They might be Daniel Radcliffe’s favourite band, but you definitely shouldn’t hold that against them. Brooklyn’s The Hold Steady create clever rock with a distinctly American flavour. Guitarist Tad Kubler spoke to Nick Milligan about why you should never accuse his band of being uncool.
What have you guys been up to?
We’ve just finished a tour last week with the Drive-By Truckers, which was great. But we’re all really looking forward to getting back to Australia. We all really love it over there. It’s a difficult trip to make, but whenever we’re putting together a schedule, we want to fit Australia in there.
What did you enjoy about your trip to Australia last time?
The people are really phenomenal. I was surprised by how friendly everyone was towards Americans. It’s been a weird eight years for us (in America) and when you travel abroad, it’s something you can’t help but notice. With the election over and us having elected a President that can spell his own name, I think people will have a tendency to treat Americans differently.
Apparently you guys were very inspired by The Band when you were starting out as The Hold Steady?
This seems to be coming up in Australia a fair bit! The Band are obviously a phenomenal band and we love them a lot, but what really inspired us about them was how much they enjoyed playing together. So many bands that we saw in New York seemed to care more about what they were wearing, than what they were playing. That seemed a little ridiculous to me. But I don’t want to say that The Hold Steady was formed as a retort to that kind of thing, because that’s not it at all, but I like to hang out at clubs and see bands, but I could never see anyone that looked like they were having a good time – and that was a drag.
The subject of ‘image’ is encountered by a lot of bands in the music industry. Have The Hold Steady been encouraged to think about their image?
Of course. We get slagged off a lot because we’re older guys. We’re not twenty-something kids wearing tight jeans. It would be easy to take a shot at us and call us ‘dumpy’, but I was a fashion scout before I started playing music, so if anyone wants to sit down and talk about what’s cool and not cool, I’d be more than happy to (laughs). Because while you’re taking the garbage out at a Marc Jacobs store, I’m going to be on stage rocking to about 3,000 people.
In what ways have the band developed since you first formed?
In a lot of ways. I think we’ve become more confident as players and songwriters. I think we’ve conquered the big rock riffs – well, conquered might not be the right word – but we wanted to use more dynamics on Stay Positive. I know that Craig [Finn, singer] wanted to use his voice as another instrument, rather than someone just telling stories over the music. But overall, we wanted to grow a bit. We don’t sit around discussing it – it just happens. It’s interesting, because I’ve heard people say, “There’s not much difference between your first and fourth records.” But, we’ve released four records in five years. If you can name me another band that’s done that in the last decade and chart out their growth, then maybe we can compare and contrast. I think there is definitely growth across our four albums, but it’s harder to notice because there isn’t much time between [the release of our] records.
A lot of bands make a record every three or four years, some every five or six years. We’ve made a record almost every year since the band started. The development of our sound might not be as noticeable as it is in other bands. But hopefully we’ll be able to keep this pace and you’ll be able to track our growth between our first record and the last.
Why are The Hold Steady so prolific? Do you guys become restless when you’re not writing new material?
We just like to stay busy. We weren’t very ambitious when we first started out. We didn’t know what we were going to do – we basically just wanted to hang out, play some music and do some shows around town. Things took off very rapidly. Once we realised that the band was going to be our life, we treated it as that. We thought, ‘Well, if this is all we have to do, then we’re really lucky. So let’s do it all the time.”
The piano plays an important part in your music. Were you always intent on having a pianist in your band?
On the first record we had Franz [Nicolay, pianist] come in and play on a couple of songs, but we didn’t have an official piano player. But when I was writing the music for Separation Sunday, I knew that the songs needed something else. They didn’t feel complete.
The Hold Steady perform at the Laneway Festival in Jan/Feb 2009. For all information head to www.lanewayfestival.com.au. Stay Positive is out now.
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