In the span of six albums, the Gaslight Anthem has established itself as a bridge between the Jersey shore punk of the Bouncing Souls and the heartland narratives of the Garden State’s favorite son, Bruce Springsteen. It’s something attendees will get to experience when the Garden State quartet hits Jones Beach June 29.
What makes this tour so special is that this latest chapter follows a nearly decade-long hiatus that ended when the Gaslight Anthem chose March 25, 2022, to announce on Instagram that they were reuniting after initially deciding to hang it up back in 2015. Cracks in that declaration to break up made by the foursome of Brian Fallon, Alex Rosamilia, Alex Levine and Benny Horowitz started to show when they decided to get back together to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the band’s sophomore bow “The ’59 Sound” in 2018. The band’s most recent batch of new material, 2023’s “History Books,” codified the idea of the group being back to what it was before, according to Rosamilia.
“We had something to say again,” he said. “The point was always that we weren’t going to make music for the sake of making music to keep the machine moving. For one reason or another, we felt like that purpose was back. Brian called me up to say he wanted to get his band back together and that he missed doing that kind of a thing. That I assume was also the inspiration for wanting to write the songs as well.”
That desire to cut new material found Gaslight Anthem tapping Peter Katis (The National; Death Cab for Cutie) as a producer. And while recording started in October 2022 with driving banger “Positive Change,” the Jersey foursome didn’t get into the full swing of spending Sunday to Friday night’s hopping over to Bridgeport, CT, to lay tracks down in Katis’ Tarquin Studios through the entire month of January 2023. After such a long layoff, there was a period of the individual band members getting reacquainted in a recording space.
“We wanted to work on the album sort of sounding urgent and to do that, you kind of spend less time in the sketch phase and more time in the finalizing kind of stuff,” Rosamilia admitted. “It’s more about figuring out the part as it comes that helps to create that sense of urgency. In the beginning, it was like riding a bike. First, we had to get on and it was wobbly, but by the time we finished the record, we were dancing on tabletops.”
Despite the shaky beginning, the sessions ended with 10 Fallon-penned cuts ranging from the anthemic “Little Fires” and the ethereal “Empires” to the epic title cut featuring a cameo by Springsteen, whose relationship with the band has turned into a mutual admiration society. And while Gaslight was finding its way back in this space, it didn’t take long for Rosamilia to feel those creative synapses reconnect.
“By the time we got to the end of the record, I felt like we had just started getting going,” he recalled. “I also think that a lot of the songs on the new record are some of my favorite Gaslight songs of all time. I love ‘I Live in the Room Above Her’ and along with ‘Michigan, 1975,’ I think that’s some of the best things we’ve ever done. I also love ‘The Weatherman.’ These songs all felt like they were part of the collection as soon as we were recording them. None of them felt new to me in the very least.”
And while the aforementioned hiatus threw a scare into a fan base used to these Jersey boys being a constant presence both on the stage and in the studio, Rosamilia is quick to assuage any concerns that Gaslight Anthem is temporarily dipping back in.
“We’re definitely back,” he said. “And not to be like this is our one new record and we’re going to sit on it for a while. We’re already talking about working on the next thing. We’re not necessarily going straight back into the studio, but we’re in the sketch phase of making a record.”
Gaslight Anthem will be playing on July 29 with Counting Crows at Northwell at Jones Beach Theater, 1000 Ocean Pkwy, Wantagh. For more information, visit www.jonesbeach.com or call 800-745-3000.
