The Gaslight Anthem

From the first time I heard their demo of Drive on Go Kart vs. The Corporate Giant 4 in early 2006, I was hooked on The Gaslight Anthem. Three full lengths, an EP and a live ten inch later – I’m still hooked. They remain one of the most unique and sincere bands out there, never rehashing the same album but instead pushing their boundaries further with each passing release. They show what can be done if you write music for yourself as opposed to just following the trend of the day.

Back in the day I had talked to drummer Benny Horowitz on and off over e-mail and while we’ve talked briefly at the two shows they’ve played in Edmonton in past year and a half, this was the first time we were able to sit down for a proper interview. It was a far reaching conversation, touching on Mastodon, Kelly Clarkson, and Elvis along with their constant comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, the cyclical music industry, their song writing process and Arrested Development.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, you guys are just starting this tour with Fake Problems and the Menzingers – are you excited for it?

Benny:  Yeah; I’ve been excited for this for like months. Especially just with it being dudes you know and are friends with already; there’s not an awkward period or anything like that.

Bobby: Getting to know one another.

Benny: Yeah. Just like the first day it’s cool; and they’re both really good bands too.

Bobby: This is called the Bringing Up Buster Tour. Why’d you pick that name? Fans of Arrested Development?

Benny: Yeah; I wouldn’t put it any deeper than that. There is no metaphor or anything like that. It’s just like a funny thing to put on laminates.

Bobby: So now are you jealous of Fake Problems for getting Alia Shawkat and Mae Whitman to sing on their CD? They got two members of Arrested Development to sing on their CD.

Benny: Did they really? Who was that on the show?

Bobby: Umm… The cousin and the girlfriend.

Benny: Oh yeah, they told me about the cousin – yeah. Maeby

Bobby: And then… the guy’s girlfriend. The conservative, ultra Christian one.

Benny: Oh yeah –  Shit, that’s awesome. I didn’t know that.

Bobby: Now, I want to talk a bit about American Slang because obviously it is your most recent album. Going back to way into last summer when you guys were playing in Denver. You said that this record was going to be “sassy, full of magic and swords and Mastodon would be proud.”  Maybe I missed it, but where are the magic and swords?

Benny: Wait, who said that?

Bobby: You guys said that on stage in Denver.

Benny: Who’s “you guys”? Brian?

Bobby: Brian.

Benny: Right, he’s going off on one of his things.  I don’t know man. Wait – so full of sass? I think he got sass. It’s pretty sassy. He said magic and swords?

Bobby: Yeah; and Mastodon would be proud.

Benny: I don’t know about that. He might’ve been misleading people. I guess magic maybe. Alex really likes swords; he has a mini collection at home – he’s kind of like a dork like that. So maybe that’s in it. And I don’t know about Mastodon being proud. I love Mastodon. I’m trying to think of a song that maybe they would dig. But I don’t know – they might not like it. Do you think Mastodon would like the record?

Bobby:  I don’t know. It’s quite different than what they do but that doesn’t mean they don’t like different kinds of music right?

Benny: Yeah; people would think I probably don’t listen to Mastodon so maybe Mastodon listens to like punk and hip-hop and shit you know?

Bobby: Last time they toured through Canada they took Against Me! with them

Benny: They’ve turned with Cursive too. So maybe.

Bobby: They don’t just stick to their own style.

Benny: Maybe they would be proud – I don’t know.

Bobby: The record does have a different vibe than ’59 Sound – particularly lyrically. To me it has a bit more of a nostalgic element to it. Was that kind of intentional going into?

Benny: You think the new one’s more nostalgic?

Bobby: In a way.

Benny: I actually see it honestly differently. I think ’59 Sound is a lot more rooted in nostalgia and a look at things from another time and stuff like that. I really get the feeling that American Slang, especially with Brian’s lyrics, is probably the most contemporary thing I think we’ve ever done. I think the problems he’s talking about are the problems that are literally right here, right now. Like what are you seeing? What are you going through? So in that regards I feel like it’s almost the least nostalgic.

