| art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around | |
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steady now steady now The Navesink Banks
Posts : 3277 Join date : 2009-04-03 Location : England
| Subject: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 4:54 am | |
| Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around
http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/sep/04/gaslight-anthem-won8217t-be-bossed-around/
The band has been held up as torchbearers of Bruce Springsteen’s burning, blue-collar rock sound. By CHRIS RIEMENCHNEIDER
Star Tribune
When you get a member of the Gaslight Anthem on the phone at a record store in their native New Jersey, one question immediately comes to mind: Which of the Boss’ albums are you picking up? “Nope, no Springsteen,” guitarist Alex Rosamilia said flatly, talking recently when the band had a rare week off. For good reason, the Gaslight Anthem has been held up as torchbearers of Springsteen & the E Street Band’s burning, blue-collar rock sound. The quartet’s career-making sophomore album, “The ’59 Sound” — a 2008 year-end favorite for many music critics and No. 1 with eMusic.com subscribers — is rife with anthemic choruses, top-down-muscle-car guitar riffs and songs with characters named Mary and Bobby Jean. The song “High Lonesome” even lifts lyrics straight from Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” to great effect. The Gaslight Anthem is really not all about the Boss, though, insisted Rosamilia. He backed up that claim, too, as he listed the albums he’d just acquired from Vintage Vinyl near the band’s hometown of New Brunswick: Some ABBA, early Fleetwood Mac and one Godflesh record. New Brunswick is “gray, gloomy and industrial,” Rosamilia said, but it’s also home to a big college-student population and not 100 percent Springsteen territory. “I honestly didn’t really start listening to him until I was in this band,” Rosamilia said. Instead, he points the finger to singer/guitarist Brian Fallon. “He’s really integral to Brian as an influence, but not so much the rest of us. Alex (Levine, bassist) was probably most influenced by the Clash, and Ben (Horowitz, drummer) totally grew up in the independent/hard-core punk scene. And then my biggest influences were bands like the Smiths and the Cure.” Before “’59 Sound,” the band definitely had more of a punk sound, which earned them a slot on the Warped Tour and other punk-centric gigs. Recently, the Anthem toured with Chicago’s popular sociopolitical punk band Rise Against, testing the waters for how the Boss-like music on “’59 Sound” would go over in front of a crowd of Rancid- and NOFX-loving youths. “Actually, the punks like their Springsteen,” Rosamilia said. “I was surprised by it myself, but I suppose there’s sort of a blue-collar, unpretentious connection to him.” The band didn’t go into the making of “’59 Sound” expecting to make such an E Street-sounding record, Rosamilia said. “We wanted to do something that we were really proud of, something that harked back to soul music and stuff from the late ’50s and early ’60s.” There’s definitely more nostalgia on “’59 Sound” than just the Springsteen elements. The disc opens and closes with a hissing needle-on-vinyl sound — as if it, too, came out of a vintage record store. And the lyrics are loaded with imagery that could have been on albums owned by the band members’ parents, including the lamenting memories in the urgent rocker “Great Expectations” (”It’s funny how the night moves/Humming a song from 1962”) and the references to vintage cars in such songs as “Old White Lincoln.” “I did actually own a Monte Carlo Super Sport at one point, a muscle car,” Rosamilia said. “So sure, why not — we’ll take that stereotype about us.” He said the band members are also fine living with the image that they’re total Springsteen acolytes — at least for now. They were handpicked by the Boss to open for him this summer at a show in London’s Hyde Park. Springsteen reportedly lavished praise on Fallon when the two had their first encounter a couple months ago. “It’s all great,” Rosamilia said, “but we also don’t want to be pigeonholed.” Thinking on it, he added, “It’s already kind of happened, though. I don’t think I’ve done an interview since the record came out where that name isn’t mentioned. Our next record should hopefully change all that, though. Brian is even making it a point to stay away from the Springsteen thing.” Here’s hoping they don’t get too far away from it. No retreat, baby, no surrender. | |
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steph The Navesink Banks
Posts : 7938 Join date : 2009-04-21 Age : 40 Location : arizona
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:33 am | |
| i feel like ive read this before...probably one of the many, many things i looked up before i came across this here forum! but its a good interview! | |
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steady now steady now The Navesink Banks
Posts : 3277 Join date : 2009-04-03 Location : England
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:47 am | |
| - steph wrote:
- i feel like ive read this before...probably one of the many, many things i looked up before i came across this here forum! but its a good interview!
