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Exclusive: The Hold Steady Blast Chili Peppers

added 10 March 2008 at 18.32

Discussing the issue of ageing gracefully within the context of rock'n'roll, The Hold Steady frontman told Xfm that while some artists grow older with aplomb, others are simply embarrassing.

He said: "You have artists like Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young that have aged very well and then you have a thousand other examples that have aged poorly.

"Anything that’s part of a trend or a group hasn’t aged well, like hair metal. Motley Crue didn’t age very well and even Red Hot Chili Peppers are terrible now. That doesn’t even sound like rock’n’roll to me. It’s kinda like bland, elevator [music]."

Finn also rubbished reports that The Hold Steady's forthcoming album - the follow-up to 'Boys & Girls In America' - would mark a radical change in direction.

"Radical change of direction? No, that’s probably not correct," he confirmed. "It’s a Hold Steady record but there’s some stuff we do a little different. There’s some different tones and textures and things like that but I think it’s still pretty much a Hold Steady record: it’s still rock’n’roll. It’s piano, two guitars and bass and drums."

More importantly comes the news that the new collection has already been recorded:

"We’ve finished our [new] record. We’ve been recording for the good part of this year. I think we started January 2 or so and we finished mixing probably about a week ago. So we’ve recorded about 18, 19 songs so we’ll cut down a couple."

The Hold Steady's fourth - and as yet untitled - album is expected to be released in the summer.

Listen to the whole interview here

  

 

Tagged as The Hold Steady, Albums, In The Studio

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comments

1. Get yourself a copy of The Uplift Mofo Party Plan - or if you wanna be a cheapskate, you'll pick up What Hits? for a fiver in Zavvi at the moment. You'll quickly realise they didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere with Under The Bridge, and you'll hear a genuinely inventive funk band.

   Posted by Richard on 12/03/2008 17:31:16 | report abuse

2. Chili's are stronger than ever, their music has developed greatly from the earlier stuff. I don't see how someone in the hold steady thinks they have the right to criticize one of the most successful rock bands going today. Fair enough if it's his opinion but he wasn't asked what he thinks of the rhcp...

   Posted by Xfm listener on 12/03/2008 17:03:16 | report abuse

3. Richard's right. RHCP are soooo boring. Their set at Reading last year was like watching old men jerking off in a field.

   Posted by Fred Zeppelin on 12/03/2008 16:18:25 | report abuse

4. WERE a funk band, Sam, were a funk band. Now they just churn out the same crap they've been doing since Californication. They've fell sharply since Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the last album they can even vaguely consider "funk" - the odd track on One Hot Minute's passable - but Californication is a heap of whiny poo, and everything after that gets steadily worse.

   Posted by Richard on 12/03/2008 13:54:30 | report abuse

5. How can RHCP sound Rock 'n' Roll when they are a funk band?

   Posted by Sam Pavey on 12/03/2008 13:11:20 | report abuse