How The Hold Steady Kept It Together for Their Tell-All Book

Before their State Fair gig, The Hold Steady appeared at the Electric Fetus to talk about their new book, The Gospel of The Hold Steady: How a Resurrection Really Feels. Most of the coffee table-sized book, filled with big, glossy photographs, is an oral history told by the band themselves and their associates, all woven together by the British rock journalist Michael Hann, a longtime friend of the band.

It’s a worthy addition to the rock book milieu, basically a brutally honest transcription of the band’s creative process, internal politics, business decisions, and celebrations and struggles with intoxicants. The Hold Steady have long been beloved by rock critics—and there are several personal essays by big timers like Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield and The Guardian’s Laura Barton included in the book that attest to why this is—but it’s probably because their songs are so literary: rambling ballads barked out by lead singer Craig Finn, populated with scruffy recurring characters he has seemingly pulled from his own teenage years in Minneapolis’s hardcore scene.

The Hold Steady was formed in Brooklyn 20 years ago, back in 2003, out of the ashes of Lifter Puller, a less successful Minneapolis late '90s art rock band that Finn and Hold Steady guitarist Tad Kubler were both in (Kubler played bass in Lifter Puller). The band was initially formed as a kind of off-Broadway version of Paul Shaffer and the World’s Most Dangerous Band, playing Bowie covers for an Upright Citizen’s Brigade-style variety show at Arlene’s Grocery, a bar on New York’s Lower East Side. But eventually Finn and Kubler started writing original tunes together, alongside another Minneapolis ex-pat on bass, Galen Polivka, this time to a broader, more accessible classic rock palette than Lifter Puller’s, and Finn brought a more lucid vision to the characters in the new songs. The Hold Steady’s songs are imbued with this nostalgia for the past, a sad eyed yet romantic look back on the music scene they left behind in Minneapolis, which is why—in addition to all those rock critics—Twin Cities rock fans have embraced them so fervently. The Fetus was packed with their fans, who call themselves the Unified Scene, and whose stories make up the last third of the book.

When the band tapped Steve Hyden to interview them, they discovered Steve was already committed to the Guided By Voices 40-year anniversary weekend in Ohio, so they got the next best local rock critic named Steve available. I hosted all six band members on a small stage by the Fetus’s registers to talk about The Gospel, including: Finn, lead guitarist Kubler, bass player Polivka, drummer Bobby Drake, piano player Franz Nicolay, and rhythm guitarist Steve Selvidge. The following is a lightly edited transcript of that conversation.

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My first question is actually for Bobby: If you’re the best driver, why didn’t you ever want to drive?

Bobby: Because there’s drivers and there are mechanics.

So mechanic is your role.

Bobby: That’s correct.

Craig, I was listening to a podcast you were on today, this PG Vogt podcast, and you said one of the reasons you didn’t want to be in a professional band again [after Lifter Puller] is because you didn’t want to move so much stuff—that when you start moving stuff around you need to worry about logistics and how you move it around. But you kind of solved some of that with Bobby.

Craig: Yeah, in some sense. I mean, when we started The Hold Steady we really had very unambitious goals. Tad and Galen and I, we were all talking about whether we were gonna play a show. And the answer was “probably not.” And whether we were going to record any songs: “Definitely not.” The idea was that being in a band was really a hassle when you started moving things around. And I think we stand by that, but it was helped along by getting Bobby. When we were in Lifter Puller, I was always disappointed by how much I had to learn about automotive stuff. Because you get this crappy van, which is the only van you can afford, and it starts breaking down all the time. And you’re like, I wanted to be in a rock band, not learn about transmissions. So it was a blessing to have Bobby in the van, who’s an accomplished mechanic.

Tad: Certified.

Craig: The thing is, I will note, now we do these residencies more than proper touring. And that allows us to set the gear up once for a weekend. So in some ways we’ve come full circle with that line of thinking.

You’re kind of like Adele now.

Craig: Or Wayne Newton.

Now Tad, you didn’t move across the entire country on the promise of this UCB variety show gig at Arlene’s Grocery. That’s not true right? You thought that eventually this was going to be a real band.

