RS article: "Gaslight Anthem Head to Nashville for 'Completely Different' LP"

Gaslight Anthem Head to Nashville for 'Completely Different' LP

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/gaslight-anthem-head-to-nashville-for-completely-different-lp-20140523/0969604

By Jonathan Bernstein


Jack White, the Black Keys and Neil Young all recorded their new albums in Nashville, and Tennessee also lured New Jersey-bred rockers the Gaslight Anthem south this past spring. The band spent six and a half weeks recording their fifth studio album (due in the late summer) at Blackbird Studio in a string of the sessions frontman Brian Fallon describes as "completely different than anything we had ever done before."

"Instead of going that extra step of just adding some organ or some background vocals, this time we actually really changed up a lot of the sounds," he explains (the band gave RS an exclusive look behind the recording process). "There are certain new songs where you might say, 'Oh, that could have been on Handwritten,' or 'That could have been on 59 Sound,' but there are some songs where you're going to be like, 'This has never been touched by this band before.'"

The group sought inspiration in everything from Bon Iver and the National to Calvin Harris, at one point trying to recreate the string sounds from the DJ's Florence Welch collaboration "Sweet Nothing."

"The whole record was like, 'What can we create as a band using anything at our disposal, as long as we do it organically, without computers or samples?'" Fallon says. "If we wanted to try a synth, we'd try a synth. If we wanted to try a drum loop, we would do that."

"For this record, I went back and studied any band that had changed," Fallon says. "The Stones, the Beatles, U2, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, all those bands. I was looking at any band that was one thing and then became something else. How did they do it? Did they do it overnight, or did they do it in stages? I wanted to figure out how far you can go without pissing people off."

"One day I was just fingering around on the keys of a Fender Rhodes piano, and I came up with this little riff and all of a sudden it morphed into a song," Fallon says. "It had never been touched by a guitar, which was very weird for us. 'Under the Ground' is the first song I have ever written that had nothing to do with the guitar."

"Benny [Horowitz] recorded all the drums on the album essentially by himself. A lot of the drums were recorded in this silo, which is basically a reverb tower," Fallon explains. "It's probably a hundred feet tall, but it's a small room — you can only fit one guy in there. We would just set up, rehearse a song four or five times through, and then right after that he would just go off and record the drums on his own."

"I'll probably continue to write about heartbreak forever," Fallon admits. "That stuff doesn't go away as you get older. You're always trying to make each record more autobiographical than the last one. Before it was a lot of storytelling with lots of specific places and names. This time I wrote a lot of direct first-person narratives.You're talking about yourself, so you have to find new way to do that each time, so for this record it was a lot of poetry books and a lot of Bob Dylan."

"Alex Levine went in and played bass just to the drums. It was really layered, so everybody had to really fill their spots without overstepping parts that hadn't even been recorded yet," Fallon explains. "He was actually hauling down a lot of the rhythms with the bass. That was something that the Clash would do really well, and we'd never really done anything like that in our band."

"This time around we wondered what we could do that still has guitar but isn't a 'guitar record,' where you're just strumming chords," Fallon says. "We wanted to create more of a soundscape, because Alex R. has always been really into creating these sounds where you're not sure what instruments you're even hearing. We wanted to use the studio as an instrument rather than just a place to record, so we could change the way we sound without actually writing a jazz song or a dance song."

"When we started, we didn't know what we were going to come up with, so everyone went back to their instruments and rehearsed a lot and tried to be open to things they weren't that familiar or comfortable with. Now we have some of the heaviest, most aggressive music we've ever recorded, stuff that might remind people of our first album, Sink or Swim. But it also has some of the prettiest, most beautiful, moving music we've ever done."

"I can't really see myself writing about politics because I'm not really into it, and one of the worst things you can do is write about things you're not into," Fallon tells us. "But sometimes I listen to other songwriters like Conor Oberst and I wish I could write about some of the things he writes about, he makes all these different topics so relatable, and he sounds so educated. But I'm not Conor Oberst. I can only do what I know and make it as real as possible."

"In the past, I would strum the chords and Alex Rosamilia would play leads over the chords. This time, I was playing riffs, and since you can’t have two people soloing over each other, Alex was using organs and guitars and all these different instruments to fill in these sounds," Fallon says.

Well it's either going to be utterly perfect or utterly awful I guess... Sounds like it's gonna be one extreme or the other, you know?

mwh wrote:

Well it's either going to be utterly perfect or utterly awful I guess... Sounds like it's gonna be one extreme or the other, you know?

There is clearly something of the Elsie spirit here, which is a good thing, as it's my favourite work by Brian. Also, I am more than reassured by Brian saying that "I'll probably continue to write about heartbreak forever."

steady now steady now wrote:

mwh wrote:

Well it's either going to be utterly perfect or utterly awful I guess... Sounds like it's gonna be one extreme or the other, you know?

There is clearly something of the Elsie spirit here, which is a good thing, as it's my favourite work by Brian.  Also, I am more than reassured by Brian saying that "I'll probably continue to write about heartbreak forever."

Yeah like the old cliche goes, "write what you know". I couldn't imagine a Gaslight album about Obama or some other political bollocks. He's a heartbroken guy singing to all us heartbroken losers, anything else would be a bit too left-field I think...

mwh wrote:

Well it's either going to be utterly perfect or utterly awful I guess... Sounds like it's gonna be one extreme or the other, you know?

I was thinking that too but about each individual song. I doubt the ENTIRE thing could be awful. Especially since they said they didn't do things differently just for the sake of change. So they're still using their own instincts and their own taste.

