Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Remarkable Life Of Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House, Fleetwood Mac) [Episode 178]

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The Remarkable Life Of Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House, Fleetwood Mac) [Episode 178] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Neil was as surprised as anybody. It's like, you want me to join
0:03
Fleetwood May I think. He put out a tweet saying the mysteries of Stonehenge
0:06
have been resolved. Oh and I've joined Fleetwood May. It's really bizarre tweet.
0:11
People like what. We're totally booked rock and Roll. I mean,
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I'll leave you. You're reading little Hands, since it's time to rock and
0:20
roll, read roll up. We are totally booked. Welcome to Booke don
0:29
Rock, the podcast for those about to read and rock online. At booked
0:33
on rock dot com. You can find every episode there, along with links
0:36
to listening platforms, exclusive videos, blogs, and the latest rock book releases.
0:42
Jeff Apter is a returning guest. His latest book is called Don't Dream
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It's Over, The remarkable life of Neil Finn. Don't Dream It's Over is
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the first biography to focus exclusively on Neil Finn, the man who wrote the
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timeless hits of Split Ends and Crowded House. In February nineteen eighty, twenty
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one years old, Neil Mulane Finn and the hit song I Got You for
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Kiwi band Split Ends co founded by his older brother Tim Over five decades,
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Neil created multiple hits for Split Ends, his band Crowded House, and as
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a solo artist, including Don't Dream It's Over, Better Be Home Soon,
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One Step Ahead, and Into Temptation. In twenty eighteen, he added one
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more impressive gig to his resume by joining Fleetwood Mac. Despite his success,
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Neil faced various challenges. He said, conflicts with his brother Tim and had
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to cope with the tragic death of Crowded House bandmate Paul Hester. He had
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tough early days with Split Ends in England, surviving on welfare with a Catholic
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upbringing at a forty year long marriage to his wife Sharon, Neil's life has
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not been easy, yet his story remains one of the most inspiring musical sagas
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in recent history. It's all covered here in Jeff's new book, and he'll
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tell us all about it in this episode. A playlist of Neil Finn's music
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can be found on the show notes page. Jeff After You are now officially
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a returning guest from the Books on Rock podcast What's Up? I'm a sequel.
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Yeah, I didn't scare you away to come back today, we want
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to focus on the brand new book you have on Neil Finn Don't Dream It's
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Over and here in the US because we were talking to you and you were
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in Australia. Right here in the US, I would say, we know
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Neil mostly for his work with Crowded House. I mean he had huge hits
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here Don't Dream It's over something so strong, Better be home soon. There
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was one split end song I got you that. It was a hit in
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the US, but where you are, he's huge like you right here.
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Neil is the most successful singer songwriter of his generation in the New Zealand Australia
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area. You first saw him in nineteen seventy nine Winter of seventy nine.
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Can you share with us that experience? Oh, it was a real big
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moment for me as a fan, not a music writer as well, before
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I got started in this sort of line of work. But I was seventeen,
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I was underage and there was a big show in here in Australia in
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the seventies and eighties called Countdown. It was basically a knockoff of a British
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show called Top of the Pops. It was, you know, mind performances
3:15
in the studio and then at the end the show would end with the top
3:19
ten Countdown of that week. But it was great. What it really achieved
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was exposing if you were a band in say, Perth, which is this
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far flung Australian capital city whatever on the West coast, five hours from anywhere.
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You could be a band in Perth and suddenly people in Sydney know about
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you because they saw you on Countdown. So it really exposed people in a
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way that had never really been done before. Here. Split Ends were a
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real favorite on Countdown because they looked great. This is a period where they're
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wearing the matching suits, they've got the crazy mohawks, they've got makeup piled
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on their face, they're playing these really quirky, offbeat almost like cabaret type
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music. But Neil had joined the band a couple of years before and sort
4:02
of changed the focus of the band. His big brother Tim was the leader
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and the co founder of spit Ends, but he invited Neil in under duress,
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their guitarist to quit in the middle of an America, you know,
4:15
in the middle of a UK tour, and they needed someone and Neil was
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the only one who knew how knew their songs because he was a huge fan
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absolutely in awe of what his big brother had achieved. Joined the band.
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Anyway, So it's here, it's nineteen seventy nine and there's still sort of
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a cult act. You know. They'd had one minor hit with ic Red,
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which you might be familiar with. They got exposure on this show Countdown.
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They've been playing a lot, They've been in Australia for a couple of
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years, alternating between here in the UK making a mark for themselves. Was
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still sort of a cult, university type act. But when I saw them,
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there was only maybe one hundred people in the audience. It was a
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midweek, it was cold, it was winter. It wasn't very well promoted
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show. It was in a disco of all places, you know, in
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between the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and a spinning mirror ball. Oh, the
5:02
spinning mirror ball, and it actually had one of those illuminated dance floors as
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well. It was really quite the joint. Wow. But you could just
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see something was about to happen with this band. I'm sure you've had the
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same experience, Eric, when you see a group and you just got something
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something's about to give you know, it could be for better usually, but
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sometimes it's they're about to implode. In the case of split ends, you
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could really tell. I could got this real sense, even though I was
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just a kid and a fan, you know, just a kid off the
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street, watching music on TV and in the pubs. You just tell something
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was about to give, something was really about to happen. The way they
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were great on stage. They had a lot of energy, and they were
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playing new songs that none of us had heard. But within six months it
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was number one. You know, I Got You was number one. The
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album True Colors was number one. They were all over the radio, all
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over the television, playing really big venues. They just exploded. And a
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lot of that was due although Neil was downplay it, I think a lot
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of that was due to his presence. He was younger than the other guys
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in the band. He was kind of classically good looking. He could have
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been a fifth Beetle, you know, whereas the others, you know,
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they were a really odd bunch and willing to amplify their oddness, if that
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makes sense, whereas Neil was more of a you know, even though he
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wore coookie glasses and had the makeup on and did crazy things with his hair.
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He was still a good looking guy, young guy who'd step out the
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front of the band occasionally to play his own songs, and women loved him.
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You know. There was a lot of screaming going on, even though
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it was a small crowd, and I just remember walking away thinking, Wow,
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something's going to happen to this band. They really felt like they were
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on the verge of something. And like I say, within six months and
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it wasn't just an Australia as you said, they had huge success in Canada.
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I got You as a hit in America, as a top ten hit
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in the UK, and it really broke them as an international band in good
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time because the MTV era kicks in and you got to have looks for MTV.
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We're a perfect match. Yeah, And they were really video savvy too,
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if you trail back through, you know they're really you know, they
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were called film clips then, but they were really they invested themselves in making
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interesting and you know, they were naturally odd. They were all art school
7:10
students, so they were naturally odd by nature, and some of their early
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video clips are fantastic. They're really funny and quirky and completely unpredictable. And
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really sort of captured the nature of the band really really well. So I
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think they really utilized that what was then, you know, really a nascent
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format video. I think they really took advantage of that, and they,
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like you say, they suited the MTV generation perfectly. Neil had an interesting
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relationship with Tim. It was like there was some competition there. He also
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emulated him though he looked up to him, But then there was also like
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if Tim did did well, Neil wanted to do better. The sibling thing,
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it's a classic rock and roll story, isn't it. You know,
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the Davies brothers and the Kinks, the Gallaghers in Oasis, the Everly Brothers.
