Heather's Little Passover On The Prairie Extravaganza!

Transcript

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Hey, guys, listen, before the podcast starts, look, I'm going to take 30 seconds of this song in Chicago right now. By Greg Van Today's guest. Her mom found her brother when she found the container wrapped up in a newspaper stuffed in a duffel bag with hockey pads and seven grand in rubber bands. We don't speak at the service, but then later a message from a number that wasn't familiar said, Hey, it's Charlie's sister, would you do me a favor? There's unfinished business. It's roughly the size of a baseball. I said I wasn't totally sure, but yeah, I could probably call someone. I knew this kid from my dorm when I went to school in Wisconsin. All right now, go and listen to that song because we end up talking about it a lot. And I don't want you to. I don't want to be talked out for you before you heard it. Like, listen to the song and then come back to the podcast. You did a flip over on your iPhone, like it's right there on Spotify or on iTunes. And so listen to that gone Chicago. Click the little thing to download Craig's album so that he gets maximum money from it. It's still free for you. And and then come back to the podcast with Greg Van. Hey, there's the moment. I'm Brian Koppelman, thanks for listening. This super fun for me. Hey, before I started, I want to say the feedback I got on that Q&A episode was amazing, and I so appreciate the fact that it hit you guys where it did. And I love getting letters and notes about it. But OK, today's podcast, Craig, I was thinking about this and I probably have five favorite bands in my life, and you're the leader of one of those five favorite bands. This is Craig Finn, lead singer, co chief songwriter for the Hold Steady and a guy who's made one of my favorite albums of the last few years. His A Solo album, which is called We All Want the Same Things. So, Craig Finn, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. You were on the podcast in the very, very early days with your hold steady partner, Tad. And I'm glad we're going to have the opportunity to just talk the two of us about what you're doing now and about how you think about the world you're writing about, right? Here's where we'll get to biographical stuff and we'll get to process stuff, which I'm really interested in. But with you, I have to do a little bit of textural analysis, right then. All right. Yeah. Yeah, sure. So. What is it about the drug deal that you find so animating, particularly like the drug deal gone slightly wrong? What does it say to you about America right now and what is really being transacted there in your book? And in some ways, the drug thing is manufacturing highs and lows. I mean, I think like, you know, but when I see manufacturing highs and lows, it's like, if you know someone who's depressed might need might be attracted to something and some sort of amphetamine that picks him up or someone who's high strung with a lot of anxiety might be attracted to something down that takes him out of their head. And so we have this, I mean, in one way as looking at this technology available that we just kind of can't where rats that we kind of can't stop hitting hitting the button, you know? And that's interesting. There's also this this sort of underworld of something going on really beneath the surface that, you know, I think you tap into people, people tap into that world when when they start pursuing narcotics or drugs of any sort. And that is interesting because there's a below the surface world that isn't right visible. So both those things are kind of interesting for me to talk about. And and there's a there's also this I don't know. I don't know. There's sometimes like like a camaraderie or or honor among thieves or something that happens in a drug deal. That is also interesting to me. Well, the honor among these drug deal is for sure in, you know, the Chicago song, but. Not a song by the band Chicago, your song, but but. You know, you start the album by someone who bought something that was probably coriander and not not real drugs. Yeah. And so there's I just want to go a little try again because what I'm what I'm interested in is these people meet up these kind of strangers and then something is transacted. Mm-Hmm. And then people go away with the results of that transaction, and it feels like that moment is particularly charged for you because it surfaces in like half your song. Yeah. Well, I think it's I mean, it's part of the ritual, right? Like and I think that that's, you know, I mean that other half of my songs are these Catholic rituals. Right? So you're going. I was gonna talk to you about guilt in a second. Yeah, rituals are are important in the way we kind of frame our lives. But there's this build up or the, you know, the waiting for the man, the Lou Reed kind of thing that's part and parcel of the whole deal. And maybe I mean, I think a lot of addicts would tell you that that's part of one of the exciting parts of it, you know, OK, so but waiting for my man? Is about the desperate frustration of the power that the dealer has over the addict. Right, the result of putting faith in that change you're talking about in this person, it seems to me that the evolution of that into the songs you write. Is slightly different because we sense that the dealer's hoping for some sort of connection to. Yeah, well, it connects are people. I mean, you know, I mean, I remember one time when I was in my 20s and I was living in Minneapolis and I was I was watching a World Cup game. I remember this very vividly. And this car pulled up right in front of my apartment and there's all this yelling and there someone that I would eat in the car and they were pulling them out and they were trying to revive them. And it was a cornucopia of people. It was four people. They are all different races, their all different ages. They were, you know, I was like, How are all these people hanging out like? They don't look like natural friends, but something that pulled them together. And it was crazy. I called the cops. And then when the cops came, three of them ran, sure, and they revived the guy and and put him in it. And there was about the unifying force. Yeah, yeah. So so there's this this this kind of thing that brings people together in a sense. Yeah, because it also seems like you flip the way you write about. The Underworld characters. It seems you have a great empathy for them, and in a way. It's not just a dummy to you or you're writing about criminals, it's it seems to me that you are recognizing a kind of attempt at nobility and maybe people cut corners and in the end can live up to it. But it's not that you're trying. I mean, I'm forty six and you know, we've all had people in our lives that have that have had struggles and and a lot of good people, you know, and it's easy to see especially. And I think when I was in lifter puller, I wrote a lot of songs about these crazy people who are criminals and and partiers, you know, and I think now I'm more attracted to sort of like maybe a sadness