The Hold Steady

BIOGRAPHY

The Price of Progress is The Hold Steady’s 9th studio LP. As I sit to write this, I don’t have an exact vivid memory of when we started making it. This is largely because it was part of what has become the normal flow of our band’s life: we play shows, we write songs, we record them, we release them. Making this record was a logical extension of what being The Hold Steady means to us right now, and what we’ve done for a number of years now.

Here’s what I know for sure: We got together in 2021 for two different sessions a few months apart. We worked with producer Josh Kaufman and engineer Dan Goodwin at The Clubhouse studio in Rhinebeck NY. All of this was comfortable- it was the same producer, engineer and studio as we had used on our previous two records. In fact, our last LP, Open Door Policy, was just months old when we first assembled to work on these songs.

As per our normal working methods, I’d been getting song ideas from Tad, Franz and Steve. I’d write lyrics to them and then we’d work on the arrangements when the band was all together in person. The songs come together quickly at first, then Josh would help us dial in on some of the finer points on the floor before recording. During each session we recorded five or six songs. We worked hard but were relaxed. We stayed on site on the studio grounds, and there were barbecues and baseball games on the lawn outside the Clubhouse tracking room. By late 2021, our 9th LP was coming into focus.

At the beginning of 2022 we shifted into overdub mode. Our friends Cassandra Jenkins and Annie Nero (“The Creeps”) put down their sublime backing vocals. Stuart Bogie and Jordan McLean played a bunch of cool horns. Finally, we enlisted Trey Pollard at Spacebomb in Richmond VA to arrange a beautiful string section for a few songs. The songs were mixed in summer 2022 and the record went out for manufacturing.

We named the album The Price of Progress after a line in the song “Sideways Skull”. The title speaks to the way technology and other forces have left our society reeling in this modern age. The people moving about in Hold Steady songs have always done so in front of the backdrop of late stage capitalism. On this record, the backdrop has moved forward far enough to bump against the bodies of these characters, disrupting and overwhelming whole scenes. People take big swings in these songs- a huge score on a long shot is the only way to get back in the game for some of these folks. And thus, words of impending revolution are in the air, especially on the LP’s second side.

The album title also nods to the idea of moving forward as a twenty year old band. Starting in 2016, when Franz returned to the fold, we have been operating with the six members that are featured on this record. This current version of the band is the longest running THS lineup since our first show in 2003. As someone who has been at every single THS show, I can confidently say that this lineup is our best ever.

This year we will celebrate our 20th birthday by doing more of what we do- playing shows for the amazing community that is our audience. We will turn up our amps and sing our songs, and the rooms will come alive with smiles and sweat and joy. We are honored to be able to play for all these wonderful people, and we are proud and excited to be releasing The Price of Progress as part of this celebration. Thanks for listening. Thanks for understanding.

Stay Positive.
Craig Finn