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‘Boom! We Were Split Enz’: Neil and Tim Finn Tell Us About Getting the Band Back Together
Costume envy, spoons solos, “interesting pop songs,” being greeted by screaming girls — welcome to the wonderful world of Split Enz.
Is the Split Enz reunion the Antipodean equivalent of Oasis getting the band back together? Maybe so, because a couple of years back, you couldn’t be certain you’d ever get to experience either band live on stage again.
In episode one of the excellent, ten-episode Enzology podcast – which chronicles the history of Split Enz, from their beginnings as Split Ends in 1972 (the ‘z’ arrived in 1974) onwards – Tim Finn declares, “It’s only time itself that reveals the worth of pop music.” 54 years on from their formation, we can safely say the music of Split Enz is still ahead of its time in so many ways.
When connected on Zoom, Split Enz’s Finn brothers, Tim and Neil, are at the latter’s Roundhead Studios. While a member of their team sets his laptop down on a table, angling it towards a couple of wooden chairs in readiness for their Rolling Stone interview, the pair are visible in the background; Tim tinkers away on a piano while Neil requests a coffee.
Neil can be heard describing the selection of instruments that’s available at Roundhead Studios: “It’s an embarrassment of riches in terms of pianos. “There’s the upright over there, and then I’ve got the smaller grand [piano] over there, which is also really good… This one’s brighter than the one upstairs.” He tells Tim about another piano he purchased online, on spec “because it was cheap.”
The Finns are then finally herded towards their seats, stooping down and waving at the screen.
Neil nurses a forest green cup on a matching saucer in his lap while Tim reaches down to pick up a glass of water, taking a couple of thoughtful sips before placing it back down on the floor.
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Sound Relief: Red Symons stage invading during “I See Red”
Split Enz last re-formed in 2009 for a one-off set at the MCG as part of Melbourne’s Sound Relief concert, a benefit to raise funds for those affected by the Black Saturday bushfires that blazed through Victoria earlier that year.
They played just nine songs — way too short! — stretching from opener “Shark Attack”, during which there was much running across the stage, arms frantically windmilling in freestyle, to the bonkers, synth-led closer “I See Red”.
Tim nods. “Yeah, the one where [Australian musician and TV/radio personality] Red Symons walked across during ‘I See Red’? The little bastard. He always was a bit of a bastard. I like him, but he was always…” Making it all about him? Tim laughs heartily, “Everybody in a band does that, probably — at some point.”
Sandwiched between Hunters & Collectors and headliners Midnight Oil, both of whom also reunited specifically for Sound Relief, Spilt Enz granted the crowd carte blanche to embrace the silliness.
Both Midnight Oil and Hunters & Collectors staged comebacks after re-forming specifically for Sound Relief, so what took Split Enz so long?
It was “a timing thing,” according to Tim. “We had been asked before and it really just didn’t fall, and then it sort of fell. It was like we were all in the same mood about it, I suppose, and there were gaps in the schedules and things. We were all happily getting on with our [other] projects and then this came at the right time, yeah.”
Rehearsal one: “the songs felt vibrant and alive”
So did Split Enz’s latest lineup – the Finns, Eddie Rayner, Noel Crombie, James Milne, and Matt Eccles — manage to recapture the magic during their first rehearsal?
Neil: “Yeah, actually, we slipped into it very effortlessly and it sounded good straight away. And that was with a new rhythm section [bassist James Milne and drummer Matt Eccles] as well – who had done their homework and knew the songs pretty good. And it got better as rehearsals went on, but we just instantly felt connected to the songs and they felt vibrant and alive. I think ‘Shark Attack’ was the first one we did, wasn’t it?”
Tim: “It was. We just roared off.”
Neil: “It just poured out, yeah.”
Tim: “We sort of cobbled a setlist together and that seemed good straight away, pretty much. We made a couple of minor adjustments, but we knew which songs we wanted to play – inevitably drawn from True Colours and Waiata or Corroboree [as their sixth record was titled in Australia] and Time and Tide, but with a few others in there as well.