or maybe a inevitability or, you know, exploring like like the human side of or of someone who just can't stop or tries to or can stop for a while or. And that's there's, you know, that's a very real thing and something that's kind of interesting. Yeah. But. I was reading this, you have read that Hemingway collected interviews. No, I've never I've got to get it for you. It's the best. It's the best. But one of the interviewers and because there's this great. George claims in interviewing him, I guess, when Plimpton was youngish and Hemingway was just mocking the s**t out of his questions, and it's great. But they ask, you know, I think it was pumped in West or it might have been hochner who asked them Hochner. What, why, how? He observes. And he said, Look, when I was younger, I trained myself to observe, but now I'm just living my life, right? And you draw these people so incredibly clearly, they're all even a guy in one of your songs or a woman who has two lines. You have this crazy ability to make them a 360 degree person. And I'm wondering a little bit about. How that happens, both in the recognizing these people and then in the in the technically in the writing. How are you thinking about it? Are you just trying to solve a crime and it just you pull something or have you made notes and studies of people like, how does that work for you? I mean, I wouldn't say that I've made studies in that that I've got pages and pages about this character, but I do have a pretty well defined version of who this person is. And it's usually, you know, a composite of people I know or, you know, people from stories mixed with, you know, like a likely. A believable person, someone that I can kind of believe exists, even though they might be, I might pull things from a few different places, so I think they know what they would say and I try to just get real true to what I think they would say and that, you know, you can play with the rhyme. Or maybe it doesn't rhyme, but I think that that's the number one thing. There's those are the things like when I when I hear other songs that sometimes make me cringe, like no one to say that like they wouldn't say it like that, you know? And so I feel like that's the thing that I'm always kind of scratching outwards for. You are trying to figure out how to make it feel legit. Yeah, I mean, it's probably I imagine that something like writing, screenwriting and dialogue, you know, spend a lot of time on that. Yeah, but sometimes I'll be at dinner and someone will say something and I will grab my phone and write it down. Yeah. And then I'll send it to myself so that I have it so that it's there. And then it's weird. Even just the actor writing it down makes me remember it later. Are you? If you're on a subway and you see something, does it just get cataloged and you don't even really think about it anymore? Do you consciously catalog it both? I mean, I think as I get older, more more likely I write it down because I'm like, I'm losing to this one. When I was an entrepreneur, I saw it. I don't know if it's even true, but someone told me or I read that Jay-Z doesn't write things down. And so I it's in his book that I went through this phase that I don't didn't write lyrics down. And then even when I turned like 32, I was like, Wait, I'm losing so much stuff. You know, like, this is this is foolish. So now more than anything, I send myself emails. I use the note. I sort of use the notes on my iPhone. But if I really need to deal with it tomorrow morning, I'll send myself an email. Yeah. The note doesn't work the way it used to. Somehow, I think I now email it. Yeah, email it myself. And then you'll just check at some point you'll have like, Oh, these are notes for songs. Yeah, because then then you have a workflow, right? You use your open your email in the morning, you're like, Oh, there's that idea, I'll get it in my notebook or I'll get it wherever. You know, I sort of write in notebook transfer to the computer kind of style. And are you writing in a notebook as soon as you start to have certain ideas that feel like they could be a song? Or are you just writing sketches? I'm writing sketches or lines. You know, I mean, if I'm writing a novel or if I'm reading a novel, I'll write down a line I like and then think about why I like it and what, you know, like what, what it says or a word. And then, yeah, and then but more and more, I you know, I sit down to write a song. I say, like, you know, yeah, right now I'm in a writing period. I'm writing a lot this month. And, you know, tomorrow at 10 a.m., I'm going to write a song and it's probably going to be made up of some of my notes in part from this weekend because I have a very Monday to Friday kind of thing. And and also, it'll probably start with the first line of the song. I'll I'll try to get a good first line. And then you can roll. Yeah, all right. I was going to ask about process later, but I'll do it now. So you say I have a very Monday to Friday thing going. So walk me through what a day looks like Monday to Friday day? And do you walk through the world thinking of yourself as a songwriter? Primarily. Are you aware I'm a songwriter? I better like, I'm I'm listening and watching, and that's who I am. Yeah, I got a war, you know? And also, there needs to be songs if I'm a songwriter, you know, like, like, like, you know, I I am not a photographer because I don't take any pictures, you know? So I wake up probably around eight. Walk the dog, make coffee and my partner is a nurse. And so it kind of I work at home, so it kind of will. Her schedule varies a little bit, so it'll kind of be like if she leaves at 8:45, you know, maybe nine o'clock, I'll sit down and I try to get it. I try to get going in the morning. Creativity is better for me and in the morning to way better. Do you burning with coffee like, like, like second cup of coffee? And I'm like, you know, a cup. Do you do any like meditating or journaling beforehand? Or you just go right into the thing? I do it. I don't really do journaling. I do some meditation and stretching. And, you know, with the first cup of coffee. