Dollar

IF you go out on the town with the Hold Steady, be sure to stock up on Advil to battle your hangover the next morning. This is the quintet that takes fierce pride in being dubbed a “bar band,” (from Brooklyn, no less) and whose refrain “gonna walk around and drink some more” from the song “Party ” is often taken as a direct order by the group’s mostly male fan base.

Last Sunday, the band sat around and drank some more — in this case, sake — perched on stools at Momofuku Noodle Bar in the East Village.

“I love your look right now,” Galen Polivka, who plays bass, said jokingly to Tad Kubler, the guitarist. The two men were wearing identical black wool sweaters with collars peeking out.

Mr. Kubler raised one eyebrow from beneath his pink-tinted aviator glasses. “My style icon for the next three years is Robert Redford in ‘Three Days of the Condor,’ ” he said.

A plate of six Canadian oysters on a bed of dark green seaweed appeared.

“I think you can eat that underneath stuff,” Mr. Kubler said, gesturing with one chopstick. “It’s kelp, what whales eat.”

“You’re thinking of plankton,” said Franz Nicolay, the band’s pianist, who sports a mustache that twirls up on each end, similar to the cartoon villain Snidely Whiplash.

After releasing three albums in three years, the Hold Steady struck gold with their release last year, “Boys and Girls in America,” selling more copies (52,000 and counting) than its previous two albums combined. It has been a steady ascent since: the band has landed on Letterman’s stage and was named Blender magazine’s “Band of the Year” in the January-February issue this year.

The band’s success has come at a point when most aspiring rockers are gearing up for a midlife crisis — the average age of its members is 32 — but it works.

“If we were 19, the label would have a much tighter hold on us,” said Craig Finn, the lead singer, who was enjoying his ramen noodle soup with an egg on top. “Because we’re old guys, we can go in any direction musically. We don’t have to answer to anyone.”

Mr. Finn’s style of speak-singing in a nasally growl over powerful guitar chords and beautiful piano melodies is not for everyone, and he admits as much.

“A kid came up to us in Vancouver and asked what it was like to be in a cheesy 70s rip-off band with a lead singer who can’t sing,” he said.

Walking around the corner to Hi Fi, where Mr. Polivka tends bar between tours, the guys erupted in laughter when their song “Stuck Between Stations” began playing.

“Who put on this?” said Bobby Drake, the drummer.

As they passed around Budweisers, talk turned to the antismoking laws in New York. The band had just returned from its first European tour, where Mr. Kubler had been horrified to see people in Germany smoking in restaurants.

“They got ash in their food and went right on eating,” he said.

“I, however, loved it,” said Mr. Polivka, who subsequently ducked outside for a Camel Light.

In a few days, the band would head out on a brief national tour. Though their schedule is picking up speed, the members have yet to quit their day jobs — among them photo assistant and auto mechanic.

“We’ll stay on the road for as long as possible,” said Mr. Finn, taking off his black glasses and squinting at the neon light emanating from a nearby jukebox, “so we don’t have to go back to real work.”