“We did 80 minutes in Christchurch, we’ll probably do over 90 [minutes, at our own shows] – I dunno what it’ll end up being, but we wanna go a bit deeper and wider… We wanna play a couple from Mental Notes and possibly a couple of other things from other albums that were, yeah, deeper cuts.”
“You get costume envy”
When asked whether Noel had to go shopping for new suit fabric to create the band’s snazzy new suits for this tour, Neil extols, “He printed it all! His wife Sally-Anne printed all the fabrics from a linen they bought a few years ago – inexpensive, but nice linen – and, yeah, all of the fabrics were printed by hand.”
Tim: “Were they painted or printed?”
Neil: “Printed by hand, I think.”
Tim: “Printed, yeah. I thought they were doing some hand painting.”
Neil: “Well it might be, as well – the process I’m not 100% sure about, but, you know, it’s just got authenticity coming out of every buttonhole.”
Tim: “Every gusset [laughs].”
Neil: “There’s integrity.”
Tim: “They were in the dressing room before we went on. Sally-Anne, who’s Noel’s partner, had the ironing board out and was actually sewing things – buttons or whatever it was – at the last minute, and it felt exactly like a sort of theatre show where there’s a wardrobe department and they’re feverishly getting it together. And I just loved it so much. And she was calm and authoritative, but, yeah, it was a vibe, you know? Noel was wandering around not saying much, but keeping an eye on her. And we threw [the suits] on and, boom! We were Split Enz.”
Neil: “You just feel so good with those suits on. And it gave us an extra dimension; when you step on stage, you just know you’re looking like a real band, you know? And you’re putting it out. And all Noel’s sort of handmade stuff – it just has extra weight and extra intensity.”
Tim: “I was just thinking of Eddie. You get costume envy. And so Eddie was saying at one point, ‘Why don’t we all just have black and white?’ ‘Cause James, our new bass player, had this gorgeous – was it a houndstooth?
Neil: “A massive houndstooth fabric, yeah.”
Tim: “Beautiful black and white – his one was immaculate, his was great. And Eddie was like, ‘Well why don’t we all just have black and white?’ So he was genuinely saying that – he just spun-out and wanted it, you know? He wanted another person’s suit and that’s pretty classic, yeah [laughs].
Neil: “But then James is, you know, six foot tall and thin as a rake. And Eddie’s, well…
Tim: “Yeah, not six foot tall, hahaha.”
Neil: “No.”
Tim: “Perhaps not, but he’s going all right.”
Neil: “He’s doing great, yeah!”
Tim: “But both our new guys are six foot tall and thin as rakes… We did some photos and we were like, ‘Well, where do we put…’ – you know, [the new band members] were a bit on the edge and then Matt, our drummer, sort of came in the middle and crouched for some of the shots. It was just getting those sizes and scales right. It was quite interesting. But it’s great, yeah, they look good.”
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Split Enz’s cross-generational appeal: “music spans decades”
Split Enz have only played one show on this current reunion stint, headlining Christchurch’s Electric Avenue.
“We are getting younger people who seem to know the songs and that’s interesting,” Tim notes. “At the Electric Avenue festival, it was very multi-generational – festivals are, I suppose – and you could see people in their twenties who would never have seen the band before singing every song – singing the words – and that was incredibly pleasurable to experience for us old guys; to connect across the generations. Music spans decades.”
@livenationaotearoa Split Enz had the whole crowd dancing 🕺
“There was no, ‘I might come out and play spoons, is that alright?’”
When asked whether they’ve ever encountered another band that integrates a spoon solo into their show, Neil shakes his head vehemently: “I’ve never seen it.”
Tim: “No.”
Neil: “I’ve never seen it anywhere else. I think I saw a guy in a pub once, do the spoons, in Ireland. But it was just for a bit of a laugh. It was a singing pub.”
Tim: “Yeah, it’s an old music hall, an old kitchen thing; it’s a house thing, you know? I mean, Noel first started doing it without – there was no conversation about it. Noel didn’t go, ‘I might come out and play spoons, is that alright?’ ‘Cause he wasn’t even in the band [at that stage], right? So we were in a club in Wellington and we’re playing a song, next minute we hear [makes clickety-click spoon playing sounds]…
Neil: Hahahaha.
