Gaslight Anthem - Interview

Recently, I got to chew the rock and roll fat with Brian Fallon, of the Gaslight Anthem. This interview covers it all; vagrants sparing for change, cereal wars, knife fights and of course, man crushes. Isn’t Chris Farren (of Fake Problems fame) just the bee’s knees? We even delved a little bit into his fears for future releases. On a side note: I highly suggest if you haven’t, picking up Gaslight Anthems’ latest releas, “Sink or Swim”, which is hands down the album of the year.

Racket Aaron: Alright, so how’s it going?

Gaslight Anthem Brian: It’s going well.
RA: So, what’s it like to have Bruce Springsteen rip off your sound?
GAB: *laughs* Dude, we totally ripped Bruce off. We actually live pretty close to where he lives, and uh, every once in a while he’ll show up in these random bars, and we’ve met him before. He’s like the raddest dude in the world. He’s totally normal and not weird at all.
RA: Yeah, I’ve heard that about him. He’ll go to random shows out there and support what’s going on right now.
GAB: Yeah, he definitely does that. He goes and checks out Against Me! every time they come through. Even smaller bands, he’ll show up at Asbury Lanes and just walk in and check it out. It’s awesome because you can always catch random Bruce sightings.

RA: So is it exciting for you guys, right now? Hands down you released the best album of 2007, with no contention.
GAB: I don’t know man, there’s some pretty good records coming out at the end of the year.
RA: Even American Steels’ release couldn’t quite do it. I think you guys are gonna stay untouched.
GAB: We actually are trying to tour with them right now, but right now they’re doing that Lawrence Arms tour, and I don’t know what their plans are when they come back home, so hopefully they’ll wanna go back out and we can take them back out with us. Or, they’ll take US out, rather.

RA: What’s next for you guys?
GAB: We’ve been on tour now, for about 100 days straight, so we’ve been to Germany and all over the United States twice, so we’re gonna go home and rehearse for another record. We have a batch of songs and we’re going to continue writing, and then we’ll probably rehearse and record some demos, and then we’re going on tour in February with the Loved Ones, and the Ergs. After that, we’ll probably record the record in March, and then release it some time in the summer. But, we have an EP that’s coming out–
RA: The Senor and the Queen?
GAB: Yeah. That has been recorded and is currently being mastered and the artworks being done right now. That’s coming out on Sabot.
RA: Speaking of artwork, who did the artwork for Sink or Swim, because it’s really awesome. It really gives the record a complete feeling, I think.
GAB: Our friend Chris Spleet did it, and he’s awesome. He has a website called Plastic Fly, if you just Google ‘Plastic Fly’ it’ll come up. He does the coolest artwork in the world, and he’s from New Brunswick. He’s a really good guy. He’s from Nora actually. He used to play in Nora.
RA: Nora? The hardcore band?
GAB: From Trustkill.
RA: I remember them.
GAB: Those guys are our bros too, everyone in that band. They’re the best.

RA: I lived out there on the East Coast for a while. When I was there, what I saw when I was there, musically speaking, was that whole sound that Trustkill, or Ferret, or Victory has, that’s all I heard out there. What’s it like for you guys, because you kind of stick out like a sore thumb?
GAB: Yeah, we kinda did. When we started playing, everyone took notice because there’s not a lot of bands that sound like us in that area. There’s either like, the punk rock bands, or the metal bands. But the cool thing out there is the scene, they kind of come together. All the hardcore kids will come to our shows, and we’ll go to their shows. Everybody kind of embraced us like, “oh, alright, these guys wanna do something different.” Everybody supports us, all the guys at
Ferret love us. It’s real cool, we can kind of chill out and make friends with bands, even though we might not necessarily tour with them. It’s awesome, and we’re really fortunate. It could have been rough, they could have been “you don’t sound like everybody else. Forget it, we hate it!” But, it’s been really nice.
RA: Any haters?
GAB: Not too many, no. I haven’t met anybody yet. Some guy wrote on the Internet that he wanted to punch me in the face in Chicago. I thought that was pretty funny, because he didn’t actually punch me in the face. There’s one hater in Chicago.
RA: How long have you been doing Gaslight Anthem?
GAB: Just short of two years.
RA: It kind of seems like you guys came out of nowhere.
GAB: We’ve all been in little bands that toured a lot, but maybe didn’t get any recognition. Our drummer, Benny, was in a band called the Low End Theory. They got some recognition. Alex, our guitar player, and Benny were in another band called the Killing Gift, and they got a lot of recognition. So, we’ve all been touring most of our careers in tiny bands that maybe would only do the East Coast a few times and then broke up. We all had a lot of time to develop our own thing, and we knew how to tour when we got together. We just decided that we were going to go full out. Maybe part of the reason why people took notice was because we formed in September, we were on tour by that December, and never stopped touring. So that might be part of the reason, you know?

