Gaslight Anthem lead singer talks tours, music, DeLuna Fest

A: Yeah, I’ve been there a couple times.

Q: How come? Vacation?

A: Probably for a show. I don’t really go on vacation ever. I’ve never been a vacation guy, you know?

Q: What do you do instead of vacation?

A: Stay home. Because I always travel all the time, so I don’t want to go anywhere else, I just want to go home.

Q: How was working with Brendan O’Brien (on the new album)? It sounds like there’s more polish on the recording.

A: Yeah, well, you get good equipment and a guy with good ears and he knows how to make it sound good. That’s his thing. He makes records sound nice, which I think is a good thing.

Q: Did he play any instruments on the album?

A: Yeah, of course, he played all kinds of crazy stuff like the mandolin and he had this didgeridoo thing.

It was crazy. He really went to town on it, which was cool. He added a lot of extra spice to it, you know?

Q: How long did this one end up taking to record?

A: It took three weeks. That was it.

Q: Is that fast? Slow?

A: That’s normal time. We had as much time as we needed, but we didn’t need much time.

Q: I like the song “45,” it seems like there is a sense of nostalgia in the lyrics Why vinyl? Are you a vinyl guy?

A: It’s just an audio thing. People love to say, “Aw, you like records. It must be nostalgia, blah blah blah.” It’s just that they sound better. I think they sound sonically better compared to a digital recording, you know? You get a lot of loss from the compression they put on an MP3, so that’s kind of what the vibe is.

I drive a normal car, and I have a coffee maker. I don’t have a horse and carriage. Nostalgia’s not really a big part of my life.

Q: Did you listen to vinyl when you were a kid?

A: I listened to everything. My mom had records. Some things she had on vinyl and some things she had on tapes and CDs. I don’t have this staunch vinyl stance. It’s just that people like it, and it sounds good, you know? We put our records on vinyl as well as digital downloads and CDs. If there were cassettes, we’d probably put them out on that too.

Q: What would you be doing if you didn’t do music? Did you ever have a plan of what you wanted to do after high school?

A: Not really. I kind of always wanted to be a musician. I just worked jobs to get by while I was working my way up here. I’m not really sure what I’d be doing. I don’t really think about that too much. You just kind of see where life takes you.

Q: How long have you been doing music now? When did you start?

A: I started when I was maybe about 11. I started playing guitar and took some lessons. So basically since I was 11, so, I don’t know, 21 years? Crazy.

Q: What was your first guitar?

A: It was a little Charvel Stratocaster (laughs).

Q: How long are you going to be touring this record?

A: We’ll probably keep going until sometime at the end of next year. And then start to maybe think about doing a new record.

Q: Are you doing anything different live this time around?

A: We have three guitarists now (Ian Perkins). But that’s really it, just playing a bunch of new songs. We don’t really have any lights or things like that, we don’t really see the point for that right now, you know?

Q: What’s your favorite song from the new album to play live?

A: I don’t know; it’s early on. Early days. I think all of them right now. It’s hard to pick a favorite.

Q: What do you like doing when you’re on tour?

A: I just hang around the show most of the time. I like to hang around with the crew guys and mess with guitars and mess with amps. I don’t really travel around too much ever.

Q: What about at festivals?

A: I watch tons of bands. That’s the time you get to see all the bands you wanted to check out, you know?

Q: What’s the best show you’ve seen this summer?

A: I saw Refused play, which was really good. They were pretty great.

Q: Did you see them back in the day?

A: No, I didn’t see them the first time around. I wasn’t really into it. But I just saw them now. We kind of became friends with them through other bands, so I kind of came to be fond of them later.

Q: What kind of music do you listen to on the road?

A: I listen to all different stuff. There’s a guy named Matt Mays that I’m really into right now. I’ve been into him for a while but he’s got a new record out that I really like called “Coyote.” And I’ve been listening to that a lot.

Q: Anything else?

A: There’s a guy named Matthew Ryan I listen to. I just listen to a lot of different music though, you know, to keep my palate open.

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