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For God's sake, you know, it's an ongoing complication that and I
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always think about the is because what Neil and Tim could do was something that
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Don and Phil Everley could do too, which was sing beautifully in harmony.
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You know, their voices really chimed together because as kids they sang a lot
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together at the family home on holidays. They were very There came an interesting
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background because it's sort of unrock and roll, the very middle class. The
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dad was an accountant. Their parents wanted them to follow the faith and become
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Catholic priests. They'd spend a lot of their holidays actually with this Catholic priest
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called the Derning Brothers, who really taught Neil and Tim how to sing in
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harmony. There was no you know, no drugs, no drama, not
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until Tim went the university anyway. And they were really raised in a very
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sensible, quite sleepy, middle class town called Tiawa Mutu, which Neil went
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on to mention in the song. And Neil said that it was a very
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good place to grow up, but it was so quiet that people would walk
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miles to see a man's collection of sticks. It was that kind of place.
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And I went there and actually I remember I didn't see it. Well
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I Someone said have you been there? And I said, well, I
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sort of drove through it because it's really small. It's a signpost and a
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few houses and a little collection of shops and that's it, you know.
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But of course to come to Australia was the big thing for New Zealand bands
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at that time. But then to actually progress from there to become a household
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name in America and all around the world, that's a huge achievement. Well,
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I love the Prolargue. It sets the scene of that day when the
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phone call comes in. Neil gets the call from Tim and he makes Tim
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sufferl because Tim's thinking comes to you and it's like, hey, we're watching
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the band, and he's thinking Neil's and be like, yeah right, oh
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absolutely, I mean but what he made him wait like a couple hours or
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something. Yeah. Yeah, It's nineteen seventy seven. The situation is Split
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Ends are in the UK. They've got a big booster of the band was
9:48
Phil manz and Nero, the guitarist from Roxy Music. He really loved the
9:52
band. He produced some of the early records and he encouraged them to come
9:56
to the UK. And this is around the time of punk. And while
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they were a punk band, they sort of fitted with the esthetic. You
10:03
know, there was mohawks, there was sort of an they looked angry on
10:07
stage. They were quite a physical band on stage. And this, you
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know, I get into it in the book where punks have this very serious
10:13
discussion about whether they fitted or not. You know, Susie from Susi and
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the Banshees was a big Split Ends fan. You know, she'd sit on
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the edge of the stage this is back in the seventies. Just looking at
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them, I think trying to work out are they punk? Are they punk?
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Yeah? They punk? So anyway, I'm there being problems with Mike
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Schun who was one of the co founders of the band, and Phil Judden.
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They've been in and out of the band, and like I said earlier,
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Neil knew their music inside out. He went to their first year.
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He was twelve years old when he first saw Split Ends. You know,
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he followed them whenever they played in New Zealand. He'd be at the shows.
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He had a you know, photographic memory about their songs, the lyrics.
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He jammed with them. He really understood their music inside and out.
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But at the same time he's got his own band going, a group called
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after Ours, which was the first band he ever formed, you know,
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and they were about to go in and do some recordings. So when Neil
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got the call from Tim you know, this SOS call, come and join
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my band in England, Neil was torn, you know. He said,
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oh, damn, you know, we're about to go and make our first
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record. Something could really happen with my band. But then he sort of
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waited up and went, well, I Love Split Enz. You know,
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it's my brother's band. I know all their material and they're in London and
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i'm one am my eighteen years old. You know, it was such a
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huge adventure that he couldn't say no. I think after ours eventually went and
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recorded that, and of course that those couple of recordings, they may become
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quite collective collector's items because the band folded immediately afterwards. But it is interesting
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when you look at Neil's career, he's only been a few bands. He
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had After Hours, then he went to Split Ends, then he went to
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Crowded House, and recently he's been playing in some bigger band called Fleetwood something.
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I heard of it. Yeah, my gosh, Pretenders. Yeah that
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is such a great story too. We got to get to that. But
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I love the songwriting between Neil and Tim. They're in the same flat,
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but they're in separate parts of the flat, so Nil's upstairs, Tim's downstairs
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and they shout out titles to each other sounding this is the whole Weird Brothers
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thing. Yes, they're sort of creative rivals almost in the band, because
12:18
Neil gradually over the next you know, he joined in seventy seven, but
12:22
It really wasn't until nineteen eighty with True Colors that his songs were prominent in
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the band's recording and performing setup. You know, there being some resistance.
12:31
In fact, when he first joined Spertanz he couldn't play electric guitar, he
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could only play acoustic guitar. And when he came over to the UK,
12:37
the first thing they did was get him some lessons with Phil man zan Eira,
12:41
who's like this ace guitarist. So you know, he really fell into
12:45
a very lucky situation. But yeah, there was always a certain resistance.
12:52
I think the guys in the band were a little bit older than Neil.
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He was still really an apprentice. You know, when Neil started out with
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Spodan's, when he went over and joining the band, he was sandwich boy.
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They used to call it. When they be rehearsing and you know,
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it'd be lunchtime. They'd be rehearsing and they'd all go, well, pretty
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hungry. Uh, Neil, you're the youngest one here. Can you get
13:11
down the shop? You know, and off you'd have to go go down
13:13
get the sandwiches. But because you know, as the years progressed, he'd
13:18
come back with sandwiches and the draft of I Got You. I was like,
13:22
ah, yeah, this is good. That song's got some potential.
13:26
Yeah, huge hit. But he had problems with that song in the video,
13:30
right, what would he hated it? Yeah? Yeah, you see
13:33
the video in the camera because he wanted to be one of the band.
13:37
He didn't want to be the focal point of his brother's band. And this
13:41
is where it gets complicated. You know, he always knew all along that
13:45
it was Tim's band, it wasn't Nil's band, but he was gradually becoming
13:48
the star. You know, with that success of I Got You and True
13:52
Colors and some of the singles that followed that, Neil very much became the
13:58
center point. You know, they play shows and you know, Tim would
14:00
be singing songs that everybody knew, No, it's great. Neil would come
14:03
on and suddenly they'd be screaming and shrieks. There was graffiti in Melbourne that
14:07
said, I love I Crave for Neil's Finn, which they'd never had that
14:15
kind of teen worshiped before. And it's that very uncomfortably with Neil. Sure
14:18
married, Neil got buried in his early twenties. You know, when they're
14:22
still married to Sharon, what is it forty years down the line. He
14:26
craved a normal, you know, sort of normality away from this career in
14:31
music. But he was getting chased through you know, he was having hard
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days night kind of experiences. When he went to buy some groceries, you
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know'd be chased through the store by teenage girls and things like this, which
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is not what he wanted in the not what he joined the band to achieve.
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That would never run his radar makes a double difficult for him because it's
14:50
not something he asked for. So now he's got his brothers ticked off at
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him, and he's also like, I don't want all this attention. I'd
14:56
rather just well, it's it's such a divided thing, as you know.
15:01
Tim at the same time was great that spinans we're getting all this attention and
15:03
we're having success and selling records and actually for once for the first time in
15:07
the i'e making money. Money's coming doing well, But a lot of it
15:11
was on the success of Neil's songs. So and Neil felt uncomfortable about that.
15:18
The Catholic guys, you know, the raised Catholic they did guilt from
15:22
head to toe guilt. They could have been accountants and still felt guilty about
15:26
it. You know that, you know it certainly caused a lot of complications,
15:30
but at the same time, you know, got the band that attention
15:31
and that success that they probably never would have achieved if Neil hadn't joined the
15:37
BANDA what's the story about Neil and Herb Albert? Do you remember this?