RA: Do you feel that the success you’ve had so far might be coming a little too fast?
GAB: No. I think that we’re fortunate to have it, and we’re thankful to have it. So, we’re not really thinking about it in terms of whether it’s coming too fast, or too slow. We’re just like, “Wow, I can’t believe all this stuff is happening.” It’s refreshing, because we are older. We’re not in our early 20’s anymore. Well, our bass player is, he’s 22. But um, the rest of us are pretty old. As far as to be starting a band, and touring in a van. I think that some of the offers we’ve gotten, though, are a little premature. A lot of major labels.
RA: I’m not surprised though, honestly.
GAB: I thought it was cool, but we were all shocked. We were like, “Are you serious? Did you even get the right band? We’ve only been around for this amount of time, are you sure you want to be talking to us?” and they were like, “yeah.” So, I mean, we were a little taken aback by that. We’re not ready to go that route yet.
RA: Would you ever go that route?
GAB: Um, maybe. I don’t know. I think the thing for us is we don’t want to restrict ourselves and say no and that we hate major labels. I don’t anyone well enough in that situation to say, but I don’t want to close off any doors. If we ever got
that right thing, then yeah, cool, but we’d do it on our terms, and not send this guy to this wardrobe, or write a hit single. If we got to the point where there was nowhere else to go, then yeah. I don’t know when that point is, though so I can’t really say that it will ever come–but it might. I think we’re not closed off to it. But right now, we definitely, definitely want to stay independent. We feel that although all these labels are coming to us and telling us, “We think you’re great, and we think you can sell this amount of records. You guys could be huge.” We know amongst ourselves that we haven’t paid our dues yet. You know what I mean? We firmly believe that you have to pay your dues.
RA: That’s really respectable.
GAB: Well, I think we’ve learned a lot from other people. You have to watch bands that have been around for
ten to fifteen years. We know those guys. You have to develop. Even though people tell you things like, “Oh you’re so good, blah blah blah, we’re gonna give you all of this stuff.” That doesn’t mean that you should take it…yet. So, you have to be very cautious of your own self, because it’s very easy to start thinking, “You know what, maybe I am a huge rock star.” So we have a lot of good sense, and good friends that are able to cut us down when we start thinking that. Our scene in New Brunswick is very tight-knit. They’ll call you out for anything. If you do something that’s out of line, they’ll be the first to tell you, “Yo, you’re not ready for that.” So it’s good, we’re fortunate to have that.

