Brian Fallon Talks With Guitar.com

Brian Fallon

Brian Fallon talked with Guitar.com:

Fallon points at the floor of the café, a collage of album sleeves. “That’s what I feel like I am,” he says. “But also books and TV shows, people, and places I’ve been. I feel like that’s what makes me up. It just comes out. Everybody has influences, even if a lot of people pretend they don’t. I’m not about trying to be original with every new thing. I’m not like: ‘I was born fully formed with all my ideas and I didn’t get this from anybody.’”

In 2018, just as Fallon was beginning to conceptualise his next solo move, The Gaslight Anthem regrouped to tour The ’59 Sound in its entirety to celebrate the LP’s 10th birthday. The experience was enormously validating at times but it also steeled his resolve to carry on under his own steam. The run, which featured dates on the east coast of the US, as well as in the UK and Europe, stirred complicated emotions. “It was not fun,” he says, with emphasis.

Brian Fallon on the Legacy of ‘The ’59 Sound’

Jackson Sinnenberg, writing at Medium:

When we were doing the designs for merch I was like “I don’t care what I like. What do we think the people who come to our shows will like?” That’s what it should be! It’s not about me. I’m happy to be there, I’m not going to be phoning it in! I’m happy about giving it to them. I don’t look at it like it’s a bad thing. I’m happy there are people there to take it. Like if you asked Ian [MacKaye] the same way how he felt about Fugazi; “Whose band is Fugazi right now?” I bet Ian would say “Not mine, Not Guy’s. It’s their band.” It is! It’s their band! They’re maintaining the house, they’re trimming the garden because their memories do it. It’s become part of their lives now. So, it’s hands off for me.