Álvaro and I have gone through this article and made our best to make a good translation of it. There might be some small mistakes though... Anyway, I found it really interesting and it's worth the read
Not one step backSince the release of 2008’s
The ’59 Sound, The Gaslight Anthem’s career has been meteoric, as well as impeccable. With hard work, a love for the roots of rock’n’roll, honesty and hope, they’ve kept on growing step by step until they’ve become a band with the right to not only be admired by their peers, but also to look right in the face of all the masters with whom they’ve musically grown up. In early May in London, just weeks before the start of a new tour, RockZone had the chance of speaking with them again in a central pub at a time where the beers had already started rolling in.
The Gaslight Anthem are like a puzzle you’ve just finished and you contemplate in amazement when it’s done and all the pieces have fit together. The Boss couldn’t be wrong and, even if his shadow is big in New Jersey, is undeniable that these four kids - Brian Fallon (vocals), Alex Rosamilia (guitar), Alex Levine (bass), and Benny Horowitz (drums) - have the ability of writing one great song after another. And if you don’t believe it, wait until
Handwritten is released the next 23 of July, their fourth album and first with the major label Mercury. The press day for said album allows us to have a relaxed talk with them about their past, present and, mostly, future. A future certainly promising that starts now, with their tour and this new great work.
For someone who’s been loyally following them since their tender beginnings, not too many years ago, having the chance of meeting and chatting with them for about an hour in a London pub that has so much history, with its old purple curtains and interior gardens, is a big experience.
The more you listen to
Handwritten, the more you realize that the transition from SideOneDummy to Mercury has happened in a very natural way. They themselves admit during our conversation how hard it was to make
American Slang, their previous album, but how the writing and the recording of their new work (with Brendan O’Brien) happened easily and spontaneously. Maybe this is the key for a band like The Gaslight Anthem, who are approaching the top with gigantic steps in a market were now a days, let’s be honest, either doesn’t care too much about rock bands or just propels them into short careers.
We shouldn’t skip steps and forward events, but once you meet the people behind the name, everything fits. The simplicity in Brian’s look, the way of talking not only about themselves but about life in general, makes us understand their music and their message. We are talking here about four working class American kids who decided to pursue their dream of making a living of their music with hard work first, and good decisions afterwards. And that can be seen in their hands, their tattoos, their clothes… You can see it because even if they’re big in the country where this meeting took place and they’ve sold out their tour in within minutes, they are humble, even when a little tired after this long day, but always close. We can also see in within minutes of talking with them the confidence they have in
Handwritten. Something that makes sense because, with the support from their record label and their new-found sound of big songs filled with great melodies, it’s easy to sense how, despite their modesty, they still want to take over the world.
They are the first ones to know they’ve made a full album, and they’re looking forward to promote it, play it, scream it to the wind. We now know they’ve grown in every aspect. Their music is more intense, but it hasn’t lost a drop of authenticity. These eleven songs are not going to leave anyone indifferent. They’ve finally reached a sound with roots but so their own, that we can’t expect anything but a sure success. Whether they're stepping on the gas with the first songs, urgent but equipped with a strong force like ‘45’, ‘Handwritten’ or ‘Desire’, or whether they pull the breaks giving their style a new twist, creating intensity and making it overflow everywhere on ‘Here Comes My Man’ or the acoustic ‘National Anthem’, any song in
Handwritten could be a single. Any or none at all, because this is an album made to be heard from beginning to end and, as if by magic, it wins you over more and more with every listen. In the end, you can’t find any filler second in it, nor a moment to take a break. Like we said, it’s a bigger sound, but with the same honesty as always. It all fits together again.
Around our wooden table at The Prince Regent Pub, Briand leads the conversation, backed by the enthusiast Benny who, sporting a Mezingers T-Shirt, tells us all their equipment has been stolen in Holland. He also confesses the big impression that Refused left on him and Alex Rosamilia with their shows at the Terminal 5 in New York (can this conversation get a better start?). Maybe the jet lag or the other thirty interviews they've already done today before our meeting has them being a little dull in the beginning, but as soon as we start talking about music, bands, and of course themselves, things start to light up. We can already see a few beers in the table despite the early hour. In the end, we spent an hour with them (and a smoke break with Brian afterwards) absolutely amazing.
You’re getting bigger and bigger here in Europe, there’s a lot of talk about you as if your success were imminent and you were going to be very big. Do you feel something different when you come play here? Do you think you’re more appreciated in the Old Continent?BRIAN FALLON: Maybe. Well, depends of where in America.
