Benny Horowitz - The Gaslight Anthem (11/10/2014)
Fresh off the release of The Gaslight Anthem’s fifth studio album Get Hurt, drummer Benny Horowitz spoke to The 59th Sound to about their just announced Australian tour, and the band’s decision to record a decidedly grungy album in the heart of American Country music.
“We’ve actually done the last two records in the same place, in Black Bird studios in Nashville. We weren’t necessarily one-hundred percent that we had to do it there, but the one thing that was important… We recorded American Slang in New York city, which is kind of a home town thing for us, where you go home every night. You go to the studio every day, go home every night, and get back in to whatever you’re in to, then go back to the studio the next day. We all kind of found that sort of distracting, y’know? Where, when you get in to a place like Nashville, we don’t really know anybody down there, and you’ve got nowhere to go! You’re in no rush to leave the studio, and we found you could put your head in to it a little more when you get away. So yeah, we did that!”
“We were talking about some different places to go, there was a studio in London, but we thought London in February sounds kind of gross. We were thinking about New Orleans, just because we thought it might be cool, but we couldn’t find the right studio. We’ve been at Black Bird before, so it’s just like – I mean fuck – it’s just one of the nicest studios you’ll ever see. Everybody there is super cool, so it was a pretty easy choice to go back there.”
Gaslight fans whom loathe country need not fret, as geography didn’t generate much of a musical influence.
“Honestly, there’s not a lot of country fans in the band. I think you’ll find some small Hank (Williams), or Johnny Cash stuff. Still, I don’t think there’s anybody who really digs deep in to any country in our band. I know that the boys really like the gear (at Black Bird). It’s fuckin’ guitar town, so there’s a million awesome guitar shops those guys love digging in to. I’m not much of a gear head, so I kind of don’t care about that stuff as much (chuckles).”
It’s refreshing to hear a world famous musician not reel off technical specs or pricey equipment as standard to make them think they sound better. Ben freely elaborates on his matter-of-fact approach to playing the drums.
“I feel like drummers place a little too much onus on their shit, sometimes. I think most drums that have a decent head on it and you strike it the right way, it’s probably going to sound alright. I’m that type of guy that if I find something that I like that’s good, then I just use it for fucking ever. I don’t really like the change. I know a lot of guys that are constantly looking for something new, something else, and I’m kind of quite the opposite. I would prefer to just have one thing I love, then use it until it dies.”
“I had an old Pearl kit. I Pearl custom masters kit I used for, like, ten years. Then I started hooking up with this company Dark Horse, who’s a small custom company in New Jersey. Their shop is about twenty minutes away from where I live, so now I just use their shit. They gave me a kit for the states, and a kit for Europe. I’ve only switched out once because our driver got in to an accident in Europe once and it ruined one of the kits. I mean, it wasn’t his fault, but the kit took a beating.”
“I am a little particular about sizes. I know exactly the dimensions I like now after all these years. I’ve gone bigger through the years, especially because I don’t play as fast, I guess. I don’t need it to be as frantic.”
Get Hurt certainly shows elements of a more tempered Gaslight Anthem. Ben’s interpretation of the album as someone who helped create it is considerably more factually detailed than any outside critic or fan could hope to perceive.
“I think (it’s more tempered), yeah, to a point. It’s one of those funny things, like a misnomer with music, that the punk beat is actually faster. Once you put it on a BPM thing it’s often not. There’s definitely a lot of elements of sounds and space that we play with more now than we used to. We’re a little more comfortable to play in space, and a little more comfortable to fuck with sounds.”
“There’s always a learning curve. I think bands that don’t appreciate that there is a learning curve might actually do it wrong. I think a song like (new single) Stay Vicious, we probably wouldn’t have been able to write without writing Too Much Blood on the last record. Kind of start learning how to get in that pocket, or whatever.”
“A lot about the music is feel, y’know? You can’t really feel something until it becomes second nature. So I do think there’s a learning curve, and I think it’s really important. It’s sort of presumptuous for musicians, I think, to be like ‘Oh, I’m going to start playing this type of music, and the second I do it I’m going to be really good at it’. It takes time and it takes practise.”
