There are artists who write songs, and then there are artists who build entire emotional worlds around them. For Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff, songwriting has always been about digging beneath the surface — past mythology, identity, anger, nostalgia, everything we tell ourselves just to get through life, and evoking the unexpected within our imagination. That is the core that is at the spirit of Bleachers’ visit to The SoCal Sound.
Joined by Matt Pinfield for an in-depth conversation rooted in their shared New Jersey upbringing, Antonoff opened up about the emotional core behind the newest Bleachers album, touring, songwriting, and the complicated relationship between personal identity and creativity.
Recorded live in studio, the session features stripped-down solo piano performances of:
The performances reveal another dimension of Bleachers’ music — quieter, more vulnerable, and intensely personal. Stripped away are the larger production of the studio recordings, Antonoff’s songwriting takes center stage, allowing the emotional detail in each lyric to land with even greater weight. Just Jack and the piano.
Throughout the conversation, Antonoff reflects on growing up in New Jersey and how deeply that environment shaped both his perspective and his music. He describes New Jersey as a lens that continues to influence him no matter where he writes, explaining that even while living elsewhere, he still imagines himself back home while creating music.
"I imagine myself in New Jersey, in a town, similar to the one I grew up in, which now I live back in a town. In Bergfield, I'm in Monmouth County now. But that's like a lens. It doesn't matter if I'm there, it's just, you grow up somewhere, that's your sensibility. That's your sound."
The interview also dives into the emotional themes behind “You And Forever,” where Antonoff discusses breaking personal mythology, confronting emotional armor, and learning how love changes the way people see themselves.
“you and forever in that song is about is falling in love. And then if you get something that you've worked hard to get and you kind of get struck by lightning like you've always dreamed of, and you can't just define yourself by what you complain about anymore. Whoa, that's a crazy feeling.So that's what I'm shouting about in you and forever is everything that I have been told, you know. I just saw the heavens open up. It's just damn the bastards, all that. It's just this love is so the opposite of this thing that is in all of us and maybe worse than ever, probably because of the horrors of the internet, but this thing of just is a gripe. Everything is a complaint. Everything is a bitch about something.
And it's a bit,(...) there's no room for that when you're in an intimate situation with someone. There's room for that when you have an audience, like you're in school and you're like, I'm in class and I'm like, fuck this, you know, like that's the internet. But when you're just with someone you love,(...) you can't, it's not all bits.(...) So you have to at some point zone out into a place of like, can I exist not fucking making the joke about everything or taking the piss at everything?
Elsewhere in the session, Antonoff and Pinfield revisit formative years spent discovering music through New Jersey clubs, touring vans, late-night record store conversations, and the pre-internet music scene that shaped an entire generation of artists.
It’s the kind of conversation that feels less like a formal interview and more like sitting in the room with two people who genuinely love music and the culture surrounding it.
Bleachers everyone for ten minutes is out today on Dirty Hit, You can watch the full Bleachers session now on The SoCal Sound YouTube channel, and stream The SoCal Sound anytime on the free SoCal Sound app.
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- · Filmed & Edited & Photographed by Matt Blake
- · Audio by Tristan Dolce
- · Host: Matt Pinfield
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