A lot of musicians have praised Jack Antonoff for his producing skills. “I think that guy has a reputation for being busy, but I can tell you, he’s just good. He’s so good,” Matty Healy said last year. He’s produced for Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Carly Rae Jepsen, and more. However, it started with Taylor Swift.
On Time‘s Person Of The Week podcast, Antonoff discussed how Swift encouraged him to engage in producing. “She’s the first person who recognized me as a producer,” Antonoff said, mentioning “Sweeter Than Fiction,” as well as his contributions to 1989.
“A lot of people are afraid to sign off on something that isn’t done by a proven person,” he said. “I had written lots of songs and produced them, but they would always sort of go somewhere else… So the label or whoever could say, ‘Oh, we had this person produce it. ‘I put my heart and soul into that song and she said, ‘I love it.'”
“I had played her that track, and I remember, we were at my apartment in New York,” he continued. “And sometimes she gets this look in her eye where she’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going in’… But on that one, I just remember watching her and being like, ‘Uh-oh. We’ve got a live one!'”
Listen to the episode below.