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, but I've changed it at times. I used to meditate more. Now I can kind of jump right in. And again, it's I mean, sometimes Angie works like at noon. So sometimes this all kind of gets pushed back because I, I don't like have a dedicated office or anything, so I have to kind of make use of the space. So in that case, I might go to the gym in the morning. But like early on the time when she leaves, I'll get in on the and you need to be alone. Yeah, I definitely need to be alone. Has it always been the case? Mostly, I mean, I get stuff in the space like, you know, I'm with the band and like, they're playing. I can, I can, you know, sort of mumble along and be like, Hi, and that would fit there, but I'll get more done if I'm alone. And when you see you start with a line, are you thinking about theme? Because all your albums, each album, each hold steady, you know, lifter puller, fan. But I'm not a lifter puller. Obsessive, Yeah, I became obsessive with the hold steady. I've stayed that way. So I know what all super well. From there, it sort of does have a thematic unity. Not sort of. Each album has a thematic unity. So are you thinking about? I will write some songs for and I still sort of think of like I'm working on an album because I'm 46 and I grew up with the album, so and I'll say like, All right, well, what are these songs? You know, but I'll write some songs and I'll sort of do that. You know, let Jody and Joan Didion said, we write to find out what we're thinking or whatever. I'll do that. I'll figure out like, what? What's what's you know? Some of it reveals itself to you. It's like, Wow, a lot of these songs are about people dying, you know, alienation or estrangement or from the joy of coming, you know, the possibility of unit, you know, unifying. Exactly. And then I'll be like, That's that's where my head's at. Obviously, let's let's go deeper. And you will. So that's the concerto. The writing is fascinating. I think really instructive to you'll do a bunch of writing, yeah, where you're not coming from an intellectual place primarily, right? You're you're writing to recognized. But at a certain point, you will allow the analytical part of yourself to form it into something. Yeah, yeah. And then you'll write the rest of them just knowing that right? And that just just knowing it. I imagine guides it without you consciously rigidly guiding it. Yeah. What are the different angles on this? Like one big picture thing, like what's another way of thinking about that? What's what's another take on it? And do you usually know when you found like a centerpiece, when you found God in Chicago or when you found sequestered in Memphis or Lord? I'm discouraged. Like, Do you do you know, OK, I found the center of this debate? Yeah. In some cases, yes. In some cases, no. I mean, stuck between stations. I remember being like, Oh, that's it, you know, like, like, that's we got it. We can we can unfurls from their sequestered and not not maybe as much, Lord, I'm discouraged. I sort of remember thinking of as the centerpiece of that record garden Chicago. And the new record is obviously the centerpiece of this record and arguably the centerpiece of your career. Yeah. And that one came late late in the process and Josh Kaufman, who was the producer and and become a very important person. I brought it to him and he, you know, I was like showing it to him and I kind of had it. I was kind of trying to force it into more of a traditional song structure. And he was like, backup, backup. Wait, wait, wait. And actually, he wrote the majority of the music for it. He kind of on stripped out the chords and was like, What if we just kind of he went to the piano. Did you write in a guitar? I had the notes on guitar, but we've changed them. So it's it's almost hard to remember. But I had the the piece was pretty well written, you know? And did you know you were going to sing that one part of it only? And that was going to be this kind of rethink we talked about and said, Let's make. He said, Let's do this again, you know, I mean, he's been very helpful to me and. And that was one that and that was kind of right before we went to record. So that one kind of came together so very quickly. Like, you know, a week later, we recorded it, we recorded it the day Prince died or that it was announced Prince died and. And and I actually changed the line. It had been, you know, we did let it be. And LED Zeppelin three, and I changed it to 1999. And I, yeah, it was. It was a that was a moment, you know, like it was a a moment when when the chords ended and it was like. I think I think this is good, I like this, you know. Did you recorded along with him playing the well, we recorded? I mean, the music and then you sang it. I did lie life. I didn't alive. I didn't lie. And then I think I overdubbed it with Bill O'Reilly style. I'll try it live. We'll do it. I try to do everything live in case you get something, but I think probably we did. I at least did some overdubs or I did some mush mouth things, you know? And and. It's a staggering work, man. You know, I I mean, Leonard Cohen died last year and Lou died a few years ago, which is still hard to understand and patty. So you've really pumped up a bunch of notches on Best American lyricist living lyricist due to the very, you know, there's about four of you left now, one last night. Yeah, Jason Israel is definitely one of them to which anyone who listens to this knows. I think Jason Isbell is really high up there, but there. You know, you and I have talked you and I are friendly in real life and have talked about this ambition, you also have to write stories. And. Listening to that song, it's so clearly a novel or a story or a movie, and I immediately thought to myself, Well, someone should make a movie out of that story in a small movie out of it. How did you how did you decide? f**k it. It's not a story. It's a song. And and how does that sort of like land for you as someone who also has this other ambition? I mean, the ambition is will be best realized to tell stories in other ways is to say, f**k it. It's not a song, because I mean, that's what happens is like, I think of stories and they become songs. So, you know, I do. I have said I would always like to write a novel. I'd like to do other types of writing storytelling. But you know, the thing I'm always fighting is that if I think of a story, next thing I know it's a song. Yeah, because we had coffee a couple of years ago and you were like, I'm going to send you a story in the next couple of weeks and then no story. Yeah, yeah. And probably became a song. And you know, I was talking to someone else and she was like, You know, they could be both. You could write, you could write that the longer story of some of these songs. Well, in that song in particular, the way I mean, just on June, I mean, so many of the songs on the album. But but in particular, grunge cargo, so much more. Even if you made the movie, you would still end it with them dancing in the streets and, you know, going home, you, I don't think we want to see a week later. Yeah, he, you know, that's in the movie. But but do you know it? So to write that particular song? How much did you have to know about each of those people and how did it come to you? Can you can you go granular a little bit on how that one came together for you? The first thing that came was, you know, as we seeing in the last two or three years, so much on the news and in the paper about the opioid crisis in America. And I started to think about people dying. You know, you read all these articles, the times, it feels like every Sunday, there's something you know and there's thought about these kids dying, you know, like, you know, young people in the young 20s and and the people left behind, you know? And and so I just started in a lot of times if I'm starting to write a song up to people, you know, like like an orphan, a boy and a girl, but not always, but to people. So it's like, did you have the sister right away? Well, I had the first line her mom found her brother, so