Music: The Hold Steady's 'Positive' Jam

Tad Kubler says it happened backstage at England's Glastonbury Festival last summer. That's when the members of the Hold Steady -- who play at First Avenue Tuesday -- realized they were not just a bar band anymore.
"We walked offstage and the crowd noise was amazing," recalled the guitarist for the Twin Cities-rooted, New York-based quintet. "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."

As it turned out, the Hold Steady spent the rest of 2007 touring the world, playing gigs in such far-off locales as Slane Castle in Ireland (where they 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 longer than usual for the record to come out (two years instead of one) -- and what, exactly, there is for the band to stay so positive about.

Both Kubler and frontman Craig Finn talked positively by phone from their apartments in Brooklyn on July 3. Two days later, they crossed the Atlantic again for some U.K. dates before kicking off their U.S. tour, coming to First Avenue on Tuesday. Said Finn, "Our amount of touring essentially doubled." They also nearly doubled their record sales, which -- with 122,000 U.S. copies of their first three albums sold -- weren't all that impressive compared with the mouth-frothing critical accolades for the group since its 2002 debut, "The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me." But Finn's measure of success was seeing his band stand up to the rigors of the road, and maybe even thrive off 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. "We definitely know what we're missing by doing this."
Being closer to middle age than legal drinking age is the main theme of "Stay Positive." 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 hook-ups. But the members -- who didn't necessarily live their songs, anyway -- strayed far 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."

Said Finn, "I'm 36. I can't party like I'm 26 anymore. A lot of this record is about my idea of the attempt to age gracefully and trying to hold onto some kind of youthful exuberance as you grow older. It gets harder and harder to have fun when you accumulate more responsibilities -- and more problems."

Addiction is a clear subject on one of the album's standout cuts, "Lord, I'm Discouraged," a title he lifted off 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."

Despite its cheery title and the band's continued prosperity, "Stay Positive" is actually the darkest record in the Hold Steady discography. 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," where Gena Rowlands plays an actress past her prime (there's that age thing again).

"The movie's a metaphor for Cassavetes' own life," Finn explained. "He lived his whole life trying to make this true, raw art, but in the end his self-destructive behavior did him in."

Sounds like a metaphor for a lot more than Cassavetes.

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

One Hold Steady trademark that "Stay Positive" noticeably lacks is Finn's usual name-checking of Twin Cities streets and sites. (Both Finn and drummer Bobby Drake are local natives. Bassist Galen Polivka also lived here, as did Kubler, who played with Finn in the 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 with 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 cites pop up in my head. I hadn't really even traveled abroad before last year."

The Twin Cities are hardly in the band's rear-view mirror, though. Finn took time out in the interview to rave about this year'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 instead (not surprisingly, Tuesday's show sold-out weeks ago).

"I've played in all kinds of clubs all over the world now," Finn said. "I still don't think there's one that compares to First Ave."

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