Bobby: To me, I feel the songs are about looking at the past and how it affects the present. There’s a line in Old Haunts that goes “God help the man that says ‘if you had known me when;’” as soon as I heard that I thought of Navasink Banks were you say “Oh Maria, if you had only known me when.” Was that intentional – the connection between the two lines?

Benny: I don’t think it was intentional, I couldn’t say for sure; but I don’t think I was.

Bobby: To me, it showed a band progression from “this is what we did do” so God bless us then and now moving on and looking into future.

Benny: I think a lot of it too is… I know at least me personally – I think most musicians and people in our industry – you kind of have this emptiness. You know what I mean? That’s what drives you to do certain things.  I think there’s something weird about kind of achieving the goals we had and then being like “okay, we’re here now.” This has been my goal forever and now that’s achieved – what else do you do? What else do you do to stay happy and what else do you do to keep that in perspective and shit like that? It does bring a different set of problems. Brian just turned thirty; I’m about to turn thirty. Certain things start happening around a certain age where you reach a point. I’ve seen a lot of people in their late twenties reach this branching off point where people start to either really start taking their life seriously with whatever they decide to do or people just start sliding. They either settle or they just keep sliding and it’s a hard thing to watch. I think in some ways it could be like a wake up call for some people. You know?

Bobby: Yeah; it’s like “we hit this point – now where do we go from here?” Do we fall back or do we push forward?

Benny: Yeah; it’s a weird spot to be in. It’s a spot none of us have ever been in and we’re trying to figure it out. It’s like navigating with a blindfold a little bit you know? Nobody really knows what we’re doing. We’re just winging it and doing whatever we think is right at the time.

Bobby: Of course you guys are always constantly compared to Bruce Springsteen and I know you guys have always said that  it’s a honour; but I’ve also picked up that at the time it’s also starting to become a bit of an annoyance that people always bring it up when you do have other influences. I remember I was watching an interview that Brian did with Alan Cross and he was saying he’d love to do a harmonica part like Neil Young’s Heart of Gold but he’s afraid to do it because people will say “Oh, Bruce Springsteen used a harmonica too!” Do you think it’s kind of, in a way, stifling because whatever you do will always be like “oh Springsteen did that in someway?”

Benny: I don’t think it will always be like that. I don’t think it’s ever really an annoyance because when you put things into perspective and what actually happened and how much it helped us and stuff like that… it would be super cheap and kinda shitty to start talking shit about that kind of situation. It is an honour and it’s crazy and when something like that happens, it takes a while for people to really see something else. That’s when you’ve got to just try and ignore what’s going on around and just stay focused on what you have control over.

Bobby: Like you said, it did help you guys. I remember reading something about a year ago that said that after Springsteen came to play with you guys on Glastonbury Festival that the sales for ’59 Sound went up two hundred percent. So that is a massive jump.

Benny:  Oh, for sure.  I see it the most in Europe too. Like I definitely see people sometimes and they’re like Brucies. They’re Bruce Springsteen fans and Bruce doesn’t tour all that much so they started coming to see our shows too. Again, not just Bruce Springsteen being a cool dude and the way he’s carved his career and stuff – his fans are as loyal as shit. I’ve met people who’ve gone fifty, sixty times to his shows. I mean I might’ve seen a band like – not that many times but a lot of times when I was a kid. Like local bands that I would go see fucking every weekend but I can’t imagine going to concerts that often and doing that shit. So respect to both of them. There’s a lot of shitty stuff in the world and some guy making good music and then a whole mass of people being incredibly loyal to his music and enjoying it and finding something into it… I’m just saying man, there’s a lot of things in life to talk shit about and that’s definitely not one of them.

Bobby: At the same time, do you think it could also make you push yourself and do something so far out of the ordinary because of that? To try to, not necessarily get out of his shadow but to try something that people won’t be able to say “Oh, Bruce did that on that song.”

