You Find Time For The Important Things
In the past year, Antonoff has contributed to three Taylor Swift albums, multiple Lana Del Rey projects and new releases from The Chicks and St. Vincent. He also helmed upcoming albums from Lorde and Clairo, due later this year, and will embark on a 33-date Bleachers tour in September. It’s a head-spinning amount of work, but Antonoff gets by with a little help from his friends — and cooking videos.
My version of time management is, when I’m doing the things I love, they somehow create time for me, so I only do things I love. In this line of work, you are either being given life or sucked of life, and I don’t love being in the studio enough to be doing something I don’t want to do.
Sometimes I look back and think, “That was a pretty intense period of work,” but my family hasn’t disowned me. My friends haven’t gotten together and said, “You’re a piece of shit.” People still take my calls. I’m definitely really ambitious, but it hasn’t gotten to the point where my life is completely falling apart around me. When you live very intensely praying at this thing, you want to make sure you haven’t taken it too far. When I hear stories about people never going home or sleeping in a studio, that doesn’t sound romantic to me.
I use everything outside of my work to turn my brain off, like my YouTube life — I watch a lot of food things. When I get home or if I want to take a break, I get into a loop of people making pasta, people frying things. I like videos of meat: seasoning, barbecuing videos. But these aren’t things I do! Never! And that’s why it’s relaxing to me. I think the definition of relaxation is to enjoy something that fascinates you but does not inspire you.