Brian Fallon: The Journey of Jersey Made Music and Its Impact on American Soundtrack History
Jersey Made
In this episode of Jersey Made, host Buzz Knight interviews Brian Fallon, the frontman of Gaslight Anthem, about his musical journey. The co
Key takeaways
- Brian Fallon's musical foundation was built on a diverse collection of gospel, folk, and pop artists curated by his mother.
- The punk DIY ethos in New Jersey was often born out of necessity, such as renting Elks Lodges to host shows when venues wouldn't book them.
Main topics
- New Jersey music history
- Gaslight Anthem origins
Notable quotes
No one's going to give you anything. You've got to go get it.
Conclusion
The episode provides an inspiring look at how regional identity and re
Transcript preview
Speaker 4 (0:02) Jersey made. Speaker 3 (0:03) How do you know you're on the right road when nobody you know has taken it before? For Brian Fallon, there wasn't exactly a map. He was a kid from New Jersey with a cheap guitar, a head full of songs, and an idea of a life that probably didn't make much sense to anyone else. Growing up in Hackettstown, there wasn't much of a music scene, so he and his friends made one. They rented Elks Lodges and American Legion halls and put on their own shows. Later came the New Brunswick music scene and construction jobs to pay the bills. And tours where whatever money you made went right back into gas, tolls, and getting to the next town. Brian once described the philosophy pretty simply. No one's going to give you anything. You've got to go get it. And he did. In 2006, he formed the Gaslight Anthem. Two years later came the 59 Sound, the record that carried four Jersey guys from basement shows to stages around the world. And before long, Brian found himself standing on stage beside Bruce Springsteen, the Jersey songwriter he'd grown up listening to. But Brian Fallon's road hasn't always been a straight one. There have been detours and doubt. a band that stopped and years later found its way back, and now a new record whose title seems to look back at the whole improbable journey with a little bit of pride, a little bit of disbelief, and maybe a little Jersey defiance. It's called Not Bad for New Jersey because maybe the road that matters most is the one you have to figure out for yourself. This is Speaker 7 (1:50) Jersey Made. Hi, I'm Michael Imperioli. I want to tell you about my new podcast, Underground Zero. We're Speaker 1 (1:57) looking at the opportunity of a lifetime for us and the other families. Speaker 7 (2:00) It's about the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. Speaker 1 (2:03) What's in the tunnels? Gold bars, silver ingots. It could be worth half a billion. Speaker 7 (2:08) Starring Steve Schirrippa, Ray Abruzzo, and me, Michael Imperioli. How far are you prepared to go? Depends how far you are. Listen to Underground Zero on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (2:22) Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, Here's the Thing, I talk to actor Stephen Root. I'm Speaker 4 (2:28) a people watcher. You see that guy going down the street and go, yeah, I can use that. Speaker 1 (2:32) And Open Igloo co-founder Alia Mohammed. Speaker 8 (2:35) I love staying on top of what is going on in our city, what is on renters' minds, and taking all of that knowledge to build a platform that hopefully is going to make New York City better in the long run. Speaker 1 (2:47) Listen to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (2:54) In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Petra Mathers and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Speaker 4 (3:06) Dear honeys, this is goodbye. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Speaker 8 (3:14) Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? Listen to Death of an Artist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (3:26) Hey, it's Bobby Bones. Join me and former NFL quarterback Matt Castle every Wednesday on our podcast, Lots to Say, with me, Bobby Bones, and Matt Castle. You're in training camp, and the rookie quarterback has one good throwing session in front of the media. Suddenly, everybody online says he should start over you week one. How do you handle this? You Speaker 4 (3:45) just go back out to practice the Speaker 5 (3:47) next day and wait for him to mess up. Listen to Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (4:01) Jersey Made. Speaker 6 (4:02) Ryan Fallon, welcome to Jersey Made. Hey, glad to be here. Congrats on your new solo album called Not Bad for New Jersey. It's out on September the 10th. I can't imagine better timing for us to have this conversation. You're a singer, a songwriter. You're the front man for the Gaslight Anthem. And most importantly for us, a Jersey guy through and through. Through and through. Yeah. So let's take us to the beginning. You were born in Red Bank, but you spent a big part