Franz Nicolay's writing engages with contemporary culture and global travel, often exploring the fringes of society and underground artistic scenes. His work is distinguished by a keen observational style that delves into the nuances of cultural identity and human connection across diverse landscapes. Nicolay possesses a unique ability to illuminate the vibrant complexities of places and people, making the unfamiliar feel intimately understood. His debut book, recognized as a top travel selection, exemplifies his talent for immersive storytelling and insightful cultural commentary.
Exploring the often-overlooked experiences of supporting musicians, this book delves into their daily lives, struggles, and triumphs. It highlights their dedication, resilience, and the unique challenges they face while contributing to the success of headlining acts. Through personal stories and insights, readers gain a deeper understanding of the vital roles these artists play in the music industry, shedding light on their artistry and the sacrifices made behind the scenes.
Someone Should Pay for Your Pain by Franz Nicolay is about a singer-songwriter named Rudy Pauver, his conflicted relationship with a successful former protege, and a young niece who wants to travel with him and whose surprise appearance forces a reckoning with himself and his past. This illuminating anti-hero story propels the characters through time, story, and philosophical discourse with sharp asides, short stories, dialogues, and monologues. A musician's book for the punk scene insider, with so many truths that "punks" (whatever) have had to reconcile or deny, that it's like holding up a mirror and seeing something beautiful and ugly. Engrossing and compelling, the novel wrestles with the "punk ethos" and features a punk/rock-inflected inside look at life on the road: magical, honest, and pure, but also destructive, dangerous, and out of control. The author, a writer and musician best known for playing the accordion and piano in The World/Inferno Friendship Society and keyboards in The Hold Steady, was once named #1 of the top ten accordionists in punk rock. He is also the author of the travel book The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar (a New York Times "Season's Best Travel Books" pick) and is a lecturer in writing about music at UC Berkeley.
In 2009, musician Franz Nicolay left his job and over the next five years, he crossed the world with a guitar in one hand, a banjo in the other, and an accordion on his back, playing the anarcho-leftist squats and DIY spaces of the punk rock diaspora. While engaging with the works of literary predecessors from Rebecca West to Chekhov and the nineteenth-century French aristocrat the Marquis de Custine, Nicolay explores the past and future of punk rock culture in the post-Communist world.