It’s not very often that a band comes along whose songs seem to speak so universally to their fans. For five albums, The Hold Steady has done just that. Their most recently release, Heaven Is Whenever, explores themes familiar to Hold Steady listeners while the band finely tunes their song writing skills. Guitarist Tad Kubler was nice enough to chat with us about a few things including the new record, song writing with long-time band mate Craig Finn and the possibility of playing in Ybor City during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

REAX: First, lets talk a little bit about the new record. In the aptly titled Heaven Is Whenever, “Heaven” figures real prominently as a theme on the record. Maybe not so much in the traditional religious sense, but as an unquantifiable state one is trying to obtain through redemption and struggles, which are common threads of a lot of The Hold Steady’s songs. What are your thoughts on the record?
Tad: Well, I mean, I think it’s definitely probably the most recent record we’ve done. I think one thing we’ve been striving to do more and more on each record we’ve done is make it more musical. I think this record is a lot more dynamic than any of our previous albums. I think that’s one thing Craig and I have been striving to do in the song writing process is, rather than have the lyrics and the vocals sort of sit on top of the music and the music being sort of a back drop for the stories, we really tried to combine those two together more and make it more of a singular cohesive sort of unit, for lack of a better term. I think there are definitely places on this record that we were able to achieve that. I think that Craig really sang his ass off on this album and did a really wonderful job, and I think more so than on past records. I feel like these songs are more songs, you know.

REAX: I would agree.
Tad: I feel really good about that. I also think lyrically, Craig was able to still tell a very compelling story without making it as specific as he has in the past and leaving kind of a little more to the listener. I don’t want to say that he was intentionally vague; I think it was broader brush strokes lyrically on this album than in the past.

REAX: I noticed that. The lyrics were a little more vague. They left me (when I went though and read the lyrics) to fill in the spaces as opposed to it being specifically about so-and-so going to some club or what not.
Tad: I feel that it can be a little more rewarding in listening to it. I’m as big a fan as anybody is of what Craig does. The song writing process is as enjoyable for me on that level as it is as just being able to bring in music as a songwriter. Does that make sense?

REAX: Yeah, totally. You’ve been playing with Craig now for a long time, through two bands. What’s the song writing process like from your end? Are you at the point where you guys are at some weird meta-level in finishing each other’s songs?
Tad: I write the music and Craig writes the lyrics. There’s a tremendous amount of trust in what we do.

REAX: Do you know what’s going on inside of each other heads? When someone brings something to the table, the other person can finish it off almost effortlessly?
Tad: Somewhat. We don’t have one particular process that we use. In the past, a lot of times I would come up with a couple of riffs and different parts that I liked and we would come together as a band and start to arrange stuff and the lyrics would begin to come together. We’re both writing constantly. It’s not like once we finish a touring cycle that we sit down and say, “Let’s write another record”. It’s kind of always coming together. With the way that technology works, it’s great for me because I’m able to be constantly writing music. Whether I’m at home in Brooklyn and I can’t get in to my studio in order to put stuff down, or I could be in the back of the bus and start to record stuff to a laptop. So, technology has made it really easy to work at the pace that we do. Craig has got notebooks and laptops and all kinds of other things where he’s always working.

There were songs on this album, where Craig and I sat down on my couch together, where the music came together at the same time that lyrics did. There were other times; the two songs that bookend the record, “Slight Discomfort” and “Sweet Parts Of The City”, I wrote the music for those in January of 2009. It’s funny, because even at the time, I finished the music and gave them to Craig and as he started to put vocals down to ‘em, I kinda sorta knew in the back of my mind “Alright, these two songs are going to bookend the album. What’s going to go in between?” We had about 24 songs when we initially went in to the studio and whittled that down to about 18 and 10 of those made the album.

