Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Crowded House

Transcript

Crowded House · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Crowded House had one of the most enduring hits of
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the eighties with Don't Dream It's Over. The commercial and
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: critical success of that song launched to the Australian New
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Zealand band and its esteemed KIWI songwriter Neil Finn to
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: pop stardom.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: The band made.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Three more critically acclaimed records before breaking up in ninety six,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: but over the years they've come back together at various
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: times to put out new projects, including their latest Gravity Stairs.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Crowded House is now made up of their original bassist,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Nick Seymour, the American producer of their earliest albums, Mitchell
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Froom on keyboards, their frontman Neil Finn, and his two sons,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Liam on guitar and vocals, and Elroy, who's taken over
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: for the late Paul Hester on drums. On today's episode,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Crowded House talked to Bruce Headlam about how they look
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: to tread new ground while still honoring the group's roots,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: what it's like for Neil Finn to with his sons,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Plus they tell some hilarious stories from the rehearsing of
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: their new album at an Airbnb. This is broken record
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: liner notes for the digital age.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: I'm justin Mitchman.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Here's Bruce Headlin's conversation with Nick Seymour, Mitchell Farum, and
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Neil Liam and el Roy Finn of Crowded House.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: We never have to do this, but because it's a podcast,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: could you just go around and introduce yourselves.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Hello, I'm Liam Finn. Hello, I'm Nick, and I am
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Neil Finn, Mitchell and I'm Elroy.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: All right, and you are Crowded House and this is
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: just great to have you. I'll start with you, Neil,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: because you did the bulk of the writing. Can you
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: talk about writing the songs for this album how it
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: came about.
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: I make little demos in my writing rooms, go up,
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: try and get a five period.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: I can go in every.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: Day just sort of turn up and some days are
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: non productive, and then beget into a flow and you
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: have a few breakthroughs and all of a sudden, it
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: feels like you're in the groove. And that's how the
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: songs come out in stages. Basically, I'll make a little
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: demo of a verse maybe, and then a chorus will
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: occur to me. In the process of that, I'll make
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: another demo. Just a series of demos and it's always well,
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: since I've got a four track cassette recorder back in
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: the early eighties, that's been the way I've written. I
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: very rarely sit down on a piano and just write
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: in the old fashioned way. I kind of jam, listen back,
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: find the bits that seem golden, and then add to them.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Do you write on piano or do you write on guitar?
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: I do right on both.
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: But yeah, often they're just little atmospheres that spark an idea,
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: and then I often deconstruct them at various points. I'll
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: the band will play them and will learn them, and
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: we'll do them a certain way and they'll be pretty
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: really good, and then I'll decide that there's more to
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: be had. I'll deconstruct them, and then next thing they
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: hear they're completely different. Well, you know, it's a relearning
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And I was Liam as well, because you co wrote
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: some of the songs. Tell me about what was that like.
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: It's all kind of been pretty organic because we've made
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: music together a lot over the years, and especially in
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: the last eight years or so. Yeah, I probably write
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: in a fairly similar fashion to Dad, just kind of
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: making noises and playing with pedals and stuff until I
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: get excited by something and then stuff kind of gets
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: birthed from that without even really realizing it. It's always
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: the thing when you go away and you realize you're
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: humming a malady around and around that that's probably the
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: thing that's come out of it. And you know, for
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: this record, I had a couple of songs. For one
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: song that was pretty fully formed that I just got
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: to bring to the band and I think we played
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: it twice and that was it, and that's what the
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: second one was to can take was on the record,
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: And so it's yeah, I mean the next record, I'm
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: hoping that we'll all have a bit more time beforehand
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: to come to the table with as much stuff as
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: we're at least a bit closer to the amount that
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: Dad does. We get like the sixteen demos sent to
• 4:19
  Speaker 6: us like it was kind of an unexpected session. Really,
• 4:24
  Speaker 6: we were isolating in Byron Bay before Australian tour. We
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: had to spend two weeks in isolation, and so we
• 4:30
  Speaker 6: did it in a studio, made a lot of sense
• 4:33
  Speaker 6: and fooled ourselves into thinking, oh, it's just rehearsal and
• 4:35
  Speaker 6: maybe we'll cut a track, but we probably did like
• 4:38
  Speaker 6: eight or nine songs and that became the sort of
• 4:42
  Speaker 6: meat of the record really, and they were just things
• 4:44
  Speaker 6: that Dad had and that he sort of gave to
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: everyone and sort of see what got.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: Responded to and stuff.
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: But it was all kind of half halfway there already
• 4:54
  Speaker 6: with as far as the atmosphere and stuff.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would think presenting songs to the full band
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: would be a really intimidating situation. I would think presenting
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: songs to my father in a band would be which way.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: You're talking about it, and like, it is really intimidating.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: But I'm never sure that he feels just as intimidated
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: presenting his songs as as I do, actually feeling like
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know his songs as well as he knows.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: And I think that's the main thing, is that when
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: somebody presents an idea, a demo or whatever, it is
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: everybody's obligation to know it as well as the person
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: who's actually formulated the thing before you actually try to
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: add or converse about any ideas you might have to
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: help that song, you know, if we're going to actually
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: play it together. And that's probably the most intimidating thing.
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: Is, let's wish for thinking in some cases, because obviously,
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: even to make a demo, you get deep inside your
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: idea you have very kind of fixed ideas about certain things.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: And you know, and el Roy had a couple of
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: things that I picked my ears up demos of his
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: that we actually kept relatively intact actually because they have
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: they had a kind of untouchable mystery about them that
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: we couldn't really we didn't want to break down. Sometimes
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: with my stuff, I'll have a feeling on a demo too,
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: that's very hard to recapture. But what happens with the
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: band is that it doesn't sound like you imagined it would,
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: but actually it lets light into the arrangement a little
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: bit and actually in a way makes it, i think,
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: more approachable and you know, surprising in a good way.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: So I but you know, not expected when I've seen
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: demos out that everyone learns the demo exactly as it is.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: A familiarity is nice, right. Yeah.
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: The first song we did on the record was Magic Piano,
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: which is the opening song on the album, and it
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: was quite a different demo if you heard it now.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: I mean the song itself had very familiar parts, but
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: we worked. It was really quite a complicated song to
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: start first, we took two days to learn it and
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: we've got a really really good take on the floor.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: We sort of knew we were onto something at that point,
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: but in a way it was, you know, counterintuitive to
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: start with one of the most complicated songs.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: But what made it a complicated song.
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: Just as unusual, well a the demo. We had to
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: reconstruct the demo. We took out several bits from the
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: demo and just found our own way with it, and
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: there was still familiarity in there, but and it had
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: some unusual time changes in the end, a great deal
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: of interplay between bass and guitar that was really beautiful
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: and took a while to evolve, you know, just it
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: just had a thing. And our engineer, who we'd never
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: worked with before, was probably incredibly happy that we took
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: two days to get to that point because he was
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: able to get the most kick ass sound over two
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: days by moving MIC's around, and by the time we
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: got the take it sounded really really impressive as well.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: So it was that the first song we did, Yeah,
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Magic Piant Yeah.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: So I guess when you move into a new space
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: and then you're actually trying to get sounds together, and
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: one of the songs is suggested or a thing is
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: suggested in a way to try to break the threshold
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: of collaboration and everyone actually, you know, gelling, and that
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: goes with the engineer as well. The engineer is probably
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: really under so much scrutiny and can be quite anxious
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: to have the band break through because it's partly their
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: responsibility to get a great sound. Yeah, and you know,
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: a song. Sometimes a song can end up being the
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: sacrificial lamb for finding that threshold, you know. So, but
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: that was it was really encouraging when we actually got
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: that taste and suddenly we went, oh, okay, we're in
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: the right zone hopefully.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Now are you set up in the studio to rehearse
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: or are you set up to record?
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: At that point, it depends if you talk to my
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: guitar Tick at the time, he thought we were there
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: to rehearse. The engineers we were there to record. We
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: were trying to keep the pretense that we were just
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: rehearsing so that we wouldn't get red light syndrome and
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: put too much pressure on ourselves. But yeah, so somewhere
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: in the middle there we were kind of it was
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: an unspoken thing. I was thinking it was. We'd planned
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: it so that we found a good engineer, had a
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: proper studio, and it was always in my mind the
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: possibility of getting some new songs going.
• 9:34
  Speaker 7: Yet, yeah, we were in a fully functioning recording studio
• 9:36
  Speaker 7: and everything was miked up, and so it was all
• 9:39
  Speaker 7: going to be usable. But it is something. There's something
• 9:42
  Speaker 7: to be said about the semantics of believing you're not
• 9:45
  Speaker 7: doing a take. It's got a real irreverence or a
• 9:48
  Speaker 7: little bit of a lack of self consciousness that can
• 9:52
  Speaker 7: sometimes be a lot better than when you're like, Okay,
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: we're going for this specific song version, like we're going
• 9:57
  Speaker 7: to get it now. It's like there's a subconscious pressure
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: on it that sometimes it works and it helps the performance,
• 10:03
  Speaker 7: but sometimes it's just a bit more thought about than
• 10:06
  Speaker 7: it needs to be.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: We're not taping now, by the way, so you can
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to say, so, Mitchell, you're you're both the keyboard player
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and the producer.
• 10:14
  Speaker 8: Well, no, I'm not the producer of this band. No
• 10:17
  Speaker 8: you don't, now it's a there is no producer. Well,
• 10:21
  Speaker 8: the engineer was a co producer, but this is not
• 10:24
  Speaker 8: a band that needs a what I would call a
• 10:27
  Speaker 8: proper that kind of everyone here is very skilled and
• 10:33
  Speaker 8: everyone here is a producer.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So but you you produced their first few album, Yeah,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the first three I worked on. So what was what
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: did you do then that you don't have to do now?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Or what do you do now? You didn't do that?
