2008-Jack AntonoffVocals, guitar, trumpet
Andrew DostGuitar, keyboards, vocals
Nate RuessLead vocals
Fun (technically Fun., but that wreaks havoc with sentences) released just two albums before going on indefinite hiatus in 2015, but the second one,
Some Nights in 2012, had a huge impact, with the song "
We Are Young" rising to #1.
On December 6, 2011, the cast of the hit TV series
Glee covered "We Are Young" in the episode "Hold on to Sixteen" in a scene where they
perform it in the auditorium of McKinley High after the end of Sectionals. The Glee version of the song went to #1 on iTunes later that night and rose to #12 on the Hot 100.
In 2012, the Fun song "We Are Young" was featured in a Super Bowl
commercial for the Chevy Sonic called "Stunt Anthem" that also features skateboarder Rob Dyrdek and rock band OK Go.
"We Are Young" went to #1 in America on March 17, 2012 and stayed there for six consecutive weeks. Billboard also announced in April 2012 that the song had become the first (and, at the time, only) song to gain 300,000 downloads for seven weeks straight.
Lead singer Nate Ruess worked at a law firm while he struggled to become a successful musician. His uncle was a Broadway performer, but Ruess never received formal vocal training. His peers often told him that he didn't have the talent to make it as a professional performer; he proved them wrong.
In an attempt to gain notoriety, Fun lead singer Nate Ruess cornered the hip-hop producer Jeff Bhasker in a New York City bar. Bhasker had previously canceled two meetings with Ruess and had just finished a long day recording with Beyoncé. He decided to give Ruess 10 minutes of his time, and when Ruess started belting out the chorus to Fun's future hit song "We Are Young," Bhasker knew he needed to book studio time with the band as soon as possible.
When Fun started, the band didn't have any goals other than to get people to listen to their music. Guitarist Jack Antonoff said: "We just wanted to have people give a s--t, which we've always had, luckily. Whether it was going to be 100 people or 10,000 people, we can find joy in anything."
"
Some Nights" was the second single from Fun's 2012 album of the same name, but the band didn't really think of the song as a single when they made it. Fun multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost said, "That would've been the last one, in my opinion. Especially when we were recording it, that wasn't really one we were thinking of. We were kind of viewing it as the most experimental or the most far down this path we were going down with these sounds. I don't think it stuck out as a single."
Jack Antonoff dated the actress Scarlett Johansson from 2001 to 2002 when they were going to high school together at the Professional Children's School in New York City. He also dated Arrested Development star Alia Shawkat (2007-2010) and Girls creator and star Lena Dunham (2012-2018) before marrying another actress, Margaret Qualley, in 2021.
Nate's uncle, John Ruess, acted in musicals. The Fun singer recalled to Rolling Stone: "We'd see him tour through Phoenix, doing The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber or Show Boat. When he did Les Misérables in Chicago, when I was 10, I fell asleep – my attention span was really sh---y back then."
Fun added that pesky period after a Swedish band called Fun demanded they change their name.
Jack Antonoff went on to become one of the most sought-after writer-producers in pop music, with a client list of very big names, including Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Florence + the Machine.
Nate Ruess is also a successful songwriter for other artists; his credits include "
Walk Me Home" by Pink and "
Thank God I Do" by Lauren Daigle.
While Fun were touring in 2012 and 2013, Antonoff was writing songs and cooking up ideas for his solo project, which became Bleachers. The first Bleachers album was released in 2014.
