News

Franz Nicolay Explains Hold Steady Split

11:37 a.m. · January 28, 2010 · by Andrew Winistorfer

In a recent interview with Paste Magazine, departed Hold Steady keyboardist Franz Nicolay shed some light onto why he decided, now, after a handful of albums, to quit the band:

"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.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."

It honestly took me a few passes to realize he wasn't making a Sonic the Hedgehog reference, because honestly, who talks about hedgehogs? At any rate, this is seeming like a "quit over creative differences" type of deal. Which is totally understandable I guess, though I suppose it was a bit old to be known as the guy in The Hold Steady with the goofy mustache. [P4K]