Bleachers

Jack Antonoff – Bio 2026 The third track on Bleachers' fifth album is called We Should Talk.

Jack Antonoff – Bio 2026

The third track on Bleachers' fifth album is called We Should Talk. Behind this song, which is above all about reconnecting with a friend who has drifted out of touch, lies also, according to Jack Antonoff, the very heart of his artistic approach: a return to his beginnings in music. "We had a band, a life, dreams... in a van, we were writing our own bible," he sings, poetically summing up his teenage years, when he left the small towns of New Jersey with Outline. This band, shaped by the influence of underground punk, released its own EPs, appeared on compilations with evocative titles such as Bottled Violence or Punk Will Never Die, and organised its gigs in anarchist bookshops or community venues thanks to a cult guide, Book Your Own Fucking Life. "We called it emo, but for us it meant Fugazi or Texas Is The Reason, nothing to do with what that term evokes today." Aboard Antonoff's family minivan, guide in hand, they criss-crossed the United States with a very "New Jersey" pride. "I was 14 when we started. We played municipal halls or veterans' clubs, while 15 kilometres away, The Strokes were playing their first gigs in Manhattan. But we would never have considered going there. Not for lack of money or freedom, just because we'd say to ourselves: 'that New York thing, not for us'. We came from another planet. New Jersey is separated from Manhattan by a stretch of water, like a medieval moat that nobody crosses. There's this idea that everything that makes New York's reputation (the bagels, the pizza, the atmosphere) is in fact better over here. And frankly, it's true." Life on the road, first with Outline and then with Steel Train, a band with a more folk sound, is hard.