funny that, seeing it was only published today (at least as far as I can tell from the site); I guess there's only so many ways to tell journalists the same thing time after time | |
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steph The Navesink Banks
Posts : 7938 Join date : 2009-04-21 Age : 40 Location : arizona
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:47 am | |
| shut up! haha. im just going to chase you around this website, mocking all the comments you make... | |
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tigrr13 A Contender
Posts : 135 Join date : 2009-04-30 Age : 112 Location : palatine, il USA
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 12:01 pm | |
| it looked really familiar to me too steph! and this is why... http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/media/storage/paper991/news/2009/04/16/Music/The-Gaslight.Anthem-3714422.shtml#4 | |
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thecosmickid Wooderson
Posts : 428 Join date : 2009-08-15 Age : 31 Location : London
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 1:29 pm | |
| This is a terrible interview!! I love Springsteen but I hate all fucking reporters talking about gaslight's influences. They're not really that similar and gaslight is influenced by a lot more that Springsteen so they should stop ranting on about him, it's sad that the media always have to get attached to things like that. Well hopefully it'll just be like Springsteen being compared to Dylan in the early day's and soon vanish, hopefully with the new record ; ) | |
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Guest Guest
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:56 pm | |
| It's a similar situation to what happens with bands in Manchester. They're all labelled the 'next Oasis'. Sad fact of life really, even if it intended as a compliment. |
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thecosmickid Wooderson
Posts : 428 Join date : 2009-08-15 Age : 31 Location : London
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 4:08 pm | |
| Yeah it's sad and it's been happening for a looong time.. : (
Well, they seem to be aiming to take that label away and make a sound of their own on the new album, that could be interesting ^^ | |
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simo The Navesink Banks
Posts : 1983 Join date : 2009-07-03 Age : 32 Location : Columbia, Missouri
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:53 pm | |
| I guess mentioning influences does help bands get listeners, but truthfully if I had been told Gaslight was a Springsteen-like band before listening to them I likely wouldn't have given them a chance. Now if you had said The Smiths and The Clash, I would've been interested. Luckily I found Gaslight without having heard anything about them before (other than they were good). | |
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steady now steady now The Navesink Banks
Posts : 3277 Join date : 2009-04-03 Location : England
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:42 am | |
| - tigrr13 wrote:
- it looked really familiar to me too steph! and this is why...
[url=http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/media/storage/paper991/news/2009/04/16/Music/The-Gaslight.Anthem-3714422.shtml#4 http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/media/storage/paper991/news/2009/04/16/Music/The-Gaslight.Anthem-3714422.shtml#4[/quote[/url]] I stand corrected. | |
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steph The Navesink Banks
Posts : 7938 Join date : 2009-04-21 Age : 40 Location : arizona
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:08 am | |
| - steady now steady now wrote:
- tigrr13 wrote:
- it looked really familiar to me too steph! and this is why...
[url=http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/media/storage/paper991/news/2009/04/16/Music/The-Gaslight.Anthem-3714422.shtml#4 http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/media/storage/paper991/news/2009/04/16/Music/The-Gaslight.Anthem-3714422.shtml#4[/quote[/url]] I stand corrected. haha! i knew it! thanks tigrr13 its gotta be so annoying answering the same questions over and over...i'd be annoyed with the springsteen thing too, if i were them. | |
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tigrr13 A Contender
Posts : 135 Join date : 2009-04-30 Age : 112 Location : palatine, il USA
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:35 am | |
| it was the abba mention... how many abba records could the boy possibly need to buy | |
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steph The Navesink Banks
Posts : 7938 Join date : 2009-04-21 Age : 40 Location : arizona
| Subject: Re: art/inter: Gaslight Anthem won’t be Bossed around Thu Sep 10, 2009 10:31 pm | |
| haha. i guess everyone has a few bands they like that surprise the people they know...ill chalk it up to that. | |
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