Photo by Miles Kerr

Former Hold Steady keyboardist Franz Nicolay comes to town this Friday, Oct. 26, to play a show at Flicker Theatre & Bar. With its characteristically world and punk-inspired sound and its creator's mile-a-minute vocal delivery, Nicolay's new album Do the Struggle is the latest chapter in a musical life that has known few bounds. Flagpole chatted with Nicolay last week.

Interview by Dan Mistich

Flagpole: You recorded your last album, Do the Struggle, by setting up a Kickstarter campaign and having your fans finance the production cost. When did you decide to go this route?

Franz Nicolay: Basically, I had the summer off from touring and that’s when I wrote the bulk of the record. I had about a half dozen songs before that, but then I wrote 12 more over the summer. Obviously, it was going to be time to do a record and since I hadn’t been touring—which is how I make money to do that sort of thing—I checked in with some of the labels who had expressed interest in the past and none of them were going to front the money. So, that was really the only way to do the record I wanted to do.

FP: You’re known for being a sideman in some really great bands. Both The Hold Steady and Against Me!, for example, are known for having some incredibly fun live shows. Do you ever miss touring in a band like that?

FN: Yeah, of course. Absolutely. I love playing anthemic, high-energy rock shows. But that’s just not in the cards at the moment. And the flipside of that is that I also love what I’m doing now. I love driving around by myself or with my wife and getting to stop off and do some sight-seeing and go to museums and all of the things when you have the freedom to move around without a giant vehicle and a bunch of equipment.

FP: You’ve been to Athens, GA several times both in the bands you’ve played with and as a solo artist. As someone from the metropolis of New York City, how do you rate Athens as a town and as a place to see live music?

FN: I would rate Athens very highly just on the basis of the vegetarian restaurant The Grit, alone. It’s obviously one of the great music towns and one of the more historic music towns in this country. In that sense, it’s a treat to get to go there. Any town that can sustain something like Athens is a great place. There are certainly major cities that don’t have as many vibrant and more or less successful rock venues.

FP: What else do you like to check out when you’re out and about in Athens?

FN: Usually I’m only in for an evening. So, usually I get in and do soundcheck and then run over to The Grit for food, then I go play my show and then go to sleep. What’s the name of that great record store downtown?

FP: Wuxtry?

FN: Yeah, but there’s another one.

FP: Schoolkids Records? Unfortunately, it closed down. That was a great store.

FN: Yeah, that’s the one I was thinking of.

FP: We have an election coming up. What issues are important to you as a musician and others who run in your circles?

FN: I think health care is a huge issue for musicians. I haven’t had health insurance in a couple of years, basically, and only intermittently. And most musicians don’t and they need it badly because musicians by and large don’t have savings. We’re traveling a lot, which means that it raises the chances of accidents. Nobody has savings if they do have a health crisis, so I think if we can find a way to have musicians be covered and at an affordable rate, that would be a massive help to our community and, arguably, our culture at large.