SITTING backstage at Glasgow’s O2 ABC ahead of his sold out show late that night, The Gaslight Anthem’s frontman Brian Fallon; currently on his first solo juncture around the UK, exhibits the same candour, honesty and sheer likability that come across in his deeply personal songwriting.
“I think I’m getting arthritis or something”, he jests in reference to being supplied with a new heater for the room; “I do that (play guitar) every day. It’s not when you’re playing, it’s this thing about the picking where your fingers get real weird. It feels like you’ve just done a workout and it gets really gangly. I’m learning to work with it now but when they get cold it’s hard (laughs).
With his new album and debut solo effort Painkillers out in the UK for just over a month, the New Jersey native seems both elated and taken aback by the deluge of great reviews and fanfare which it has received in Britain.
“Yeah, I was shocked because I didn’t know what people would say. Especially over here where it seems to count a little bit more. I don’t take American press seriously all the time, Some of it I do. Americans tend to talk a lot and I’ll say that because I’m American. What I mean by that is they talk before they think. I think Rolling Stone is good, so is Noisey, Vice and Stereogum, although there’s a bunch of them that are just ridiculous and I stopped paying attention to them. With the UK press especially, they tend to have a way of telling the truth and you can’t always argue with it. If someone just says something stupid then you’re like ‘that’s stupid’ but you usually they have more of a point. There’s a little bit more of a reason behind whether they do or don’t like it so I was concerned but it came out really so I was like ‘oh, that’s good, I must have done well. It made me feel validated in a way. “
Despite being a seasoned musician and an artist that has toured the world with his now legendary band, this current jaunt is something of an uncharted area for him as it is his name and his alone on the marquee. Despite the fact that many would undoubtedly see a transition of this nature as a daunting prospect, he’s taking it in his stride.
Speaking in terms of whether or not it’s scarier, Fallon explains that:
“I’m pretty introverted as a person, so I don’t really like having a lot of people around. I almost feel more comfortable as I can just sit, take a bit of time and decide what I want to and there isn’t other people saying ‘we should do this’, ‘we should do that.’ That can get hard sometimes. I also knew that it wouldn’t be as many people as Gaslight watching. I knew that not everyone was going to follow along and that put me at ease. I don’t remember where we played the last time we were here (The 02 Academy) but I guess it was much smaller than this. This is only like 1300 and I was worried about selling this place out. It’s good to play these kind of venues as it’s not exactly starting over but there isn’t 3000 people out there and it’s freaking me out. The whole point of this was to get me back on my feet again and figure out ‘what am I doing?’ and in order to do that you need to slow things down.”
Despite the fact that much has been made of this being Brian’s first solo venture under his own name, it is far from his first foray outwith the confines of his famous band. Having previously produced material such as 2011’s Elsie alongside Ian Perkins under the guise of The Horrible Crowes and the demos released with Molly And The Zombies, it left many people questioning why this new album was his first LP under his own name. Brian clarifies that it spawned from a conversation with a trusted confidant.
“Once we said that we (The Gaslight Anthem) were going to do a break, I said ‘I’m going to make a record’. I asked a friend of mine whether I should do another Horrible Crowes record or something with Molly And The Zombies and she said ‘you need to stop making side projects because it’s confusing for people.’ She was like ‘If you make a Horrible Crowes record then you can only play Horrible Crowes songs, and if you make a Molly And The Zombies record then you can only play those songs. if you do your own name, not only can you do all of those songs and wrap it under your own name, but in the future you can make different records. You can make a folk record, you can make a rock record, you could make a dance record. She said ‘your name doesn’t hold any kind of genre. She works with Iggy Pop, Patti Smith and a lot of really influential people, plus she used to work with Nirvana back in the day. She’s just smart and she knows so it was like ‘Nick Cave can do make a record that’s really dark on the piano then he can make a blues and no one questions it. So she said ‘you should have your stuff and then Gaslight’ so I thought ‘that makes sense’ so I just wrapped everything I’ve ever done into my solo stuff. It’s just easier and kids are so happy that we’re playing the Horrible Crowes record in addition to this one and I love those songs so that’s good.’
