Franz Nicolay (born 1977) is an American musician and writer. He is best known for playing the accordion and piano in The World/Inferno Friendship Society and keyboards in The Hold Steady from 2005 to 2010 and again from 2016 onwards. He is also notable for founding Anti-Social Music, a composer/performer collective based in New York City, and for performing in the Balkan jazz quartet Guignol. He has taught at University of California, Berkeley and is currently on faculty at Bard College. In 2012, Dying Scene named him the #1 accordionist in punk rock.