Craig: You moved first.

Tad: Well, yeah. There were other things in New York, and I was spending a lot of time there anyways. And Craig was like, “I was thinking about doing this…” And I thought maybe I’ll just move. I was doing photography stuff, and I had been in LA after Lifter Puller dissolved, and I came back to Minneapolis for a little bit, and did a record here with a band, and then a tour, and then took off.

But your ambition was to be a musician in New York?

Tad: No! No. The conversations Craig and I would have would were kinda like, “yeah, maybe we’ll get together.” It would be good for us to hang out and drink some beers and play guitar, but we’re going to be grown ups now. And even when Bobby moved out—after our initial drummer played on Almost Killed Me—we kinda put it to Bobby like, “Listen, you shouldn’t move here to be in a band, but if you moved here, you’d have a band to play in.” And you know, when we talked to Franz, he played some on Almost Killed Me, the first record, and when we were getting to do Separation Sunday, we really wanted to get Franz in the band. And I remember Craig and I sitting down, and being like, “this isn’t going to be a very big commitment, it’s not going to be a big deal, we’re not going to do a ton of shows, you can still do whatever you want, it’s totally cool.”

Galen, you said you had a cup of coffee in Minneapolis.

Galen: It was a long cup of coffee—three years. I love coffee.

When you were here, were you in the same music scene as Lifter Puller?

Galen: For sure. I was in a band called Punchdrunk for a long time, and we played with Lifter Puller a lot.

So when Craig was putting together this house band for the UCB guys, did you have ambition that this would turn into…

Galen: To play in a comedy band?

No, to play in a real band.

Galen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn’t… I dunno. I was a fan of Lifter Puller and I just wanted to work with Craig. We were friends, and it just kind of made sense. He moved to New York after Lifter Puller broke up, and as I recall, I kind of drunkenly, not cornered him, but you know, I was like, “Oh, sorry to hear about Lifter Puller, but if you’re throwing something together let me know.”

So now that we have the logistical stuff established, I want to ask you guys how you all decided to do a bare-it-all oral history. I mean, in this book there’s record executives shitting on the albums and the singles, there’s guitarists and bassists and keyboard players sniping at each other over all kinds of stuff, you have managers talking about individual member’s finances. You broke pretty much every rock and roll taboo in the telling of this story. Did anybody get cold feet reading the manuscript? You had a journalist interview all of you separately—after reading how he wove it together, was anybody like, What the fuck, bro?

Craig: It’s a good question. To me, the thing I’m most proud about this book is that everyone was honest. So many rock books aren’t. 

Well that’s for a reason, Craig, because the bands would break up afterwards.

Steve: We’re still here.

Craig: One of the successes of the book was having Michael Hann interview us. He’s a journalist—an accomplished journalist—but also, someone we’ve drank like a collective 40,000 beers with.

There’s an essay by him in the book that talks about how much he personally likes you guys.

Craig: Yeah, he’s become a real friend. Like I’ve stayed at his house. So I was aware that we were talking to a journalist, and it was being recorded, but I think there was a relaxed-ness, probably with everyone, while you talked to him, that might’ve helped. And maybe this is for Franz to say, but when the galleys went out, Franz was the first one to email back to say something along the lines of, “I’m feeling a great amount of love and admiration for everyone involved after reading it.” And that was my feeling too. Because it just felt like, wow, we’ve been on this journey for two decades, and there’s been some ups and there’s been some downs, and they’re all in there.

There was a great line that Franz’s wife had in the book. She had read something that Tad had said in the press about loving Franz, and she was like, He would never say that to Franz. So you guys were more honest and vulnerable with your sounding boards in the media than you were with each other. Which is definitely a midwestern vice. I’m sorry, Franz, this is the way we are.

Franz: [shrugs]

When you were being interviewed for this and you were getting into territory that you guys had already healed over, were you worried that you were ripping open wounds?

Franz: I asked Michael in advance, like, “What’s your take on the whole thing?” And he was like, “Warts and all.” And it’s like okay, if this is where we’re going to gather the story, we better gather the story. And I think the rock books that we like are the ones that get into some of the hardships. You don’t want to read a hagiography. What’s the fun in that?

