NY Mag: Brian Fallon on His New Band, the Horrible Crowes, and His Pal Bruce Springsteen

Brian Fallon, front man for New Jersey nostalgia punks the Gaslight Anthem, is dipping a toe into gentler waters: His new band, the Horrible Crowes — influenced by somber sounds from the likes of Greg Dulli, PJ Harvey, and the National — drops their hymn-esque Elsie on September 6. Fallon recently called up Vulture, while on the deck of a fishing boat in Sandy Hook, to talk about forming his new band, sticking by his old crew, and his trademark awkward stage moves.


The Horrible Crowes’ stuff is darker and slower than Gaslight. How come?
I was bored. After the last record for Gaslight Anthem, I was just bored. I still had the desire to write, but I didn’t want to write anymore rock n roll songs. I was in this weird mood; I had just gotten this PJ Harvey record, and this was right around the time that High Violet came out from the National, too. So there’s all these records that were slower and moodier, and I couldn’t get away from it. I wondered, If I wrote a couple songs like this, what would it sound like? And then [Horrible Crowes bandmate] Ian [Perkins] and I started talking and I said, "Well, I’m gonna try and write some songs, and then you write some bass lines and guitar lines over them and we’ll see what it sounds like." And it ended up sounding really good.

Ian Perkins was your guitar tech for Gaslight. Had you ever written with him before?

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/07/the_gaslight_anthems_brian_fal.html

Quote :

"Look, you took from me, and now my son’s taking from you. It all comes full circle." That’s how he says it. I do impressions on the weekends.

AHAHAHHAHA

Great interview! I can nearlypiture Brian in this little boat fishing. I love the part about Ian. Does that mean Ian's gonnabe in TGA now that he's been writing songs with Brian?

I know. So who’s Elsie?
See, that’s a secret, I can’t you tell that. But I can tell you this: The name came from a quote. There was this certain person and he asked another certain person, “Hey, while you were in there … and I won’t tell you where ‘there’ is … did you dance with Elsie?” And he goes: “Of course you did, we all did.” And he goes: “That was a bad time for you, wasn’t it, boy?” It’s about all those crazy, messed up relationships that people have that they should learn from and they don’t. [Ed note: Sorry, Brian. It's from the Mighty Boosh!]

It would be really funny if the albumtitle actually has been taken from that quote of The Mighty Boosh.

Awesome interview

This interview is brilliant! I can just imagine Brian doing the impressions haha

Quote :

We’ve written more songs for Gaslight Anthem now — we just started writing two weeks ago and there’s four songs — and he’s shown up on every one of them. So I don’t know what’s going on with him

So Ian is going to be on the new TGA record also

Mighty Boosh! That's hilarious. He should've named the album Old Greg and used a water color picture of Bailey's as the cover art.

This was an excellent interview.......definitely one of my favorite TGA related interviews in a while.

I can't stop thinking about what's going to become of Ian and TGA. What if they make him an official member. Do you think they would do that and if so, how would that impact the band.......positively and/or negatively?

Also, in regards to the new album, I love the idea of somewhat revisting the sound of "The 59 Sound"/"Senor and the Queen", as Brian stated. Sonically, those are my favorite TGA albums, in terms of my musical preferences. With that said, while I'm super excited to hear Brian say that (I'm sure most fans will be stoked to hear that as well), I'm not getting my hopes up, as Brian appears very conflicted about revisiting the sounds of those albums. Plus, it's early in the process of creating the new album, with lots of time to implement changes; not to mention Brian's album descriptions (pre-release) do not always match the actual sound of the album(s) once released, so when it's all said and done, who knows if the new album will sound anything like '59S/SATQ. I personally would like to see TGA achieve a balance, where they remain true to various elements of the sound that made them who they are, without having to re-do the same album, but instead making a slow, gradual, and natural progression (as oppossed to trying to force a certain sound). Whether it is or isn't in the direction of '59S/SATQ, I'm just excited and grateful for a new TGA album!!!

good info thanks

Loved it!

I also love how his favorite things (artists, bands, series etc.) are referenced to a lot in his music.
It makes the music very personal and sincere.