“I’m heading somewhere where people are my people.”
Jack Antonoff sets that direction of travel while calling for a renaissance of authenticity on the forthcoming Bleachers album, everyone for ten minutes.
The new record starts by telling an origin story of sorts with songs like “We Should Talk,” in which he references his first bands Outline and Steel Train, as well as the DIY punk spirit that drove those projects. He jumps back to the present moment around track four, “You and Forever," detailing love and marriage with wife Margaret Qualley. But even the songs set in the present are tied to those set in his early years.
Antonoff’s connection to music and playing live has always served as a way for him to communicate and find community. “That’s our church,” Antonoff explained during a recent chat around the new album and the announcement of Bleachers’ next Milwaukee “church service” Sept. 27 at Landmark Credit Union Live.
He sees the need to stand up for this concept even more so in an era when communication has become a commodity. “A lot of life right now is being dictated either by incels, idiots or bots, and that is a pretty dark outlook,” he noted. “We live in this interesting time where we know that, but we’re still connected to it.”
Bleachers started as a sort of passion project while he was still focusing on the band Fun. When I mentioned I saw Bleachers in 2014 at Summerfest after the release of debut album Strange Desire, he responded that “we didn’t know if anyone was gonna come.”
Oh, they did. In literally one of Bleachers’ first live shows ever, what was then called the UScellular Connection Stage was packed — early proof of the kind of following Antonoff attracts to all of his projects.
He puts faith in Bleachers’ fans because they choose to show up, to experience catharsis and something tangible. On this new album and with every step forward, Antonoff has decided to put his energy toward those who see him for who he really is — someone who isn’t giving the people what they want but offering the listener a real story and sound they might resonate with.
If they don’t? “I’m not a senator. I'm not trying to be for everyone.”
“There’s this distortion in music and art these days where it's like you need to eat everything on the table, you need to flood the zone,” he continued. “It's like, ‘Jesus Christ, how insecure are you people that everyone has to be involved in this thing?’”
The new album is a reminder that in not satisfying everyone, you might find people who are truly satisfied with who you really are. For Antonoff, a good number of those people are back in his home state of New Jersey, where there’s still a sense of hope and optimism.
“You have to dream the things you want to see,” he noted in an interview from nearly 10 years ago. When we spoke, I told him Milwaukee’s a lot like that. It’s a place where you need to create the environment you want to be a part of, and when you bring that environment to fruition, there’s an even greater sense of pride because you’ve done it with your community.
In thinking about everyone for ten minutes, Antonoff said he’s been “only going out there to shoot messages in a bottle to find my people, to dream a thing into existence.” He plays live and continues to create under Bleachers as a way to protest the cynical and stand for what is powerful: truth. Because in 2026, being real is punk.
