Thrasher
THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM 
If you’re not familiar with New Brunswick, New Jersey’s new rock heroes the Gaslight Anthem, don’t worry, because you will be soon. Although the band have only been together for two-and-a-half years, they’ve become one of the underground’s most exciting acts and the anticipation surrounding their sophomore disc The ’59 Sound is palpable on punk message boards and at the band’s shows. Picking up with last year’s excellent EP The Senor And The Queen left off, this album shows the band reconciling their Jersey-bred punk roots with a healthy dose of classic rock and soul influence to attain a unique brand of punk rock that could attract both fans of Hot Water Music and Hank Williams. We caught up with frontman Brian and drummer Benny before a sold out show supporting the Bouncing Souls and Avail frontman Tim Barry. We covered their latest disc, their obsession with Elvis Presley and what makes New Jersey so magical.
So what exactly is the ’59 Sound?
That title came from the idea that we were going for a youthful sound of soul music. I have this vision of 1959 where Elvis is playing and although there were problems in the country there was this youthful excitement in the music they were playing and I don’t think that’s going on right now necessarily.
It seems like Elvis is constantly popping up in your lyrics.
Yeah, I can’t get away from Elvis; something about him is just like mythical to me as a performer. I really don’t know much about his life at all and I’ve never read a biography or seen a movie, but I can’t shake it for some reason. It’s the same thing with Roy Orbison, because I feel llike those two are the icons of America. If in 2040 someone was in a time capsule and they were like “What’s American Music?” You’d throw down Elvis Presely because it’s got gospel, it’s got roots, it’s got country, it’s got everything in it.
Every piece of press I’ve read about you guys also references Springsteen. Was he a big influence on you as well?
I think that Springsteen as an icon really influenced us as far as what we were doing, because he was this kid from Freehold and I was born on Red Bank which was out on the shore and it’s near the beach and Asbury Park and you can sense the heaviness fo the place and what used to be there because it’s pretty torn down now. When you grow up in New Jersey you don’t really think about the other people that have come from there you just think well there’s really nothing here, how am I going to get out in to this big wide world, and I feel like springsteen is the ultimate kid who grew up wrote some songs, thad some dreams and took them on the road and that mentality in his lyrics is really evident. He has the ability of taking a small little situation like going on a date with a girl and that turns into thunder road, do you know what I mean?
Alternately, there have been so many great punk and hardcore bands that have come out of Jersey.
Yeah, for sure. I’m definitely a true byproduct of this part of jersey’s hardcore and punk scenes. I totally grew up with it and it’s still a big part of me, you know I saw Lifetime 15 or 20 times by the time I was seventeen just ecause they were a big local band and the souls back in the day and even one of my first bands we kind of came up with the Thursday guys and like midtown and bands like that. Even for me it as the hardcore scene. Bands like ensign and 108 and all the old really old hardcore bands. I think Jersey has a huge influence on the way we sound and we all grew up here and like anybody from New Jersey thinks, it’s more than just music it’s like some sort of attitude that comes with growing up around here because we’re arrogant and we think it’s such a crazy and unique place, which it might be. As we travel, but it definitely gives us our identity in a lot of way
Does it feel like things have happened really fast for you guys up until now?
Oh yeah I’m totally shocked. I’m shocked and amazed. You know, like we were all, especially me and Brain we’ve been in bands for a really long time just doing different things and we’ve been in bands that were pretty successful and did some stuff but it was always this long process and interesting process that usually and this is the first time we just got into something where four people started and it’s the same four people still going. And it’s been incrementally moving upwards just whenever we look away. No it’s definitely not what we expected, you know? I mean to think of all the tours and records we’ve gotten to do in two years if you asked me if this was going to happen then I would have told you that you were crazy.