Letting their music do the talking

The Hold Steady are more concerned about how they sound than how they look, says Ed Power.

CRAIG Finn is paunchy, with chunky spectacles, thinning hair and a vaguely disheveled demeanour. The Hold Steady’s lead singer looks nothing like a conventional rock frontman. This wasn’t planned — but he is proud to know he is pushing against stereotypes and waving a banner on behalf of schlubby middle-aged men.

“I wish I’d kept a scrap book of all the things I’ve been compared to in the press,” he says. “I always get this line about ‘he doesn’t resemble a lead singer. He looks like a math teacher, a science lecturer, a guy working in bar…’ I grew up in Minneapolis and nobody I knew looked like Steve Tyler from Aerosmith.”