Benny:  Yeah. I mean I think Brian would definitely not put a Springsteen lyric in a song again. Those days are probably over. But you know, again, if we wrote a part for a song and we thought it sounded awesome and it was like the perfect part for the song and it reminded somebody of Springsteen… I mean, what are you going to do man? He’s been making music and he makes fucking straight ahead power blues rock. If you just write records, how are you not going to sound like certain people all the time?

Bobby: There’s only so many chords.

Benny: Exactly. It’s rock and roll man. Neither him or us are trying to re-invent the wheel and make music that will shock people’s ears. We’re just trying to make good rock and roll songs.

I also think that when people really listen to us and take a good listen to us, there’s certain things that we do that I don’t think Bruce Springsteen would be caught dead doing. You know what I mean? Certain songs we have… he doesn’t write anything resembling punk at all. I think in a lot of our songs we still have a strong punk element in them and it’s really something that’s confused me a little bit with all these comparisons because I’m like Bruce Springsteen is never going to play Great Expectations or Titanic or stuff like that – or 1930. He’s not going to play these songs. They’re not in that vibe and that’s where I think, sometimes, people just have blinders on. They see one comparison and just stick with it.

And to be honest with you, I worked at a newspaper man. It’s fucking journalism. People want to sell magazine. They want to sell stories and they want to make their newspaper article [stand out] – they want people to glance by and if they see Bruce Springsteen in the headline, they’re going to stop. If they see The Gaslight Anthem, New Jersey blah blah blah –maybe they don’t stop. So it is what it is. Call a spade a spade. Everyone’s trying to do their job and I understand that it would be lazy journalism to not bring it up. So you just gotta deal with it.

Bobby: Since you did bring it up, I had this question reserved for later on but 1930 – when you first released it as a demo on your PureVolume page years and years ago it was called Titanic. Why the name change and why was it originally called Titanic anyway?

Benny: The original version is “She Could’ve Sunk The Titanic” or something like that it’s called. That song was actually written before me, Alex or Alex were actually involved with Brian. That’s the only song in our entire catalogue where the original version was done with Brian and other dudes. I think once we re-wrote our version and we all started playing on it, it turned into 1930.  But the basis is still the song. There’s changes, there’s definitely changes.

Bobby: The biggest change for me is the final bridge at the end. For me, I love the bridge in the original. The bridge in 1930 is good too but it’s slightly longer in the original and I don’t know what it was…

Benny:  There’s some huge thing in that bridge with like seven or nine snare hits, this weird thing that I always thought was totally awkward and I was like dying to change the first day I heard it honestly.  But the dude who plays drums on that shit was a good drummer. He played in this band called The Banner too. He was pretty good. Honestly, the original version of that song that was released as This Charming Man was the reason I went to go play with Brian. That’s the song. Jay from XOXO Records is the one who knew Brian needed a drummer and turned me onto what he was doing and asked me to talk to him. There were a couple songs where I loved Brian but I just wasn’t too stoked on the music. And then I heard that song and I’m like “this is a fucking good song.”

Bobby: Did he ever release Titanic under This Charming Man? Because it’s not on the EP.

Benny: No – it’s not. I think it may have gotten made after that EP.

Bobby: In the transitional period.

Benny: Possibly.

Bobby: Now this is one thing I never really thought about for any band but a couple days ago I was watching an interview between Brendan Kelly and Tom Gabel and they were talking about how one another write songs. And basically, what Tom Gabel said is that he writes the lyrics first and then writes the music to go around the lyrics because his idea is that there’s only so many chords so eventually you start repeating yourself whereas with lyrics there’s an unlimited amount syllables which means you can get more unique cadences and flows if you focus on the lyrics before. Which kind of got me thinking about your song I’da Called You Woody, Joe where you say “I never got to tell him, so I just wrote it down. Wrapped a couple chords around it and let it come out.” I know you said before you don’t do the drumbeat until Brian’s finished all his lyrics and vocal harmonies – so my question is how do you guys do it? Do you do the lyrics first and then the music?

