The Hold Steady

Saving Rock and Roll, One Bar at a Time

originally published August 6, 2008

The Hold Steady is a religion. Not the moralizing, proselytizing brand of hell-fire and brimstone that most people associate with religion, but rather something more passionate - more emotional and prone to dancing, a little less white and stodgy and a little more black and soulful. That’s The Hold Steady, the would-be savior of rock and roll future.

“I would like to think that we represent the great things that are still going on with rock and roll,” says Tad Kubler, guitarist for the Brooklyn-born, Minneapolis-bred band.

Those great things that The Hold Steady represents are apparent throughout the band’s albums, which include songs about faith, redemption, bar room brawls, late-night hook-ups and beautiful people getting way too high, all told through a sonic assault that owes equal amounts of thanks to Black Flag and The Rolling Stones. Mix those rather disparate influences in with the most Springsteen-like piano lines since tramps like us were born to run, and the makings of The Hold Steady are crystal clear. It's classic rock and roll with modern trappings; it's an existential quilt wrapped up in sing-along choruses; it’s the sound of Young America ringing through from dorm room stereos and MySpace pages. Kubler has a different word for what The Hold Steady do: tradition.

“What we do is traditional rock and roll. We don’t have stage outfits. We don’t have asymmetrical outfits. We’re a little more honest and have a little more humility than whatever band that's influenced by the current trends in rock. I think that makes our music honest because we aren’t steeped in irony, and there isn't anything satirical in what we do.”

Therein lies The Hold Steady’s appeal. In a world where scenes are described as “an arms race” by inferior bands, The Hold Steady is calling for those mythical scenes to come together on its latest album, Stay Positive (Vagrant Records). It’s the most classic rock sounding of all of The Hold Steady’s albums, and it’s also among one of the best.

“[Stay Positive is] certainly the most ambitious album we’ve ever tried to do. We wrote a good portion of it on the road, and it’s a great reflection of where we are right now,” says Kubler.

Right now The Hold Steady is also trying to live down its legacy as a group of hard-partying toastmasters. It’s a reputation that was earned through many alcohol soaked nights, and that is still haunting them today.

“We’ve curtailed [the partying] a little bit. We kind of perpetuated ourselves on our first records as good ol’ beer drinking boys who like to eat wings and watch baseball games, and that’s a hard bell to un-ring. All of us are exercising now. We’ve realized that this is not a sprint to the finish line; it’s a long distance race,” says Kubler.

But beyond the endless accolades, the Springsteen comparisons and the infamous stories about the band's alcohol-fueled exploits rests The Hold Steady, a band that causes fans to lose all inhibition and bespectacled would- be Lester Bangses to froth at the mouth. After all, here’s a band that makes listeners dance like Elvis and drink like Bukowski.

“One of the things that people see in our band is that they aren’t so much fans of our band as they are just really rooting for us. It's total Bad News Bears-style shit,” says Kubler.

But that crowd of people supporting the band seems to be growing rather quickly. No longer are the band’s shows populated by, as Kubler puts it, “dudes that look like us,” but also by an increasingly young fan base who are learning that in a sea of pretenders, The Hold Steady is among the few bands out there waving the flag for rock and roll - its past and future.

"We’ve always done what we’ve done, and we’ve been lucky in that people like what we do,” says Kubler.

And what The Hold Steady is hell-bent on accomplishing is to take back rock and roll from the pretenders, the people who sell irony like a drug on the corner to a generation of fans. But according to Kubler, they aren't in this fight alone, and in fact one of the bands leading the charge to reclaim the majesty of rock and roll alongside The Hold Steady is Athens’ own Drive-By Truckers.

“Some wiser fellows and a lady from Athens said 'rock and roll means well, but it can’t help telling young boys lies.' [Drive-By Truckers singer/guitarist] Mike Cooley gets me every time. He and Patterson [Hood] have songs on their records that get me every time. I hear those songs, and I think ‘that’s exactly how I felt and I didn’t know how to say it.' If I may be so bold that I would put my band on the same level as the Drive-By Truckers, I would say that we’re kindred spirits or of the same ilk.”

But those are lofty expectations. For the moment, The Hold Steady seems focused on being among the best bands around, swimming in a sea of hyperbole, rubbing shoulders with the giants of rock and roll and living down its reputation, all while touring the country playing its brand of rock and roll. It’s enough to bog down a lesser band, but for The Hold Steady, it’s all about perspective.

“I think [our age] really allows us to keep doing what we are doing. It allows us to really appreciate what’s going. There is a certain amount of wisdom that comes with age,” says Kubler.

Which is why when The Hold Steady takes the stage at the 40 Watt Club, don’t look for dour faces among the band members.

“Someone told me that we are the only band that they’ve seen that smiles onstage. How weird is that? We’re not [onstage] to work out our issues; do that shit in the privacy of your own home.”

Jason Bugg

WHO: The Loved Ones, The Hold Steady
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Saturday, August 9
HOW MUCH: $15