RA: Do you feel the bar might be set a little high now? Obviously, there’s a hype machine and huge buzz around “Sink or Swim” right now. Do you feel the next time you record, do you make the same record, or expand on the same ideas?
GAB: When we started to write the new EP (Senor and the Queen) there was like a month and a half, or two months that I got really nervous because we were reading reviews about our records, and I’d never been in a band before that I’d be reading a review on a record we wrote. It blew my mind to where I was like, “I can’t believe someone took the time to do that.” It kind of got—(*editors note: At this point
a homeless man came up and interrupted the interview.* )

Tom the Vagrant: Excuse me, do you have any change?
GAB: Actually, I do. I think that I have some change that you’re more than welcome too.
RA: How’re you doing today, man?
Tom the Vagrant: Oh, I don’t know.
GAB: You know what, man…
Tom the Vagrant: A dollar?
GAB: Yeah, I’ve got two, or three. Here you go.
Tom the Vagrant: Oh wow! Thank you so much.
GAB: What’s your name?
Tom the Vagrant: Tom, sir.
GAB: Nice to meet you Tom, I’m Brian.
Tom the Vagrant: You guys gotta be careful of this building, you know, standing here. It’s like…the government’s place. They got people thinking it’s like a place of worship, and things. A guy did this, I know he did, I know the guy. He’s in trouble for it. He’s gotta be, he’s ruining the governments business. He’s got some kind of special deal going in Washington–that’s why he’s not here right now. But like got dead bodies in there for the mayor. Well, I’ve got to get going.
RA: Thank you…for…the warning?

GAB: I think that, where was I? Oh yeah, I was worried about the record. I was worried writing the songs. I’ll call myself out and tell you that I was concerned–
RA: We’re just going to pretend that didn’t just happen? Alright, then.
GAB: So I thought about it, and wondered, “Are these songs as good as everyone else said the last songs were.” You know what I mean? You can’t be objective to your own songs, You can’t be like, “Oh, these songs are awesome!”
RA: That’s one thing that kind of always pisses me off, is when a band comes out with a new record and states that this is the best they’ve ever done. I don’t think that it’s up to them to make that call. Of course their going to think it’s the best they’ve ever done. They’re probably really anxious to play new material because they’ve spent the last two years playing the same couple of songs.
GAB: Yeah! I think what we did…. well, to be totally honest with you. In the beginning, if it didn’t sound like it should’ve been on “Sink or Swim,” I would start to shy away from it. And the other guys started saying, “we really have to do our own thing. We can’t do the same record again.” and they were right, so we started writing on tour, and we came home for a month, we did a tour with Fake Problems–
RA: They’re awesome.
GAB: Yeah dude! They’re totally awesome, and like the best dudes in the world. So then we had a month before this long tour that we’re almost done with. In that month, we wrote all these songs about New Jersey, and just what we were going through right there in the summer time.

RA: It seems like with this record, it seems like you guys name drop, or pay homage to some influence. The Joe Strummer references are pretty endearing.
GAB: I’da Called You Woody, Joe. I think everything is like that because what we’re doing is like, you might ask a band, “well, where did you guys get your sound.” and they’ll be like, “Oh, well we kind of just developed it.” It’s not true. You listen to records as a kid, and you can say that. It’s okay to be like, “Yo man, I totally love Joe Strummer. I totally love Tom Waits, and I totally love Bruce Springsteen, and yeah man, I totally borrowed some ideas from them.” But you call yourself out, or at least we do, so that kids will realize where that came from, and go check out those sources, and maybe they’ll be inspired in a totally different way. But that’s what the purpose is, to give a nod to your heroes and not be like, “I totally invented that.” because no one did. Everybody in what they do, has some, or several people that they look up too. I think that as artists, it develops their personality. I think that as an artist, in very rare cases theres a person who’ll step out of the gate that’s completely original. I think it may just only be Frank Zappa. I think you copy people, and emulate people, until eventually you’ve copied so many people, and emulated so many people that eventually it’s all mashed together and you’ve got you’re own thing. Which, you know, hopefully one day will be true for us.
RA: So what do you do when you’re not touring? What do you do for a living?
GAB: Well, we haven’t done anything because we’ve been on tour for a long time. But I think when I go home, I work at Dogway Printing. We make shirts for bands.
RA: You should print some up for Racket.
GAB: Yeah we could. We totally could. I could give you their number. I know that Benny (Horowitz, drummer)
works at Reuters newspaper. One of the Alex’s is a cook, and the other has odd jobs. We end up leaving a lot, so we wind up working less than we tour, so that’s good.
RA: Wish I could do that.
GAB: You can! Get in a van.

