Watch a special Sound Space interview and performance from Bleachers

Inside the newly minted In-N-Out Burger Sound Space at KROQ in Los Angeles, Jack Antonoff opened up about his thoughts on the music industry, touring, and the creative process behind Bleachers’ upcoming album, everyone for ten minutes, due out on May 22.

LISTEN NOW: Bleachers inside the In-N-Out Burger Sound Space

Watch as Bleachers perform a magnetic and electrifying set in the Sound Space, and as Jack shares his thoughts ahead of the band’s sixth studio album.

Talking with Klein and Ally, Antonoff detailed his desire to keep music authentic, his fight against high ticket prices, and his unique pre-release ritual for new music. “I listen to every album I made like a few days before,” Antonoff shares. “I listen to every album, and then I'll listen to the new one and then I'll feel in touch with the journey.”

Jack doesn’t feel tempted to make changes after listening to the entirety of his discography, knowing that the studio is a safe space for him. “I don't ever want to change anything,” he says. “I'm filled with regrets in other ways, but not with the music. I think that's why I stay in the studio and stay on tours, that's like the one place where I really like, for lack of a better word, feel myself. Everywhere else is really complicated.”

Antonoff also spoke in-depth about his relationship with his audience, and the importance for him to continue the conversation with the people that get it. Reflecting on the lyric, "only my people can see me," Jack explained that his music is intentionally designed to "sift out anyone who's not gonna get it."

“When the band started the first song I put out was ‘I Wanna Get Better,’ and it was really intentional because I thought to myself, ‘I don't want anyone misgivings about who I am or where this thing is going.’ I remember at the time it was like, ‘oh we should put out ‘Rollercoaster,’ you know, it's such a catchy song,’ and I was like, ‘I love that song, but there's this other song I wrote.’”

“I remember telling this to everyone, ‘I wanna like sift out anyone who's not gonna get it,’ which they thought was maybe a problem, but It's nice to just come forward as who you are,” Jack reveals. “Then you're just on a journey and a conversation with your people and it goes this way and it goes that way, but I'm not ever taking my eye off of them. And it sounds reductive, but if you just do the things that you love and are really authentic about what you do, it's hard to lose sleep at night.”

Jack was also quick to share that his view is unfortunately not the same as the music industry as a whole, and it’s tougher than ever to start and find your voice. “There's a lot of forces trying to push people this way and that way more than ever,” he adds. “So I think it must be really hard to be starting out and have so many f***ing opinions hurled at you. And no one knows what to do, you know, music, it's completely magic and about a feeling. You can't put a group of people together and it'll just equal the sum of their parts. It's all f***ed up, the greatest artists in the world might not be able to make something as good as some f***ing random kid in Kansas tomorrow. So that's like the fun of it, and I think a lot of people are trying to take the fun out of it out and mass produce it and package it and find all these ways and they keep dying, and then we're just left with good music or not good music so I try to just stay there and not get too angry.”

“I think everyone feels that way, exhausted of being marketed towards too much, exhausted of being kicked into an algorithmic position.”