It’s interesting to discover just how much influence Ben has on a song written by (front man) Brian Fallon or (lead guitarist) Alex Rosamilia during the recording process. He makes it clear that no one is calling each other’s ideas ‘shit’, in any case.
“That’s a great way for a band to get in to trouble! I think it’s an important thing to learn in a band is that every idea’s a good idea. If somebody has one, it’s worth a try. There needs to be a mutual respect amongst the players in your band. If somebody has an idea and you don’t think it’ll work, you give it a shot! That’s definitely the case.”
“With my drum stuff, Brian usually comes in with guitars and vocals, and I sort of write the parts I want to write for the songs. Recently we’ve done a little more with Garage Band and demoing. Sometimes Brian will find a sample or a loop to put behind something, but really just as a general timing or reference for him. I still have completely free reign to write the stuff I want to write.”
“Naturally I try to write thing that don’t fuck with Brian. I’m quite the opposite, trying to write drum parts that compliment what everyone else is doing., rather than take away. A lot of the stuff I play is really basic up top, and then trying to run kick drum patterns, accents and fills, to really match the vocals and the melody. Just trying to make everything sound smooth and move forward. It’s really what I consider to be the most important job of a drummer in a band like this. I’m certainly not going to tell Brian how to write lyrics! There’s just some things some people are good at, and some things people are bad at.”
With talk of artists playing to their strengths, it seems Gaslight Anthem fans will be waiting a bronze eternity for Ben Horowitz to fashion a side project.
“I suck at writing lyrics. I love to write, but every time I write lyrics they sound like a Rage Against The Machine record; political, like, Rap-Core. It might be okay if I were in that type of band, but… you will most likely never see me doing anything not behind a drum kit!”
While The Gaslight Anthem's tour was not yet announced at the time of this interview, fans will soon be able to experience the band's latest offering Get Hurt in a live environment.
“Yeah, we are going to come down there. I couldn’t even give you details because I don’t even have them yet. But we are definitely coming, that’s the reason we’re on the phone. I think it’s going to be toward late-winter, or late-winter for us. I don’t exactly know when, where, or how yet!" (See below for confirmed tour dates.)
Like so many beloved bands in the past, Gaslight’s musical change in direction with Get Hurt has garnered some negative reviews from formerly adoring publications. Ben concludes the interview spiritedly conveying the level with which he explores reviews, both good an bad, while taking a more than justified aim at a certain three-pronged online music website that – perhaps characteristically – presented a garbled slew of self-righteous nastiness posing as a clever negative review of Get Hurt.
“I read a lot of reviews, actually. I don’t mind getting an idea of what people have to say about it. I’m pretty confident about the fact that, like, when me and the guys write a record, and we like the record, and then we go to the studio and all the people in the studio are invested in this record as we are... I really come out with a lot of confidence. I never know if people are going to like it, but I know we like it. That gives me confidence going in to it, because that makes me be able to partially not care what reviews say.”
“That said, reading some super shit review about your band is not fun! It doesn’t feel good. The last thing I wanted from this record was for people to just shrug it off. I’d rather someone listen to the record three or four times and tell me why they hate it, than somebody being like ‘Yeah, it’s alright’. Because we did take a departure, and we did take a step to maybe freak people out a little. It was important that we went ahead and tried to make this record. And I’m proud of the record.”
“(Reviews) are interesting though. The one thing I think about is, like, Pitchfork hated the record this time, or whoever reviewed it for them hated it. Wrote a pretty gnarly review of it. So, y’know, I read it, and I’m like ‘That guy’s sort of a prick’, and he’s not really in to it. I get mad for a second, then I think that me and Alex had a band we did called The Killing Gift in the early 2000’s, this female-fronted band that was okay. We did one record and it’s funny to me that that record got a higher rating on Pitchfork than any Gaslight record has ever got.”
“It really just highlights the arbitrary nature of reviews, and people’s opinions. You’d think that something as influence as Pitchfork would care to dig in to the music a little more and not just do personal attacks on people’s personalities. It just came off as petty and childish. Yeah… that guy can go fuck himself (laughs).”