RA: So, who would win in a knife-fight: Drive By Truckers, or Lucero?
GAB: Ooh! I think maybe Drive By Truckers, man. They’re pretty hardcore.
RA: Ah, come on!
GAB: A knife fights, though? Lucero doesn’t seem very aggressive. That’s one thing. I’ve never seen well, there was that video where the merch guy from Lucero and the merch guy from Murder by Death had a fight and one of them went through a window.
RA: I never saw that.
GAB: Well, it wasn’t like a real fight, it was like a joking fight but somebody fell through a window by accident. It was horrible, and it was on YouTube, or wait, no, it was on Lucero’s site. But actually, I don’t know, a knife fight. You know, but that guy that sings for Drive By Truckers. he sounds like he could take some body over. (*Emperor’s Note – I totally agree with Brian, Drive By Truckers would fuck someone up.*)

RA: But talking to you right now, you don’t sound like how you do when you sing, so that in itself could be misleading.
GAB: It might be. You might be absolutely right. Maybe the Lucero guys could totally take in a knife fight, I don’t know!
RA: Plus, they’re always drinking which means they’re most definitely fueled by alcohol and could be impervious to immediate pain.
GAB: That’s right. You know what? We should set it up.
RA: That’s right. Now this knife fight is endorsed by star power.|
GAB: That’s right. I fully support the knife fight between Drive by Truckers and Lucero. But, let us tour with both of those bands before we set that up.
RA: All right, then.
GAB: And then they could fight all they want.
RA: Maybe during the set up between sets, instead of watching people tune up that could be the main attraction.
GAB: At the end of the tour, that should be the closer.
RA: Yeah! Instead of an encore, have a nightly knife fight.
GAB: Knife fight every night. And see, then they can’t mess with us because we’re from Jersey, and
we were born to knife fight.

RA: Yeah! Jersey kids come out of the womb knife fighting. So what size of shoe do you wear?
GAB: I wear a size 9 and a half. I’m very, very short.
RA: I wear a size 12.
GAB: 12? Benny (Horowitz, drummer) wears I think a 14. But uh, yeah. I’m a short guy with little feet. I’m Irish so that’s what happens. I’m 5’9”.
RA: I’m half Mexican, Half Irish.
GAB: See! That’s awesome.
RA: Yep. Pretty much a born alcoholic.
GAB: Very cool…well, I don’t know if it’s cool. It’s cool about the diversity. I don’t see how the alcoholism can help you.
RA: Can’t hurt.
GAB: It might hurt…

RA: I don’t see how. So what’s you’re favorite cereal?
GAB: My favorite cereal? Well, taste-wise I like Captain Crunch, but it cuts up the roof of your mouth. So I do not endorse it. Cookie Crisp. Cookie Crisp is good.
RA: you know what? No one ever says that, and I’ve had this discussion about a million times. It’s the perfect cereal. The PERFECT cereal. But no, haters are always like, “No way bro, Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”
GAB: No way, dude! Cookie crisp. And, it turns your milk chocolate! You can’t beat that.
RA: It’s three things in one, if you think about it.
GAB: It is.
RA: It’s a food, it’s a drink, and by God, it’s a dessert. You cannot go wrong.
GAB: No, you cannot. That’s a really good question, actually. You should ask everyone that question.
RA: Maybe I should. Say something nice about Dick Cheney.
GAB: Um…he’s got a nice suit. I have no idea. I have no idea what to say about him.
RA: Okay.
GAB: Didn’t he get fired, or resign, or something?
RA: Um, no. I believe you’re thinking about Donald Rumsfield.
GAB: I have not been anywhere near the news in a long, long time.
RA: Cheney shot a dude in the face. With a shotgun.
GAB: That’s right!
RA: Quail hunting. Shot his lawyer, right in the face. And made the lawyer apologize. That just screams “battered wife”.
GAB: There we go! He’s a good shot!