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It's in the book? Yeah, dream. I mean, it's weird.
15:45
He had a dream and I'm trying to recall. Did he dream that Herbs
15:50
spoke to him, or Herbert died or something terrible had happened, and then
15:54
years later he found with crowded How sudden he's in Herb Albert's studio. Yes,
15:58
the dream, I think was that Herb in the dream he wanted a
16:03
sign Neil to his label. I think yeah. A and M had an
16:07
instrumental hit called with the Tierwan of Brass? Was it the Spanish Fleag?
16:11
The Spanish Flag? So he had this solo career, but then he steped
16:15
up A and M with Jerry Marsl' was a huge label and studio, and
16:18
suddenly Neil's recording in the studio, this guy that he dreamed about years before.
16:23
So you know he had all these kind of odd it's you've got to
16:26
understand too, coming from this end of the world. You know, I'm
16:30
a very proud Australian and I think we punch above our weight, if that
16:36
makes sense. You know. We we achieved really great things in art and
16:38
sport and all kinds of areas, but there's still a little chip on our
16:42
shoulders. And to come from New Zealand, it's a lot like to an
16:45
American coming from Canada. There's that kind of situation as well. You're a
16:51
little it's a little harder still to break through, you know, New Zealander
16:56
like Neil has to crack Australia before you'd even think about going to America.
17:00
So there's always this little bit of baggage. There's always as little am I
17:04
good enough? Am I good enough? And it's just a I guess it's
17:07
just when you're raised on Western culture, in particular American culture, and you
17:12
see that as the ideal, it's pretty tricky when suddenly you're part of it,
17:17
you know, and you have to go, yes, you know,
17:18
what's the best way to succeed in America be bold, the confident. But
17:23
in Australia, and New Zealand that's frowned on a little bit. We have
17:26
something here called the tall poppy syndrome, and it means that if you get
17:30
a little bit too big for your boots, we like to cut you down
17:33
very quickly. You know, just bring it back to earth. Yes,
17:37
you've had a number one song, but you know you're still going to get
17:38
up and get the groceries, don't you. You know, you know no
17:41
one makes your coffee for you. When you have to remind people of that,
17:45
it's a crowded house. They weren't called that at first. What was
17:48
their initial band name. They'll call the Melanes which is Neil's middle name,
17:52
because simply because they were. What had happened is Neil had taken Tim's advice.
17:57
He started something with poor head Nick Seymour. Classic. He is a
18:03
pretty good operator. He muscled his way in the last night that splid Ends
18:07
played in Australia. Nick he was sort of hanging around the edges of the
18:11
scene at that time. He was a musician, He wasn't in a big
18:14
band or anything, and he wanted to work with Neil and Neil was paralytically
18:18
drunk, and Nick offered to drive him home, and on the drive home
18:21
he'd convinced Neil had led him audition for the band. Of course, Neil
18:23
forgot all about it the next day he was too busy throwing up. But
18:26
Nick didn't forget, you know, he sort of maneuvered his way into the
18:30
band and it turned out to be a great thing. There was another guy
18:33
called Craig Hooper who played in a local band called the Reels. They really
18:37
sure what they were, you know, they were still kicking around early songs
18:41
like something so Strong, Don't Dream It Server was way off in the future.
18:47
And they went out and did a tour here and they booked basically on
18:49
the strength of having Neil Finn. It's Neil Finn's new band, but they
18:53
had no name, so Neil just went the Mulines that'll do and they did
18:56
a tour under that name. I think they might have done some demo recordings,
19:02
but you know, really by the time they got a record deal.
19:04
And this is quite an interesting story. Typically in Australia you record for the
19:10
local version of Sony or Universal or EMI or whatever it is, and then
19:14
the Australian branch will take your successful record and off they go to America hoping
19:19
to sell it to the mother ship, you know, and you know,
19:22
nine times out of ten, the American label rejects and you sort of stuck
19:26
trying to find a label that's going to distribute your record overseas. In the
19:30
case of Crowded House, Neil had been through that experience with Spudenz and said,
19:33
bugger that I'm not going to do it. So they'd recorded a series
19:37
of really good demos and he went to America and shopped it and actually got
19:40
to deal with Capital, which you know was the Beatles label in America.
19:45
You know, so binger, you know, he hit the jackplot a lot
19:48
of it on the strength of what he's done with Crowded with Spudanz, but
19:52
it was a really very saddy move. Again, probably not what you'd expect
19:57
from a typical rock and roller, you know, go with good business head
20:00
too, you know, he just went, Okay, I don't want to
20:03
record for my little Australian label and hope someone in America is going to pick
20:07
it up. I'm going to the States and I'm going to sell it.
20:10
You know. You basically hit the street, hit the pavement and with this
20:14
demo and got Lucky found a supporter in Capital, got connected with Mitchell Froom
20:18
and you know, the pieces came together really beautifully on that first Crowded House
20:22
record. And Crowded House isn't that a reference? I think you've mentioned the
20:26
book to him living in the flat with his brother and all the guys,
20:29
like it was everybody was like on top of each other. They're in La.
20:32
Yeah, they're making the first record, so he's got the deal and
20:33
they're still really have a you know, it's still Neil Finn's band. And
20:40
Neil and Paul Hester were more homebodies. They'd stay at home, smoke a
20:45
little part, work on their record, you know, whereas Nick Seymour was
20:48
a party animal. So he's bringing people home. He's going into La and
20:52
he's going to warehouse parties and he's bringing all these people home. And I
20:56
think Neil said it was like living in the house that the monkeys lived in
20:59
in their TV shirt and just the name Crowded House just came to him and
21:03
it fitted perfectly. Yeah, and you know, it's proved to be this
21:06
great vehicle for Neil God almost forty years later, and you know, whatever
21:10
I hear don dream it's over. That riff is timeless. That song is
21:15
timeless, but just that reff it's just so crisp, and it runs throughout
21:19
that whole song. It's just perfect. Tell me what was yeah? I
21:23
mean, there's too so many pieces of trivia in the book that you have
21:26
on that. Well, there's two crucial melodies I guess to that. There's
21:32
that opening guitar strum that didn't now they call that the Kiwi campfire strum.
21:38
Okay. In New Zealand, the indigenous people of Maori and there are very
21:42
musical, grace, really great singers. They love, but they love things
21:48
like country music and they'll sit at a campfire with someone I have an acoustic
21:52
guitar and suddenly twenty people are singing in harmony, you know, really beautiful
21:56
voices. So as in New Zealand, and Nil's exposed that, you know,
22:00
and a lot of that is not just the singing but also the playing
22:03
that really simple but really melodic castAR. So that opens the song perfect,
22:08
that ke week campfire strum. They're in the studio. Mitchell Frum has come
22:14
on and he's really a virtually a first time producer, but a guy who's
22:17
always been in and around the scene and wanted to produce a new band.
22:21
So he's connected to him and Neil have found that they got on really well
22:23
and they I think Mitchell went away with the demo of Don't Dream It's Over
22:29
and came back and said, I've got an idea for the instrumental passage in
22:33
the middle, and it was a keyboard solo, sort of loosely inspired by
22:37
the keyboard on white a shade of pale, the Procoharum song. And if
22:41
you listen to it, you know it's in the same kind of certainly not
22:44
plagiaristic in any way, but it captures a similar kind of mood. It's
22:48
a it's not an obvious instrumental solo. It's sort of moodier, a bit
22:52
calmer, I don't know something, and it just fits the mood of that
22:56
song perfectly. So now we've got the key Yeah, we got the key
23:00
we camp fire strum, and we've got the wider shade of pale organ solo
23:04
and those pieces just fitted together perfectly. They did a great video for it.
