Their musical paths have crossed many times, but now the Finn brothers have hooked up to produce what's being lauded as their best work yet. Brian Boyd reports.
'It's a strange one" says Tim Finn of his relationship with his brother Neil, "strange because it's not just a personal one, but a musical one as well. At one time or another, I've brought him into my band and then he's brought me into his band, at other times we've been solo artists for years on end, other times we've recorded together. Now we're back together and the way it's going at the moment, I think both of us are slowly realising we've just made, if not the best, then one of our best albums together".
The Finn brothers are a walking, talking musical history book. From Te Awamutu in New Zealand, they have being playing various instruments and singing together since early childhood. Fame first beckoned in the late 1970s when Tim's band Split Enz brought their art-rock sound to an international stage. In the following decade, with that band in storage, Neil's band Crowded House re-defined melodic pop/rock music. Although Neil joined Tim in Split Enz and then Tim joined Neil in Crowded House, the only time it was just the two of them recording together was on the acclaimed album Finn in 1995. Since then there have been various Split Enz reunions, ongoing Crowded House activity and a bunch of solo albums. Now there's Everyone Is Here, the second Finn brothers album and a work which is already picking up the best reviews they've ever had.
"People always say to us 'Why don't you just stay together and stop all the other band and solo stuff?' - but it's not that easy," says Tim who, at 52, is six years older than Neil. "Sometimes we just have to go off and do our own stuff, and sometimes we end up together. We've always joined up at different stages of our careers and we've always gone away at different stages also. It shouldn't have taken us nine years to follow up Finn but it did and going by the reaction so far to this one, we're now sorry it took so much time.
"I think maybe the reason for the gap is that there's a lot more at stake when we record together than there is when we're in different bands," says Neil. "It's not like making an album with someone else just on a musical level, there's the personal thing there also. We're both songwriters and we're both very interested in and fascinated by what the other person is doing musically. The first thing we had to do when we met up for this album was to rediscover the terms of the relationship. We had to find that certain zone and agree on what we were going to do, what we were going to write about and what the themes on the album would be".
There's melodic pop craftsmanship all over Everyone Is Here. The opening track, also the first single, Won't Give In has a real crunch to it while Disembodied Voices sees the two of them going back to their early days in New Zealand. Although all perfectly polished, beneath these songs lie questions and doubts.
"We did want to avoid any form of sentimentality," says Tim. "We had to keep this contemporary and fresh, otherwise it could just have been too soft-centred."
Arguably, the standout track on the album is Nothing Wrong With You, which has an uncharacteristically caustic feel to it. "Yeah, there's a real anger there" says Neil. "In one sense it could be taken to be about any group of abused or marginalised people and how no matter what is directed at you, you can still rise above it in a dignified way. The song actually has a very specific origin, it was Tim's idea and I'm not sure he wants to talk about it, but it can be taken as a general idea as well."
"What actually happened was a single incident," explains Tim. "It came from a racial insult that was hurled at my wife in a park in Australia one day.
"My wife is Australian but her parents are from the Philippines and we were in the park and this woman made some remark to her about 'f**kin' Asians taking over Australia'. I was so, so angry about this but I noticed my wife's reaction was just to flash the woman a sad smile and then totally forget about it. But I didn't and that's where the song came from."
"That song in particular sums up the album in a sense" says Neil, "because Tim had the idea and the verses and I just happened to have this chorus that fitted perfectly. That happened a lot on the album. My chorus was something different but related to what Tim had. At the time there was a lot of stuff on the news about refugees and what they were going through and how they were been treated in different countries. What I like about the song is that, apart from Tim's explanation to you, it could be applied to many different people - anybody who has to rise above that sort of mindless racism. That song can work on a few different levels, I hope."
One song on the album, Anything Can Happen, is in 6/8 time - quite uncharacteristic for both of them. "Chicks love songs in 6/8 time" says Neil laughing. "Actually there is a bit of truth in that, a few people have told me women like songs in that rhythm - I really don't know, myself. What I do know is because it's a fast rhythm it's very exciting to play. I love playing it.
"That song was a first for me in that it began as a drum loop and I never begin songs that way. From the drum loop I had the rhythm and then got the chords from that. It's great in that it showed both of us that there's still new stuff to explore."
Given that the album was very much a collaboration, was all competitiveness put to one side? "I think there still is a competitive element there but it veers more towards willing the other person on," says Tim.
"You want to impress and then you want to support also. People often wonder how we manage to do it but what we have learned over the years and from all the different bands we've been in is that whatever tension there is seems to get resolved and absorbed into the music. We like to think of it as a competitive collaboration."
Everyone Is Here is on EMI