The process was hard of what was going to make the record and what wasn’t. We went from having a 12 song album to an 11 song album. And then realizing that it didn’t flow very well that way, it didn’t sound good and it got a little long. And we eventually kind of whittled it down to 10 songs, which is about 43 minutes. The good news there too is that the way people consume music now is we have a lot of alternatives for releasing music and getting those songs out there. Be it bonus material, which I’m not crazy about all the time, to kind of b-sides and different singles and all that.

REAX: It all makes it way out. So, in 20 years, is there going to be a 10 disk Hold Steady box set of unreleased material?
Tad: We’ll see. I don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves here. We’ll see what we’re doing in 20 years.

REAX: After you guys did Lifter Puller for five or six years, how was it almost starting from scratch with a new band? I’ve read that maybe you didn’t have high expectations for The Hold Steady.
Tad: We had no expectations for the band. It was one of those things where when Lifter Puller dissolved in 2000 we all kind of went our separate ways and then I ended up in New York where Craig had moved. We kind of reconnected and started hanging out again. It’s one of those things where there are a lot of different versions of the story. It was one of those things were we just wanted to get together a couple times a week and hang out. And it was like, you know, we both miss playing music in a band together and we didn’t really want to tour. It wasn’t for any other reason than an excuse for us to sort of hang out. I kind of wanted to go back to the music that I had grown up with and sort of how I learned to play guitar and just make it real traditional rock and roll. I listen to all kinds of music and between the record collections of everybody in the band; it was one of those things where I always go back to Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones or something like that.

REAX: I think for a long time in the punk/hardcore scene, people were denying that they listened to Led Zeppelin when in fact they did. And that’s what I really love about The Hold Steady, there’s something about the music. It’s not quite punk, it’s not quite classic rock, it’s quirky, it’s smart and you’re not afraid to put in a guitar solo. There’re people to this day that are like “I don’t listen to bands that have guitar solos!” but they still go to a Hold Steady show and love it.
Tad: That statement is interesting. And that was the thing; we wanted to do something that wasn’t… We didn’t want to do anything that was cool. We’ve been so fortunate in this band to always make decisions based on what we want to hear or just what we enjoy doing; what’s going to be the most fun for us and that’s what we’ve done. And by doing that, it’s allowed us to make decisions with integrity. It’s also that what’s cool or what’s popular or what’s trendy has never influenced what we’ve done. And that’s made it so after all is said and done and everything else, for us it's really been about having a good time, and that’s not anything anyone can take away from us. That’s not influenced by what’s selling or critically what’s cool or anything like that. We’ve been, I think, pretty fortunate, obviously, with rock journalists and stuff like that. They seem to like out band and like the records. At the end of the day, it’s still about getting a bunch of people together in a room and having a good time.

REAX: That’s what the best bands are bread from, you’re doing the music for yourself as opposed to pandering to an audience, and it shows. It really does.
Tad: I hope so, thank you.

REAX: Since I’m from Tampa, I have to ask about the Ybor City stuff.
Tad: You know what, when that record came out, the first record, which I think is the first time Craig mentions Ybor City, the word looked cool and it was fun to say. None of us had ever been there.

REAX: I was at the show, the first time you ever came down and played in Ybor and Craig conveyed the story to the audience. I don’t remember all the details because it was a while back and I’m sure there were drinks involved.
Tad: There wasn’t any real grand story, but it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, kind of. When we played down there we had a bunch of people that traveled to the show that wanted to see us in Ybor City.

REAX: I recall there being people that had come from all over for that show. It was a special night in that respect. I also recall Craig saying something like when you put that band together that you wanted to create this fictional rock bar-band and that (Ybor) was the name of the city or area where this fictional band resided?
Tad: I don’t remember that, but that sounds like something Craig would say.