23:08
The performances are really good. Everything about the song was just perfect.
23:12
Oh, it's perfect. The tone, the tone of the guitar. Now
23:18
there's a couple of lyrical nods, one to the Beatles, but then also
23:22
building a wall between us. That that has to do with his split ends
23:25
days. Wasn't that that that lyric? I think about them being to somebody
23:30
some some some mention and we could look at up building a wall between us.
23:33
Well, I mean he was always you know, casting his mind back,
23:37
you know when he it's it's interesting if you look at Neil's career,
23:41
he's always gone back to a band. Okay, he's had periods as a
23:44
solo artist, and in fact he ended crowded House to become a solo act
23:48
and then realized pretty quickly that he just enjoyed not just it's not just the
23:53
plane, but it's the camaraderie of a band. He really really enjoyed.
23:57
You know. When he was asked, and I documented in the book,
24:02
you know, what are your best memories of Spetanz he said, it's on
24:04
the bus' or it's you know, in a hotel somewhere playing games of snooker,
24:08
you know, while having a drinks. It's when you talk about You
24:11
get this from sports people too, you know, when they look back on
24:15
their careers they they don't go, oh, it was the time I hit
24:18
that winning home run or something. Often you'll get it's the time in the
24:22
locker room. It's just hanging out with these people. It's the relationships you
24:26
formed with them. And I think Neil really missed that from Split Ends and
24:30
was trying to replicate it in Crowded House. But it did get complicated because
24:34
suddenly he's in charge. You know, Like I said, Spit Ends was
24:37
always Tim's band. Neil wasn't calling the shots. But now in Crowded House,
24:41
he's the chief cook and bottle washer. You know, he's writing the
24:45
songs, he's out front of the band, he's the prominent guy in the
24:48
videos, you know, and he's involved with management and record label and all
24:52
that stuff. And it's sort of over time created a bit of a buffer
24:56
between him and the other guys. You know. It wasn't until years later
25:02
when Paul Hester post Crowded House he started his own band, little band in
25:06
Melbourne, and he went, oh my god, now I understand what Tim
25:10
because he had to corral all the members. Right, we've got a bit
25:12
of rehearsal at ten thirty, the gigs on at nine we need to load
25:15
in it, saving all those things. He never had to do that in
25:18
Crowded House because it was Neil's responsibility. Yep and poorshret. He said,
25:22
oh my god, if i'd know now, then would I know now?
25:26
I would never have behaved the way I did, you know, And he
25:29
sent out a public apology to Neil. I'm so sorry man for everything that
25:33
I did in Crowded House, because he was the guy that always slept in
25:36
He's the guy that always missed the bus, you know, and you know,
25:38
and ultimately, of course Paul's the great tragedy of not just Crowded House,
25:44
but Neil's life story as well. Yeah, here's a part of the
25:48
book that you write. Let's see the lyric about building a wall between us.
25:52
He didn't want to mix with the people visiting Tim's house as he worked
25:56
on the song. Oh sorry about the creation of the song. That's right.
26:00
Yeah, he was at Tim's house and he just there was a bit
26:03
of a party going on and he just said, man, I'm not in
26:06
that mood, you know, I'm just not in the mood for that.
26:07
He went away and just started tinkering on the piano. And that's where Don't
26:11
Dream It's Over evolved from and there's Neil. Now that's Neil and so and
26:18
the other one that was the reference to the Beatles, the paper Cup reference.
26:22
Yeah yeah, yeah, because his favorite song was Across the Universe.
26:23
Yes, yeah, you know yeah. So you know, there's all these
26:26
little little moments, and like I said before, in Oh in one of
26:33
the Crowded House songs, Neil talks about the sound of Tiawa Mutu had a
26:37
truly sacred ring, you know, and that's his hometown. So there's all
26:41
these little cues and clues that he drops into his lyrics, which I really
26:45
really like, which helps, particularly as a biographer, helps your piece together
26:48
the fragments of someone's life because you know, unfortunately I couldn't get him involved
26:52
with the book because, like I said, he was busy with this band
26:56
called I keep getting the name wrong, Big Mac something Fleetwood. You know,
27:04
they've been around well, I mean, you know, I wish them
27:07
well in the future they might have a career. Yeah, they're old British
27:11
blues band. I think the book done right. Podcasts will be back after
27:15
this. The book is called Don't Dream It's Over. The Remarkable Life of
27:21
Neil Finn. Jeff After is the author. What influence did the producer have
27:26
Mitchell Frum on something so strong because it started off more folky, right,
27:30
Yeah, well look not just there, but on a lot, like I
27:33
said, done dream, but it's over. He brought in that keyboard solo,
27:36
the organ solo that really became a big part of the song. You
27:38
to understand with Mitchell Frum, he like I said, he was, he
27:44
wasn't a certain by any means, an apprentice or you know, he'd had
27:48
some experience, but this was the first, i think, the first major
27:51
label band that he'd be given sole producer credit for, and he was as
27:56
ambitious for this to succeed as Neil was. You know, this was Neil's
28:00
first big band. You know, he had his deal. So I think
28:03
his input, particularly on that first record, maybe on the first couple of
28:07
records, was really really paramount. You know, it was like he was
28:10
a fourth member of Crowded House. He'd bring in musical ideas, he bring
28:14
in structural ideas, you know, arrangement ideas, and of course the beautiful
28:18
part of that story is that here we are in you know, two thousand
28:21
and twenty four, and a few years ago Mitchell joins the band. Yeah,
28:25
I mean, how perfect is that? Yeah? You know, he'd
28:27
worked on them, and he'd really worked on their most successful and popular material
28:33
and years down the line and always been involved with Neil on a personal and
28:37
professional level. And then years later he brings him in. You know,
28:41
you join the band. There's something really quite beautiful. The Beatles never got
28:45
George Martin to join the you know, that was nice little piano George.
28:49
You know, yeah, Mitchell threw Now you know he's a working, paid
28:53
up, card carrying member of Crowded House. Do you know if there's a
28:57
demo of the original version, was it more folky? Yeah, there's a
29:04
lot of stuff exists out there, a lot of bootleg material and raw stuff
29:10
that I've had access to. And yeah, the evolution of a lot of
29:12
his songs is really interesting, you know, and Neil talks about this a
29:15
lot. He did a sort of a podcast called Fang Radio fa n G
29:21
Radio where he'd talk about individual albums and songs, particularly of Crowded House.
29:26
He'd get Nick Seymour in occasionally, or he get Mitchell frum in, or
29:30
he get brother Tim in to talk about it and it's fascinating stuff. And
29:33
often he'll play the different versions of these songs. That's good. I love
29:37
to hear it. It's really interesting to hear how things evolve and can change
29:41
shape quite considerably. But you know, Neil always, I think, was
29:45
always very open to that kind of possibility, not unlike the Beatles who for
29:51
him with a touchstone. You know, there was a band that when you
29:53
listen to particularly the bootleg what is it called the Anthology series, you know,
29:57
you hear these songs and these rule versions and you think, how did
30:02
that become a day in the life, you know, things like that.