Craig: I mean, I think we’ve all read a ton of rock books—when you get on tour, sometimes it’s the only thing that I can read. So I’ve read a lot. And my least favorite category of rock book is where the guy goes and tries to overexplain why his bad behavior back in 1978 wasn’t actually that bad. “Well what you gotta understand is…” There’s one, I think by Greg Allman, where his roadie was proud to take that drug bust for him, He wanted to do that, man. He did it for the love, for the whole Allman Brothers thing.

Franz: There’s this cliché about bands being like families. But if you’re in a long-term relationship, you have these anniversaries, you have these stops along the way where you can kind of take stock. Like we’ve come this far, do we want to re-up? And bands don’t necessarily have situations like that. Sometimes the 10th or 20th year reissues of a record can do that. But that was my experience reading the manuscript: wow, we’ve been through a lot. You don’t always have a chance to have that kind of perspective on the whole journey.

So you’ve experienced what we call Minnesota Nice. Where you’re trying to be cool on the surface, and you’re letting all the problems fester, and you’re trying to kick the can down the road for as long as you can, until it blows up in your face and you end up in the hospital. But early on, you guys realized that being midwestern was something that made you and your sound and the narrative in your songs unique. I mean, James Joyce wrote about Ireland only when he was in exile. Nostalgia is one of the strongest drivers of the romantic muse. But Craig, you lived in Edina and you went to Breck. So why are you singing about hood rats making drug deals in the Quarry parking lot?

Craig: There is a fictitious part of it. But I think, in the most basic sense, I’ve always been someone who likes observing. And whether it was getting on a bicycle when I lived here, or just driving around and looking for stuff—even going back to the week I got my driver’s license—I was doing that.

Were you straight edge when you got your driver’s license?

Craig: No. I was really into hardcore though.

Some of the hardcore bands you mentioned in the book have the most strident straight edge message.

Craig: I liked how angry they could get about little things. [laughs] That was exciting to me. But I wasn’t really participating. But we did go to crazy shows, and I think hardcore was a doorway into some stuff that you certainly weren’t finding at Edina or Breck.

So how did you get into those scenes?

Craig: I mean, I was always interested in music. And it was in junior high and some kid just brought a flier for a TSOL show that had happened at the Entry. And I was like, What is this? And where is this? And I just started looking in the back of City Pages.

Would you go to Extreme Noise?

Craig: Extreme Noise wasn’t open yet, but Oarfolk was. And the other thing that’s really crazy and connects to this weekend, is, so I wanted to play guitar when I was a kid. And my parents didn’t really know that much about music. But I said I need to get an electric guitar and I need to take electric guitar lessons. So we didn’t just go to the music store that was closest to us, we went to Knut-Koupee on 28th and Hennepin, the old one, and they signed me up for lessons. And I walked into my first day of lessons and my guitar teacher was Chris Osgood from The Suicide Commandos. So he taught me a lot about guitar and a lot about life. He did this thing where he had a phone down in his lesson room. And whenever it would ring he would crank up the stereo and then answer it. And I said, well that’s weird, don’t you usually turn the volume down? And he said, you always want them to think you’re having a party.

Wow.

Craig: And he was hooking me up with a lot of stuff that I didn’t know about. I remember him, like, telling me directions to go to Oarfolk. He was like, Where you’re going out in the suburbs, they don’t have any good records. You gotta go to Oarfolk. And I went over to Oarfolk. And the reason I bring that up, is he also taught Bob Mould how to play guitar, who will be playing the show tomorrow night. As well as Dave Pirner. I would say he put three people on a good path, but I think I would like to amend that to say, he put three young men on a rock and roll path.

And he taught for a long time after that, so probably many more. I really love the part of the book that explains how a part of the band’s arc is while once you were too cool to listen to The Rolling Stones, you eventually ended up opening for The Rolling Stones. Craig, you didn’t listen to Thin Lizzy until you were in your 30s. Tad, you have more of a base in this classic rock stuff.

Tad: Yeah, I grew up with dirt balls.

