Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Craig Finn Holds Steady

Transcript

Craig Finn Holds Steady · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all, before we get started, let's talk about Pushnick.
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Speaker 1: Happiness Lab. You can try it for free for seven days.
0:47
Speaker 1: Sign up for Pushnick and Apple podcast subscriptions. Craig Finn,
0:57
Speaker 1: the lead singer and songwriter for The Hold Steady, is
1:00
Speaker 1: known for his vivid, literary style songwriting. He often writes
1:04
Speaker 1: about characters going through an existential crisis, what the one
1:09
Speaker 1: saw and the astray in the kitchen. I could tell
1:16
Speaker 1: that it was difficult to bring that sort of subject
1:22
Speaker 1: to Craig Finn grew up in Minneapolis, going to gigs
1:26
Speaker 1: for hometown heroes like Prince and The Replacements. After a
1:29
Speaker 1: stint working as a financial broker, Finn moved to New
1:32
Speaker 1: York City and eventually formed The Old Steady in two
1:35
Speaker 1: thousand and three. This year, the band released their eighth
1:39
Speaker 1: studio album, Open Door Policy, and this time, Finn says
1:44
Speaker 1: he focused on themes related to the trappions of technology
1:47
Speaker 1: and late stage capitalist. On today's episode, Craig Finn talks
1:52
Speaker 1: to Bruce head them about how the Drive by Truckers
1:54
Speaker 1: inspired him to create The Old Steady, about how Springsteen
1:58
Speaker 1: taught him to vamp, and why he feels like it's
2:00
Speaker 1: his duty to not only write about the party, but
2:03
Speaker 1: to write about the hangover. Two. This is broke and
2:09
Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmondson.
2:17
Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Sedlam with Craig Finn. This is a thrill
2:20
Speaker 1: for me for many reasons, but one is that the
2:24
Speaker 1: person who introduced me to your music was my old
2:27
Speaker 1: colleague David Carr at the New York Times. Now, David
2:31
Speaker 1: like you was very funny, which is rare in pop
2:34
Speaker 1: music and rare at the New York Times, i should say.
2:38
Speaker 1: And he was from Minneapolis, and he could never explain
2:41
Speaker 1: to me what was in the water in that part
2:44
Speaker 1: of the world that produced like such a great scene
2:47
Speaker 1: for bands. I mean, everyone points to the cold and
2:51
Speaker 1: the reason to stay inside. I always felt like when
2:55
Speaker 1: I was coming up in the nineties, there were people
2:57
Speaker 1: going to shows regularly in Minneapolis, like attending shows at
3:01
Speaker 1: First Avenue of the big club there that if they
3:04
Speaker 1: lived in another city maybe wouldn't have been going to
3:07
Speaker 1: that many shows, you know. I mean, I just think
3:08
Speaker 1: it was kind of part of the fabric of the city,
3:10
Speaker 1: and I think the city's proud of it, you know,
3:12
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the city puts forth, Hey
3:14
Speaker 1: where the place where the replacements came from? Who's ker Do,
3:17
Speaker 1: Prince obviously now Lizzo, you know, has some connection to
3:21
Speaker 1: the city which they put forth constantly. It's always been
3:25
Speaker 1: a source of pride for the city. When you grew up.
3:27
Speaker 1: Was there a sharp divide between the black clubs and
3:32
Speaker 1: where Prince sort of made his name and the white
3:35
Speaker 1: clubs for replacements and that kind of thing. You know,
3:38
Speaker 1: there's certainly is a segregated city, But um, I think Prince,
3:43
Speaker 1: you know, really is connected with First Avenue, which is
3:47
Speaker 1: this place that a lot of music has come from,
3:51
Speaker 1: and certainly the place where I saw the shows in
3:54
Speaker 1: my formative years. You know, this is where I saw
3:57
Speaker 1: the replacements and Who's ker Do, et cetera, sol Asylum
3:59
Speaker 1: and Prince, you know in Purple Rain. That's that's the
4:02
Speaker 1: setting of it, and you know, people have often been
4:05
Speaker 1: mistaken that he owned it, So Prince is very much
4:07
Speaker 1: connected to the same club that everything was happening. I'm
4:10
Speaker 1: not sure it's a big enough city to have, you know,
4:14
Speaker 1: massive amount of clubs and have that kind of divide.
4:16
Speaker 1: Everything gets, you know, in some way mushed together just
4:20
Speaker 1: by the size of the city. Yeah, So for you,
4:24
Speaker 1: was it the live scene or was there a particular record,
4:27
Speaker 1: a particular song that you heard when you were a
4:30
Speaker 1: kid that said, yeah, this is it. This is either
4:33
Speaker 1: what I love or what I'm gonna do. I have
4:36
Speaker 1: this thing where I remember seeing someone on TV. I
4:40
Speaker 1: believe this is Ray Charles playing when I was very young.
4:42
Speaker 1: I think it was on Sesame Street and I looked
4:45
Speaker 1: at the screen and I said, I knew Happy Days.
4:48
Speaker 1: I knew Fonzie was cool, right, So I said, hey, Mom,
4:52
Speaker 1: is that guy cool? And she said, yeah, he's cool.
4:55
Speaker 1: And I said, do we know anyone cool? She said no.
4:58
Speaker 1: And I remember at that moment being like, well, this
5:00
Speaker 1: is this is kind of annoying, Like I want to
5:03
Speaker 1: go find something cool. And one of the first things
5:05
Speaker 1: I remember another that attracted me was the Monkey's TV
5:08
Speaker 1: show I mean, this guy idea of guys living together
5:11
Speaker 1: and bursting into songs and having a good time while
5:14
Speaker 1: playing music to music excited me always. But I think
5:17
Speaker 1: the real kind of watershed moment was discovering local things
5:21
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis, And so having these bands in my hometown
5:25
Speaker 1: was somehow exciting and accessible to me and made me
5:29
Speaker 1: sort of believe maybe that I could be in a
5:31
Speaker 1: band too, in a way that led Zeppelin and Aerosmith
5:34
Speaker 1: had not previous. And then when did it start? Feed
5:37
Speaker 1: was guitar your first instrument? Yeah? I started playing guitar.