• 10:46
  Speaker 8: It was a completely different time in music. It was
• 10:49
  Speaker 8: a different time in Neil's life as a writer, and
• 10:53
  Speaker 8: so I could bring well, you know, we were both
• 10:58
  Speaker 8: just starting off, so we just threw anything in the
• 11:01
  Speaker 8: pot that we could and and.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: That was.
• 11:05
  Speaker 8: It was more of that kind of proper situation. But
• 11:08
  Speaker 8: now has made so many records. Any of that kind
• 11:12
  Speaker 8: of guidance or anything. It just I mean, I'll speak
• 11:15
  Speaker 8: up if I feel something, but yeah, but it's not
• 11:20
  Speaker 8: we're not looking for the leader to.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: You know, Mitchell's fully engaged with the production but with
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: us all and he's in the room with.
• 11:29
  Speaker 8: Us, But they don't look to me, which I'm very
• 11:31
  Speaker 8: grateful to, you know, like you're the producer.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I look to you, Mitch. I study your left hand.
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: It's a very funny dynamic actually, because Mitchell often gets
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: involved in helping Nick complete his base parts, and it's
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: like an old married couple that just really, you know,
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: sort of just beyond just about getting shirty with each other.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: But not not quite.
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: And Mitchell's very good at just you know, reinforcing the
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: important beats that the bass has to land and gets
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: get some over the line, doesn't doesn't.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: He's still got some production now.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: Used to be in the control room with Chad most
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: of the time, playing a few things the control room,
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: so there was a there was a physical.
• 12:13
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you look too for a different role, but I
• 12:15
  Speaker 8: don't think a person could come into this band with
• 12:18
  Speaker 8: that role and be welcome. They'd have to They'd have
• 12:21
  Speaker 8: to be very gentle with the way they move things around.
• 12:26
  Speaker 8: You're not going to say, oh, Neil, like that form
• 12:30
  Speaker 8: is all wrong. You should be doing this because Neil's
• 12:33
  Speaker 8: got his own way of writing now and it's it's
• 12:35
  Speaker 8: it's unique to himself. So it take a real delicate presence.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: I could benefit from that sometimes. Yeah, I think remaking
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: them the structures about five times.
• 12:45
  Speaker 8: Yeah, but that's to get it to where you want it.
• 12:47
  Speaker 8: No one else can get it to where you want it.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: Well, someone else could come along.
• 12:51
  Speaker 8: I tried once. Yeah, on the last record. I tried
• 12:56
  Speaker 8: once or twice, but I just ended up straightening it
• 12:58
  Speaker 8: out too much and it was a failure. So it's
• 13:00
  Speaker 8: you know, it's just different.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And you're the base wrangler and I'm not even the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: full keyboard PA because I play.
• 13:10
  Speaker 8: But then these guys all go away and play some
• 13:12
  Speaker 8: stuff too.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So then I'm interested about in the sound of this
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: album because it is a very distinctive sound. It's not
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: each song has its own kind of pace, in its
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: own feeling. That's got a very experimental sound. How did
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that emerge out of these songs?
• 13:32
  Speaker 8: I think that was more with the engineer and in
• 13:36
  Speaker 8: Neil's area because we how many times do we get
• 13:40
  Speaker 8: together three times and to cut tracks?
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we wait to ten days three times to get
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: all the tracks done because we.
• 13:47
  Speaker 8: All live in different places. When it came down to
• 13:50
  Speaker 8: the actual full formulation of the sound, it was mostly
• 13:54
  Speaker 8: done in New Zealand with Neil and Stephen Shram and
• 13:58
  Speaker 8: we get things and we contribute, but they were mostly
• 14:02
  Speaker 8: getting that down. I mean, everyone says things. Everyone has
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: an opinion and might say one thing that people respond
• 14:10
  Speaker 8: to and then keep that in mind. But it's more, Yeah,
• 14:14
  Speaker 8: I don't know I just think it's more relaxed. It's
• 14:17
  Speaker 8: not like there's no guru in the room colon things out.
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: And I think the atmosphere and the sort of the
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: vibe of the record was very much formed in those
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: that first by and Bay Thing And maybe it was
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: a combination of working with Stephen for the first time
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: and the way we were all playing. But there was
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: something happened which was really kind of languid and kind
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: of lush and something we were responding to in the
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: rainforest of you know, northern New South Wales or something.
• 14:46
  Speaker 6: And it really like when we took it away, I
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: was really excited by this relatively unseelf conscious sound that
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: we were making. It felt really different from the last
• 14:56
  Speaker 6: one and really cool, and I think that was retained
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: when I listened to it now. I can still hear
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: that as the essence of it, but it did certainly
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: go in many different directions over the next year.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: Well, you can hear the crickets and the rain at
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: the beginning of the end of songs and a couple
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: of them.
• 15:12
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we got to record with the doors open to
• 15:15
  Speaker 7: the forest, you know, and so it was kind of.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Hot. I mean, what time of year was. It was
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: it January March, okay, so it's the end of summer.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: But they were they were inundated with biblical proportions of rainfall.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: There were floods. There's actually a town now that's been
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: declared a disaster zone that the government, Australian government is
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: buying compulsory purchasing people's houses because they can't keep there anymore.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: From you know, there was so much rain fell in
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: that period and we were kind of isolated by the
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: quarantining of the compulsory two weeks that you have to
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: have when you arrive in Australia at that time, and
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: also the fact that we couldn't leave the studio because
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: of the rain it was. And then one night actually
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: I got my room was flooded. My bedroom was flooded
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: up in the middle of the night and know it
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: was knee deep deep in water when I put my
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: feet out of the bed, you.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: Know, And you can hear that on the record.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: You can hear it on the very wet ankle deep
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: bass tone.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It reminded me a bit of Temple of the Lowman.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Of of all your albums, it was the album that
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: kind of in it sort of sounds. It also reminded
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: me of an album and I didn't realize till this
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: week that you had produced because it's one of my
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: all time favorite albums, which is Keiko Oh Rights Lobos.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Someday I'd love to talk to you about that album because.
• 16:44
  Speaker 8: That was Yeah, I would say if there's a similarity,
• 16:48
  Speaker 8: because I was there for all of them, was there
• 16:51
  Speaker 8: was a free spirit. It was an open kind of
• 16:54
  Speaker 8: creative spirit going on that was backed up with a
• 16:57
  Speaker 8: lot of confidence, and if you have that, you can
• 17:00
  Speaker 8: get a long ways. In the case of this record,
• 17:03
  Speaker 8: for me, that one of the most difficult things is
• 17:06
  Speaker 8: if you have a a demo that's attractive, and now
• 17:10
  Speaker 8: you bring it into a band, and now the band
• 17:12
  Speaker 8: interprets it, and sometimes it doesn't get better, but magic
• 17:17
  Speaker 8: piano it got a lot better. And it was just
• 17:21
  Speaker 8: one of those things where like for Neil bringing that
• 17:24
  Speaker 8: song into the band, it was kind of clear to
• 17:26
  Speaker 8: all of us that it was what we were doing
• 17:30
  Speaker 8: was just of a high level. Maybe it was the
• 17:33
  Speaker 8: best track we had cut up as a band up
• 17:35
  Speaker 8: to that point, so that certainly got us going and
• 17:39
  Speaker 8: gave us confidence because you can hear a demo I mean,
• 17:42
  Speaker 8: Neil can bring in a demo and you think, whoa
• 17:44
  Speaker 8: that that just sounds really good. But what should we keep?
• 17:47
  Speaker 8: What should we just try it and not think about
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: what's there already or you so you have a small
• 17:52
  Speaker 8: window in which you better get to some kind of
• 17:56
  Speaker 8: improvement to make you feel like, let's just let go
• 17:59
  Speaker 8: of this demo and move forward as a band. And yeah,
• 18:03
  Speaker 8: so it's tricky, and it's also for writers, at least
• 18:08
  Speaker 8: in my experience, that's when people are the most vulnerable,
• 18:11
  Speaker 8: like Neil or Liam or oh where they can write something,
• 18:15
  Speaker 8: but if people haven't heard it before, the way you
• 18:19
  Speaker 8: react when you first hear it is much more has
• 18:22
  Speaker 8: a much greater effect on them than if the song's
• 18:25
  Speaker 8: already released. And then someone will come up to Liam
• 18:29
  Speaker 8: and say, oh, I love that, you know, I love
• 18:30
  Speaker 8: how Yeah it's insecure. Yeah, so you've got to all
• 18:35
  Speaker 8: keep a very positive outlook on it and try just
• 18:38
  Speaker 8: try not to feel pressure and just just try and
• 18:41
  Speaker 8: see what happens. And all those records, it was like
• 18:44
  Speaker 8: that temple Ment. Some people said was a bit dark,
• 18:47
  Speaker 8: but we had a lot of fun doing that record,
• 18:48
  Speaker 8: and my memory, you know, it was it's much less
• 18:51
  Speaker 8: stressful than the first album, and you know it was
• 18:54
  Speaker 8: it was fun to do.
