Multitude Of Casualties

The Hold Steady started their career ten years ago in a flurry of activity, releasing their first three albums – Almost Killed Me (2004), Separation Sunday (2005) and Boys And Girls In America (2006) – in a burst of creativity as driven and garrulous as the characters that inhabited their heady and hedonistic narratives.
On these albums their anthemic barroom rock'n'roll was abetted by a stream of interrelated songs, in which characters would flit back and forth while events were dissected from different angles and perspectives. You didn't need to know who Holly, Charlemagne, Gideon or the Cityscape Skins skinhead gang were to appreciate the songs – crucially they worked perfectly in isolation – but delving into this dark world paid handsome dividends as you began to discern dangerous desires and agendas, more akin to a series of novellas than a cluster of rock albums.
After a while, however, this aspect of The Hold Steady's songwriting – their lyrics the domain of enigmatic and erudite frontman Craig Finn – began to slowly recede into the background. Their following long-players (2008's Stay Positive and 2010's Heaven Is Whenever) eschewed specific characterisation for more universal tropes, and while these records had plenty to offer – both musically and cerebrally – the rush of piecing together the puzzle of entwined chronicles seemed a thing of the past.
Which is why when their sixth album Teeth Dreams finally dropped – the four-year layoff partly due to Finn's releasing his comparatively stripped-back solo debut Clear Heart Full Eyes in 2011 – and opened with the lyrics, “I heard the Cityscape Skins are kinda kicking it again' (on I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You), long-term fans of the band recognised this immediately as a serious statement of intent.
“When I'm saying stuff that harkens back to old records, a lot of that's trying to create this world for people to disappear in, but I know that the long-time listeners and hardcore fans are going to pick up on that right away, so that's me wanting to say, 'We're back! This world is here and we're ready to go into it. Let's dive in there!'” Finn smiles. “And the Cityscape Skins always seemed like a pretty scary bunch, so it kind of kicks off the record on a pretty ominous note.
“I really wanted to go back to that storytelling and the characters – I'd gotten away from that, and I'm not sure why. I kind of wanted to do something in that vein, and I think the music called for it – it's kind of a darker and more sinister record. The solo album was kind of breezy and a lot more 'me' and a lot more vulnerable, because the quieter music kind of allowed for it, whereas this seemed to feel like I needed to have some characters who were in some particularly dire circumstances – I felt like writing truthfully about my own life wouldn't be cinematic enough for the music that was coming out.”
Dreams about teeth supposedly reflect anxiety, apprehension and paranoia, so fittingly the characters in Teeth Dreams are a fretful bunch, complete with dubious lifestyles which afford them plenty to be concerned about.
“When we started writing the record I met this doctor at a party – a general practitioner here in New York – and he was saying that over half of the people who come into his office come in for anxiety,” Finn continues. “Then I started to look around, and I saw that even the New York Times has a weekly anxiety column, so I thought, 'Maybe we're living in particularly anxious times?' I mean we all have anxiety; I think maybe as a person I'm not all that anxious compared to some of the people I know, but I think we all have it – it's part of our human nature.
“So I got to thinking about that anxiousness that's sort of in the air. It's funny, since we named the record Teeth Dreams so many people have come up to me and said, 'Oh man, I have those teeth dreams too!' I wanted it to be like that – I wanted it to be this unifying thing, like, 'Hey, we all have these,' and you've got to feel okay about it because it's just part of us.”
Finn believes that much of this mass anxiety stems from the disconnect between how we represent ourselves in modern society and who we actually are as individuals.
“We have so many ways of projecting ourselves out there with Facebook and Twitter and whatnot,” he reflects. “I'm not on Facebook but I'm on Twitter, and one thing I've noticed is that I really love Twitter except when I'm reading tweets from people I know in person – then I'm, like, 'No, you're not like that! That's not what you're into!' I think that everybody's just as guilty; we all project something that's different from ourselves. I use the example of internet dating – you put up the picture that's you at the best angle, maybe you're 30 pounds more in shape and you have a better head of hair because the photo's nine years old. I think there's anxiety that lives in the gap between the truth, and what you're putting out there as a representation of yourself.
“I think the other thing is that most of the songs mention the truth in some way, or things being true. I had this idea that it's like the less you lie and the more you tell the truth, the less you have to remember. You don't have to keep your lies straight, and I was wondering whether telling the truth and representing yourself truthfully is kind of an antidote for this anxiety that permeates our world now.”