NEIL FINN

Rip It Up, Issue 178, 1 May 1992, Page 12

NEIL FINN

On a sunny mid-April lunchtime, Crowded House packed Auckland's Aotea Square, with a free concert to raise funds for Moana and the Moahunters' trip to New Orleans to play the Jazz & Heritage Festival. Over S3OOO was donated by the crowd and Tim Finn joined his brother on stage. Once again the Finn brothers showed their enthusiasm and support for local music

Later that afternoon Neil, looking a little weary spoke to RipltUp about life in the Finn-lane. An obvious starting point—the NZ Music Awards where Neil won Songwriter of the Year and Crowded House won Top International Performer. Neil Finn had a few thoughts on this year's event. "The positive thing was that they've televised it. The negative thing was that they made a real balls up of it, and it came across as a real boring TV show, which in the end doesn't further the cause much." . Do you think they removed the spontenaiety? "They took all the humour out of it, they took anything contentious out of it, I think they insulted the people who won awards by chopping their speeches, because I think one of the fundamental purposes of awards shows is to give recognition to people who have done the work. In many cases it might be the only bit of glory any of them got. Not many people are making money out of it so to let them have their minute to say thank you to who they want and say what they want to say, is the least you can offer them. To chop it is insulting, I think, it misses the point completely."

Your mention of Lemon and Paeroa was asking to be axed. "I didn't honestly expect them to keep that in the show, but I was a bit miffed about them chopping what Paul said. There was a couple of

thank yous that I made that weren't in there, my parents, my manager

Grant Thomas, and also I thought it was really off that they chopped

what Moana said. That to me

seemed like deliberate censorship, like, don't rock the boat mentality." As an Australian resident signed to a USA record label, are you ever surprised about your eligibility in the NZ Songwriter category? 'The songwriter thing makes more sense than the international

performer. I just take it as it comes, really, if they want to give us an

award... it just seems a bit petty to say 'I can't accept this because I'm not in a NZ band at the moment'. I'm as NZ as I ever was in my outlook, whether Crowded House is NZ or not. It isn't something that we think about all that much to tell you the truth."

Seems Crowded House has been given the Split Enz task of carrying the NZflag abroad. "Well, Split Enz obviously did carry it. We were a NZ band even with two British people in it. The

heart of the band was NZ and we can still sense in NZ that Split Enz will always have a special place in people's hearts. Crowded House will never eclipse the kind of emotion

that Split Enz has for people." But Crowded House has probably eclipsed Split Enz in terms of radio airplay.

"Maybe in many statistics but in terms of people's affections, I feel here more than anywhere, there's a special place for Split Enz. It

sometimes feels like a burden but

overall, it's a very positive thing." People talk about the difficult third

album. Was that so for Crowded House?

"Yeah, they're all difficult, though. The first album was a really hard album to make, the second album was very easy, just in terms of the actual recording process. The third album was hard to make as well."

Do you have a lot of unreleased Crowded House tracks? "Quite a lot. Now I look back on a few of the songs and prefer them to some of the stuff that made the

records. So if II turn up at some point. What normally decides whafs to be left off is lyrics. If I can't really get behind a lyric of something or I'm not sure what ifs about. I'm not sure what quite a few of them are about. If it doesn't at least hold my interest I'll chuck it out."

When do you plan to record the fourth album?

"As soon as possible after we finish touring, 'cos we're playing really well at the moment and we've just got a certain level of instinct about the whole thing." Originally you and Tim were doing an aacoustic project together. Did you draw from that material? "It became quite a schizophrenic thing for me. We knew we had to get the Crowded House album out, I wanted both to get done and then it became increasingly difficult to juggle one from the other. So thafs

“why Tim joined the band, the only thing we didn't think of was the live act and live it just felt weird to all of us."

Despite being brothers you've got very different stage personas haven't you? "Crowded House has a strong identity and Tim found it hard to fit into that and we found it hard to do what we used to do with Tim on stage."

So an album by the two of you won't be appearing? "No, I think it probably will. I mean, we're probably content to leave it until we're both able to give it our full concentration.

Will you record the next one in Australia or Los Angeles. "I don't know. The only definite is that we won't do it in Los Angeles because we've done all three

albums partly there, so we're feeling time for a change. Maybe England, maybe even New Zealand." Are you likely to be the producer? "I don't know. I think we're looking at people at the moment. I'm not obsessed with producing our ownstuff'cos I value having an objective ear. Ifs quite a burden to take on, playing, singing and producing. I'm happy to share the load from a stress level point of view." Did you record in LA for the

technology? "Not really, although ifs a positive thing because anytime of the day or night you can get whatever you want, at very close call. We did the other half of the record in Tim's bedroom which is exactly the opposite and that was just as enjoyable, we didn't lose a great deal of time." Ifs very Australian to go and do the work in the northern hemisphere. "For us it was because our record company was based there and we met an American producer. Wherever you live, ifs good to get away in order to make your record. You get away from your peers and what I regard as bullshit pressure from your local environment. I do feel a lot of bands here suffer

sometimes from never truely getting beyond, 'will my mates like this?'— and that in many ways maybe quite restrictive. I see that as a negative." Are you writing songs for other people now? "Not really, no. I mean, I've had people ask for songs and I've been pretty reluctant in a way, just because the best songs I write I want to do myself anyway and I don't really go with the idea of putting B-grade songs out there." You wouldn't write a song which just isn't you?

'There's quite a few that I've got just sitting around that I might end up offering to somebody but I sort of have a feeling of responsibility to them, in the sense that I don't

normally finish things properly until we record them. So I've got a lot of half finished songs that might be good for people, but I've got to work on them and I'd quite like to see them through a little bit. "I'm getting a few people covering songs, which is nice. I think Jason Donovan's going to do something which I can't really do

much about. In a way I'm quite open to it anyway. Actually, the funny thing about it in England, our fans get really passionate about it and when Paul Young did his version they were incensed. There was this guy in

Dublin who was ranting the whole night in front of the stage about

something. Eventually we dragged him onstage to have his say. He got to the microphone and said 'How dare Paul Young do 'Don't Dream Ifs Over', ifs Crowded House's song, if II always be theirs. How dare he make a mass mockery of it.' And he was so passionate about it I started to think shit, maybe I should be. "When you write a song you've got hope that it will have a life of its own and that in 20 years time somebody will be singing it at a party and they won't necessarily know who wrote it or who performed it or anything. Thafs my ultimate ambition really, is to write songs that are everyman kind of songs." There's a sense in which your fans know more about your songs than you do. "Sometimes people think they know what the song's about and ifs real news to me, you know, but thafs good too. I mean, I often leave songs a little bit open-ended because to me, the idea is to kind of suggest things rather than bang anybody over the head with it. I don't think you have to explain yourself within a pop song. I think a few lines have to connect enough to make people identiy but it never

seems to be a prerequisite for me that the song makes sense, necessarily. 'We got a letter from a fan in Split Enz days quoting from 'Shark Attack' and they said 'I really love that line There was fauna in the water when I bought if (the actual line was

There was slaughter in the water when I fought her 7 ) which we

thought was a better line. We were tempted to sing it from then on."

Neil has to move on — ifs time to wander across to the Town Hall to soundcheck, before a second night at the quaint old Auckland venue. A week later the album's at No.l and Neil's playing to another capacity Town Hall crowd, this time in Dunedin.

MURRAY CAMMICK