5:40
Speaker 1: I got to get an electric guitar, and actually a
5:43
Speaker 1: bit of luck, fortuitous luck, signed up for lessons and
5:48
Speaker 1: a guy who was teaching lessons at that guitar store
5:50
Speaker 1: was named Chris Osgood and he'd been a member of
5:52
Speaker 1: a band called the Suicide Commandos, which was sort of
5:55
Speaker 1: the first Minneapolis punk band. They'd signed to Blank Records
5:59
Speaker 1: in like seventy six with Perubu, and he was a
6:02
Speaker 1: fountain of knowledge, you know. He taught me a lot
6:05
Speaker 1: about playing guitar, but a lot about other things too,
6:07
Speaker 1: And he had this fun off like he had a landline,
6:10
Speaker 1: you know phone in his lesson room and when phone
6:13
Speaker 1: would ring, he'd turn up the stereo and then he
6:16
Speaker 1: answered the phone, which is you know, countered a normal logic,
6:19
Speaker 1: and I would always say, what what are you doing?
6:21
Speaker 1: He said, you always want him to make you know,
6:23
Speaker 1: make you think you're having a party. So he had
6:26
Speaker 1: a lot of tips like that, and he turned me
6:28
Speaker 1: onto a lot of cool music once he heard what
6:30
Speaker 1: I was into and kind of got me started on
6:34
Speaker 1: sort of the lifestyle, if you will. So you mentioned
6:37
Speaker 1: the lifestyle. So that brings us to your new album
6:40
Speaker 1: with the whold Steady open door policy. If anybody thought
6:43
Speaker 1: you were mellowing with age with your solo albums, you're
6:46
Speaker 1: right back in the right into the heart of the
6:49
Speaker 1: wold Steadies. I guess worldview a lot of desperate people
6:54
Speaker 1: kind of doing desperate things. Tell me about the writing
6:56
Speaker 1: of this album, the album, I think one thing was
7:00
Speaker 1: different from the last one. You know, we in twenty
7:03
Speaker 1: nineteen we put our record called Thrashing through the Passion.
7:06
Speaker 1: There was a collection kind of a single, so we
7:07
Speaker 1: were putting stuff out as we as we recorded it, really,
7:12
Speaker 1: which is exciting. I mean, the technology now allows you
7:14
Speaker 1: to do that, and we know how to get at
7:16
Speaker 1: our fans right through the you know, social media and whatnot.
7:19
Speaker 1: So we're putting that out and then we ended up
7:21
Speaker 1: kind of compiling them to make a release. And that's cool,
7:26
Speaker 1: but when you're releasing quote unquote singles that way, you're
7:29
Speaker 1: kind of always swinging for the fences. So for this record,
7:33
Speaker 1: we decided early on, let's make this an album, and
7:36
Speaker 1: we we didn't record it all at once. We recorded
7:38
Speaker 1: in two different sessions. But in choosing to make an album,
7:42
Speaker 1: it allowed me, especially as a lyricist, to make some
7:44
Speaker 1: decisions in a way that kind of circle the wagons
7:47
Speaker 1: a little bit, maybe make things make a whole, you know,
7:51
Speaker 1: kind of create a bigger body of work than just
7:54
Speaker 1: a collection of singles. And I think that was that's exciting.
7:57
Speaker 1: I like working that way. I grew up listening to albums,
8:00
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that's kind of what we're
8:02
Speaker 1: good at. I mean, I think that like we've worked
8:04
Speaker 1: with that length of format before successfully and so I
8:09
Speaker 1: think that was kind of fun for us to go
8:10
Speaker 1: back in that we're able to create something that was
8:13
Speaker 1: kind of overarching like that. Do you see it as
8:16
Speaker 1: like there's an arc story arc to the album, or
8:19
Speaker 1: just means that you can take risks on certain songs.
8:22
Speaker 1: The latter I mean, I think you if you're releasing singles,
8:25
Speaker 1: you're never gonna make the weird ending song. You're never
8:27
Speaker 1: gonna say, Okay, that can be a little short song
8:30
Speaker 1: that sets up this next song. So the album allows
8:32
Speaker 1: you to do things like that. But and in a
8:35
Speaker 1: sense it's I don't know that it's a concept record,
8:37
Speaker 1: but I was able to kind of early on identify
8:40
Speaker 1: themes and kind of keep writing at it. And I thought,
8:43
Speaker 1: you know, the things I was thinking about at the time,
8:46
Speaker 1: or things like certainly mental health, but also you know,
8:49
Speaker 1: kind of technology and late stage capitalism sort of how
8:53
Speaker 1: that all ties into it and how that affects the
8:55
Speaker 1: stories on the record. The record was all written and
8:59
Speaker 1: almost done by the end of twenty nineteen. And it's
9:03
Speaker 1: funny because I think back and at the time, twenty
9:05
Speaker 1: nineteen felt like a very heavy year. Yeah, then we
9:08
Speaker 1: had twenty twenty where this record kind of aged like
9:12
Speaker 1: a you know, like in an oak barrel of whiskey
9:15
Speaker 1: or whatever. You mentioned technology. And one thing I think
9:18
Speaker 1: your album grapples with, which I think is hard for
9:21
Speaker 1: songwriters is the effect of technology. You know, I'm thinking
9:26
Speaker 1: and I want you to talk about the song Spices,
9:29
Speaker 1: but that's about the sort of return of an old
9:31
Speaker 1: flame who sends somebody a photo over text. Yeah, I
9:36
Speaker 1: mean I was thinking about like, like, you know, from
9:37
Speaker 1: the years of touring, I just got a new phone,
9:40
Speaker 1: and you know, they transfer all the contacts and there's
9:43
Speaker 1: just people in there, right, you know, I mean, there's
9:45
Speaker 1: just all kinds of people, people I don't recognize whatever,
9:49
Speaker 1: you know that maybe I did an interview, I needed
9:50
Speaker 1: to connect with them, and all of a sudden, any
9:53
Speaker 1: of those people can pop up on your screen. And
9:55
Speaker 1: I was thinking about, Oh, an adventure starting by really
9:59
Speaker 1: anything kind of you know, popping up in this device
10:02
Speaker 1: you're carrying around and saying meet me here, and you know,
10:06
Speaker 1: our ability to transmit images as you say, And that
10:10
Speaker 1: seemed like a very modern start to a story, like
10:14
Speaker 1: it's almost to choose your own adventure or something, you know,
10:16
Speaker 1: the clues pop up on your phone and you're following blindly.