So the two of you went from playing Lifter Puller, which is kind of an art rock thing, to playing pure, shredding AOR '70s and '80s rock and roll.

Craig: I think Galen and I had a similar path. Galen, stop me if I’m wrong, but I thought punk and new wave stuff was cooler than classic rock, which was stuff you were hearing at the high school parties anyways, etc. But at the end of Lifter Puller I was sort of burnt out on indie rock and I started buying $3 records at Cheapo and being like, Man, Let It Bleed is a way better record than all those other records that we were listening to! So yeah, for me, classic rock was a little bit of a late discovery. And even Springsteen, which is something that comes up a lot when people talk about our music, that’s late. I was certainly more into Wire and The Fall and things like that in my 20s. And that might reflect more on the Lifter Puller sound, and then there was this embrace of classic rock.

And did listening to Mark E. Smith help you figure out, like, I could do it like this?

Craig: Yeah, those kind of barking vocals made more sense in what I could do with my voice.

So Tad, when Craig was finally like, let’s embrace this David Bowie, Mick Ronson, big rock sound, were you like, finally?

Tad: No. You know, I should say too, especially playing in bands here and playing guitar and singing, when Craig talked to me about Lifter Puller needing a bass player and asked if I might want to do it, I was like, Yeah. And I think, I feel I had to learn so much being in that band. I was playing in like mathy weird time signature bands that had to be tricky or clever. Not that the music in Lifter Puller wasn’t complex, because I think it is. But the rule was, if it sounds good, it is good. And I felt like that really started to inform how I approach things. And Craig was certainly familiar with what my wheelhouse was, guitar-wise. And I think when the opportunity came up to do this stuff with some of the guys from Upright Citizens Brigade, he’s like, This seems like this would really be something you’d enjoy.

So you were willing to embrace it too.

Tad: Yeah. You know, and I think growing up, your initial sort of exposure to music is Black Sabbath and Kiss and Van Halen and stuff, and then you find punk rock and The Clash and The Sex Pistols and all that stuff as a teenager. And the pendulum swings the other way and you’re like, Oh man, the hard rock stuff sucks—it’s weak and it’s indulgent and all that kind of stuff. And it isn’t until I grew up a little bit, and was like, Oh, these can both exist together.

I know you’ve been sober for awhile now, right?

Tad: Yeah.

And a lot of this book deals with your journey through, being the engine, kind of like the drunken, fiery, drugged up powerhouse engine of the band, right?

Tad: I’m somebody’s dad.

Well, so am I, but can you explain to me what the “rock eagle” is now that you don’t do cocaine anymore?

Tad: The rock eagle? That’s Bobby.

Bobby: Was that Dean’s [Heaven Is Whenever producer Dean Baltulonis] thing?

Franz: It was Dean’s theory of how to mix a rock record. I took exception to it.

You found it insulting, Franz. And a lot of the book is devoted to the tension between you and Tad. Like how much of the interview process was talking about that? Did Hann dig in deep on it and try to get you to talk about it more? Or did it just come out?

Tad: No. The other rock bio that I always kind of bristle at is where you have to settle the score. This is just what happened. Good, bad, or indifferent. Hopefully we’ve learned a few things along the way. Grown up a little bit. In hindsight, I can sort of see what’s happening there.

Tad, you said a beautiful thing in the book: “When Steve joined the band, I made space for him, because I loved him and knew him and was friends with him. I made space for him that I should’ve made space for with Franz.”

Tad: Yeah, that’s true. And in hindsight, I can probably see that. And I was also in a much different place then, by the time Steve joined the band.

And Steve, what was that like to walk into this situation?

Steve: You know, we talked about things being in transition and stuff. I mean, walking into it was like kind of a crazy first day of college. I mean, even the way we structured the stage.

You talk about that in the book. Franz had occupied this part of the stage that fans had grown accustomed to. So when he left you didn’t want to stand in that spot.

Steve: Yeah, no one ever gave me shit [about my spot on stage] audibly. But it was in my mind. And I also looked like fuckin' Sasquatch at that time.

You had big hair and a big beard.

