Grammy-winning producer Jack Antonoff has announced plans to launch a charitable initiative that will give underprivileged music-makers access to professional recording studios.
In an Instagram post shared earlier this week, Antonoff said that he intends to spend "the next chapter" of his life bringing studio spaces "to people who wouldn't have access to them", beginning with a plan to build studios in LGBTQ+ youth shelters in partnership with The Ally Coalition.
In Antonoff's statement, the Bleachers frontman says that he dreams of making the recording studio accessible to anyone, not only those with enough money to use it. "It should be a place that all people can experience," he says, a public facility akin to a park or library.
"Working with analogue gear and creating sounds that are impossible to recreate is powerful," the post reads. "Knowing you are in a space for a limited amount of time and pushing yourself to the edge is vital. A studio is a rare space and you function different because of it... I've loved home recording but my life changed in a recording studio."
Antonoff's plans will see a network of studio engineers enlisted to train would-be producers in the public studios. "Our plan is to build these spaces, pay for maintenance and engineering and let the centres give out the time slots for people to use them," he says.
One of the world's most successful producers, Antonoff has worked with Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, The 1975 and Olivia Rodrigo, and taken home the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year the past two years running.
“It was the first piece of gear that I got in New York - it had this thunderous low end to it”: How a Prophet-5, a kalimba and a prog rock sample inspired the genesis of Bonobo’s biggest track
“Whether a listener is using Airpods or in Berghain next to a wall of speakers, the objective is to try to create a mood in people’s minds”: Producer and engineer Matt Karmil on crafting a mix that translates to any environment
