College Times

Issue date: 7/15/10 Section: Music

Media Credit: Nigel Crane

The Gaslight Anthem's punk-meets-Springsteen sound on their new record, American Slang, finds them getting noticed by a mass audience for the first time. Since they debuted the album on NPR's "First Listen," the band has scored its highest chart position to date.

It's a nonstop whirlwind for Gaslight these days. A new record and two back-to-back lengthy tours landed the band on top of the world. Maybe that's how Springsteen himself took notice last year.

We talked to drummer Benny Horowitz about where he sees the band going from here, even beyond a tour stop in the Valley.

College Times: American Slang has met amazing critical reception and it's given you your highest chart position to date. What about the record do you think connected with audiences more than previous albums?

Horowitz: I don't even know if it has. Stuff with charting … I don't think it's really based on critical stuff yet. I think touring for a few years and putting out a record will automatically get more people into it. When our last record came out … hopefully the same people bought this record and are still listening to us and through the course of that time, hopefully we picked up some new fans. It's based off of what you've already done, in a way.

It seems like you guys finally found your voice on American Slang. Was the writing process different from other albums?

The process was pretty similar. I'd say the biggest way we start writing records is based around the way Brian [Fallon] starts writing songs. Even with The '59 Sound, Brian was just recording things acoustically with a tape recorder and we would listen to the tape. Now the biggest difference is that we're not a garage band. As far as that's concerned, it's still the same process where Brian kicks starts an idea nine times out of 10 with a basic melody or a weird song name or a weird chord progression, or even sometimes a relatively weak song. Then he brings it to us and we do what we do to it with out parts and arrangements. That's still the same. I think the biggest difference going into this record is that we definitely have a little more of a defined point now. Also, we haven't recorded in a few years and we've been listening to a lot of music and getting into different kinds of music. When you pool influences it expands.

You mentioned that this album had a lot of influences. Who were they?

Well personally, my biggest influence going into this record was Motown. For some reason I just can't get enough of old Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Otis Redding stuff. This kind of music just sounds so damn good to me right now. Definitely rhythmically and percussion wise, those are the ones who influenced that. One specific track that influenced me was Benny Cliff's "The Queen of Lower Chelsea."

Bruce Springsteen's influence on the band is obvious. He joined you on stage at the Glastonbury Festival last year. What was that experience like?

It was cool, you know. There's not a lot of ways to describe that. It's just surreal and cool. You know it happened too fast, it was almost one of those experiences where I shook my head and looked up and I'm like "Holy fuck! That's Bruce Springsteen playing guitar to one of my songs. This is a fucking trip!" It's one of those experiences that just kind of slaps you in the face. While it was happening, it was nearly impossible to understand. You're unable to conceptualize how big and how crazy something like that is, until recently when you get to look at it in retrospect.

The music video for "American Slang" debuted about a week ago. Some artists love making them and for others it's a necessary evil. Where do you fall on that spectrum?

I think I'm in the middle. Some people like it, but for us I think if it wasn't necessary then we probably wouldn't do them. But that being said, once we decide to do them it's important how they come out. This one went through a lot of edits and a lot of different things to make different people happy, but this one is pretty cool, I think. It's probably the favorite video I've ever done. The only thing I worry about is that it's not like a "Seinfeld" episode, where somebody from Kansas is like "I just don't get this." It is really local. The point of it is to show our version of "American Slang." This is what we see every day and these are the contradictions and problems that happen around here and very likely they're different somewhere else.

The Gaslight Anthem, Marquee Theatre, July 20, 6:30 p.m., $16 adv, $17 dos

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