The Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon: My stories of Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Jon Bon Jovi, Dave Grohl and more

When The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon started out, he never expected to be rubbing shoulders with the great and the good of rock’n’roll.

“I’m just a punk-rock kid from New Jersey,” says the singer, whose band recently reunited and released their first album in nine years, History Books. “I just thought we’d put out some music and hit the clubs.”

Except it didn’t quite pan out like that. Fallon never met Lemmy, but he has sung on stage with Bruce Springsteen at Glastonbury, got life tips from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, and been scared to death by Mark Lanegan.

Bruce Springsteen

I grew up listening to him. I remember being a really young kid and hearing Born In The USA on MTV at my friend’s house, and singing it over and over in the playground at school the next day. The first time I met him was really quick at a benefit show in Redbank, New Jersey – it was just a real quick “Hi” and a handshake, and that was it. Even then I lost my mind. I was freaking out inside.

What happened after was that one of his sons got into The Gaslight Anthem, and said: “Dad, you gotta hear this. It’s like your music but punk.” And I guess Bruce liked it, and reached out when we both played Glastonbury [in 2009]. I say ‘reached out’, it’s a ridiculous story. We’re in our trailer at Glastonbury, like five minutes before we’re due to go on stage, and suddenly all these police cars pull up. I’m like: ‘Okay, I guess we’re going to jail.”

So I go outside, and see Bruce Springsteen walking towards me in his sunglasses, and he goes: [gruffly] “Hey, can I play your song with you?” So literally five minutes later we’re on stage doing The ’59 Sound with Bruce Springsteen in this tent at Glastonbury. And it got even crazier that night, because I went out and sang a song [No Surrender] with him during his headlining set in front of ninety thousand people. Beforehand, I was, like: “I’m gonna throw up”, I was so nervous.’

I’ve gotten to know him pretty well. He’s like: “I’ve got all this life wisdom, and if you want some of it, you can ask me and I will tell you things.” With the new Gaslight record [History Books], he said: “Why don’t you write us a duet to sing?” And I basically sat there for months, going: “I cannot do this, I cannot write a duet for Bruce Springsteen.” But then I realised: “I’m not gonna do that, I’m gonna write a Gaslight Anthem record and not worry about which one is for Bruce.” When it came to picking a song, it’s, like: “It’s that one, it’s gotta be History Books.” We all knew it.

Eddie Vedder

The ‘big three’ to me are Bruce Springsteen, Joe Strummer and Eddie Vedder. I met Eddie at a festival through a friendship with the photographer Danny Clinch. We’d been covering [early Pearl Jam deep cut] State Of Love And Trust, and Danny said: “Eddie knows you guys cover it, he might show up.”

So I’m standing there on stage singing it, and I look over and there he is. And he looks back at me and he’s like: “Hey!” and comes on. None of these people are subtle. They don’t send a text or call, they’re like Batman, they just show up.

Hanging out with him, he’s a really thoughtful guy. His life is similar to mine – family things, growing up not knowing our dads. He gave me a letter, just encouraging us and saying the band is cool. On the second page he said: “I know the lyrics to State Of Love And Trust are kind of hard to understand, so I wanna make sure you’ve got ’em all,” and he wrote them all out.

Tom Morello

Tim McIlrath from [political American punk band] Rise Against organised this benefit show maybe ten years ago. Tim is friends with Tom Morello and Wayne Kramer from the MC5, and he’d orchestrated this cover of [Springsteen’s] The Ghost Of Tom Joad. He’d kindly included me on it cos we were the main support band on the tour. I’m standing there looking at his pedals, thinking: “What gear does he use to get those amazing sounds?” and he goes:“Oh, I just bought this yesterday, it’s nothing special, it’s just a piece of crap I use. It’s not about what you got, it’s about how you play.”

So I go: “Do the thing.” He starts doing all the [makes Morello-esque squealing/siren-like guitar noise], and I’m losing my mind, because all I can see in my head is me at twelve years old, ready to smash the world. For me it was like standing next to Jimmy Page or Angus Young.

Jon Bon Jovi

It’s like with Bruce, Jon decides he wants a friendship with you. I get this call from him out of nowhere. He’s putting this little group of friends together – he decided that him, John Rzeznik from the Goo Goo Dolls and me are gonna be friends. So we all started hanging out together once in a while. It’s bizarrely normal – these are guys you can imagine going to a basketball game with, they’re that kind of guy. But every so often, I’ll be with Jon and I’ll suddenly think: “Woah, this is Jon Bon Jovi!”’

