The Hold Steady
Interview with Craig Finn
Words: Michael Rabinowitz

Appearing:
January 19, 2008
Czar Vodka Bar, Ybor City

It only seems like The Hold Steady have been on tour forever.  In truth, they took April 2007 off.  So go ahead and call them lazy chestnuts.

Now, the hardest, and smartest, working bar band returns to Ybor City (Skatepark of Tampa’s 15th Anniversary Party) — a location lead singer and lyricist, Craig Finn, has used often as a backdrop to his stories of drugs, parties, pimps, hood rats, more drugs, and, yes, the power of redemption for all.  His deadpan spoken word style can seem intentionally ironic (these guys did tour with Art Brut, after all), especially when performed to Americana E Street Band rock and blues chords, but Finn’s stories reveal a glint of heartfelt sincerity beyond the Midwest power-pop. 

Finn spoke with REAX about the fine line of sincerity versus irony, the truth about drugs, and how a financial advisor for American Express became the geekiest looking rock star of the current indie music scene.

REAX:  First off, what the hell happened to you here in Ybor City in the song “Killer Parties” that almost killed you?
Craig Finn:  That’s funny because early 2006 was the first time I’d ever been in Ybor.  I just looked at a map, and I saw it, and it was so much fun to say that I kept putting it into songs. 

REAX:  Is that what you look for when writing songs?
CF:  Sometimes.  I have some friends that are from Tampa that I met in NY.  They used to go down to Ybor City for hardcore shows in the ‘80s.  The way they explained it to me it seemed the kind of place you could get into trouble.

REAX:  How did you come to create your sing-speak, spoken word style? 
CF:  I’ve never done it without a band.  It’s kind of the only thing I can do.  If I tried to sing, it wouldn’t sound much different. (Laughs)  It is what I’ve always done cause it’s all I can do.  That’s one way of putting it.  A lot of it was developed out of necessity too, of just having small PA’s and trying to shout above them.

REAX:  The setup has you isolated for most of the time.  Do you strive for that?
CF:  Less so on Boys and Girls in America.  Some of the backup vocals, or some of the more melodic vocals that I do, are intended to be more musical, or I guess you could say more relevant to the music rather than disassociated with the music. 

REAX:  When you write comically about tragic characters in such a deadpan manner, are you afraid of coming across more ironic than your intent?
CF:  Well, irony is certainly not something I want to be accused of.  I’m not that worried about it.  I think it’s more of a matter-of-fact kind of way I say it.  Like a narrator is sort of how I think of it.

REAX:  Should there be truth and honesty in rock even though fans might not care?
CF:  All of The Hold Steady fans I’ve talked to really appreciate the sincerity that we kind of work with.  So, I do think that people want honesty and sincerity.  There’s a lot of ironic stuff out there that people can have if that’s what they want.  But, I really do think that people react to sincerity.

REAX:  Does that go back to what you listened to when you were younger?
CF:  Absolutely.  The Replacements were a very sincere band, even though they had a good time and jokey stuff too.  They could also just kill you with saying something that you really felt. 

REAX:  Your stories paint a disparate picture of the notion of self-destruction as romantic.  Do you think of your music as anti-drug?
CF:  Yes, I do.  I’d like to think that we write about the hangover as much as the high.  And we’re saying, “things that make you high make you die.”  I’ve lost people I really love through drugs, and I’m not an angel.  There are lows to go with every high.

REAX:  Your songs have a cinematic feel, capturing a single moment.  Are there films that inspire you to write like this?
CF:  I am not a film buff, but I do picture our songs as, yes, “cinematic” is a good word.  There is sort of a weird thing that exists between sincerity, and I want us to be sincere and think of us as sincere. But at the same time, these are not things that necessarily happened to me or at least not in a one-to-one relationship.  These were the kind of things that I was around.  So, a lot of people hear a song and expect honesty from songwriters at all times, where they don’t with a filmmaker, for instance.  No one thinks that Martin Scorsese was a gangster. 

REAX:  I read you were once a financial advisor.  Did your suit-and-tie bosses know about your rocking alter ego? 
CF:  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I worked for American Express financial advisors.  I worked at a trading desk and worked under portfolio managers who would go into people’s accounts, buy fifty shares of Coca Cola and sell fifty shares of Pepsi.  Some of my bosses found out toward the end.  I tried to keep it as quiet as possible.  I don’t want people to be suspicious.  People are kind of suspicious of rock people. 

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