The Hold Steady

Astute readers of this magazine may be aware that only one album has ever been accorded the honour of six stars out of six. That album was Stay Positive, the fourth album for The Hold Steady. It's as perfect a rock'n'roll album as has been released in recent times, combining the band's stock-in-trade as America's greatest bar band with frontman Craig Finn's ear for dialogue and way with a lyrical narrative.

"I think the record is really about growing older or attempting to age gracefully, which is tricky in rock'n'roll," Finn explains of the album's central theme. "So you're seeing a lot of people in a later life turn around, kind of reassessing things."

It's a theme that one can imagine being close to the band's hearts: after all, The Hold Steady aren't exactly spring chickens...

"No, no," he laughs. "I'm 37 years old so the idea of doing this for a living now when I didn't when I was 30 really makes me think about ageing gracefully."

And that's reflected to some extent in their audience: while the band attract a younger crowd these days, Finn has previously characterised their fans as being the same one that Guided by Voices (and before that, The Replacements) attracted: guys in their late-twenties and thirties, chugging beers and bellowing along with their mates.

"Yeah, it sort of is something like that," he chuckles. "I certainly don't want to discourage women from coming to our show but there are a lot of guys out there that look like us. I see ourselves in our audience and I think our audience sees themselves in us."

That's quite a privileged position to be in.

"It is a really beautiful thing," he says with sincerity. "You know, in this age of irony we get up there every night that we play and we say 'we find real joy in rock'n'roll music' – and the audience says back 'I do too'. At a good show there really is a feeling of communion and community. We've heard a lot of comparisons to Bruce Springsteen over the years, but one thing I say I absolutely want to emulate is the way his audience feels when they leave the show."

That directness is especially true of the entertainingly self-referential title track (in the bridge Finn assures the listener that "It's one thing to start it with a 'Positive Jam', and other thing to see it on through", referencing the first song on their debut album). Elsewhere on the disc some familiar sounding figures appear: unnamed characters that nonetheless appear to closely resemble Holly and Charlemagne (the scenester-Christian-turned-junkie-prostitute and her boyfriend/dealer/pimp whose relationship formed the basis of the entire Separation Sunday album and who have regularly turned up in Hold Steady songs).

"Well, there are a couple of reasons for it," Finn explains. "One is that it's part of a sort of self-mythology, but number two is that I feel like the kind of people who listen heavily to the lyrics are the most in on the fun. We kind of have rewards for heavy listeners."

Having briefly stepped away from storytelling to speak directly to his fanbase (the bridge of 'Stay Positive' concludes "And we couldn't have even done this if it wasn't for you"), does this suggest that the next Hold Steady album will be a deeply personal Craig Finn confessional, long-night-of-the-soul affair?

"No, I really don't think so," he laughs. "Now that this record has been out for a few months it's already time to start thinking about what we are gonna do next, and I am still looking at a blank canvas; but I don't think it's gonna be that. I mean, there is so much songwriting that is supposed to be confessional in some way and having all that seems somewhat narcissistic to me." He laughs again. "I mean, I wouldn't want to buy a record about my problems."

The Hold Steady play the Metro Theatre on Wed 4 Feb and St Jerome's Laneway Festival on Sun 8 Feb. Stay Positive is out now through Vagrant/Shock.

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