Franz Nicolay

Franz Nicolay is a multi-instrumentalist and producer based in Brooklyn. Absurdly prolific and constantly working, Nicolay has been involved as a session player, arranger, collaborator, touring entity, and long-term member of countless bands, as well as maintaining an active solo career. His solo work is boldly emotional and stylistically adventurous, with arrangements full of layered keyboards, guitars, strings, horns, and vocal choruses that give life to impassioned lyrical constructs. 2010's Luck and Courage introduced his style fully formed, 2014's To Us, The Beautiful! added a more personal lyrical stance, and 2022's New River found him embracing his musical voice after a period of personal turmoil. Franz Nicolay began playing piano and accordion in the long-running circus punk collective World/Inferno Friendship Society in 2000 and played with the band for seven years. Another of his notable gigs was as keyboardist/backing vocalist for the booze-soaked working-class rock of the Hold Steady, a position he held from 2005 until 2010. (He would later return to the band, appearing on 2019's Thrashing Through the Passion and 2021's Open Door Policy.) In addition to these bands, Nicolay worked intermittently with Guignol, a Gypsy-punk band he founded with clarinetist Peter Hess in 2002, as well as Anti-Social Music, a nonprofit collective he founded in 2001 with a host of other N.Y.C.-area musicians and composers. His solo work began with a limited collection of demos he sold at shows in 2007 entitled Black Rose Paladins. A more official debut came in the form of 2009's Major General, followed by Luck and Courage in 2010 and the Kickstarter-funded Do the Struggle in 2012. A slightly more traditionally grounded follow-up appeared in early 2015 with fourth album To Us, The Beautiful. His solo compositions tended more toward lyrical and storytelling songwriting, but incorporated elements from his eclectic and ravenous musical interests. Nicolay took time off from his own projects for several years after the release of To Us, The Beautiful! as he devoted time to other projects (in particular his return to recording and touring with the Hold Steady), though he did create an a cappella collection of short songs about people of note, Peops Songs, in 2017. He also contributed to albums by Direct Hit! (Wasted Mind), Frank Turner (Songbook), and Jeff Rosenstock (Ska Dream). This period coincided with the passing of several close friends, leading him to question his own creative process. Coming to terms with these issues, Nicolay wrote and recorded a new album, New River which was released by Don Giovanni Records in November 2022. Along with his more regular pursuits, he has made prominent guest appearances with a wide array of acts including Leftover Crack, the Dresden Dolls, and others. He's also a published author; 2016's The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar was a memoir about his touring experiences in the post-Communist world, and 2022's Someone Should Pay for Your Pain was a novel about a singer and songwriter struggling with a career downturn and family crises.
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