Before The Gaslight Anthem heads to Europe in support of its latest album Get Hurt, the group will play a sold-out Stage AE this Friday. Drummer Ben Horowitz called in to talk about the state of the band.
Can you talk about the uncertain period of the band between Handwritten and Get Hurt? How close did it come to Gaslight ending?
There was definitely a real point of, 'What the hell is going on? What are we doing?' kind of thing. Sort of a re-evaluation of the place where we're at. And that was caused musically, and by people's lives. There was just a lot going on. It made for a pretty funky period of the band.
You've toured with Against Me! before, when that band was headlining. Can you talk about your relationship with them?
They've been one of my favorite bands for a lot of years. In a way, we sort of owe what we do to them, because we were not even main support on that tour; we were the first out of three. ... In those days, we had never played these big stages and big shows before. For us to be able to play after them is insane to me. It almost feels disrespectful. [Laughs] But that's just where it is now. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll be opening for them again.
You are touring through the rest of the year. What's in store for Gaslight next year and in the future?
We're messing around with some ideas already [for a new record]. The second we're done with a record, we move on pretty fast and want to start thinking about what's next. We're already starting to tinker with some ideas in the future musically.