that was like, that's how the song started. So there had to be a sister because her mom found her brother. And then I was talking, you know, I really liked right away. The month on her brother, she found the container wrapped up in the duffel bag with her wrapped in newspaper in a duffel bag with hockey pants and seven grand and rubber bands. The hockey pads I right away loved because that put it into my, you know, my hometown. Kind of all sudden it was I could really see it. It was in the Twin Cities, you know where people play hockey often. And and I could see, you know, hockey hockey pads, they smell really bad. So, you know, that's something you might keep in a duffle bag in the garage, and it's the kind of thing your mom wouldn't necessarily want to get into and et cetera. Well, also, it would make your mom to say, I mean, also the whole thing at the end, you know, a lot of you're hiding something. Yeah, sure, you'd hide it there. Yeah, something. But it also speaks to hopes and dreams, fears that didn't come true and human and just a human like this is a guy who, yeah, he may have been like a drug guy or a drug dealer or both. But he also played hockey, you know? And those are the details that I think are really important. And you had those when you were sitting on a guitar, you were writing, those are those are in your notebook, as you were. I was kind of like, you know, sometimes when I'm sitting in the guitar, the chords are like, what? What I can do often is get one thing like, almost like, maybe like a hip hop thing, like a doo doo doo and her mom found it. And then like, I might not have the second or third, I might have to wedge that in there somewhere. But I can get a lot on just like one beat, one riff and just start riffing. And then and then you're going and then the phrasing and whatnot. And as you're writing that those lines, that opening verse. Which, you know, every member of my family, I play that song at a long car ride with each member of my family separately, like, you got to hear this, we're going for a drive and my daughter lost her mind and then and she's 17. Mm-Hmm. And Amy, my wife is like, you know, also access to from a different from the place of the mother. Yeah, right? You know, and for my daughter, it was from the place of being a brother, a sister. And this idea of salvation, brief salvation coming from connecting with somebody. Yeah. I mean, the other thing about that is, I mean, you know, just just from my own experience, like like Chicago is really far from the Twin Cities, you know, I mean, it's like it's the next big city, but it's like a seven hour drive. So and I remember like that the first time I ever went to Chicago, at least as a with like my buddies, like we drove. All day, you know, seven hours and we got there and we went to my friend's brother's had an apartment there and we got there and his brother was really drunk and just like out of nowhere, threw a beer can at my head half full and it hit me and it like split open my, my head. And what's? Yeah, I'm like, we'd been in for like four minutes. So then we had the leg like we cruised in. But, you know, now we're in Chicago and we're like 1918 19, maybe. And and you're in a big city and it's much bigger than the Twin Cities, right? And it's harder, you know? And it's like. And that's all immediately clear to you. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just I mean, it's just driving right? Like just like just getting taking a car into, you know, Chicago is a different transaction than taking it into Minneapolis, right? So all of a sudden, you know, so I was kind of I was accessing like that, that grandness or the overwhelming of the different sizes and that this really was a journey for them when you started writing that song, did you? I mean, from the beginning, the Hold Steady had this sense. Ted, it's worth having hope. And on your solo stuff, that's not. Not every song has it, I think is a conscious choice, particularly the last the album before this one, you were willing to paint the bleak world. Right, right. I felt uncertain. I mean, numerous roof is probably was the single off that which I think is a very hopeful song. Well, sure. Because you met your you met your girl. Yeah, yeah. Through that, I get that. No, I get that. But, you know, maybe it was the album before the hotel room. There's a lot of Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, that one. Yeah, yeah. The claret flies is definitely a yeah, that's a bleak album. Yeah. And but here, hope you know, gone Chicago. For me, it paints this, you don't sugarcoat the darkness and the hopelessness of the daily grind of the loneliness of people. But you do still hold on to this possibility that there's reason to hope or that it's worth hoping. I think what what the different sort of the maturation is that our yeah, so so like in an old study I was thinking about, like almost when we started the band. Do remember like in that in the 80s, I think it must be been the 80s when the Beastie Boys like they called a press conference and they announced they were going positive. Basically, you know, they renounced guns, said they weren't going to disrespect women and and in in hindsight, for one, it's it feels, you know, for the MTV era. It seemed it felt like looking back like, do they really do that? I think they did. But I almost felt like with the hold steady, I was like, This is going to be a positive band. Like, like, All right, let's start, right? You use that word a ton early. Positive jam right there. Right there. So I mean, then that was mean taking out of kind of positive hardcore and minor threat, seven seconds of things saying like, what if we applied this to a classic rock band? Because I want people to feel good, you know, I mean, there's there's there's people should feel good when they're like, you know, we want it to be that what I think it's come to at, you know, my age now and my work now is at least in the last record, it's like, well, OK, maybe it's not all unity and we're all in this together, but maybe it's like just finding some empathy for these people out there that we that we may or may not totally understand. Well, it's almost like a hold steady. The salvation was in the community for alienation was in the community, and now they're still the same alienation. But maybe the big community isn't the answer, because you can still end up in the tent and you can still like the yeah, the answer is maybe just one, just if you can somehow hold someone's hand. