"I dream of the studio being a place that anyone can access, not just those with the money to do so": Jack Antonoff reveals plans to make public recording studios available to those who can't afford them
The Public Studios initiative will fund the building of studio spaces in LGBTQ+ youth shelters
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.
Revisit our 2023 interview with Jack Antonoff.
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I'm MusicRadar's Tech Editor, working across everything from product news and gear-focused features to artist interviews and tech tutorials. I love electronic music and I'm perpetually fascinated by the tools we use to make it. When I'm not behind my laptop keyboard, you'll probably find me behind a MIDI keyboard, carefully crafting the beginnings of another project that I'll ultimately abandon to the creative graveyard that is my overstuffed hard drive.