10:19
Speaker 1: That was kind of the idea behind Spices. But yeah,
10:22
Speaker 1: you can reconnect in a second, in a in a
10:25
Speaker 1: couple of keystrokes and contact someone and that's that's unique
10:29
Speaker 1: to our times. And I think the way we communicate,
10:33
Speaker 1: the way we use technology certainly affects all of this,
10:36
Speaker 1: you know, the political discourse, our friendships, etc. You know,
10:41
Speaker 1: I was thinking this in terms of probably the songs
10:44
Speaker 1: you grew up loving. I know you're you know, Springsteen
10:47
Speaker 1: is one of your heroes, mentors, whatever you want to
10:50
Speaker 1: call them. You know, a song like Darkness on the
10:52
Speaker 1: Edge of Town is about somebody telling somebody that if
10:55
Speaker 1: they want to tell somebody else how to find him,
10:59
Speaker 1: they can find him in the edge of town. And
11:01
Speaker 1: it's it's about disconnection in a way. It's about someone's
11:04
Speaker 1: moved on with their life. And I was thinking about
11:07
Speaker 1: that when I was listening to Spices, because I thought,
11:09
Speaker 1: but yeah, but that person can be recalled instantly now,
11:12
Speaker 1: or that person leaves, but you're following them on Instagram.
11:15
Speaker 1: It's like they don't leave your life. Somehow, they don't leave.
11:19
Speaker 1: And you know, there's this also this thing that I
11:21
Speaker 1: was like, I've been amused by lately. Sometimes you'll meet
11:24
Speaker 1: someone right and it's your friends dating someone saying, and
11:29
Speaker 1: you follow you You have a nice night out with
11:31
Speaker 1: this couple, and then you end up following that their date.
11:34
Speaker 1: And this has happened to me several times recently. They
11:36
Speaker 1: break up with this girl or this you know that
11:39
Speaker 1: this partner, and you don't know. So it turns out
11:43
Speaker 1: years later you're still following this person that you had
11:46
Speaker 1: one night, you know, and a nice dinner with. At
11:48
Speaker 1: some point then suddenly you realize that they're not even
11:51
Speaker 1: that connected in my life anymore. There's a lot of
11:53
Speaker 1: that in this album, you know. I think of Unpleasant Breakfast,
11:56
Speaker 1: which is another sort of recalling of a bad relationship. Yeah,
12:00
Speaker 1: I mean I think that was no this nostalgia that
12:04
Speaker 1: we have and and in that case someone you know.
12:08
Speaker 1: Mental health is a big part of this record, you know.
12:10
Speaker 1: I mean I think I always used to I feel
12:12
Speaker 1: like I used to write a lot about partying, and
12:15
Speaker 1: at some point, you know, I'm getting towards fifty, at
12:19
Speaker 1: some point, you know, you realize, like some of this
12:21
Speaker 1: partying is self medication, etc. And the mental health is
12:24
Speaker 1: the other side of this coin. I think I've become
12:27
Speaker 1: way more interested in that. I think that's in that song.
12:31
Speaker 1: Maybe the Denariator is having a hard time just looking
12:35
Speaker 1: back on the before time and you know, saddened or
12:39
Speaker 1: unable to connect a happy memory too because of where
12:42
Speaker 1: it's got to. So tell me what your process for
12:45
Speaker 1: writing is now. Now you do many of your own
12:47
Speaker 1: albums where you do the music and the lyrics. Do
12:50
Speaker 1: you just do lyrics for the whole steady or do
12:53
Speaker 1: you work on the music as well. I would say
12:56
Speaker 1: it's an exception when I work on the music. There
12:58
Speaker 1: are times I've made suggestions, but that's generally the exception.
13:01
Speaker 1: Usually it's on Franz or Tad or Steve bringing something in.
13:06
Speaker 1: And usually these days we'll do a lot more true technology.
13:11
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of dropbox and someone will say, hey,
13:14
Speaker 1: I've got this thing, and it's usually two parts, let's say,
13:17
Speaker 1: and I'll start saying, well, I'll look through my used
13:21
Speaker 1: to be my notebook but now it's the notes app
13:23
Speaker 1: on my phone and see, like, you know, what have
13:25
Speaker 1: I got? I got little things and I'll get something together.
13:27
Speaker 1: But then we'll all get in a room and then
13:29
Speaker 1: that's usually when we start moving things around and maybe
13:33
Speaker 1: someone has an idea for a third part or you know,
13:37
Speaker 1: and we start arranging it. And so there it's kind
13:39
Speaker 1: of the two parts. It's the getting ready and then
13:42
Speaker 1: the togetherness on the last two records. You know, the
13:46
Speaker 1: the producer Josh Kaufman has showed up pretty early in
13:49
Speaker 1: the process and kind of been in been around for
13:52
Speaker 1: at least part of that second process, and pitched in
13:55
Speaker 1: some ideas about arrangement and you know, how we how
13:58
Speaker 1: we might approach things, which has been super helpful and cool.
