn the whole thing off like turn off the whole machine uh otherwise I I I know my personality would eat me Al did leaving New York help you do
that sometimes being in New York help me do that why is that though you and I and billions of people around the world are similar like elements of anxiety and depression too my whole life searching for a host searching for a way to make sense of it you know it needs a place to Resonate why do we get drawn to the londons in the New Yorks and the big cities when the energy here is frantic I like how Anonymous it is okay one of the bedrocks to me of like feeling misunderstood othered depression anxiety or
any of those things is like this fear of like doing something that's like off or other and I I I like that like right now if you like got on the ground and just started like crashing cut on the floor and like screaming jet fuel can't Melt still be like no one would do anything and there's a real um relief to being completely unseen I don't know especially if you're any kind of like public person sort of nice like I'll walk down the street and someone might say like hi I like hi but like if
I'm in like a small town sometimes I feel like like you're like literally more seen as like a human being yeah we're like actually watching your Expressions it's really easy to get lost in in New York it's why David Bowie was able to live here so and no one ever like I don't know it's a good place to be if you don't want to actually be overly witnessed and and I also like the feeling of um I look at apartments and I see like everyone's like locked into their little Cubbies but it also feels like
everyone's kind of together yeah there's a togetherness I don't know I I I just keeps you in touch with whatever culture of your time It is you just see lots of different people and I think about like the music that's come out of here or the music that's been inspired by here I was trying to figure out my favorite New York songs okay I mean Empire's dat of Mind obviously you know I think obviously the Frank Sinatra New York New York I like a lot of the New York music I like is like I talk
a lot about where where you're reporting from yeah and I like one of the reasons why I like New York so much is I'm always been reporting from New Jersey emotionally that's kind of hopped up and hopeful and sincere the New York reporting is often very like have seen at all and so I I like when I listen to like uh the The Velvet Underground or oh New York City cops yeah like like Strokes records like anything that's like quintessential New York like there's a perspective that's so not me yeah that's just so like I
went to High School Junior and senior Year in the city and all the kids that were from New York they were just like old New York I love you but you're bringing me down yeah they were just like they had didn't done all the things like they were so unshocked growing up in New York and I was so like Amazed by and you never lose that like if you're not from a place like I I have that with with tons of cities I have that when I go to London I'm I'm seeing it for the
first time no matter How many times I go but you took some ownership over your experience in Jesus Is Dead the third song on the album where you you reference that you know it's not the same city you know that do you remember DFA do you remember long wave like I miss it oh man when I was coming up and when I was a teenager driving into the city from New Jersey and experiencing the birth of what became that Strokes longwave money Suzuki are that peaches yeah become Romanticized graveyard yeah like experiencing it I was
like this is this is happening and you know everyone else in the room is like ah this like New York died with with television or under you know there was always a story yeah um that Lon Jesus is dead I find myself to me that's less about the city and more about like Prosecuting like what is I I care a lot about music and and community and scene so I just got thinking a lot about like what is the Music scene in the age when everything's discoverable think about like this for better or worse like
the the best part of music scene is that there's something brilliant and people gather towards it to a protect it yeah and B feel the the heat from it right that's what I felt until it gets too hot then it become belongs to everybody else well then so then the dark side is is when those people start a gatekeeping it yeah yeah yeah or B sort of you know hating it because it it it left you know I remember how can you do that to your point how can you do that right now where the
fire has been broken up into billions of different that's exactly what I wonder in the song and that's why I I'm fascinated with like the the the work that comes out of basically what is this fire that we're protecting right there's very little that someone could tell me that I couldn't look up I get sort of Obsessed Of where where is that new energy and ironically for me it's for me it's on the roof of my studio cuz that's just become this place where like it's funny to call me and my circle like a scene
cuz a lot of us are like making things that a lot of people hear but everyone kind of just like doesn't talk about it and puts their away and it's not documented and so I'll I'll clarify where's a scene the way that I feel that I feel creative in a scene yeah which is And to me what that is is a space where it's sort of like you can't really access anything unless you're there other than the bits that are put it out so it's like this this really magical place right music and collaborations come
out of it and then what the World Hears is what the world hears and then the rest is to be dreamed about and and that to me and by the way it's not like that's not something I'm trying to create that's just like literal it's Like we're not documenting it in the way that uh to me would would would spoil it but yeah that that that's my scene are we good yeah I don't know how it can be documented anyway in that in that in that shape anymore well there's pressure too you know I mean
like our brain chemistry is changed so much that like I think we all have this feeling sometimes which is like oh man I wish I documented that day in the studio cuz holy it was so special but I Think I think this is also why I like the studio a lot is because um the documents we're making remind me of the world I've known and loved and there's something about being in the studio where it's like no matter what whether I'm in like yesterday tomorrow or like the year 3000 it's like we're recording music and
that's it and then it's all for the idea that someone will hear that and imagine what we were feeling in that room yeah so it is funny I know it's Absurd to call it like sceny but it reminds me of like it makes sense when I hear see a kid in the w w firehouse and sort of like if you were if you're not here you're not here and and that's it but it sounds like that when you hear the records the records you produce and the records you make with bleaches you get a sense
that you're trying to preserve some experience and then we get a chance to experience that by listening to it but it doesn't feel like it's Transactional the way that photos do now you just take it you send it comments do now information does now articles do everything's just so transactional right everyone's curating everyone else's life all the time the making records especially if you're making records as albums that will come out later you do have to like Chuck the goalpost as far as like what where you think the world will be or where You' want
the world to be so there is a lot of like hopeful Dreaming involved I'm excited to go into the studio I love this place yeah as soon as I walk in I feel uh pretty removed from the thing things I feel stressed about in the world well you spend so much time in here that's probably Beatles es shot of me and Zane being strange with umbrellas thank you buddy so I'm going to sign in yeah sign in then date it too date date it don't forget the Year Good so we come up here that's Studio
