Brian Fallon Quotes

Welcome to the realm of Brian Fallon’s profound musings and insightful expressions. As the frontman of The Gaslight Anthem and The Horrible Crowes, Brian Fallon has captivated audiences worldwide with his heartfelt lyrics and soulful melodies. His lyrical prowess shines through in each verse, weaving tales of love, loss, resilience, and redemption that resonate deeply with listeners.

With a distinctive blend of Americana, punk, and folk influences, Brian Fallon’s songwriting reflects a raw authenticity that speaks to the human experience. Whether he’s delving into the complexities of relationships or navigating the trials of life on the road, his words have a timeless quality that transcends genres and generations. Join us as we explore the wisdom and inspiration found within the words of Brian Fallon, and discover the power of his quotes to uplift, motivate, and inspire.

It’s all about knowing your audience. When I buy a record by a band and it sounds completely different, I’m just like, ‘Why didn’t you change your band name?’ Brian Fallon

When you finish a record, I look at it like a photograph. It’s already taken. You got it the way you wanted it to be. You edit it, make sure the light and contrast are right, then you just put it away, and that’s your photograph. Then you don’t really think about it anymore. Brian Fallon

Gaslight Anthem’s thing is its power. It’s just like boom and explosions and loud, and play with everything you got. Brian Fallon

A lot of people get writer’s block, and I think you just have to show up for work, sit down, and be like, ‘I’m here.’ You have to stay confident and positive that you’re going to write something. Brian Fallon

I spend my money on cars. That’s why I have a Challenger. It’s a muscle car, like a Mustang. It’s big and rumbly. Brian Fallon

Major labels have always been around our band since the beginning, and we just waited. We knew we had to do some things, and we needed to grow as a band before we made that step. We needed to do it our way and not do it how it works for other people. Brian Fallon

I don’t want to be a lead player. I don’t want to shred and play fast licks. I just want to be the best rhythm section ever. Brian Fallon

I think some people don’t even know what they’re talking about, and they just start talking with an opinion, not even asking questions. Brian Fallon

Sometimes I get the bug to live in London for a year, or something like that, and maybe I will. But New Jersey’s home. Brian Fallon

I was never a fan of open tunings, because some people will do that and fumble around. But that’s not my jam. Brian Fallon

I’ve spent my life playing music. Brian Fallon

Gaslight has a specific way of playing and recording that’s sort of become the way now. Brian Fallon

I don’t really hate a lot of songs, but I think Weezer has put out some songs I really hate because they’ve also put out a lot of songs I really like. Brian Fallon

The Gaslight Anthem is very streamlined. We don’t usually use organs and strings and things like that. Brian Fallon

I’ve always said it’s easier for bands to make a hard stance – like, we don’t do commercials or whatever, blah blah blah – when you’ve sold billions of records. It’s super-easy to be righteous when you’re rich. Brian Fallon

We didn’t invent this – this rock n’ roll thing. Brian Fallon

You just have to know your story from the beginning. You have to know what you’re going for and be honest with people about that. Don’t sit there and say you’re gonna be a DIY punk band for your whole life and then move on to arenas; you can’t do that because then people don’t trust you anymore. Brian Fallon

The first time I heard ‘White Man in Hammersmith Palais,’ I loved the vulnerability in the music and the lyrics. Brian Fallon

People don’t remember that during the Fifties and Sixties there was a Cold War, and kids were getting under their desks during school because they thought they were going to get bombed. So it wasn’t really that ideal at all. Brian Fallon

At the end of the day, you can’t reinvent yourself past a point, because you are you, and there are things that are inherently you that are always going to be there. Brian Fallon

I do find that I tend to write about big questions. Why are we here? What are we doing? How do we relate to each other? Brian Fallon

There can be a wrong time – it’s happened to countless bands where they release their first record on a major label and never learned what they maybe should have learned on an indie. Brian Fallon

I’m not really into the numbers game of, like, what position our record is. But you find out at the end, you know? You’re like ‘Oh, all right! That’s good!’ We had a Number Three record. That’s crazy! What’s that about? That’s exciting to me! I think that’s good. Brian Fallon

I’m one of those people who, even if I’m invited somewhere, I still kinda feel like I’m not supposed to be there. Brian Fallon

You can’t staple me to the Brooklyn hipster. I don’t buy skinny jeans and $50 T-shirts. I wear the same clothes I’ve always worn, from Target. Brian Fallon

You’re always trying to make each record more autobiographical than the last one. Brian Fallon

I must’ve been about 7 or 8 when I realized I wanted to perform in some way. Brian Fallon

I did the coffee house thing – we have coffee houses where people play, or we used to – and when I was 14, I started there. Just played all the time. Every weekend I had a show, or every Thursday. Open-mic nights, the whole thing. Brian Fallon

Too many bands record an album and feel, ‘Well, this is okay,’ but after a time, they grow to not like it. Brian Fallon

I don’t like it when people spout about the popular opinion just to make it louder. Brian Fallon