REAX: I don’t know, maybe he was just rambling on or something.
Tad: Sometimes, I don’t know either. You know, when we do radio stuff or interviews together, I always enjoy that. Like I said, there’s a tremendous amount of trust between us in the song writing process. A lot of times it not anything he and I ever discuss. It can be fun for me to hear his ideas about what’s going on sometimes. It’s funny, we’re mid-western men so there isn’t a lot of talking about anything. We celebrate in silence and we suffer in silence. But that does sound like something that would come from Craig.

REAX: Speaking of the Ybor connection, I saw yesterday on The Huffington Post that both The Hold Steady and Ybor got named dropped pretty heavily.
Tad: On the what?!

REAX: The Huffington Post.
Tad: Interesting.

REAX: The headline was “Hold Steady, Ybor City: The Republican National Convention Eyes Tampa”. They went on in the story to quote lyrics from “Most People Are DJs” and “Killer Parties”, saying this could be the “BEST REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION EVER”. I guess this would be a nice party spot for them to come to.
Tad: Nobody in the band is a Republican, so I don’t even know what to say about that.

REAX: Maybe you guys could come down and play for them and loosen them up a little?
Tad: (laughter) I’ll tell you what. You know, money talks.

REAX: Also, on the new album (it’s been widely talked about already that keyboardist Franz Nicolay left the band), you’ve got Dan Neustad, also from The World/Inferno Friendship Society {a band that Nicolay had been involved with prior to joining The Hold Steady}, playing keyboards?
Tad: Dan has played with a bunch of people, but he may have done a tour with them or something.

REAX: Ok, I just saw that he had been involved with them at some point. I thought it was interesting that he may have come from that same collective of people as Franz.
Tad: Dan is kind of a professional guy; he’s filled in places with a lot of different bands and stuff. We’ve known Dan for a while. It was one of those things where we knew him, we’d hung out with him, we knew we got along with him so we decided to take him on tour.

REAX: You now also have Steve Selvidge playing guitar with you.
Tad: Steve is musician from Memphis. We met him when he was in The Bloodthirsty Lovers and he and I became fast friends. He and I have the same birthday, the same day and everything. I had wanted to add a second guitar player for a long time. After recording this album, it seemed like this was the appropriate time.

REAX: Are there times now where there’s the three-guitar thing going on or is Craig doing more of a “front man” thing?
Tad: Well, kind of. Craig doesn’t really play guitar all that much.

REAX: (jokingly) He holds the guitar.
Tad: Yeah, exactly.

REAX: I also saw that John Reis (of Drive Like Jehu/Rocket From The Crypt/Hot Snakes ) played on the album.
Tad: We wrote "Rock Problems" together. When we were up in Woodstock, he came up for a few days and hung out and we wrote some music together. He’s somebody I’ve been an enormous fan of for some time.

REAX: As have I.
Tad: We were kicking around different names of people we’d want to hang out with and maybe write some songs with and his name came up. So he came up and it was fun to work with him. His work ethic is incredible.

REAX: It’s got to be. His output over the years has just been incredible.
Tad: That was definitely a good time. He didn’t play on the version that’s on the record, but he and I did write the song.

REAX: I also saw that you do photography.
Tad: Yes. I’ve got a book that should be coming out later this year that’s mostly photos of kind of the band and being on tour and things like that. I’ve shot for Rolling Stone and a few other publications. That’s what I did before this thing took off, which hopefully I’ll get back to eventually. But yeah, it’s kind of been on the back burner.

REAX: I came across your website that has a sample portfolio.
Tad: That hasn’t been updated in shit, almost eight years now. So, I need to get some new material up there.

REAX: Well, it was really nice work. I was impressed with it.
Tad: Thanks.

REAX: Anybody can take a picture, but to take one that’s really good and captures that moment, it’s a special gift to be able to do. On an artistic level, how does that compare to being in a band? Is there something more rewarding with it that you can’t get out of playing music?
Tad: It’s nice being a little more anonymous and being behind the lens as opposed to in front of it. It’s something that at times is nice and a little more relaxing. I definitely enjoy that.

Photo by: Mark Seliger