Tim: “And out he comes with a pair of spoons he found in the kitchen out the back of this nightclub, and that was it! He was in the band. He was the spoons and he was everything else that he became. He hadn’t made a costume at that point – or maybe he’d just started doing that for us. But he’s a remarkable character, Noel. He just operates on his own time scale and his own reality, and it always delights us.”
1975: Split Enz mingle with “Melbourne people”
When Split Enz first moved from New Zealand to Melbourne in 1975 to conquer the Australian music scene, the lineup included Tim Finn, Eddie Rayner, Noel Crombie, Phil Judd, Mike Chunn, and Robert Gillies.
On whether they felt welcomed within the local music scene at the time, Tim contemplates, “It’s really hard to know, ‘cause we didn’t mingle a lot – that came later, when we became more known. And around ‘79 and 1980, of course we would go to parties where there were other bands and you’d get to know people.
“We got to know Wilbur Wilde and Joe Camilleri in Melbourne, and Renée Geyer, and a lot of those Melbourne people. But at first it was like, ‘Ooh, there’s Skyhooks over there,’ you know? And you wouldn’t talk, you’d just look at each other. And it was like that when we went to England and we saw the Sex Pistols in 1976 – they were just starting – and we were sort of looking at each other, you know? So bands don’t always mingle, because they create their own worlds.”
Neil: “It’s a social scene, you know? The band in itself is.”
Tim: “Yeah.”
Neil: “But also it is traditional for young bands to not like any other bands, you sort of do have to form a bit of an us against the world mentality. There’d be a grudging respect for certain bands like Midnight Oil…”
Tim: “Oh, yeah.”
Neil: “We always respected them entirely, because they were so amazing and on their own.”
Tim: “Yeah.”
Neil: “And you give grudging respect to things like Talking Heads, but generally you don’t really like anyone else.”
Bon Scott on Split Enz: “I’ve got no idea what you’re doing, but I dig it”
Tim: “That took a bit of time – to see through that self-created barrier. But I do remember meeting Bon Scott in, I think it was late ‘75. We had supported AC/DC at Festival Hall and got booed off – well, more or less. We stayed on, doggedly, but we were being yelled at by the crowd, who were there to see AC/DC – and Skyhooks, actually.
“But I met Bon sort of six months, nine months later, and he said, ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re doing, but I dig it.’ And I went, ‘Great!’ That’s the best you could hope for, you know? From another band, and especially somebody as great as Bon.”
Michael Gudinski took “a punt” on Split Enz
The late, great Michael Gudinski was a pivotal champion of Split Enz, signing the band to his fledgling Mushroom Records label almost immediately after seeing them at the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1975.
“Particularly for [Split Enz], he was a force, yeah,” Neil confirms of Gudinski. “Before I even joined, he stepped into the breach for the band and hoisted you to a much different world,” he observes, glancing over at Tim.
“He did,” Tim agrees. “He was a maverick, you know? There’s not many left. And he would take a punt, take a chance on a band like Split Enz who were completely outside the mainstream at that point. He just liked us. And people around him were enjoying us, including some of the Skyhooks guys who came to a pub gig we did in Sydney in ‘75.
“And what we said to Michael at the time – ‘cause we didn’t really want to stay in Australia, we wanted to get to England. So we said we’d sign with Mushroom, but you’d have to have us in London in 12 months and we had to have that in the contract.
“And he did! Twelve months later we were on the King’s Road, and so he was a man of his word. And he picked us up and helped us come back to Australia in ‘79 when we were really struggling in London. He just encouraged us, I think. He said, ‘Why don’t you come back and play some shows?’ and that was what led to True Colours. So, yeah, he played a big part in the band.”