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: It's always weird to react when you see reactions to
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: an overall body of work because people make assumptions that
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: you were sort of going for that. Yeah, you're not
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: really going for anything. You're just going to try and
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: make the songs sound as good as they can, you know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: And maybe we're in a point now where we're attracted
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: to more more dreamy landscapes than we would have been
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: as we were a more rollicking pop band in the
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: early days, you know, because that's what we just that
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: stage of our lives, and people do sometimes compare our
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: new records to what we were like then, and you
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: sort of go, well, that's just beside the point. Really, Yeah,
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: it's not. We're not trying to be or wanting to
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: be a rollicking pop band every now and again. It's fun,
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: and there might be one that comes along that works that,
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: but we're interested in exploring the atmospheres that we're capable
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: of creating, which you know, if you listen to Alroy's
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: demos for instance, and the ones that are on the
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: record Blurry Grass and Thirsty, the music that he had
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: made which had just a great sense of atmosphere and
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: the way he approaches drums is he's not a big,
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: you know, Keith moonstyle guy. He's got a really nice
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: feel going and beautiful fills here and there. A Liam's
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: got incredible atmospheres that he makes with his pedals on
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: the guitar. We want to embrace all of that and
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: make it part of what and we're getting really better
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: at doing that too. I think on stage you might
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: have noticed the other night, but we're starting to feel
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: the freedom to be able to jump off the script
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: like we used to back in the day and utilize
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: all of that, you know, those beautiful attributes, knowing that
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: if I go into a strange moment, Liam will engage
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: a pedal somewhere and it will suddenly make me feel
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: okay about it, and Nicole will always join in, you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: and Mitchell'll be standing by with some cool keyboard thing.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: And that's a really beautiful feeling that bands only get
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: when they've been playing together for quite a while, I think.
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: And some bands don't ever want that, They just want
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: to learn the song, turn up, do the same show
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: every night. But it's always been part of our manifesto.
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: To try, and then every album to album explore new things,
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: nuances and possibilities. For Watson, I think we're just getting
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: to a point where it feels to me like we
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: could make our best record. Hopefully they all are, but
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: the next one might be, you know, a real breakthrough.
• 21:24
  Speaker 7: Everyone's got quite a distinct personality and the way they
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: play in this band, I think, and so and all
• 21:29
  Speaker 7: the you know, greatest bands I think have got those
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: identifiable characters musically that you hear the song and you
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: can kind of tell who's playing drums or tell who's
• 21:39
  Speaker 7: playing bass, and you know, that's what you'd strive to do,
• 21:43
  Speaker 7: be able to put out great songs that have a
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: bunch of individual character but then together make this wonderful
• 21:50
  Speaker 7: cohesive geiled noise.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And how does your personality come out in your songs
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: on the album?
• 21:59
  Speaker 7: I mean, I think the way I write is probably
• 22:01
  Speaker 7: again not that dissimilar to Neil or Liam, but I
• 22:06
  Speaker 7: I guess just having the time to explore those little
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: avenues and then present them as you've had all the
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: chance to vet bad ideas into stuff you feel self
• 22:16
  Speaker 7: conscious about before someone hears it, and then you know
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: you've got something you believe in a little bit more yourself.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: But I always always got little remnants and fragments of
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: ideas that were early ideas that are.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: Just like, what the hell is that?
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: And then he can't really you sometimes can't explain what
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: they are either, you've got a track of where it
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: came from.
• 22:37
  Speaker 7: The way I write sometimes is you get a cool
• 22:40
  Speaker 7: vocal idea in your head, and so you sing it
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: into your phone and then you listen to it two
• 22:44
  Speaker 7: weeks later, and it's got no time signature and no
• 22:47
  Speaker 7: key that you can pull from, and it sounds like
• 22:50
  Speaker 7: oh yes, and might be some trigger of like, oh,
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: I can get that back again. But it really pays
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: to put a lot more down than a straight vocal
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: at first.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: If you can, you should carry around a bit of time.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, sometimes it works.
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: I write an open tuning sometimes, and if I don't
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: make a record of the tuning, it's just impossible to
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: learn my song that I just wrote, you know, like
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: it slips your mind on what the shapes were. You'll
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: never get that feeling back from the open tuning. It's
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: even after all this time, I still haven't learned to
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: write down my tunings.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more from Crowded House. After
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: the break, we're back with the rest of Crowded House.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: You know, one thing that is consistent in the band
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: neck is your artwork. And I always thought when you
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: guys first came out, you were this band that arrived
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: with a kind of like there's a sort of whole sensibility,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and I think so much of that was your early covers,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and you designed the costumes initially too.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that was probably the connection. When the
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: first paint, the first cover that I did, I sort
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: of these caricature were kind of costume or outfits within
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: this kind of little theatrical setting. And then when we
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: were going to start playing in pubs in Australia, I thought, well,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I'll make those jackets, and so then there was a
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: much more cohesive link between you know, the artwork and
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: advertising posters, all that sort of stuff, with the way
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: we looked on stage, which also was a hangover from
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Split Ends because they did that, and I was always
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: impressed with that. I liked going to see bands that
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: actually had some sort of theatricality in the way they
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: present it, in the way they looked, and we're probably
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: not that it's not. We don't We're not so sort
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: of theatrically confined now. I mean, we don't wear matching
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: outfits or anything particularly, But with each album cover, I mean,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: I when we're in the studio, I'm trying to actually
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: somehow threads some sort of documentation of the conversation and
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: the musical setting, the just things to be able to
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: present something to the band at the end of a session, saying, look,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I've got an idea for a record cover or you know,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: add material or whatever, stage or whatever, just keeping illustrations.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: And this one obviously is a homage to class Forman,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: you know, the guy who designed Revolver, but it was
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: also a means to show different personalities within the heads
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: and the hair and the similarly to that record but
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: probably that record cover. I'm not entirely sure whether it's
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: actually a positive thing or not. I mean, I've not
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: gotten any flack about it, but I've seen a few
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: comments on social media saying like, that's just a rip
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: off of the Revolver album cover, you know, and I'm
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: kind of, well, that's a homage, you know what. People
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: don't know what that means.
• 26:16
  Speaker 8: So is a ripoff of a different song.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: Well, I just want you to explain why I'm in
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: a lifeboat with a huge wave about to swamp my boat.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: If it's describing, what's the most exciting one I came
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: up with. I thought this is perfect. He's trapped in
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: reeds on one side edge, you know, and then or
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, some sort of mangroves. You know,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: you're in a boat. And then then there's this other
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: lifeboat that of survivors of a shipwreck and in his quiff,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: because I mean, Neil's hair is a law unto itself.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, really we could.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: It's an illustrator's dream.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: It's an homage.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: It's a homage to marsupical life in Australia. You know,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I was delighted when I got his his Oh, I've
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: got a good one of Neil. And that's a good
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: likeness of Neil, you know. And then then I started
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: in on on on Liam wearing a kind of a
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: sun Rah kind of warrior hat helmet, you know, with
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: you know, good style of climped motifs ober it, and.
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: You revealed nothing of yourself. There's nothing like blank. That's
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: a blank, blank canvas.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Iss I'm the most pholically challenged in the band as well,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: and I gave him a perfectly good head of hair.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not a phollically challenged band, shall we say.
• 27:41
  Speaker 7: Overall ficular speaking, no speaking, speculating hair.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: No, this decent amount of here going on.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: So I do want to go back to the beginning
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: first of all, in the Finn family, because this is
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: a kind of it's just become a like a Johnny
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Cash band or something. You've got all the relatives coming
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: in and out. So, Neil, you grew up in New Zealand. Yeah,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: And was it a musical family you grew up in.
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: Not in the sense of there being any you know,
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: professional serious musicians in the family. But my mother had
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: could play piano by ear, although she only really knew
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: two chords. Every song would be reduced to two chords,
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: but she could play the.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Hits of the day.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: And when she met my dad and she taught really,
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: when I think about it, taught me to harmonize doing
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: the dishes. You know, we just sing you are My
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: Sunshine and she'd do the harmony and then we'd swap.
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: And when I think about it, that's how the harmony started.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: And my dad was a jazz fanatic. He used to
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: listen to jazz records after work every day with a
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: whiskey in one hand, and you'd hear him in the
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: other room because at that time I thought jazz was
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: real lame, you know, because I was into pop music.
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: And i'd hear him go, Go, Joe Go, you know,
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: on some jazz genre and'd be doing a solo, and
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: he really got into it. So he had the love
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: of music. He was kind of tone deaf. He couldn't
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: sing in tune, but he had a beautiful tone, a
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: really warm, rich vibrato. But he'd just sing on one note.
• 29:10
  Speaker 7: Really helped when auto tune came along for him.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: You got that tone. But yeah, but.
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: You know, in the mass A church, we go to
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: church and he would I just tear him singing the
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: hymns like this is my command and I.
• 29:22
  Speaker 8: Give you.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: Know, really it's a beautiful tone. But there's no tune whatsoever.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: But that was and we sing every They'd have parties
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: every weekend and they'd always be singing. The piano player
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: called Colin O'Brien, who would knew all the songs, and
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: they'd ply him with cigarettes and alcohol and he'd keep
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: playing all night.
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: He unfortunately didn't live to a great age, but he
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: provided a lot of entertainment along the way.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And that would these be like pop songs, beatles songs.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: Those those parties were more like the old songs, you know, Sinatra, Eli, Fitzgerald,
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: Bing Cross, all those that era. But then when we'd
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: be gatherings when we were kids and we'd be drawn
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: in and hauled up to sing. My brother and I
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: that was included B songs, and you know, everyone had
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: their item that they had to do well known for
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: a party piece. My brother and I used to do
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: Jamaican farewell. It was a beautiful two part harmony and
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: that you know.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: We did that.
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: We had Catholic priests that used to sing two little boys.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I was about to make a job and it just
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: made itself. Were just formed the.
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: Darning Brothers and you know my auntie used to sing
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: Stormy Weather actually know Piggy Dawson. Yeah, just people would
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: know that if you've grown up in that environment, people
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: know that in the next family is very similar.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: You know, we would have your family were performers though,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: weren't they.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean in the sense that you know, we
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: went to church and we were known as a singing family,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: and so we would get asked to be the the
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: kind of choir associated with a with we with weddings particularly,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: we'd sing, but they would be hymns though, like partys
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: angelic cors saw, I mean, very casus.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: What sort of outfits would you have to dress? And
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: when you did those more?
