Brian Fallon was thirteen years old when he discovered The Clash’s self-titled debut album in the racks of Sound Effects Records in Hackettstown, New Jersey: the owner of the store promised the young teenager that the record would change his life. He wasn’t wrong. But there was a time, not so very long ago, when The Gaslight Anthem's frontman had grown weary of the sound of electric guitars. After three albums of soulful, impassioned, hearts-on-fire punk rock – 2007′s Sink Or Swim, 2008′s The ’59 Sound and 2010′s American Slang – Fallon needed a change of pace, a change of scenery. 

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And so, in January 2011, together with TGA guitar tech Ian Perkins, he formed The Horrible Crowes, a darkly melancholic side-project inspired by his love of The Afghan Whigs, Tom Waits and PJ Harvey. After the band’s acclaimed debut album Elsie dropped in September, Fallon joined fellow punk rock troubadours Chuck Ragan, Dan Andriano (Alkaline Trio) and Dave Hause (The Loved Ones) on the acoustic Revival Tour, airing stripped-down versions of Gaslight Anthem and Horrible Crowes songs to packed rooms across Europe. And then he returned home to New Jersey and Gaslight, re-energised, renewed and ready to make a full-tilt rock ‘n’ roll record again. “After six weeks of that there’s nothing you want to hear more than a Marshall stack turned all the way up,” he says with a laugh. On January 18, 2012, The Gaslight Anthem piled into their old tour van and headed across the New Jersey state line for a 14 hour road trip to Nashville on their own quest for the truth. Their destination was 2806 Azalea Place, Nashville, Blackbird Studio, where the New Brunswick quartet had booked five weeks recording time with producer Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, AC/DC). Their mission: to reconnect with rock ‘n’ roll in its most feral, pure, stripped-raw form.

The result is Handwritten, the most committed, affecting and compelling album of The Gaslight Anthem’s career to date. Introduced by muscular lead-off single "45", which received it’s world premiere on BBC Radio 1 as Zane Lowe’s Hottest Record In The World on April 30, it finds the Jersey boys in inspired form, decanting ’60′s soul, ’70′s stadium rock, ’80s hardcore and ’90′s grunge into eleven white-knuckle, blue-collar everyman anthems. Brian Fallon likens its incandescent electrical storms to “Tom Petty songs [being] played by Pearl Jam”. Put more simply, it’s a supercharged American rock ‘n’ roll classic. And it’s no accident that with Handwritten, the Gaslight Anthem sound built to take on the world. After years paying their dues in the punk rock underground, their major label debut is assuredly the work of a young band who know their time is now. And their laidback, charismatic frontman is ready. “I’ve always been ready for arenas,” Brian Fallon smiles. “I’ve just been waiting for them to catch up to me. I want to play Giant Stadium, I always wanted to be a major label, major league band. If I can be the kid that’s on the cover of Time magazine, I’ll take it. And I’ll buy you a drink while I’m at it…”