Split Enz arrive in London: “it was a pub-rock sort of sound and there was still patchouli in the air”
In 1976, pre-Neil Split Enz travelled to London to record their second album (Second Thoughts) with Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, about which Tim recalls: “We landed in Chelsea on the King’s Road, which was just pure, random chance. We were given quite a nice entry into London by Michael Gudinski – he put us up in these serviced apartments. But just opposite was what was then called SEX, the shop that Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood had started… I still marvel at it, you know?
“Because at the time we also felt like we were a clear alternative to everything that had been going on, really. Apart from early Bowie – you know, Hunky Dory – and Roxy Music, there wasn’t much that we could identify with. So we landed in London and then happened to intersect geographically with ‘the thing’ that was going to happen. And we checked them out and they’d check us out, so we went in there [SEX] a couple of times.
“The scene was about to change a lot, with punk, and that happened later in ‘76, but at that time it hadn’t happened yet… Nick Lowe was around, I think, and there were a few bands that were playing good songs. And it was a pub-rock sort of sound and there was still patchouli in the air, and it was like the tailing off of the ‘60s and there was a little bit of a bland thing happening. I mean, Phil Manzanera – who was going to produce us – said, ‘There’s a gap you could drive a truck through,’ you know? And he was very excited, ‘cause he could see that there was an anticipation of something and that was true, certainly for a while, when the magazines all loved us. And it was a very exciting time.”
Neil incoming: “I had to be on the plane looking like I was in Split Enz”
It’s been said that, after taking a moment of consideration after Tim asked him to join Split Enz, Neil flew from Auckland to London then straight to rehearsal, luggage and all. Is that accurate? “Not only did I do that, but I was given – as a gift by the girl that lived next door to the house I was living in – a very prickly, full winterweight houndstooth suit, which was quite uncomfortable,” Neil elaborates.
“But I wore it all the way on the plane, and it must’ve been a 30-hour flight in economy wearing this houndstooth suit and a little hat. And I turned up at rehearsal with the same suit on. I mean, I was young and I didn’t care, and I just thought it was important to be keeping up the image. I was in Split Enz now, so I had to be on the plane looking like I was in Split Enz. But it must’ve been so uncomfortable.”
Partying with negligee-wearing Go-Go’s
In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Belinda Carlisle recounted entertaining Split Enz at the famous flophouse, Disgraceland, where she lived at the time: “So we had a party – girls only, no boyfriends were allowed. You wore see-through negligees, stilettos, and [ate] fattening foods. We were all drinking and there was music going. Then there was a knock at the door and there was Neil Finn and some of the guys from Split Enz! They could not believe that they had just walked into this jackpot of, like, 40 girls in see-through negligees [giggles]. And we go, ‘Come on in!’
“So they just came in and they were the only guys that were allowed. And when I ran into Neil, like, 10 or 15 years later, he still talks about that party that they just happened to walk into with all these girls – they couldn’t believe it!… I think they were pretty awkward, but it was really, really funny.”
“It was a pyjama party,” Neil now confirms. And they were all wearing negligees? “Yeah. we weren’t,” Tim stresses, laughing.
“Probably, sensibly, not wearing negligees,” Neil chimes in. Tim continues: “It was a very strange little party, because we were very quiet, I think. And apparently they were – you know, retrospectively again – partying hard at that time. But we were being very careful around each other. I think there was a bit of respect there.”
Neil: “But we were the only boys in the party – it was all girls, otherwise. And I don’t know how we ended up getting an invitation, except at the time when we arrived in LA – possibly like Tim described in London, with the intersection of punk – we were just – and this is 1980, this was the second time that the band had been to America.
“But we were at the intersection of what they were calling, in America, New Wave. And The Go-Go’s were also being referred to as New Wave, so there was this kind of intersection. We never felt like New Wave – it didn’t make sense, particularly – but we got taken up by that little wave and, yeah! They must’ve thought that we were interesting enough to invite to their pyjama party.”
Tim: “I think they liked Noel and so they were intrigued by us. It would be a great double bill, actually, Split Enz and The Go-Go’s; I’ve often wondered about that. Belinda covered ‘Stuff and Nonsense’, as well, on her first solo record [1986’s Belinda], which was very flattering and nice.”