C that's the bathroom yeah this is the lounge yeah whoa hang on this is the this is beautiful look at this wow there's a lot of cute pictures there's like um this is a studio poton in New York City my grandmother is my mom this is good I used to when I went to Camp when I was a kid they' have these like pre-made cards deer grman Z how are you I am fine the weather here Is good the kids are very nice the food is good I hope to make the basketball team the best
thing about Camp is sports from Jack PS love you it's so great it's like enforced communication when I went to Camp who's this that's your mom that's my mom wow that's you at the professional children's school that's my school ID when I went to Art School in the city for two years it's my Suicide mug yeah it's a cute picture of Lana hanging at my Wedding and this is uh where we are every day wow this place is amazing how long yeah my little New York scene happens right here your scene yeah my scene so
in case you're wondering where New York's scene is yeah it's right there and I guess no one's invited but so you've been here how long oh I've been here years like before producing other people I guess right like maybe like 201 like 15 16 when I started coming a lot um and I was downstairs for a little bit and then I transferred up here I like it because I love studios but I also love the energy of not Studios what do you mean all right like like T out you're at a basketball court like where
you play basketball is where you play basketball the hoop is the hoop is the hoop right studios are funny because they're not where people hear music and you could get very literal on this idea like like I don't really like like big speakers or Anything too intense because I don't like literally you I don't want to be hearing frequencies that commercial headphones don't even play back and so 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 basically an apartment like
it's not overly treated it's a little funny it's small it's you know it there's this feeling sometimes when you walk into like a big studio and you feel like Mariah Carey and it's just a feeling that doesn't resonate for me like I like to be in like a feeling 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 cuz it's truly both you don't have to say who it was but when was the last time somebody walked in here for
the first time because I know you that Lana comes here Taylor comes here Annie comes here 75 probably came Here A bunch so you've got your scene but when was the last time somebody came in and walked in here for the first time to see you uh kind recently okay who was it it's really it's really you you'll know soon but it it's usually people pretty quickly get it well it's a pretty inviting place I mean it's also it feels safe it's very safe you're in New York see so the whole City's kind of right
out there I don't particularly like like I know in the pandemic I made a lot of Records out of necessity that were like destination recordings I love those albums and it was process but for me I'm way more interested in being in one's life I think then you constantly the leaving of the studio is almost as creative as the coming that studio because then you're on this sort of like thinking of what you've done remembering it hoping wondering coming back hearing what's better you know it's this like living process where when you live in Something
and you don't go home um I think you can fool yourself a little bit more so I love the uh the nature of this place being right in the middle of New York City where it's like it's it's like a a place I come but I leave you know I wouldn't want to live here yeah it's routine it's a it's your process and it's also so much to this like mythology of music like I'm for me I'm at my best like 11 12 1 p.m. 2 p.m. like that pocket when like I'm not weighed Down
by the day but you learn how to do that right but the industry tells you the other like all the books mov you fell into that trap didn't you early on you did you make yourself sick I literally almost died I got such a bad is in the ICU because of overwork for no other reason than just like not sleeping isn't that what the 20s is I'm not saying the 20s is for going to ICU but isn't that that point of kind of ambition to the point of stupidity a Point of being young to some
degree I think that ambition is beautiful I think harming yourself and wearing it like a badge is foolish and I think I did a little of that when I was younger and I see people who still do a lot of that so where did that mythology come from for you who are you sort of emulating to some degree or what scene or what vibe where where does it come from I think I grew up in the generation of you know we were still sort of poisoned By this like heroin all night sticky floor you know
and I was coming up in the Jersey Punk scene then into the Indie scene New York you were young when you started right you're like 16 when even younger my first tour I was 15 it was it was pretty rough and and there was still like I I hesitate to use the idea of like sex drugs and rock and roll but there was there was there was a a roughness around this profession that it just was I imagine it's no different Than certain corporate professions where like you're expected to work and by the way there's
nothing wrong with that and and I work my ass off and I love it and I love touring I love being studio all the time but what I didn't realize was uh you know the magic is when the magic is the magic isn't when you're up at 3: in the morning for some people it is and that's cool but for me it's like the kind of music I'm writing and the stories I'm telling Um the magic is like honestly like right now like feel like myself I haven't been poisoned by the day yet what I
mean by that is like you know every day is a new beginning and when you wake up in the morning and and someone shot up at school you're done you know you're emotionally cooked doesn't mean you can't do something good but your body is vibrating when you wake up in the morning and something's going on in your family when you wake up in The morning and you eat the wrong thing like there's there's so much literal and emotional sort of like poisoning so every day that I wake up and I can get to the studio
before something has like shattered my existence and I'm not being overly dramatic this is the times we live in I'm grateful and I do things and then at some point throughout the day whether I'm reading about the state of the world or someone In my personal life a friend or my goddamn own emotions I will disintegrate and that is when I start focusing more on food talking to friends and family and watching TV did you ever a focus on other things would drugs and drink ever in issue fee yeah I did a lot of drugs
um when I was young and then I had a very profound experience which I'm very grateful for which is and it was before like when I was when I was a kid getting messed up you know like pills weren't Bad so you could just like take different pills and you you know there was kind of pre fent and all and we didn't know what was what uh so we just we' get really up but then when my sister died when I was 18 I was in a band we were touring a lot and it was
obviously just so up emotionally that I took a whole bunch of mushrooms one night with some friends and I completely freaked out I completely lost my mind and I think it Was a combination of how much I took and the grief and the long story short is I was so up from that experience that to this day I feel allergic sometimes I'll have a drink or two get a little drunk I don't I just boom I I never wanted to be out of control again and I'm I'm grateful that I made that stupid mistake because
a lot of my friends struggled I know a lot of people who have struggled and continue to struggle so I I got lucky that my my Rock bottom was more one that was mixing psychedelics and grief and not like you know yeah needles and and fast cars and whatnot it's a it's a crazy thing grief you know it's um you know we're so scared of it but it's it's one of the most um it's one of the sharpest Tools in terms of cutting out the cutting out the stone isn't it it's really weird when you
are confronted with mortality because no one talks about it I know but I also think cuz people people don't Know what to say so it's to listen to as well it's not just I don't want to talk about it yeah it's like I see you struggling to know what to say I think it's harder than ever because we've culturally decided that now we talk about grief now we talk about depression but we don't you know we sell it I mean culturally like the sense of it someone told me Rec they were like there's more Tik