Fallon’s prowess as a songwriter is well established and his back catalogue bustles with heart-wrenching, inspiring and at times bittersweet tales of his life and the many trials and tribulations he’s faced. However, he’s quick to explain that the process behind making this record was like nothing that had came before it and was ultimately a very liberating experience.
“It was completely different. It was just me and (producer) Butch Walker. He was kind of like my bandmate as he’d be pushing me a lot. I’d write a song and send it to him and he’d say ‘you’ve gotta fix that’ and I’d be like ‘how?’ and he’d say ‘you’ll figure it out.’ He was doing it on purpose because once we got to the studio he’d help me but not then. So I was on my own, just sitting there with the guitar, writing songs and thinking ‘is this going to be terrible? or ‘is this going to be awesome?.It was a bit of a struggle in the beginning but it was also kind of comfortable as I had no-one to answer to and could just do whatever I wanted.”
While influences such as Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen are usually brought up when discussing Brian Fallon’s songwriting, he pointed to several other artists that had inspired him in the process of putting together his first official solo release; some which may surprise those that would immediately assume that Americana would be the main source from which he took his cues.
“The big one was ‘Full Moon Fever’ by Tom Petty. I was looking at that one because it was his first record away from The Heartbreakers and he was also 39 when he wrote it. So I was like ‘well I’m younger than that so that’s good.’ Noel (Gallagher), I looked at Noel a lot because I was thinking ‘how do you go from being in a big band to doing a solo thing without being thinking you’re off your mind and acting like it sucks.’ I looked at Noel because we didn’t get as big as Oasis but what did he do? He seemed to do it and still be cool. He didn’t seem like an old man playing the hits so I looked at him a lot. I looked Ryan Adams too, coming out of Whiskytown and Jason Isbell coming out of Drive-By Truckers. I learned a lot from them, it gave me the confidence to think ‘this is going to be hard but it’s not going to be impossible. “
Tonight sees him play The 02 ABC after another sold out show in Manchester’s The Ritz on the previous night. However, this is not his first tour of the album and he’s been travelling up and his homeland of the US in the lead up to the album’s release. He insists that the reaction thus far has been very encouraging to say the least.
“So far it’s been awesome cos it’s only been one show (laughs) but yeah the rest of the tours in the States went well and everyone’s been cool. It’s easier now that the record’s out, before then it was hard. They kind of knew it (lead single Wonderful Life), they were struggling a little but they went it so that was nice. Last night they were starting to really get it and I was like alright, this is ok.”
Brian’s last visit to Scotland was in 2014 alongside The Gaslight Anthem at the aforementioned O2 Academy, another sold out endeavour in a city that’s long had a love affair with his music. Given all the appreciation that he has within the nation’s cultural hub, he outlines exactly what makes cities such as Glasgow so rewarding to play in.
“It’s awesome every time we play here and the kids are great”, he proclaims with sincerity, “It’s one of those places you look forward to playing because you know it’s a music city, people love music here. There are a few spots where you know it’s going to go well and there are others where you don’t know at all but here’s it’s always good so I like it a lot. Some places are more snobby than others, Glasgow is like Chicago to me, or Detroit. No pretension, just like ‘we’re here and we want to have a good time and have a couple of beers which to me is cool. Manchester’s like that to me too, just don’t ask them to decide whether they like (Manchester) City or United (laughs). Sometimes I’ll do that, I’ll ask them onstage and they’ll go crazy on each other. It’s just me stirring the pot. “
You’d think with so many projects and a bustling touring schedule that Brian would be forgiven for not having a chance to discover new music to fall in love with, but he was happy to highlight some recently unearthed treasures that he’d been enjoying.
