Getting Mighty Crowded

Rip It Up, Issue 119, 1 June 1987, Page 12

Getting Mighty Crowded

‘A South Pacific Combo’

It’s appropriate that Crowded House’s breakthrough into the lucrative American market should coincide with Rip It Up's tenth anniversary. It’s 10 years ago that Neil Finn replaced Phil Judd in Split Enz at a time when punk demanded that the band adapt or go under. They replied with ‘I See Red’ and Frenzy’, two years later Neil’s ‘I Got You’ sparked a Split Enz rejuvenation and sealed their identity as a fully-fledged pop band. The rest is history. Suffice to say that with the band’s dissolution in late ’B4, there were great expectations of Neil Finn, who along with Dave Dobbyn, had come to be regarded as one of the country’s best mainstream writers.

Full House At the time of this interview early last month Crowded House were, naturally enough, in the middle of an American tour. Neil Finn had about half an

hour before he was due on stage in Gainesville, northern Florida. “The reception’s getting better and better as the record gets bigger,” says the man whose song .‘Don’t

Dream It’s Over’ had just

peaked at number two in the American charts. Satisfying at any time, but particularly when you consider the song came from Crowded House’s first album, which when it was released a year ago scarcely paid its way: “The single took a long time to come out because record companies don’t like putting out a ballad first and it took so long to make up their minds. Finally they applied a bit of common sense to the whole thing

and released ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over,’ which was the song that everyone felt was the strongest. "But once it was out the record company believed in it and worked on it for more than the token three or four weeks. They kept at it for

about eight weeks until it was starting to show some sign of life and then it just snowballed. And we had quite a lot of good reviews and everything just happened at once. The timing was right too, as the charts were lacking in anything new and the Americans tend to let the odd thing through and we just happened to be the lucky ones.” On merit alone ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ would grace any chart, and it’s a sad reflection on the business stranglehold of rock and roll that only the odd diamond shines through the dust of formula. "There is a formula in the way they work them over here, as it’s such a huge conglomerate of an industry you’ve got to go about promotion in certain ways. They have to get the right stations early on and they have to get these stations to add the record at the right' time. “You pay an independent promoter and they basically control stations — they have good relations with the stations, maybe as a result of shoving coke up radio programmers’ noses. “They had a scandal over here a year ago and ironically enough, the guy from our record company (who’s since been sacked) was filmed by the FBI giving money to an independent guy who was connected to the Mafia. So the whole thing blew up in his face. "Since then that sort of thing has been substantially reduced and that’s good, because it gives those people who can’t afford a lot of money on promotion a better chance. But it won’t go away entirely because America’s built itself on consumerism and being experts at selling things, so

there’s no way that people who’ve been making big money on records are going to roll over and die.” Down Under Has the commercial success of bands from this part of the world like Men At Work opened any doors? “If they’ve had an effect it’s been a very subtle one. I think you should ultimately be judged on your own merits, and because somebody is from Australia isn’t going to make that much difference. In fact it’s probably a disadvantage, as bands from [our] part of the world are unaware of what it takes to get a record happening in America. I reckon every record decides its own fate, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter where it comes from.” Has the American media been tempted into comparing Crowded House with every other Australasian band like, again, Men At Work? “No, surprisingly we haven’t had much of that at all. Men At Work were noted for their Australian-ness because of things like ‘Down Under,’ plus we’re a little unsure what to call ourselves [Hester and Seymour are Australians] as we’re neither an Australian or a New Zealand band, we’re just a South Pacific combo. And the song has happened on its own merits, so the people aren’t focusing that much on the fact that we’re from Australia. “Live, people hear the accent and Americans love it — you can’t underestimate the charm a bunch of Antipodeans can have for the average American, because they don’t get to hear people talk from our end of the world very often. It’s quite pathetic in a way.’’

By all accounts you could dine out on the strength of an English accent in the States ... “Yeah, they think we’re English most of the time, and if it’s not that, then Australian. We stump some people when we say we’re from New Zealand and they go, ‘Lemme see, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, right?’ The only things they know about us are the America’s Cup and the nuclear-free stance. The .■’ ■ ■ Americans aren’t all that ■' interested in the rest of the world.” Hooklines and Singles The Crowded House album was pretty well what we expected from Neil Finn — a solid core of unpretentious, well-crafted honest pop songs suspended by hooks that deserve to be in the charts. “Capitol have just released ‘Something So Strong.’ I think it will be a good followup as it’s pretty immediate, and it’s 52 on the charts.” The album was recorded in Los Angeles. Any particular reason? “We wanted to get a deal directly with an American or British record company so that our album would go out everywhere and we could talk to them directly instead of through an Australian record company. Capitol expressed the most interest, so we thought we’d go over to get to know them. “That was the real reason, and partly because I’d never recorded in America and I thought with a new band it would be good to go somewhere with a new atmosphere.” Mitchell Froom, known for his work with the Del Fuegos and his brilliant Hammond organ additions to Costello’s

King of America, produced the album and used his keyboard skills to best effect on ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over.’ “He was introduced to me by the guy in the record company who signed us. He’s an up-and-coming producer and. I liked him straight away. He’s got a dry sense of humour and a very musical brain. He had good ideas for the songs and I was very struck with him in general.

“Before he did our album he’d just finished working with Costello and the Bangles. He’s very much a traditionalist in his keyboard playing, and he’s great at leaving spaces — that’s his best asset.”

Why did you include another version of ‘I Walk Away’ on the album — did you have a lack of material? “No, we had plenty of unfinished songs, between 25 and 30, and there’s quite

a few that obviously didn’t make it on to the album that I still want to do. “We included it on the album because a lot of people reacted to that song in America and we thought See Ya ’Round was monumentally ignored everywhere, so we thought there was no reason we shouldn’t do it. In hindsight it is one of my least favourite tracks on the record, although it’s not a bad version. It wasn’t meant to be on the New Zealand album — we took it off the Australian one for another track, ‘Can’t Carry On’. ” The Brothers Finn The release of Crowded House’s album last year coincided with the appearance of Tim Finn’s very disappointing Big Canoe. Both albums were reviewed in last July’s RIU, and Tim’s suffered by comparison, with its broad

stylistic attempt at sophistication and bad poetry for lyrics courtesy of English playwright Jeremy Brock. “Yeah, I saw those two reviews — a bit unfortunate for old Tim. Personally I like Big Canoe better than Escapade, musically anyway. I can’t understand why he wanted to work with another lyricist — it sounded weird him singing someone else’s lyrics and they weren’t good lyrics, I don’t think they were particularly good poems. This guy’s a good playwright and Tim got on really well with him, and I think a couple of their early compositions worked. And on Big Canoe some songs do work better than others, but Tim wasn’t happy with it either and he’s got a lot of good new songs at the moment, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s recording again before too long.” On the completion of their

American tour Crowded House are scheduled to play here at the end of this month, a tour Neil’s been looking forward to. But in the States Split Enz are still remembered. “In every concert there’s been a large majority familiar with Enz. We do ‘One Step Ahead’ regularly, mostly because that’s one song I haven’t tired of, and that goes down well. People yell out for the old Split Enz songs, so it’s like renewing old acquaintances and although we may not have realised it at the time, we did have a good audience here through having played quite a few shows and the albums sold moderately well. “We throw in the odd old Split Enz song in response to the audience, even if we can’t remember how to play it. We usually falter around the chorus line.” And who doesn’t?

George Kay