The Hold Steady

Tue 3rd Feb, 2009 in Features

The first time they toured these shores, The Hold Steady were something of an unknown quantity. There was no doubting the class of their first two albums – debut Almost Killed Me and it’s year later and thoroughly impressive follow-up, Separation Sunday – but their very observational, story-telling nature led to some being sceptics. How on earth was a bar band with a frontman who shouted more than sang going to keep coming up with the goods time and time again?

Now, there can be no doubting these Minnesotan natives, transplanted to Brooklyn. These days, The Hold Steady may be the very best band in America, with two further albums – 2006’s Boys and Girls in America and their most recent opus, Stay Positive – cementing their reputation. They continue to deliver some damn impressive and varied rock – œn roll. Frontman Craig Finn’s lyrics have got more detailed and nuanced with each release, culminating in their best album yet – Stay Positive – which many will argue merits inclusion atop the list as THE album of 2008, and as one of the best musical stories of the year.

“It feels pretty good to be able to start the year off with that,” he admits. “I think we entered the story on January 2, so it’s been the story of my year too.”

It seems as if each time the five-piece release an album, they gain more and greater adulation. “It feels pretty good,” Craig agrees, “and at the same time it’s the real people, and not just the critics. The big thing [for the band] is selling tickets and seeing the faces at the shows, and being able to travel and go to Australia.”

The band have ascended to their current heights at a rapid rate – it was only a mere moment ago in musical times, in 2004, that they released their debut album Almost Killed Me, and the subsequent years since then have seen the release of a further three albums. It’s a speed at which bands in the 1960s operated, not the 2000s. Already the band is thinking about its fifth album, having written and demoed new material as recently as October.

“I definitely think we’re going to keep working at a pretty quick pace and keep releasing music,” Craig enthuses. “I think in this day and age and the way that people listen to music and consume music in digital means I think it’s wise for a band to keep coming up with more and more material.”

Yet the beauty of The Hold Steady’s music is that it seems, for the most part, utterly timeless. It could have come out at any time – from the 1960s it takes a garage rock base, from the 1970s the punk fervour, the anthemic nature of Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s is clear to hear, and the ironic sense of the 1990s is there too. The band manages to meld their various influences – from the E Street Band to Hüsker Dü and beyond – all together seamlessly to create a cohesive whole. “I agree that we’re trying to be classic but also timeless,” Craig states.

Stay Positive is their most adventurous release to date, particularly so in the inclusion of Franz Nicolai, whose added keyboard textures have adorned the band’s sound since their second album. On the new album they’re regularly accentuated, be it on the crazy harpsichord heard on album highlight One For the Cutters or the wild synths of Navy Sheets.

“I think every record we make we try to be a little more musical,” Craig says. “We’re getting better on our instruments, and more comfortable playing with one another, and bold enough to try something like a harpsichord, whereas on something like Almost Killed Me that’s not something that we’d be comfortable enough to pull off.”

How confident does a band need to be? “I think it’s just that much touring, that much being together,” he says. “Playing all these shows – 250, 300 shows after Boys and Girls in America – made us better players, and me a better singer.”

In the lead up to Stay Positive, Craig also took the important (and unusual) step of undertaking lessons to strengthen his vocals. The idea wasn’t to increase his range or anything like that, but instead to allow him to spend more time in the studio without getting fatigued. “It’s helped me,” he explains, by “mostly just making my voice stronger, and less strained.”

There’s some (bitter) sweetness in his voice on a song like Lord, I’m Discouraged, where his voice seems to ache with the feeling and the emotional weight of the song. “I think that’s just getting the right take, and in the right space, but also having the vocal ability. I think on a lot of the early records I heard melody in my vocals where maybe somebody else didn’t, so I guess I’m getting better at communicating the melodies I’m hearing.”

The Hold Steady continues its circuit round the country this week with Laneway Festival.