toks on domestic abuse than there are like beauty products and I I Remember hearing that and being like wow that's amazing I'm glad we're talking about stuff and then I was also like the man upstairs doesn't care what we're talking about because the attentions how they make their money point I'm making is as the conversation becomes out there there's even something isolating about that because I think that words like grief and Trauma and depression are so commonly used right now that we almost like need new words for people who are Like really struggling really down
there because there's depression and then there's not leaving the house that's why like what Jews do with Shiva they make if anyone doesn't know you know when someone dies for a week everyone says to come to your house and like bring you food and you have to cover the mirrors and you rip your shirt if if you're the one Mourning it just is like this sort of like meat and potatoes no pun intended food but like uh like like you Can't survive we're taking care of you and I think about that a lot when my
sister died cuz I know that like if your dog dies you get this amount of time if your grandma dies you get this amount of time if your parent dies you get this amount of time if a sibling dies you get more especially if they're young but they're just these sort of like vague Concepts and one of the most gripping informative experiences of my life was when everyone for forgot and I don't Blame anyone but when life really carried on and I was still there I was still in you know grief town and everyone just
sort of moves on and life does Carry On which is beautiful you really got to drag yourself into reality again and it's not only the hardest work in the world it's also so sad because to re-enter reality is to also leave some stuff in the past there's a lyric on the album one of my favorite songs on the record where you Talk about you were just a kid when they told you you were born to bleed Little Soldier magnet heart sentimental Boulder I wrote that about my wife about your wife the song is about her
and then I'm not gassing it's my favorite lyric on the album cuz the line is yeah you were just a kid when they told you you born to bleed endless soldier with your garden heart and C comes later yeah yeah yeah that pulled you down but look at you you made it out but I like like this The when I first started writing that I had this idea of a Sentimental Boulder a lot of people I connect with they sort of like carrying around this thing yeah that's beautiful and horrible but then at the last
course I make it about me I was just a kid when they told me this great big weight would come and pull me like your magnet heart and your sentimental Boulder I carry with you is was s about marriage I realize now you've been writing songs from an Emotional standpoint many many respects to pay tribute and heal at the same time to try to find your way through this grief yeah and bleaches has served his purpose and we get swept up in the Euphoria of the live shows and the sounds of the records and great
writing great momentum and energy but you've been searching for a way to understand how to move forward and and I feel like that song being at the center of the album because I'm a two-sided human yeah I like s day and I like side be you too intentional very and I feel like that sets on the record really as a way of saying I'm really to transfer now some of that energy that I've been carrying with me into something different very much that's exactly how I mean it I see marriage partnership in a very intense
way you know it's easy to share the fun stuff with someone but will you share the really ugly parts of yourself it's not an attractive part of myself yeah I Can I can spin an attractive concept that sounds poetic about someone dealing with grief but the dayto day of that is not is not fun and attractive I wanted to celebrate that and that song I tried to this album is um found itself in a don't worry if it was any of my gear should we go next door what was it let's go next door so
this is this is the live room is this your collection no that's That's Le who owns the studio can you believe it's just sitting right in the the perfect spot by Design I'm sure so I collect vinyl and I'm really into it God what a joy to live in a time when it's all coming back it's it's the greatest you to every everyone I've ever sat in a room with who explained to me where the music business was going I just love for a million reasons I love what's going on with vinyl but for that
reason it's just the ultimate mic drop Of just like no like in a capitalist system something that is going like this for a minute is a failure to you but they often go like this and for the rest of us is very important so here's a question what do you hope bleaches sits in my rle collection where do I hope it sits yeah I'll tell you where I hope it sits I have a kind of album that I like to put on when I'm having a a good morning when I don't have to go anywhere
and it's like maybe like 11:00 a.m. and I'm around the house and I'm thinking like cool I have a house and I have a life and I put on a record that I want to I don't know that moment for for me those albums are like I listen to Bob Dolan's new morning a lot in that time I think Bruce is good for that time they but I but I guess this place where I'm really writing it from is is is behind the wheel car is driving is leaving exploring um and then sort of turning
back around all over again is is Definitely the place where it's where I I know that the audience takes it that's where I feel it it's interesting that bleaches became that Journey for you because you on a different Journey for a while there I mean you started touring when you were 15 you moved around from sort of Proto Punk type environments to sort of hybrids of that and but the whole thing felt very DIY at least was I think a lot of people have a hard time imagining that because people often take You where you
land so you had the two-time Grammy World winning producer of the year who works with Taylor Swift Atlanta Del why could you not have grown up in aent it's a little I I get it I mean I if I'm talking to someone about you know sort of the the punk scene I grew up in or how we used to tour and play shows there there's like sometimes I feel like people are like are you like doing a thing right now where you're like think you're trying to prove Yourself like no this how I grew up
right right when during those early days when you were kind of traveling around playing to nobody in a van with people that were going to people going to share a very small amount of your life with when was it most real like was there an experience when it was like holy that just happened or you felt like you were really touching the void like all bands do when they go out and and making it up as they go along well there's I I Always feel like it's the same feeling but it's it's a different thing
at different times so like there was a time in my life where if we could play the Knitting Factory we would have made it and we did you know and then what if we could play Bary ballroom and then what if we could tour you know and then were the first shows outside of New Jersey was like Connecticut what's the maddest that happened on do you remember anything Crazy every I mean it was it was a lawless time like when I first started touring I would go to mapquest.com print out directions from every venue to
every venue from New Jersey to Florida Texas and back around and then we just find places to stay along the way and it was like you know people talk about Florida being weird now it's like Florida was really weird then experience but you just saw crazy and you know the feeling now of um something that might Seem really big is no different than the feeling of like what if we got to leave our state yeah you just you just have the these markers and and I think it's natural and healthy for the markers to grow
