Jesse Malin

After leaving his record label and having his East Village apartment sold out from under him this summer, singer/songwriter Jesse Malin found out just what it means to work under pressure. Temporarily homeless, the straggly-haired native New Yorker put all bets on his newest batch of songs and headed upstate to the tranquil hills of Millbrook to record his third album, Glitter in the Gutter. Longtime fans and supporters Bruce Springsteen, Ryan Adams, Jakob Dylan and Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme all make guest appearances on the album, released this month on Billie Joe Armstrong’s Adeline label.

“I’m kind of going back to my roots with this record,” explains Malin, who wrote much of Glitter on an electric guitar rather than an acoustic. “The new songs have a quicker tempo. It’s sad pop still, but the writing’s leaner.”

Introducing big choruses and catchy guitar hooks to his evocative, scene-setting lyrics, Malin seems to have found the musical middle ground between his first two solo records and his work fronting glam-punk outfit D Generation. “He’s punk rock and Phil Spector all rolled up into one,” explains Bruce Springsteen, who shares vocal duties with Malin on piano ballad “Broken Radio.”

Like those first two albums (The Fine Art of Self Destruction and The Heat), Glitter in the Gutter is emotionally steeped in Malin’s hometown. “I’m always going to have a lot of New York in me,” he says, “but it’s always important for me to think globally. … I want [my music] to be something that people can relate to wherever.”

So instead of writing songs about hanging out in the Village because it’s hip, Malin sings about finding ways to express yourself, ways to be happy and loved, and ways to deal with the times you can’t. “It’s an optimistic record,” he explains. “It’s a record about taking action, about survival, about being in the moment—that’s why the energy is really up.”