‼️Jack Antonoff posted a picture of Taylor Swift with Soundwave at Electric Lady Studios. This image is from December 21, 2023 when Taylor was until 2 a.m. in the recording studio apparently with Kendrick Lamar!

I’ve been waiting for 20 minutes when Jack Antonoff darts in, flustered, holding a bottle of sparkling water and a crumpled tote bag, from which he pulls out nasal spray and quickly spritzes it into each nostril.

“I’m really sorry, I was working on something and it was running late and I couldn’t get it done in time,” the music super-producer says, sounding like he means it. He brushes off my assurances that it’s OK: “Lateness is annoying,” he pronounces.

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He’s wearing a white T-shirt that has holes in it — not in the distressed fashion way, but in the really-old-shirt way — with a smattering of brown stains on the sleeve. Signature thick black wire-rimmed glasses frame his face.

It’s a sunny, perfect September afternoon in New York, and we’re at the Marlton Hotel on West 8th Street, where Jack Kerouac used to write. We’re having a late lunch before Antonoff heads to the studio, a block away.

“The studio” in this case is Electric Lady, a mythical spot in Greenwich Village where Jimi Hendrix, Carly Simon, Stevie Wonder and many more music legends have recorded. In recent years, since Antonoff set up shop there, it has become a place where paparazzi and teenage girls linger outside.

Even if you’ve never heard of Jack Antonoff, you’ve probably heard Jack Antonoff. Through his work with stars such as Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Sabrina Carpenter, Lorde and many others, he has shaped the sound of pop music over the past decade. He’s won the Grammy award for “producer of the year” three times in a row — only the second person to accomplish this, after the 1990s R&B producer Babyface.