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What’s That Sound?
New Jersey rockers The Gaslight Anthem are loading the tour bus (and the jet) for a four-month trek in support of sophomore release “The ’59 Sound” that will take them across the U.K. and Europe, as well as North America.
Photo: Photo: Lisa Johnson
"Instead of thinking about it like writing a record, we just wanted to write the coolest live songs that we could."
The quartet kicks off the overseas leg of the journey Feb. 2 at Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth, U.K., and will bounce around the E.U. through early March.
A March 8 appearance at the
The ’59 Sound, which hit the streets last August, is The Gaslight Anthem’s SideOneDummy Records debut and was recorded over a six-week period with producer and former Flogging Molly guitarist Ted Hutt.
The goal of the project was to meld TGA’s Jersey punk roots with the sounds of the band’s icons, including Bruce Springsteen, Otis Redding and Tom Petty.
“Making this record was a completely different recording process than anything we’ve ever done before,” drummer Benny Horowitz explained. “It’s the first time we ever worked with a producer and I think we all had to get used to that, but it allowed us to do a ton of stuff that we wouldn’t have tried before.”
All four members of TGA agreed on one thing at the outset – stay as true to the band’s live dynamic as possible.
“We tried to make these songs feel as alive as possible and approach it like we were writing a set list,” frontman Brian Fallon said. “Instead of thinking about it like writing a record, we just wanted to write the coolest live songs that we could. It’s really a preview of seeing us onstage.”
Photo: Photo: Ryan Russell
“Making this record was a completely different recording process than anything we’ve ever done before.”
Regardless of how well the album sells, Horowitz and company are in this for the long haul.
“We’re not that young and we’ve already had our hands in the real world, working terrible jobs,” he said. “We didn’t go straight from underground music to this fantasy world of being a professional musician, we all did the other side and we didn’t like it.
“If this is in front of us and this is actually possible, well that’s the best thing in the world, you know. And we’ll smile every time we play, that’s a fact.”