'We were weird': Tim Finn on Split Enz's rise

Split Enz's latest line-up features Neil and Tim Finn, Eddie Rayner, Noel Crombie, James Milne and Matt Eccles. (Supplied: Karen Inderbitzen-Waller) Link copiedShareShare articleIt's 1972 and two shy but gifted 20-year-old New Zealanders have locked themselves away with their guitars and a strong creative impulse. "We wrote two songs in one night in this little flat we shared in Auckland, and they were gold to us," Tim Finn, one of those young men, tells Double J's Karen Leng. Tim Finn joins Karen Leng on Double J to talk about getting Split Enz back together, reuniting for their first Australian shows in over 15 years. "We knew that this was going to be the start of something that was going to be our lives, really. It took us over, consumed us. We just kept writing." Finn and his mate Phil Judd would soon form Split Enz. Over half a century later, the band still reigns as one of the most influential and impactful entities on New Zealand pop culture. "We had what you might call a cult following," Finn says. "We could play concerts and get several hundred people. Those people might have thought we were weird, but in a good way. Other people thought weird in a bad way. Most people weren't even aware of us." Though some were all too aware of Split Enz, and not for the right reasons. The band dressed garishly and made warped progressive pop songs that, in the early years, owed as much to Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels as they did The Beatles. They were fascinating, but they weren't for everyone. A key moment in Split Enz history came in 1974 when someone decided the band would be a good booking for Town Cryer, a popular live TV talk show hosted by prominent cabaret entertainer Max Cryer. "We went on in full makeup and costume, then he wanted to interview me afterwards," Finn recalls. "It just didn't work because that look was really for the stage." The interview didn't go well. Cryer was unsympathetic, and some watching at home weren't impressed. "Our parents were watching and horrified. Dad was a Rotarian at that stage, and he was fined at Rotary for having a son that looked like me. So yeah, interesting days," Finn says. It wouldn't be the last time the band felt out of place. By the mid-1970s Split Enz made the leap across to Australia to try their luck in the bigger markets of Sydney and Melbourne. "The first gig we ever did [in Australia] was the Hordern Pavilion with Buffalo and Finch, who are hard rock bands," Finn recalls. "That was a dreadful experience for everyone: for us, for the crowd. It was just all wrong." But you don't have to be for everyone. You just have to be for someone. "We had to find our audience, which was up at the Bondi Lifesaver the next week on a Sunday night," Finn says. "There was about 50 people and they adored us. "A young woman came up to us afterwards and said, 'We've been waiting for this.' Plenty of rock bands and funk bands were happening at the time, but there was no one like us. And people who loved Bowie or Roxy Music were going to dig us, I think." Their 1975 debut album Mental Notes performed reasonably well, after which bigger challenges awaited: Split Enz were soon the latest Antipodeans trying their luck in London's music scene. But keeping the band together quickly became an issue. "Phil left three times in the end. He found touring and performing really difficult. It was a heartbreak for me every time that he left, but I understood. We basically carried on." After Judd left the group in March of 1977, Tim's 18-year-old brother Neil flew to London to join Split Enz. It would be a turning point for the band and a key moment in pop music. The younger Finn had adored his brother's band from the outset and was becoming an excellent songwriter and musician in his own right. He didn't just fill a gap when joining Split Enz, he became one of the key architects of the band's most successful era. Neil Finn joined Split Enz in 1977 (Supplied: Warner Music Australia) Most notable was I Got You, the 1980 breakout hit that sat at the top of the Australian charts for months and remains a staple of classic rock radio to this day. Tim knew his brother had hit on something special. "I'll tell you exactly where that song takes me back to: Coolangatta," he says. "There was a gig up there called the Playroom [located in nearby Tallebudgera Creek], we did that gig several times just prior to breaking with [our 1980 album] True Colours. "I remember at sound check one day, we tried that song and the band played it full tilt. Tim Finn and Noel Crombie reflect on their band's biggest moment "Because I don't do much in it other than a harmony part, I thought, 'I'll go out the front and listen just for once.' "So, I did and the sound was brilliant. It just had this incredible power. It took my breath away really, how great it was. You could feel it. "That's the most exciting stage of any band, when you are just about to tip over into the mainstream crowd.

'We were weird': Tim Finn on Split Enz's rise

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