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, no, no, you'd wear cities, you know, you wouldn't
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: be kind.
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: They dress you in those.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well I've never asked actually in the early days. No,
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: we we didn't have to wear kind of chorister outfits
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: or anything. But but we'd get paid to do a wedding.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: You'd get a little backhander from the family that you
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: sang for. But this is in country towns that we
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: lived in in in Victoria, Australia. But we learned to
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: harmonize around, you know, doing family jobs like the dishes
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: and the you know. And when we go camping, you know,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: we'd we'd we'd sing in the tent and all the
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: other people in the camping ground had sort of know
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: we were singing family and we'd get asked to, you know,
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: come to different parties to sing. And I think but
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: it was a lot of it was like Von Trapp
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff, you know, Gilbert, Gilbert and Sullivan.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: You know. So when did the bas start for you?
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: I was in the school at high school, I did,
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: you know, I did music, But then I took up
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: violin and played in the school orchestra. Both my brother
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: and I were first and second violins in the school
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: orchestra and then in an area orchestra in Melbourne. And
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: I kind of I realized when I was I played guitar,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: but I realized that all everything I could hear was
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: kind of the counterpoint of bass and the top line
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: of vocal. That's that's what songs made sense to me,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: you know. And then I realized that that's all the
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: ladies ever here as well. So that was was a motivation.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: That's why bass flayers are just cat nap.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: He'd get to hang around with musicians.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: All bass players want to hang around with musicians.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what they say.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: How many strings for that'll suit me?
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Neil? Did you have formal music lessons as well?
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: I played piano, Yeah, I did. I got a few
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: music lessons, maybe really early on. I had a couple,
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: and then I just watched my brother and learned the
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: things he was learning. But then I got formal lessons
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: and did like the Trinity College of Music sort of.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: I actually got up to grade eight and the practical
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: and I wasn't a very good sight reader, but it was.
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: I'm so sort of grateful glad that I did it,
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: because it's quite hard, you know, learning piano, as most
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: kids will testify us, it's pretty tedious.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Scale to the Trinity.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: You know, you've got to really apply yourself, and doesn't
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: seem like it's that much point when you're a kid.
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: But I'm glad because my left hand is still not
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: it's not amazing, but at least I've got a sort
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: of a left hand. Most people learn how to play
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: piano just a just whole you know, just marking the
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: beat with the left hand, and it's all about playing
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: chords with the right. So I feel like that was
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: very valuable.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: The reason I ask is, you know, you're known as
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: this great, great melody writer. I think that's what people
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: would sort of say about you, but it's actually the
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: harmony in a lot of your songs is incredibly interesting.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Even the song like Don't Dream It's Over, which people
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: would think well, that's like a three chord pops on.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: It's not at all. It's quite complicated.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: In a sense.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: There's all I would hope anyway that most songs, and
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: it's not a prerequisite, but most songs would have a
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: moment where it dips or dives into something that you
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: weren't expecting. It just feels like it's a good thing
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: to aim for, and I think that would be actually
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: consistent with these guys as well, because and even making
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: a record, like I said before, it seems like every
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: record should contain some little mystery that's unlocked during the
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: course of the recording, rather than just repeating the same thing,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: which seems less point I suppose with harmony, it's always
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: interesting to me the addition of an odd note will
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: do because they will contain feelings. They all harmony is
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: enhancing feeling, and you can put a different nuance into
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: your feeling. Yeah, and you recognize a feeling when you
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: first get an idea for a song, like Liam referred to,
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: that moment where you suddenly go, ah, and this is
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: I'm feeling something from this idea that just emerged, And
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: then the fun is decorating it and you can go
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: too far, but the way you decorate it can help
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: that feeling along or.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: Bring a lot of effort into making it sound effortless
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: at the end that to explore it like to the
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: nth degree, and sometimes, like you said, it goes too far,
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: but you keep pushing into all of a sudd that's
• 36:09
  Speaker 6: like it was always that way, And I think that
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: that's something the Beatles did really well is do quite
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: intellectual things and music that didn't turn people off because
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: it was too intellectual.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: It just sounded right.
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: Actually, there was crazy time changes and you know, things
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: that actually on a if you look at it in
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: an intellectual way, it's like, oh, how did they slip
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: that one?
• 36:30
  Speaker 7: And it's kind of the exciting part to me a
• 36:32
  Speaker 7: lot when writing is that you've got something that your
• 36:35
  Speaker 7: brain hears a strange harmony or a strange malady over
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: top of something and it won't work. But if you're
• 36:41
  Speaker 7: convinced that it's the right idea, you kind of keep
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: working at it until it does work, until it does
• 36:46
  Speaker 7: make sense, and some times you'll get a really strange result,
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: as you know, at the end of it, where you've
• 36:51
  Speaker 7: kind of got this quite unique sounding thing because you
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: had to adapt everything to make your strangeness success.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Beauty of that then, is that it always existed When
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: you know it so well, it's just suddenly like, yes,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: it's always been that way, like you know do in
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: the Beatles song here comes the Sound. I mean, what
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: a crazy little resolve that would be.
• 37:17
  Speaker 8: Some people are good at it. The truth of the
• 37:20
  Speaker 8: matter is, and you know, I've worked on with a
• 37:22
  Speaker 8: lot of different people. Some people are very good, uh,
• 37:26
  Speaker 8: you know, a harmonic way. The Beatles will be an
• 37:28
  Speaker 8: example of pretty much every chord in every song sounds beautiful.
• 37:33
  Speaker 8: So it's it's a combination of the harmony and the
• 37:37
  Speaker 8: melodic line are just you know, over the top. And
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: I think in Neil's case, I think that that's You're right.
• 37:44
  Speaker 8: I mean, that's sort of something people don't notice. You
• 37:47
  Speaker 8: may think that it's the melody, but it's also the
• 37:50
  Speaker 8: harmonic language, which also happens to be distinctively Nils. And
• 37:55
  Speaker 8: it's the two together that give you that emotion. It's
• 37:59
  Speaker 8: if you if you just made the chords what just
• 38:02
  Speaker 8: very vanilla c major to a major and had the
• 38:06
  Speaker 8: same melody, it wouldn't it wouldn't do it. It's some
• 38:09
  Speaker 8: people are just good at that. Some people are clumsy
• 38:12
  Speaker 8: with their chords, and you know, some people just can
• 38:15
  Speaker 8: only deal with very simple chords.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: But it's you know, you have a lot of use,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of chromatic movement, like I'm thinking four seasons
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: in one day, moves back and forth between a couple
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: of chords.
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not sure what the I'm attracted to sixth
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: in terms of intervals, I like sixth and minor six
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: is min six is a part of what I find
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: myself attracted to all the time, and nights and add ons.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: You know. Actually, sometimes if.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: I get too far with that, I actually try playing
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: the song with no added notes whatsoever. And sometimes actually
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: it's the key one instrument. Just playing the chord straight
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: can suddenly make the whole song come into.
• 39:01
  Speaker 8: If the play melody is singing six and ninth, yeah,
• 39:05
  Speaker 8: a straight chord can sound beautiful because yeah, you're not
• 39:09
  Speaker 8: sticking within those three notes the tryad notes.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: So it's but the mystery of it is the is
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: the weird thing I am. I think I'm better now.
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: Experience has taught me to spot the good stuff, but
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: it's still coming at it like a child, and you
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: go like just play along and something hits you, and
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: I like to keep it in that pretty free form
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: state for as long as it possibly can, and then
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: you use your critical mind, your adult mind to kind
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: of organize at various points because you know you have to,
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: really but it's still a mystery. I still don't really
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: know what I'm doing, you know.
• 39:43
  Speaker 8: But you have the language, that's the thing. You have
• 39:45
  Speaker 8: your own harmonic language, and we have gone about things,
• 39:47
  Speaker 8: and then you can just stretch it out into whatever
• 39:50
  Speaker 8: if you're not coming from a.
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: Place I think you and I strive to be like
• 39:55
  Speaker 7: that as well, But your songs are sort of more
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: like you've You've just got a goal to get it
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: as good as it can be. And it's not that
• 40:02
  Speaker 7: it should sound like this or it should sound like
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: this and the inspiration for it needs to be aligned in.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: This style of music.
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: It's just like, this is a magical concept, this song,
• 40:13
  Speaker 7: and it can go anywhere, and if I kind of, yeah,
• 40:15
  Speaker 7: am free with it, it will take itself in its
• 40:18
  Speaker 7: own direction rather than me pigeonholing what the potential of
• 40:21
  Speaker 7: it is, you know.
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: And I think that's really valid, actually, what you just said,
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: because that's what leads you forward. If you just follow you,
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: it can be surprising. Sometimes you go, actually, there's a
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: hint of Greek in this thing, and I don't know
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: where that came from, or you know, it seems to
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: demand a little baroque touch, but I don't know why.
• 40:40
  Speaker 7: But yeah, and then you explore that and you push
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: that too far and realize now it's way too borroke.
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: You get rid of that and leave it as a
• 40:46
  Speaker 7: hint and then move on to the next thing, and
• 40:47
  Speaker 7: you know that becomes this amalgamation of just nods to
• 40:51
  Speaker 7: stuff rather than it being in a real a Greek song.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly for your.
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: Brain, like I think, you know, I don't know. Sometimes
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: I wonder, but can drive you crazy as well. The
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: song on the album called night Song, which is a
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: little bit about the experience of being obsessive about music
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: and all night having the tune you're working on go
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: around in your head. And I'm sure everyone relates to
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: that that plays music. It's unfortunately it can be really
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: like maddening. You know, it can feel like you're going
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: crazy with her with it.