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, one person. I mean, I think I was through like the touring in the past years, I was like, get really into like just sort of super aware of parking lots and like how much time we spend in America in parking lots and these big, huge parking lots and like and watch people walk around. And so everyone walks to their own car and drives off. And I think, like communities, great if we can all get out to the show on Friday night. But like we're also, you know, we're kind of driving around alone and going to the grocery store. But what do you see as the self? I mean, I wrote this down to ask about alienation because. What I wrote is I see you teasing out what it means to exist in an almost permanent state of alienation, of loneliness, of isolation and. Is that what you see when you look out from the stage in the at the eyes of these people because it or I mean, I see those people at their best because that's when we're all together, right? Like the community kind of lets us down. I mean, you know, on the way over, you wrote, I was looking at Twitter and the trainee wrote something about talking to an old friend. And I think that those are I mean, those are things in this modern age. We almost have to force ourselves to do right. We have to like, you have to remind yourself like call your friend like because you don't. You may feel caught up with them already, or you may feel that there is no time or you may just be, you know, dealing with your own family job, whatever. But we it's almost like we have to put Post-it Notes to say, Call your friend. You know how many times like people say, like all the time, people have come up and say, like, you know, I almost didn't go the show. I was on the couch and I went and like, You know, and then they're talking me. They're sweaty. They've had four beers, you know, and they're like, elated. And you're like, Well, thank God, you did, you know, because it's easy. Like, it's just like going to the gym. It's easy not to go. But then you never went and was like, Oh, I shouldn't have done that. No, it's true. I mean, yeah, I mentioned last week on the podcast that my friend Gary Harris died, and it was heartbreaking for me. And one of the things that I wrote about this on Twitter is what you're referring to because I said that you feel caught up. Yeah, because you're both on social media. But but but I hadn't spoken to Gary, probably in a year he'd spoken to my son and they have had a great relationship, but I hadn't spoken to him and and I know if I were to pick up the phone, we were to talk for two hours. And so I encouraged people pick up, you know, it's so simple. We don't do it in this society very often anymore. Yeah, it's a weird thing, our friend Gary Goldman says. You know the now the like. What are you doing? Calling me the phone is just an app I don't use on my phone. Right, right. But it's worth it to connect and and even to just with one, even with one person. Because once people are gone, yeah, once they're gone and it's worth it, it gets it is very restorative in some way. And. I have one question for all of the I'm going to listen to a podcast. Help me fall asleep, people. Are you struggling to get some shut eye? I hate when I'm struggling to get shot. I hate it when I can't fall asleep. 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Again, go to Mattress Firm.com/ podcast to learn how your sleeping could be monumentally improved and. Well, I mean, not to stay on in Chicago, but I do think it is. You know, I think it's probably the best song anyone's going to write this year or next year or two in many ways because it's it's a whole, it's a whole novel and in a song and. And because it speaks to all this stuff, because the dead person hangs over the whole thing, a dead person who every both people love it, but one of them wasn't really talking to very much. Right, right. And their connection is sort of a sacrament that perhaps brings them back closer to this other person who they can't touch. Yeah. And the other person, you wonder if he now the dead guy, Charlie, if he's if he's like, Wow, this is look good. I set up motion, you know, or, you know, now like my sister's making out with my friend in Chicago. Right? And yeah. And so for you, because you have you still have faith, right? You're you're I mean, talk about being a Christian. I'm Catholic, you know, and that takes on different forms, on different days. I struggle, obviously with the with the church and especially the men in our church, and I go to church sometimes and I sometimes don't. It's always going to be a struggle. I think I've resigned myself to that. I certainly don't buy into the politics of it. But, you know, I grew up as a Catholic and the rituals and the, you know, the good parts of the message resound to me. Forgiveness, redemption, those kind of things. I think if I was raised in a different religion, I would find those things in that one. But this is the one that makes sense to me. But the possibility of redemption of capital redemption is something that exists for you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think if capital are as is, I'm not sure if I differentiate that from smaller. Yeah, fair, that's totally fair. But the capital, our redemption just unavailable to atheists like me. Oh, right, right? Well, yeah, little moments of redemption are possible. Yeah, I think that I guess in my in my my Catholicism, that they're very similar, that those little moments are the big moments, too. You know, I mean, I've said this, it's such a Craig Finn line. The little moments or the big moments do that could be right. You know, I'm just like, I have this thing that happens in New York. And, you know, as a Midwesterner, I never saw this until I moved here. But but there's this moment when the woman is on the train with the stroller and a guy picks it up without without saying anything and carries it up the stairs. I mean, the first time I saw that, I was like, Wow. And now I watch them all the time and I'm like, oftentimes with no word exchanged, you know? And I'm like, There's a beauty in there. There's a there's a cooperation and there's an empathy and sympathy. And and those are the kind of things that I try to look at and try to pay attention to to find the small hope. You know, the things in a. Well, that's where you see God in a way you're saying for you, that's where you see God. I mean, it's a yeah, Buddhist ish. Yeah, I mean, that's and I think that is a Buddhist approach to my Catholicism because I, you know, I don't, you know, I can go to church and I could come home. And Angie could say, Well, what was the you know, what was the homily about, what was the sermon about? And I'd be like, I don't know. I wasn't listening, but I felt really good when I was there, and I'm glad I went because I was thinking about something else in the quiet. Yeah, I went to for my friend Gary's funeral, I went through a Black Baptist church and I hadn't been to one in a long time and I came home and I said to Amy, Maybe we should go because they're there. Baked into that is so much as an acknowledgement of how hard the world is. But this deep. The fountain of hope. Yeah. Yeah. Which is in your muse, I mean, which is in your music, I think? