While mutating a bassline through plugins can add some experimental spice to your production, it’s important to know when an instrument’s raw sound is exactly what a track needs. In fact, Jack Antonoff insists that, in such a filtered, AI-heavy world, it’s becoming even more vital to strip things back now and then.
Speaking on the Tape Notes podcast, Antonoff digs into his band Bleachers’ latest single, I’m Not Joking. He explains that the recording ultimately began as a demo session in an unfamiliar Rome studio, with little focus on what mics were being used to record – but that blasé, spur-of-the-moment approach is exactly what made it work. “I was so out of my element… so [I wasn’t] being obsessive [about] what [mics] I wanted…” he explains. “I focused on recording demos with the band in the room [and wasn’t] being precious about how things were hooked up.”
The approach was just to “keep moving”, focusing on tracking drums, bass and piano just to get it down and chase the bubbling inspiration. And it’s something you can sense on the track, because Antonoff ended up using minimal plugins to tweak the final track. “I could turn off every plug-in in the session, and it would sound no different,” he says. “The plug-ins going on are essentially just carving here and there for a little bit of energy.”
“What I love about this song [is that] I’m not trying to show you, ‘oh, you’re never going to guess what I did with B3…’” he adds. “I’m free of that. I’m just in the room with someone playing a B3. And it’s an interesting thing I’m going through – and maybe some people are too – where I feel the most shocked by the least ‘pretence’ [on a track].”
He goes on to note that the mindset may be “a reaction to the world in general”, considering how ultra-filtered and AI-infused music has become in recent years. “Maybe all this is just a fucking reaction to culture and the concept of interesting sounds being more duplicable than they ever were that I just want to hear the band!” he explains.
Just listening to the track, you can tell that it didn’t need to be overcooked in production. “Maybe if I was in a nice studio, I’d do this with tape, offset it, and just automatically kind of ‘Bowie’ it…” he says. But, as Antonoff notes, the track allows listeners to “hear everyone just completely as they are”, and that is what makes the track so special.
Antonoff has made his stance on AI very clear, recently posting a massive condemnation of the “slop” it creates. His social media post reads: “What we do has become an ancient ritual. You don’t have to write music anymore, you don’t have to record it and you don’t have to bring the band out and play it. And yet for us, the idea of optimising what we do is a complete miss of the entire point of what compels us in the first place.
“We (myself, the band and everyone I know) have never been looking for this work to become quicker or easier. We were never frustrated by the randomness and magic it takes. We do it for that exact reason – and without the process itself ::: nothingness. So to everyone who is gassed up about the new ways you can fake making art, by all means drive right off that cliff. We’re genuinely happy to see you go.”
“Writing music, recording and performing it – that’s it. Nothing more embarrassing than considering there is a way to optimise that holy process. Godless whores.”
The post “I just want to hear the band!”: Jack Antonoff on why artists should strip back their production appeared first on MusicTech.
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