IN CONCERT
Rise Against, The Gaslight Anthem and Hot Water Music
When: Tonight, 7 p.m. (doors at 6)
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre
Tickets: $29.50 and $43 (plus service charges) at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre box office (1925 Blanshard St.), by phone at 220-7777, or online at selectyourtickets.com
Note: A four-pack of tickets is available for $99
Benny Horowitz grew up in a predominantly working-class area of New Brunswick, New Jersey, pleasant yet humble beginnings for a musician who would go on to play big stages across the world.
His seemingly modest roots notwithstanding, the drummer for The Gaslight Anthem had a world of opportunity at his fingertips. There was no shortage of fun for someone living within an hour of both Philadelphia and New York City, Horowitz recalls, not to mention the lure of beaches and mountains in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the U.S.
"The place you're from obviously turns you into the person you are," said Horowitz, 31. "And if you make music and make it in a true fashion, where you talk about the things you see, where you're from comes through."
The Gaslight Anthem, which also features singer-guitarist Brian Fallon, guitarist Alex Rosamilia and bassist Alex Levine, has always been about New Jersey. Over the course of four studio albums, including the band's chart-topping latest effort Handwritten, the group has developed into one of the more dependable rock bands around.
Credit that to its old-school approach. From songs that reference Dickens and Whitman to performances featuring covers of everyone from Tom Petty to Pearl Jam, there's a throwback appeal to the band. But even when Fallon wrote in easily recognizable strokes - notice the literary references in songs Even Cowgirls Get The Blues and Great Expectations, for example - he did so from a viewpoint almost specific to the residents of New Jersey.
Given the nature of the material the group produced - a punk-inspired take on heartland rock - comparisons to Bruce Springsteen were inevitable.
Fallon has since developed a fairly close working relationship with Springsteen, who has appeared on stage with The Gaslight Anthem on numerous occasions. There's a strong sense of kinship between The Boss and his understudy, but Horowitz - who grew up more of a punk kid than E Street fanatic - won't chalk that up to both acts being from New Jersey.
"It's not a Jersey thing. It's an old-school work ethic thing. I can't speak for anybody else, but that's the way the four people in this band were raised. People demanded of us that sort of thing."
Horowitz currently lives with his girlfriend in Jersey City, 30 minutes from where he was born and raised. And though he can see parts of Manhattan on occasion, he has no dreams of moving across the Hudson River.
If anything, he wants to move further away from the hustle and bustle, not closer to its epicentre.
He'll be happy anywhere as long as he's playing music for a living.
"It's naive to think that you deserve to be where you are. There's no sense of entitlement in what I do. I know it could go away real f--king fast. Bands come and go and labels fall apart and sh---y things happen.
Then all of a sudden that thing you thought would last forever just went away. If you keep that perspective in mind, it's a healthy way to get through this business."
Horowitz has two decades of experience under his belt, having started playing in bands at 12. Never did he imagine such success - Handwritten debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard sales charts on its arrival in July - especially being a product of New Jersey's hardcore punk community.
"When you come from that kind of ethic, the idea of getting bigger and working with companies and spreading it out is a hard thing to swallow, especially at first," he said.
"That ethic dictates a little bit of how this band is in general. We all come from something like that [punk scene], so it's actually cool to try and bring that into a different kind of world."
The group appears in Victoria for the first time tonight, opening for Rise Against at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. Horowitz was in Victoria on a day trip last summer while visiting family in Seattle.
He's happy to be coming back as a paid musician, and says he is fully aware of the opportunity he has been given.
Horowitz can recall when music was strictly a hobby. When he made the decision to play drums fulltime in The Gaslight Anthem, it was at the expense of his job as night production manager of the Daily Targum, the student newspaper of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Though he still misses it from time to time ("I'm still a big newspaper guy," he said), Horowitz isn't looking back.
"Even if it didn't work out, it was a risk worth taking. I got sold on this dream at a young age, so there's no job that would have stopped me from making that decision."