of your childhood in Hackettstown. Yeah. And in the beginning, musically, it was really you and your mom. She was a singer. She sang gospel music in church, played guitar, and even tried to teach you about harmony. Now, long before punk rock and the Gaslight Anthem, you were hearing church hymns. Woody Guthrie, Richie Havens, Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, and Springsteen. What did your mother give you musically that you still hear in the songs that you write today? You Speaker 2 (5:10) know, I think she had an ear for, she always had good music, like nothing. My mom had this little cassette, like carrier that was like, it looked like a little suitcase and she would always let me kind of go through it whenever I wanted and like try things. And so she had like Brie Springsteen. A lot of Billy Joel was a big thing around our house. Joni Mitchell would be there. Maybe Paul Simon. And like early, like she really liked that mid-period Eric Clapton when he did the white suits in like 24 Nights. She had that one. And I. Was fascinated by that but but my mom always had good taste. I was really as I've gotten older I've really realized that my mom there was no clunkers in my mom's Cassette rack there was nothing there every time I would go and look for something you know I would find something to like there was always something and uh It my mom had a good jet a good year for melody, so I think that's probably why I feel you know kind of drawn to just, I love pop music. Speaker 6 (6:20) Your mom had one rule, though, about the music that you listened to. No cursing. No cursing. That is correct. Speaker 6 (6:29) You've actually connected that to the fact that you don't really cuss in any gas lights. Speaker 2 (6:34) Never, never, never, never. You can't. It's not for, I can't do it. It's not that you would be so mad. And I think, you know, in general, I try not to do it as a whole. I just think it's not it for me. It's not, I don't know. I just think that it's just not for me, but I definitely hear it when other people do it. I'm like, ah, that's kind of sound cool though. But. Speaker 2 (6:59) I got too much of that. I was really raised on those hymns. I can't be doing that. Speaker 6 (7:09) So part of what we're exploring with Jersey Made is the idea of what you might call Jersey toughness. Growing up a little overlooked, maybe a little underestimated, and deciding you're going to make your mark anyway. There's a grit to it, a willingness to figure things out for yourself and not wait for somebody to give you permission. And you could see that all through. your story, especially in those early years, you and your friends, you couldn't get booked. So you rented the Elks Lodges and American Legion Halls and you put on your own shows. And then later in those early days of Gaslight, you and Benny were working at the Rutgers newspaper, burning CDs and figuring out the merch yourselves. When you look back at those days, how much of that do you think? was punk DIY and how much of it was just being a kid from New Jersey? Speaker 2 (8:08) You know, I think that a lot of the, the punk stuff came from just a need. I think punk in general came from that kind of thing. Like. You know, my dog is barking very much. We welcome dogs all the time. He's a Speaker 6 (8:30) loud boy. He's very loud. They have grit and determination of their own. Speaker 2 (8:34) He is, yeah. Apparently, we have the loudest dog in the world. Speaker 6 (8:38) But Speaker 2 (8:38) I think a lot of the punk thing of throwing our own shows and making our own CDs and all that stuff was... less about following some kind of ethos and more about necessity, you know, because we, we had this desire and we wanted to play music and we wanted to kind of do it with our friends and everybody else was kind of like, well, no, you know, we're, you're not going to be able to sell a hundred tickets to this venue or whatever. So, you know, we'll just do it ourselves. And then I think that that's kind of the nature of like, the punk thing, which is an extremely New Jersey thing, you know, to just be like, well, I'm like, you say, no, I'm going to do it myself. Speaker 6 (9:22) What was the first paid concert ticket experience that you can tell us Speaker 2 (9:30) about? For me going to a concert? Yeah. Oh, that was Depeche Mode at PNC Bank Art Center. My mom and my stepdad took me to see Depeche Mode. And it's funny because it was actually supposed to be Motley Crue with John Corabi singing. Speaker 2 (9:50) Not Vince Neil. And you got to remember, I was like 11. And so they just said, pick a show. And they showed me the flyer and the East Coast rocker of the PNC Bank schedule. And so I said, oh, Motley Crue, that sounds cool. I had no idea what Motley Crue was at the time. I don't think I even knew a song. But it looked cool. I was like, oh, Skulls. Yeah, Motley Crue. It's probably cool. And then