If you’re just making a record to pay the bills, that’s not a great idea because chances are it might not come out that good. Brian Fallon

Everyone always says, ‘We don’t want to be pigeonholed.’ But sometimes, your pigeonhole is a great place to be. Brian Fallon

I don’t go to rock bars. Why would I go to rock bars? I can do that every night; it’s boring. Brian Fallon

You can learn a lot if you become a student of what’s happening to you. Brian Fallon

My friend Danny Clinch, who’s a photographer, gave me a big, signed, numbered print of a photo he took of Eddie Vedder in Seattle. It’s hung in my writing room where I have posters of writers that inspire me. They’re all pointing at me. Tom Waits is like, ‘Don’t sell out!’ Brian Fallon

Where I live, every band ever comes through, and you can see anything you want, pretty much. Brian Fallon

When you write a lot of songs, sometimes you don’t have a place for them, and you need an outlet for them. Brian Fallon

I can’t really see myself writing about politics because I’m not really into it, and one of the worst things you can do is write about things you’re not into. Brian Fallon

For me, there’s no point in being an artist and putting yourself out there if you’re not going to really put yourself out there. Brian Fallon

I don’t mean it egotistically, but I’ve been given the chance to be in front of people and sing, and I feel that it’s part of my job and my duty – especially where I’m from – to speak the language of the people I’m around and speak for them. Brian Fallon

I’m from New Jersey, the Shore, and Asbury Park and all that goes with that. I wouldn’t want to mess around with that. I like New Jersey. There are nice people here. Brian Fallon

I think I lose myself in interviews sometimes. Brian Fallon

I like building houses, working as a carpenter, painting. You work with your hands to the best of your ability, and at the end of the day, you go home with some satisfaction: ‘I built that!’ Brian Fallon

We want to be big… we want to be a big band, but we don’t want to be your best friends. Brian Fallon

I just like a good song, it doesn’t matter. I mean, I am into girl groups and stuff like that. I listen to anything. Brian Fallon

I like movies and radios and Bruce Springsteen and New Jersey. That’s what I like, and if people don’t like that, well, literally you can go on iTunes, and there’s hundreds of other bands you can listen to. Brian Fallon

When Tupac came out, my writing changed for sure. I learned from it. It was a cultural thing. Brian Fallon

I think Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ is probably the best comeback or mid-career record that any band has done. Brian Fallon

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized the element that sounds like The Gaslight Anthem that’s mine is always going to be me. The other three-fourths of it is going to be the other guys. I can’t stop doing what I do naturally, whether I’m in The Gaslight Anthem or my own thing. Brian Fallon

If you asked me to make a Gaslight Anthem album on my own, I would say, ‘No way, that’s crazy.’ I would never have been able to do that. Brian Fallon

Why blow money on a tour bus when you could get your mom a nice dress? Brian Fallon

The piano is where everything starts and ends. Everything is based off of it. If you understand that, you wind up understanding a lot more in all other instruments. For me, it had always been something important to try and learn. Brian Fallon

Fans look up to us, and that’s creepy. Brian Fallon

It’s amazing to me: when people start their career, you write about maybe a couple of topics, and you find that as you grow older, a lot of those topics never resolve, because I think your job as a writer is to pose questions as you see them. I don’t know if we’re supposed to give answers to people, because I don’t know if we have any. Brian Fallon

There are two things that matter when you’re making music. First, that you’re doing what you love, even if it’s crazy and other people tell you it’s crazy. The second thing is the only people you really need to worry about are the people who love your music, not the people who speak badly about it. Brian Fallon

Springsteen is a hero to a lot of people in New Jersey. He’s a role model – because he’s a local guy who got out. Brian Fallon

I don’t have a ‘Born to Run’ in me. Brian Fallon

I would love to learn how to paint motorcycles and stuff like that. I really, really am fascinated by that. Brian Fallon

When you’re a musician, a lot of time people help you out; they take pity on you. Family members will kind of come around and are like, ‘Listen, I bought you a bunch of groceries because I know that you’re a screwup.’ Brian Fallon

You pay your bills and you take care of your family, or you’re not a man. Brian Fallon

When I first started fingerpicking, the first thing I learned was ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright’ from Bob Dylan. Brian Fallon

Shoes are everything. You can tell more about a man from his shoes than his handshake, because they tell where you’re going. Brian Fallon

That’s how I would describe myself, persistent. Brian Fallon

You can’t shape it. You can’t change it. Your life is what it is. Brian Fallon

I’ll probably continue to write about heartbreak forever. That stuff doesn’t go away as you get older. Brian Fallon

I went to the Louvre in Paris, and I saw all the paintings and the Mona Lisa. You don’t really see something like that every day. I was looking at it, and everything else in the room just shut out. Like, Leonardo Da Vinci painted this thing – this is unreal that he touched that. It had this crazy effect on me. Brian Fallon

