VIDEO: Jack Antonoff on Working With Taylor Swift, Falling for Margaret Qualley, and Why 'We Are Young' Almost Ended Up on Jay-Z & Kanye West's 'Watch the Throne'

Jack Antonoff’s visit to the Stern Show on Tuesday morning functioned as both a celebration of his band Bleachers’ fifth studio album, “Everyone for Ten Minutes,” and a remarkably unfiltered look at the path he took to become one of modern music’s most influential figures. The superstar record producer and rock frontman these days has more Grammy wins than he has fingers, but his conversation with Howard revealed how one of his earliest triumphs almost became someone else’s Diamond-certified hit.

Before it was a generation-defining anthem for Jack’s previous band, fun., and featured artist Janelle Monáe, the track was originally destined for Jay-Z and Kanye West’s quintuple-platinum 2011 collab “Watch the Throne.”

“We made the song and the guy who produced it with us, [Jeff Bhasker,] was working on the Kanye and Jay-Z album. He played it for them, and they were like, ‘We’re taking this.’ We were like … ‘This is great! Please take it!’” Jack told Howard with a smile. “We’re made,” he recalled thinking at the time. “We’re gonna get our song on this huge rap album.”

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But the excitement was short-lived. “A week or so before it comes out, they cut it. We were devastated,” the New Jersey-native explained, adding, “So, Jay-Z and Kanye did a version for ‘Watch the Throne,’ which to this day I have never heard.”

Everything worked out in the end, of course, when fun. released “We Are Young” and the track exploded. “Turns out to be the best thing ever,” he told Howard. “Something just happened with that song … It went from doing nothing to selling like 400,000 copies in that week.”

Big Swift Synergy & the Art of the “Rant Bridge”

The discussion inevitably turned to Jack’s decade-long creative partnership with Taylor Swift, which spans from before her “1989” era through her record-breaking album “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Antonoff told Howard he met Swift in Germany. “I was like, ‘You’re my people,’ and then we started sending music back and forth,” he said of their early days, adding “I sent her a track I had made and then quite quickly, as she can do in like five minutes, she sends back lyrics and melody.”

Howard was curious to hear about a unique part of their songwriting process Jack calls the “rant bridge,” which he and Swift used to craft hits like “Cruel Summer.” “You spend a whole song — verse and chorus — you know, being super poetic and dancing around something… and then you get to this bridge, and you just crash the fuck out,” Antonoff said. “At that point you’ve earned it, so it’s almost like you can be so free. It’s something that I feel like is one of our very special things… We kind of egg each other on.”

While Jack worked on much of Swift’s recent catalog, he didn’t produce her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” As Jack told Howard Tuesday morning, he’s completely cool with it. “I understand that need to have different collaborators,” he said, emphasizing that their bond transcends any single album. “The friendship is very deep. You live an amazing, artistic life together in that room and then it lives on.”

Howard’s chat with his guest covered a ton of ground, from Jack’s New Jersey upbringing and his high school relationship with Scarlett Johansson to experiencing love-at-first sight after meeting his wife, award-winning actress Margaret Qualley. It also contained several twists and turns, including a moment that changed how Howard listens to the Beatles to a surprise appearance in the studio from Jack’s father, Rick Antonoff, who attended Boston University at the same time as Howard. Ultimately, the conversation served as prelude to a riveting performance from the frontman’s band Bleachers, which joined Jack in the studio and treated Howard and his listeners to an energetic performance of their latest single “The Van.”