Brian Fallon gets back to basics: "The idea of making a loud record, just didn't feel like it was working"

Brian Fallon is at a fork in the road as he releases his third solo LP, 'Local Honey'. His heady days rolling with Bruce Springsteen and pummeling festival main stages every summer fronting The Gaslight Anthem are behind him, and the mainstream success that band flirted with is in the rearview mirror.

Chatting ahead of the new record's release, Fallon is quick to draw a definitive line under Gaslight's 2018 anniversary shows. "That was just a one-time thing," he affirms, politely but unequivocally. "We wanted to do it just to wrap that thing up and say okay, we're acknowledging this record and we'll go one more time. Because the last tour we did we announced after the tour had started [that the band was going on hiatus]. So I think that [2018] was that chance to say, we're gonna do this tour to celebrate this record. And then also it's your chance to come see us if you wanted to." That chapter is closed then? "As far as I'm concerned, I don't see anything else to be done." Oof.

That clarity may have informed the most restrained record Fallon has put his name on, 'Local Honey' sparse at eight tracks and resisting the louder heartland-rock sound that continued in the first two stanzas of his solo career. The album rests on carefully picked acoustic guitars, delicate piano and gently brushed drum skins, Fallon's vocal never aiming further than the microphone. "I did not intend to do that," he admits. "It was something I've been working on for a long time in my head. The idea of making a loud record right now just didn't feel like it was working. I was making demos of some songs, and some of them were loud, the tempos were faster, and it seemed instead of like, getting more exciting, they were getting less exciting."