14:01
Speaker 1: And then is it you go off in a room
14:04
Speaker 1: by yourself and figure out the lyrics or do the
14:08
Speaker 1: tracks they send you have some they tweaked something in
14:11
Speaker 1: your imagination? Yeah, I mean usually I have, you know,
14:16
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff written down that that are just
14:19
Speaker 1: sort of notes and things I might think of how
14:22
Speaker 1: that might show up somewhere. Oftentimes it's, honestly, oftentimes it's
14:27
Speaker 1: getting the first line. Sometimes the first line is just
14:30
Speaker 1: enough to open up and go with it and see
14:33
Speaker 1: where it takes me. Can you give me an example
14:36
Speaker 1: from this album where the first line really dictated where
14:38
Speaker 1: you went? Yeah, I mean I think, um, that spicy song,
14:43
Speaker 1: you know, She's she sent a picture of a plethora
14:45
Speaker 1: of poker chips spread out on a bed between a
14:48
Speaker 1: mouth and a leg. I thought, wow, like, what what
14:51
Speaker 1: what happens when you get that photo, you know, and
14:54
Speaker 1: the idea of poker chips was kind of funny in
14:57
Speaker 1: a hotel and I, you know, outside of a casino.
15:01
Speaker 1: I sort of felt like that was a that was
15:02
Speaker 1: a funny image and what would it what would it mean?
15:05
Speaker 1: Do you know how a story's going to end when
15:08
Speaker 1: you start the lyric? Not always I'd say fifty percent.
15:12
Speaker 1: And I'm a great tinkerer, like I I honestly sort
15:16
Speaker 1: of am always playing with things, and then when we
15:19
Speaker 1: record it, when we cut the song, I feel like
15:22
Speaker 1: it's done, like I can let go of it my mind.
15:25
Speaker 1: But up until then, I'm especially with the small words
15:27
Speaker 1: and the little you know again, the meter just kind
15:30
Speaker 1: of toying with things. I'll go and U like sort
15:34
Speaker 1: of hunt for the worst lines, like I'll look at
15:37
Speaker 1: you know, I'll write out the song or type out
15:39
Speaker 1: the song and then say like which is the worst line,
15:41
Speaker 1: and then which is you know, if I had to
15:43
Speaker 1: replace one, what would I do? And kind of keep
15:46
Speaker 1: at in that way, and that can change you know,
15:48
Speaker 1: the story a little bit. But there are times I'll
15:51
Speaker 1: start I have no idea where it's going, and then
15:53
Speaker 1: there are times where I know exactly how this ends. Right.
15:56
Speaker 1: There's some part of songwriting that reminds me of doing
15:58
Speaker 1: cross words. It's like sometimes you just that one line
16:02
Speaker 1: you get kind of is that big, big, long one
16:05
Speaker 1: across the middle, and everything sort of falls into place
16:08
Speaker 1: after you at that. She sent a picture of a
16:19
Speaker 1: plethora of poker chips spread on the bed between a
16:23
Speaker 1: mouth and a leg. She said, there's pretty many people already,
16:27
Speaker 1: but still I wish you were here. I hadn't really
16:33
Speaker 1: seen her since the previous winter. She'd been a drop
16:36
Speaker 1: dead number since later last December, but here she is
16:40
Speaker 1: rising again. Happy Easter. You want to go get some beers?
16:46
Speaker 1: How the part tenders were strangling their shakers. It was
16:50
Speaker 1: springtime in the sweet part of the city. It's nice
16:54
Speaker 1: to hit the taverns with familiar companions. I kind of
16:58
Speaker 1: like it when she's laughing at me. That's a bit
17:10
Speaker 1: of spices from the hold Steadies new album, Open Door Policy.
17:14
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a quick break, We're back
17:21
Speaker 1: with more from Craigfinn and Bruce had Them. You're a
17:24
Speaker 1: literary writer in the sense that, hey, you write a lot,
17:27
Speaker 1: but you have these recurring characters that almost since the
17:31
Speaker 1: start of your career, I think even before the whole Steady,
17:35
Speaker 1: you had certain characters that would recur. They're not name necessarily,
17:39
Speaker 1: but did this character show up in this record as well?
17:43
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think so. I always feel like
17:46
Speaker 1: it's it's in my best interest to scare that. But no,
17:50
Speaker 1: I think this is a new I certainly think they're
17:53
Speaker 1: all living in the same universe, but I think this
17:56
Speaker 1: is a new set of people. I believe that I
17:59
Speaker 1: think things are interesting from about fifteen years ago. And
18:03
Speaker 1: so when I think when this band started and I
18:05
Speaker 1: was in my mid thirties, I was writing a lot
18:07
Speaker 1: about people who were twenty, you know, and uh, that's
18:10
Speaker 1: an age of great confidence and maybe maybe too much confidence,
18:15
Speaker 1: and people can wonderfully get into trouble due to sort
18:18
Speaker 1: of their cockiness. But as I get towards fifty, I
18:21
Speaker 1: think people in their mid thirties are more interesting to me.
18:24
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the people on this
18:26
Speaker 1: record are those people. And you know, I guess I'm
18:29
Speaker 1: more interested in people who are stuck, you know, in
18:32
Speaker 1: some way, and they may be making bad decisions, but
18:36
Speaker 1: they're not so wild about it, and I think that
18:39
Speaker 1: there's there's something more interesting in those people now to me,
18:43
Speaker 1: you know, I used to really love writing about people
18:45
Speaker 1: who are partying a lot. Now I think I'm more
18:48
Speaker 1: interested in, like, uh, you know, the grandma who's giving
18:51
Speaker 1: that guy two hundred dollars every day, the sort of
18:54
Speaker 1: the codependency of it all, And that's that's fascinating to me.
