Brian Fallon’s favorite Gaslight Anthem album ‘Handwritten’ turns 10 – “Anything was possible”

Yet much like the Grateful Dead anecdote above, sifting through the group’s choice of songs yields curious observations of where this newly revitalized Gaslight Anthem of 2022 find themselves. Entries from American Slang (2010) and Sink or Swim (2007) took a few slots, while the fan-favorite Señor and the Queen EP (2008) and a wild Nirvana cover skated through with individual inclusions. Perhaps most notably, Get Hurt (2014), the band’s final (and somewhat divisive) release before their indefinite hiatus in 2015—described in a particularly savage Pitchfork review as the sound of “a band with the heart of a Dodge Challenger” and the “plasticine production of a Kia”—received only a single cursory mention. Of the five studio albums on offer, Handwritten (2012) and The ’59 Sound featured most prominently in their Crossroads set, landing five and six tracks, respectively.

All of this close reading begs the question: what’s driving the sudden love and appreciation for Handwritten? Could it be the tenth anniversary of the group’s moderately well-received fourth studio album and major-label debut for Mercury Records? The answer, according to Fallon, is actually rather simple and achingly sentimental. It’s the one album in the Gaslight discography that best captures the moment when the quartet were able to combine much-needed solitude with unfettered creativity.

“Handwritten is my favorite record from all the records,” Fallon says over the phone on a Wednesday evening, in the middle of unboxing a new pair of Dinosaur Jr. shoes, apologizing as his dog excitedly slams around in the background. “We had just gone away to Nashville to go record with Brendan O’Brien and we were alone, no one was bothering us. There was no one there, it was just the four or five of us, and I remember just being so happy to not be in an area that I knew. No managers, no girlfriends, no wives—nothing.”

Following their runaway success and rapid ascent in the late ‘00s—including enviable stage-time with long-time influence Bruce Springsteen—being hailed as ‘the saviors of rock ‘n’ roll’ by an overly enthusiastic music press began to take its toll on the group. “I’m [the] kind of person who needs time alone to think and I had that time during Handwritten,” Fallon explains. “It felt like such a break because it was after The ‘59 Sound, American Slang and all this hype, where it felt like everybody was surrounding us all the time. To be able to just stop and record a record for a month in Nashville—which is a much slower moving place than New York or New Jersey—it felt like we didn’t know anybody. It felt like we were alone in the woods, and anything was possible.”

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For as long as I can remember, people have always described me as an ‘old soul’. As a child, that’s not something you tend to dwell on too much, but as I begrudgingly move through my thirties, it’s steadily become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When it comes to music, my childhood was full of anachronism, the result of an Australian mother permanently fixated on ‘70s disco and a hard-working Midwestern father who only had two enjoyable modes: Garth Brooks or Tim McGraw. It wasn’t until my post-Y2K adolescence that the gravitational pull of youthful rebellion eventually led to the harsh allure of hardcore, punk and metal. And yet, some of my fondest memories revolve around the home-cooked smell of a Sunday breakfast with Born in the U.S.A. loudly spinning on the turntable.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing and The Gaslight Anthem, quite intentionally, wield it like a weapon. Across much of their early material, there’s a distinct melancholic yearning for times long past, places ventured, people known. And yet, evoking this idealized version of what came before also, by necessity, comes with a degree of self-awareness. “I’m romanticizing this thing I wasn’t there for. It probably sucked in the ‘50s for Bette Davis making movies. I’m sure it was horrible,” Fallon admits. “My Mom would say, ‘We used to get under our desks. We thought they were gonna bomb us, and we’re gonna blow up.’ That doesn’t sound fun at all, but in my head, that’s not what it’s like. In my head, there’s Elvis Presley, and The Beatles are about to come out.” While The ’59 Sound overflows with assorted retro signifiers—Miles Davis, high-top sneakers, Audrey Hepburn, sailor tattoos, dream girl stand-ins (Maria, Jane, Gail, Anna, etc.)—follow-up American Slang punctuates Fallon’s feelings of loss with the dangers of perpetually looking back (“Don’t sing me your songs about the good times/ Those days are gone, and you should just let them go”).

It’s hardly surprising then that Handwritten kicks off with a powerful ode to moving on. “There’re a few songs in my writing experience that are special, where, when they came out, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is really something else.’ And that was one of them.” On album opener “45,” the New Jersey quartet come together in a perfect synthesis, yielding a foot-to-the-floor barnburner driven by Rosamilia’s bouncy lead guitar line and Fallon’s impeccable chorus. Discarding the need for cloaking his lyrics in abstracted references, Fallon’s narrative thrust instead becomes a deeply personal one. “It was just me talking to myself. I was carrying around this thing for a long time, and that sucks,” he explains. “So I thought, ‘Alright, well, what if you just let it go? Just drop it. Don’t think about it anymore. You stop it.’ And then you realize that there’s a whole other life without this baggage.” As a metaphor for perseverance, the anthemic track is resolutely universal in its relatability. Combined with an irresistible hook, it’s also a fierce contender for one of the group’s best-ever performances. Even Fallon’s mother is a fan (“She really likes the rockers”).

