In the past I would get irritated that everybody focused on the Bruce connection – they were using something positive to try to make it negative, and I feel like: shame on them, not shame on us. At that point we looked around and it was like, ‘Well, nobody else played with Bruce Springsteen today!’ We’re from New Jersey, literally no-one knew us, and then one of the best songwriters on the face of the planet was suddenly a fan. “The moment I realised, ‘Whoa, this is way bigger than I thought!’ was 100 per cent Glastonbury. But then I said, ‘Well, why not? I like it!’ That’s the beauty of the record, and the spirit of it. If I was going to give anybody advice based on what I learned from those sessions, I would say, ‘Create the thing, then judge it.’ There’s no way I’d put a Counting Crows reference in a punk song, if I thought about it from a criticism standpoint. “When we were making The ’59 Sound, everybody was excitedly throwing out ideas in the studio. Then, in 2015, they temporarily hit the brakes.
They would go on to make three more albums (signing to a major label for the latter two), outgrow basement shows in favour of academy and arena venues, and accumulate a diehard fanbase. Their Garden State hero, Bruce Springsteen, would become a fan, and join them onstage at Glastonbury the following year.
The group would appear on the front of Kerrang! – having never even been written about in the magazine before – with the words: ‘The Best New Band You’ll Hear In 2008’ splashed across the cover. But they never anticipated what these 12 soulful punk songs would do for them. The Gaslight Anthem believed in the material they’d brought to producer Ted Hutt. “It’s kind of a romantic story what I was about to do next was the beginning of the next 10 years of my life.” “When we pulled up, I had zero dollars in my pocket, and $30,000 of credit card debt,” reflects bassist Alex Levine, looking back on a body of work that not only dragged him away from a time of struggle, but gave his bandmates – Brian Fallon (vocals), Alex Rosamilia (guitar) and Benny Horowitz (drums) – experiences that would exceed their wildest dreams. The quartet went by the name The Gaslight Anthem and they were there to make an album titled The ’59 Sound. It would be their home for the next couple of weeks.
Arriving at their destination in a van that they were yet to pay off, these hopeful young men had made a cross-country trip to the address of their new record label’s offices, SideOneDummy, to pick up the keys to LA’s Oakwood apartments. They didn’t know it then, but that particular journey – all 2,500 miles of it – was about to change their lives forever. It was early 2008, and four 20-something punks from New Jersey were on the road.
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