‘I’d rather live through something publicly than escape it privately’: Jack Antonoff on survivor’s guilt, songwriting and his shock breakup

Whether he’s playing the role of soul-baring artist or starry producer, the Bleachers frontman strives to keep his integrity intact. He weighs in on Ed Sheeran, his love of working on ‘high-stakes’ albums and and why he’ll never stop singing about the end of his marriage

Sitting in the restaurant of a Denver hotel, in the middle of a US tour with his band Bleachers, Jack Antonoff shrugs. “There’s this intense need to figure me out,” he frowns, “and I don’t really know where it comes from, because I keep explaining all of it.”

He has a point. For the last 12 years, Bleachers have released a succession of albums packed with Antonoff’s strikingly personal and frank songs. Being strikingly personal and frank was the whole point. Antonoff had previously been guitarist in Fun, a pop-rock band who went supernova with their 2011 single We Are Young. Despite co-writing a song that sold 10m copies in the US alone, Antonoff says he “hated” the experience “because I wasn’t the leader, they weren’t my words, and I needed to write a song that if I fucking died tomorrow would be my life story”.