More so than any record in their discography, Handwritten is where the band’s heartland romanticism and punk rock Americana collide. “Here Comes My Man” and the Ramones-inspired “Howl” swing and sway with sha-la-la’s and stadium-ready chants. Slow-burn numbers like “Keepsake” and album standout “Mae” echo the blues-inflected folk Fallon had previously explored on Elsie, the 2011 debut album from his side project duo The Horrible Crowes. Elsewhere, “Biloxi Parish” finds Horowitz and Levine trading playful rhythms against Rosamilia’s wailing guitar, while “Too Much Blood” pushes Fallon’s gravelly register to new, warbling heights.

On the album’s plaintive title track, the yearning to belong takes center stage. “When I was writing that song, I was thinking about how we’ve connected to this community of people [where] the people who like The Gaslight Anthem are very much like the people in The Gaslight Anthem,” Fallon says. “I was thinking about these people and how they come to the show; they’ve worked all week; they bought their tickets. Maybe they’ve looked forward to it for months, or they’ve gotten sitters, and it’s this big thing in their life.” To be an artist and performer is to be a willing participant in this nightly rite of passage, a conduit for communal desire and catharsis. For Fallon, each line becomes an earnest declaration of this intent, painstakingly delivered with tender love and care; his “Pages bleed forgiveness/ Every word handwritten.”

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When I first saw The Gaslight Anthem, they had packed out a shitty dive bar in Brisbane called Rosies in early 2008, right before The ’59 Sound pushed them into the punk rock stratosphere. It was the type of bar where they never cleaned the keg lines and the threat of a fire-code violation hung over the venue like a dark cloud. Still, the energy in the room that night was electric, as members of other bands stood guard on side-of-stage during the Gaslight set, a collection of tattooed sentries fighting a losing battle against waves of sweaty punters and eager stage divers. The next time I managed to catch the band on tour, only three short years later in 2011, they were playing festival slots to thousands alongside Pennywise and Social Distortion, with Fallon howling his wild heart out, clad in a trademark white t-shirt, just like their song encouraged (blue jeans regrettably switched out for black).

More than a decade on, when discussing the band’s recent reunion, Fallon describes wanting to return the band to their idealized state, a quest for greatness with the added benefit of hindsight. “There were times during Sink or Swim where I truly thought, ‘This is great.’ We were playing these tiny shows, and, in my head, I was like, ‘We’re the greatest band in the world.’ That’s how it felt,” Fallon reveals with distinct fondness. Responding to whether this restorative pursuit might signify the group is embracing the nostalgia kick that permeates their back catalogue, his answer is more practical than wistful. “Whenever it’s working and functioning, I pretty much think it’s great.” For this reason, among many others, Handwritten stands out as the culmination of their whirlwind rise. “It was the first record where I felt like it was the thing we were working to for so long, like that was the defining record of the band for that time.”

Returning to their Crossroads set and its noticeable slant towards Handwritten material, Fallon stresses that such late-round appreciation ultimately bodes well for The Gaslight Anthem’s future. “Some people are like, ‘I love Handwritten.’ But some people say that for every record now. They’re starting some sort of retroactive effect, where people who have no idea what Sink or Swim is are like, ‘Get Hurt is my favorite record.’ Which is pretty crazy,” Fallon says with a wry laugh. “We’re starting to have a career arc, and I think that’s cool because that’s what keeps things having a new life. They don’t die away, and you get new generations coming in and discovering them.”

Much like the outro coda on melancholic album closer “National Anthem” (“Whatever gets you through the night”), Fallon & Co are just thankful to be back in business and living in the moment, fulfilling needs wherever they can. “If we get to be one of those bands where they have a career long enough that you can come in at the midpoint or the late point or early, and it doesn’t matter—there’s still something there for you—I think that’s real success.”

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Watch and listen to videos for select tracks from Handwritten, with additional commentary from Fallon on the details behind each song:

“Howl”

“I remember writing that song and then just being like, ‘Alright, I wrote two minutes. I don’t think it has a chorus, but it has this really catchy part and that’s it.’ And then it like took on a life of its own, where we would go to festivals, and it would be all these people who didn’t really know the band. You could sing along right away, even if you’ve never heard the band before. Then this hockey team, the Devils from New Jersey, started using it as their goal song. Their goal song used to be that White Stripes one, ‘Seven Nation Army,’ and ours kicked it out. So, I was pretty happy with that. And now every time they score a goal, it’s singing the chorus of ‘Howl,’ which I think is hilarious and awesome.”