From October 2006 to November 2007, the Hold Steady played nearly 250 shows behind their third album, Boys and Girls in America. Along the way, the quintet saw their crowds mushroom in size, heard their music featured on a Super Bowl telecast and got to jam with Bruce Springsteen at a Carnegie Hall benefit concert. “Bruce said, ‘Does anyone know the lyrics to ‘Rosalita’?” frontman Craig Finn recalls. “I said, ‘I do!’ I sang the first verse, then finished with him. It was surreal.”

The band celebrated its success by going right back to work. The Hold Steady have nearly finished their new album, tentatively titled Stay Positive, and it’s full of their trademark sweaty grooves, visceral riffs and slightly soused shout-along choruses. (more…)