The True Colours effect: “we had screaming girls for the first time ever”
When asked whether True Colours felt as seismic to the band as it did to the outside world, Neil explains, “[True Colours] was profound in many ways, from my memory of it, in a sense that we were, for the first time – that I was part of – really working with a producer who had a thing going on. He was young, David Tickle, but he’d come from working with Mike Chapman who’d done Blondie [1987’s Parallel Lines] and The Knack [1979’s Get the Knack], and there was a way of record-making that he was very up for.
“And he was a brilliant engineer, too. But he came at the right time for us when we were trying to be – well, we were just trying to be more direct, probably. Generally the songs were coming through more like pop songs, interesting pop songs. And the recording of it was very quick and quite effortless, and he’d play everything back to us. Actually, the first song we recorded was ‘Shark Attack’, wasn’t it?”
Tim: “Yeah.”
Neil: “And he played it back on the big speakers at Armstrong Studios in Melbourne and it sounded amazing! So we were just kind of euphoric at the beginning of that process and every song that we’d rehearsed with him just ended up sounding – it had some kind of magic to it, and so we were pretty buoyed by that. Of course, having said that, nobody at the record company thought it was gonna be an easy record to sell. And things are only hits once they become hits, you know? Very few people can spot ‘em upfront.”
Tim: “It has to be said that when we handed it in, they said it didn’t have any hits. And right up ‘til the last minute it was like, ‘Well should it be ‘I Got You’ or ‘I Hope I Never’ first?’ I mean, obviously ‘I Got You’ would’ve still had its day and ‘I Hope I Never’ had its own thing, but to put ‘I Got You’ out was just obviously the right way to do it and yet no one was really clear or confident about that choice.”
Neil: “Yeah, but once it took hold it was sort of like a big groundswell that we were aware of and kind of surprised by, but enjoyed.”
Tim: “It was great.”
Neil: “It was a really enjoyable process of seeing us suddenly become – you know, we had screaming girls for the first time ever and that was weird. I remember going to the diary, I mean, the milk bar, down the road from – you know, we were in late, so I’d get up at 3[pm] and go down just barely out of my pyjamas and suddenly there was schoolgirls in there going, ‘AAAAAH!’ you know? It was really odd. Kind of enjoyable and fun for a little while.”
Tim: “Yeah, ‘cause black and white TV came in when The Beatles came in, so 1963. Neil was pretty young, but he was still old enough to know what was going on – about ten or 11. And so the screaming girls thing was like, if you were in a band, that’s part of what has to happen; it just seemed like the two things went together. And so to finally realise that – I think I was 28, by then…”
Neil: “It was Countdown, obviously.”
Tim: “It was kinda funny and exciting and fun and silly and, yeah, all of that.”
Enz with a bang: Neil’s ill-fated crowd-surf
In the final episode of Enzology, Neil describes his hilarious failed attempt at crowd-surfing during the last stop on Split Enz’s 1984 ‘Enz with a Bang’ tour.
“That was the last Split Enz show in Melbourne,” Neil recalls. “It may have been the end of the whole thing – our first iteration – and, yeah! In my emotional state, I decided – I’d seen somebody, recently, crowd-surfing. It was not a thing then, and I’d seen somebody doing it and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ And I thought, ‘I can do this now, ‘cause there’s people going crazy down the front and they’ll carry me,’ you know? ‘And it’ll be fantastic!’
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“And what I didn’t take into account was that I was plugged into my amp, so I had my lead in my guitar. And they hadn’t heard of crowd-surfing, our audience, and there were chairs underneath – they were standing, and underneath them were chairs – and I leant backwards and fell backwards, and they parted and I landed on the chairs.
“And then they just all stood around and thought, ‘This is Neil: “I Got You”, Neil. I’m gonna steal his tie, and his shoes.’ So I was just having bits of clothing ripped off me [laughs]. And my lead was unplugged – the music all went to shit and I couldn’t play. And I got hoisted back up – eventually – by the crew, thank goodness. But it was not a successful crowd-surf. And I haven’t done it since!”
Ticket information for Split Enz’s tour is available here.
