Ahead of Bleachers’ new album everyone for ten minutes, Jack Antonoff links his band’s sound to the way he now collaborates across major artists. He describes the record as a push toward the next phase of life—rooted in love, loss, and a blunt verdict on moder
For ten minutes at a time, Bleachers wants to kick the door into the next phase of life.
On the eve of this week’s release of their latest album. everyone for ten minutes. Jack Antonoff frames the record as intensely personal—while still pulling it toward something shared. Writing it, he says, felt like standing in the middle of a split crowd. “Obviously. the album is about my personal life. but when I was writing it. I was like. ‘We’ve never disagreed more. We’ve never been more torn apart.’ And yet there’s one core thing that everyone agrees on. ” he told NPR’s Morning Edition. “Which is: this version of modernity is trash. No one’s having a good time.”.
Antonoff ties that bleak line to what he’s been hearing in the outside world: people craving connection, and leaning into nostalgia for an earlier, more analogue rhythm. He points to increased interest in going to movie theaters, collecting vinyl, and attending concerts.
He also connects that sense of togetherness to how he works beyond Bleachers. When he’s not collaborating with other artists—from Taylor Swift and Lorde to Bruce Springsteen—Antonoff produces and writes music for the band he founded in 2013. He doesn’t see those worlds as separate. “I know I’m in a minority here. but they’re all connected to me and I really don’t mind it. ” he said. “In the past. I’ve tried to create this illusion that there was more separation. but it’s all happening at the same time. There’s no tension in me in that.”.
“The truth is. it doesn’t matter if the studio got nicer or the venue got bigger. ” Antonoff said. describing how touring taught him to treat every person in the crowd as an individual. “My life is the same as it was when I was 14 and 15. which is: I record music. I write music and I move around and play it.” In “the van. ” he sings about his early life on the road after he was a member of the bands Outline and Steel Train.
That attention to fans shows up, too, in the way Antonoff talks about showing up at his shows. He wants to honor the people who come—and engage in deep conversations with them.
Grief threads through the songwriting. Antonoff says grief often frames his work. and he points to a taboo he feels in how death is talked about—or not talked about. “I feel like we’re all death-closeted or something,” said Antonoff, whose sister died when he was 18. “When I was there in the depths of grief, I had this feeling like, why is no one talking?. I went through years obsessing about it. It’s baked into the work I do because I really got going in the years when I was dealing with the most grief. Making art is such an exercise in mortality.”.
On the other side of that heavy current, the album also explores marriage. Antonoff married actress Margaret Qualley in his New Jersey hometown by the beach in 2023. In “dirty wedding dress. ” he sings about being inside their wedding venue with the people they love the most. while staying oblivious to the crowds outside.
He also returns to the idea of keeping the circle human-sized. “There’s this great psychological study that the human brain does an empathy drop-off at about 125 people,” Antonoff said. “I don’t think it’s cynical. I think it’s beautiful. We have our capacity. My partner, my band, my family, my audience, like this is who is allowed in. That’s it. I always say, Bleachers is for anybody, not everybody.”.
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