On January 22, 2003, four men stepped onto a stage in Brooklyn and did something no one else was doing at that time, in that place. They played rock 'n' roll: old-fashioned rock 'n' roll with skyscraping riffs and sloppy solos, topped with extraordinary lyrics about an out-of-focus America, blurred by pills and powders, of crime and fear and desperation and redemption.

Twenty years later, The Hold Steady are one of America's most beloved rock bands, famed for live shows that turn unbelievers into converts and for a catalog filled with some of the most exciting yet poetic music of the twenty-first century. To mark those twenty years, The Hold Steady tell their full story.

An oral history, based on interviews with everyone who has played in the band, and those who have worked with them over the course of their career, The Gospel of the Hold Steady addresses all the triumphs and setbacks of The Hold Steady's career in the band's own words―from high times to near deaths, from the brink of splitting to their current renaissance.

The Gospel of The Hold Steady is completed by essays about America's greatest bar band by writers Rob Sheffield, Laura Barton, Isaac Fitzgerald, and Michael Hann, as well as the thoughts and memories of "The Unified Scene"―the fans who have helped define the band's identity over the years.

This is a book for anyone who understands that the magic of rock 'n' roll happens on a stage in a small room with voices raised from the crowd.