The Hold Steady Trivia Quiz

Answer: Craig Finn

Craig Finn, along with lead guitarist Tad Kubler, was formerly a member of the critically acclaimed cult Minneapolis band Lifter Puller. Finn spins tales in a style similar to Bruce Springsteen, and his songs often contain wry observational humour, are besieged with social and literary references, and frequently allude back to tracks on previous albums as though everything fits together like one big jigsaw.

Franz Nicolay plays keyboards, accordion and harmonica, whilst Bobby Drake took over as the band's drummer in 2005, to replace the departing Judd Counsell. One further member, Gavin Polivka, plays bass guitar.

Answer: The 80s

The album begins "Woke up in the 20s, there were flappers and fruits in white suits. It was right before the crash / We got thrashed throughout the 30s, queuing up for soup in scabby stores, and they sent us off to war / We came back in the 40s, there were wheelchairs, guns and tickertape, we poured it on the floor and made love to the interstates / We got shiftless in the 50s, holding hands and going steady, twisting into dark parts of big midwestern cities / Tripped right through the 60s with some blissful little hippy, some Kennedys got shot while you were screwing San Francisco / The 70s got heavy, we woke up on bloody carpets, got tangled up in gaslines. I guess that's where it started / The 80s almost killed me, let's not recall them quite so fondly".

Answer: Adult movies

The Hold Steady's frontman had the following to say about "Most People Are DJs" - "Most people are. Just a reaction to life in NYC in the 2000s. The part I don't get is when I get emails that start with, 'Come see me DJ' and end with, 'Here is what I'm going to play....' - I think that DJing, like rock criticism, tends to be a way for people to participate in the "scene" without taking the risks to the ego that go along with producing music or any other art. 'Look at me! I'm playing records!' Of course, I don't apply this to all DJs. And for those who don't know, Rocco Siffredi is a porn star. On a Lifter Puller tour someone showed us a video of him having sex with a woman and then flushing her head in the toilet. I can't figure out who that was supposed to arouse".

If you chose baseball as your answer, you were probably thinking of Rocco Baldelli, who signed for Boston Red Sox in 2009.

The 13th Floor Elevators option was thrown in because of the name of their frontman - Roky Erickson.

Finally, if you chose cookery, you were probably thinking of the celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito.

Answer: High school cheerleaders

Our lyrical hero attended Edina High in Minnesota, where the school mascot is a hornet. He says the title is a reference to the "amazing virginal cheerleaders as the embodiment of an innocent feminine ideal in that era of your life before everything turns sketchy".

Obviously, hornets ARE yellow and black insects as well, but I asked what the song was referring to, rather than what hornets were.

If you chose "musical instruments" or "ice cream cones", you were probably thinking of cornets.

Answer: Holly

The Hold Steady's world is infiltrated by all manner of colourful characters, and Holly - also known as Hallelujah - is arguably Finn's main protagonist. "She was a real sweet girl who's made some not sweet friends" he exclaims on "Crucifixion Cruise" before she is born again, ready to start afresh, at the album's finale.

The other options are all characters who inhabit the songs of The Hold Steady.
Although it is difficult at times to figure out which character is being referred to, it is fairly safe to assume that Gideon is a homeless wanderer, Charlemagne is a pimp, and St. Paul is the nickname of a drug dealer, whilst also being the name of a city in Minneapolis frequented by our anti-heroes.

Answer: The narrator of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"

Sal Paradise is the book's lead character, which focuses upon his travels around America with a vagrant from Denver. Kerouac freely admitted that Sal was, pretty much, an autobiographical version of himself.

The other options I gave were all related to the hedonistic icons of the so-called "beat generation" writers:

Ken Kesey's wife was Norma Faye Haxby. Kesey himself was probably best known for his classic novel "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". He died aged 66 on 10 November 2001, following surgery for liver cancer.

Hunter S Thompson's "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas", like Kerouac's "On The Road", uses a protagonist - Raoul Duke (and his attorney Dr. Gonzo) - to create a fictional work which is largely based on the writer's own experiences. Johnny Depp gave a memorable performance in the role of Duke in the 1998 adaptation of the book. Thompson committed suicide aged 67 on 20 February 2005, from a single gunshot wound to the head.