• 41:23
  Speaker 7: Will you watch to so you watch the same film
• 41:25
  Speaker 7: for nine hours of a day. You'd go to bed
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: thinking of that film as well as as you spend
• 41:29
  Speaker 7: a whole day to doing music, it's going to be
• 41:30
  Speaker 7: there all night.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: I used to be able to work through the night,
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: but I have to stop after dinner now generally, or us,
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: I'm going to not sleep.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: When we come back, we'll have the rest of Bruce
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Headlen's conversation with Crowded House. We're back with the rest
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: of Crowded House.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I saw a speech you gave to the Yale It
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: was a group of psychiatrists. Yeah, I should say it
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: was a speech. It was not a session.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: It was they asked me to talk to do a
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: talk on creativity.
• 42:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was seminar and I was fascinated how much
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: you talked to about your subconscious and how you try
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: and keep the conscious mind out of your writing as
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: long as possible.
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Is that the same today.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah it is.
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: I mean there's about you have to look at it
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: and coming in the morning often after it putting stuff together,
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: and you get some insight into the mechanics if they're
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: actually working, and you start to analyze the mechanics of
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: the song. But I do like to keep that free
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: floating feeling of a that you haven't discovered everything about
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: an idea until long as possible. Sometimes it's as I'm
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: putting the final vocal on before that goes to mastering,
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: I'll have a little revelation about something might be better.
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: I don't know that it's always a very good thing
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: that I do. But this album was a classic example
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: of us continually changing and improving, and it actually, I
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: think most of the time did get better. And we
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: would Stephen and I would look at each other after
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: we just changed something. I go, I like it better.
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: You know, you like it better. Whether or not these
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: guys did, I don't know. I've seen it off to them.
• 43:20
  Speaker 8: There was about a four month period where they were
• 43:22
  Speaker 8: just hitting home runs and I was like, wow, this
• 43:24
  Speaker 8: is incredible. And then a couple came in that weren't.
• 43:28
  Speaker 8: Those are the hard ones because you don't want to
• 43:30
  Speaker 8: be negative, but you can just say, hey, maybe, you know,
• 43:34
  Speaker 8: I think maybe that was better before.
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: I always appreciate that's the thing about a band, you know,
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: you get to hope that it is a little bit
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: sensitive to get knocked back on an idea.
• 43:45
  Speaker 8: But it's hard. It's a painful.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: Relief to have somebody to do it.
• 43:49
  Speaker 8: Yeah, but it's painful to have to say it to someone,
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: and it's painful to hear because, like I say, that's
• 43:54
  Speaker 8: when you're your most vulnerable. You know, no one's heard
• 43:56
  Speaker 8: it yet, so you're.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: Just but it's not like, you know, it's not like
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: Britain's got talent or something. It's like, you know, you're
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: not sitting in front of a panel of that's painful,
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: it's brutal, No.
• 44:07
  Speaker 8: But you know what I mean. It's just it's best
• 44:10
  Speaker 8: to be as positive as possible through this whole, the
• 44:14
  Speaker 8: whole process until you're done recording, because then once it's
• 44:17
  Speaker 8: out who you don't care anymore, you know.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: But do that that trying to keep your subconscious so engaged.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Is that with both lyrics and the music.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: It's only just the way I've ended up feeling like
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: the way I can work. I kind of wish I
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: was a guy who had like poetry, just books of
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: you know, lines that I could then apply to music,
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: because I think that would be a really nice change.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: But it's just not not the way it rolls for me.
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: I find that I'm most trusting of lines that come
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: out spontaneously as I'm writing. I don't often know what
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: I'm singing, and then I listen back to it and
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: I go, oh, that's that's quite a good line that
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: it suggests this. So I maybe write a couple more
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: lines along those lines, along that train of thought at
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: the time, and then I'll get excited about the little
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: idea developing. I go and reward myself with a coffee,
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: and you know, and then I'll come back and I
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: won't be in the same frame of mind.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: It'll be really hard all of a sudden to finish
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: the song.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: But yeah, but it also means your songs have a
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: very particularly the lyrics have a very dreamy quality. Things
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: are associated, you know. I think a song like whether
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: with You, You've got the line about the car on
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the shelf, Oh yeah, boat boat, pardon yeah, and then
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: you've got the beautiful line or sing like a bird released?
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I can I can imagine a lot of songwriters would say,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I've just written this line. Do I sing like a
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: bird released?
• 45:47
  Speaker 8: Now?
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I have to rewrite this whole thing about being a
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: bird released? And you don't it stays in a bigger picture.
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Well there again, as l we referred to before,
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: it's kind of like the the they slot into place
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: at a various point.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: It's really quite weird and.
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: Sometimes quite time consuming to find words that I'm not consistent.
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: I'm not bothered whether they follow each thought follows in
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: a logical progression, but they have to relate to each
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: other in a way that's kind of opens people's minds
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: to little thoughts and doorways and things that are not intellectual.
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: Because I like songs always have that I didn't really
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: know what they meant. I just liked the sound of
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: the words and the way that they certain phrases just
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: pick you up and take you somewhere and you can
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: switch off your conscious mind that you use for reading
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: or you use for analyzing every other thing in your day.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: And so that's the kind of lyric that.
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: I always liked, and that's what I've allowed myself to
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: pursue as a lyricist now. And when they hit, I
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: think they hit really in a powerful way because they're
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: not They're operating on a different level than an academic thing.
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: And sometimes I don't hit. When I look back on
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: some of the lyrics, I go, that's clunky and clumsy
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: and didn't really make it there.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: But you know, one of my co hosts, and I'm Malcolm.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: We did a book with Paul Simon, and I was
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: amazed when he talked about song how much of it
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: was just like I just like the sound of that line, and.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: That was just I mean, he's a great lyricist, and
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: at his best he was able to write. I mean
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: they were impressionistic lyrics too. Actually, when I think about it,
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: like Sound of Silence, you don't really see a clear
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: narrative in there, but it's incredibly evocative. And I always
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: think it's sort of a combination of enough concrete images
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: that put you in in a place you can sense
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: a place, and abstract images that you become dream you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: dream like in your mind. And also it's really nice
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: to sort of sense the person who's singing, and even
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: if you don't get a it's not the person who's singing.
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: And I'm not imagining Paul Simon's life when I'm listening
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: to Sounds of Silence, but I'm imagining somebody on the
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: streets having a particular convergence of you know, awareness and
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: you know loneliness possibly, And so it has to evoke
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: a good lyric by hook Crook has to evoke a
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: time and a place and a person subliminally at least.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Are you a visual thinker because a lot of your
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: lyrics have a really strong sense of place.
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: I think that that's been a sort of a thing
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: I try and put in, and I don't always do it.
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: Sometimes it's just the way I'm feeling.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: That's the lyric.
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: Other kind of lyrics just and nowadays, particularly the confessional
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: lyric is very much the order of the day, you know,
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: like writing a diary and the way you made me
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: feel because you were mean to me, or you drop me,
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: or you know.
• 48:46
  Speaker 7: That.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: I like a lyric that's got a couple of phrases
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: that link you to the day, like you know, whether
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: it's the boat made of China or something, there's an
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: image that you can put yourself in a room and yeah,
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: is that maybe a yes to your question?
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it is. I think they're
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: very visual. I'm continually struck with the once I hear
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: the lyric not necessarily confirmed when we're working a song up,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: but it will evoke a definite visual reference to me
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: that then inspires me to actually affect a certain approach
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: to what the foundation notes or styles should be to
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: actually set that visual scene.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: And how do you go about assuming Mitchell isn't in
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the room to keep you on the beat?
• 49:39
  Speaker 8: Now that was I work with Nick a lot more
• 49:43
  Speaker 8: in the early days. Okay, he's way beyond all that now.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Because you do it makes sense you played violent. There's
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of beautiful little figures in the in you're playing,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: including Teenage Summer, which I think was your first single.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: After that, there's a lot of great little figure A lot.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Of those little counterpoint ideas come off the skip of
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Neil's words, so that if he if if a lyric
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: in a in a verse partickee like a chorus will
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: be hopefully the same, it'll be a refrain and he
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: sings it the same words when it is so that
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: the bass can sit underpinning in a solid give its solidity.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: But with with with verses, often I'll look for a
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: counterpoint that has a slight gap in, or an announcement
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: that skips off his palette. If he's saying a certain word,
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: or the way he's the word is falling around the beat,
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: I'll try and and and identify that in a in
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: a way on the bass as well. It's sort of
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: it's quite inspiring, but with a song like I remember
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: we were recording Blackwater White Circle, and I came up
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: with a bassline, and I remember because Neil had just
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: plotted down and put the chords down to that on
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: acoustic guitar and saying a a vocal over it, because
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: we we hadn't learned that song by this stage, and
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of chords, and so I had to
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Suddenly the pressure was on me to come up with
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: a baseline on Nick, can you do a baseline now?
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, and you were. You were texting somewhere.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: You're on your phone and you're calling out the cords
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: as I'm moving through a baseline that I had this
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: idea of a sort of a tango style baseline. And
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: meanwhile Mitchell sitting on the couch behind me with his
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: arms folded, and I can just I can just see
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: him shaking his head, you know, like in the in
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: the glass. Yeah, but was moving through these notes. Neil's
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: going see sharp A, oh, it's a minor. Then it
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: goes to E a major E major, and he's calling
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: them out before I'm actually landing on the note to
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: do the little figure, and then.
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, and then the temperatures rising in the in
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: the room as next trying to fashion a bass partner.
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: I go outside, I think to continue my phone call
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: or something, and suddenly there's Nick flying through the door
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: and jumped straight in the pool in some kind of
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: it was in some existential crisis with the with the baseline.
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: He just needed to go. And you know, it was
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: quite a moment actually that I think.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: The reason I ran out, put the base, put my
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: base on his stand, and ran outside and dived into
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: the pool with clothes. I just needed to I had
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: a terrible hangover and so I recall and I just
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: needed to shock myself into knowing to just be decisive.