30:04
So yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that stuff there. And yeah,
30:07
Mitchell from going back to Mitchell from absolutely you know, the fourth member
30:11
and now I think he's the hang on how many is in the band?
30:14
Now thinks about the sixth member, but you know, a permanent fixture now
30:18
in Credit House. Whatever they do in the future, it's pretty much assured
30:22
that he's going to be part of it. Yeah, you know, I
30:23
didn't Mentionine this is we got to I Mentionine that don't Dream it's over the
30:29
UK label. Em I thought it had no legs. That was the quote
30:33
no legs two beatle asque less. Can you imagine? How is that a
30:37
criticism? Number two in the US, number one in New Zealand, Bless,
30:41
don't do that, that's rubbish. Well, would make songs out like
30:45
the Beatles and yeah, but of course it was a bigger hit in America
30:48
than it was in the UK. There's the great story that it was beaten
30:52
to the top of the charts by George Michael and Arretha Franklin. I think
30:56
it's that I knew you were waiting for me. And Neil said that he
31:00
knew it was never going to get to number one because as the song is
31:03
climbing the charts, they're in a private plane going to a gig and there's
31:11
trouble, there's turbulence, the plane almost crashes. They finally land there.
31:15
Thank god, you know, we made it. And then Neil got arrested
31:17
because he looked like a guy who'd just done a bank job, and he's,
31:22
oh my god, cleet, mistaken identity. You know, it was
31:26
cleared up quite quickly, but he said, that's it. I know the
31:29
gods are not favoring me. I know it's not going to be number one,
31:32
but still you know, number two in America was a huge achievement and
31:34
something that was really recognized here as a massive achievement. But what happened to
31:40
the next album though? They follow up that self titled debut that was nineteen
31:44
eighty six, nineteen eighty eight Temple of Low Men. Yeah, and they
31:48
got three singles, mean to Me, World, Where You Live, and
31:51
now We're getting Somewhere. But they are fields to connect with American radio audiences,
31:59
although in our rearlier they charted. But why was that? Like what
32:01
It's like, US fans just all of a sudden decided they weren't interested.
32:06
It's one of those inexplicables, isn't it. It's just one of those mysteries.
32:08
Okay, So it wasn't like a marketing you know, mistake. Maybe
32:13
they didn't do enough to I mean there was a big issue with the third
32:16
record with wood Face. In the US, they released Chocolate Cake as the
32:22
first single, and that's an American bashing song. You know, it's funny
32:25
and it's quirky, but it's really having a dig at America, which is
32:30
not the easiest way to reintroduce yourself to a musical market. I say,
32:35
Hey, let me show you all your flaws. As you say, they're
32:38
always successful in Australia. The record's always sold hugely here. They won all
32:43
the awards and accolades. They toured the biggest venues we have in the biggest
32:46
venues we have. But in America things got a little weird. And also
32:51
it's sort of the cursive distance too. I think about guys like I've written
32:53
about Keith Iurvan. The Beg's are another example, Helen Ready. People who
32:59
Australian based artists don't get me started. People against say, but the Boojoos
33:02
are from England, don't they learned their trade here? Okay? ACDC are
33:07
another example of that. Who went right? We've got a shift base.
33:10
We can't operak from Australia because by this time Neil was living here in Australia
33:15
in Melbourne. You know, great house, family, everything set up as
33:20
exactly as he hoped for. But to be big in America, you've got
33:22
to be prominent in America. You can't just come in and tour a couple
33:27
of times a year, you know. Keith Urban is a classic example of
33:30
that. A guy who's just gone right. I'm shifting base. I'm going
33:31
to base myself in Nashville in his case, and I'm going to be accessible
33:36
to America all the time. And you know, that's a very big thing
33:39
because the competition is so strong. You know, there's going to be twenty
33:43
five crowded houses, you know who come in and if they're not playing,
33:45
they're going to move into that market. So maybe what was it a management
33:49
issue then? More so than you can't blame the band, you know,
33:52
in some ways, I think it was Neil saying I want a balance of
33:58
I want a personal life. I hold a home life, not a family
34:00
life away from crowded house. I don't want to be on the road twelve
34:04
months of the year, which is often what it takes, you know,
34:07
to really break through. You know, it's a common story the band that
34:10
records the great album and then goes on tours for two years. Tom Petty,
34:14
I guess being an example of that, someone who toured relentlessly and eventually
34:17
broke through. You know, it takes a lot of work. Neil had
34:21
been really lucky and got the success, achieved the success he deserved in America
34:27
with that first record, But to continue that, you've got to be present,
34:30
You've got to be on the road all the time. I've been on
34:31
the radio all the time, you know, And he chose not to do
34:34
that and which probably worked against him commercially. But he's still married forty years
34:39
later. You know, his sons are in the band now, His sons
34:44
are really accomplished musicians who are in the band with him, and I think,
34:47
by the looks of things and my understanding of their relationship, Neil's the
34:53
best dad in the world. You know, he's really yeah, you know,
34:57
he's really nailed it down. He really worked it out so reconscious of
35:00
that early on and didn't want to commit himself totally to this thing that was
35:06
going to drag him away. It's been a bit of a tug war.
35:08
Admittedly, you know he still is away. He still would be away six
35:12
months of the year. But I think he just was looking for a way
35:15
to balance the two. And it's like I say, it's been successful because
35:19
you know, forty years later, thirty years later, it's you know,
35:22
it's a love match. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. The Temple of
35:24
low Man was number one in Australia, which says it all. Nineteen ninety
35:30
one would face in the bottle and released it here and had to be number
35:32
one. But you mentioned would Face taken me wrong to be in tune.
35:40
Tim Finn ends up playing a big role in this album would Face right,
35:45
because there were songs that were initially to be a Finn Brothers project and then
35:49
they become well that's you know, and that's a really good story because they,
35:53
as you say, Temple of Lone Men had not achieved the success in
35:57
America that the label had hoped. And of course this is the the complication
36:00
of being answerable to an American label, not to an Australian label, with
36:05
an American you know, a mothership. They were now capital owned them.
36:09
You know, we wanted to sell records. We need you to sell records.
36:12
So they've gone into making the third record, which became to a Wood
36:16
Face, and the songs weren't working. The record label wasn't comfortable, wasn't
36:22
happy with the early songs. So Neil came home and he's like, damn,
36:25
I've had enough. And Tim's career had been solo career. He'd had
36:30
that early success, but it was starting to flatline. You know, some
36:32
of his solo records really weren't doing that well, again popular in Australia and
36:37
New Zealand some fans in the UK, but he just hadn't had that commercial
36:40
success that his first solo record had achieved. And they've always want they had
36:45
always wanted to work together, and this time properly, you know, as
36:47
you said with split Ends, they'd sort of shout song titles at each other
36:51
and work in separate rooms. Well, this was different. This was two
36:53
guys who are about period about two or three weeks. Every morning they get
36:58
in and they sit down at the table. What do you got. I've
37:00
got an idea for you know, something called chocolate cake. Got this idea
37:02
about something called four seasons in one day, and all these great songs came
37:07
together, whether with you being another example of it, and it was great.