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I think it's in, I want it to be I want it to be like, that is if I if I'm if it's not in there nowhere, then I think I'm feeling sort of my artistic vision. Is that the thing that Bruce gave you, do you think is? You know, when I think about your influences, I think, you know? Yeah. Bruce Westerberg, Dylan. And you know, Bruce Wayne didn't get it from West or know the whole country, but mean, think about Lou Reed, Dylan Bruce and Westerberg as like four of the big hits when you were a kid for the big songwriters for you. The only one who. I mean Dylan. At times there was hope, but it's a very particular kind of hope and basically only for him, right? You know what I mean? Like, now you're right. But Bruce was the Bruce I think had that messianic idea. He lifts you up. I mean, both in a live and with his music. And that is, yeah, absolutely. That was something I found very attractive. I mean, I think that like I was very as a teenager into this like positive hardcore minor threat and seven seconds. And there are a lot of songs you know where to get know we're unified and like, that's great. And but but you know, Bruce can say that same thing in a way more complex than adult way. That's less sloganeering. That kind of allows for the idea that people are complex and human. And that's exciting. Yeah, you know, a lot of people would slam Bruce back for like this sort of unrealistic hope. And you know, and in in Tom Joad, he kind of almost repudiates it, which I found heartbreaking. All right, great. What is in off the highway is alive tonight, but no one's getting anybody about where it go. You know where it goes. Do you remember hearing that, did it did it? I don't know that I remember hearing that or having that reaction to it, but I do. I mean, Springsteen's music has is I mean, the first thing I heard probably was born to run on classic rock radio, and it just felt like, you know, possibility is even at a young as a young man, it was like, there's so much. This road goes everywhere. Well, I was thinking about it because you're you're writing is so cinematic too. And. So exact, and somehow what I wrote down today when I was think about this was like I realized recently that meeting across the river in Atlantic City and then weirdly welcome to the boomtown by David Burwell, but that those songs influenced my screenwriting meeting across the river, I think influenced the generation of writers like us, right in an almost incalculable way. I mean, how many lines are in that song, really? I mean, not that much. It's kind of like what I was hoping to do with God in Chicago. Yeah, that's what I was asking. Yeah. Like, there's this efficiency. And you know, I mean, like, I look back and I don't, you know, I don't exactly know my headspace, but it's like, All right, how am I going to explain this guy who they go? Meet Chicago? And then I came on Wayne from when we met. Yeah, and I'm like everyone, at least in the Midwest knows what that guy is. Knows that guy knows, knows the deal. Like, like we can, we can. But then what a wonderful twist in that song that the dude shows up and he doesn't try to rip them off. Yeah, no. And it doesn't all, you know, it doesn't all go go wrong. Whereas meaning Cross River is a tragedy. Sure. Yeah. And God, those guys, those guys are, if they're doomed from the start, you know it, you know, whereas guidance and whereas there's some, like I said, there's the beautiful thing is these characters may ultimately be doomed as much as Eddie, but and the other guy. But. But there's this like possibility. Yeah, well, also, I mean, I think the thing about God is kind of that I ended up being really proud of us. These were not drug dealers doing a drug deal, you know? I mean, they were doing it purely to convert this contraband into cash. And and there was, you know, I mean, it was not they weren't going to roll it over into a bigger drug dealer or they weren't going to. You know, these these and they had to deal with this and they went and did it. Yeah. And at this point, you should go listen, a guy in Chicago so that you understand. In fact, it would have been good if you were to listen to it before we had this conversation. I may put that line in before the podcast. Yeah, we can leave all this to so people will see the whole process. So let's just switch gears and talk a little bit about your path here. Mm-Hmm. Where we find you fixed on the graph at the moment. So how did you. You know, you're in this band. That was super important, band. And. Made the decision to really and it was interesting because in this band. You had to share the creative process. I think that that led to these incredible songs that you guys wrote together, and I always thought it was weird, you know that. I mean, you instead wrote a very specific kind of song together. Mm-Hmm. What I always wanted to know did it bug you when you would get 95 percent of the credit for the songs in the world and they would only call you the songwriter? Yeah. Well, I mean, bug me also, I was trying out. It's trying to be very sympathetic because not only were they writing the songs together, but the other guys were part of the band that were bringing these people to the world. These songs the world. So I think, you know, I had to be, you know, I wanted to be and did my best to to remind people that there is collaboration with me and Tadd and Franz. Often oftentimes, I mean, the classical steady song, if you wanted to make the kind of archetype is that 10 had myself get it going and write, write it. And then France comes in and writes the bridge. In a lot of cases, that was the case, right? And we have those very dramatic scene change bridges that often are front. So, yeah, I mean, I you know, no one, no one's against being praised, but I did try to remind people that I do, and I still do try to remind people that that, uh, that these were collaborations. Do you get the thing that happens? When the two of you come together to write these songs as a different kind of power? Yeah, I mean, I mean a couple things. One is that. There's a voice or something, you know, I mean, Tan is like a big guitar player. So the songs start big and sort of challenges me in one way to get big, you know what I mean? Like, there's no songs about going to the grocery store and hold steady because it's the riffs too big for that. You know, you can't do this vulnerable a little portrait you have to do. You have to kind of go big and people have to start, you know, getting arrested or whatnot. And so there's there's that. I mean, the other thing is is that it's uncanny that 10 I played so long together because he was an lifter puller, too. I remember one time in lifter puller. Towards the end, we went out and there was a karaoke thing and I was kind of and I did a song sort of in my style. I forget what song it was. I think moment hungry like the wolf. And he was doing it with me, and he could kind of do. He kind of know where I was going to go. He knew how you were going to sing that song. And so like when we do like backup vocals, we, you know, because we recorded a couple of songs that were released in the fall. But you check out, yeah, they they're great. And, you know, doing what he's doing backups like, it's like uncanny that the phrasing, he's just very familiar with it. How I'm going to sing things. But how did you? You know, to me, this album, this Craig Finn album is. For me, just as a listener and as a huge fan who knows all the words to all the