Musically Amusing

Bleachers will release debut album Strange Desire on July 15^th, 2014 on RCA Records. The highly anticipated album was written and produced by Grammy Award winning musician Jack Antonoff with co-producer John Hill (MIA, Jay Z, Empire of the Sun) as well as Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure) and others.
 
Here’s the Craigslist Ad that Antonoff put out a little over a day ago:

‘strange desire’ is something that came to me a few weeks ago when i was working on the last song i wrote for the bleachers album. the lyric is, “feeling like i never was young i followed a dream and a strange desire”. it was just something that came out in a scratch vocal take off the top of my head and i didn’t realize how important it was in that moment. that line speaks to my entire life over the past 14 years of writing and being on tour. i do feel like I’m constantly mourning a childhood i never had. mostly because i dealt with a lot of loss in the most formative years of my life. that ties into a lot of the lyrics on the album. specifically ‘i wanna get better’ – “while my friends where getting high and chasing girls down parkway lines i was losing my mind…”. i felt completely freaked out at a moment in life that was supposed to be carefree. i let go of a lot right then and started to follow what i now call a strange desire. its the 2 words that perfectly title what this bleachers album is as a documentation of my life as i can remember it at this point. or better put, as i see it from this point. its been a bizarre and wonderful decade (particularly the past 2 years). a lot of great things have happened but its also been strange. this album speaks to all of that. i never kept a diary over the past year of being away and thinking about my life as it has unfolded – instead i wrote this album. 

so now its time to move on from the ‘making the album phase’ and start to make the plans to give it to you. that will be july 15th. now you know that. as much as its weird to admit, sharing this album is as important as making it for me. I’m able to move on with my life from hearing the stories of what people have been through as well as telling them myself. people hearing my stories makes me feel less alone, hearing others stories does the same….. strange desire etc. 

jack
 

Bleachers first single “I Wanna Get Better” has already streamed over 1.5 million times, was deemed “the song of the summer in February” by the Huffington Post and quickly skyrocketed into the top 10 at Alt radio.  Coming off the success of the breakthrough single, Bleachers recently premiered “Shadow” on Pigeons & Planes which is now available on all digital providers.

Listen: Bleachers – “Shadow”
 

Since the Bleachers launch in February critics have been nothing but excited and eager to hear more. Rolling Stone exclaimed “We’ll be shocked if it’s not all over the radio by spring”, TIME raved “…it’s exciting to imagine what else Antonoff has up his sleeve” and Hilly Dilly proclaimed “…this is the kind of music that can’t get big enough.”

 Bleachers will kick off their summer festival tour dates in early June at New York’s Governor’s Ball:
 
June 8 – New York, NY @ Governor’s Ball
June 19-22 – Dover, DE @ Firefly Music Festival 
June 25 – Pilton, UK @ Glastonbury Festival
June 27 – Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
July 5-6 – UK @ Wireless Festival
August 1 – Montreal, QC @ Osheaga Festival
August 3 – Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza
August 8 – San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands Music Festival 
September 5 – Boston, MA @ Boston Calling Music Festival
September 6 – Boston, MA @ Boston City Hall Plaza 
September 7 – Boston, MA @ City Hall Plaza
October 3 – Austin, TX @ ACL Music Festival 
October 10 – Austin, TX @ ACL Music Festival
 
Hailing from New Jersey, 29 year old Jack Antonoff has been in the music scene for over a decade.  In 2002, with Jack as the lead singer, the success of New Jersey born indie rock band Steel Train was well underway. Steel Train’s cult following lead them to make their national television debut on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and later appeared on Late Show With David Letterman. In 2008, Jack joined Nate Ruess and Andrew Dost to form the Grammy award winning fun.
 
In addition to being a multi-talented musician, Jack is a critically acclaimed songwriter and producer.  His achievements include fun. being honored with the Vanguard Award at the 2014 ASCAP Pop Music Awards and co-writing fun.’s Grammy award winning song “We Are Young” and Grammy nominated album Some Nights. He also received a Golden Globe nomination for his collaboration with Taylor Swift on her song “Sweeter Than Fiction.” Jack has also worked with Sara Bareilles, co-writing her Grammy nominated hit “Brave”, and Canadian Indie icons Tegan and Sara.