Brian Fallon: "The new record's a drastic shift"

"The writing style that I have, and I think that everyone has, is a style that's just inherently them." Listening to ‘Forget Me Not', the first single from his new album, it's hard to disagree with Brian Fallon's assessment of his songs. The furnishings may be different, with Fallon's yelped vocals more playful than passionate and a retro organ flitting behind the guitars, but the backbone is reassuringly familiar. Through a career or highs and lows under various names and in different bands, Brian Fallon's songwriting has always had a distinctive character that lets you know just who you're listening to. Whether it's The Gaslight Anthem's punk spin on Springsteen's heartland rock or the moody blues of the oft-overlooked ‘Horrible Crowes', Fallon's songs are rooted in melodies and lyrical twists that, after more than ten years in the game, are unmistakably his. While the core of his songs remains the same, Fallon is adept at dressing his tales of heartbreak and highways up in different clothes; be they The Gaslight Anthem's blue jeans and white T-shirts, a Tom Waits suit with The Horrible Crowes or the jean jackets of his solo debut. As always, with a new project comes a brand new disguise. After trying his hand at folksy Americana on his solo debut ‘Painkillers', Fallon decided to amp things up for the follow-up. "It's definitely more electric; there are more uptempo songs on it. A little bit more influenced by a lot of the 60s RnB groups like the Animals with some of the organ sounds. But also Elvis Costello and the Attractions and The Jam and stuff like that were pretty influential in mixing the American soul music with the British punk, R&B thing." Due for release in February, ‘Sleepwalkers' was recorded over the summer of 2017 with ‘'59 Sound' producer Tedd Hutt. Despite the familiar faces, Fallon is still trying to push the way he writes songs in new directions. "I had these handclaps loops like drum loops. So I would start out with that kind of shuffle and look at it through the eyes of the punk rock that I grew up on and then add the Vox Continental [organ], writing riffs on that and almost using that riff as a loop, which I've never done before."