37:10
It was a great Catharsis for Neil, Thank god. You know,
37:14
the crowded house drama, I can just put that aside. Working with Tim
37:19
and they had no idea what to really do with these songs. But Neil
37:22
was so excited and so satisfied by the results of this songwriting session with Tim,
37:29
and then they gone and recorded demos as well. He said, damn,
37:31
you want to join the band. He thought at the time there was
37:35
a great idea. And look, you can understand. I mean they'd written
37:37
all these great songs and everything felt good again. And he sort of owed
37:42
his brother one. You know, you can't deny the fact that, you
37:45
know, Neil had gone on to this great success and Tim himself had said
37:49
that when Don't Dream It's Over became this huge hit. He was equally thrilled
37:53
for his brother and envious. You know, damn man, I wanted that
37:58
what in Sniden's had that number one hit in America, you know. And
38:01
yeah, so Neil felt a certain amount of responsibility brought him into the band.
38:07
Released wood Face, released Chocolate Cake in America, Well that was a
38:09
bad idea. However, on the other side of the world in the UK,
38:14
they love this stuff. You know, suddenly this album is a huge
38:16
hit. They go on tour and Tim just doesn't fit. You can't have
38:22
two front men in a band, particularly when they're brothers. You know,
38:25
it just didn't work. And for Neil's songs, Tim would be the back
38:30
playing the keyboards, you know, tinkering along on the keyboards, which is
38:32
not his natural domain. You know, anybody who've seen him perform. He's
38:36
this big, impressive, handsome, flamboyant front man, and suddenly he's sort
38:40
of a side man who would occasionally come down the front of the stage to
38:44
perform his songs with Neil. So it just didn't work, and Neil actually
38:47
had to fire his big brother. Well, yeah, but there was a
38:52
punch. That's very funny. There's a place here called Byron Bay. I
38:59
guess it. Try to think of San France, trying to think of the
39:02
hate in San Francisco in the sixties. Okay. Byron Bay has always sort
39:07
of tried to model itself on that. You know. It's a place where
39:09
you can go to get your aura, you know, photographed, and have
39:13
your trucker realigned, and you know, eat mung beans. It doesn't it
39:19
doesn't really work, but it's sort of seen as a hippiehaven. So they're
39:22
playing a gig there and it's reached boiling point. Tim's fed up with it.
39:28
You can tell something went on on stage, and afterwards Neil took what
39:31
Tim called a you know, pathetic swing at me. Not sure if you
39:36
connected, but Neil just went off in a half and he's sitting inside the
39:38
tour van and He's just thinking, ah, this is just bad. It's
39:43
not working. And this local hippie came up and said something about Neil and
39:45
it's okay, I'll heal you. And he just looked out the window and
39:50
said fuck off. And you know, within months Neil Tim was out of
39:55
the band. But the good coder, the great code of that story is
40:00
that Tim's back in Melbourne. Crowded House is back on the road, that
40:04
Mark Hart joined the band. Tim's out the record's doing great business in America,
40:08
in the UK and this facts, this is still the nineties. This
40:13
fact comes through and it says, hey, Tim, just letting you know
40:15
whether we've used Top ten in the UK. And he's like, man,
40:19
he said, one part of me is feeling damn, I missed. The
40:22
other part is thinking, look what I've achieved. So, you know,
40:24
in a lot of ways, I think what Neil had hoped to achieve with
40:28
those songs was accomplished. But there's a lot of grief. But then afterwards,
40:32
subsequently they've worked together many many times, which is great, Yeah,
40:36
thankfully, So I think they've really found a balance. He's certainly not going
40:38
to bring Tim back into Crowded House again. That was a bad idea,
40:43
but he could have. I understood the reasoning behind it. Sure, Yeah,
40:47
there was a lot more than just music. You know, the book
40:50
Done Right podcast will be back after this. They did release together alone after
40:55
that in nineteen eighty three number two in Australia, but that would turn out
41:00
to be the last Crowded House album of new material to be released for almost
41:04
fifteen years. Yeah, what led to the end of Crowded House. It
41:07
seems like it starts with the drummer, Paul Hester, he's kind of burned
41:10
out, and then there's another post show moment. What a drama that was.
41:15
I mean, they're in the middle of an American tour and Paul had
41:19
just had his sorry, his wife was pregnant with their first child. Neil
41:22
already had kids, and Paul's you know, he was this amazing presence on
41:29
stage, a great drummer and a very very naturally funny guy. He could
41:31
have been a stand up comedian. He was really genuinely funny on stage and
41:36
off, but fragile too. You know, there was obviously some real deep
41:40
psychological issues there that probably this is not this is still like I said,
41:45
We're still in the nineties. We're not exactly you know, are you okay,
41:47
We're not at that stage yet, you know in modern life. He's
41:52
got reluctantly gone back on the road with a big American tour, you know,
41:55
dozens and dozens of shows on the road, you know, in emotional
42:00
the time, and it just fell apart, you know, he just they
42:02
got to Atlanta and he just said, I just can't do it, he
42:05
said Neil, and Neil could sense it. Neil wasn't stupid. He could
42:07
sense that something was up, and Paul said, I got to go Huh,
42:12
I just can't do it anymore. And it's like, well, you
42:15
know, obviously big drama. You know, we've got a gig tomorrow night.
42:17
What do we do? And you're such a key part of our band.
42:21
But I think Neil could understand while he was really angry about it,
42:23
he could also understand that, you know, if he carried on any longer,
42:28
it was going to be to both the detriment of Paul and the band.
42:31
They managed to rope, you know, they managed to get I think
42:34
with Sheryl Crow's drummer sat in for him for a few gigs, and then
42:37
they found a permanent replacement, a guy called Simon Jones I think his name
42:40
was, who died sadly, but he'll get pushed on the space, didn't
42:45
Paul push him down a set of stairs Milan And the story goes that they
42:53
never They just couldn't pull an audience in for some reason. Italy just didn't
42:57
work for crowded house. But there'd be you know, a faithful, you
43:00
know, a hardcore kind of faithful who'd be at the backstage after gigs,
43:05
you know, winning your autographs. There's still that kind of core audience.
43:07
And on this night, after something happened on stage, I think I remember
43:12
if Paul pushed Neil or Neil push Paul. He's tumbled down the stairs and
43:14
basically fallen into the path of all the fans who were there for an autograph
43:17
from that lovely band, that lovely fun bunch of guys. Crowded house,
43:22
you know. So yeah, there was the odd flare up, the odd
43:25
conflict. Yeah not quite like I say, not quite David Lee Roth and
43:31
you know, avel but you know still I love the well Like the Eagles
43:37
was the story with Glen Fry and Dan Felder when this is around eighty seventy
43:44
nine eighty when Feathers just about out of the band. The actually the Eagles
43:47
were just about that and they had a huge disagreement. So they're playing their
43:52
last show and after each song Glenn Fry was like, you know, when
43:58
this show is over, I'm going to knock you out. And so after
44:00
after each song he'd be like, eleven more songs, ten more song Like
44:07
he did that, and sure enough he took I think he swung his guitar
44:12
at Felder after the show. Yeah, it could get a little it could
44:16
get a little high school bandit. But you know, the story of course,
44:23
like I said, it's the tragedy of credit houses that obviously there was
44:27
something much deeper at work here. It's you know, unfortunately, you know,
44:31
he took his own life, yeah, Paul, Yeah, it was
44:35
such horror. I mean, people just could not believe it. Yeah,
44:37
he become a TV host here he was right, He had a successful career
44:42
with that, Okay, and so this is two thousand and five, very
44:45
so so so from like ninety I think, well Neil went solo from ninety
44:51
seven, Ford couple together occasionally, you know on these shows. See Paul
44:58
was on Music Man there's a couple of different shows that he has he shed
45:02
which was really funny. It's actually the stage setting was like a garden shed
45:07
with stage, you know, and he bringing in all these people and him,
45:10
Paul, Nick Seymour and Neil Finn had played together. Okay, okay,
45:15
so yes, sporadically here. It wasn't like Paul was on the odd
45:19
at all. You know, he owned a cafe in Melbourne. He was
45:21
doing his own thing, a little young family. Well that's why people were
45:25
shocked though, because he took his dog for a walk. This is in
45:30
two thousand and five. He's forty six years all the time, took his
45:32
dog for a while. I think it was, like I said, it
45:36
was just unaddressed issues. You know. Yeah, I obviously had a lot
45:39
of personal baggage and psychological problems which probably weren't addressed. I mean, my
45:45
wife's a psychologist and she tells me stories about this all the time. You
45:49
know, some people just don't want to tackle what's you know, what's really
45:53
good. He never asked for help, never asked for help, you know.