18:57
Speaker 1: And I think that those kind of relationships interests me
19:01
Speaker 1: a lot these days because though that's that's the fuel
19:04
Speaker 1: that keeps that guy parting, but somehow that's that's deeper
19:07
Speaker 1: and weirder to me. You're associated with these kind of
19:10
Speaker 1: characters partying and up all night, and even though there's
19:14
Speaker 1: a lot of hangovers and people throwing up, there is
19:17
Speaker 1: something still there's a kind of shoddy glamor about it all.
19:20
Speaker 1: Do you still look back on that as kind of
19:22
Speaker 1: a glamorous, exciting time. Well, I think all these things
19:27
Speaker 1: cause elation. Right, you know, you can drink six glasses
19:30
Speaker 1: of champagne. It's gonna be pretty fun that night. It's
19:34
Speaker 1: it's not the next morning. But I don't think it's
19:37
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's hard to deny that there are
19:40
Speaker 1: good times that can come from that, but you know,
19:42
Speaker 1: if it's not repeated every night of your life, for
19:46
Speaker 1: every night for a long period. But yeah, I do
19:49
Speaker 1: think that there is fun and like I said, elation,
19:53
Speaker 1: I do believe it's sort of a duty to kind
19:56
Speaker 1: of write about the hangover too. It reminds me a
19:58
Speaker 1: bit and this is another Minnesota reference. It reminds me
20:01
Speaker 1: a bit of Fitzgerald. Yeah, I mean I think there's
20:05
Speaker 1: there's that. I mean, the waiste, sort of the garbage
20:07
Speaker 1: at the end of the night, sweeping up the cups
20:09
Speaker 1: as sort of a fet Fitzgerald thing, you know, like
20:12
Speaker 1: the bottles on the floor at the end of the show.
20:15
Speaker 1: There is something so distinct about that sound of when
20:17
Speaker 1: you're sweeping up those those red beer cups, makes it
20:21
Speaker 1: sound like nothing else. I used to when we first
20:24
Speaker 1: started touring, I used to always like to take a photo.
20:27
Speaker 1: I used to carry around, like you know, before they're
20:29
Speaker 1: all on our phones, a digital camera and I always
20:31
Speaker 1: used to like to take a photo of the mess
20:33
Speaker 1: at the end of the show after the crowd left.
20:37
Speaker 1: A song I found really fascinating and disturbing and I'm
20:41
Speaker 1: not sure why is prior procedure. Can you tell me
20:44
Speaker 1: a bit about that song? Yeah, prior procedure is actually
20:47
Speaker 1: the song that mentions the lyric open door policy, so
20:50
Speaker 1: it's I don't know a hinge on the whole thing.
20:53
Speaker 1: That song is sort of about someone who's or you know,
20:56
Speaker 1: a couple who's been displaced and are trying to find
20:58
Speaker 1: a place to stay and end up, you know, going
21:01
Speaker 1: to this kind of fictitious crash pad that's hosted by
21:05
Speaker 1: a really rich guy, a billionaire or something, and you know,
21:08
Speaker 1: it's the idea that he's being generous by letting all
21:11
Speaker 1: these people stay there, but he's also kind of controlling
21:14
Speaker 1: the strings, right, you know, he's still in charge, and
21:16
Speaker 1: it's very much a culture personality, and I think that
21:20
Speaker 1: there's sort of a modern kind of an allegory there.
21:23
Speaker 1: There's that seems like the relationship we have with, you know,
21:27
Speaker 1: some of the very wealthy people in this country. I mean,
21:30
Speaker 1: it's kind of a science fiction thing, but it seemed
21:33
Speaker 1: like something that could happen. It reminded me of the
21:38
Speaker 1: case of the He was a venture capitalist who co
21:41
Speaker 1: founded Zappos, the shoe company, and he died recently, but
21:45
Speaker 1: he just seemed to travel around to Vegas in these
21:47
Speaker 1: places and it was just always a party people were
21:49
Speaker 1: always around him spending his money. But this seemed to
21:53
Speaker 1: go on for years that people would just sort of
21:55
Speaker 1: attached themselves and then sort of wander off. And that's
21:58
Speaker 1: that's what it reminded me of. Somehow I made this
22:00
Speaker 1: guy up in my head. But I do remember reading
22:03
Speaker 1: that are the article about that guy, and it seemed
22:07
Speaker 1: like exactly the type of thing I was thinking of,
22:09
Speaker 1: this sort of hedonistic but financial with you know, backing
22:14
Speaker 1: of massive financial success. Because there are so many stories
22:18
Speaker 1: in this and it's so varied, what is the inspiration
22:21
Speaker 1: for these stories? Are there novels you're reading now or
22:24
Speaker 1: is it the newspaper both? I mean I get a
22:27
Speaker 1: lot of stuff from fiction. I always I do like
22:30
Speaker 1: reading fiction. I think in some ways it's meditative to
22:34
Speaker 1: go into someone else's world right in a way that
22:38
Speaker 1: no other form, you know, movies, music and everything else,
22:44
Speaker 1: Like I can kind of have some distraction happening. But
22:47
Speaker 1: if I'm really into a novel, I'm in there, and
22:50
Speaker 1: so those that's a place that inspires stories. I don't
22:53
Speaker 1: know that I can point to an exact story and
22:55
Speaker 1: the record that's influenced by a novel, but it certain
22:58
Speaker 1: gives me something to aspire to that kind of fiction,
23:01
Speaker 1: creating a world that people can inhabit. I also think
23:05
Speaker 1: just taking things in and motion. Travel for me is
23:09
Speaker 1: wildly exciting. Unfortunately, that is something we've lost over the
23:12
Speaker 1: past year. But one of the things I've talked with
23:15
Speaker 1: my bandmates about, you know, not just the travel where
23:18
Speaker 1: you get to go to the top of a mountain,
23:21
Speaker 1: but the travel that you end up having a beer
23:23
Speaker 1: in the Hilton Garden in you know, near the airport
23:26
Speaker 1: and in a small Midwestern city. Somehow that ends up
23:30
Speaker 1: being really inspiring in just its sense of displacement and
23:34
Speaker 1: being observational in those moments. What has the isolation of
23:40
Speaker 1: the last year. What's that meant for your writing? I'm
23:42
Speaker 1: proud to say I've been able to write a ton
23:45
Speaker 1: like I've just been able to crank it out. But
23:47
Speaker 1: I have two sort of a two step process. Number one,
23:50
Speaker 1: putting words on paper. That's been surprisingly easy for me
23:54
Speaker 1: this year. The second part is this any good I
23:57
Speaker 1: can't tell, you know, my sort of ability to criticize myself,
24:02
Speaker 1: my judgment has really gone away in this I think
24:06
Speaker 1: it's the lack of just sorting your normal life compare
24:09
Speaker 1: things too. I mean, I've just have a pile of stuff.