Jon’s got a quietness and confidence to him that’s real strong. It’s almost palpable – you can touch it. He’s like a great athlete – he’s not walking down the hallway on to the pitch high-fiving everybody, “Yeah, we’re the best, we’re gonna go rock ’em.” It’s more like: “I’m going to go out there and do the thing I was born to do.” For me, he’s a real-life rock star, in the very best way.

Greg Dulli

I would talk in interviews a lot about how much I love the Afghan Whigs. We had mutual friends, and they’d say: “Greg’s a fan of your band.” We ended up going on tour with Soundgarden and the Afghan Whigs, and Greg I got to be pretty close. I couldn’t believe how friendly he was – he’s a guy who’s always smiling. One night, we were taking this long, dark walk together through this festival, and he goes: “You want to go and meet Mark Lanegan?” Cos they were friends.

He takes me down this dark path, and suddenly Lanegan just appears out of nowhere, wreathed in smoke, kind of like the devil. He was this big, huge guy with tattoos of stars on his hands. I have never seen a person speak less. When he said hello, I’m not sure he was even looking at me. I stood there and watched him and Greg talking. Afterwards, I go: “Does he not like me?” And Greg goes: “No, he’s like that with anybody.” There was something otherworldly about him.

Jesse Malin

Jesse Malin and I met because The Gaslight Anthem put a couple of records out on [punk label] SideOneDummy, and one the label’s owners, Joe Sib, knew I was a big fan of Jesse’s old band and his solo stuff. He gave Jesse some of my stuff, and he was like: “This is cool, it’s rock’n’roll but punk rock too. Why don’t you put us on the phone.”

So I was standing outside a comic-book store in Boston just before we were playing a show, when Jesse called me. We’d never met or spoken before, but we just hit it off. He told me he loved how I was referencing other songs and musicians in my songs, and he said: “Where do you get that?” I said: “Dude, I got it from hip-hop. It was all about the history and community. A Tribe Called Quest would mention Michael Jackson or whoever.”

We’ve become really good friends. He was at my wedding, he knows my kids, I went to visit him in the hospital [Malin suffered a spinal stroke in 2023]. He still talks about the name-checking thing: “Man, I'd never have thought about that.”

Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi)

When I was a kid I loved Minor Threat. They were one of the first bands I really got into. Then when we were recording [The Gaslight Anthem’s third album] American Slang at the Magic Shop studio in New York, we look downstairs and see Ian MacKaye in this small room. “That’s Ian MaKaye! What’s he doing here, in that little room?”

So we go down there one at a time and sit and listen to all these Dischord records he was remastering. He’s hanging out all day, and people like Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys and [former Saturday Night Live/Portlandia] actor Fred Armisen are dropping by, just this parade of famous New Yorkers. I said: “I know this is cheesy, but my best friend is the biggest fan of you. Can I take a photo and send it to him?” And he stops eating and goes: “Of course, let’s do it!”

Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers)

Jakob is very, very cool, and he’s one of the best-looking people I have ever seen in my life. He walks into the room and it’s like Kate Moss has just walked in – everyone is like: “Wow, that person is beautiful.” I got to know him through Joe Sib too, and Jesse Malin. He’s so funny, but also really irreverent and punk rock. I was shocked at how much he knew about punk rock.

I’m like: “Your dad’s Bob Dylan, this giant famous person, how can you have any experience with punk rock?” But he knows all about that stuff. Even though his dad is who he is, Jakob had to do everything on his own. If one of my kids said: “I need a Marshall stack to go play,” I’d be: “Okay, here you go.” But he said his dad wanted him to go and do it on his own so he could say he’d done it on his own, which I think was awesome.

Dave Grohl

Dave Grohl is one of those guys who’s always hanging out. He’ll always show up in a good mood. One time we were at a festival, and I said to him: “You gotta produce a Gaslight record.” He thought about it for a minute, then he comes back to me and says: “Here’s what I think: what am I gonna say? I’m a fan of your band, you’re gonna play me a song and I’m gonna go: ‘Sounds awesome!’ And then I’ve got nothing left to give you. I can’t critique your band, because I’m a fan, and that’s why I wouldn’t be a good producer.” I thought: “Damn, that’s disappointing but awesome at the same time."

History Books is out now via Rich Mahogany Recordings/ Thirty Tigers. The Gaslight Anthem tour Europe in March.