Steve: Yeah, so I was just like, [sheepish] “Hey! Here I am!” But yeah, we just quickly rolled on and the years just kind of unfolded and it sort of reached some equilibrium, until it didn’t, and then Franz came back and it got better.

Can you talk about Franz coming back to the band? It was around one of these anniversaries that you talked about it being important to measure the band against. Craig, so it was suggested to you by management, Well, if you’re going to do an anniversary of Boys and Girls in America, you have to call Franz. And you said you would [make the call]. But when you called him, he just sent a text back?

Craig: This is a modern thing that I’ve come to know. I called and then he texted back. Look, I’m a formalist. So I’m always like, well you just took this off route. That’s a bad sign. I took it as a bad sign. Well, now that I’ve got you on text, here’s what we’re thinking. He texted, Oh that sounds pretty good. That’s really all it was after that. But there was a sense, okay, we’re gonna do Boys and Girls in America, heavy piano record. You know, if we’re gonna do it, we should start with the guy who played the piano. And if he says no, we’ll think about what happens next, if it’s worth doing or whatever, but we need the piano.

How long did that decision process take?

Franz: Not very long. The thing is, you’re talking about, Was it ripping scabs off old wounds. It’s not like we were fighting all the time.

Rest of band: No!

Franz: We were mostly having an awesome time and occasionally we would butt heads over ridiculous things.

Yeah, and you were wasted all the time. Having a great time!

Franz: But we’re talking about like maybe a year or two where things were a little tense out of a 20-year period. So it’s not that hard to talk about. Only unless we blow it up into like the biggest story.

Well it does take up an entire chapter in the book, guys.

Franz: No, I know.

Craig: It’s the most interesting thing to read about. Us backstage looking at our phones, that’s not a compelling story.

One of the things that I thought was really fascinating, Franz, was your assessment of Craig’s leadership style. About how his dad worked at Ernst and Young, and he probably inherited that CFO mindset, and he just wanted the thing to work, rather than being all touchy feely and like checking in on the band’s emotions.

Franz: But I will also say, that I think, in the first round of the band, maybe, and you can look back on this, but maybe you were a little leery of assuming a full leadership role.

Craig: Yeah.

Franz: And in the back half, where he’s really taken on that role, it works a lot better.

Craig: Yeah. I think that’s the thing. There’s this idea that bands have to discuss everything—is the font on this seven inch gonna be this or this or this. And then eventually you come to realize, I’m just going to just do this, and if anybody has a problem, let’s just talk about the next one. Just big picture, [I’ve taken on] more of a leadership role. Which honestly, I think a band needs.

Your manager Dave Gottlieb is in the book saying “democracy doesn’t work in a band.” But at the same time, you devote the final third of your book to your fans, kind of inviting them to partake in the storytelling. And for a long time you would literally invite your fans to invade your stage during shows. These ideas that you keep talking about, “We’re all The Hold Steady,” it’s even beyond democracy isn’t it? It’s like a weird communal thing.

Craig: One of the craziest things about this band, and the one thing that the book does not solve for me, is that when we started this band, Tad, Galen, and I in my apartment in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, I’m talking about how I want the band to be something that people feel a part of. And I think about The Clash: you’d always hear about these legendary shows, stories of Joe Strummer sneaking in their fans who couldn’t afford it through the upstairs bathroom to get into the show. Or letting them sleep on the hotel room floor. Hardcore had some of that communal energy too. But we were talking about it before we played a show, and that’s the one thing that happened that to me that is sort of magic. Somehow people did feel a part of the band. And you know, we always say, “We are all The Hold Steady.” So I guess that’s one way to acknowledge it and try to build on that. But I’m not exactly sure how we got it. I’m looking at people from different countries, different states, here in Minneapolis for the show. And that is an overwhelming… it’s an honor, but also just a crazy thing about this band. I’m not exactly sure how we did that other than a little bit of magic.

Some of the magic is that you’re still all here. A lot of times tragedy would’ve struck, you would’ve lost somebody. You guys are still here. The feelings weren’t ever bad enough to completely break up. You’ve kind of just been fortunate.

Craig: There’s something about being 20 years in, and nine albums in—how many of all of our favorite bands didn’t do either of those? Not many. And certainly the ones that did, you talk about The Rolling Stones and The Who, they had a lot of money to throw at their problems.