Todd Gingell
“We’ve actually done the last two records in the same place, in Black Bird studios in Nashville. We weren’t necessarily one-hundred percent that we had to do it there, but the one thing that was important… We recorded American Slang in New York city, which is kind of a home town thing for us, where you go home every night. You go to the studio every day, go home every night, and get back in to whatever you’re in to, then go back to the studio the next day. We all kind of found that sort of distracting, y’know? Where, when you get in to a place like Nashville, we don’t really know anybody down there, and you’ve got nowhere to go! You’re in no rush to leave the studio, and we found you could put your head in to it a little more when you get away. So yeah, we did that!”
“We were talking about some different places to go, there was a studio in London, but we thought London in February sounds kind of gross. We were thinking about New Orleans, just because we thought it might be cool, but we couldn’t find the right studio. We’ve been at Black Bird before, so it’s just like – I mean fuck – it’s just one of the nicest studios you’ll ever see. Everybody there is super cool, so it was a pretty easy choice to go back there.”
Gaslight fans whom loathe country need not fret, as geography didn’t generate much of a musical influence.
“Honestly, there’s not a lot of country fans in the band. I think you’ll find some small Hank (Williams), or Johnny Cash stuff. Still, I don’t think there’s anybody who really digs deep in to any country in our band. I know that the boys really like the gear (at Black Bird). It’s fuckin’ guitar town, so there’s a million awesome guitar shops those guys love digging in to. I’m not much of a gear head, so I kind of don’t care about that stuff as much (chuckles).”
It’s refreshing to hear a world famous musician not reel off technical specs or pricey equipment as standard to make them think they sound better. Ben freely elaborates on his matter-of-fact approach to playing the drums.
“I feel like drummers place a little too much onus on their shit, sometimes. I think most drums that have a decent head on it and you strike it the right way, it’s probably going to sound alright. I’m that type of guy that if I find something that I like that’s good, then I just use it for fucking ever. I don’t really like the change. I know a lot of guys that are constantly looking for something new, something else, and I’m kind of quite the opposite. I would prefer to just have one thing I love, then use it until it dies.”
“I had an old Pearl kit. I Pearl custom masters kit I used for, like, ten years. Then I started hooking up with this company Dark Horse, who’s a small custom company in New Jersey. Their shop is about twenty minutes away from where I live, so now I just use their shit. They gave me a kit for the states, and a kit for Europe. I’ve only switched out once because our driver got in to an accident in Europe once and it ruined one of the kits. I mean, it wasn’t his fault, but the kit took a beating.”
“I am a little particular about sizes. I know exactly the dimensions I like now after all these years. I’ve gone bigger through the years, especially because I don’t play as fast, I guess. I don’t need it to be as frantic.”
Get Hurt certainly shows elements of a more tempered Gaslight Anthem. Ben’s interpretation of the album as someone who helped create it is considerably more factually detailed than any outside critic or fan could hope to perceive.
“I think (it’s more tempered), yeah, to a point. It’s one of those funny things, like a misnomer with music, that the punk beat is actually faster. Once you put it on a BPM thing it’s often not. There’s definitely a lot of elements of sounds and space that we play with more now than we used to. We’re a little more comfortable to play in space, and a little more comfortable to fuck with sounds.”
“There’s always a learning curve. I think bands that don’t appreciate that there is a learning curve might actually do it wrong. I think a song like (new single) Stay Vicious, we probably wouldn’t have been able to write without writing Too Much Blood on the last record. Kind of start learning how to get in that pocket, or whatever.”
“A lot about the music is feel, y’know? You can’t really feel something until it becomes second nature. So I do think there’s a learning curve, and I think it’s really important. It’s sort of presumptuous for musicians, I think, to be like ‘Oh, I’m going to start playing this type of music, and the second I do it I’m going to be really good at it’. It takes time and it takes practise.”
It’s interesting to discover just how much influence Ben has on a song written by (front man) Brian Fallon or (lead guitarist) Alex Rosamilia during the recording process. He makes it clear that no one is calling each other’s ideas ‘shit’, in any case.