ALEX ROSAMILIA: Yeah, of course, it depends.
BRIAN: Size-wise, the reactions we get in America are very similar, but America…
ALEX LEVINE: Is so big…
BRIAN: Yes, everything is so spread out… In New York, Chicago… There it’s the same. But in places like Kansas… it’s hard to get to those places.
BENNY HOROWITZ: Dude, it’s incredible to get to play eight times in Germany, in so many great cities, travelling no more than eight hours in between one and the next. And that’s because Germany is as a big as, I don’t, New Mexico! (Laughs) Europe is like… so small (laughs).
Are you still playing medium venues over there or do you feel like the capacity is also getting bigger?BRIAN: It seems like it. Everything’s getting bigger, but we like to go back to the smaller venues from time to time. Because we want to, because that’s where we come from and where we feel the most comfortable.
You’re having great success in the UK. It’s awesome to see bands playing guitars on the TV again, we almost forgot what rock’n’roll was. We thank you. Your latest single, ‘45’, is precisely that, very nostalgic, a little like your music in general, with all those references to vinyl and rounds per minute… Do you like the old formats? Do you think it’s sad that most of your audience won’t be able to listen to you other than from a cold MP3?BRIAN: We love it, of course, and maybe that’s why there’s some nostalgia. But I’m not gonna lie, I buy lots of albums on iTunes, that’s my main source of music. I only buy physical copies, on vinyl, when I think they’re really good. You know, Adele’s album, the last one,
21, I bought it on iTunes and thought, ‘Hey, this is great’. Then I went and bought it on vinyl and went home and played it. And, to be honest, I hate to think this, but I believe you’re missing something if you only listen to music on MP3. You lose quality. Neil Young’s working on an MP3 player that eliminates all audio compression. Seriously. I just read it, he’s working on it.
BENNY: Neil Young is very good with the new technologies.
BRIAN: It’s a new kind of system. You’d have to buy an MP3 player, forget about iTunes and all those things. But it keeps all the sound. Like when a band listens to the album they’ve just recorded through the studio equipment. That’s the best sound you can experiment, that quality. That’s what you’re going to have in Neil Young’s player.
BENNY: Neil Young is one of the first ‘older’ musicians that has really embraced the new technologies. He loves them.
BRIAN: While Bob Dylan is completely against them. He says that there hasn’t been a single album that’s sounded good in within the last twenty years. But dude, Bob, you’ve made albums in within the last twenty years too! (Laughs).
Let’s talk about the new album. Would you change something about it?BRIAN: No, not from the new one. I would’ve taken the previous one with more calm, two years ago. I would’ve thought about it more.
Aren’t you nervous to see the reception this new one is going to have?BRIAN: Not at all. We were nervous with the previous one. This one has been easy. We are very happy.
It’s an amazing album.ALL: Thanks, man.
What was it like to record with Brendan O’Brien?BRIAN: It was amazing. He is the fucking boss. He’s produced most of the albums we grew up with years ago, it’s incredible we were able to record with him.
BENNY: The best thing about Brendan is that the guy always goes for the flow, to get the feelings and the natural way a song needs to sound. He knows that if the musician is not comfortable doing what he has to do, the album is not going to work. He makes everything work perfectly. He doesn’t go over and over all the technical details; he instead makes sure that the musician gives it all they have. Some people talk about all the glitches that happen when you move from an independent to a major like we have, but the restrictions and requirements have been nonexistent to us. Everything has happened in a very natural way, Brendan made everything so… not easy, but definitely easier than what we thought recording a record like this could have been.
BRIAN: The label didn’t have a say in the creative process at all. It was awesome. In that way it was similar to the previous ones, really!
They knew you were going to make a great record.BRIAN: They did! So we had all the freedom we could ask for.
How was that moment of hearing the album for the first time, in the studio, with that amazing sound equipment?ALEX LEVINE: It was awesome, man.
BRIAN: Really good.
BENNY: Hearing it all from beginning to end, finished… Incredible.
What I find more incredible is that even if you’ve picked ‘45’ to be the first single, you could’ve picked any song. Any. It’s awesome, from beginning to end. And I also think you’ve achieved a perfect balance between the most energetic songs and the… I don’t want to say ballads, but the slower ones, the mid-tempos… Was that intentional?BRIAN: We wanted it all to be… intense. That’s exactly the word we identify our music with. That’s what we look for! I remember being in the studio and saying, ‘Hey, do we need more fast songs? Do we need another one?’ And everybody told me no, because even the slower ones are intense, they have their weight, you know? So it’s great.