“The singer from Frightened Rabbit’s Owl John is great. That ‘Songs About Roses’, I don’t know if everyone in America knows what that reference means, but as soon as I heard it I go this weird chill because I knew what he was talking about and I was like ‘oh yeah, that’s cool man’. That’s such a dig at the system and the politics and parliament; I was like ‘that’s brave’, I like those kind of brave songs. It’s cool that they’re not afraid to do that. I do listen to a lot of new music; I don’t just pine on the old favourites. I like Florence + The Machine a lot, they’re probably my favourite band of the last five or ten years. I like punk bands that have came out too. Beach Slang, I think they’re great, they’re really cool. There’s tons of cool stuff coming out every day and if you limit yourself then it’s no good.”
Given his long-held reputation as a formidable songwriter and one with an enviable grasp of how to conjure any given emotion from the listener, Brian’s advice to those who’d wish to begin writing their own music is simple yet refreshingly honest. “I think you can start at any time you want and it doesn’t really matter. I think people worry about being too old but there’s a list of people who didn’t start until they were much older. People worry about finding their own sound a lot and I’m not really concerned about that. You emulate people until eventually you stumble upon your own self. When I was a kid I just wanted to sound like The Clash but you just do that and it’ll never come out sounding like the other band, it’ll always sound like you because it is you. Keeping going is one of the more difficult things for people starting as they don’t realise how hard it’s going to be. When I started out, I had this absolute foolishness that I simply didn’t care. I didn’t care how many people say you suck or you’re terrible, I was just going to keep going because I knew this was going to work. I didn’t know, but I did. In my own head I’d decided. So yeah, just keep going. As Michael Jackson says ‘don’t stop until you get enough (laughs).”
While on tour, it’s often thought that artists focus on that particular aspect of the musician’s life before retreating to write new songs at a later date. However, this is not the case for Fallon as he finds himself crafting ideas all the time alongside enjoying the benefits of his solo excursion.
“I do both. I constantly think of new songs, I have ideas for them now and I’m just like ‘alright, let’s see what happens.’ I like the playing though, it’s fun because you can change it around all the time and there’s no rules. It’s different when you’re in a band. I could get a little bug where I want to play a song by myself one night and I can tell the guys ‘shove off I’m going to play this one’ and there’s nothing anyone can say. I love that (laughs), you try that in a band and it’s not going to work so well.”
Now that he’s plied his trade in the industry and learned its ways and intricacies, if he could go back in time to the DIY scene that he’d emerged from all those years ago then the main caveat to take back with him is to be less fretful about the outcome.
“Just don’t worry about it so much and it’ll be alright. I used to worry a lot, like whether I would make it and that kind of stuff. I still worry about that in a way. I guess you could say I’m established and I do well but I’ve never crossed into that place where I feel like ‘I could make records for the rest of my life.’ I don’t feel that security, so there’s always this tension where I think ‘whatever you’re doing, it better be good because if you don’t you could fall off. Unless I had some giant hit record, which I don’t see happening. I want to still to still be able to do it ten years from now or whenever I don’t want to do it anymore.”
In terms of his plans for the future, Brian’s intentions are simple and admirably grounded. He simply wishes to still being doing what he loves and to reach towards the elder statesman level of musician that’s held by those special artists that endure throughout the years.
“If it’s still growing and still going then that’d be the ideal thing. At some point I hope to reach that Jeff Tweedy level of acceptance people have. That’s basically the goal, to be like Tom Waits where people say ‘I just like that guy and it doesn’t matter if there’s something weird in the record he’ll always just have that following. For people to be like ‘This guy’s been around for a while and he knows what he’s talking about’ then that would be great. If someone was just to say ‘this guy’s legit’, that would be the goal. “
Given the strength of his new album, the incredible reactions which he inspires from his throngs of fans and the ingenuity which he possesses, it’s not unfeasible to think that the milestone he’s reaching for isn’t too far from his grasp.