“That’s a great way for a band to get in to trouble! I think it’s an important thing to learn in a band is that every idea’s a good idea. If somebody has one, it’s worth a try. There needs to be a mutual respect amongst the players in your band. If somebody has an idea and you don’t think it’ll work, you give it a shot! That’s definitely the case.”
“With my drum stuff, Brian usually comes in with guitars and vocals, and I sort of write the parts I want to write for the songs. Recently we’ve done a little more with Garage Band and demoing. Sometimes Brian will find a sample or a loop to put behind something, but really just as a general timing or reference for him. I still have completely free reign to write the stuff I want to write.”
“Naturally I try to write thing that don’t fuck with Brian. I’m quite the opposite, trying to write drum parts that compliment what everyone else is doing., rather than take away. A lot of the stuff I play is really basic up top, and then trying to run kick drum patterns, accents and fills, to really match the vocals and the melody. Just trying to make everything sound smooth and move forward. It’s really what I consider to be the most important job of a drummer in a band like this. I’m certainly not going to tell Brian how to write lyrics! There’s just some things some people are good at, and some things people are bad at.”
With talk of artists playing to their strengths, it seems Gaslight Anthem fans will be waiting a bronze eternity for Ben Horowitz to fashion a side project.
“I suck at writing lyrics. I love to write, but every time I write lyrics they sound like a Rage Against The Machine record; political, like, Rap-Core. It might be okay if I were in that type of band, but… you will most likely never see me doing anything not behind a drum kit!”
While The Gaslight Anthem's tour was not yet announced at the time of this interview, fans will soon be able to experience the band's latest offering Get Hurt in a live environment.
“Yeah, we are going to come down there. I couldn’t even give you details because I don’t even have them yet. But we are definitely coming, that’s the reason we’re on the phone. I think it’s going to be toward late-winter, or late-winter for us. I don’t exactly know when, where, or how yet!" (See below for confirmed tour dates.)
Like so many beloved bands in the past, Gaslight’s musical change in direction with Get Hurt has garnered some negative reviews from formerly adoring publications. Ben concludes the interview spiritedly conveying the level with which he explores reviews, both good an bad, while taking a more than justified aim at a certain three-pronged online music website that – perhaps characteristically – presented a garbled slew of self-righteous nastiness posing as a clever negative review of Get Hurt.
“I read a lot of reviews, actually. I don’t mind getting an idea of what people have to say about it. I’m pretty confident about the fact that, like, when me and the guys write a record, and we like the record, and then we go to the studio and all the people in the studio are invested in this record as we are... I really come out with a lot of confidence. I never know if people are going to like it, but I know we like it. That gives me confidence going in to it, because that makes me be able to partially not care what reviews say.”
“That said, reading some super shit review about your band is not fun! It doesn’t feel good. The last thing I wanted from this record was for people to just shrug it off. I’d rather someone listen to the record three or four times and tell me why they hate it, than somebody being like ‘Yeah, it’s alright’. Because we did take a departure, and we did take a step to maybe freak people out a little. It was important that we went ahead and tried to make this record. And I’m proud of the record.”
“(Reviews) are interesting though. The one thing I think about is, like, Pitchfork hated the record this time, or whoever reviewed it for them hated it. Wrote a pretty gnarly review of it. So, y’know, I read it, and I’m like ‘That guy’s sort of a prick’, and he’s not really in to it. I get mad for a second, then I think that me and Alex had a band we did called The Killing Gift in the early 2000’s, this female-fronted band that was okay. We did one record and it’s funny to me that that record got a higher rating on Pitchfork than any Gaslight record has ever got.”
“It really just highlights the arbitrary nature of reviews, and people’s opinions. You’d think that something as influence as Pitchfork would care to dig in to the music a little more and not just do personal attacks on people’s personalities. It just came off as petty and childish. Yeah… that guy can go fuck himself (laughs).”
Todd Gingell
Tickets for The Gaslight Anthem… ‘By Request!’ on sale now!
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