Turn You On To... Steel Train

I Wanna Turn You On To...

Steel Train

Interview with Jack Antonoff

Words: Ashley Marie Sansotta

Photos: Ashley Marie Sansotta

Who they are...

Jack Antonoff, Scott Irby-Ranniar, Evan Winiker, Daniel Silbert, and Jon Shiffman.

What’s their story...

Jack and Scott started the band back in 1999, when they began playing the subways of New York. They’ve come a very long way since then. After signing with Drive-Thru, they came out with a few phenomenal records – fine-tuning their remarkable musicianship with each release. On their most recent album, Trampoline (released October 2007), Jack put his heart out on the table and wrote lyrics stemmed from serious personal loss. The result is a beautiful rendition of a not-so beautiful time.

Sounds like...

Jack Antonoff has been often said the band is “30 years too late.”

Why I want to turn you onto it...

They are amazing musicians who have completely mastered their art. And you can see it for yourself when they come through Florida this month!

I got a chance to talk with Jack Antonoff about their latest release and the current tour.

REAX: I’ve read about all of the cameos in Trampoline, including Hannah Montana’s brief cameo. I know your sister sings on the new album, and doesn’t your father play on the end of the album, too?

JA: Oh yeah, and that’s actually a really cool story. That song at the very end is a demo that my dad made in 1973. Everyone thinks that it’s an acoustic song that I did, which I think is pretty interesting.

REAX: I know this album is much more than just songs to you. You lyrically opened your heart to express the loss you’ve recently gone through. What made you decide to express yourself with Trampoline?

JA: Well, in the context of writing lyrics, if you’re not going to go for it all of the way, it’s kind of like: what’s the point? The only way it’s going to be interesting is if you tell your own story, because it’s the only story that no one else has. When I started working on this record, I didn’t want to be worrying that the record was going to be generic or sounded like whatever. I just got really into it and decided that if I was going to do this, the only way to do it great was to do it 100% and not hold anything back.

REAX: And when you sing about this when you’re performing every night, what’s going through your mind? Do you think about where the lyrics are coming from?

JA: Yeah, I do a lot. And it’s a really tough thing, too. I mean, when you put that much into it, it complicates things. It’s really important to me. If we’re going to play the songs and I’m going to sing the lyrics, it has to come from within every night. Yeah, it’s weird, and it definitely makes it hard. Every night is really intense for me, based on the content of these songs.

REAX: So obviously, Scott doesn’t have any lead vocal parts on the new record, because you are the one doing the storytelling. Was it easy for you guys to change rolls like this? Will this be the case for future albums?

JA: Actually, it was a pretty natural thing. We just figured it out, and it kind of happened. And if it will be the case for future albums, that kind of proves the point that anything could happen. You know, that was just the process for this record. I was the one coming up with a lot of it, so that’s just how it was.

REAX: You recently shot your first music video for the song “I Feel Weird” while you guys were in Austin for SXSW. Can you tell us a little bit about the video?

JA: We were trying to think of ideas for the video and nothing really made sense, because that song specifically was very personal. So, we ended up just deciding to do more of a performance video. The more we thought about it, we just came to the conclusion that the way we play that song live is the most important element. So, it’s a pretty basic performance video with all of this crazy lightening stuff in the background. It kind of looks like it could be a U2 video or something.

(laughs)

REAX: Is it completely finished? When does it come out?

JA: Yeah, it’s completely done. I think it’s coming out sometime in April.

REAX: The 1969 EP was made up of covers of songs from the year 1969 that inspired you guys and your sound. Have you ever talked about doing another cover album?

JA: We’ve been talking about it a lot, actually. The original concept for that CD was to do one every year. And then it turned out pretty quickly... it was what it was. But, yeah, I could definitely see us doing something like that again. Back then, we were just doing a lot of covers, and it got to the point where it was taking away from our music - and we had to get away from that. But, it’s really fun. I think it would be interesting to cover some of the more modern stuff that’s coming out now.

REAX: For this tour, are you playing most of the songs from Trampoline?

JA: Well, right now we’re doing this support tour, so our job is to get up there and show people what we’re all about in 30 minutes. We’re doing most of the stuff from Trampoline. And with “A Magazine” [a song from the Trampoline album], we chopped it up, and we’re only doing the middle part. We want to give people a good idea of who we are with that time frame.

REAX: And are there any other projects coming up that you’re excited about?

JA: Yeah, there sure is! I mean, it’s nothing I can really talk about, of course. (laughs) All I can say, is that there will be a lot of different things coming from us in the near future.