Pop producer extraordinaire Jack Antonoff’s band Bleachers are back, announcing a new album and fall tour Tuesday, and sharing the video for new single “Stop Making This Hurt.” Their third LP, Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night is out July 30 via RCA Records, while their headlining tour in support of the album kicks off at Antonoff’s own Shadow of the City festival in New Jersey on Sept. 11.
Piano and horns lead the way on “Stop Making This Hurt,” in which Antonoff wrestles with the eternal give and take of joy and suffering. He catalogs the latter (“My mamma’s in the house tonight tryna break free of New Jersey / While the kids are on the street and they’re cryin’ let me live in my country”), but eventually comes to embrace the former in the abstract, wondering, “But if we take the sadness out of Saturday night / I wonder what we’ll be left with, anything worth the fight? / I wanna run from the darkness, wanna shout at the light.” You can’t have one without the other, Antonoff comes to understand, celebrating the whole mess by singing and dancing in a diner in the track’s Carlotta Kohl-directed music video.
Antonoff says of Bleachers’ new track in a statement:
“Stop Making This Hurt” is what you get when we are not allowed to go play for our people. It’s a line that had been ringing in my head for years. I fell into a dark place after a loss and then starting to have that feeling of rage towards the depression—which is when you know there’s a way out. Started looking at the people close to me in my life and finding all the ways we keep ourselves from breaking through. “Stop Making This Hurt” started ringing more and more in my head. Then the pandemic hit and i got the band in a room and we played like we may never play again. At that point it took on another meaning. Found myself banging at the door of the next phase of my life and to open brings up all the darkness from the past and what’s holding you back. I could intellectualize it for days but what I’m truly left with is a voice in my head shouting “Stop Making This Hurt.”
“Stop Making This Hurt” is the third track we’ve heard off Bleachers’ LP3, following “Chinatown” (feat. Bruce Springsteen) and “45,” released back in November. Bleachers will perform their latest track on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on May 26, becoming the first full band to perform in the show’s studio in over a year. Nature is healing, folks.
Tickets for Bleachers’ tour go on sale this Friday, May 21, at 10 a.m. local time. Here’s the link.
Watch the “Stop Making This Hurt” video below, and find the details of Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night and Bleachers’ tour dates further down. You can preorder the new album here.
Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night Tracklist:
01. “91”
02. “Chinatown” (feat. Bruce Springsteen)
03. “How Dare You Want More”
04. “Big Life”
05. “Secret Life”
06. “Stop Making This Hurt”
07. “Don’t Go Dark”
08. “45”
09. “Strange Behavior”
10. “What’d I Do with All This Faith?”
Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night Album Art:
Bleachers Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night Fall 2021 Tour Dates:
September
11 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Shadow of the City
12 – New York, NY @ The Rooftop at Pier 17
13 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE
15, – Columbus, OH @ Express Live
17 – Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
18 – Newport, KY @ Ovation
22 – Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion
23 – Philadelphia, PA @ Skyline Stage at The Mann
24 – Washington, DC @ Anthem
25 – New York, NY @ Gov Ball
28 – Birmingham, AL @ Avondale Brewery Company
29 – Tampa, FL @ Jannus Live
October
03 – New Orleans, LA @ Fillmore
05 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues
06 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
11 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
13 – San Diego, CA @ Humphrey’s
15 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
16 – San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
19 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SODO
20 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
22 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center
23 – Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
24 – Kansas City, MO @ Uptown
26 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fillmore
27 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee
28 – Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
30 – Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room
31 – Detroit, MI @ Fillmore
November
02 – St. Louis, MO @ The Factory
03 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues
04 – Grand Rapids, MI @ 20 Monroe Live
06 – Harrisburg, PA @ Harrisburg University at XL Live
