Live at Lake Effect is our music series featuring local and nationally touring artists performing at Lake Effect Surf Shop in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
We brought the Lake Effects together, along with Visionary Studios, to showcase musicians once a month through an interview with the band exclusively on Lake Effect, plus filmed performances.
This episode features singer-songwriter Craig Finn, who you may know best as frontman of The Hold Steady. He joined Audrey Nowakowski and Trapper Schoepp at the surf shop to share songs from his new solo record Always Been. The project saw Finn working with a new producer: Adam Granduciel of The War On Drugs.
"I'd made seven albums in a row with the same producer, Josh Kaufman, and I thought, 'I love Josh, and I'm really proud of the work we've done together,' but I thought it's time for maybe something different," he says.
The pair worked on Always Been at Granduciel's studio in Los Angeles, fulfilling Finn's long-held desire to make a record in LA. Working with Granduciel brought about an interesting fusion of the two songwriters' respective styles, he says.
"Adam goes on this like sonic journey when he writes, you know — kind of a journey of sound," Finn says. "He keeps recording music and recording music and adding to it and taking it away. Eventually he'll get to writing lyrics pretty late, as I'm told, later in the process. And I'm the exact opposite: I have like one or two chords and all three pages of lyrics."
The pair's shared admiration for artists such as Warren Zevon, Tom Petty and Randy Newman was a constant source of inspiration while working on the record, he says.
"One of the things that I love about all those songwriters is they're sometimes — not always — but sometimes funny, and I like that in songs," he says. "And one of the challenges I made for this record was to have at least one line in every song that I thought was funny."
Finn is known for his writerly sensibility, and his songs weave together vivid, character-driven narratives that blur the line between sacred and profane. Always Been follows a Roman Catholic priest going through a crisis of faith.
"It introduces a character, this priest that became a priest without believing in God," he says. "And because of that, things kind of came crashing down — and after having some success, he lost it all."
Although he's lived in New York City for 25 years, Finn has roots in the Midwest. He says the Minneapolis music scene shaped his musical identity.
"I was well timed for a great part of the Minneapolis music scene, and and the first bands I went to go see were the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum — and those 3 bands especially made me want to be in a band, and also kind of formed like my sonic identity of what I think are great rock n' roll band should sound like," he says. "I think that that Minneapolis scene, both the music and sort of the ideals of doing things honestly and doing things yourself, have been something I try to bring with me."
SET LIST
- Bethany (0:10)
- People of Substance (5:08)
- Clayton (8:39)
MUSICIANS
- Craig Finn: vocals & acoustic guitar
- Nelson Devereaux: tenor saxophone, clarinet and synth
Live at Lake Effect Team:
- Executive Producers: Audrey Nowakowski & Trapper Schoepp
- Audio Engineering: Jason Rieve
- Location: Lake Effect Surf Shop in Milwaukee
- Production Company: Visionary Studios
- Camera Op: Kelly Pudroski
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