Neil Finn’s vision opens doors

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 35

Neil Finn’s vision opens doors

Though it may seem that Crowded House came out of nowhere as a new musical force, a great deal of premeditation based on years of hard-earned experience went into every move the New Zealander, Neil Finn, and the Australians, Paul Hester and Nick Seymour, made along the way. Crowded House’s single, “Don’t Dream It’s Over,** has achieved incredible success, peaking recently at No. 3 on the American pop charts. The group were guests on Joan Rivers’s network television show and featured on the cover of the industry magazine, “Cashbox.** Finn, former lead singer for the nowdefunct Split Enz, talks to BUD SCOPPA and lAIN BLAIR about Crowded House’s calculated climb to the top of the charts from Down Under. Question: How did Crowded House come about? Neil Finn: After “Conflicting Emotions,” Tim (Neil’s older brother, who founded Split Enz in 1972) left the group because they had done it for a long, long time and he wanted to do solo stuff. We decided initially to go on without him as Split Enz; we did some songs, put together an album (“See Ya ’Round”), and then I decided that if it was going to be new, I wanted it to be totally new. Q: Was the break-up amicable? Finn: Oh yes, totally mutual, except for Nigel (Griggs, the bassist), who wanted to carry on. Tim had already left, of course, and the rest of us wanted to stay friends, so we called it quits before it got nasty. Q: There were rumours that you and your brother were not getting on. Finn: Yes, people always assume a break-up like that was caused by fighting, but it just was not true. It probably makes a good story, but the truth is we

are really close. Q: The only Split Enz member you teamed up with for Crowded House was Paul Hester. Finn: He was the last and best drummer the band had, which was ironic as he only saw the worst times at the end. I kind of felt I owed him one.

Q: So how did you and Paul get the ball rolling? Finn: We basically followed our noses in 1985. We severed ties with our (Australian) record company, our management, and everything. So it was just Paul and me.

We decided we wanted to get a band together when Split Enz finished. We just happened to feel like we would make a good core of a band, because Paul is a greater drummer and good friend.

Q: Where did you find Nick Seymour?

Finn: We both knew him socially in Melbourne, and I had actually produced a single for a band he was in a few years ago.

Anyway, after the split, he came up to me at some party and in the end forced himself on us.

So when we could not get rid of him, we thought he might as well join us, and when we started playing together, it felt really good. Nick joined while we were doing “demos,” and we immediately took the tape overseas to see who was interested. We wanted to try to get a world-wide deal straight up, rather than do an album in Australia and then try to sell it.

We went to see as many people as we could get access to, and we got immediate enthusiasm from Capitol.

Q: Split Enz did reform to play the Greenpeace benefit last year. Any more plans to play together again? Finn: No. We only did that gig because Daryl Hannah was there.

Q: How did Crowded House get its name?

Finn: While we were recording the album in Los Angeles, we were all living in this weird house which had a 24-hour parade of bizarre and strange characters.

I would come home and find people sliding down the stairs on trays; stair-surfing. So it just evolved.

I really like that sort of domestic imagery, where the most peculiar things happen in seemingly normal surroundings. Q: The album is much sparser than the stuff you were doing with Split Enz. Finn: We wanted a strippeddown, simplified approach, and we spent a month just rehearsing the material and working on arrangements. It is hard to verbalise what we were aiming for, because we are not a label band in the sense you can listen to our music and say, “Oh punk,” or “rockabilly” or “heavy metal.” We wanted to make a warm record, with lots of atmosphere and a very live feel to it, and to keep it as free from formula as possible.

Q: Why did you decide to record in Los Angeles rather than Australia?

Finn: We came to Los Angeles to record the album because we wanted the people here to understand what they had signed. We

wanted them to understand that to some extent they had signed a band that did have reasonably strong opinions about what we wanted to do.

It was good to be over here and get a bit of a personal profile going. We want the personality of the band to be basically what makes us successful; the songs, obviously first and foremost, but the real people behind the band, Paul and Nick, are pretty entertaining people to be with.

If you are going to put yourself out there in the public eye, it'is good to use your real assets. Q: How do you feel your songwriting has developed from your Split Enz days?

Finn: . That is hard to answer objectively, although I know I am far more prolific now, and I am pretty pleased with all the songs on the album. I feel they are essentially simple songs, and melodic, and perhaps that makes them pop. I do not know. I just write what I feel.

Q: What inspires you to write? Finn: Sometimes it will be a

specific event, like the death of my auntie, which became “Hole in the River.” That is very specifically emotional. Usually it will be more of a general mood or feeling. Q: What about “Mean to Me!”? • Finn: Ah. This is based on a true story about an American girl who turned up in New Zealand insisting she had to meet me. It was very weird, because after we had met, she got involved with this local poet who befriended her by telling her he had gone to school with me and was a really close friend, which was a pack of lies. But it comes across as being more venomous than I’d intended.

Q: How is the tour going? Finn: Great. We did one month Down Under, which went very well, and now we are on a twomonth U.S. tour. It is a great chance to build an audience and reacquaint people who have been wondering whatever happened to us since the split. (c) 1987 Music Connection. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.