Alex Levine, The Gaslight Anthem’s bassist, is in a New Orleans casino playing poker and on a winning streak – he’s $1,000 up when his arse is dragged away from the table for this interview. Um, is now the best time? Really?
All things considered, Levine’s pretty affable about the interruption. It raises an interesting question though. The Gaslight Anthem’s frontman, Brian Fallon is famous, or maybe infamous, for not boozing and getting high – he even goes to church.
Given that we’ve just pulled Alex out of a gambling den, is he on the opposite end of the partying spectrum? The answer is no: in fact, the whole band have cleaned-up their act. “I got sober in recent history,” Levine says candidly. “I’ve cooled down a lot – I’ve got a family now. In fact, the whole of Gaslight Anthem have kicked drugs and alcohol to the back seat.”
Good for them. Same as The Boss, The Gaslight Anthem come from New Jersey. Keeping in tight with the locals, Springsteen’s actually joined them on stage a few times. “It was like being blasted out of a fucking rocket ship,” Alex hoots. “Seriously, [Bruce] was suddenly there and it was like ‘how the fuck did this happen?’ That one is going to be hard to top.”
Even though Brian Fallon’s voice is not dissimilar to Springsteen’s, traditionally the band have sat more on the punk side of the fence. With that in mind, it makes sense that The Clash holds a special place in The Gaslight Anthem’s heart. “My father was into The Clash,” he recalls fondly.
“He actually got to see The Clash and The Who at the Chase Stadium in New York back in the ’80s. I immediately fell in love with everything about them – their style, their songs, their vibe, what they conveyed. Man, they are the greatest rock band ever. They’re always going to be an influence on us – it’s always going to be there, because they were a huge part of the reason that we wanted to play music in the first place.”
Thinking about the band’s beginnings, Brian Fallon’s been known to say a sense of frightened urgency kick-started the outfit and Alex doesn’t disagree. “We all had very humble beginnings,” he recalls. “None of us had a real way out, other than for doing this. We all fell on the same page – this was what we really wanted to do and we really wanted to make it. We weren’t necessarily the most talented, but we were certainly driven – it’s an important part of success.”
Going back to The Clash, one of the things that Alex admires about Joe Strummer was his ability to evolve. Guided by this ethos, there’s been a musical change in tack with ‘Get Hurt’, the band’s fifth studio album. It’s still very recognisably The Gaslight Anthem, but it’s different to prior releases – it’s more straight down the line rock & roll; no whiff of punk and the band have even gone a bit country on ‘Red Violins’. This shouldn’t be surprising — Brian said that unless you invented a unique sound, like The Ramones, you’ve gotta change at some point. “Well, that was a wise call,” laughs Alex. “I wish I’d said it because you do have to adapt. It’s tough if you’re just regurgitating the same stuff and it’s not rewarding creatively.”
Part of what helped the band mix up genres on ‘Get Hurt’ was working with producer Mike Crossey – they sought him out specifically on the basis the chances of him disagreeing with the band were high. Is that a weird call, picking someone with who you’re destined to butt heads? “We definitely wanted to work with someone this time who had a different style from us. We’d never really explored before what it would be like to record with someone who wasn’t focused on the singer/ songwriter aspect – Mike’s more focused on the sound and how it’s recorded and we wanted to have some fun with that.”
We’re glad there was some fun to be had, because it wasn’t the world’s happiest time when the band went into recording, particularly given that Fallon had just divorced his wife of ten years. Fallon now speaks of the experience as being cathartic. Levine’s take on it is that there’s an opportunity for air clearing every time you play, not just when you record. “Yeah, I think that every artistic experience is cathartic,” he muses. “It’s always an escape from everyday life. Making music has absolutely always been my release and escape.”
As unlikely as it’d be, if the whole thing ever goes to shit for Levine, he’s got a job to fall back on: Levine’s a barber. “Yeah, I started out by cutting my own hair when I was a teenager, because I didn’t like how anyone else was cutting it,” he chortles. “I’ll cut people’s hair now when we’re on tour. I was thinking about setting up a barber shop too, but I haven’t had time to get around to that yet. I have set up my own clothing label though, which is kind of barber-shop inspired. It has that essence and vibe of how men used to dress.” Cool.
Written by Meg Crawford
The Gaslight Anthem Tour Dates
Thurs 29th Jan – The Tivoli (Brisbane)Sat 31st Jan – The Enmore Theatre (Sydney)
Tues 3rd Feb – The Forum (Melbourne)
Thurs 5th Feb – HQ (Adelaide)
