When we heard last week that keyboardist Franz Nicolay was leaving the Hold Steady, we figured it was on peaceful terms, assuming the band was way too joyous/drunk to ever get into fights. But in an exit interview with Paste, Nicolay surprisingly acts like a jerk about the whole thing. Says Franz: “They have their one big idea — making literate, wordy lyrics over big anthemic rock — and the last two records were about as good as I felt like I could do with that idea.” One idea!
Nicolay, on the other hand, is just bursting with ideas, and he has no problem referencing famous theories from Russian-British philosophers to prove it: “In The Hold Steady, I was kind of a fox in a hedgehog band … the Isaiah Berlin thing about the hedgehogs who have one defining idea and the foxes who have a lot of different ideas. So this is going to let me indulge a lot of those different ideas.” Specifically, he further explains, being a vaudeville-style performer that tap dances while playing the banjo, or something.
Much more importantly, Nicolay says he took part in recording sessions for the band’s next album in September, and that his parts have already been re-recorded by another keyboardist. Hey, great news! The Hold Steady are already recording their next album of awesome wordy, anthemic rock music! Also, look out for Franz Nicolay’s tap-dancing show, we guess.
Franz Nicolay Talks Tap Dancing, Vaudeville and Why He Left The Hold Steady [Paste via Pitchfork]
