The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn sat down with Vulture in advance of both his former band, Lifter Puller’s reissued albums and the publication of a photo-anthology/oral-history Lifter Puller Vs. the End Of, to discuss the stories behind some of LP’s more well-known tunes.
This isn’t something from a Lifter Puller song, but you were on The Jenny Jones Show during a “Good Strippers versus Bad Strippers” episode. How the hell did that happen?
That was crazy. This kid we knew, who went to my high school, he was younger than me, and he was like “yeah, I book the music.” He said he could get us on Jenny Jones, and I’m not sure if I believed him. It seemed like it was by the seat of his pants. But then he absolutely did. We wanted to play one song, and I can’t remember which one it was, and they asked for something else. They said [the original] song was too hard, so then we played “The Bears” which was totally just the same, and actually with more subversive lyrics. They were just like, “okay, it’s not gonna get much lighter. Just play it. You’re here.”They had these strippers, you know, and they were screaming at each other. They had problems with each other. And it was all really small, way smaller in person, so we’re kind of right near the stage, and all these strippers are screaming at each other. By the end of it I had a huge headache and stomachache ’cause it was all so disturbing. It was pretty intense.
If you’re a fan of either band (and you should be?), Finn’s lyrical stories of druggy teenagers and wayward youth are more than half the draw, which makes the inspiration behind those songs so enthralling.
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Thanks for the tip. Great read.