Benny: Nah; it depends. It depends actually. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes we’ll write just the music – like a bridge and the chorus. And a lot of times, I mean, Brian writes a lot. He always has a lot of stuff. I think more than just writing lyrics; it’s like figuring out lyrics and putting melodies to it based on music sometimes. And then sometimes I think he’ll get an idea for a melody or a chord or something like that. I think it goes both ways actually. For the most part, I think the chords that go along with the melody – I think that’s pretty important from the start. It’s not as much about the start as achieving that melodic combination of the chord and the melody and I think they’re kind of intertwined in the way we write.

Bobby: Now, this is one question I normally ask older bands who have been in the industry for twenty, thirty years or whatever.

Benny: You’d be surprised dude. I’m almost at twenty years.

Bobby: Actually, because you guys do have a lot of music history knowledge based on other interviews and Alex Rosamillia touched on this on an interview with Toronto Star I figured I’d bring it up. A few years ago I was taking this music history class and when we were studying Elvis the teacher brought up this interesting diagram that had Cultural Logic and Industrial Logic on it. Basically, Cultural Logic was something happens when people get pissed off and start rebelling and make a new sound, something new, raw, out of anger and then it becomes popular so the industry uses Industrial Logic, captures it, mass produces it which in turn pisses people off which starts another cultural revolution. Do you think that’s an accurate way to describe the music industry?

Benny: Yeah. I could see it; but I think there’s a lot of gray areas. So was he saying that Elvis was the cultural one or the industrial one?

Bobby: The cultural one.

Benny: See, that’s where I would kind of disagree because I think Elvis, I’d say the blues was the cultural logic. The blues was the thing that stemmed from oppression and was more of a revolution thing. It stemmed from oppression and pain and then, honestly, white people took it and made it industrial. Made it pleasing. I do think it’s a pretty accurate way to view the music but at the same time, just because you heard it first doesn’t mean your perception of the music is any clearer than anybody else. You know what I mean? I think that people can write music from the same place even if they’re in a different position. It’s sort of made it so that the people around dictate where it’s going. There’s a chance somebody who sells a hundred million albums can write songs from the same exact place they wrote them when they were demoing or something like that. It’s not common probably, I’m sure people let it get to them. I think it’s a fairly accurate thing but I think there’s probably a lot of gray areas there.

Bobby: Like you said, somebody can write a song but it kind of depends on how people interpret that song in their own way and how they perceive and how they show it to their friends – or don’t show it to their friends.

Benny: Maybe even look at hip-hop has an example. A lot of the first elements of hip-hop was based on that cultural digression. You didn’t need a full band; you just needed a beat and people made music. But the people now who are making hip-hop – or a lot of them – these days; they try to say they’re cultural revolutionary but they’re still preaching this and this and that.

Bobby: And then you have cologne and clothing companies.

Benny: Yeah; it’s like the most mainstream, industrial shit you could ever possibly get. I don’t know. That’s actually something I’ll probably think about even after the interview’s done. It’s interesting.

Bobby: Yeah, it’s an interesting concept.

Benny: It is. I think there’s definitely some truth to it. I’d like to think about it more. Maybe next time when we’re in Edmonton I’ll have a more complete answer.

Bobby: I’ll bring it back up and we can discuss it some more.

Benny: Cool, I’d like that. I’m not in a rush by the way [The publicist had just came by to say just a few more questions]

Bobby: Awesome, well, then a few more things about that then. Like even if you look at the punk world. Punk started, we’ll say, in ’77. It broke out in ’94. That was fifteen years to grow and manifest whereas now these revolutions happen so quickly with MySpace and the internet. There’s no chance for that industry or sound to evolve and become what it’s meant to be.

