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Don't expect the Jersey rock heroes in the Gaslight Anthem to slow down anytime soon: the band, which cut its teeth over the years on the New Brunswick punk scene, returns to the Garden State stage Friday (Dec. 9) for a show with Bayside and Let Me Run at Convention Hall in Asbury Park.
"I think we're really chasing something with our sound here," said lead singer and Red Bank native Brian Fallon.
The band released its third full-length effort, "American Slang," last year, and this October it released a new EP, "iTunes Sessions," which saw the band covering classics by some of its heroes - the Who's "Baba O'Riley" and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Refugee" among them - and revisiting some of its older material, including "The Navesink Banks" from the band's debut LP, 2007's "Sink or Swim."
Fallon, once again calling Monmouth County home after spending a time living in New York City, recently took time to discuss the band's new projects, jamming with the Boss and much more.
A lot has changed since the last time we talked, which was right when "The '59 Sound" came out. At times it must have felt like you and the band were strapped to a rocket after that record hit.
Yeah, we were just talking about that, actually. It kind of was a weird, weird ride after that. You don't really expect that kind of thing to happen with our upbringing, we didn't really go for anything major. I don't know, I feel like it was kind of strange to find a band newly signed to Sideonedummy, which is not known for making big breakout bands, there's a few bands that do well but it's not like all of a sudden the world knows about these bands, and for us we didn't expect it and we didn't really know how to handle it and there was a certain sense of "Who do we ask?" So it was a weird time, that was definitely weird.
And how do you think you found your footing after that?
I think step-by-step we did, like when we talked to some of our friends who similar things had happened to. We went on that tour with Rise Against and Thrice and Alkaline Trio and that tour helped a lot, because those are three separate instances and I think they had all been through the full range of what could happen, they had all either gone from independent labels to major labels, back off of major labels, back off of major labels, so there's like a really varied experience there. And those guys were all older than us, so they kind of had that reflection that maybe we didn't have at the time because we were a lot younger.
You've also worked a lot with the Bouncing Souls and Pete and Bryan from that band are on the new LP. Did you guys talk with the Souls at all about stuff like that?
Yeah, but they have actually another side of the coin, they never wanted to be like big rock and roll stars, they never had that kind of thing in their mind, they just said, "We're the Bouncing Souls and we want to play shows and if we can make a living off of playing music then that's cool and that's enough for us, we don't want to chase the big dreams or whatever," whereas I guess all of the other bands that I just mentioned, they had gone to major labels and when you do that, you're definitely saying that you want something more.
I know you're a Red Bank guy, a few years back I was at the Count Basie Theatre show where you and Springsteen shared the stage for what I believe was the first time, at the Hope Concert.
Yes, that was the first time.
What was that experience like, and then to have him join your band on stage on the European festival circuit the following summer?
Well, for me at that time, at the Count Basie show I was really young and nothing had happened for us yet, so that was kind of a huge move. You know, I would say when it happened in England that was kind of the catalyst for everything else that had happened after that, I think that was a really big deal and I don't think that he was unaware of what he was doing there, like I don't think that was an accident. I don't think he just said, "Oh, I'm just going to have a good time with the guys," I think he knew exactly what he was doing and that was a huge help to us, it kind of burst us into the people's consciousness and then they could make their own decisions, they could say, "Here's a band that I didn't know about before and now I do."
He seems like a man who's very careful about who he gives endorsement to by implication or by association.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I've seen him with some pretty varied people, which I think is cool, but he tends to choose people, excluding my own situation, but he chooses people I tend to like, like he was with Tom Morello with Rage Against the Machine which was a pretty odd pairing, I think, but it was amazing, it was awesome and that's kind of the beauty of it, I think.
Or how he kind of christened Jesse Malin's solo career.
That's more in the parameters, though. Him and Craig Finn and Arcade Fire, even us, it kind of makes sense because it's rock and roll bands, but even when he brought out Mike Ness or Eddie Vedder or Tom Morello, it's a little different and that's kind of cool.
Getting ready for this interview I was listening to "American Slang" again this morning, and it has a very different guitar sound from your previous efforts and I'd read somewhere that you guys switched to Gibsons instead of Fenders for this record.
Man, I haven't thought about this in a long time, it's been a while. Yeah, we did, we had kind of switched around but I'm not a guy who kind of subscribes to one guitar or amp, I kind of go with the Keith Richards school of thought of I just use whatever works for that song, if it feels like it needs something different then that's what I'll use. I don't have like a favorite guitar or anything like that, or a favorite amp. They guys constantly are like, "I wonder what he got this month," and every tour is something different and I just kind of get gear and trade it in and get different stuff, constantly changing.
Whatever works for the moment.
Exactly. I mean, I would like to be one of those guys like Eric Clapton who's got his one guitar and Bruce has got his one guitar but I'm not that kind of guy, I want to be that guy but I can't, I don't get attached to things like that.
You were living in New York while you were writing "American Slang," correct?