Brian, you’ve never hidden your love for Pearl Jam. But it seems like it has never been as obvious as it is on this record…BRIAN: Absolutely. I was looking for something more to throw in the mix. We’re always talking about Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Who and all of that, the bands our parents showed us. But what about our generation? What was going on when we were growing up? Forget about the 50s and 60s… Who are we? We grew up listening to punk rock and Nirvana! I love Pearl Jam, Bruce, The Clash and Pearl Jam, those are my favorite bands. I’ve been listening to some of their live albums. There’s a lot of punk in there and you know what? That’s the music we’ve grown up with: Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Screaming Trees… So why not use those influences when you have Brendan O’Brien, the guy who recorded many of those albums. And you can go two ways with that: you can say, ‘Oh, Brendan O’Brien, the guy who recorded with the Boss, let’s make a Boss album’. Or you can say, ‘You know what? We’ve already done that, we’re going to be who we really are now’. And to find that you have to ask yourself, ‘Who would I be without the opinion of everybody around me?’. What we were left with was punk, hardcore and grunge. So we started there.
It seems like the voice of Eddie Vedder could suddenly appear in the songs ‘Handwritten’ and ‘Desire’…BRIAN: Maybe it will happen one day! Thanks, man. It’s awesome to hear something like that.
With you, people always talk about Springsteen, but they forget about Pearl Jam or Tom Petty, whose influence is important in this album.BRIAN: Yes. And we’ve also recorded a cover of Tom Petty’s ‘You Got Lucky’ as bonus track and another one of Nirvana’s ‘Silver’. Petty’s songs are extremely simple, but really it’s hard to play them and to make them sound good. He is a genius. If we’ve come even a little close to that, I’m satisfied.
Let’s speak of the lyrics. In ‘Too Much Blood’ for example, you sing “If I put too much blood on the page”… Do you feel like you’re too confessional at times in your songs? Do you take stories from other places? How do you write?BRIAN: I usually write about what’s happened to me, but that song has kind of a different meaning. It’s not so much about exposing your privacy, but about exposing yourself too much in what you do, give it everything. What’s left of you if you’ve given everything you have? If you tell all your secrets? I have nothing to hide, but you always have to keep something for yourself, for your family, your friends. There’s a fine line between being honest and having the ability of containing yourself when it’s necessary. It’s exhausting.
ALEX ROSAMILIA: I’m sure there’s many writers out there who write songs about everything, from A to Z, exposing everything… Mystery is lost in today’s music.
And when do you know when a song is done? How’s the process?BRIAN: Usually, we just look at each other and we know. We usually say ‘next song’ (laughs), you know? Like in Tenacious D.
BENNY: We don’t talk about it, you just feel it in the room, we know. ‘Next song’, man (laughs).
BRIAN: We usually start with a riff and we elaborate from there. Lyrics usually come at the end. It was different in the first records, and maybe in one song of this one… Maybe ‘National Anthem’? Maybe we had the lyrics first with that one and then the rest, but now the lyrics are usually the last part. It’s more flexible when you’re by yourself writing with your guitar, because you can have all the lyrics first without worrying about if the rhyme fits or not, because you can make it rhyme, you can make it fit however you want to. It’s different.
And you have some other projects, The Horrible Crowes, Bottom Feeder… How do you find time for everything?BENNY: Our living comes from this now, this is our job, and we like making different things. Never stop playing. Gaslight is our main project, but we also like doing other things, some more heavy, some slower or lighter. Alex (Rosamilia) and I, we really like metal, hardcore… We don’t want one day to put stoner metal into The Gaslight Anthem, it wouldn’t make sense although it would be funny (laughs). We prefer to have it all separated.
Brian, do you think making The Horrible Crowes album had an influence in Handwritten?BRIAN: I think so, but in the sense that I realized I could do certain things, like add strings, and not make it sound forced but make it sound cool. That helped me to not be afraid to try new things.
Going back to the live shows. With the venues getting bigger and bigger, are you afraid that the stage gets a little too big for you and you won’t be able to offer enough action?BENNY: Eeeh, we play more songs!
ALEX LEVINE: Yeah, but not with fireworks.