24:12
Speaker 1: Now I'll either get that back or I'll use a
24:14
Speaker 1: producer to help me wade through it. I'm definitely not
24:17
Speaker 1: throwing things out because I'm like, I don't know, Oh,
24:20
Speaker 1: that's interesting. It's just that the judgment has been suspended
24:24
Speaker 1: this year. Yeah, very much so. And I don't I
24:28
Speaker 1: don't know why. I don't know what that is, but
24:32
Speaker 1: that is definitely what I have felt. And I've actually
24:34
Speaker 1: talked to a few people that have felt the same.
24:38
Speaker 1: What has because you are you are a church going Catholic,
24:41
Speaker 1: What is that meant for you in the past year
24:43
Speaker 1: not to have that fellowship. I've gone back and forth
24:48
Speaker 1: with my faith a lot over the past number of
24:50
Speaker 1: years and really my whole life. And uh, I find
24:53
Speaker 1: a lot of beauty in church and and and certainly
24:56
Speaker 1: in the Bible as well as the rituals of a
25:00
Speaker 1: Catholic mass. I have gotten frustrated and increasingly frustrated with
25:06
Speaker 1: the church, you know, and and and especially some of
25:09
Speaker 1: the political stances it's taken repeatedly, but especially over the
25:13
Speaker 1: past four years. So I was at a period of
25:16
Speaker 1: not really active church going when this started. Well, when
25:20
Speaker 1: I say you're a Catholic, that that means you're always
25:24
Speaker 1: battling with the Catholic Church. So yeah, I mean I
25:27
Speaker 1: think that that's probably that's just probably part like I've
25:30
Speaker 1: accepted that part of it. Like I'll probably be back
25:32
Speaker 1: and back and forth from my life. You know, I'm
25:35
Speaker 1: a pretty good run of not going. Were your parents'
25:39
Speaker 1: churchgoers when you grew up? Oh yeah, yeah, the whole family?
25:42
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's where I got it. My father
25:44
Speaker 1: was raised pretty Catholic and you know, still does confession
25:48
Speaker 1: and all that, and that was part of our you know,
25:51
Speaker 1: Holy Days, et cetera. Every Sunday, Holy Days, no meat
25:55
Speaker 1: on Fridays, etc. So all of that was part of
25:59
Speaker 1: my upbringing. And you know, like I said, I still
26:02
Speaker 1: I still find beauty in it. I just have to
26:03
Speaker 1: figure out this identic Catholicism in my head. It is
26:09
Speaker 1: probably only going to live there. It's more muted now
26:12
Speaker 1: in your lyrics than it once was. Yeah, well, Separation
26:16
Speaker 1: Sunday was sort of the high point of that. Our
26:18
Speaker 1: second record, man, that's when I went the deep dive.
26:22
Speaker 1: It does not appear as much on this record at all.
26:26
Speaker 1: I think Saint Francis has mentioned, and that's almost sort
26:29
Speaker 1: of the most secular saint you can think of. There's
26:33
Speaker 1: a movie Brother's Son's Sister Moon from nineteen seventy two
26:37
Speaker 1: that is about Saint Francis that is just gorgeous, and
26:41
Speaker 1: that's almost the I almost think of him as more
26:43
Speaker 1: of a secular hippie figure, and then I do as
26:45
Speaker 1: a hard Catholic saint. But I think maybe it mirrors
26:50
Speaker 1: sort of my own relationship with the church. Probably, and
26:53
Speaker 1: maybe I feel like I've already gone there just wasn't
26:57
Speaker 1: on my mind when I made this record, and who
27:00
Speaker 1: knows it could return. After a quick break, we'll be
27:03
Speaker 1: back with more from Craig fan We're back with the
27:10
Speaker 1: rest of Bruce Hedlum's conversation with Craig Finn. You know,
27:14
Speaker 1: one of my great arguments with David Carr was that
27:18
Speaker 1: David didn't like bands to get old. He liked their
27:23
Speaker 1: you know, youthful, crazy, stage diving origin, and it worried
27:30
Speaker 1: him when they got older. Now, I will say, when
27:32
Speaker 1: the Replacements got back together, David was first in line.
27:36
Speaker 1: You're older now, I don't did you think you'd be
27:38
Speaker 1: in this band this long? Well, I don't have I
27:42
Speaker 1: can't answer that for sure, but I will say that
27:45
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, before we started the whole study,
27:47
Speaker 1: I went to see the Drive By Truckers at Bowery
27:51
Speaker 1: Ballrooms and it was one of the best shows I've
27:53
Speaker 1: ever seen, and I found it incredibly moving. And they
27:56
Speaker 1: were guys I was in my early to mid I
27:59
Speaker 1: was thirty one, but the guys in the band were
28:03
Speaker 1: mostly a little older than I was, and that it
28:05
Speaker 1: really excited me. It made me want to be in
28:07
Speaker 1: a band again. But what what struck me in that
28:10
Speaker 1: moment was that, Okay, these guys are not playing music
28:13
Speaker 1: that's like the most absolute hip music for this exact minute.