The only part that had me concerned was how much they talked about soundscapes and The National, etc. Not that I don't like those things, but I'm a little concerned about how exactly they incorporated them. But it's too soon to tell if any of these comparisons are really accurate anyway.

I'm stoked to hear about Alex L's bass rhythms! I've always thought Gaslight's bass parts were kinda boring. Not that they needed to be complex, but I've come across a lot of places where I think it had room for a little more groove. It's possible to mix it up some while still keeping with the root notes (which does fit best for Gaslight's music).

It's remarkable the article doesn't mention Ian

[quote="StitchesOnTheRadio"]

mwh wrote:

The only part that had me concerned was how much they talked about soundscapes and The National, etc.

I'm not sure about this, I listen to alot of National and with a lot of songs, Mr. November in particular I always felt that Gaslight could do a great cover of it, with their own twist to it ofcourse, a bit like they did with Bonzo goes to Bitburg.

But yeah, it's hard to say how it's going to turn out, I hope he (Brian) will create a mix between Elsie and Sink or Swim, that atleast for me would be perfect.

Who is gonna be the lyric deciphering master that gets the lyrics from that picture on the slide about "Under the Ground"

eagles1139 wrote:

Who is gonna be the lyric deciphering master that gets the lyrics from that picture on the slide about "Under the Ground"

Way ahead of you.   


https://thegaslightanthem.forumotion.com/t5197p560-2014-new-gaslight-anthem-album-news#176962

Debonair wrote:

eagles1139 wrote:

Who is gonna be the lyric deciphering master that gets the lyrics from that picture on the slide about "Under the Ground"

Way ahead of you.   


https://thegaslightanthem.forumotion.com/t5197p560-2014-new-gaslight-anthem-album-news#176962

You rock.

I saw some comment on RS saying handwritten was too different for Gaslight. Idk what they're thinking, but i think handwritten suffered from being way too similar to the previous records
embrace the weirdness! it needed to happen

DeathoftheCool wrote:

I saw some comment on RS saying handwritten was too different for Gaslight. Idk what they're thinking, but i think handwritten suffered from being way too similar to the previous records
embrace the weirdness! it needed to happen

I can't wait for the weird! I think it will make things so much better in so many aspects.

My problem with Handwritten is more or less a problem with Brian's lyrics on the album. Reading the lyrics to "Under the Ground" gave me a really chilling excited feeling that few songs on Handwritten do. I'm not worried at all.

Vanderlyle Geek wrote:

StitchesOnTheRadio wrote:

mwh wrote:

The only part that had me concerned was how much they talked about soundscapes and The National, etc.

I'm not sure about this, I listen to alot of National and with a lot of songs, Mr. November in particular I always felt that Gaslight could do a great cover of it, with their own twist to it ofcourse, a bit like they did with Bonzo goes to Bitburg.

But yeah, it's hard to say how it's going to turn out, I hope he (Brian) will create a mix between Elsie and Sink or Swim, that atleast for me would be perfect.

I'm not saying I hope they don't do anything remotely related to The National, I'm just saying I hope they didn't go too far that direction, or just embraced the sound scape aspect too much. But this is all moot till we hear it.

Yet to get too enthused at the moment about the new record - hopefully that will change soon.

This piqued my interest the most:

Quote :

"Now we have some of the heaviest, most aggressive music we've ever recorded, stuff that might remind people of our first album, Sink or Swim. But it also has some of the prettiest, most beautiful, moving music we've ever done."

I know Brian's made a lot of promises before ("this album sounds like...") that have been far from accurate. But if it does wind up sounding like a modern Sink or Swim it will blow a lot of people away.

Also this:

Quote :

"In the past, I would strum the chords and Alex Rosamilia would play leads over the chords. This time, I was playing riffs, and since you can’t have two people soloing over each other, Alex was using organs and guitars and all these different instruments to fill in these sounds"

"photos of the band at work on their album inspired by Bob Dylan and The Clash"

Yes! Finally some of those new influences   
Ok but in all seriousness I personally dont want to read too much into Brians comments. In the interview there is a comment how in this album theres some songs "that sounds just like Sink or Swim, but then again some very soft ballads so its the best of both worlds of TGA"(not the exact quote at all, but you get the point). I remember reading very similar comment just before Handwritten came out. And I disagreed then. Me personally dont have high expectations for this album, but then again they are not at all low expectations.  I guess I had biggest expectations in years before Handwritten and it was kinda let down for me. If the new record sucks I dont kinda care. I got those 3 first albums and then I can start waiting for rhe new Frank Turner or whatever. And hope the next TGA is better. But that first single could come out, because I dont care about these articles telling me what it will sound

EDIT: and of course quote that I was talking is right above me . Writing with mobilephone makes me lazy...

It's hard not to be intrigued by the Calvin Harris influence. Not that I want them making music like Calvin Harris, but it's interesting to hear how they use it in their work.

i think this picture is so cool. From the DSS twitter

I love this picture

Bad ass. Anyone know if Brian smokes/used to smoke? He's got old smoker's hands...

mwh wrote:

Bad ass. Anyone know if Brian smokes/used to smoke? He's got old smoker's hands...

He smokes a lot. He talks about it in various interviews.

On top of that he drinks vast amounts of coffee

oh cool. Sorry I'm just finding all the interviews and stuff on youtube, haven't been online for a while until recently. Can always tell someone who has/used to have the habit by the shapes they make with their fingers...

Brian looks in that picture that he smokes something more than cigarettes...
But very cool picture indeed.