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: Basically, well, that's when you and Steve it had opened
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: that bottle of incredibly expensive tequila at the house and
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: then went and bought a cheap bottle to fill the
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: bottle back up.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: Again.
• 52:51
  Speaker 7: That was.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: B and B behavior.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: That is right there. Yeah uh, And I'm sure you've
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: heard this before, but I do think one of the
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: most exciting parts of Don't Dream It's Over is in
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the It's in the third chorus where you do that
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: walker with the bass.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, thank you.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that. Yeah, yeah, but do you come
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: at it from the bottom, but.
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: The A flat predominant A flat it's an F mine.
• 53:21
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I get that.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: F minor and you hit A. I think it's A,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: isn't it A? You go d E and then you're
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the court.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: Actually, I know you usually hit a little grace no
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: drumming section. If it's where I think you're talking.
• 53:41
  Speaker 8: Last, you're talking about the last course after the solo section. Yeah,
• 53:45
  Speaker 8: so it's it's everything is the same, except it's n F.
• 53:49
  Speaker 8: It's normally an A flat bass an F minor core
• 53:52
  Speaker 8: with an A flat bass. That last chorus, it finally
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: lands on the F minor, but everything else about the
• 53:58
  Speaker 8: chorus is the same.
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: The bass part on that song that obviously is signature
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: is the do do Do Do Do Do Do Do.
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: At the beginning.
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: Nick can get tables at restaurants that are full by
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: just going do do Do Do Do Do Do Do,
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: And you know that's that's his cold card.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they say, we don't do walk ups at this
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: this restaurant. You have to reserve a table, and I'll
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: just go do do Do Do Do Do do do.
• 54:27
  Speaker 8: Remember you, I remember we had the whole song was
• 54:31
  Speaker 8: worked out, and then there was idea, oh, maybe we
• 54:33
  Speaker 8: should do something on the base to bring it in,
• 54:35
  Speaker 8: And you did that, and I was like, is that
• 54:36
  Speaker 8: any good? Because it was so fast, you know, like
• 54:41
  Speaker 8: the song has this kind of beautiful slow move. Also,
• 54:44
  Speaker 8: song's coming in, just playing kind of quickly, And it
• 54:48
  Speaker 8: took me a minute before I realized it was good,
• 54:50
  Speaker 8: but I was. We we just did it. And those
• 54:53
  Speaker 8: are the days you had to punch in and out
• 54:54
  Speaker 8: so you couldn't go We couldn't just do a bunch
• 54:57
  Speaker 8: of things.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I punched in. Remember that Chad, poor old
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Chad Blake. He used to used to he was the
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: best punch or arena ever. And and because I was
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: so inconsistent that actually playing a straight linear delivery of bass,
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: he'd be punching me in and out for single notes
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: or whatever, and he I could used to drive him crazy.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: It used to really drive him crazy. But god, I
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: mean the stress in those days for him to hit
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: record play, record play, you know, just dropping single notes
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: in you know for me.
• 55:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah, and phrases. But that's it's kind of we were
• 55:35
  Speaker 8: talking about. This is kind of how the base style evolved.
• 55:38
  Speaker 8: Like we would be in the control room and we're
• 55:41
  Speaker 8: just punch in a section, and you'd just be trying
• 55:43
  Speaker 8: all these things and then it's like, oh, that's good,
• 55:46
  Speaker 8: But then we'd have to deal with the next bar.
• 55:48
  Speaker 8: You can never remember what you just played, and then
• 55:53
  Speaker 8: once in a while if he if he messed up,
• 55:55
  Speaker 8: then we'd have to go back and do the whole thing.
• 55:58
  Speaker 8: But it kind of that freedom and that you were
• 56:02
  Speaker 8: just trying things kind of helped develop the style within
• 56:07
  Speaker 8: the band. So it was it's kind of interesting.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: And he could get into any restaurant just by singing
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: that little kit and sang I pushed that in.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: Chad would have to go Chad would.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: That would be obscure? Wouldn't get into that many places
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: like that?
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: That would do it?
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: That'd look a bit creepy.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Actually, I did want to ask you because you know,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: so much of the band's early sound was Paul Hester's drums,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: and I always thought he was underrated as a drummer.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: So he had such great swing and great drive. What
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: when you when you started learning those songs? Were there
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: things you took from his drumming?
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah, undoubtedly, I mean all the recordings of the early
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: crowdit Hoouse records have got against so much character and
• 56:55
  Speaker 7: the playing, and Paul was huge part of that. And
• 56:59
  Speaker 7: like you say, the swing and the drive and the
• 57:02
  Speaker 7: explosiveness when it needed to be is really distinctly Paul.
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: So yeah, it was definitely something that I was really
• 57:08
  Speaker 7: mind when I was learning all these songs for touring
• 57:11
  Speaker 7: and trying to get you know, my own personality as
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: a drummer into the music as well is obviously something
• 57:19
  Speaker 7: I want to do. But when it comes to the
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: classic songs that everyone has come to love and have
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: listened to for a long time, it rewards the audience
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: a lot when they hear those signature films or something
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: from the record that is you know, maybe bands over
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: the years would stop being really faithful to the recordings
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: because they get tired of it and stuff like that
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: or want to explore.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: And that's cool too.
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: But I think there's a few things in drumming, and
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: Paul's drumming in particular, that were really important to me,
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: and I would guess that they were really important to
• 57:52
  Speaker 7: the listener. So I wanted to get some things really
• 57:55
  Speaker 7: spot on that Paul had done.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: Brush Your brush's style is just so evocative of Yeah,
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: you know that.
• 58:05
  Speaker 8: I think a big thing that I didn't even know
• 58:07
  Speaker 8: it at the time, but a big thing that Paul
• 58:09
  Speaker 8: had that Elwer has because I've seen Neil with different
• 58:13
  Speaker 8: drummers when Neil's playing acoustic guitar, and it's the amount
• 58:16
  Speaker 8: of swing in the high hat. I mean, Neil's talked
• 58:18
  Speaker 8: about that and it's just the way it went together.
• 58:21
  Speaker 8: I just sort of took for granted. But Elwer has
• 58:26
  Speaker 8: got that. I think even when we play the more
• 58:29
  Speaker 8: classic songs, so it to me it sounds like Elwright
• 58:31
  Speaker 8: doesn't sound like Paul, but it has that swing, so
• 58:35
  Speaker 8: it's satisfying. It's just got a different, slightly different shade
• 58:39
  Speaker 8: to it, and most people in the audience wouldn't know
• 58:41
  Speaker 8: the difference, but he's when Elwar is playing in this band,
• 58:45
  Speaker 8: it's Elroy's.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: It's a right of passage in the Finn family that
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: you have to learn how to play a mid tempo
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: song without something like you're slowing down. Yeah, a lot
• 58:54
  Speaker 6: of the classic songs are of a medium pace or
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: not super fast, and so to play that and have
• 59:00
  Speaker 6: it not feel like it's slugging along at any point,
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: and the song is really important.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: It's really interesting. How do you do that?
• 59:06
  Speaker 7: It's a you got well just be mindful of. Like
• 59:10
  Speaker 7: speeding up is the most common thing as a drummer,
• 59:12
  Speaker 7: I think, and so you don't want to do that either.
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: But when a song is mid tempo, it has the
• 59:18
  Speaker 7: same tendency to slacken off because you don't want to
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: rush things and the singing as soon as it gets
• 59:23
  Speaker 7: too fast, you notice that because you can't get the
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: words out in time, and so it's easier to.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: Very rarely speed up.
• 59:29
  Speaker 8: Like it's.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: The acoustic, like Mitchell said, the acoustic.
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: Guitar is my way of trying to generate the kind
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: of amount of swing that you want from a song
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: that you've written, and so the l was tuned into that.
• 59:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think one difference would be that Paul, when
• 59:47
  Speaker 7: you had a symbiotic rhythm thing going on from the
• 59:51
  Speaker 7: start that you know, Paul was uninhibited as he played.