45:57
And Neil and Tim were as shocked as anybody else. And they were
45:59
playing a gig in London at the Albert Hall, and suddenly it became awake
46:04
for Paul, you know, and they set up on stage the little often
46:07
during crowded house shows, Paul had come to the front of the stage and
46:09
played a little snare drum and you know, be a front man. And
46:13
they had that set up on stage. No one ever, no one used
46:15
it during the gig, but it just sat there, you know. That
46:17
was Paul. So you know, they really I think they really handled it
46:21
really really as best as they possibly could as given the shock that they were
46:25
in. And then eventually Neil got back in the studio and like I said,
46:30
he missed that band thing, you know, he really missed that,
46:36
and I think he came over the years he's come to understand that that's an
46:39
integral part of who he is, you know, being in a band,
46:43
that camaraderie, that kind of brotherhood. That is a band beyond the music,
46:47
you know, it's all the other stuff as well. So he got
46:50
crowded house back together. Nick came back in two thousand and six, yeah,
46:54
and they made time. Time on Earth was the first record, and
46:58
if you listen to its lot darker, there's obvious stuff not I'm not sorry.
47:02
There's not obvious. You know, there's no song called Paul is Gone
47:07
we miss him, but his spirit in that record was really quite pronounced.
47:10
I think there's a song called Silent House that Neil co wrote with Natalie Mains
47:16
from. I was going to say the Dixie Chicks. You can't say that
47:20
anymore, the Chicks, the Chicks and it's and it turned out it was
47:23
about Natalie's The lyric was about Natalie's grandmother who had I think Alzheimer's. But
47:30
if you listen, I remember hearing it. I went to a pre release
47:36
preview in the studio of that record with Nick and Neil were kind of hosting
47:42
this this get together, just ten of us in a room. I remember
47:45
asking him about that song, you know, I said, that's the real
47:46
centerpiece of the record, isn't it. Neil said yeah, yeah. But
47:51
I didn't realize at the time it was a co write. I thought it
47:52
was Neil writing very clearly about you know this, this silent house, this
47:58
this loss, this emptiness that was created by a vacuum that was created by
48:01
Paul's loss. And I think maybe it is. You see him play it
48:05
live, it's a real It's a big part of Crowded House is set and
48:07
Neil really loses himself in this song. And I think, you know,
48:13
being just being simply being on stage and being crowded House stirs up memories of
48:15
Poor Hester, no doubt about it, because he was such an integral part
48:19
of that whole thing. But certain songs really bring him to the forefront of
48:23
Neil's memory. And you know it's I think he's handled it really beautifully because
48:29
not a crowded I've not seen a crowded House show in the last ten to
48:35
fifteen years where he hasn't mentioned Poor Hester. Paul always gets to mention hell
48:38
yeah, yeah, you know, he will never no matter who's playing the
48:42
drums, whether right now it's it's Neil's son elbroy on drums, it doesn't
48:47
matter. Paul was the drummer from Crowded House, you know, it will
48:52
always be yeah, always attached to that. And yeah, he's handled it
48:58
really well, as devastating loss as it is, you know, twenty years
49:01
later. Yeah, you know, Neila said it was what was the tragedy
49:06
of Crowded House, and probably my life was losing Paul Hester, you know,
49:08
very heavy, Yeah, it was really and here it was just people
49:13
just devastated. They just couldn't believe it, you know, because I guess
49:16
the last big Hurrah, and it was quite a few years before, was
49:20
the big they played a huge show when crowded house said that's it, we're
49:22
done. First time round. It's Narney ninety six, late ninety ninety six,
49:27
and they wanted to play a charity show, a fundraiser, and they
49:30
decided to do it on the fore court of the Sydney Opera House, which
49:31
is just this magnificent setting. I was there just a couple of months ago
49:36
to see The War on Drugs and Spoon just one of the best shows I've
49:39
ever seen, because you've just got this natural it's almost like a natural amphitheater,
49:44
big big space, Harbor Bridge, Sydney Harbor, Sydney Opera House.
49:47
It's a really beautiful spot. So they decided to do this farewell show,
49:52
and you know, this is a sign of their popularity here in particular.
49:55
They thought, well, we'll do a free show, you know, and
49:59
we'll pass, you know, try to raise some money at the gate and
50:02
see how it goes. Two hundred and fifty thousand people. Wow, it
50:07
was one of the biggest shows ever stayed. And the really interesting part is
50:10
it was supposed to be on a Saturday. From memory, it rained.
50:14
They came out to do sound check and already there were thousands and thousands of
50:17
people there, and Neil said, look, I'm sorry. We decided it's
50:20
just a safety risk, we can't play the show because of the rain.
50:22
Everybody stayed. Everybody stayed, and even more people came back the next day.
50:28
So they got two hundred and fifty thousand people to this show. And
50:30
if you look at this, I think there's some images in the book,
50:32
it's just a sea of people. It's like Simon and Garth Unclenn Central Park,
50:37
you know, it's that kind of level. And that was Paul's last
50:43
big hurrah with Crowded House because he played most of the night as there's their
50:47
drummer. But there's a great story and one I like to tell us that.
50:51
So they played this amazing show and it's a really big emotional experience for
50:54
the crowd. People are in tears, you know, my god, crowded
50:58
house of breaking up, and you know, for everybody in the band it's
51:00
pretty heavy too. And they go backstage and you know, I can't imagine
51:05
what it would be like to stand in front and you know, to be
51:08
you know, communing with this so many people, and then to have to
51:12
walk off stage into a little dressing room, you know, just the four
51:15
or five of you, a very weird experience. They get back to the
51:17
dressing room and there's some guy, just a dude from the crowd. He's
51:22
sitting there and he's having a beer. Now are you And he said,
51:25
oh, I just I was walking around the back of the stage. Becau.
51:28
You've got to understand too, it's in a sort of open environment.
51:30
It's not inside the opera house. It's on the fore court. And he
51:34
said, yeah, I was just walking around and I saw a hole on
51:36
the fence. I just And they said, cool, you want another beer?