RA: What’s one animal you wish would become extinct?
GAB: There was this spider that got inside our van in Texas, that was literally the size of a fist. Yeah, like. For real. The body was huge. Not just the legs, but also the body. It was HUGE.
RA: Where the FUCK were you at? Baghdad, wrangling Camel Spiders? Jesus!
GAB: It was crazy. We were in Austin, staying with one of our friends, and we got in the car to go to the Jack In The Box on the corner, or no, it was Whataburger, and this spider crawls down the windshield. I freaked out, dude. I froze. Benny had to go and whack it with a t-shirt, I couldn’t deal with it. Ahh, I couldn’t deal with it.
RA: That’s when you find out how much of a man you really are.
GAB: DUDE, I’m telling you man, this thing was HUGE. Like the size of a coffee cup. It was inSANITY. I’ve never seen anything that big in my life. I don’t know if I wish it were extinct, but I wish it was extinct in my general region.
RA: Dead to Me.
GAB: Whoa-ho! Dead-to-Me *editors note: excuse the poor pun, but Dead to Me were playing while this was going on.*
That would be awesome. Are we standing in the middle of the street?
RA: We might be, but who cares. You’re in a band.
GAB: That’s right! You can’t hit me with you’re car cause I’m in a band. I am…totally useless to society.

RA: Is there anything you would like to say to me?
GAB: Do you know what that says? *in reference to my Against Me shirt that has German writing on it.* Cause I know what it says.
RA: Right before I left Arizona, I got this shirt from Against Me after an interview. I’ve worn this shirt a hundred times, and people always ask what it says. Well, I never actually knew. When I was moving back from Albany, NY, I was in O’Hare between flights, and a little…well, drunk. And I sat down, and this picturesque German sits next to me. Blonde hair, blue eyes, the whole nine. Nein. Whatever. Anyway, he sits next to me, and has his buddy pick him up some coffee from the Starbucks. As he sits down, he starts talking to his friend, and it dawns on me that he’s German. So, finally, I can put this mystery to bed, once and for all. I turn to him, and say, “Excuse me, but what nationality are you.” He replies in a thick accent, “German.” and I ask him what the shirt says. But, since I’d been drinking…I forgot what he said. So…what does it say?
GAB: Are you ready? It says, “Against Me knows what to do.” We actually just got back from Germany, but we can’t read anything.

RA: Hey, weren’t you guys on that Against Me! tour when Tom Gabel supposedly smashed the dude’s
head on a coffee counter?
GAB: Yeah! That was the weirdest thing, because we were playing at the Beta Bar, and we had just come out and there’s a cop, and we wondered what happened. But Tom (Gabel, Against Me!) talked to him, did the sound-check, played the show, and they went somewhere. But I don’t know exactly what happened. But I went into that same Coffee shop with my wife, and there was a cop in there, and I wondered why there was a cop in an Anarchist coffee shop. But, whatever. However, I didn’t hear any band playing. I heard there was a band there.
RA: Protesting the Against Me show.
GAB: Yeah, which is one of the dumbest things to do with your time, protest a band, I mean. You should just go home and listen to the records that you want to hear, if that’s what you want to hear. Especially since it’s not your band.
RA: I think, generally if you’re going to do that, you’re saying “Fuck the homeless, I don’t care that there’s a war happening and that people are starving.”
GAB: *laughs* I don’t know about all that.
RA: Well, if you’re devoting your time to something trite, and menial like protesting somebody’s band,
instead of protesting a war or trying to help somebody, you essentially just say you don’t give a shit about anybody but yourself, and it’s pathetic. Pissing on someone’s shoe isn’t going to accomplish much. Get out there and be that difference you want to be.
GAB: That’s true. Protest the war, instead of protesting a band. That’s just stupid. And I’m sorry, I’m sure they’re all a bunch of nice kids. I’m not sure if he smashed a kid’s head though, I read that.
RA: *laughs* Smash unreal. Sorry…
GAB: I’m pretty sure he didn’t do it.
RA: I think he should do it all the time.
GAB: I don’t think he should do it all the time, because then he’d have to spend a lot of time in jail.
RA: But R. Kelly can pee on people, then rap about it.
GAB: That’s R. Kelly though. Tom Gabels cool and all, but I think he’s got a long way to go before he can write a “I Believe I Can Fly.