• 59:54
  Speaker 7: He was really you know, played with a lot of passion,
• 59:57
  Speaker 7: a lot of irreverence. And I think I've got a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 7: different version of trying to lock in with your time
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 7: because as a songwriter and bandleader, you're right, you know,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 7: your rhythm guitar is powerful force. You know, you can
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 7: carry a whole song on its own, don't even need
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 7: drums with Neil playing guitar, it's really incredible rhythm. And
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 7: so you can't come in as a drummer with that
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 7: other instrument being so rhythmic and demand that everyone's going
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 7: to follow you the whole time. So there's this sort
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 7: of push and pull between me and Dad. I think
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: on stage sometimes where it's who's who's leading the charge
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 7: and who's dictating the terms of this rhythm, But in
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: that it's micro seconds, you know, where we're really locked in.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: But there's something cool about I don't know who's driving
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 7: the songs to dance and a dance you know.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 8: That's what makes the mid temple stuff sound like it's
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 8: moving forward because a lot of drummers on mid temple songs,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 8: they really like the snare to feel really back. They
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 8: think that that's deep and soulful.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: A bit of a delay, yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 8: You really delayed, you're behind the beat and then and
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 8: then the high hat.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: But this is you know, like a Christmas in a feel,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: you know, like a it has to be slightly danced,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: and it's even if it's slow or so I'll push sometimes.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: I mean, Alroy is probably having to be conscious of
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: not speeding up with me, because I probably would. My
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: idea of crispness and the feel might to some drummers
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: just be like an invitation to get right on top
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: and hit the snare a little bit too.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: You know, bristpiled.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: Alroy's got a really lovely way of setting things back.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: When you listen to the recordings from the live it's
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: remarkable how relaxed it feels, and yet it's not. It's
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: not lacking energy, but it's that he's got a really
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: good sense of and things very rarely speed up. If
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: I'm if I'm making it'd be the odd song we've
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: made up time differences. But generally speaking, I listened to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: the end of a song, it hasn't gone up more
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: than one or two bpm from the beginning, and that's
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: quite unusual, I think.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a pleasure these days listening to
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: a band that can speed up and slow down since
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: everything else.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: That as well.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 7: Some songs do want to get three five faster than
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 7: the breadge or in the chorus and at the end
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: of the song, you know, like and that's a nice
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 7: natural amount of swaying, and I value that in music
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: a lot too. So I think drummings weird because you've
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 7: got to be some sort of you've got to have
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 7: some sort of discipline, but then also total inhibition to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 7: make it feel like this thunderous instrument when it needs
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: to be. But as soon as you get carried away
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 7: with yourself, you will speed up five bpm and everyone's
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 7: looking at you, what's going on, And you're like, oh god,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 7: I had too much fun there for one bar.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just have to And then that night you
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: drive a car into the pool.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 8: That's the ya the way it feels like to play
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 8: in the band. It feels like everyone's trying to play
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 8: the mood of the song, and so I think everything
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 8: just comes.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Out of that.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 8: Now you must just play the mood of the song.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 8: Everything will take care of itself.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: You know, have you worked with bands where that's a
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: problem almost all the no.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 8: I mean it's the way music used to be. The
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 8: backing would be a mood and then the singer, you know,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 8: would kind of dictate the mood and everyone just followed
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 8: the singer and it became something where everything is now individual.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 8: And you know, bands that play use a click track live.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 8: It's just horrible because now you're introducing this rigid thing
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 8: where you should be playing music, so you're playing along
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 8: with this rigid thing instead of playing together, I mean something.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 8: There's certain situations where something like that can work, but
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 8: in general, if you see a whole concert and it's all,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 8: you know, people playing with a click, you're going to
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 8: be bored and not know why.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, surgeon retard is the thing of when you're going
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: to see a band. I love it when a band
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: just yes.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: They got in trouble for the name changed, it's changed now.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: But yeah, where there's a hesitancy as it goes into
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: the first chorus and then it sits and then slows
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: down again when it goes into the next verse. I mean,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: I love detecting that sort of thing when I'm watching
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: a really you know, a really dynamic band, rock band,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: or ensemble, I mean in orchestras, that's always the way
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: the conductor will say, as it moves from this section
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: to this section, there is actually three breaths, four breaths.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: You're all rushing those four breaths, you know, and just
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: watch my conducting and the piece will slow down. You know,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: it's extraordinary. They're even using click tracks now in orchestras,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: you know, right, well, you know, not for concert performances,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: but for TV. Yeah, film and TV.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, you played violin, I don't
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: know if you played in a quartet. I did for
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: a little while. But it's all that looking back and
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: forth and yeah, when it gets going, it's really amazing.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's natural people, that's the way people perceive, you.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: Know, well, it's the benefit of ours spent. You know,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: the tipping point concept that everybody talks about.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: Well, we're a while ago, and.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: If with a band, it's exciting at the moment because
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: we're at that point. We've played enough shows now that
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: we can I can sense us getting much better and
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: understanding those kind of little micro the way that music
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: is capable of being thought about, and you know, micro
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: metering of the gap between beats. We're just leaving a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: tiny hole before the beginning of the next bar can
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: add And you only get those moments when everybody's focused together,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: and so we feel like we're capable of becoming much better,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: you know, which is pretty exciting for an up and
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: coming band.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 8: It keeps so we don't get bored. I don't, at
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 8: least me, but we don't. It doesn't feel like anyone
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 8: gets bored playing any of these songs. And no matter
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 8: how many times we play them, because when we play them,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 8: we're playing the mood. It's not like, oh, here's this song,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 8: I've done it a million times.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: You know, you were listening to what everyone else is doing.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 7: I think a lot of people.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 8: To see how that mood is at that moment, and
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 8: it might be moving a little and how can you
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 8: contribute to it?
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: So does that change with the crowd? When I saw
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: you the other night, you know that was a concert
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: where people were singing along with everything, clapping. How how
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: does that change the playing crowd?
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: Definitely to hear the crowd, because it doesn't lend itself.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 5: We did an open air the other night and we'd
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: had two really nice sheds to get into a bounce
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: back and hear the crowd, and we just weren't hearing
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: them rebill. It's quite disarming, and you don't know whether
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: they're really going along for it with it, you know.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: But yeah, the crowd will make their presence felt fairly
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: early on if they often get them to sing early
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: on to figure out whether they've got the you know,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: the gusto not to try it too much.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: I do want to talk through some of the songs
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: on the new album, and I wanted to start with
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: the Howl, which I think has got that beautiful guitar
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: figure that starts it. Can you tell me a little
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: bit about writing that song.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 6: I wrote it as part of a solo project I
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 6: was doing in the last few years called Hyperverse, where
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: I streamed myself writing and recording a record on this
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: platform Twitch. I've always had a very different experience in
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 6: a studio than I do on stage, mainly with energy
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 6: levels I find, and I wanted to figure out how
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 6: to recreate that energy level I get on stage in
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: a studio, and I thought, well, I think it's the
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 6: fact you're being watched in the performance.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: Aspect of it.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 6: So I have made this whole record through doing my
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: one man band thing, which is the thing I do
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 6: as a solo artist, making a pre energetic record. And
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: I handed a bunch of the songs over to Dad
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 6: to listen to when I was kind of halfway through
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: writing them, and so I was doing these long, sprawling
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 6: jams basically, and then cut editing them down into songs,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 6: and that one in particular he really responded to, unknowingly
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 6: responded to when he had it on a few playlists
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 6: when he was on vacation and kept coming up and
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: he would be like, what's that song? And it was
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: the hell, I'm not even sure I knew it was you,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: but I thought it was something that would catch my
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 6: ear from another room. There's something about music that sounds
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 6: good from the next room. That's a lot of my
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: music whole in the next room.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 7: The sonics actually really coming better.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 6: But when we were going into the second session of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: the of the album, Dad was really keen to try it,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 6: as he was a couple of hourroys things and stuff,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: and we That's like I said, it.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: Was done really quickly.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 6: Nick had to all of a sudden scramble to learn
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 6: It's really quite a simple song except for the one
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 6: change that happens, and I had a very particular baseline
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 6: in that part. But we got it really, We got
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: a very vibe take of it very quickly. But it
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: was actually for me. It was a really nice thing
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 6: because I had often I would be if I'm teaching
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: a band a song, I'm probably only three quarters written
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 6: with it, and a lot of it I ended up
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 6: finishing on the back end, but that song was kind
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 6: of a finished thing, and it made me realize how
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: and that's what I was going to say, I want
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 6: to bring finished songs to the band because you can
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 6: actually move through them so much quicker and figure them
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 6: out as far as what the end result would be
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 6: so much and in such well, basically with less anxiety
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: and less torturous behavior on my part. So it was
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 6: really cool because I had so I had a version,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 6: this demo version for my record that if we did it.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: Dad was like, well, if we do it, we've.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 6: Got to make it better than your version, because otherwise
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: what's the point.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 8: And so we did.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: We worked on it really hard and actually cut quite
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 6: a bit out of it and made a three and
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 6: a half minute version of what my was like five
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: minutes and full of long guitar solos and stuff like that.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 6: And then I went back in after we'd finished the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: credit House record and made my version better, not better
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 6: than the Crowdhouse version, but I got to go and
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 6: take what I learned from the.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: Crowded House one and apply that to my version. And
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: so now I've got these two different versions of the song.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: It's a great vocal in that song too, just really
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: lovely and can I ask for Teenage Summer which became
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: the Was it designed as a did you think we
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: need a single?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: Or it just not really?
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: But I saw potential in it. It was a jam
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: that we did. Actually Elru was in on the original jam,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: and if you heard the demo that, yeah, it's very different.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 5: A couple of parts have remained. The bassline that starts
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: the song was actually the main bass riff in the
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: song at that point, and I just kept reworking it
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: and reworking it and reworking it and taking apart and
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 5: putting it back together again. We tried it with drum machine,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: we tried at Latin, We tried it a number of
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: different ways, and it was really hardy like his demo,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: it was really experimental and weird song. But when it
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: got to the end part of it where it had the.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 6: One been near you and are we going to have
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 6: some sort of new that there was this like pop
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 6: song in there.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: There's a pop sign dying to get out. Yeah.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 6: But we tried it the three of us once and
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 6: didn't really get anywhere, and then we tried it again.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 6: We tried it and then with the band we tried
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 6: it didn't really get anywhere.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: It changed a lot, it did.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: I just had I knew there was something in there,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: and I just chased it basically, and Elroy played the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: drums the drum track on it about three different times,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: three different places. And in the actual fact, we used
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: a couple of the fills from the I used a
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: couple of his fills from the early takes and sliced
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: them and even though the drums sounded completely different.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: You can sort of do anything, really.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I was very happy with the way it
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: turned out because it was kind of fully realized, and
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 5: sometimes they don't turn out to be fully realized.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: So did you ever think of giving up on it?
