Although he’s most recognizable as the whimsically
mustachioed member of indie rock titans The Hold Steady, Franz Nicolay harbors
a scary level of multiple personalities. In addition to tickling The Hold Steady’s
keys, Nicolay also helped found the klezmer-cabaret quartet Guignol; he’s a
longstanding member of circus-punk outfit The World/Inferno Friendship Society;
and he organized and still heads the New York composer/performer collective
Anti-Social music. Nicolay also released his debut solo album, Major General,
earlier this year, making his stint with The Hold Steady look like the real
side project. EasternSurf.com caught
up with Franz before a recent concert in California about mariachi
collaborations, Japanese stilt grass, and breaking down cultural barriers.
ESM: What’s up Franz? You’re currently touring with The
Hold Steady, right?
Franz
Nicolay: We’re out in L.A., and
we’re playing with Mariachi El Bronx. I’m totally in love with their
[self-titled] record, I’m really excited to see them, and I’m actually going to
play accordion on one of their songs.
ESM: So what made you decide this summer was a good time
for a solo tour?
HW3: Well [laughs],
it’s funny how it came about. I needed to do some touring anyways, and there
was time off from The Hold Steady, and then a friend of mine who’s a botanist
at Rutgers has to drive from Jersey to Texas and over to Florida on his annual
plant collecting tour. So we’ll load up the car with all my merchandise and instruments,
and his silica gel and collecting bags, and go looking for this Japanese stilt
grass during the day and play shows at night.
ESM: All solo affairs?
HW3: Yep, I’ll play some songs and tell some stories
cabaret-style. I’m playing full-band shows in New York, but that doesn’t apply
to the rest of the tour.
ESM: You put out a solo record last year, the critically
acclaimed Major General. Do you see
yourself branching off in the solo direction more in the future?
HW3: I’m happy balancing the whole thing — the plan
was never that Major General was just
going to be a one-off. In fact, my second release is going to come out this
fall; it’s a 10” four-song EP on Team Science Records that I just finished
recording last weekend, before starting this whole study/tour. Then I’m going
to record another full-length in December-ish for release sometime in the
spring of next year. I write a lot of music, and most of it’s not going to be The
Hold Steady music or Guignol music, or any of the other groups... Plus, I just
like getting up in front of a mic and singing.
ESM: Do you find it stifling that so many people lump you
into the indie rock category, when clearly you exhibit far vaster influences?
FN: Yeah, my background and, to a certain extent, my
natural inclinations lie more in punk rock and cabaret than they do in classic
rock or indie rock. That’s just the way things turned out.
ESM: How did you get involved with your many different
European-influenced side projects?
FN: Yula [Be’eri], the bass player in World/Inferno at
the time — she also played on Major
General — and myself and Peter Hess, the sax player in Inferno, were
all exploring that music. There were a lot of other musicians in New York doing
that at the time, so Peter and I put together a band called Guignol that played
shows in that scene. There’s a new Guignol record coming out this fall, as well
— we collaborated with this band Mischief Brew from Philly, so it’s kind
of a folk-punk thing. Eric from Mischief Brew plays guitar on our songs, and we’re
the backing band on his songs.
ESM: Tell me about Anti-Social Music, your
composer/performer collective.
FN: Anti-Social Music is loosely grouped around 10 of us,
and then there’s a couple dozen other people who are available. New York is a
particular kind of city, where there’s lots of different kinds of music scenes,
and a lot of people are involved in playing different kinds of music that have
nothing to do with each other. In our particular situation, we all had what is
called, for lack of a better term, “new music training.” We had all this music
of that style that we were writing but had no outlet for, so we basically
decided we would try to put on the kind of shows that we were used to playing
with our other groups. Anti-Social’s really evolved to where, if you break down
the cultural barriers that are attached to classical music, you can make it
really exciting and fun. A lot of people forget that part of being a
professional musician: being a professional entertainer. You have to include
your fans and make them understand why they should care about your music,
whether it’s avant-garde classical music or bastardized Balkan music or
whatever.
ESM: On the note of mixing genres, you recently played a
show where you performed songs based on Miranda July’s novel No One Belongs Here More Than You.
Explain that.
FN: One of the other groups that I’m involved with is
another sort of loose collective called the Bushwick Book Club. Basically, it’s
a songwriter book club that meets the first Tuesday of every month — my
friend Susan assigns everybody a book, we read it, and then we come in with a
song or two to perform. It’s a community-building event —
singer/songwriting can be such a solitary pursuit, so sometimes you need
something where everybody gets together and you realize that you’re not alone
in this. You meet other people, you get together, and you have some fun.
ESM: With The Hold Steady, you often perform in large
theaters and concert halls, but your solo tour finds you playing smaller, more
intimate venues.
FN: We’ve done Hold Steady tours in nothing but theaters,
and that’s exciting for the first couple shows, and then you want a little more
of the intimate quality of smaller shows. My absolute favorites are the ones
where I’m right in front, short stage, no stage... a sweaty show where you can
really have an interaction and everybody’s involved in the experience —
rather than one person dictating the experience.
Upcoming Franz Nicolay East Coast tour dates:
8/4
8/5
8/6
8/7
8/8
8/9
8/10
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The Social………………………………………….Orlando, FL
Café Eleven………………………………………..St. Augustine, FL
Village Tavern…………………………………….. Mt. Pleasant, SC
The Milestone…………………………………….. Charlotte, NC
Night Light………………………………………… Chapel Hill, NC
Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar…………………….. Charlottesville,
VA
Black Cat (Downstairs)………………………….. Washington, DC
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8/11
8/12
8/13
8/14
8/30
9/2 |
Abbey
Bar………………………………………….... Harrisburg, PA
First Unitarian Church Chapel…………………...... Philadelphia,
PA
Maxwell’s…………………………………………..... Hoboken, NJ
Union Pool………………………………………....…New York City, NY
V Fest (with The Hold Steady)…………………..... Cambridge, MD
Le Poisson Rouge (InDigest Reading Series)....…New York
City, NY
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For all
things Franz Nicolay, visit www.franznicolay.com or
www.myspace.com/franznicolay
