{"id":2955,"date":"2011-08-02T01:05:27","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T08:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=2955"},"modified":"2011-08-02T01:18:22","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T08:18:22","slug":"the-hold-steady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/the-hold-steady\/","title":{"rendered":"THE HOLD STEADY"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

THE HOLD STEADY<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Aging gracefully, struggling mightily and thinking positively<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

On the Hold Steady\u2019s fifth album, Heaven Is Whenever<\/em>, singer Craig Finn continues his evolution from a scenester reveling in gritty detail to an elder statesman with wisdom to impart. \u201cOn the last record, I was concerned with aging and the attempt to age gracefully, which is a tricky business in rock \u2019n\u2019 roll,\u201d Finn says. \u201cThis record sounds more like it came from a 38-year-old, at\u00a0least lyrically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band laid down demos last year while on the road touring behind 2008\u2019s Stay Positive<\/em>, and recorded most of the album last fall during a two-week stint in\u00a0a studio in upstate New York. Without piano from Franz Nicolay\u2014who left amicably to pursue various other projects\u2014the music this time tilts more toward Thin Lizzy than Bruce Springsteen, with burly guitar riffs\u00a0that latch on tight.\u00a0\u201cWe were able to go back and\u00a0experience more space in the music, have a little more openness,\u201d Finn says. \u201cWe really enjoyed that. Rather\u00a0than try to fill up every little space with music, I think things are able to breathe a little more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finn had specific ideas for subject matter on the album, although as often happens, he found himself surprised at the way the songs developed. \u201cI definitely come in with a theme in mind, but there\u2019s always some part of it that reveals itself to\u00a0you,\u201d he says. \u201cThis record, I was really kind of concerned with struggle and reward.\u00a0Heaven is the ultimate reward in the\u00a0Christian sense, so I was thinking a lot\u00a0about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finn introduced a handful of recurring characters on the Hold Steady\u2019s first album, 2004\u2019s Almost Killed Me<\/em>, to steer the narratives of his songs. Although they still pop up, his references to the likes of Hallelujah, Gideon and Charlemagne have grown more oblique.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe characters are used to move stories along, so they all sort of represent something that\u2019s always\u00a0there,\u201d Finn says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve gotten away\u00a0from using their names so much. I really\u00a0want people to be able to put their own\u00a0lives and their own experiences in\u00a0these songs.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s not a stretch to say that the\u00a0new album also reflects Finn\u2019s own life\u00a0and experiences over the past few years. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m in a pretty positive place,\u201d\u00a0he says. \u201cCertainly this is the best job\u00a0I\u2019ve ever had. Flying around the world\u00a0and playing rock shows to excited fans, it\u2019s pretty easy to be positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Eric R. Danton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE HOLD STEADY Aging gracefully, struggling mightily and thinking positively On the Hold Steady\u2019s fifth album, Heaven Is Whenever, singer Craig Finn continues his evolution from a scenester reveling in gritty detail to an elder statesman with wisdom to impart. \u201cOn the last record, I was concerned with aging and the attempt to age gracefully, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[70,10156,2262],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2973,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions\/2973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}