Interviews

The Hold Steady

Bill Cummings 20/05/2007

The Hold Steady are a Brooklyn-based musical group, although four of the five members have lived in Minneapolis and their Twin Cities roots are frequently reflected in the group's lyrics. From a recent GIITTV live review from Mike Hall:

"For the uninitiated, their songs deal with, for the most part a semi-imagined history of Americans in their teens and twenties ('Stuck Between Stations'), Bukowski-tinged, booze-soaked lovers ('Chips Ahoy') and, most emotively, the loss of the halcyon days of first love and first kisses ('First Night' and the crushing 'Citrus').

The trick here is that it's all delivered with a smile on the face and not a hint of bitterness, a unification of band and crowd by mutual acknowledgement of shared youthful regrets.
They are unashamedly a rock band of and for the people in the same way their most obvious precursors The Replacements and The E-Street band were at their respective heights.

They're all twenty years older than whoever's on the cover of NME this week, a few stone heavier and a million times more drunk, but these are genuine rock'n rollers with tales to tell and the compelling means by which to do it. The Hold Steady are the most entertaining, heartbreakingly honest, pure rock band filling a bar-room stage today, and in a vacuous, hairstyle-based music scene, they come as some relief."

We've got a hold load of Hold Steady goodness for you, as their single “Stuck Between Stations” came out recently, starting with two links to podcast interviews that Craig from the band recently did:



First is frontman Craig Finn talking about his influences and favourite tracks:



Craig Finn Podcast



And secondly Craig talks about the styles, themes and stories on the “Boys And Girls In America” album:



Album Commentary Podcast



Next up is an exclusive acoustic version of the single “Stuck Between Stations”:


Stuck Between Stations acoustic


The band head out on some more UK dates in July check them out at the following venues:



July 2nd London Shepherds Bush Empire

July 4th Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

July 5th Manchester Academy 2

July 7th T In The Park Festival Scotland

July 8th Oxygen Festival Ireland