Hold Steady: The World's Biggest Bar Band

Tad Kubler says it happened backstage at England's mammoth Glastonbury Festival last summer, when 177,000 attendees were introduced to the Hold Steady.

"We walked off-stage and the crowd noise was amazing," he recalled.

That's when the Hold Steady guitarist realized his Twin Cities-rooted, New York-based group was no longer just a bar band.

"It was our first European festival, and we just stood backstage looking at each other through the noise. It was one of those moments when you realize there's no going back."

The Hold Steady spent the rest of 2007 touring the world, playing gigs in such far-flung locales as Slane Castle in Ireland (where it opened for the Stones) and Zagreb, Croatia (with the Stooges). So much for that whole just-on-weekends thing.

This international success explains why the Hold Steady's fourth album, "Stay Positive," took two years to make -- and what, exactly, there is for the band to stay so positive about.

Both Kubler and singer/guitarist Craig Finn talked positively by phone from their apartments in Brooklyn on July 3. Two days later, they headed back overseas for some U.K. dates crammed in before their long U.S. tour, which brings them back to First Avenue on Tuesday.

They also nearly doubled their record sales, which -- with 122,000 U.S. copies sold from their first three albums -- weren't all that impressive compared with the mouth-frothing critical accolades the group has amassed since its 2002 debut, "The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me." Still, 122,000 isn't bad for a classic-rock-riffing, low-frills band formed in 2000 by some frumpy-looking, 30-something, semiretired musicians just for kicks (and to spoil the dance-punk movement).

Touring without warring

One measure of success for Finn was seeing his band stand up to the rigors of the road, and maybe even thrive on them.

"It showed us that we really like being together," he said. "A lot of bands get in trouble when they start touring a lot. We might have an advantage because we're a little older and have some kind of perspective and treat each other with respect."

"Also, we've all had day jobs," he said. (Finn still worked in an office as recently as 2006.) "We definitely know what we're missing by doing this."

On previous albums, it seemed as if the Hold Steady couldn't write a song without at least one reference to booze, drugs or sexual hookups. But the members -- who didn't necessarily live their songs, anyway -- strayed heavily from the partying lifestyle last year to endure the heavy touring, Kubler said.

"We realized we weren't sprinting across the finish line, we were on a marathon," he said.

Said Finn, "I'm 36. I can't party like I'm 26 anymore."

What's more, at least a couple of people close to the band endured serious addiction problems in recent years. When Finn, Kubler and keyboardist Franz Nicolay started writing songs on the road -- a first for the band, and done out of sheer necessity -- those low-down songs about high-living didn't seem so fun anymore.

"Most of us know someone who's taken the party beyond the part where it's any kind of celebration," Finn said.

Why so glum?

Addiction is a clear subject in one of the album's standout cuts, "Lord, I'm Discouraged," a title Finn lifted from blues pioneer Charley Patton. Finn sings, "She keeps coming up with excuses and half-truths. ... She keeps insisting the sutures and bruises are none of my business/ She says that she's sick, but she won't get specific."

Yeah, no fun.

Despite its cheery title and the band's continued prosperity, "Stay Positive" is actually the band's darkest record to date. As Finn noted, "Anytime you say, 'Stay positive,' it's usually in dark times."

Even some of the record's more up-tempo rockers are bleak in tone, such as the grimy "Navy Sheets" -- featuring backup vocals by the Drive-by Truckers' Patterson Hood -- and the epic closer "Slapped Actress." The latter was inspired by John Cassavetes' 1978 movie "Opening Night," in which Gena Rowlands plays an actress past her prime.

Sounds like a metaphor for a lot more than Cassavetes.

Trouble town

"Stay Positive" is not all gloom, though. The album's first single, "Sequestered in Memphis," is another rowdy, chant-filled rocker that's classic Hold Steady.

"I had to call a lawyer friend of mine to make sure I had the correct terminology of 'subpoenaed' and 'sequestered,'" Finn said, admitting the song's eventful story line is purely fictitious. "We spent a couple nights in Memphis on the last tour, and it seemed like a town you could get in trouble in -- that's the only story behind it."

A common Hold Steady shtick, the band also has fun paying tribute to some of its blue-collar rock influences. There are shout-outs to Joe Strummer ("He might've been our only decent teacher") and even to positive-minded punk band 7Seconds. The song "Joke About Jamaica" is based entirely on Led Zeppelin's catalog and the correct pronunciation of the song "Dy'er Mak'er" (if you have to ask ...).

"I saw the voice box when I came in the studio one day and I thought, 'Uh oh. It's coming down!'" Finn recalled. "Definitely Tad's most ridiculous solo to date."

The classic-rock references are there, but one thing that "Stay Positive" noticeably lacks is Finn's usual name-checking of Twin Cities streets and locations. (Both Finn and drummer Bobby Drake grew up in the Twin Cities. Bassist Galen Polivka also lived here, as did Kubler, who played with Finn in the cult-loved late-'90s punk band Lifter Puller.)

Except for a nod to St. Paul in "Your Sapphire," the lyrics on "Stay Positive" are Minnesota-free, compared to the dozen-plus local references on previous albums.

"I didn't even realize it till we were done writing," Finn said. "I guess it has to do with me being out of Minneapolis for eight years, but probably also to being in more places on tour, having other cities pop up in my head. I hadn't really even traveled abroad before last year."

The Twin Cities are hardly in the band's rearview mirror, though. Finn took time out in the interview to rave about this season's Twins team. Both he and Kubler expressed genuine excitement about returning to First Ave, which the band skipped last year to play the bigger State Theatre. (Not surprisingly, Tuesday's show sold out weeks ago.)

At least they're still a bar band at heart.