as you grow but I I think what matters is just holding on to that feeling of sort of like oh cool like I did something that meant something to me and now that I've done it something else means something to me and that's how it's meant to be there was a time in the UK where I felt like I couldn't turn on radio 1 where I worked and not hear a fun song and I and I wondered what that felt like when you sort of gone from band to band to band and then this idea
that the three of you had became this gigantic thing cuz it really was I think people I'm sure fun fans remember but some people will conveniently forget that for 18 months it was there for it was there for you it was my first experience Of oh there's not some like Illuminati door you know of just sort of like oh you know CU we there was no weird you know we we made our second album and bunch of those songs blew up and I was on the radio for the first time and doing all those you
know I I always had like like a like a line in the music business that was just over for me you know because I was I always looked at spoon and Wilco and those kind of bands that's it you know I I I'm Going to tour and I'm going to get to the point where I can get th people, 1500 maybe 2,000 maybe four you know get real touring audience and that is my that's all I care about it's all I care about what those bands have done is brilliant just and that's it and I
always thought the radio and gramys and the MTV Awards and all this sort of like that side of the music industry was like for Lady Gaga or something it was so off my radar of uh because I think I was I Was probably 25 at the time and I felt very old cuz I've been at it so long and I just been on this um I always interpret it like the County Road next to the highway people shoot by you and oh those guys we just played a show with they're huge the Mega Bus yeah
and I'm like and so I was sort of like cool like this is you know I was really proud a very very proud human being at that time of what I was able to accomplish uh we were starting to draw People I a band called steel train and fun at that time respectively we're starting to fill small venues like really you know really respectable stuff and so when that cracked open and that side of the industry opened up I was just like oh it like hello that's odd you know and the biggest takeaway I had
from it is there wasn't some weird with deal with the devil and then after those fun records at that time and all that stuff was blowing up I didn't really Enjoy it much cuz I only was working on pachers I was very anxious about having success for records that weren't records that was sort of coming from me people don't often do that they don't take a look at their break I'm not saying that's how you saw it but most people would work all their life up to that point to play these kind of festivals and
be at the Grand grammies and whatever and get phone calls to work with people and get remixes blah but you Know we this is it this is the world they wouldn't think like I'm going to go away now quietly privately and make a record in my bedroom and call us something else then take a photo of me on my bed and make it black and white and write a whole bunch of really introspective songs they just they just would be like I've got to make this moment count I got to build on this moment why
did you decide to not stick it out and just ride that that road I Had spoken in the language of songwriting and and felt myself through my writing my whole life and so for all the joy of how successful that band was getting it wasn't my story so I was you know from 12 years old just writing my life and and and then always was and never stopped and fun was always kind of the side project so it was a little awkward for me when it got so big because I was just like oh no
like this is great but Also like this is this journey I'm on of of writing my experience and so I I worked Beyond overtime to make sure that that didn't suffer you know so many people go from like producer to like wanting to have their own project or something like that I think it's also funny when I realize that not everyone knows that I've always kind of had my own band and been a songwriter since I was a kid and that was the almost the First thing I was producing the records too I shouldn't call
it that at the time it's probably why we're here yeah there's there's always a funny rub between the your actual story yeah your mythology yeah and then what you want people to focus on so is that why athology around me that I'm well yeah but the guardian recently right respect I thought was summed up bleaches brilliantly they said that they called bleach is self- mythologizing which I For a start I think is wonderful number two I think every artist to some degree is self- mythologizing because that's the what the work ultimately creates or some form
of Mythology but I understand the point the point being that when you put on a bleachers album even on this album you put on Modern girl it's like man you know we play like a heart attack for you you know and we shout out Ian and we shout out Mikey there's a moment in uh self- respect where and The Crowd Goes Wild yeah and the Crowd Goes Wild and I know what that that there's a Twist in the tail and what the crowd's going wild for but it's like you are kind of creating this mythology
around the band through the art that's the thing about a shared experience with a band and the heightened experiences that you live together is there there is so much mythology and you do lose track as a band of like you know you become these characters not even to the public to Each other yeah you you do something as a unit that is fantastic and amazing and and wild and so dialed in that you can be loose it's the craziest experience you know to have this weird life that you live together that can be mundane but
in many ways is all that in insanity and the beauty of kind of just like living you're a bit off the grid you know when you move around as a band it's true and the Dynamic of bands is unique and not talked about enough anymore Because there's such a a move towards the solo experience you know I've got technology I can do it myself why would I share it yeah bleaches is such a Shar experience seeing the band Live is is pretty euphoric um for everybody on stage and in the crowd does it at all
frustrate Ian or Mikey or anyone else in the band that people still perceive bleaches as a jack anen off project I I don't I mean I guess you'd have to ask them but I don't think so because within The concept of taking of of doing a number of things I'm so at peace with with people not getting the whole story besides my the audience is all I care about they get everything you know when we play a show everyone in that room knows every member of that band they know what they're doing they understand every
inside joke every Marquee moment every time they get the whole thing so it's like I was very anxious about that once Again I don't want to speak for the band but in the context of how I see it and the way I deal with that in my life before bleachers really had this audience you know something happened around the last tour where the level of the audience grew I was just sort of like I don't need more than this I don't need to be perfectly understood by the world if I can have this place where
everyone comes and gets the whole thing and it's more than bleachers a lot of These people if not all of them understand the records I'm producing and writing and they understand all the little Easter eggs sewn through all of it but you get to a point where you're like anyone else who's not getting the full picture it's like well then that that's totally cool I also feel like I spent certain amount of time in my life in the past agitated about being misunderstood and it and it made me feel um little bored you know like
chasing Something that disappears once you find it has it been helpful working with so closely and forging such strong relationships with a certain kind of artist that feels misunderstood all the time you know I'm sure I'm sure there are days when Lana's just like you know what it you don't get me you don't get me right and we know how Taylor feels because she has to exist in that space this is her safe space but out there constant judgment from one reason Or we all everyone's writing about it so I feel like the about being
