Known Associates | Episode 1: Craig Finn
In our first episode of Known Associates, a new podcast brought to you by New Pony in affiliation with Southwest Review, the Paranoid Style singer-songwriter and journalist Elizabeth Nelson talks to Craig Finn from the Hold Steady. A songwriting institution and accomplished prose writer, he has been delighting audiences with his rowdy domestic picaresques and deeply-flawed but highly loveable character studies for decades.
In this episode, Elizabeth and Craig talk about his upbringing in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, where he started his first band, Lifter Puller, as well as the romance of regional scenes and how Minneapolis helped inform his sound. They also discuss Craig’s enduring fandom of the Minnesota Twins and talk about the time that he went fishing with legendary Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek. Then, they get into the twentieth anniversary of the Hold Steady’s masterpiece Separation Sunday and Craig’s new solo record Always Been, its accompanying book Lousy With Ghosts, and what working with Adam Granduciel and the War on Drugs was like. Later, they discuss his upcoming shows with Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers and how their friendship developed and how Craig deals with being called a literary songwriter and the labels that get applied to his band in general. Finally, they break down Craig’s recent tour with the Mountain Goats, the tedium of touring, the enduring mysteries of buses and frontage roads, and of course, they discuss Bob Dylan and what the future holds.
Elizabeth Nelson is the singer-songwriter for the Paranoid Style, and a regular contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Ringer, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and other publications. Her latest LP, The Interrogator, is out now on the Bar/None Records label.
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