Back in February, Kasabian’s Tom Meighan made a fuss about how, in his opinion, the Internet has killed the myth of the rock star. “There’s too much on blogs now,” he ranted, “and I think it’s killed it off. There are so many rock stars writing these self-pitying blogs and it’s not in the spirit of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Well, in the first part of a new “making of” video series from New Jersey rockers the Gaslight Anthem, I think singer Brian Fallon proves that musicians can lift the curtain online without demystifying a thing.
Fallon opens up about how their breakthrough record, The ‘59 Sound, was meant to showcase their influences from the history of rock, which left them a bit unsure of their next step: “We were just like ‘this is what we love, here put it out there,’ and now it was like ‘oh boy, now what?’” He goes on to describe in great detail how revisiting the Clash’s early discography helped the band build confidence about their new, non-‘59, sound. Gaslight Anthem are giving us a look behind the curtain, sure, but learning more about the process (in this case) makes the songs themselves even more mysterious. To me, at least.
“All these songs came to me in my head,” Fallon says. “They all just kind of… they were there one day.” Perhaps artists are still being visited by the spirit of Rock ‘n’ Roll after all. Watch Part 1 below: