Jack Antonoff went on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to discuss his new album, but somehow the conversation wound its way to how weird it felt to be an artist during quar. Because Antonoff is closed off from society when he makes an album, he had something of an identity crisis when everyone was forced to isolate. “I think about, like, sourdough bakers,†he said. “Because there’s a culture of people who make sourdough. And when the pandemic hit, how do they feel? Were they like ‘Great. Now everyone’s a fucking sourdough baker.†It’s a sentiment shared by comedian Chris Fleming, who made a whole song about how weird he felt when people with day jobs suddenly had as much time to pursue art as he did.
“When the world is going on, and people are going to restaurants, and people are going to parties, and people are doing things, and you make the choice to take yourself out of that and work on your work, there’s a power to that,†Antonoff told Fallon while exclusively making eye contact with Questlove in the hopes that somebody would understand how he was feeling. “And something weird happened in the pandemic where I was like ‘Well now we’re all forced to be inside … It made me do the opposite, it made me want to go into the studio.†Because Jack Antonoff is a very successful musician, he found a way to record songs with people like Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen at a time when nobody could be in the same room. And win Grammys for those albums. But did he make any sourdough?