Jack Antonoff Takes a Break From Fun. For Solo Record — With Yoko Ono
Jack Antonoff, lead guitarist in Fun. and boyfriend of Lena Dunham, has taken a short break from his Grammy Award-winning band to write and record a solo album. The record, entitled “Strange Desire,” was released in July and features Yoko Ono. Dunham directed the music video for the album’s first single, “I Wanna Get Better.”
In an interview with the New York Daily News, Antonoff explains that he found writing music on his own to be interesting and totally “aesthetically different” than the process of writing with Fun. Most notably, Antonoff sings on his solo record, something he has not done since he fronted his first band Steel Train.
He described working with Yoko Ono as predictably bizarre.
“She went in and started screaming and grunting and making album noises,” Antonoff said. “I basically took this 20-minute file of her doing all this stuff, got in bed and started cutting it all up.”
Despite all this, Fun. fans should not be worried – the band is gearing up to write and record a new album.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 3
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Books What is ‘Zionism without Zion?’ New history asks, but can’t answer
-
Fast Forward Shapiro recites Priestly Blessing given to him by fire chaplain after Passover arson
-
Opinion Israel just threw another wrench in the peace process — and possibly doomed the last hostages
-
Culture In the new Fantastic Four trailer, a glimpse of Yancy Street’s Yiddishkeit
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.