51:40
Yeah, oh my god, that's awesome. I'd love to track that
51:44
guy down. You know, he'd have the bragging rights for the rest of
51:45
his life. You know. Sure, a guy in the dressing room after
51:49
the show, if you're out there, if you're hearing this bringing it back
51:53
to earth, Yeah, if he's listening to this right now, come on,
51:58
yeah, we know who we won't have. Yeah, So let's get
52:00
to the Fleetwood Mac story because they so he crowdhouse pretty much right up them
52:05
through twenty twenty one, very active in releasing albums and touring. But then
52:08
comes the gig with this little band called Fleetwood Mac. He and Tom guitarist
52:15
Mike Campbell, they joined the band or actually twenty eighteen. I'm sorry I
52:17
got the yra. What had happened was Mick Fleetwood was in New Zealand with
52:22
Fleetwood Mac. I think this is around twenty fifteen and Neil. You know,
52:27
you go to New Zealand and if you're a musician, you want to
52:29
meet Neil Finn right. And also Neil has the one of the leading studios
52:32
in Auckland called I keep getting it wrong. It's either Roundhead or Roundhouse studio
52:37
and people you know willco recorded there, Radiohead of recorded there. You know,
52:44
it's a really great studio. And also he's a great host. You
52:46
know, you come to New Zealand, there's a good chance Neil Finn's going
52:50
to catch up with you and take you back to one of his very many
52:52
palatial houses in New Zealand. And him and Mick met at an award show
52:58
and they just struck up a friendship was like in nineteen ninety nine, I
53:00
think according to your books before then, yeah, and I don't think Nick
53:04
was really I think he admitted I don't really know your work that well.
53:07
But I've heard of split ends, and I've heard of crowded house, and
53:08
they it was a friendship first and foremost, and then they caught up a
53:14
few more times. And then this drama happened with Lindsay Buckingham. You know,
53:17
I'm not going to go on tour. I think he wanted to.
53:20
Ye had his own solo record, so mix stuck. You know what do
53:24
I do? You know, do I keep the band rolling? And then
53:27
typical Fleetwood Mac fashions like us, screw it, get someone else. You
53:30
know, it happened before, it done before. Yeah, but you know
53:34
the fact that he needed two great musicians to fill the boots of one is
53:38
it's a testimony to Lindsay Buckingham. But that's another story. So he calls
53:42
Neil, and Neil was as surprised as anybody. It's like, you want
53:45
me to join Fleetwood Mac, you know, yeah, just like his brother
53:49
Colin all those years ago, exactly exactly. And I remember I think he
53:53
put out a tweet saying it was really funny. He said, the mysteries
53:59
of Stonehenge have been resolved. Oh and I've joined Fleetwood Mac. This really
54:02
bizarre tweet, and people like what you've done? What you know, you're
54:08
an original musician. You're joining someone else's band. But you know, they
54:12
didn't understand the nature of this friendship that he had with Meck And also a
54:15
couple of things. Money, The money would be out freaking. My understanding
54:22
is he bought a house in LA on the proceeds of the touring alone.
54:27
Okay, so serious money. And he gets pulled over by a carp It's
54:34
truck I put over by a cop in LA somewhere, and he didn't have
54:37
an American driver's license, and he showed his New Zealand money. He said,
54:38
Oh, by the way, I'm in Fleetwood Mac. It's like,
54:40
okay, yeah, cool. Well, oh, then there you go.
54:45
He's finally made it in the US, So yeah, I guess. And
54:49
I hadn't thought about that too. You're right. He's now playing to the
54:52
audiences fifty sixty thousand people at night that he sort of hoped for and hopeful
54:57
with crowded house never quite got there. But as I said earlier too,
55:00
as a real nod to Nil's musicianship, the respect that other musicians hold in
55:06
which they hold him is that every night Nick would give him a solo spot.
55:10
They don't dream it's over. I think he did you do Landslide with
55:15
Stevie Nicks as a sort of two person like, almost like a duet,
55:19
and they do some nights they also do I Got You. So you know,
55:25
I don't know if it's if it's Neil's doing, but the settlers like
55:30
Bob Whelchair of Songs and Danny Kerr Maxon didn't y, Yeah, that's got
55:37
to be. It's got to have to do with him and or make Campbell.
55:40
I would think it was amazing. I think just if you listen to
55:45
something watch some of the footage of those shows, Initially there's sort of who's
55:49
this dude, and then you start that campfire strum that I told you about
55:52
and people go, oh, he's that guy. That's his song, right,
55:57
And I think Nick would introduce it as you know, every lifetime a
56:00
song comes along that really captures and defines a moment something to that effect.
56:04
So we had the people listening clearly the audience were really getting inside what was
56:07
about to happen, and you know, once Neil will come on. It
56:10
happened every night and it was a big part of the show. Well what
56:14
do you think, do you want to see him record a studio? Didn't
56:15
They? They recorded a song recorded a song with Christine mcvee and Steve Nicks.
56:22
It was again a charity fundraiser that he did here I just did in
56:25
New Zealand. So they'd worked with him, and I think he's done something
56:29
with Nick. I don't know about it. I mean the Fleetwood Mac thing
56:32
of course, with the sad death of Christine mcveee is sort of yeah,
56:38
I don't know what the situation is there. Still though, it would be
56:40
really cool just to see them collaborate. See what you know, you got
56:44
Mike Campbell, who's a great songwriter too, I mean Boys of Summer,
56:47
Don Hanley, you know, he he's a songwriter. I mean, I'd
56:51
love to have them all get together and put in fact, I think I'd
56:54
just like to get me Mike Campbell record now that I think sure, Yeah,
57:00
vinixpocals that it work. Yeah, a splinter band, they could form
57:04
their own trio. Yeah, you know, like I said, and here
57:07
there was a lot of confusion about it. It's like he's joining what John
57:10
fleetwood, Mac, you know, what the hell's going on? But as
57:14
I said, it all dates back to this personal relationship that he had with
57:17
mckfleetwood, and you know, it's evolved and it worked really, really well.
57:21
The show's were really wonderfully well received, and it proved to be unintentionally
57:25
a wonderful final hurrah for Christy McFee as well. Yeah, so the book
57:30
is out now, don't dream It's over The Remarkable Life of Neil Finn hardcover,
57:35
paperback and kindle formats right, all three name it? You name it
57:38
absolutely, Yeah, So find out wherever books are sold. And then where
57:42
can people find you online? You have your own website. Just find me
57:45
Jeff Apter with Jeff with the j apter that's chapter without the H. And
57:51
this all makes perfect sense. You know what do they call that nominative determinism?
57:53
Yeah, Jeff Appter dot com dot au. You'll find all my work
57:58
there. You can contact me. I welcome, you know, abused as
58:01
long as it's welve. I don't want abuse, as long as the spelling
58:05
is good. There, you good grammar. Grammar matters to me, Okay,
58:08
the grammar check. If you're gonna have a shot at me, at
58:12
least do it properly. But if people can't have trouble tracking down my books,
58:15
drop me a line, or if there's anything else in my back cattle
58:17
and they're interested in, hey I'm here, I've got a reasonable snatch a
58:22
stash here on the bookshelf. If you're an ac DC fan, you're the
58:24
guy to go to. You got some great ac DC books, a lot
58:27
of books. So that's great, Jeff. So looking forward to having you
58:30
back on again whenever I'm here for Eric. Look like I said, you
58:35
know my second coming, you know I'm filling it. Yeah, we'll see.
58:39
When will the third visit be? You got to write a book just
58:42
so we can come on. You know that's got always something in the works.
58:45
Man. All right, Jeff, after thanks so much, Thanks Eric,
58:49
that was great. Good to talk to you again. Man. That's
58:57
it. It's in the books.