“It was going to seek the guy on the hill for wisdom, but really, it was Federici’s Pizza in Freehold. But some mythical work was done at that table. We brought the band back together.’” –Brian Fallon, Associated Press News, July 20, 2023
Bruce Springsteen knows a thing or two about reuniting a band, so it made sense that Brian Fallon called him up when he was considering re-assembling Gaslight Anthem after a seven-year hiatus.
Bruce encouraged him to do so over pizza at a local Freehold haunt, and on Fallon’s way home, Springsteen texted “Hey, why don’t you write us a duet? I’ll come sing with you.”
When The Boss makes an offer like that, you best not refuse.
Fallon wrote that duet and three other songs over the next two weeks, and told himself that if the band felt the new material held up to their previous catalog he’d reform the band.
They did, and he did.
Those four songs gave way to an entire album, and the duet with Springsteen became the album’s title track, “History Books.”
Bruce recorded his contribution (vocals and guitar) during a day off on the road in Dublin in the spring of 2023. The track was was released two months later, and the album in October to largely positive reviews.
And while reviewers were quick–as they’d always been–to compare the band’s sound to Springsteen’s, this time Fallon embraced it. “We’ve got the approval of the guy!,” he told the Associated Press. “What are you going to say? You can’t say anything!”
In a separate interview with NME, Fallon said, “Him coming on the record now felt like a full-circle moment of owning our own story and accepting that we’re a band from New Jersey.”
Brian went on to become close friends with his lifelong hero, a fact that continues to blow his mind. “It’s not lost on me how crazy it is that I can say: ‘Oh, I can text my friend Bruce Springsteen and see if he wants to catch a little TV tonight’… Any time I’m sitting in a car with him, I’ll look over double-take: ‘That’s him right there. I can smell him. And he smells great.”
Bruce has never spoken about how he feels about his friend’s scent, but he did turn up on stage with him at Sea.Hear.Now in 2024 in one of a trio of appearances across two stages in a single evening.
And of course, one of the songs they played together was “History Books.”
History Books Recorded: May 3, 2023 Released: History Books (2023) First performed: September 15, 2024 (Asbury Park, NJ) Last performed: September 15, 2024 (Asbury Park, NJ)
© July 7, 2026