28:18
Speaker 1: However it's classic, and ten years from now it'll sound
28:21
Speaker 1: as good as it does today. And so I think
28:24
Speaker 1: when we started the whold Steady, there was almost an
28:27
Speaker 1: idea that we were trying to create something that was
28:29
Speaker 1: that was a little bit more classic. And I was
28:32
Speaker 1: already in my thirties and I'd been in a Lifter
28:35
Speaker 1: Polar Cut. There was like more of an indie rock
28:37
Speaker 1: band in my twenties. I sort of felt like I'd
28:40
Speaker 1: crashed out at twenty nine and I was trying to
28:43
Speaker 1: figure out what a life in rock and roll would
28:46
Speaker 1: look like, and it may start with making something that
28:48
Speaker 1: is more classic. So well, I can say for sure
28:51
Speaker 1: I even thought about being fifty when I when I
28:54
Speaker 1: started the Whole Steady, I can say that I was
28:57
Speaker 1: trying to see a band that could age gracefully. And
29:00
Speaker 1: I'm happy for that. I mean, I think we created
29:02
Speaker 1: something that that has and does you know rock and
29:07
Speaker 1: roll is um it gets older every year like the
29:10
Speaker 1: rest of us. So I think it's finding or attempting
29:14
Speaker 1: to find a place that isn't all twenty year olds,
29:18
Speaker 1: you know, and stage dives and broken bottles and is
29:21
Speaker 1: it true I heard a story that you were really
29:23
Speaker 1: influenced by the Last Waltz. Yes. In my twenties, I
29:26
Speaker 1: was really kind of connected to indie rock and punk rock,
29:30
Speaker 1: and I almost had a hole in my knowledge where
29:33
Speaker 1: it came to a lot of classic rock. And so
29:37
Speaker 1: as I sort of burned out on indie rock, I
29:39
Speaker 1: started to kind of go back and fill those holes.
29:42
Speaker 1: And you know, it was an back then you could
29:45
Speaker 1: go to a used record store and find a used
29:48
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones record for three dollars and come home and
29:51
Speaker 1: be like Wow, this is better than almost any indie
29:54
Speaker 1: rock band I know, or any of them. But then
29:57
Speaker 1: the Last Waltz was reissued in the early two thousands,
30:00
Speaker 1: I knew nothing about the band pretty much, and I
30:03
Speaker 1: was just really excited by the way they played together
30:06
Speaker 1: and sort of the musicality and the looseness of it.
30:10
Speaker 1: And there's this idea that um in indie rock, there's
30:14
Speaker 1: this almost choreography that I felt like was taking place
30:18
Speaker 1: where it's like, if I play these notes in a
30:20
Speaker 1: row right, and you play them too, It's almost like
30:23
Speaker 1: that game Simon where you're you have to hit things
30:26
Speaker 1: in a you know, in a pattern. Then if we
30:28
Speaker 1: if we line it all up, it'll sound good. But
30:31
Speaker 1: you know, and this sounds really rudimentary or basic, but
30:35
Speaker 1: I just it was exciting to see people play music
30:38
Speaker 1: and listen to each other and react to each other
30:40
Speaker 1: and play with a little looseness. And I remember seeing
30:44
Speaker 1: things like Springsteen at the time, and and and the
30:47
Speaker 1: way that in the middle of the song the band
30:49
Speaker 1: might vamp and he'll tell a story, and I remember thinking, like,
30:52
Speaker 1: I want to do that, Like indie rock bands don't
30:55
Speaker 1: do that. They just plow ahead and play their song.
30:57
Speaker 1: And stop. You know, well, what if in this band,
30:59
Speaker 1: we said, well, I got something to say, and the
31:02
Speaker 1: band kind of went down and vamped a little bit,
31:05
Speaker 1: and I told the story and then we brought it
31:06
Speaker 1: back and that's something we started doing the whole steady
31:09
Speaker 1: and it was really exciting. And again that sounds really basic,
31:12
Speaker 1: but that's just something I wasn't getting out of indie rock.
31:15
Speaker 1: M It's something you'd have gotten out of Ray Charles
31:18
Speaker 1: your first for sure. For sure. I mean all that,
31:21
Speaker 1: all that stuff, And again it's not it's not rocket science.
31:24
Speaker 1: It seems easy, but at the time that's where my
31:26
Speaker 1: head was at. No, I think it's very hard. I've
31:28
Speaker 1: only seen Springsteen once, but he did a the band stopped,
31:31
Speaker 1: he did a big vamp on something, and he talked
31:34
Speaker 1: about what freedom meant when he was a kid, and
31:36
Speaker 1: then they broke into raise your Hand. I think it's
31:39
Speaker 1: it's the old Eddie Floyd's song, and it was just yeah,
31:41
Speaker 1: it was fantastic. Yeah, you know, and you can, and
31:44
Speaker 1: you can in that moment maybe even pull something or
31:47
Speaker 1: that the audience, someone in the audience is doing, or
31:49
Speaker 1: something that happened that day and kind of tie it
31:51
Speaker 1: all in and I mean in that sense you are
31:53
Speaker 1: kind of bringing that that church element to it. You
31:56
Speaker 1: know that the homily or the sermon about something that
32:00
Speaker 1: that the audience really understands in that moment or that
32:03
Speaker 1: week or that day. You've done four solo albums, Yeah,
32:07
Speaker 1: what's that like? Now when you come back to the band,
32:09
Speaker 1: has it changed your songwriting? You tend to do more acoustic,
32:13
Speaker 1: more intimate stuff. I mean, I think that when we
32:16
Speaker 1: came back and made Thrashing through the Passion and those
32:19
Speaker 1: songs that went into that, I think it very much
32:21
Speaker 1: affected me in the sense that I was very excited
32:25
Speaker 1: to kind of yell and be boisterous and be in
32:28
Speaker 1: the whole a loud rock band again. And so you
32:30
Speaker 1: know that in that sense, you're flexing both the muscles.
