NEIL QUITS ENZ

Rip It Up, Issue 85, 1 August 1984, Page 2

NEIL QUITS ENZ

Murray Cammick

When Tim Finn announced he was leaving Split Enz some people predicted that the rest of the band would call it a day. And, a few weeks later, they did. But according to Neil Finn his brother’s departure was not what prompted the split.

"Because of the timing of the two announcements it might go down in history as that being the reason for breaking up but it wasn’t really", he explains over the phone from Melbourne. "Tim leaving was something he could have done two years ago, before he did Escapade, but because of strong ties with the band and that, we sort of struggled on. But from that point his involvement with us became a bit plagued with problems partly because of the time he took on his album but also because the songs he was writing were growing further away from what we wanted to play, so there was a bit of a conflict. Not a conflict in a personal sense at all, I want to stress that, but just musically. "So at the point Tim left we were hoping he was going to really, so we could get on with being a more united band and we also thought it would do us good musically. But for quite a long time I had been thinking about the fact that I had been in Split Enz for seven years, since I was 19, and I’ve never played in another band, barring two gigs as After Hours (the combo the young Finn had with Geoff Chunn and Buster Stiggs). And I guess I’d formed my own reasons for wanting to call it a day so the two events happened almost simultaneously but they’re not as connected as a lot of people probably think they are." .

You didn't see a challenge in proving that the band could go on without Tim? "We did see that challenge and it spurred me to continue once Tim had left but it didn’t seem like a good enough reason to continue with something that I was, to a certain extent, dissatisfied with. And making another album and committing myself to that was more or less like committing myself for two or three years because that’s as long as it might take.” He says the other band members are initially disappointed at his decision, but "after seven years of making decisions in the interests of the band, the time had come to act in my own interest.” "We’re all very ambitious still, particularly me as far as another

band goes. There’ll be plenty more heard from us but now we’ll have the freedom to do a lot of things that being in a band has meant we haven’t been able to. It’s a very special thing being in a band but it’s also very restrictive. For instance Eddie, who for years could have been doing a lot of production work and things like film scores, just hasn’t had the time to devote to those things. Noel’s got lots of things he’s neglected as well. And I used to be a piano player so I’d like to brush up on that I don’t want to be a piano player but I’d like to be able to have control over a few more aspects of being in another band.” Neil concedes that a lack of success for the Enz in the Northern

Hemisphere was a factor in his decision to leave but not so much as it was for the "more ambitious" Tim. "For us, you can say that if we had big success in the Northern Hemisphere the situation would now have been different and I might not feel the same but it wasn't the reason. We had a reasonable amount of success there anyway and it’s not a good enough reason to continue a band to be big in America, I’ve never felt that’s why Split Enz existed. Even though we have been ambitious' we’ve never made a record that was deliberately designed to succeed in America. I didn’t want to get to the point where that pressure was too great either. It was becoming a bit like that in the last two years. There was pressure for us to do songs we wouldn’t normally do." "There’s always going to be that thought in the back of your mind, what if we had gone on it might have happened and that sort of thing. But I feel really proud of what we’ve achieved and I think the records will stand the test of time so I’m quite happy to leave it there.” Things aren't quite wrapped up for Split Enz yet, however. The Timless Enz is soon to record an EP with Englishman, Hugh Padgham and in . early November Tim will rejoin the band for a farewell tour of New Zealand that will last nearly a month. After that Neil has plans for a new band, probably including Enz drummer Paul Hester. “I’ve got heaps of songs lying round but they’ll all be in consideration for the EP, I won’t start getting precious with them. A lot of the songs I'm writing are tending towards a more guitarish sound than synthesisers anyway. So I’ll be looking forward to getting into a more guitarish sound." Another area that will receive attention is the somewhat stagnated Enz Records enterprise. “We’ll have more time now to get somebody over there to run it. When you've got a band going on we realised that it's a very difficult

kind of thing to undertake.' We've been listening to tapes ever since we announced we were forming a label and without wanting to be too negative about the whole thing there hasn't been a hell of a lot that's excited us. We’re looking for songwriters above all else really there’s been a couple of things but we don’t want to make it a label that just signs people for the sake of it. We want to make it so we can give people access to the world; we've got pretty good connections now. We : want to make it something pretty special." The split is unlikely to see any band members shifting away from their homes in Melbourne there, are too many business and personal connections there. But according to Neil the band sees a proper farewell to New Zealand as a vital part of writing a fitting final chapter to the story of Split Enz. "It’s been a very special thing for us and one of the things I wanted to do was avoid getting to the point where we ended in any way bitterly. There’s obviously slight disappointment in some quarters but we were able to end it really well and in a dignified way, which is fitting for Split Enz."