The author of "Breakfast Of Champions" was Kurt Vonnegut, a celebrated novelist from Indiana who lived a turbulent, often tragic life - his mother took her own life during World War II, on Mothers' Day in 1944. Vonnegut himself became a soldier, fighting and becoming a prisoner of war in Dresden before being expatriated by Russia's Red Army just under six months later. His experience formed the basis for one of his most famous novels, "Slaughterhouse-Five" and influenced many others. Vonnegut died aged 84 on 11 April 2007, after sustaining brain injuries from a fall at his Manhattan home.

Answer: A racehorse

"She put $900 on the fifth horse in the sixth race, I think its name was "Chips Ahoy!".
So begins this uptempo number, and continues later on to inform us that "I got a girl and she don't have to work - she can tell which horse is gonna finish first". You'd think this would be a recipe for unrelenting happiness, but if you listen to the lyrics carefully it's clear that the guy in the song is confused and frustrated with the relationship.

The other options I gave should be fairly self explanatory - in the UK, french fries are called chips, hence the "fish restaurant" being listed as a choice.

The tokens exchanged for cash are called chips at a casino, so I thought that was a feasible answer.

Finally, if you play golf, you have more than likely had to "chip" the ball at some stage, though the traditional golfing cry is "Fore!" and not "Ahoy!".

Answer: Joe Strummer

"Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer - I think he might have been our only decent teacher" sings Finn about the former frontman of The Clash.
The Clash were a hugely influential band, pushing punk to new boundaries and Strummer provided brilliantly astute social commentaries within his lyrics. It wasn't for nothing that they were labelled "the only band that mattered" in various circles and they achieved fifteen UK top 40 hits in total, including a number one smash with "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" in 1991, after the song was featured in a television commercial for Levi Jeans.
Sadly, Strummer died from a heart attack on 22nd December 2002, aged 50.

Marc Bolan fronted Tyrannosaurus Rex, eventually shortened to T.Rex, and was one of the icons of the early 1970s. The band enjoyed a run of ten top five hits between 1970 and 1973 including four number ones. After the number four hit "The Groover" however, their popularity waned somewhat, though they still had regular top 30 hits each year until June 1976. Just over a year later, Bolan (born Marc Feld) was the victim of a fatal car accident, two weeks short of his 30th birthday.

John Lennon was, of course, a member of The Beatles, a band who never really had a "frontman" as such. The Fab Four remain the most successful group ever, having achieved 17 UK number one singles, also topping the US Billboard Hot 100 on a remarkable 20 occasions. Lennon was murdered by crazed fan Mark David Chapman in December 1980.

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) was Queen's inimitable showman, and his band achieved 39 top 40 hits during his lifetime, including three number ones. The undisputed Queen classic, "Bohemian Rhapsody", reached number one for a second time in December 1991 - originally having topped the chart in 1975 - after Mercury succumbed to an AIDS related illness the previous month.

Answer: Led Zeppelin

The title is a reference to the Led Zeppelin track "D'yer Maker", which the girl in the song consistently pronounces as "Dyer Maker", when "all the guys knew it was a joke about Jamaica". For the uninitiated, the joke runs thus: "My wife's gone to the West Indies", "Jamaica?", "No, she went of her own accord".
Elsewhere in the song, the band use several other Led Zeppelin song titles as part of the lyric, perhaps best illustrated by the verse "Tired eyes, trampled under foot, dazed and confused, c-c-c-c-cocaine blues".

Craig Finn also doffs his cap to Black Sabbath in the track "Hot Soft Light", from "Boys And Girls In America", with the lyric "The band played Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - you thought it was stoney and adorable".

To my knowledge, The Hold Steady have never referenced Deep Purple in their songs, though Queen frontman Freddie Mercury is namechecked in the track "Knuckles".

Answer: Opening Night

A 1977 film directed by John Cassavetes, Finn admits that much of "Stay Positive" was informed by this story of an aging actress (played by Gena Rowlands) who feels responsible for the death of a young fan who is trying to meet her.

I chose "Sunset Boulevard" as an option as this film also portrays an actress who is past her prime, and desperately clinging to former glories.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" was one of the choices because the story centres on a woman unable to accept her advancing years, as well as an abusive husband, a situation which the title of the song could have related to.

"The First Wives Club" features Goldie Hawn as an aging actress, hence its inclusion.