Brian Fallon breaks down Not Bad For New Jersey and two decades on the road

Brian Fallon has revisited his whole career arc in a long interview with Kerrang!, published this week. The conversation centers on Not Bad For New Jersey, the new album the Gaslight Anthem frontman describes as the most free-feeling record he has made.

Fallon walks through the road that took him from a Jersey kid to a figure with two decades of influence in punk rock behind him. He talks about growing up as an outsider, about a stretch when he considered himself the worst singer on earth, and about the slow work of building a voice from that starting point. At one point he compares himself to Cyndi Lauper within the punk world.

Bruce Springsteen also turns up in the piece. Fallon shares stories involving New Jersey's most famous export, pizzas included, and the connection between the two musicians runs alongside the regional identity that gives the new album its title.

Fallon built his name fronting The Gaslight Anthem, one of the defining rock-leaning punk bands of the late 2000s and early 2010s, before establishing a steady solo run. Not Bad For New Jersey lands as another chapter in that story, and by his own account the one least shaped by outside expectations.

The full interview, written by Rishi Shah, is up on Kerrang!'s site as part of the Life Less Ordinary series, which profiles artists through the moments that shaped their careers.