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Plus Guest: Chris Farren

With his new album Not Bad for New Jersey, singer/songwriter Brian Fallon doubles down on the defiant romanticism that’s always fueled his songwriting, resisting any impulse to grow more guarded with time. Before bringing his fifth solo LP to life, the Gaslight Anthem frontman returned to the fatalistic love songs that rewired his brain as a child—moody radio mainstays authored by rock icons deep into their second act, voiced by wild-eyed dreamers he alternately refers to as “beautiful losers” and “desperate lunatics.” As he assembled a set of songs populated by characters who love too hard and risk too much, Fallon built up a body of work that charges forward with a reckless momentum: the singular internal motion of someone who’s been knocked off course more than once but still chooses to believe, refusing to surrender to cynicism’s easy gravity.

Produced by his repeat collaborator Butch Walker (Green Day, Jesse Malin), Not Bad for New Jersey features guest spots from Brandon Flowers of The Killers, Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen, avant-garde guitar legend Marc Ribot, and folk/country luminary Lori McKenna. Through a series of freewheeling sessions with Walker (who handled bass, piano, backing vocals, and more) and Dr. Dog drummer Eric Slick, Fallon summoned a frenetic collision of power-pop and heartland rock, arriving at a perfect sonic counterpart to the album’s hot-blooded sincerity. “From the beginning I knew I had to fully lean into the passion and lunacy of all these songs I felt inspired by—there wasn’t much room for subtlety,” says Fallon, naming Bryan Adams’ “Run to You” and The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” among his touchstones for the LP. Mostly tracked live at Walker’s studio near Nashville, Not Bad for New Jersey ultimately reveals an artist driven by the same rapturous abandon that animates his storytelling. “There was so much childlike joy in writing and recording all these songs,” says Fallon. “The whole album came together so naturally, with a level of creative fulfillment I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.”

Fallon’s first solo album of all-original material since 2020’s Local Honey, Not Bad for New Jersey opens on the punchy vitality of its title track: a gloriously ragged homage to his homeland and all the grit it instilled in him. “I wrote that song looking back on my life the way you do after almost ending up in a crash—like, ‘How did I make it through that?’” says Fallon. “I really could’ve busted myself open somewhere along the way, but somehow I’m still here and I’m still in one piece. ‘Not Bad for New Jersey’ is my way of celebrating what I do and where I’m from, and it felt right to start the album with a song that feels like the party’s already happening.”

One of several songs co-written with folk singer/songwriter Donovan Woods (a longtime friend of Fallon’s), “Better Before” sustains that intensity with a tortured portrait of unraveling romance, capping off its chant-along chorus with a killer closing line (“I was better before the night I met you”). Next, on “Pearls,” Not Bad for New Jersey veers into a heavy-hearted but triumphant track addressed to those born into privilege, shrewdly trading bitterness for hard-won self-acceptance. “I’ve never been one to resent anybody for having certain advantages in life, and I don’t think there’s anything inherently pure in having to struggle,” says Fallon. “But I do think there’s real value in overcoming the odds stacked against you, because getting to the point of feeling like you’re actually worth something is one of the toughest mountains to climb.”

While much of Not Bad for New Jersey bristles with a restless energy, the album slips into a slow-burning urgency on songs like “Love at the End of the World (feat. Brandon Flowers)”—a folk-leaning and quietly hypnotic meditation on shedding the illusion of permanence in favor of what’s immediate and real. “Brandon’s a truly gifted musician with a really unique instinct for structure, and he had the idea of writing a song with no chorus,” says Fallon, noting that he and Flowers first bonded over their shared admiration for Depeche Mode and C.S. Lewis’ 1942 novel The Screwtape Letters. “We were talking about our ideas about love and had the idea to write a love song set at the end of the world, and it all came together almost faster than we could process it.”

In a testament to the untamed creativity at the core of the album, Not Bad for New Jersey delivers everything from the brooding avant-rock of “Walkin’ Through The Garden” to the blistering punk of “Nobody Likes You In New York City” (a strangely tender serenade to Dee Dee Ramone, penned from the point of view of his ex-wife Vera Boldis). Even in its most exhilarated moments, the album is indelibly shaped by an underdog’s perspective—and a lifelong devotion to following true feeling wherever it leads, even when the outcome is uncertain. “There’s a lot of love songs where the singer sounds so sure of themselves, like they’re ready to conquer the world, but I’m more interested in the people who don’t always get the girl,” says Fallon. “The ones who chase what they want without being afraid to crash and burn—and when they do crash and burn, their next attempt has even more passion than before. That’s really what this record is all about.”