Wednesday 28 July 2010

The Gaslight Anthem Makes Triumphant Return

Back in October when The Gaslight Anthem last played Philadelphia, it was for a two-night sold out stand at the historic Trocadero.

The New Brunswick, N.J., foursome tore through sets that spanned both of its full-length releases, an EP and even tossed in a cover of Tom Petty
’s “Refugee” for good measure.

It was a victory lap of sorts, the final leg touring on the album that will always be known for breaking the band, “The ’59 Sound,” an album chock full of singer Brian Fallon’s storytelling and jittery punk-rock riffs.

But for drummer Ben Horowitz, despite the whirlwind that wound down since the critical acclaim that followed that record, his biggest memory of the Troc doesn’t even involve The Gaslight Anthem, but at a mid-’90s show when New York hard-core band Sick of It All played the venue.

“I mooned the entire Trocadero audience ... by accident,” he told Rock Music Menu. “I was crowd-surfing, trying to get on stage to jump off, and right when I hit the front, I was on all fours on the stage and I used to sag my pants really low, like a skateboard kid, and yeah, I totally mooned the entire audience before I jumped back out.”

Horowitz, who says he’s been to “probably 20 to 25 shows” at the Troc over the years, will likely keep the burlesque activities to a minimum when The Gaslight Anthem returns to town Thursday to play Penn’s Landing’s Great Plaza in support of “American Slang,” the group’s first LP since being dubbed the saviors of Jersey rock ’n’ roll, a tag that surprisingly didn’t add too much additional pressure in the studio.

“I feel like the pressure was on ourselves, and you gotta trust yourself,” Horowitz said. “So the pressure for us was to just make a record that we thought was a progression from ‘’59 Sound,’ something that challenged ourselves and something that moved in a new direction.”

The course the band took was one of natural development. Songs are more polished, bigger sounding in all the right places, and still have that authenticity wound into the fabric of each note. At times, it’s like “The ’59 Sound” was the rambunctious, freewheeling down the (Garden State) Parkway record, whereas “American Slang” is the arrival at the destination, taking time to absorb all the sights and ambience of the surroundings. That’s not to say The Gaslight Anthem have slowed down, but just more focused on the craft than ever before.

“I think the approach to this record was a little more direct as far as tones and sounds went — just from a purely sonic level, and I think it’s a much bigger guitar sound,” said Horowitz. “Brian went away from the reverb vocals and went with a more straight up kind of vocal approach too.”

“It’s more punchy and forward and direct — sort of like a larger rock ’n’ roll record.”

Much of that punch comes from Horowitz’s ability to lock into a groove where the melody is king, even though he still counts “big, hard-nosed rock drummers” like John Bonham and Dave Grohl
as major influences.

“I adjusted my style when I started playing in this band because it was the first time I met somebody like Brian who really wrote songs,” he said. “Before that, I had bands that were really music driven, and melody came as a secondary thing. But this is a band based on melody — they’re melody-driven rock songs.”

The combination of soul, punk and straight-up rock brought on relentless touring, and last year it was hard to find a major festival any place in the world where The Gaslight Anthem wasn’t on the bill. That time period was a big blur for Horowitz, and while he got to see plenty of bands and meet a bunch of people, he’ll gladly take the more intimate headlining gigs.

“It’s a lot more fun in all honesty,” he said. “I would much prefer when I wake up in the morning to be in a place where I’m gonna be face-to-face with 500 people and I know that there’s no question for energy and sincerity of the music.”

Playing to 500 people is a bit of an understatement, as The Gaslight Anthem audience has grown by leaps and bounds in the past two years, leaving the band in that precarious position where the original hard-core fans from the beginning have to mingle with the newcomers and hit-seekers who come to shows.

“We honestly try to do our best to reach and please both — but at the same time please ourselves,” Horowitz said. “There’s no song that we’ll be playing every night if we’re not having fun playing it. As far as the old songs are concerned, we’ll keep a pretty steady rotation going. We’re definitely reactive (live). When somebody’s yelling a song that we feel like playing that night, we’ll play it. We don’t always stick to the set. We try to keep it loose.”

“I like when a band is willing to supplant a little bit of tightness for just energy and having fun.”

Lately, the group has been keeping things lively by mixing in an interesting cover into the setlist, the Pearl Jam fan favorite “State of Love and Trust,” an early, beefy grinder by the band that initially appeared on the soundtrack to the film based around the ’90s Seattle scene, “Singles.”

“I don’t know who brought it up first, either me or Brian, but we both definitely have a history of that music in our past, just like the grunge stuff,” Horowitz said. “We were 11 and 12 years old when that really broke; the movie “Singles” and that soundtrack were a pretty big record for us and that song has always been my favorite Pearl Jam song — and it’s a ton of fun to play.”

Though entirely unintentional, that choice of a cover flies in the face of almost every single article written on the band that puts it in the same box as Jersey’s favorite son, Bruce Springsteen. It’s a tag that three records in, is starting to wear thin. The Boss has performed with the group and is admittedly a big part of Fallon’s makeup, but at this point, it’s fallen well into the land of overkill. Still, the band is cautious about trying to be too abrupt in shedding the comparisons.

“It’s important to preface the conversation that we do consider it an honor that people relate the two things,” said Horowitz. “There’s a lot of (expletive) groups out there and a lot of (expletive) people out there, and luckily we’re being compared to someone who’s been really good for a really long time and happens to be, from what I can gather, a good person and a straight-up dude — and I’m into all that.”

“But at the same time, in reality, Bruce Springsteen wasn’t a gigantic influence all around the band, and it’s sort of like a narrative the press came up with and we didn’t. It is a little trite to hear, and I wish some people took the time to find another angle. I mean, I’ve never heard a Bruce Springsteen song that’s as punk rock as like 75 percent of our songs.”

“It’s an easy comparison to make when you’re from the same place and you have somebody who likes to tell stories, and I think everybody gets that.”

To contact music columnist Michael Christopher, send an e-mail to
rockmusicmenu@hotmail.com. Also, check out his blog on the Daily Times website.

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