And sometimes money creates problems. You extensively quote this Rough Trade executive in the book.

Geoff Travis.

He said that you couldn’t come up with a hit. He was actually critical of your ability to write a big chorus. But maybe if you would’ve had a bigger hit, there would’ve been more problems.

Craig: Yeah, or you’d have one song that everyone loved and didn’t care about the rest. And I’ve been at those shows. I remember sitting with Geoff Travis of Rough Trade at an in-store that we played in London. And I remember exactly what he said: “Radio is the key to the kingdom.” And by the way, this guy is not a sleazy record guy. He’s one of the best of all time. But he did say radio is the key to the kingdom, and I don’t think we’ve got it on this record. And that was the one with “Sequestered in Memphis,” which is probably our catchiest song.

So looking back on that, are you like, “man, if we would’ve had some of the band politics and creative process stuff worked out, we could’ve hit on that.” Tad, looking back, are you like, We could’ve engineered a verse-chorus-verse-chorus thing?

Tad: It wasn’t like we weren’t trying! But I will say too, that stuff like that can really start to mess with your head and infect the process of what you do. And create expectations that aren’t necessarily going to be productive when you’re trying to be creative or trying to just evolve in terms of where you are musically.

Oh sure. Several times the message of this book is as soon as things got too professional, when the ambition became not musical, but to secure your jobs, that’s when things got weird. The project started with you all agreeing, we’re not going to tour, we’re not going to be a professional band. But when things got professional, it did get weird.

Craig: I don’t love talking about the business aspect, but at one point we put everybody on payroll. Meaning that you make X amount, always, no matter what you do, no matter if we play shows or not. And then it’s like, okay, we need to make payroll, there’s this festival down in Florida. And you look at it, and you’re like, That looks like the worst day of my life. Oh, but it pays $40,000. Okay, we’ll go do it. And it turns out that it’s the worst day of your life. And you only get payroll for one month for that. Oh, and then we’re going to do another one of these. And another. And that’s when it’s like, Oh, what if we just did the shows we liked, and then split up the money that we made from that, and maybe it won’t be as often or as consistent, but the vibe will be awesome. And generally, I’ve found, with this band, if the vibe’s good, good things are happening.

So you guys are a functional band, still creating new material. But tomorrow you’re playing the State Fair. Tad, you said your biggest fear is to be a Kansas playing the State Fair.

Tad: Maybe not my biggest fear, but something that might not be great.

So how many new songs will you play tomorrow? What are the expectations when you come back to Minnesota? Is it a special place for you to play, or do you try to always give the show that you’ve tested on the road?

Tad: It’s a special place. It’s kind of like a second homecoming a little bit. Apart from New York, where the band started, a lot of us have connections here and friends and family and people close to us, and a history. And I know this sounds… But I’d like to think that pretty much anytime that we get up on stage it’s gonna be special. Craig and I have been talking about it a little bit, we recently played this radio festival down in Louisville, and we played Newport Folk Festival this year for the first time, and it was the first time in a while we’d been playing to people who didn’t know who we were and hadn’t really heard us. And there was something about it that felt great, because it’s like, we gotta make sure these people remember this.

So Craig, you’ve built up this mythology about these characters in your songs who live in Minneapolis. So is coming back here like if Faulkner went back and played Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi? How do you go back and play for the people you’ve turned into a literary fantasy?

Craig: I mean, I’ve been writing the set lists for the past few years. And we have 140 songs. So there is this sort of like, How can we blow the audience’s mind? Especially when we’re playing these three-night stands, which we’re doing a lot—what’s some crazy song people aren’t going to expect us to play? Then you go to some of these bigger shows, and there’s a balance that you’re trying to find.

Do your fans expect a varied, new setlist that they haven’t heard before, or do they expect the songs that you’re known for?

Craig: There’s probably four or five songs that people expect us to play, and we play for awhile, so the rest is kind of up to us. I’m very proud of our new music, so I always throw that in there. There’s one or two songs that I feel would be appropriate to play in this market. [laughs]