A year ago, The Gaslight Anthem announced they were “returning to full time status as a band.” They’ve since embarked on a world tour, and new music is on the way.

The reunion comes after the New Jersey rockers announced a hiatus in 2015, which was interrupted only briefly in 2018 for a batch of shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of their 2008 album, The ’59 Sound. In getting Gaslight officially back together, drummer Benny Horowitz had a clear idea of what he did, and didn’t, want that to look like.

“Not a band who’s going out and playing their back catalog and just doing shows,” Horowitz tells ABC Audio. “I don’t blame anyone who does that — there’s a million reasons you have to or you want to — but it didn’t work for us. If we’re not creating, then the band just doesn’t feel right.”

Horowitz points to those 2018 concerts, which didn’t lead to any new music, as a “cautionary tale” for what he didn’t want to happen.

“Those … shows were good and I’m happy we did them, I don’t have any regrets about it,” Horowitz says. “But it was also a kinda sign of what this looks like if you don’t get your head into something again.”

This time around, though, Horowitz’s concerns were quickly assuaged by frontman Brian Fallon.

“The second Brian said he had music that he wanted to work on, I was in,” Horowitz says. “That was pretty much the caveat for me, was, like, ‘If we’re gonna do the thing, we gotta do the thing as a real band creating art and doing it together.'”

While you have to wait on that new music to arrive, you can catch Gaslight on their upcoming U.S. tour, kicking off in May.

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