Most of us know Brian Fallon as the frontman for the Gaslight Anthem, an act who started out in Jersey
basements and slowly built their way up to headlining New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Despite the success
Fallon has had with his main band he’s always loved decidedly less rocking acts such as the Afghan Whigs
and Tom Waits. The Horrible Crowes – his new side-project alongside longtime friend Ian Perkins – is his
lounge-friendly tip of the hat to the acts who have shaped another side of his musical vision.
The idea for Horrible Crowes started at the end of last year and was formed out of the bond that Fallon and
Perkins developed through their mutual love of music. “The two of us had this ritual where we’d go into the
back of the bus at the end of the show and just start showing each other records,” Fallon explains, adding
that PJ Harvey, Afghan Whigs and Joan As Police Woman were some of the acts that they exposed each
other to during these sessions. “I’ve always wanted to experiment with the darker side of soul music and
one day we were just like, ‘let’s write some songs and see what they sound like’ and it turned out that it
sounded great.”
The band headed into the studio earlier this year to put these songs to tape with the help Ted Hutt (The Gaslight
Anthem, Chuck Ragan, Lucero)—and although the band is technically a two-piece, they also enlisted
Steve Sidelnyk (drums and percussion), the Parkington Sisters (strings and accordion), Ted Hutt (guitars),
Adele Jensen (trumpet) and The Gaslight Anthem’s other members to add more texture to the sound of the
album. “What I’m doing here is so far removed from what the stuff we do in the Gaslight Anthem,” Fallon
explains. “The one thing I wanted to stay away from here was doing an acoustic folk record or something
that sounded like my other band. This is a completely different beast and it’s just another side of the music
that’s shaped my identity.”
Elsie is also the most personal release of Fallon’s career and while the Gaslight Anthem’s music is loaded
with characters and iconography, this album sees Fallon stripping back the metaphors to put it all on
the line. “There’s only one character here and it’s about me and three or four relationships that I’ve had
throughout my life,” Fallon explains. “It’s really a trip through a breakdown and it catalogs this dissent into
madness and finally redemption.” While drug addictions, ex-girlfriends and religion all creep their way into
these songs, Elsie isn’t a linear album as much as it is a catalog of experiences that are conveyed in a way
that was equally as cathartic for Fallon to create as it will inevitably be for his listeners to hear.
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