The Hold Steady: Profane & Profound – An Interview With Craig Finn

Talking to Craig Finn after the demise of his Minneapolis-based band Lifter Puller is like talking to David Byrne post facto The Talking Heads or Lou Reed after The Velvet Underground dissolved: you’re not worried because you know they’re going to keep putting out compelling stuff. And as Lifter Puller fans will tell you, Lifter Puller had the stuff.

Finn’s new band The Hold Steady (THS) is riding on the crest of their second album, Separation Sunday (February 2005). For fans of the classic-rock sound and Finn’s witty, satirical lyrics, The Hold Steady brings smiles to even the most disgruntled faces.

With its straight-ahead rock riffs (thanks to Lifter Puller bassist-turned-guitarist Tad Kubler), their appeal is universal – it has worked equally well in Minneapolis, and in their new digs in Brooklyn, New York. Whereas THS’s first releaseAlmost Killed Me was alternative punk and progressive, ringing back to the garage bands of the late ’70s and ’80s (Replacements, Sex Pistols), especially songs like “Barfruit Blues” and “Killer Parties,” Separation Sunday demonstrates a fresh approach even while tapping their guitar-rock influences. This juxtaposition of Finn’s honest vocals and Kubler’s rhythmic guitar riffs is infectious – spoken word fused with head-nodding rock – perhaps slam rock. The Hold Steady’s songs radiate with nightlife energy and vivid characters you’d see walking a city’s streets and dancing in its clubs.

Finn, with his Kerouac-like observations, writes of girls jonesing for drugs and affection, affairs with punks (“Stevie Nix”) and personal revelations in a Beat fashion: “Lord to be 33 forever.” Since this is rock music, Finn is borrowing from his musical influences (Springsteen, Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, punk, hip hop and more). The Hold Steady weave in all their collective influences to give us original rock in a true American tradition.

Recently, The Hold Steady landed a key role in a short film series sponsored by Target and running on target.com. The film, “ODDSAGAINST7EVEN,” portrays the sometimes-turbulent lives of college students and one specific freshman. The guy “redeems” himself (elevates himself above freshman status) by booking a great band for a college mixer, THS. Fans, and especially punk fans, might call this a “sell-out”; Finn sees it as marketing genius. If you’re thinking punks don’t (or shouldn’t) market and promote their image, let us remember the gods of punk, The Sex Pistols, whose manager Malcolm McLaren, a London publicist and sex boutique owner, recognized the universal appeal of the UK rebels, and booked them gigs anywhere he could, including on barges and stops in American country bars. I talked to THS vocalist Craig Finn about the band’s direction and image, his influences, and their latest release.

The Hold Steady are currently featured in an online film series, ODDSAGAINST7EVEN part of Target’s marketing focus on college students. In the film series, there is a lack of product placements and there’s actually an entertaining story… what gives?

Yeah, it was like “Where does Target come into this? Where are the products?” It’s been a great experience for us.

Will you do that type of thing again? Is there an ongoing relationship?

Well, there’s stuff we’re involved with. We had a great time and … a lot of people are talking about it.

Jill LaBrack, writing for PopMatters website, called you “the rock n’ roll equivalent of Kurt Vonnegut.” Based on your lyrics, you seem like a well-read guy. How do you feel about that sort of literary analogy?

I think it’s pretty cool and to take it one step further, I’ve always been a writer. I have an outline of a book I’m trying to write. I have friends that are real, actual published writers and poets, and I’ll go to their readings and say, “This is cool.” Obviously, there’s a performance aspect to [the readings], especially for poets. It’s really cool; it works for my lyrics, because it’s a kind of modern writing.

Can you tell me about some of your influences?

Well, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen… that would be the classic stuff, and then in more recent years, underground hip-hop. Lyric-focused stuff. Atmospheric things. Look at skateboarders and the influence of hip-hop culture.

Is this just another case of white guys ripping off black guys?

Right. It’s rock n’ roll, man. We took that and evolved things from that.

There is a nice progression from your first album to your second. The lyricism, obviously, is still there, but is perhaps darker. Was that a conscious choice?

I think it’s a progression. You always want to do better than the first one. This is a record which was much more deliberate for us. We recorded the first one [Almost Killed Me] in six days. The next one was about five weeks. So, it was a real deliberate recording. We were trying to make an album rather than a collection of cool songs. Lyrically, for the first one, I was trying to lay down a bunch of shit. And for the second one, I worked with a notebook. I had all the ideas all planned out.

And Tad is playing guitar now

Yeah, [in Lifter Puller] he was always a better guitar player than us.

Is there one person, maybe a producer or someone, that was significant in helping Lifter Puller move from a garage band to one with a cult following?

Yes, Josh Holland. He owned a studio called Burr Holland in Minneapolis and was incredibly generous in giving us time to do Fiestas and Fiascos, our last record, as well as a bunch of other recordings. He did this because he liked the band, and it allowed us to do a record that we would have never been able to create otherwise.

Any particular review or write-up that helped launch the buzz on Lifter Puller?

Not really, it was a slow-burn thing, although the [Minneapolis] City Pages piece by Keith Harris is probably the best thing ever written about the band.

Do you think music should entertain or inspire (make you think) or both?

I think it should do whatever it wants. All of the above are options.

Along those lines, you like The Replacements. In the past, The Replacements publicly criticized socially conscious bands, like U2 specifically. Is that just because they were drunken punks and wanted to portray that image?

No, I don’t think they were that calculated. There are a lot of moments where rock and roll and social conscience are awkward bedfellows. There are very many people who do great things for great causes and never once think to do it on a stage or at a televised event.

Do you care about your image? How the band appears to critics and/or fans?

Yes, I would not want to be portrayed as something I am not. However, we just try to be honest about ourselves, and available to our fans.

Do you think that journalists should write about music? That they should try to describe an often difficult-to-describe art form?

I think the most impressive rock journalism attempts to explain how music relates to our daily lives. I think Jim Walsh from the [Minneapolis] City Pages is the best writer I know at doing that.

What is your favorite straight-ahead rock song by The Hold Steady?

Right now, it’s the new stuff we are working on. New stuff is always the favorite from bands.

Which are you proudest of?

I think Separation Sunday as a whole is the thing I’m most proud of.

Why?

It’s the sound of a band coming together and working on an album as a whole, rather than a collection of songs.

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