The Hold Steady Recall Early Struggle to Fill Venues

The Hold Steady are currently packing out thousand-plus capacity venues on a tour in support of 'Heaven Is Whenever,' their third straight hit album, but it wasn't always thus for the veteran Brooklyn-via-Minneapolis rockers.

"There were a couple of shows with [previous band] Lifter Puller in Cleveland where we played to just the people who were working at the bar," frontman Craig Finn told CNN in a feature about late-blooming bands. "And there was one in Jackson, Mississippi, with the Hold Steady, at the very beginning of the band, our first tour -- there were more stray dogs in the parking lot than there were members of the audience in the bar."

The Hold Steady's unconventional route to success in their thirties has been credited to the enthusiastic promotion of the band on blogs and websites, but the singer has mixed feelings about online music. "I am really most appreciative of the Internet when it kind of leads to real life applications, when it doesn't just stop at this digital communication," Finn said. "I've always wanted to be in a band that was really good live and had that kind of communal thing. I mean, those were the kinds of bands I've really liked, from Springsteen to the Replacements to whatever. You know, it was about going to the show."

He does, however, credit the web with leveling the playing field in terms of album distribution for bands not on major labels. "[With] record stores like Virgin and Tower not being there, it seems like when Vagrant or any other indie label delivers your record to iTunes, you're covered for a lot of people to be able to find your record."