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: Was it just that.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: Prust probably did? Yeah, I would have had a few
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: moments Rolf was not happening. Let's forget about it.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it was subject to a lot of discussion, that song,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 8: a lot of things. I did a failed effort at
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 8: trying to edit it into what I thought was a
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 8: more cohesive form, and it was just landed like a
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 8: ton of bricks. You know. That was bad. We had
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 8: a version that we had the drums really lively sounding
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 8: really roomy and lively and which is exciting, but it
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 8: seemed to wear out. And then we tried a version
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 8: where the drums were very dry, thinking, oh, more intimate,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 8: that'll carry the song.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: We've got a rap over the sixty.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 8: So we just went through a bunch of different things.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 8: And then you know, there was if you listen to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 8: the song, like after the first chorus, the way it
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 8: goes back to the intro is really tricky. I mean,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 8: that's that. That was that was Neil's idea. But so
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 8: we finally got a dynamic where the song felt like, Okay,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 8: this is how it's the shape of it, and by
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 8: the end it's its peak. So we had to figure
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 8: out all kinds of things and after it was breakdown
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 8: and you know, all these things.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 6: After it was mastered for the third time and already
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 6: imprinting in for the vinyl, Dad changed the title of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: the song and changed the beginning of the song. Well
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 6: that's what we kind of thought. Maybe he was losing it.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't even know what the title changed because
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 5: actually just only because I was on a zoom call
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 5: or a FaceTime with my grandson and I are Liam's son,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: and he was listening to it, I think, and he said,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 5: I like that song, Papa teenage summer song. Well he's
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: just the kids have spoken, you know. That's what it
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 5: was called Life's imitation.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: I thought, oh, yeah.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: For a couple of years, or for a year, for
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: a couple of years. Yeah, I've never done that before
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 5: that late in the piece. But hey, there's this surprises
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: yet to come, I'm sure.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask about Thirsty, which began with you.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: We talked about it a little. Yeah, So what was
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: it like, Neil when you first heard it?
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: If you listened to the instrumental version of Thirsty without
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: it's really nice instrumental and that's how it was Elroy.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's a little scrubbed up. Engineer has done
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: a bit of job on it, and maybe a couple
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 5: of editions I've been added. Mitchell might have played some things,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 5: I think, and Liam's added a bit of guitar, but
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: essentially the arrangement was the way Elroy had. It was
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 5: a beautiful instrumental. I think the daughter of Stephen, who
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 5: mixed the album, came in one day as he was
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: before the vocal was added and loved it, absolutely loved it,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: and I think she was disappointed when she heard the vocal.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: So whether or not we improved it, I don't know.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: But it's a beautiful piece of music. The way the
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 5: chords flow is just effortless and very elegant. Yeah, they
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: picked my ears up and I found himut that seemed
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: to work with it, and ran with it. And then Ail,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 5: you know, helped we sort of to and fro on
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: what the lyrics might be.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: To me, it took on a kind of a Simon
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: and Garf uncle vibe at some point as to falling
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: in love with it, I think was. And then the
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: idea of some people never getting thirsty, that just was
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: so abstract to me, you.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: Know, Yeah, I didn't know if it was appropriate to
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: even have that, and as we fought against that a
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 5: little bit because it was like what, but I it
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: had really evocative feeling for me, because there are people
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: like Mcfleetwood's mother never drank water for thirty that he
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: said he never saw her drink water.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: She only ever had drink cups of tea, cups of tea.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: I suppose that still quenches a thirst, but you know some,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: but it's also now it's got a modern.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 7: Well yet to be thirsty is kind of hungry for
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 7: sex and the modern concept of someone's too thirsty. They're
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 7: like showing off too many signs of being into it,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 7: and so suddenly some people never get thirsty. It has
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 7: a very different meaning if you think of.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: It that way.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 8: A bit of.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: Shed separated that from Mick Fleetwood's.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 7: Mother that you can do that in post, right, you
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 7: can chuck a better time in between.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: It's a good juxtaposition. I'd be happy with that in
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: a lyric. We will talk to Mick about it first,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: but yeah.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: You know, we haven't talked about this because this is
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: one of your many bands. But you did tour with
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: Fleetwood Mac did that?
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Did it? Did you learn anything about bands?
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: Not a thing.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 8: Or think?
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 5: It was amazing experience, like stepping into another life for
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 5: a while, you know, and so unexpected.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: We knew Mick well enough for me.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: To know that I would have a good time with him,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 5: you know, that wasn't entirely unknown, but really unexpected. And
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: learning somebody else's songs and the way they put songs
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 5: together is really fascinating, getting deep inside it because you
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 5: think you know the way that songs work, but then
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: when you actually learn them, you find that there's more
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 5: going on than you realized. And they're harder to learn
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 5: other people's songs too, the little nuances that they add
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 5: and mine would be hard for people to learn.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: I understand that as well.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: But can you give me an example of just one
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: of their songs that once you got into it, you're like, well,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: this doesn't work the way I.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 5: Thought, Well, maybe all of them. Really, I think they're
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: all like that. They're all sort of even go your
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: own way, which you think you've heard. And I wasn't
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: like a big fan of the band in those days particularly,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 5: I liked admired them for what I knew that they
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 5: were really big, you know, great pop songs, and they
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 5: had something and I'd seen a couple of live things
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 5: back in the day that were amazing, you know, when
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 5: they were at their prime. And but you think you
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 5: know and it is a very simple song, but it's
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: just learning it is more is more difficult than you think.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 5: And it's not that they're I think I have more
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 5: quirks and nuances and the way that I put songs
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: together than Lindsay, but somehow they're hard and like things
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: like I was serlening Monday morning. Just quite a strange
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: song and a weird lyric as well, actually, but so
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: much singing, and it's really high and it's very hard
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 5: to sing. It's because there's no gaps in the vocal
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: and I found I had to actually in the end,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 5: So I can't. Don't think I can do that one
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: unless we drop the key quite a bit. And we
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 5: stopped doing it anyway because I just I was blowing
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 5: my voice out every night trying to do it. So yeah,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: things I would have if I'd been doing that myself,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 5: I would have created space somewhere so I get a breath. Yeah,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: these are not particularly interesting details. What I did learn
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 5: was that classic bands are a result of and music
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: as a result of five in that case, individuals having
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: quite distinctive personalities musically, and something about that being undeniable
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 5: and unreplaceable. Although having said that, I did replace Lindsey.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: But did you ever talk to about it.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: I've not met him. No, I have a feeling we'd
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 5: probably get on just fine. And I don't think he
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: was I mean, it was very he was not happy
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: about the situation. I understand that, but I don't think
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: he would have blamed me for it particularly, and I
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: think he probably had some awareness of my songs and probably,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 5: you know, I would hope at some point he might
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 5: have thought, well, at least somebody that can write a
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: good song is you know, taken my part. But the
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: believing in a band, and actually it can be redefined,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 5: especially Fleetwood Mack have redefined themselves so many times, have
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 5: been so many different kinds of bands. I related to that,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 5: and I thought, oh, maybe I can do that. And
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 5: at the same time as I thought that, and I
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: was appreciating that about Fleetwood Mac, I thought, I've been
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 5: playing music with el Roy and Liam for the last
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 5: few years and it's been feeling great, So why not
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 5: just you know, one ring to bind them all. And
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 5: I put it to Nick and he was super enthusiastic
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: about it. And then we thought, well, what about Mitchell
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 5: as well?
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: Why don't we ask him?
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 5: We asked him twenty five thirty years ago and he
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 5: was too busy trying to be a producer. But maybe
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 5: the time will be right, and it just was, you know,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: was right.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: I was interested when I saw you the other night,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: which was a great show that the crowd got to
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: vote on the song they were playing, and you seem surprised,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if you were genuinely surprised that
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: they chose Into Temptation, which I think.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 4: Is just we give them an option of It's an
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: experiment on this too.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 5: We haven't done this before, but we thought they like
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 5: having some degree of people request songs all the time,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 5: and we often don't do them because they come at
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 5: the wrong time, or it's a way of people being
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 5: able to express an opinion.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: I got you gets a lot of.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 5: Nods, and that Into Temptation is a surprising one, but
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 5: it has endured for a lot of people as one
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 5: of our best songs. And we don't play it every
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 5: night because if we've got four seasons in the set,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: they occupy quite a similar dynamic and feels like sometimes
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: too many of that kind of song might lower the
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 5: tempo of the show, but it's actually finishes the show
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 5: quite well. Strangely, it doesn't leave people feeling depressed. That
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 5: leaves them feeling sort of content in a funny kind
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 5: of way.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: It seems well, it seems like a very catholic song,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: so maybe it's like man, it.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: Does express, it does express all the dimensions of temptation
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: and guilty.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so what's next for you is that you're going
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: to keep touring and then.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: Well we are in the short term, we're going to
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 5: the end of the year pretty NonStop now, which is
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 5: you know, amazing for developing as a band and has
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: some degree of you know, a bit of a wrench
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: for Liam to be away from family and we all
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: have the and Nick, you know, and Mitchell below. Mitchell's
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: son's just left home so he's free as a bird.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 5: So yeah, it's but we're going to be touring next
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 5: year a little bit less, but we're going to make
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 5: a new record next year, I think.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it was we didn't know until we did an
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 6: interview that it's thirty forty thirty forty years since the
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 6: first since the band started. Next year, so we've got to,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 6: you know, that's kind oft to the anniversary, make the
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 6: best record that Crowded House has ever made.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, after forty years.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 5: Well, we're capable of it, and everyone will be coming
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: with a clean slate, a fresh palette. There's no other
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: you know, nothing else that is competing for our attention.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 5: Next year so and we can be together in a
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 5: studio more often if we can navigate it from a
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 5: geographical point of view.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, thank you so much for coming in here.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: It's been thank you, it was till late.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you the real very nice conversation. Thanks
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 4: for jowing us.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Bruce, thank you, thank you, great Honor.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much to Neil Finn, Liam Finn, Al Ray Finn,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: Nick Seymour and Miss Froom of Crowded House for talking
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: about their new project and their long histories together. To
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: hear a playlist of our favorite songs from Crowded House.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: You can go to this episode's description or visit us
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: at broken Record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: you can find all of our new episodes. You can
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinay.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
• 1:23:44
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• 1:24:02
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• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: Kenny Beats.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: I'm justin Richmond.