Benny: Right, which is true. I think a lot of it just starts to become rehashed versions of itself because of that. Because everything, you’re right, it’s just too quick. I always bring up this thing too where maybe MySpace and Garage Band are the most punk things you can possibly have. Because if there’s a kid who can make his own songs completely by himself, release his own songs completely by himself, market his own songs completely by himself – in a way, that’s the most DIY thing I’ve ever heard. When one person can just do it all. I mean, that’s kind of like a weird concept too. I know that the internet’s not punk but it’s a reality of where we’re living at and it’s kind of a cool way to go about it. You hear about these kids all the time who post a YouTube video or something and something just happens.

Bobby: Justin Bieber.

Benny: Yeah. That bypasses major labels and stuff like that. He didn’t have marketing, he didn’t have this. Just this random cute kid who can sort of sing and that’s it. Every twelve year old girl with the internet just fell in love.

I mean, dude, fuck if I could totally understand the music industry now. I never even understood it when I was a kid. I know it’s different. I know it’s kind of shitty. I know I’m a part of it and half the time I don’t know what the fuck to do about it to be totally honest.

Bobby: Just a few more questions if you don’t mind.

Benny: No, no, it’s fine.

Bobby: You guys don’t have that many b-sides. Other than She Loves You from American Slang I only know cover songs as b-sides. Although I do remember watching the behind the scenes video of ’59 Sound where Brian had said that you had already written thirteen songs for the album. Only twelve are on the album. What happened to the missing song?

Benny: Honestly, we’re really, really critical and harsh and if a song doesn’t make the cut on the record it almost doesn’t exist anymore in a way. We throw away a lot of songs. We’ve written a lot of shit that has gotten lost into infinity just because we didn’t think it was good enough or we thought – which was interesting with American Slang – we were writing songs that we thought were good and then we’d write something else; we’d be like “this is better.” Then the last two songs we wrote would kind of get thrown out because we kind of raised our personal bar a little bit. That happened a lot with songs like Chelsea and Diamonds, songs that were out of our pocket. Things that we almost had to learn again. It almost sounds to be like Senor and The Queen was us learning how to make the ’59 Sound. You know what I mean?

Bobby: Yeah, that’s a good transitional album.

Benny: Yeah; and for me it’s totally obvious if you listen to is that it’s us trying to figure out how to incorporate this old school kind of shit into punk and straight ahead rock. We’re still working on it.

Bobby: With all your covers, you guys do a wide variety. I mean you’ve done Kelly Clarkson, you’ve done Tom Waits, Robert Bradley, Ben E. King. Last time you did the Hold Steady, you just did Lucero with Tim Barry. How do you pick which songs to cover? From the old to the new to Kelly Clarkson?

Benny:  It’s pretty random honestly. The Kelly Clarkson one was all Brian. And dude, I’ll take a hit for that one too. Because he was going to do it and I’m like “yeah, you’re doing Kelly Clarkson? You’re going to do that?” and I was kind of like a pessimist and then he did it and it was like holy shit. That’s why years ago I learned to never doubt Brian. Sometimes he has an idea where I’m not sure and honestly, most of the time it works. So Kelly Clarkson, he can take.

But the rest, we have some mutual bands that we all love. A band like Hot Water Music, a band like Tom Petty, The Who, Pearl Jam. These are all bands that we all like and honestly there’s not that many of those. Bands that all four of us are into. So I think it’s just a matter of finding a band we all love and finding a song we feel like playing. Covers, to us, are mostly a totally greedy thing. We usually don’t even pick the most popular song from the bands. So it’s just kind of for fun. Oh and that Replacement song and things like that. It’s just songs we want to hear and want to play.

Bobby: I guess that’s about it; thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Benny: No, just the usual. Thanks for listening to the music if you still do. Thanks for doing the interview. You’ve been there from Day 1, always.

Bobby: Go Kart versus the Corporate Giant 4.

Benny: Much appreciated man. I really do. It’s fucking rad.

Bobby: Awesome, thank you very much.

Benny: Thanks Bobby.