misunderstood is man I don't know if it's a goal to feel understood by the general public it's sort of like to be public and be known by a lot of people is to be misunderstood and I've yet to I don't know I take a lot of um comfort and a lot of people I've known who I have great respect for who just kind of still feel that way and like I said you just focus on your people we told you my Theory about being at a party okay an artist In Their audience um it's a
relationship Springstein calls it a conversation everyone has a different word for it's just a relationship right so I'm talking to you the first album maybe you're wowed I'm new I'm exciting to you I me the second album we go deeper third album you might be mad at me you might not like what I did and we're arguing about it but in the fourth album Maybe you understand Why I did it maybe on the fifth album you're mad again but you know you know we're just in this long relationship you and I and it's a beautiful
beautiful thing and we stick with each other and we believe in each other whether we agree or disagree whatever it is the second me as an artist that I go like this like you die you that feeling when you're at a party and someone's looking at you and they look away for a second looking for something better it's so Subtle and it's so um heartbreaking it it just destroys you you will never trust me again and you shouldn't and that's why all that matters is this dead set long relationship with your fan base the second
you look for something else and that can be done in many ways you you can just feel it when an does it the person the heart and soul that you're talking to they they disappear as they should because it's the most disrespectful thing you can do and so I Think about that all the time and when I'm writing music and when I'm expressing something I think about the need to express it and then I think about who I'm expressing it to and I just even if I know it's going to bother them I'm just with
them yeah I think it's the most dangerous thing you can do artistically is Take Your Eye Off of your people you brought up Bruce and um so much of the DNA when I listen to a bleaches record and I'm going to avoid This really thoughtfully because I don't want it to to draw direct comparison but it creates a similar feeling I was I'm fine with that yeah it creates a feeling that I get listening to not just Bruce's records but certain records that Afghan wigs give me that feeling yeah I get that from like Hold
Steady yeah Hold Steady give me that feeling you know that Greg doy to me like tonight tonight I say goodbye to everyone who love me you know stick it to my enemies tonight But but he's in but he's in a car on a train or going somewhere while saying it it's Fantastical but it's born of a um understandable place I've always liked that kind of music where I feel like I'm friends with the person who's singing me the thing but then they'll say something I'm like whoa you know what happens when you become friends with
the person who's singing you the thing I mean what happens when you yeah oh well Bruce you know don't meet your Idols unless your Idols Bruce Springstein that's that's the that's the quote right you know but actually that's that's true for everyone great the thing about New Jersey and the sound and Bruce being the sort of the top of that is is that sound is everywhere man that sound is in where I'm from like that's the sound of the punksy I grew up and like when I hear like I heard Australian music in the in
the '90s yeah totally so to me why I get so obsessed with New Jersey and the Landscape not only this idea of where I'm reporting from which is my heart and soul but it's not just Bruce and it's not just a cool sound it's a very specific sound that you hear all over the world but you don't understand right away you know when you hear oh that's Jamaican music oh that's Manchester music oh that's that thing coming out of Bristol that's Japanese that's you know New Jersey is this it's unwieldy is this thing going to
stay on the track there's The horns cuz it's Coastal but they're not like you go a little further up and the horns get sort of Rich you go a little further down they get a little like goofy it's like the horns and Jersey are they're like so lovelorn and sad but they're anthemic it's such a specific sound I I call it shadow of the city because it's the only massive city in the world that has that sort of medieval you're right there the death of energy the ash of the city falling onto These people who
live in New Jersey where I grew up and just looking out their window and seeing it and you're right there but you're so far away so potent it's obviously Southside Johnny it's it's Bruce uh Patty's married to Bruce her albums sound like this it's the scene I grew up in it's all the guys from Gaslight Anthem save the day and Mye com romance I hear it in all of that I hear it in Paul Simon who seems to pretend more like it's a New York City Thing but his perspective is Jersey to me and so
it's a torch that I first of all it's who I am so I I wouldn't shake it even if I could but I do feel very intent on on making that clear of just this is a sound that is really important but yeah when I talked to Bruce about it I mean he uh he jokes himself on his Broadway show he's like I'm the person who made I don't know if he says I'm the person who made New Jersey cool he says something like that And it's true you know when I when I heard his
music growing up I thought like um you know it's like seeing someone from your high school like do it do it you're like oh like huh this jersey is a very made fun of place for really no reason it's extremely misunderstood it's like Europe man there's just everything there it's gantic it's everything this most beautiful place and beautiful food and culture and you want go Italian food New York City go to New Jersey I say isn't that just a byproduct of being the shadow of a lot of the things that I think New York is
famous for I prefer in New Jersey suei but I I will die on that Hill were you going to say pizza pizza 100% is better in New Jersey Bagels 100% is better in New JY you know say you're right outside New York City and and there's a lot of people who never go to New York City don't give a they're totally removed from it And there's people like I grew up like but also loved it and you like it's so this what Bruce always did so well it just dares you to to dream he always
wrote that so perfectly just this dares you to dream about getting out dares you to dream about something else but never at the sacrifice of what makes that place home that's the trick the trick is to yearn to get in the car or go somewhere to go and experience life to a to a escape and find a new beginning but You'll never ever can anyone ever leave their Hometown and trly survive are you laughing because it's a lyric on the record who sang that no it's the sad lyric who sang that on the on the
album that's me yeah you you went into character mode on that yeah okay is anyone homeown actually why did you put the accent on when you sang it um I don't know to be honest CU it's affected it's not subtle no there's a little aune on that song it's a weird song It's a Special one to me it's a little autot tune on my voice and I'm kind of doing voes is you know sometimes when I'm demoing something you know I'm completely free when I'm behind the mic so I'm just trying and you know a
lot of times you're you're finding what you want and every once in a while you do something and you don't know why you did it but you're you're sure it's the take and you don't know how you're going to sit with Zane and explain why you put A little country fying in your voice in a very sad moment I love it you know why because to me it's like it it's the same thing as keeping Lana speaking off Mike in the song there are things in there that take me out of the compositional infrastructure which
everyone tries to master whether they accept it or not trying and create perfect craft yeah and you are unafraid of putting things in your songs that break that spell I've never been that kind of mathematician Technician and I am not knocking it it blows my mind people who are you know if I like see Max Martin will joke about how we do like opposite things you know and he's brilliant you know you never want to I don't want to step outside of what I what I love to do I want explore what I I want