32:33
Speaker 1: You know, it's like arms day and legs day. You know,
32:37
Speaker 1: you're you're excited to get back to arms day. I
32:39
Speaker 1: think one thing that happened with the solo records is
32:42
Speaker 1: it starting with Faith in the Future, which was in
32:45
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, is it allowed me to kind of dial
32:48
Speaker 1: in or really kind of focus on something more maybe empathetic.
32:54
Speaker 1: That was definitely turned up in the solo records and
32:57
Speaker 1: maybe continues on in the Whole Steady and in this
33:01
Speaker 1: sort of version of the Whole Steady, which I kind
33:03
Speaker 1: of call him three point Now. I think the last
33:06
Speaker 1: two records have maybe included some of them or the
33:09
Speaker 1: empathy that I was exploring in the solo records. But
33:12
Speaker 1: I also think just anytime you are thrusting yourself into
33:17
Speaker 1: situations that you have some amount of discomfort, new musicians, whatever,
33:21
Speaker 1: you're going to grow. And I think I'm aware of
33:23
Speaker 1: some of the ways I've grown, but I think I've
33:25
Speaker 1: probably grown in other ways that I'm not aware of,
33:28
Speaker 1: just by trying new things and scaring myself a little bit.
33:32
Speaker 1: Where does the empathy come from? You know? At that
33:35
Speaker 1: point in twenty fifteen, I think one of the things
33:38
Speaker 1: happened my mother passed away, and I remember talking to
33:42
Speaker 1: a friend who said who had gone through a similar
33:44
Speaker 1: thing as mom, also died from cancer. And he was
33:47
Speaker 1: talking about how after that, when he got in situations
33:50
Speaker 1: that it would previously annoyed him, you know, like a
33:52
Speaker 1: crowded train or something like that, he felt empathy rather
33:56
Speaker 1: than annoyance. Like he looked at and said, well, look cold,
33:59
Speaker 1: all these people suffer all these people will suffer. They
34:01
Speaker 1: all have their own things going on. And I guess
34:04
Speaker 1: I really understood what he meant. And I think some
34:07
Speaker 1: people will find that from having kids. I don't have
34:10
Speaker 1: any kids, so but I think that there was in
34:13
Speaker 1: that experience something that put me in touch with something
34:17
Speaker 1: you know, more human and you know, more understanding of everyone.
34:22
Speaker 1: M you seem very sympathetic of your characters on this album. Yeah,
34:28
Speaker 1: I mean I think that. I guess maybe the older
34:30
Speaker 1: I get, the more people I know that I draw
34:34
Speaker 1: on where people haven't you know, have either slipped away
34:37
Speaker 1: or things haven't worked out for them exactly how they intended. Obviously,
34:42
Speaker 1: there's uh decisions and all that, but there's also, you know,
34:45
Speaker 1: some amount of luck, I believe, and so I am
34:50
Speaker 1: I look at I look with some with love, and
34:55
Speaker 1: I want the love that I have for these people
34:57
Speaker 1: to come through in some way. It does remind me
34:59
Speaker 1: a little of Springsteen's latest album, where he talks about
35:05
Speaker 1: all the people in his original band have died that
35:07
Speaker 1: he's the last one left, and what a strange thing
35:10
Speaker 1: that is. You know, you've worked with a lot of musicians.
35:13
Speaker 1: Does it surprise you that you're still going and probably
35:16
Speaker 1: a lot of those people aren't going not as musicians
35:18
Speaker 1: at least. Yeah, I mean I think that there's I mean,
35:22
Speaker 1: there's certain things that have served me well. I mean
35:27
Speaker 1: in some ways, like you know, organization and you know,
35:31
Speaker 1: work ethic are helpful and you know, I want to
35:35
Speaker 1: communicate clearly with people. I think those are things that
35:37
Speaker 1: are kind of underrated and don't always naturally exist with musicians.
35:42
Speaker 1: To be honest, I think that you do look back
35:45
Speaker 1: at this age and say, wow, you know there's people
35:47
Speaker 1: who have left your life. And I mean even in
35:48
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, some because of COVID, some because not. At
35:52
Speaker 1: the end of the year, I made a list and
35:54
Speaker 1: I knew twenty people who die and some were like
35:58
Speaker 1: you know, friends, parents, But that's a big list, and
36:02
Speaker 1: it struck me that probably as you get older at
36:05
Speaker 1: that list gross right or I mean, this was a
36:08
Speaker 1: strange year, but that list is unlikely to get too
36:11
Speaker 1: much smaller going forward. So what is next for you
36:16
Speaker 1: and the band? You've always been a very hard working
36:19
Speaker 1: touring band. I hope that when shows come back and
36:23
Speaker 1: are safe for people to attend, we will be playing them.
36:26
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's it's a lot of
36:28
Speaker 1: weight and see just like the rest of the world,
36:30
Speaker 1: and we're going to do our best and again to
36:33
Speaker 1: bring technology into it. Luckily, we are able in some
36:37
Speaker 1: ways able to interface and understand the reaction to the
36:42
Speaker 1: record that we just put out. That's seems like a
36:44
Speaker 1: very special record internally to us. So people seem to
36:47
Speaker 1: really like it, and that's that's very gratifying. Okay, well,
36:51
Speaker 1: thank you so much. This has been just wonderful. Oh,
36:54
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Thanks to Craig Finn for
36:59
Speaker 1: breaking down his songwriting process for us to hear. Open
37:03
Speaker 1: door policy and our favorite hold steady tracks had to
37:05
Speaker 1: Broken Record podcast that you should have. Subscribe to our
37:09
Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcasts,
37:13
Speaker 1: where we can find all of our new episodes. You
37:15
Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter apt Broken Record. Broken Record
37:19
Speaker 1: is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Cartin Gonzalez,
37:23
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineer and help from
37:27
Speaker 1: Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Meal of That. If
37:31
Speaker 1: you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider
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37:44
Speaker 1: Broken Record is production of Pushing Industries. Our theme musics
37:47
Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.