Jack Antonoff

Jack Antonoff (born March 31, 1984,  Bergenfield, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and producer who is best known as the founder and lead singer of the indie pop band Bleachers. Antonoff was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024, having gained wide recognition for his songwriting and production work for numerous other artists, including Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, and St. Vincent.

Early life and education

Antonoff, the second of three children born to Rick and Shira Antonoff, was raised in the suburban towns of New Milford and Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. His family was Jewish, and he attended the Solomon Schechter Day School for his early education. About age 12, he began playing guitar with his father, who played ragtime and who had studied under folk-blues icon Reverend Gary Davis. In 1998 Antonoff started the punk band Outline with friends from school. That year they organized their own tour, traveling down the East Coast to Florida and even to Texas in his parents’ minivan. In 2000 Outline released a self-titled EP and later that year recorded a six-song demo. The following year, the band released A Boy Can Dream. In 2002, his senior year in high school, his younger sister, at age 13, succumbed to brain cancer; her death and his family’s experience of caring for her profoundly impacted Antonoff.

Steel Train

In 2002, following his sister’s passing and the dissolution of Outline, Antonoff formed the indie rock band Steel Train, which emerged from a busking partnership formed in the late 1990s in New York with Scott Irby-Ranniar. In addition to Antonoff and Irby-Ranniar, other early members included Matthew Goldman on guitar, Evan Winiker on vocals and bass, and Matthias Gruber on drums. The band, known for its post-punk reinterpretation of 1970s album-style rock sounds, signed with Drive-Thru Records and went on to release three albums: Twilight Tales from the Prairies of the Sun (2004), Trampoline (2007), and Steel Train (2010). The group had several hits, including “Bullet,” “Turnpike Ghost,” and “Firecracker.” It made its national television debut in 2008 as a musical guest on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and in 2010 performed on The Late Show with David Letterman. Steel Train also appeared at multiple festivals, including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and Coachella, before the members finally went their separate ways in 2013.

fun. and Bleachers

In 2008, while still with Steel Train, Antonoff teamed up with Nate Ruess and Andrew Dost to form the indie pop trio fun. The group’s sound was inspired by a combination of hip-hop, pop music of the 1950s, and adult contemporary music of the 1980s. Its debut album, Aim and Ignite, was released in 2009. Its next effort, Some Nights (2012), debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and featured its first number-one hit, “We Are Young”; the song topped the Billboard 100 for six weeks. The track “Some Nights” peaked at number three and was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 56 weeks. In 2013 the trio won the Grammy Award for best new artist, with “We Are Young” winning song of the year. In 2015 the group took a break to work on individual projects.

While touring with fun., Antonoff had begun working on a new solo project, known as Bleachers. In 2014 he released the single “I Wanna Get Better,” which reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. His debut album, Strange Desire (2014), debuted at number two on the Billboard Top Rock Albums chart. On the album, Antonoff played every instrument, cowrote all the songs, and featured other artists and acquaintances, including Yoko Ono. Subsequent albums included Gone Now (2017), Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night (2021), and Bleachers (2024). The albums spawned multiple hits, including “Don’t Take the Money,” “Hate That You Know Me,” and “Stop Making This Hurt.”

Grammy Awards

In addition to songwriting and production work for fun. and Bleachers, Antonoff has collaborated with numerous other artists. He has cowritten or produced nearly 350 songs in his career. Examples include Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Sweetie,” the Grammy-nominated “Brave” with Sara Bareilles, “Green Light” and “Liability” by Lorde, and Del Rey’s “Mariners Apartment Complex.” He also produced numerous songs for Swift.

Antonoff received various Grammy Awards, in addition to the two that he won with fun. His Grammys included the producer of the year award for three consecutive years (2022–24), as well as several for his work with Swift, including album of the year for 2016, 2021, and 2024 for the albums 1989, Folklore, and Midnights, respectively. With St. Vincent, he won best rock song, for “Masseduction,” in 2019, and best alternative music album, for Daddy’s Home, in 2022.