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Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff Is Taking His Childhood Bedroom on Tour

Bleachers‘ Jack Antonoff is about to release a new album, Gone Now, and like a lot of artists, he wants fans to experience their first listen in a certain kind of place. How about a comfortable, spacious environment with good acoustics? No: A small trailer full of music memorabilia, toadstool cookie jars, and (as far as I can see) only one chair.

“[Gone Now] is about moving on and how we can’t take it all with us,” Antonoff writes, and therefore, he’s extracted the entire contents of his childhood bedroom in New Jersey—although “childhood” is stretching it, because he lived there until age 27—and packed it in a trailer, which will accompany Bleachers on tour. It is, according to a press release, “a moving, living art installation that is the thesis of Gone Now.” (A map on his website shows where it’s moving.)

Here’s some more photos of the inside and outside of this thing (all via Bleachers’ press rep):

Bleachers' Jack Antonoff Is Taking His Childhood Bedroom on Tour

Bleachers' Jack Antonoff Is Taking His Childhood Bedroom on Tour

Bleachers' Jack Antonoff Is Taking His Childhood Bedroom on Tour

Bleachers' Jack Antonoff Is Taking His Childhood Bedroom on Tour
And here’s Antonoff’s statement (titled “why i did this”) in full:

every lyric and note i have ever written has come from the room i grew up in. i lived in this room until i was 27. kinda fucked up but i never felt the need to leave. i felt so independent on tour that when i came home to new jersey i just wanted to be in the room i existed my entire life in. learned to love music in there was i was 10 – wrote my first songs in there when i was 12 – started recording and having band practice in there at 13 – had all my relationships there – started touring and would come home to this room – wrote all the steel train songs in there – started bleachers in this room while fun was getting bigger and i was still living there – strange desire came from this room …. and now … this new album. gone now is about moving on and how we can’t take it all with us. when i thought about where this album was coming from and what it’s kissing goodbye i thought of this room. i wished i could play the album for people who care about bleachers in this space that it is coming from and leaving. so i removed my room. every inch of it. every wall, the rug, my bed, every poster and sticker ….. this is literally exactly how i left it (doc to come on how we actually did this ..). it’s a bit literal but the only way i was going to fully move on and live what i’m trying to live on gone now was to remove this room and freeze it. it speaks to how badly i want to enter the next phase of my life and how impossible it is for me to let go of what’s gone. cause with what’s gone are people … this room has seen it all as far as my life goes.

some information: i will be taking the room on tour with me so people around the country can hear the album in it before shows. it will be at the may and june dates. i haven’t decided what will happen after that yet. come in – touch whatever you want – hear gone now in its birthplace and in the center of its inspiration.

If you want to go see this thing, it’s parked at the corner of 24th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan right now. And Jack… clean your room.