Jack Antonoff has steadily made a name for himself as an incredibly talented producer of slick songs for pop stars and for himself under his own Bleachers moniker. But a quick search of his name isn’t likely to be that kind. In a new interview with Beats 1 Radio’s Zane Lowe, Antonoff made the case for never Googling yourself.
“So, sometimes like if I search myself, which is a very dangerous process — always somehow antisemitic and rude,” he said. “Like they’re just like, every time I search myself it’s just like ‘let’s just like throw this Jew into the ocean’ or something. And then I’m like ‘Oh that’s rough.’ And then they gotta be worse and be like, ‘Oh, this is the ugliest Jew I’ve ever seen.”
Antonoff added that he gets a lot of hate from the alt-right, which he counters by going on tour and being among people who genuinely care about his music.
“The people online, they’re actually not my people,” he said. “Specially, the alt-right that comes through. Like, you say one godd*mn thing about trying to make the world like a livable place, let alone a hundred things like all of us do, and you just get this storm.”
Of course, the entire interview wasn’t about Antonoff’s dealings with the internet. Given that he’s worked on tracks for everyone from St. Vincent to Taylor Swift, the conversation was bound to turn away from his Bleachers project. Antonoff called Swift a “songwriter first” and praised her as “brilliant.”
“She’s a brilliant songwriter,” he said. “And that’s why she just keeps making these records that are – she’s a real songwriter. She’s not a pop star or celebrity. She’s a songwriter first. So you get in a room and you talk about what’s going on in life. And you start playing and you put it into a song. And that’s amazing.”
Give a listen to the whole interview up top and check out “Don’t Take The Money” and “I Miss Those Days” from his upcoming album Gone Now.
