SOUNDING OFF

Brian Fallon on the The Gaslight Anthem’s enduring, er, anthem.

Back in 2008 when the Gaslight Anthem’s The ’59 Sound was the buzz of the Classic Rock office, their singer Brian Fallon was a man refreshingly without guile. “Oh, we’re not reinventing the wheel,” he told us cheerily. “I’ve got hundreds of albums that sound like us. If it does sound like we’re different, then it’s because we don’t know what we’re doing. Mistakes are okay, though. I read that Springsteen was trying to sound like Van Morrison early on but couldn’t get it right, and look at his mistakes.”

New Jersey’s Gaslight Anthem had been making a series of glorious mistakes since their 2007 debut Sink Or Swim, but their second full-length album was a belter and its title track rides high in our list. The ’59 Sound came from the album’s initial writing sessions, and Fallon, quite rightly, thought it was one of their best. “We were aware that it sounded better than anything we’d ever done before,” he said, “and that everything had to come up to that standard, so it was exhilarating and daunting all at once.

“When it came, it came in one chunk,” he told The Ringer. “Music and lyrics all right there. It came flying out of my hands, a strange bolt of lightning. It took maybe 15 minutes.”

Staples of the Warped Tour in the US, the band had been readily compared to contemporary punk artists like Against Me!, but The ’59 Sound leaned more towards early Springsteen, The Replacements and even tThe Hold Steady. “I grew up on The Replacements’ Let It Be, it’s amazing,” said Fallon, “And Springsteen’s everywhere here. He did it first and best. We all tell the same stories, they’re the same streets that people like Sinatra and Bon Jovi grew up on, it hasn’t changed.”

The Boss clearly approved of his statemates’ signature song, and joined them to perform it at both Glastonbury and Hyde Park Calling in ‘09. Can’t get much higher praise than that.