to drill further in what I love to do you know so what I love to do is find things that may or may not make sense or a little bit outside of you Know it's why I love the saxophone so much why I love hearing modern girl on the radio I don't hear a lot of saxophone so why I like you know recording vocals a certain way or leaving in these things or that things or going from airtight to really messy just because I always want to you know if something's going on and you can
hear it out there you don't you're not compelled to do do it compelled to do the thing that you do so I I but I Always like that I love beetles recordings I love growing up and hearing those little things and why is there that thing in this headphone and those those things to me are hooks that's painting on canvas from an abstract point of view because you're off the grid when you're on the grid what the grid provides US is an ability to be able to move within parameters and those parameters give us a
safe space to achieve right but for you when you're Searching um for something a feeling something that's intangible what's the process of getting to the place where the Grid's not there for you how do you know when the painting's done you know I always know when it's done it's feeling I can the best way I can describe the feeling is when I get this it's not arrogant but it's almost this like bullish like like I love this I just want it to live in the world the the one thing I've I've gotten better and better
About is just listening to that because when you're what's crazy about this work is like none of it adds up to an actual number so like it's not like I did this and I did this and we're doing building blocks to get somewhere like it's so random you know how many records we've recorded this way or that way or this song and then you spend hours and money and all the stuff doing and then you turn around like I think it's an acoustic song and you put it down 10 Minutes and it's got more emotional
resonance than all the you did and other stuff it's just you have to be so which is why ego in the studio is so hilarious to me cuz it's like it's like it's like ego in church it's like what do you you know God better than me or something that's crazy like the studio is like no one can sit down and write that song they just hope for it yeah you're hoping for it and it it's true and I've I've learned that over the Course of my life having conversation after conversation about process that the
process is really out of the artist's genuine control it lives within the spirit of I see I see making records as like sitting there with like a nette and you're like hoping for it and I and that served me well because I never you can't put yourself above the process you just can't you can't know when it's going to come from right it's not a business model sit there and just wait To catch the things it's like most people will rinse a studio like this which comes at a cost and figure out like how they're
going to fill the diary in order to that's why the music business is filled with people who are blo hards is simply because it's one of the few like think think you have like a multi-billion dollar industry right name another multi-billion dollar industry where you just don't even know how to do the thing or what's going to make the Money or not that's why when we're here we don't think about that stuff because because there's no upside like there's no amount of piano guitar hours mixing plugins this there's no amount of things or things you
could add or subtract that give you a result it's all feeling it's why I've been very happy to divorce myself from anything that's just not here you know everyone I'm making records with like we're pretty insular and people of all different um sizes Like not not just people of the privilege to be so but you you just I really desend to work with people who just have a gut feeling about something and just want to find it that's all that's all making an album is so what makes you want to say yes when I feel
that with someone there another theory there North Star Theory I have you know if you if you and I are looking at the same thing and and we we want to make something and we're both looking at this Thing our only challenge is the road to get there and that's the easy part as long as we're not going to give up as long as we're not going to accept anything that isn't what we see then our issue is time cost life you know what I mean the bad things happen when people see different things this
is why I've never related to like the sort of like Cinema version of like you and I are yelling you know this this this is the sound you know Because it's like if you don't hear it you know like when I think of all the things I do I can remember every time when we heard it I remember the moment that I did this I remember the moment I programmed the beat to I want to get better and I was like I just heard it and then Laura heard it then every know her heard it
I remember the moment Lana the track was down but we didn't have the chorus to Mariners apartment complex he just got behind the mic she sang that Part she heard it I heard it Laura heard it and if anyone didn't hear how brilliant it was they were I remember you know there's that little video but I remember the moment that Taylor was sitting in my apartment we were doing getaway car and it's like these things they tell you what they are and they're pretty unimpeachable and that's why I so I guess that's what I I
look for or that's where I know I could do something with someone is if that's All we're looking for is just this feeling where does the doubt go because there isn't a human being I've met who's an artist at some degree who hasn't faced some form of doubt self-doubt doubt that the song won't come doubt that they can't finish the project I understand what you're saying about like as long as we stay consistent and we stay on the road we'll find a way through yeah but well you don't always Perhaps Perhaps the question is isn't
Where does the doubt go what did you learn to do with the self-doubt well I think doubt is only a product of fear that you can't do something and if you simply accept the idea idea that at some point you'll write your last song or your last good s i I don't know I'm I'm pretty surprised every time I feel that magic because I don't count on it I hope for it beautiful but when you're in the room with whether she's a friend or not You're sitting down with Taylor who is in my opinion the
greatest songwriter of The Generation you're saying that you get yourself into a room with her and you're able to forget it all yeah cuz cuz forget everything that's come before forget everything that's waiting for you outside definitely forget come before because all it can do is weigh you down yeah I every time we do something new I joke I guess we still got it 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 I feel
that with my band there's there's 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 think I I often think to myself well how much longer could we really keep having this spark and I'm just I'm just grateful that it's there and 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 quick so are you competitive artistically I'm like competitive to a point that like hurts my body like it makes it like hard to like lay the stuff down and have a life outside of it so who you competing with and in what what regard just just just myself and where I like I said just a drill further and Further and further into what I'm doing and push it further and further forward and so only competing with your own with I wouldn't want to compete with anyone else because where is their competition no one
in the world's ever been like I have a song today I'm good you know this plenty plenty of space soat goes to another producer and makes a record does that resonate with you in any other way apart from great no it feels great I I feel I I've worked a lots of different Producers in my day and I don't I don't think it's particularly normal to have these ongoing relationship ship I think they're really rare and magical yeah so like I don't really I'm pretty loose about stuff like you know like no one like Signs