Going out and trying new stuff on an audience is a scary thing. Brian Fallon

When you’re older, you realize a little bit more hard truths. You are who you are. And the people that like you, they like you for being you. Brian Fallon

It’s a beautiful thing, to start over. Brian Fallon

It’s always Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Waits for me – the big three. Brian Fallon

When you label something a singer-songwriter record, you cover many genres. Brian Fallon

I’m on the phone with this guy, and he says to me, ‘People compare you to Bruce Springsteen. I don’t think you’ve written a song as good as ‘Dancing in the Dark’ or ‘I’m on Fire.” And all I could think was, ‘Me neither!’ Brian Fallon

I don’t envy anybody else’s career because I feel they’ve earned where they’re at and worked hard. I wouldn’t mind Jack White’s gig, though. He does it all! Brian Fallon

I had a five-year plan to get to 500-seat venues and tour by ourselves and fill a room everywhere we go. I figured we could make a living off that. As long as you buy nothing stupid, you’ll be OK. Brian Fallon

You never get away from that thing in your hometown that it has over you. You don’t outgrow where you come from. Brian Fallon

I never got a chance to do Tom Waits or PJ Harvey kind of stuff in the Gaslight Anthem. Brian Fallon

Tom Waits is someone who has really struck me, ever since I was a kid. He’s really a big deal for me. Brian Fallon

When you set out to carry on a tradition as deep rooted as folk music is, you’ve got to have your story together. You’ve got to study and have a foundation. Jeffrey Foucault has that foundation, and you can hear it in his voice, and feel it in his music. He’s got an understanding that you don’t hear that often. Brian Fallon

There’s never going to be a new Beatles because we don’t consume things in that way anymore. Brian Fallon

On the road, we watch ‘The Mighty Boosh.’ We have so many copies, we have them in different country codes. Brian Fallon

We built something very special with Gaslight, and we don’t want to mess with that sound too much. But I’ve always wanted to do a record where I can put strings or organs or pianos or whatever on it. Brian Fallon

Everybody told us we would never make it. Even friends would say to me, ‘Okay this band thing is cool, but seriously, what are you really going to do?’ I can’t think of anyone who believed in us, and that was fuel for the fire, because the more anybody said I wouldn’t do it, the more I was like, ‘No, I’m going to do it.’ Brian Fallon

I sure wish I’d written ‘One’ by U2. Brian Fallon

I’ve never read ‘The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe,’ but his later works are about whether God is real. Brian Fallon

I’d like to say I don’t care, but I do. ‘Cause when you put out a record, you try to do it for yourself first, and you want your audience to accept it, but you also want the press to accept it, too, because it validates what you do. Brian Fallon

I grew up in the next town over from Asbury Park and five streets from E Street. My mother fed me ‘Born To Run’ with my Cheerios. Brian Fallon

When ‘American Slang’ came out, everyone was like, ‘This is the next big band in the world, and this is blah blah blah Bruce Springsteen Junior and blah blah blah,’ and I was just like, ‘I don’t know what that means. I don’t know. We’ll see.’ Brian Fallon

One day, I was just fingering around on the keys of a Fender Rhodes piano, and I came up with this little riff, and all of a sudden, it morphed into a song. It had never been touched by a guitar, which was very weird for us. ‘Under the Ground’ is the first song I have ever written that had nothing to do with the guitar. Brian Fallon

With ‘Get Hurt,’ we wanted to see where else we could go with the band. We thought it was time to change things up a bit. The song itself is similar to the feeling of a wreck you see coming, but long past the point you can avoid it. Brian Fallon

I learn tons of John Frusciante’s licks from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’m never going to play like the Chili Peppers, but I might use that if I’ve got a dub beat or reggae thing mixed with a soul thing. Brian Fallon

Songs are like anything else – they dictate to you which ones go together and which ones don’t. Brian Fallon

You get a realisation at some point in your career that whatever it is you do, you can no longer continue to do it. You just realise you can’t put out the same records forever. Brian Fallon

There’s no way I’m going to write for other people. Brian Fallon

I don’t want to be the mayor of New Jersey. Brian Fallon

I’m a pretty private person. Brian Fallon

The Clash will always be from London, and we will always be from New Jersey. But New Jersey doesn’t create us. Brian Fallon

Every time I look at the Eiffel Tower, it completely blows my mind. Brian Fallon

Everyone should see ‘A Nightmare Before Christmas,’ hear ‘London Calling,’ and read ‘Great Expectations.’ Brian Fallon

We come from that school where we don’t believe we’re different from you, and it’s insulting to me on some kind of weird level that musicians are put on a pedestal. Brian Fallon

I can’t sit still for long and need creative outlets and think you should try different things. I mean, if you’re a musician all of your life, you gotta try different things. I really believe you can have it all. Brian Fallon

Anton Usov
Anton Usov
I am Anton Usov, an educator with a passion for quotes that resonate with the human experience. Over many years, I have curated a collection that reflects wisdom and emotions across time. Join me in exploring the power of words to inspire and enlighten our paths.
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