RA: I believe I can fly.
GAB: I believe I can fly, too. I believe Tom Gabel can fly. But yeah, that was a weird night, and I’m not sure what happened, but I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding. But, it’s pretty lame when a bunch of kids are protesting a punk rock show because they are DIY punk rockers, and still called the cops. Yeah. Pretty “Do It Yourself.” Why aren’t you policing yourself, and solving your own problems? YOU make the song you want to hear.

RA: Anything else on your mind?
GAB: What’s been on my mind? Chris Farren (Fake Problems front man) has been on my mind. I want to tour with Fake Problems again.
RA: He’s a handsome man, he is.
GAB: He IS a handsome man. Phew. they’re all a bunch of handsome men. They have another name, though. It’s Fake Problems, and then the other name that no one knows about, is Derek Perry, and the Heartbreakers. They are Derek Perry and the Heartbreakers. Only sometimes, though. He’s in my top 8 on MySpace. So’s Chris. The unstoppable Chris Farren! they are one of the best bands I’ve ever seen live. I can’t wait to check out their new record.
RA: If you get the chance, you should check out a guy who used to live here, his name is Ben Horowitz. He lives in Chicago now, but when he lived here, he played under the, I guess, pen-name of Porches. Sometimes it was a full band, sometimes it wasn’t, but that guy is basically the perfect embodiment of punk rock ideology. Plus, he has a mean beard, and loves eggplant.
GAB: Ben Horowitz? That’s our drummer’s name! Are you serious?
RA: Oh, really? Yeah, dead serious. Man, he’s just this Manic Street Preacher seeming kind of guy.
GAB: Porches….I’ll definitely look that up tonight, and tell Benny. Wow…he’s famous TWICE. Well, once, just with us.

RA: Alright. Last chance here, would you like to start a feud with any band?
GAB: Ummm…let me give this some thought before I say no. Who do I not like? There’s somebody that I really don’t like.
RA: What about Johnny Rotten?
GAB: Nah, he’s the Sex Pistols. I don’t like the Sex Pistols, though.
RA: I don’t like them either.
GAB: I mean, their all well, and good, and all. I don’t like them. I don’t own any of their records. I like the Clash a lot. I think a lot of people like either, or.
RA: Always the Clash for me.
GAB: Let me see, who do I want to start a feud with No…I guess nobody. Man! I was really hoping to start something with somebody. I haven’t met anybody who’s been a jerk.
RA: They don’t have to be jerks.
GAB: Really?
RA: Yeah. Just start a feud.
GAB: Alright, lets start a feud then. Lets see. Who’s good to beef with? Um! OH! We could star a feud with Dead to Me! Oh, wait, no, Chicken (bassist, vocalist of Dead to Me) is very clever. Seriously. That dude…don’t ever get into a diss match. He’ll kill you. He’s so good. He like, tore some kid apart in the crowd one time who was making fun of him. It was so instant, just “Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!” and then the kid was standing there, like a ‘kid in his underwear in class’
kind of thing. Totally embarrassed. It was awesome. But no…I guess no feuds.
RA: How about Hot Water Music (pre-them reuniting)? It’s not like they can do anything. There’s only
3/4’s of them here *The Draft.*.
GAB: Yeah, but they can totally beat me up though. Man, I’ve got nothing. I was hoping to give you something.