contracts when they walk in the door we just work and when we make things then they come out and everything's fair and cool and whatnot but like there's no expectation if anything there's more an element of Shock and thrill when when you're able to access another chapter because it's very it's just rare and i' I I I don't know why but I've gotten a few experiences like that yeah it's for a band to to stay prolific it's rare for I mean the pivot is wonderful and thrilling but but the holiest Grail is to go further
further and further that's un that can be uncomfortable though in terms of subject matter and there can be things that get written about and talked About that can feel that can be really tough and I mean as a fan of Music there are certain records I struggle to listen to now for one reason or another oh yeah me too and um I sort of wonder whether can you make a record with someone who's coming in and it's diametrically a post worldw view wise to you I think so but I also you know when the world
comes into question I like to throw culture up on like an imaginary wall sometimes I think like talking About these different things that are happening in the world help illuminate where you can see a a hole so so but most time we not really talking about like it's such an insular thing I mean you know it's why the best protest songs aren't on the notes right when we listen to music we're vibrating on a feeling that's so much deeper than we know right so like you can't really describe what you get from a song or
why it feels this way or that you know like you know the Worst protest songs are the ones that say the thing exactly the best protest songs are the ones that like fill you with that except for Ohio except for except for Ohio but Ohio I would make the argument that somehow beyond the lyric the music sounds like that I don't know how they did it oh yeah well that's neon yeah I mean he's I mean no disrespect to the whole csny y but that's just Neilon any day of the week we can put Neil
Young in a different Category yeah um especially when it comes to talk he's kept it a little classier um who else sings on the record on the bleaches arm anybody apart from Lana yeah um Florence sang and wrote on it so she sang and wrote on cuz that song Started with her right yeah and that's that song is really um that's like the kind of song I could have never written a few years ago why it's very conversationally direct that's the one where the these things in life Are rough and fast unfair it'll be interesting
to see how people take it but what I thought was um all these things happen and like Mark time periods it started with with um when that Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial happened I remember thinking to myself totally divorced from anything it meant or who it did or didn't offend I was just like wow like I can feel that in like 30 years like this like her giving the Pepsi will just be like in a Flash in Like moments to remember this time like you know Nixon going like that they become patchworks of your life like
I was sitting there and I was thinking so the line is uh was it the day that Kobe fell from the sky the day that Kendall with a Pepsi smile Pepsi smiled the day that you held her last These Days of Our Lives they're rough and they're fast and unfair yeah and it's not not really joking or taking the piss out anyone I'm just sort of like the loss of a family Member a story in the news about something horrible happened a stupid commcial that spawn like like all these things are these weird patchworks that
like when you're kind of in bed at night like I guess what I was trying to reflect on was like how Wild it is that you could be thinking about grief or mortality and then lunch and then envy and then rage and then dinner doesn't this Trace back to that moment we talked about in the control room where you Experienced for the first time in your life that really difficult realization that others will move on while you staying still yes it's it's it's like that mixed with the utter um randomness of the human brain like
right I've been trying to I don't know I always want my music to sound as much like it is to just be around me as possible because it's just sort of like a quick easy way to make sure you're just being you like does it really sound Like me literally you know these are the things I say or these are things I want to say and I like that song CU those are things that I actually uh say and yeah it's poetic but it's it's it's uman that's something someone wanted to criticize me for it
wouldn't bother me but yeah like I it's real to you I think as much as about dead people as you know Politics as my personal life like it's all swirling around me just the and I think that one Thing that the internet has done a poor job of is allowing us to remember that we have a myriad of crazy thoughts all the time and that in one moment someone could be so on fire about something and then they're just like I'm tired just like empathy to apathy we just zipping around it so that that was
my intention there and I I am interested to see how people will take that one who else s on the record Claude yep claro what song is claro on claro sings barti strange um Clara sings backups on El ma she sings backups on Tiny moves Annie Clark sings backups on the first song famously known as Vincent you know I I worked hard in earlier parts of my career to be like this is this production B Church yeah and I'm like yeah it's a scene yeah it is a scene and and that's um that's where I'm
at you know I mean like I said regardless of the output of the scene or the fact that some of these figures and these records Get hurt by a lot of people like it it's these days of my life are feeling very reminiscent of the days of when I started playing music and I think that culture has lovingly forced us into that you know because if we're here sharing every move with the whole world the records aren't going to happen and we're going to want to jump off the roof so I feel like the state
of the world has created this sweet this sweet hibernation there's a song on the record I feel like in the middle it something really seismic happens and um there's a song woke up today yeah again maybe this was written about somebody else but that song is is beautiful the idea of feeling privileged to even just be around someone in its most simple physical form of breathing in and breathing out which is the thing we take for granted the most of in our entire life I think human beings take for granted breath more than anything else
yeah it's exactly how I Felt it was that's how I knew I wanted to get married to was uh there's there's a sort of like litigating or Prosecuting in one's head of like relationship there's a scoreboard there's a tally there's a Pros there's a con there's a I get this I don't get that that I've always had you know this sort of like chuntering of like tennis shoes in a in a laundry machine kind of and sometimes it stops and it restarts again every relationship I was in and then when I Met my now wife
it was just it's not that it stopped it was just there it was just somewhere it was just it was it was gone it was the first time in my life that I experienced not being in this uh exhausting and sometimes funny inner negotiation and actually just enjoying someone existing what's that lyric that my bed was a place for the lonely I used to think that it was holy well a big part of falling in love is is is all the beautiful parts of it but then there's a There's a sort of secret weird part
which is um well what about all the stories I told myself that all of a sudden aren't true yeah you know CU what's my identity now yeah what's my identity now when forever my identity was like oh my parents have real relationship oh like this this generational trauma this blah blah blah I'm bad at this like work comes through you know all these the patchwork of that you tell yourself to stand In place of the the horrible truth of loneliness y cuz you deserve it by the way you deserve to be lonely you deserve it
and you've created it and not everyone gets it all and blah blah blah uh is a lot to you know when you find something that you do get something you want I think this could happen in in art and music too if you start to reach people the way you wanted to you can sort of be like what is my armor now I dealt with this when I first had any Success in music because the first decade of being on tour my armor was you don't get it this is what I do I tour I'm