BRIAN: The only thing that worries me is how to make the kid that’s at the very end of the venue feel like he was in the front row. That’s important. We played with the Foo Fighters in Spain. Dude, those guys make an incredible job, they make the biggest venue look small, that’s very intense. Come on, I’m not going to be in the stage doing those things (he opens his arms, pretends to strum his guitar and starts to pull faces to an imaginary crowd), I’m not that kind of guy.
No smoke nor theatrics nor stadium toys?BRIAN: Nah. I think that’s only good if it’s funny, when you’re making fun of yourself. One of our favorite bands is The Hives, and the fact that they wear those white giant shirts with their names on them during their shows… It’s awesome. But it’s a joke. I can’t see myself with giant screens and all of that. It’s tacky. For example, I’ve loved Green Day since forever, since before
Dookie, when they were just a small band, you know? And I don’t care how big they are now, I still like them. But I saw them two years ago in one of their shows with light canons and all that scenery, and all they said were the exact same things they had said the night before. It’s all scripted. I like Green Day, I like
American Idiot, I think it’s a great album, but I don’t like that kind of show.
ALEX LEVINE: Listen, fireworks scare me a lot. I can’t play while things are exploding around me.
Partly, I think that connects to your image and your songs, with all those references to everyday tragedies, those average jobs, driving all day… You look like a band that comes from the American working class living off that ‘American dream’. Do you recognize yourself in that stereotype?BRIAN: I think… not. Well, it’s just that it’s natural for us, you know? I know a lot of people see us that way, but I ask myself often what’s that they see in us. Of course, we have that hard working mentality, if you don’t work hard for what you want… nobody’s gonna give you anything.
BENNY: I know it’s kind of cheesy, and I’m sure that the ‘American dream’ is very similar with the dream the poor people from any country have and they want to go from poor to having success, but most of us belong to a second or third generation of immigrants that are looking for a place to settle down and improve the situation our fathers and grandfathers fought for. And now we have the chance of having success, and when you have it so close, you can’t throw it away. It would be like despising our families, our grandfathers, after everything they’ve been through.
ALEX ROSAMILIA: Sometimes you only have one chance to do something big in life and if you don’t work hard for it…
We think that’s the spirit that finds its way into your music. Other bands are in similar situations as yours, but those romantic elements of the American working class are present in your songs: those night diners, the classic cars…ALEX ROSAMILIA: That’s New Jersey!
Exactly! And we immediately think of that as America. Not the real one, but the mythical one, the one from Hollywood and the classic movies. In that way, you seem to us a very American band.BRIAN: That’s awesome. I love people see us that way, because I know there’s also that image of the United States not so positive: that we know everything, we control the world the way we please, we don’t count on any other countries for anything… It’s a shame sometimes, so I prefer that nostalgic image of America instead of the typical fat, well-off guy.
Imperialist…BRIAN: Imperialist, exactly. We are aware of all of that.
For last, we wanted to ask you about the title of the album. Something handwritten indicates humanity, endearment, attention… Is that why you chose it?BRIAN: Yes. I wrote the lyrics by hand, in a notebook, because when you do it that way it’s like you are so much more connected with every word, every line. It was a way of telling ourselves that every song is important and also that people could sense that connection. In the end, the album is nothing else but a letter to our audience. It’s about me, but I talk about you, everybody. At least that’s what I tried.
Is it possible to be that cool?It is obvious that the empathy The Gaslight Anthem have is, besides their music, that feeling of being nice guys. But, can anybody be that perfect? Is it possible to never lose your temper, even after spending days within a bus? To check this, we’ve asked three musicians who have been on tour with them in order to find some dirty laundry about them… We weren’t successful.
Chris Wollard (Hot Water Music)"Those guys are my friends. Every Christmas Brian sends me a card. I have one right now on the fridge door (laughs). He is my friend. They are very talented and I really hope people understand what they’re doing and they can connect with them. That’s what I hope."
Tom May (The Mezingers)"They’re really good people and great songwriters. We toured with them when we were starting out. They’ve always been really nice. They’re from our same area. When we signed with Epitaph, we called them asking for advice. They’re true people. Their friendship reassured me that there’s a real camaraderie in the punk scene. Their new album is incredible."
James Mattock (Sharks)"We did two long tours with them and they’re awesome. There’s no barriers with them, nobody thinks he’s better than anybody. They make honest music, organic. I respect them a lot because they’ve made classic and timeless rock’n’roll. We’d love to tour with them again."
Subject: Cover of Spanish's Rockzone & Translation! 
Sun Jul 15, 2012 2:37 pm
