New Jersey blue collar rockers The Gaslight Anthem have been left furious after airline staff allegedly broke one of their guitars.
Guitars have to lead a charmed life in rock music. Since the days of Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix destroying them has become a sport for musicians, with numerous gigs ending in a shower of splintered wood and paint.
However for The Gaslight Anthem losing a guitar is like losing a friend. Preparing to head off on an international tour, the band boarded a plane only to watch in horror as staff began hurling their luggage onboard.
Frontman Brian Fallon has lost his precious acoustic guitar, which has has written nearly three albums worth of songs on. Suffering a cracked headstock, it will need to undergo serious repair to be usable in the future.
“I checked it and they just did what they do – they threw it,” Fallon told SpinnerMusic. “I took it to them and they were like ‘Well, if the case isn’t broken, we’re not responsible for what’s inside.’ I said, ‘If you wrap China up in a box and you smash it to pieces, you’re not responsible?’ and they’re like ‘yeah.’ I was like ‘That’s awesome!'”
“I wish I could get that policy, because with bar fights, I would never have gotten a ticket when I was young, I could’ve punched someone in the face and been like ‘Hey, your teeth fell out. I didn’t damage your face, though.’ I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble at all when I was a kid.”
Bizarrely, American Airlines have asked The Gaslight Anthem to appear in their in-flight magazine. “The funny thing is, they just asked us to do a feature in their in-flight magazine like two days ago,” he explained. “I was like ‘I don’t think so!’ Or, ‘Yes, I will do a feature and talk about this!”
