Leadfinger

Leadfinger founder Stewart Cunningham has been a fixture in the Australian underground music scene for over 20 years. He first plied his trade as guitarist with pre-grunge Wollongong band The Proton Energy Pills. In the late 1980s, he then headed to Sydney where he spent the 1990s playing in seminal underground guitar bands – Asteroid B-612, Brother Brick and Challenger-7. He also had a stint in Melbourne with The Yes-Men, a band formed by Sean Greenway (ex-God and The Freeloaders). All of these bands released critically appreciated albums in Australia, the United States, Japan and Europe. Upon returning to live near hometown Wollongong in 2005, Cunningham began performing live as 'Leadfinger', relying on open tuning and slide guitar driven songs. The first three Leadfinger albums were released through Bang! Records, a Spanish Basque independent label that specialises in underground Australian rock like The Beasts of Bourbon, The Scientists and The Drones. The band's most recent album No Room at the Inn, came out through iconic Australian Label Citadel Records whose legacy stretches back 30 years and roster includes many of Leadfinger's own musical influences including Deniz Tek, Died Pretty and the Lime Spiders. The name 'leadfinger' was originally a nom de plume for Stewart Cunningham and originates from when his brother shot him with an air rifle at age 14. The lead pellet from the air rifle became embedded in his left index finger and required surgery to remove. Future bandmates would take to calling Cunningham 'leadfinger' in jest that the bizarre air rifle injury had somehow come to influence his guitar style. Cunningham himself states that the name Leadfinger was also chosen for his new project as an homage to delta blues legend Lead Belly, his original intention being to perform solo under the name. Cunningham continues a great tradition of Scottish Australian rock musicians and songwriters in Australia following in the steps of the Young family (members of AC/DC, The Easybeats), Jimmy Barnes, Bon Scott, Colin Hay, Karl Broadie, James McCann and others.