songs, this is the first one that feels like OK, he did the thing he truly did, the thing he was trying to do. Now this is as much an artist as, like the whole states, it's it's really its own thing. Yeah. Well, you have to work hard, you know, some of that. Some of that is in process of call it out, of course, but there's nothing tentative about it, like the first album you made with those Nashville musicians. Just kind of f**king around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the second album you made, which was an intentional thing, but it was very quick after the the the the other one it seemed as a fan. Was it not? I don't know. 12 to 14. Yeah, maybe two years, you know. And then this one somehow at all. I mean, some of the so because the the whole study still exists, you know, like we're playing London next in a few weeks. It's not as busy as it once was, but you know, some of it is created to some of the soul stuff in some ways is just to be able to work as much as I want to work creatively. But when you say the hold steady still exists, yeah. Are are you going to make a whole steady album? We don't have any songs, but I mean, 10, I've been working on things. There's I think there's probably more music coming. I don't know that, I think I think one of the cool things about the hold steady right now is that we've been away in 15 years. We just had our 50th anniversary. So we've been able to question some of the sort of like, you have to do it this way. The Orthodox, yeah, the Orthodox. It's like, do we, you know, what are you going to go on tour? We'll do. We have to go on tour because, you know, at this point, our touring is like a lot of people show up in New York and L.A., you know, and Chicago, in Minneapolis and Philly. And you know, less people show up in some of these other places. So, you know, a lot of people come to Hamilton in New York, you know, like, do we have do is that being part of a rock band? Right? How many sold-out dates did you just do in New York for, you know, so if you could do 10 of those and we could do more and we could go to and we did Chicago last year and we, you know. And you know, there's someone of like a rock band is supposed to go on tour and play every market. Even the ones that don't really buy that many tickets and you, you know, you play Chicago so you can subsidize these other places. And it's like, Well, wait a minute, why? That's that's a great thing. You know, if you're 22, but at 46 and people have families, we kind of rethink. So I don't know. I mean, we put out these two songs before the shows in Brooklyn, and I loved that I and a like because it wasn't we weren't waiting on a release date. We weren't like we literally recorded them and said, Hey, now it was a great shock. I mean, PJ Vogt tweeted something about it. Who's you know, you're like your biggest fan from the reply all podcast. Very, very popular podcast. There is. He's the most obsessed fan. And so he tweeted, I was like, What the f**k are these songs that, first of all, I'm friends with Craig and had some, I don't know the songs. I was a little annoyed and then a little bit secretive. I was like, Holy s**t. Yeah, it was great, though it was a great thing to get from your favorite band, right? This great surprise. And then you guys played the shows. So where are you playing in London? We're two and two shows that the electric ballroom. Right? And so that's super. So for you, the hold steady is not. Exist, there's not it hasn't dissolved, even though because to me, it seems just from the outside you're watching like you guys are going to get to play these gigs. But it's not really like in that was a great thing about any of the songs was the sense. Maybe it is an ongoing entity. How do you think of it yourself? I think of it as an ongoing entity. I just think that, you know, a rock band is an imperfect group. You know, I always think about like, you know, a fraternity. The seniors can tell the freshmen to clean up, you know? You know, obviously a business is run, but a rock band is a very complex group of, you know, there's a leader, but is there a leader? Now everyone's everyone's the same, you know? And so it's a challenge. And, you know, especially if there's like not not much money coming in as a challenge to kind of make things, you know, find the right things when you're in the fall in your 40s because there's things that might power you in when you're 23, about a rock band that aren't as interesting at 46, right, rooming with people in a weird place in a hotel in Delaware because you're playing up 75 people the next night. Yeah. It could have seemed super exciting. And now it's like it was awesome at one point. But you're like, Well, you know, it is, is my partner at home. We've got to be psyched. Is that a good use of my time? Is that like what the person I am? Is that like, you know? And but I guess the weird thing is like the music. Like, I'm not alone in this, and P.J. is not alone, and that's like the music. Means so much to these people, so the hold steady is we I used the word sacrament before, but the whole that is a sacramental thing for. And I know it's odd because it's not huge by Bon Jovi standards. But it's it's a huge amount of people, it's it's a real group of people for whom your music gives them release and salvation, and that's a very beautiful. That's the part that I'm in touch with in that. And that's the reason I want there always to be these events. You know, these these things and it's very it's awesome for me to be a part of, obviously. I mean, the adoration, you know, everyone loves that. But it is also it feels like being it feels like something's happening out there, you know, and we play, you know, but like, you know, getting back to my point, there's that there's sort of this thing. It was like, you know, you say, like, why don't you come to my my, you know, smaller sized city? It's like, OK, we could. But it's a Monday night, and I know you've got three kids now and and you know, and so maybe it's better if you meet us in Chicago on a weekend. And I think that's being very realistic because you find that you go to those smaller cities and as much as people intend to be there, maybe they won't be. Yeah. Or maybe it's like, you know, OK, you know, maybe you wouldn't even enjoy it as much if you were looking at your watch the whole time. But like if I tell you in six months, we're going to do three shows in Chicago, then you start to make plans. We are going to have a good time, right? And you feel that's keeping your your sort of compact with you. And it's more realistic. Yeah. Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense to me, oddly. Were you scared at all about really committing to this solo career, about what it would be like to look out from the stage at an audience that was going to have to come aboard this journey? I don't know how scared I was. No, I was more excited. The man was excited to do different things and I was excited to play with different people. I mean, there's there's things about, I mean, there's a challenge. The first solo record I made was kind of an experiment, and I thought it made me just better as a as a maybe as a person, but as a musician of just like going in with people you don't know who play really well and saying, like, I know I've got like kind of a voice that maybe doesn't sound beautiful or whatever, isn't anyone's idea of a norm of a great singing voice, but I'm going to try to keep up with these guys, and I'm going to yeah, and I'm going to. I'm going to I'm going to keep up and I'm going to try to impress them and through that thing, you get better. And the one thing about the solo thing is the musicians change, you know, and that is a tough thing because there's a lot more scheduling. There's, you know, hiring and, you know, finding who can do this tour, finding what's a good fit. So there's like an administrative thing that that becomes more so if, you know, because I don't I don't tour enough that I keep the same band the whole time. But but I think they're playing with different people is very important and allows you to get better at what you. But is it emotionally different? A great thing happens onstage and nails something where you connect and you turn to, you know, your turn and it's not Tadd or it's not friends or I've have, you know, I've gotten lucky and gotten great people in the solo band, which I call the uptown controllers. But there's a camaraderie that exists with the whole steady that's 15 years old and that's not easily replaced and won't be, you know, I mean, there's just a language or inside jokes or all that. There is these things, you know, when you think about like, it's it's like if you walk offstage, I don't know just that, you know, like playing Glastonbury in a going really well. Yeah, sure. I like looking at each other. And so at this stage, we like we just did that. Wow. Yes. And that's an amazing thing. And then we feel that as an audience and you feel it. Mm hmm. Yeah. Performing a couple of other things before I let you go. What were you reading and listening to as you wrote this album? What are you reading these days? You know, a book recommendation. I read this book called Malina by Julie Bunten. I don't know. Last year it was a novel that came out last year that I thought was amazing, like it was my and my girlfriend ran a first, and she said. You need to read this book, and I said, OK, I'm going to read it when I'm done with this book, and she said, No, actually, you need to read it now. Really, she wanted to put down what you're reading. I loved it and it was, you know, I've recommended some people, people like it. I read, you know, it's hard for me to remember because it was actually recorded by the time it was recorded. It was a little while ago now, but I'm always kind of reading modern fiction or whatever. What are you listening to right now? Yeah. What do you dig? Who are the songwriters that you're like? Phoebe Bridgers album from last year? I think like my favorite thing things. You know that? No, I don't know it. Somehow, I missed it. Phoebe Bridgers. Yeah, Phoebe Behr IDG Eros that. That's an amazing record. I like this gang of youths. Someone's I thought that was really cool. Yes. I mean, I always I'm always going to forget what what all the stuff I love. But but who are the songwriters? And they put out an album like I know his one, but who are the songwriters when they put out an album? Or you're like, I got to hear this. Oh, truckers, I would say James McMurtry. He doesn't put out a lot, but like me to man, that guy is still such a good song. Yeah, yeah. I unfortunately missed a set last night, but what else? John Darnielle. Mountain Goats John Samson, who are from the weaker lenses who had just did a tour with an October, is a spectacular songwriter, one of my all time favorites. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch, but those are. Those are. And and what are your ambitions now? What is it that you want out of all this? That's a good question. I mean, I think I just want to I'm always been bad about having like a five year plan or something, you know, because I believe if I have faith in one thing, if I have faith and beyond redemption with a smaller big R, it's that work well that if you work, things will happen, you know? So I want to keep telling stories. I want to keep telling stories about these people I tell stories about I want. I very much hope and want people to keep listening to them and connecting them. I would like to go. I would like to do things, as I've said, beyond songs, but that's been a struggle for me. But that's my challenge. And I just want to keep working and keeping them in. This dialogue with with the audience has the way this album's been received. Felt good and right to you. Did you hope for more, did you? It felt really good. I mean, the year end stuff, especially like kind of like American songwriter culture in Chicago, number one Song of the year. There are some other really nice notices, and it felt good. It's funny. I mean, these things and you I mean, you're very in touch with this. I'm sure these things start lot like I said, like the day Prince died, that song feels like a while ago now, right? But if you look back, there's been a little bit every day, everything from playing it for the label to making the video to, you know, playing it live, et cetera. So all these things together, I've never watched the God in Chicago. VIDEO Really, I never will. Oh, I don't want to watch it. I just want to. I just want that song. I know what those I know whatever. I just want the song to exist. Well, I wouldn't watch a meeting across the river. VIDEO I understand why you say that. I will say that the guy who did the video did an amazing job. And when I saw it, I was like, Oh yeah, good job, you did it. There's there's a lot more I want to ask you about about like shame and guilt, but I'm going to will say that we be gone forever. So. Craig Mann, thanks for. Thanks for doing this. I really want you on the podcast because. I do feel like you delivered. Something that the people who listen to this show would really care about, these songs are about people who are yearning for. Transcendence is like too big a word to make it feel like. I mean, they are. But for some kind of connection and to be some better version of themselves. And for me, that idea that we can be the best version of ourselves if we try really hard and we think about it, is you the only guy consistently writing about that? And I so appreciate and Jason writes about it too. But you it seems like you're talking to yourself and trying to convince yourself it may well be. Well, he will keep doing it. Craig Finn, you can find Craig on Twitter at a steady Craig. Steady Craig. And you can find me at Brian Koppelman. You can write me at the moment, gmail.com tell me I talk too much, but you're with, like my favorite songwriter. So you know, I'm going to talk. All right. Thanks, everybody. See you next time. At Vodafone, we do the largest EU roaming data, so now you can really go places and never get lost. You have arrived at the Coliseum. Never be misunderstood. 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