Top 123 Quotes & Sayings by Jack Antonoff
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Jack Antonoff.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I think it's nice to do work that is vaguely compromising to your health because it means you really care about it.
I never understood the idea of canceling a show when you don't like the politics of a specific state.
I just work a lot. I just remember recording in a hotel room in Malaysia. I work on planes, I work on buses. A lot of times when I'm backstage in the hotel or on the bus, I would have new ideas.
Social paralysis is strong and stands firmly in the way of change on the ground level. As allies, we have to prepare ourselves to step into the fire when necessary, even - and especially - when said fire is merely a still-lit cigarette tossed carelessly onto the street.
I've been touring through Texas since I was 15, on my first tour ever.
That's what is incredible about human beings, is the choice to keep going.
As straight Americans we have two choices: we can choose to sit back and enjoy our rights as we have them, or we can realize that it is actually not freedom at all when our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues do not share these basic rights.
The heart and soul of pop is newness, excitement, innovation.
When I was growing up, it was a lot of punk and hardcore music going on in legion halls and firehouses, and we'd play those shows, and it was very Jersey. It was very suburban, and there's just a great pride there.
To grow up five miles outside of the greatest city in the world is a bizarre experience.
The way that people have gotten on board with me is the most encouraging thing in the world, but it's all very connected to the 14 years I've been on tour with Steel Train, even my band before that, Outline, and then fun. and now Bleachers.
I'm not super into sports.
I think that some of the most amazing places to be or to grow up are the places right outside of great cities, because you're sort of constantly in this suspended state of, like, looking inside the window, wanting to be in the party. I think it breeds good feelings.
It's a really natural thing: The people closest in your life are the people you want the first opinions from. At the end of the day, if you're not trying to impress those people first, then I think there's something wrong there.
I started buying vinyl records when I got into punk music because, in the punk scene in New Jersey, vinyl was more like a necessity than a luxury.
I've never really identified with the way a typical alpha male views women. It's always an awkward forum for me to hang out with another guy and talk about girls, because I can't really find a way to fit in.
The connection I make with being young and growing up is, like, the feeling of not being crushed by the world. Having an idea, thinking you can do it.
I could probably name thousands of albums that I want.
I went to high school in New York City. So, I grew up in New Jersey my whole life, and I was watching all the people and all the kids that I met there become so jaded.
The first time I ever got paid to play was 1/18/99, Fire Hall in Bordentown, New Jersey. Played first on the bill - we got paid $20!
I've ended up on some website list or some other list for super right-wing people. They've been tweeting some pretty rude stuff at me, so I think there's a sect of America out there that doesn't like certain opinions and can really take their claws out when they don't like what you're saying.
I want to come and play in cities and states where transgender citizens are not discriminated against, where there's no hateful bathroom bills at the shows where I'm going to be playing.
Sometimes it's really quick, and sometimes it's really long. There's no formula for writing songs.
For better or for worse, I just have to be on tour for some portion of the year. But it's not easy, you know. It's not easy on the people you love, and I understand when people look at this life and say this isn't sustainable.
If you're lucky enough to find anything in life that gives you five seconds, let alone an hour, of relief from life, you should try to do it forever.
When you go all over the world for work, your dream vacation is your bedroom.
I think it's all about making records when you're inspired to make them.
I'm not trying to write a perfect record. I'm just trying to nail a moment in time.
I need a hobby, and I don't want it to be basketball. I want it to be music. So to get away from music, I do other music.
My parents had a house on the Jersey shore - I grew up right there, going down there every summer and living there. It is home for me.
For me, a perfect pop song is something like 'This Year,' by the Mountain Goats.
My father played guitar, so I always wanted to play for that reason. But I think the biggest reason was just the '90s in general - growing up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and bands like that, and going to concerts and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.
There's nothing more adult than being ripped away from friends and family, you know? Having to manage a life when you're not fully there, manage a life when you don't make a lot of money. It's very adult.
'Glee' is one of the very few mainstream outlets that is giving a voice to communities of people that don't necessarily have a loud voice, specifically the gay community. It gives a really positive and forward statement.
The only people playing the roles of classic rock stars are hip-hop artists, now. Kanye's stage persona, and the way he approaches making albums, and the way he wants to be better than everyone else? That's reminiscent of Freddie Mercury. That's reminiscent of the Beatles.
I feel like I missed a whole period of my childhood because I had a bunch of stressful things happen to me when I was like 17, 18, when people usually feel the most free in life, like going to college and like anything is possible.
It really is true that when an issue becomes pop culture, it changes faster, and it's really great for the issue.
I've worked so hard for so long, and everyone's reaction has made me feel like... almost like they trust me, which is just a wonderful feeling. It pushes me to write things better and better.
Bleachers comes from a different place. It's personal. It's just me putting myself out there as myself. It's very intense.
When I started playing in bands, we had to be apologetic for what we did. We had to be apologetic because the mainstream was so bad.
Singles, whatever. But selling a million albums feels like an impossible thing to do.
Headlining can be sort of solitary - you're sort of on your own out there, and you start to feel for a change.
You get to a point where everything is so important. One day you have 'Letterman,' and the next day you're at the MTV Movie Awards, and the next day you have a sold-out show for over 15,000 people. You can't cancel anything, because it's just too much to let everyone down, which is an interesting thing about being in a bigger band.
My grandparents got out of Poland right before the Holocaust and came here, and the only thing that mattered was surviving.
I feel very, very, very intent on only releasing things that I believe are fully worthy.
If you're in a conversation with me, the last thing I'll probably say when I'm walking away is, 'Thank you and sorry.'
So many boys and girls talk the same way, listen to the same music, look the same. If I'm out, I'll notice the person who looks different before I notice the person who's, 'really hot.'
When you're in a band, it's like everyone's the CEO, and anyone could destroy it at any moment.
There was this darkness about being from New Jersey.
I'm 30. I'm not that young, right? I'm not, like, 24 or 22. I'm no longer in the phase of my life where I talk about everything as in the future. Like, I'm in the future.
In this business, it's important to constantly do things that you don't know how to do. I love touring and making records, but I've learned how to do that, so sometimes you just have to dive in and try it.
I want to be able to do work where I think it's very forward, but I also want it to exist in a big way and have an effect on a lot of people.
Of course, the majority of us would speak up in the face of outrageous bigotry, but do we speak up in a social situation when someone casually refers to something as 'gay'? If we don't, we are standing with the homophobes whom we are quietly fighting.
What sets 'Some Nights' apart from anything we've ever done is the hip-hop influence. Not so much the actual sound of hip-hop, but more the vibrato and the artistry that comes with it. Right now, the artists that seem to be pushing to be the greatest artists and are trying to change the world are hip-hop artists.
I've gone down to the Jersey Shore every summer since I was born. It's like a second home, and Asbury Park is like the capital - it's the center of all of it. Musically, it's incredible.
Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can.
I think that everyone at any age should ask themselves, 'where do I want to be today, where do I want to be tomorrow, and where do I want to be in a hundred years?' We all have clear answers to those questions. We only have so much time. It's a real shame if we don't spend our lives trying to do that.
Great songs come out of people's bedrooms; they come out of studios; there's no formula for it.
I just don't think it's good to be around too much creative energy other than your own.
It just seems like the most fun thing in the world. I've never met people who have kids who haven't looked me in the eye and been like, 'It's the greatest thing that's ever happened.'
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