Yeah, my wife is from there so that's what we were doing there. That was weird. At the time it was kind of one of those things where like I said with the things with "The '59 Sound," you didn't really know what was going on, you're like, "Why is everybody paying attention to me? What do I need to do now for the next record? How do I kind of develop and not do the same thing again? I don't know, maybe I need to move, maybe I need to try something different and see what happens." And then you do it and you find out that sometimes that's helpful but sometimes it's not really anything to do with who you are and who you are is irregardless of where you are.
I hear you. Now, this last record and the "iTunes Sessions" EP that came out this fall find the band delving into really strong classic rock and soul influences. How is it exploring that side of your sound while still trying to keep one foot in your New Brunswick, Court Tavern, punk roots?
Well, I mean, we keep our foot there, I think, mentally and emotionally and maybe even, I would say, communally, because we keep more of a mindset in the New Brunswick scene by helping out other bands and bringing them on tour and trying to keep up on who's new and who's actually going on tour, we constantly look for that.
Sometimes we'll go to shows at the Court and we'll be like, "Oh, this band's good," and then somebody will say, "Well, are they on tour or are they just kind of goofing around?" And if they're on tour we check their Facebook page, it's like we're parents or something, but we want to take the bands who are really working, we're not going to take like some kid who's just goofing around like, "How come nobody signs my band? I play on the weekends." So that's kind of more how we do that than the sound. I think we're really chasing something with our sound here in a different direction.
How was it, exploring that direction of the sound with the "iTunes" EP, recording some covers and revisiting some of your older material in a new context?
That's part of the process that we're going through now as a band, trying to define who we are. That's the big question for every band, I think, especially after you've had some success, you have to figure out "Well, what now?" and this is kind of the process we're going through and we're listening to bands we like and doing their songs in regards to the iTunes EP and then going through our old songs and seeing how we would play these now, and I think it's just all part of the process.
Talking about that process, between EPs and LPs you've put out five releases in the last four years, plus your side project earlier this year. You're not settling, you're not resting on your laurels, there's still a hunger there.
Yeah, I think that's kind of the thing you've got to do, you've got to keep relevant and keep going, because who knows when it's not going to be there anymore?
A previous time you guys were in Asbury Park, you were with the Souls for their Home for the Holidays shows playing in the Grand Arcade outside of Convention Hall. Now you're playing inside the building and playing in Convention Hall, which should be a pretty good homecoming.
Yeah, that's a good one for us. I mean, it's been good to us and I think the community down there has been really good to us. We played the Summer Stage last summer outside of the Stone Pony and it was cool, everything's been really good down there. We like to do that every once in a while, to just kind of give everybody a chance to come home and see us and we can see them and play songs that maybe we haven't played in a while.
But we also kind of feel now as we're getting more and more advanced in our career that we feel like starting to give back, so now we're starting to work with the Wounded Warrior foundation for soldiers that have developed like post-traumatic stress syndrome from being in combat and then they come home. Sometimes it's hard enough for me when I go on tour and I try to plug back into my regular life, I can't imagine being shot at and then having that. So now we're trying to do that and we're trying to do food drives and things like that for the community so when we come back it's a little bit more than, "Hey, we're here, buy our tickets," which is kind of cool.
Recently I was actually talking with Mike McColgan from the Street Dogs, because the night after you guys at Convention Hall, Street Dogs are at the Lanes and they're actually doing a Toys for Tots drive at the Lanes.
Oh, that's nice. Mike is a veteran actually and he's a firefighter, he's a good guy, he's a real stand-up guy and he believes in what he's doing. He's one of those examples of people, you find these guys who find a band that they're successful with and then they take it all upon themselves, but I think at a certain point any band with any kind of sense of where they came from looks outward and they say, "Now what? Now what can I do? Everybody's done this for me and now I'm allowed to essentially goof off and play my guitar for my whole life, what do I do now? I can't just sit here and just be like, ‘Thanks everybody, see you later,'" and I think guys like Mike do that, which is good.
Absolutely. And finally Brian, I was listening to the iTunes sessions this morning and you've got that great Pearl Jam cover ("State of Love and Trust") alongside the Who, Tom Petty. It's crazy for guys our age that Pearl Jam is considered a classic rock band and they're played on like Q104.3 now.
Yeah, it's nuts. I mean, they're my favorite band as far as anybody goes, they're the best band that I love and it's really weird that they're like a classic rock band. But I remember that was the first record I learned how to play guitar to, very difficultly because they were a little bit more advanced than I was with my three chords, but that band, I don't know, there's just something about them, and I think they do what we're kind of searching for when I was saying that we're kind of looking for what's next and you have to do that, I think, as a band.
And if you listen to Pearl Jam now versus Pearl Jam during "Ten," it's a totally different band and that's the trick, I think, and bands like that and Bruce and U2, they're the bands who you kind of look up to and you say, "Well, what do you do now?" and I think that those are the bands that become classic bands, the bands that evolve and change, like the Clash, I mean they were probably the first example that I can think of, or the Stones.
The Gaslight Anthem with Bayside and Let Me Run, doors open 7 p.m. Friday (Dec. 9) at Convention Hall, 1300 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park. Tickets are sold out. For more information, call 732-897-6500 or visit http://www.apboardwalk.com.
