Q&A with Hank Shteamer of Rolling Stone About Dragline Among 50 Greatest Grunge Albums

Hank Shteamer – Senior Music Editor at Rolling Stone and author of the write-up for Dragline in the recent list of the 50 greatest grunge albums – was kind enough to answer a few questions for the Paw fan community. Thanks, Hank!

Paw Community: "Dragline" landed at No. 35 on Rolling Stone's list of all-time best Grunge albums. Can you give us a summary of how this came to be? What was the process like to consider the album and place it within the list?

Hank Shteamer – Senior Music Editor at Rolling Stone

Hank: Credit for Dragline being first considered goes to my colleague Kory Grow, who masterminded the list and came up with the initial list of titles that we later expanded and whittled down.

Paw Community: Were you a champion for the album? Either way, how did you pitch/describe its merits to the team that put together the list?

Hank: Kory definitely brought it up first. Once I saw it on his initial list, I responded enthusiastically saying that Dragline was an old favorite of mine. Both being fans of the album, we decided that we would do our best to reserve a spot for it on the final list.

Paw Community: Was there any debate within the team as to whether or not the album truly fits in the Grunge category?

Hank: In my view, subgenres and other micro-classifications are really just a convenient shorthand rather than anything definitive. When putting together the list, there were certainly a few titles that seemed questionable to us, in terms of "qualifying" as grunge, but I don't remember there being any debate as to whether Dragline belonged. Without in any way slighting its originality, I would say that in my opinion, the album could comfortably be classified that way. But again, I just think of it as a great rock record, full stop.

Paw Community: Within the introduction for the feature, Paw is listed as one of a handful of examples of "unsung heroes" in the Grunge movement. That's pretty elite ink given the number of options for that sentence. How did Paw's inclusion in that sentence come about?

Hank: Credit goes to Kory there, too, though I can say that it was important to both of us to mix some less well-known artists into the final ranking to offset the various huge names like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

Kory: I included them in the intro because 1) they are unsung heroes, but more important 2) because they're not from Seattle, and i wanted to show that grunge wasn't totally geographical.

Paw Community: Tell us a little about your history with and current role with Rolling Stone?

Hank: I've been with Rolling Stone for about four years now. My official title is Senior Music Editor, and I'm responsible for editing and assigning articles on a variety of topics and also writing a good deal myself.

Paw Community: What's your favorite Paw song? (OK, maybe pick 2-3...) Favorite album?

Hank: Favorite album would definitely be Dragline itself. At the time (i.e., when I was growing up), that was the only one I had. I've since listened to Death to Traitors and enjoyed it, but Dragline is the one that's really in my blood, so to speak. I'd say my favorites are "Sleeping Bag," "Dragline" and "Couldn't Know," but to me, that whole album has a really unified aesthetic, which I did my best to nail down in the blurb that I wrote for the list.

Paw Community: You mentioned to me that you grew up in Kansas City and grew up listening to Paw. Do you recall when/how you first heard Paw and became a fan?

Hank: That's a great question. I'm honestly not sure. I discovered many KC and Lawrence-area bands – some other favorites: Giants Chair, Boys Life, Kill Creek and Season to Risk – just from hanging around record stores. Recycled Sounds, Streetside Records, the Groove Farm and the Love Garden were all key in that regard. But honestly I think I may have first heard Paw via the "Jessie" video on Headbangers Ball. The track struck me immediately and I went out and bought the album soon after – likely at either Recycled Sounds or Streetside. I was thinking back and trying to remember if I ever saw Paw live in those days. If I did, I believe it was at SpiritFest, which was a free outdoor festival held every year in KC.

Paw Community: Dragline and beyond, as you look back now at Paw and their catalog, what stands out to you? About how well their music has stood the test of time? About how much they accomplished? About how close (or not) they were to breaking through to stardom?

Hank: As I attempted to convey in the blurb, I have always thought of Dragline as a quintessentially Midwestern album. Grunge was a movement associated with a very different part of the country; it seemed to me that Paw drew on some of the same influences as the Pacific Northwest bands, but added this certain Kansas flavor. It's not just the obvious acoustic passages on the record – the whole thing, from the lyrics to the band photo, just felt very homegrown to me, and when I hear it now, it takes me right back to where I grew up. I never know how to judge whether music has "stood the test of time," because if I had not heard this record at such an impressionable time in my life (probably around age 15), there's no telling how it would strike me now. But I can say that revisiting Dragline recently, I felt as moved and transported as I ever have. To me, at least, that's a good criteria for timelessness.

Paw Community: Thanks, Hank!