Gaslight Anthem
Jersey Boys
The Gaslight Anthem stays true to its roots on American Slang

By Emily Zemler

Things have changed for The Gaslight Anthem since the release of their second album, The ’59 Sound, in 2008. The band’s popularity has exploded, sending them on huge headlining tours across the U.S. and to festivals around the world. Major labels courted them, hoping to draw the humble foursome away from indie SideOneDummy. But despite a sudden explosion of interest in their music, the Gaslight Anthem’s four members — singer-guitarist Brian Fallon, guitarist Alex Rosamilia, bassist Alex Levine and drummer Benny Horowitz — haven’t forgotten who they are or where they come from. Even as Fallon moved from the band’s homestate of New Jersey to New York before writing their new album, American Slang, and even though the band recorded the disc in Manhattan, the Gaslight Anthem has remained fully connected to their roots. In a recent interview, Fallon discussed writing American Slang, how the band’s influences have changed since their first two albums and why it’s important that they will always just be four kids from New Jersey who started with nothing.

How did you know when it was time to start your next record?
It wasn’t in an official kind of way. It was just us ready to start writing songs. You just decide, “Okay I guess it’s time to start working on some new songs.” It’s a feeling rather than an appointment.

Did you discuss what kind of record you wanted to make as a band?
Not so much. We just sit down and feel it out as it goes. It changes as you write it. We’re not the kind of band who sits down and say, “Yeah well we want to make this kind of record or that kind of record.” I think you trap yourself that way.

How long did you spend writing?
Probably about three months, I would say. It’s different every time. Sometimes it comes out in a month, sometimes in six months. ’59 Sound took about six months. We wrote it over a period of touring a lot so there were a lot of breaks between the writing. This one was more consistent. It was straightforward from November to January, just writing.

How do you know when a song is ready to be recorded?
It’s a sort of sixth sense you get. When you write songs over the course of the years you kind of get better at it and you get a sense. It’s a kind of communication you have with your songs. When they feel ready, when they’re developed, when they’ve gotten to the point when they’re saying whatever it is you want them to communicate and when they feel rounded off, you have this sense of “Okay that feels done.”

How many songs did you take into the studio?
Just the ones we were going to record. So 10 and then one extra. We already had done the filtering out of the 20 or so odd songs we wrote. The filter process for us is pretty strong. We usually go into the studio knowing exactly what we’re going to do.

Is it ever hard to filter out a song and let it go?
Oh sure. Sometimes you have something good. Especially the extra track we had this time. It was fighting to be on the record so it was tough to be sober about the whole thing and say “Look, this song doesn’t exactly fit so well with the rest of the songs and the other songs communicate with each other in a very organic way and this one feels like it’s a little different.” A lot of bands put out b-sides, where it’s like they’re half-finished demos. I don’t want to buy a half-finished demo. So we try our best not to do that. Usually songs get cut pretty early in their life. If we feel like a song isn’t holding its weight then it just goes away and most of the time it doesn’t show up again. Most of the time we just cut it clean.

That sounds so rigorous.
It is! You’re giving birth to these things and it’s mysterious how songs show up. I don’t quite understand how it happens.

Even after three records, you don’t have an idea of how it works?
You know, not at all. It’s one of those divine intervention things. I just don’t get it. I try to understand it and I just don’t. Sometimes I just wonder “Maybe I’m not going to write anymore.” I just have no idea.

Are you really worried that you might never write again?
Every time. Every time we start a record. Every time we start a record I go crazy.

So how do you get past the crazy and actually write?
Keep pushing. That’s the only way to do it. Sometimes you have to wait it out. There’s no tricks or anything. I think you just have to keep going and keep trying. There’s no secret. A lot of people have formulas [for writing], but I don’t have any of that. I just wait it out.

Does consuming other music or books or art help facilitate your own creative process?
I used to, but not so much anymore. I feel like it’s a distraction now. As you grow, you don’t want to emulate people anymore. You want to figure out what you’re part in the whole thing is. When you start a band — or if you’re an author or something else — you look to your influences as your guide, and then later on you abandon that a little.

Did you find that there was a cohesive theme through the songs you wrote for this record?
This record is about our particular American lives as we’ve know them and as we’ve grown up. A lot of the old records were about the future and our hopes and what we were trying to achieve. You get to a point where a lot of the things you hope for, you achieve. And then you’re left with your real life and what actually happened to you specifically and personally. That’s the stuff that came out more on this record, the more personal stuff.

Does the record tell a story?
Not in a concept record kind of way. Not like Rush or Coheed and Cambria. There’s no comic book coming out of American Slang. But yeah it tells our particular stories of growing up. A lot of it is the growing process. Boys are funny, when they turn into men all these little weird cracks in their armor are there and you have to superglue them back together. That’s what this record is about.

How does the record title fit into that?
That’s our American life. It’s how we see it. It’s not Paris Hilton on the television. That’s not what we understand. This thing that you see on TV — a lot of people see that and think that’s how America is — that wasn’t our life and it wasn’t anyone else I know’s life. It’s our story and I feel like the word American has gotten a bad connotation over the course of the years. People think it’s something to shun away from. It’s not. It’s in the context of what you’re looking at in. There is a sense of Hollywood and that kind of thing, and that’s completely ridiculous. But then there’s also a real life here. There’s people that you know who go to work every day and they come home every day and they have lives and there’s things that they deal with. That’s important and it’s been lost a lot.

What does America mean to you?
It was the worldly shoulder to cry on, I think. It was a place to go when you were abandoned and kicked out. It was the place that would take anybody in. That goes with all those old gospel songs, when you’d hear Johnny Cash or Tom Waits sing those old songs and they were about anyone, all you losers you can come here and we’ll be together. America started as the refuge that took people who were exiled and who were not welcome in their place anymore. It was somewhere you could run to and be safe and have opportunity. I don’t think that’s exactly what’s happening anymore. It’s become a caricature of itself, where there’s the Hollywood end of it and then there’s people not doing well. There’s such a broad reach between the two. We need to remedy that.

Do you consider yourself political?
You would think so from me saying that. But not as much. I’m more concerned with people. On a one on one kind of basis. Or a small group. I’m only focusing on a small group. This record isn’t for everybody. I don’t even think the band is for everyone. It’s for the people who can relate to it and who are speaking the same language. We’re trying to speak words of encouragement through this record to these people who are like us and grew up like us and maybe don’t know what they’re going to do for a career. Maybe their parents can’t afford college, maybe they’re not sure [what they want to do]. This is the place to go when you’re lonesome and you can’t fit in and you want to belong with other people who’ve had similar experiences. And also as an encouragement because we didn’t start out with anything but yet we’ve succeeded as a band. I consider what we’ve done now a success. Me and the guys have started something from nothing and we’ve achieved the ability to be able to make records. For a living. That’s all we ever wanted and I think it’s an encouragement story. You can go out and do something, and you can be something.