here no matter what if one person comes I don't give a if a thousand people come that's cool too but every single person matters I don't give a and it was the armor I wore your metric of value means nothing to me yeah nothing and I still carry that but you start to get to a point where at some point it's it's not who you are anymore And it would be unattracted like I don't want to go in with that armor because now I have a very passionate and intense relationship with the fan base that
isn't sort of like whether you come or not what it's you know it's so so then you meet Margaret who's your now wife and you're faced with a decision to either try to make her fit into that identity which is probably not going to work oh I never even no no this is a choice you face totally or you get out Of your own way exactly and to try to make someone fit into some identity that was armor or coping mechanism is how fell before you even stop totally second I saw her which was right
there on that roof I saw her and I was like got it got it okay uh nothing else matters um and that's how I functioned and I changed everything about my life to be ready for it but it is funny to look back at the the stories I told myself I wish I was a little nicer to myself in The past but this is what I think about a lot in the studio in making records and stuff like that it's like maybe shut the up and make the stuff and focus on what you're doing and
listen to how you feel and and stop putting in all these elements that are part of this like mythology ordinary Heaven part of me that wanted to call the album that but I didn't like the word ordinary it's not a great marketing tool it felt like it was well you're teeing it up for Everybody to review it that way right that's the thing it's not a door I want to open you message yeah and by the way like the concept of ordinary Heaven as I thought about it and it was also more that I I
became sure that it was a self-title album but I was like it's not the front door it is a lived in concept it is a later track on the album it is an attic you get there you know what it is though is it's an opportunity for you to pull in one of my favorite pieces of Dialogue I've ever watched Rodney Mullen who is hands down the greatest freestyle skater of all time yeah yeah I always wanted to skate like him but never he's an artist he's an artist and and and what's beautiful about you
bringing that quote to the end of that song is that is that you you take him off his board and you just present him in an audio way as an artist yeah well he is I've gotten to know him and the reason I use that is because shut up stop this this is where The flex goes too far it's not a so how random is this do you know how much of a flexor this guy is like he doesn't you don't even realize he's flexing on you until you've been sitting with him in Electric Lady
Studios for 4 hours and he tells you he's friends with Rodney Mullen this is the moment where I might leave I mean I hope you call me how the do you get to Rodney M the best story ever so my wife was working and she was in Pittsburgh and I was on tour And she was saying a Laurer does my hair like her partner's so cool I can't wait for you to meet Rodney he's so interesting and introspective I'm like awesome cool I can't wait to meet him and she's like I'm still hanging out with
him he's so cool and like he's so smart and she's just like waxing on about these people Lori and Rod and how great they are and she was like oh and like he's a skateboard I was like oh that's so cool and just like she kept Telling me about it and she was like I think he was really successful and I was like is he Rodney Mullen and she was like yeah and I was like and I was like you don't you don't get it you don't get and I was like I was like not
only do I know who he is yeah like like he's like the greatest not only the absolute greatest of the field but someone who meant the most to me anyway he's just the coolest most brilliant guy barely Even talked about skating he was at our wedding and I just found this quote of his I was a bit nervous to ask him cuz I never want to um who wants someone you might have say no to you I'm sorry it's that simple I mean the only time I like asking is I do a benefit show at
the end of every year that's an easy ask CU it's like it's for charity like if you want to be cool like you know you know it's not like will you lend your voice to my and it's pretty intense thing that I Sampled him saying um but he was cool it I'm really real real proud to have him on there the reason why I put him on there is because he's someone I love and who I grew up loving for a different reason but now love for many reasons and he said the thing that I
was saying in the album in a very different way M and that's why I included it because he um kind of codified what I was saying you know bleaches came along at a time when um you had some success to spend and and You you chose to to go and invest those chips into building something new and it's become your voice to tell your life story really I think and this this album is such a watershed moment for you personally I can tell just by listening to the lyrics that you've achieved this whole new space
the good thing about that is that there's a whole lot of new space you can film now there's a whole lot of life to go and live that's in front of you you're so busy making Records with people you love and admire getting to fill that wonderful experience in your life and you've got this amazing opportunity to build a a relationship and how do you see bleaches growing with you how do you keep the fire of this thing that was really the sum of all the parts we've discussed in this conversation from the kid at
15 and the man yeah to now how do you keep it going it's a question that I feel often And then I it gets answered by music so right now I don't know but when I put out the first bleachers album strange desire I mean the first single with my whole life story I through the verses just ran through anything bad that had happened in my life you know every album I've ever made sort of functions like an opera in a way and so I know it changes as you get older but I am always
left and and it's funny I'll answer this for myself and kind of all the people I work With because it's one thing I've noticed we all do where it's sort of you finish something and then you're kind of like in this weird it's almost like when the plane lands before you get off the plane you're just like like nothing is nothing nothing is like the plane ride is over but the next thing hasn't started I'm in that phase the answer to the question is uh the next song at some point I mean I'm always writing
but some point I'll Hopefully maybe not but at some point I'll probably write something that will open a new door in my mind and be a whole new place I want to be that's what's happened in the past but I don't think about it I don't think about what's the next phase keep talking I'm just going to grab this guitar so um but you do feel like you've reached a landing that the plane is landed oh definitely I I there's nothing more self- mythologizing than a self-titled Album but even any album I finish it's like
to say the album is done and I'm G to put it out is the ultimate like I feel um what's he going to do course it'sit some okay I'm not going to do anything I anyone's going to care about I just sick and tired of looking at all these beautiful instruments and not picking them up what's your go-to chord if you pick up a Guitar what do you play first thing I play is the first thing my dad taught Me which is this little rag time thing oh that's cool CU that's how he learned playing
yeah pick go and if I'm alone I would do it faster but I don't want to come off like a but but and then it goes like it's like real rag timing do you know how we're going to finish this I've had a really good time had a great time really enjoyed it it starts with you showing off yeah uh sorry I'm just trying to if I yeah yeah hold on I got it okay okay yeah what okay all right you know this one it's um