Something so strong pulls Neil Finn back to the open road, even 40 years on
'I just got an email, turns out she and her father, who manages her, are big fans. I was very happy to be asked,' says Finn about being invited onstage by Lipa at her gig in Auckland in April.
'I happen to have an affection for her music, in part because my grandsons Buddy and Manaia danced to Houdini and Levitating all summer. I like her stuff and I like her, she emanates something really positive and good and she was a delight.'
Also unexpected? That there are somehow places left in Australia that Crowded House have never yet managed to play. It's partly the reason the band will headline Red Hot Summer, a touring festival that'll take them through regional Australia this October and November, alongside acts like The Church, Angus & Julia Stone, and old acquaintances Mark Seymour and Vika & Linda.
'It's going to be quite a hanging-out-with-the-family kind of vibe, a pretty tight crew getting around to some interesting parts of Australia that we haven't been to for years or sometimes ever,' says Finn.
'There's a bit of extra excitement in the audience when you turn up in a place that's off the beaten track a little bit, where they don't necessarily get things like this. We're pleased to be part of that, and we aim to make it an unforgettable night'.
Ever the ageing muso with his tousled grey hair, horn-rimmed glasses and pilling green jumper, Finn, 67 – Zooming from his sun-dappled writing room in Auckland – says he's a creature of habit when it comes to music these days. 'I have a fairly strict life. Not 'strict' because I love it, but a routine of coming into this room here every day and just exploring,' he says.
He's been getting new songs going for Crowded House's next album, which he hopes to record in August, with the same lineup – his sons Liam and Elroy, and super-producer Mitch Froom on keyboards – established on 2021's acclaimed comeback Dreamers Are Waiting and last year's Gravity Stairs.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Man of Many
3 days ago
- Man of Many
INTERVIEW: Davey Lane is a Guitar-Wielding Man of the Cloth
It's My Party & I'll Cry If I Want To Starting with the recent single and sumptuous piece of Neil Finn-esque pop Over, Over & Out, Lane explains that the song, like its parent album, is demonstrative of a comfort he's developed with allowing his foundational influences to show through. While there can be a sensitivity or even stigma among some musicians when using sounds established by artists that have become the bedrock of contemporary music, Lane's at ease with not trying to reinvent the wheel. 'When I was younger and started making my own records, I thought, okay, I'm going to make a concerted effort to embrace new influences that've been percolating in my head. Nothing I make is going to sound like You Am I or The Beatles,' he explains. 'But eventually I thought, who cares? That's in my blood 'til the day I die, so why deny it? I'm now mature enough not to worry about stuff like that, and while I really hope people enjoy the record, I'm making it for my own creative satisfaction as well.' I don't think Lane should harbour too many concerns about whether listeners will enjoy his latest effort. 'Finally, A Party Record' is a highly rewarding and richly layered exploration of his musical identity, and despite the impressive variety of sounds on offer, the whole feels more cohesive than it might in a lesser musician's hands. From sleek synths that call to mind the neon skyline of '80s Miami to biting guitars that echo The Replacements, the album wears its influences on its sleeve. Yet, it never approaches the derivative. In fact, it's a fantastic example of one of pop music's great traditions: pairing catchy melodies and soaring musicality with deeply personal and, at times, dark lyrics. 'I try to write positive, upbeat songs, and you know what? That's hard. It's fucking hard.' 'I can't do it without feeling disingenuous,' Lane laughs with a hint of self-deprecation. 'So if I get into that zone where I'm feeling anger or whatever, I'd rather write a song than say something I might regret.' This approach has served Lane well across his new 10-song collection, whether it helped realise the boy-girl dynamics of Absent Lover, the beautiful yet heart-wrenching despair of God, I'm Fucked Up Over You, or Remedies' potent sense of isolation, acutely expressed in the lyric 'How clearer can I say that I am not okay?' When it comes to the latter of these, Lane reveals the song was written while he was enduring Melbourne's notorious COVID-19 lockdowns: 'Like a lot of people, I was at a point where I was just drinking all day. Any time I see a picture from around then (not that a lot of pictures were being taken at the time), I look ruddy and puffed up, because what the fuck else was there to do? So the song is about that. There have been other songs on vices that are certainly more profound or articulate, but this is just another one of them.' Remedies is a better song than Lane gives himself credit for, although it's arguably overshadowed by the track that follows, If It Can Rain, It'll Rain. Closing out the album, it starts as a grand slice of '60s pop—something like an Australian sibling to The Beatles' A Day in the Life—before transforming halfway through to become a glorious, bittersweet singalong that's utterly infectious.
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Perth Now
'Don't be fooled': Crowded House dispel fake AI news that frontman Neil Finn suffers from erectile dysfunction
Crowded House have shot down a false AI-generated report claiming frontman Neil Finn suffers from erectile dysfunction. In the bizarre clip, TVNZ journalist Simon Dallow reports on the fake news that the Don't Dream It's Over hitmaker has recently had a child after struggling with impotence. An AI version of Finn says in the broadcast: 'I never thought I'd be able to become a father again. Honestly, I believe that chapter of my life was closed, not because I didn't want it, but because I simply couldn't. 'For years, I lived with a problem most men are too ashamed to talk about. My erections became weaker and weaker until they stopped altogether. No desire, no confidence, no control. I was too embarrassed to even talk to my wife about it." Māori doctor Lance O'Sullivan also makes an appearance in AI form to offer her expert advice on the issue. The New Zealand group re-posted the clip and warned fans "don't be fooled". A statement on their Facebook page read: 'We're not sure where this came from, but please don't be fooled. 'Neil's never had trouble with erections.' Many musicians and celebrities have raised their concerns about AI. Recently, Nick Cave admitted his view of artificial intelligence as an artistic tool has begun to shift. The 66-year-old singer-songwriter and frontman of The Bad Seeds has long been a vocal critic of the technologygy. He previously described AI as 'unbelievably disturbing' and warned of a 'humiliating effect' on the creative industries. But he confessed his view changed after watching a new AI-powered video made to mark the 40th anniversary of his song Tupelo. Writing on The Red Hand Files platform, he said: 'As I watched Andrew's surreal little film, I felt my view of AI as an artistic device soften. 'To some extent, my mind was changed.' The video he was referring to was created by 56-year-old filmmaker Andrew Dominik, and used AI to animate still archival images. Tupelo is a 1985 single he has performed 'at nearly every Bad Seeds concert since it was first written'. The track depicts the mythic birth of Elvis Presley during a storm in Tupelo, Mississippi. Nick was initially sceptical when he learned AI had been used to create the video. Filmmaker Andrew has previously collaborated with Nick on the 2016 documentary One More Time With Feeling and the 2022 film This Much I Know to Be True. Nick added in his online post he found the video 'an extraordinarily profound interpretation of the song – a soulful, moving, and entirely original retelling of Tupelo, rich in mythos and a touching tribute to the great Elvis Presley, as well as to the song itself." He also said the AI-animated images of Elvis 'had an uncanny quality, as if he had been raised from the dead, and the crucifixion-resurrection images at the end were both shocking and deeply affecting." In January 2023, Nick publicly condemned ChatGPT, telling fans on his blog that it should 'f*** off and leave songwriting alone'. He added at the time: 'I feel sad about it, disappointed that there are smart people out there that actually think the artistic act is so mundane that it can be replicated by a machine.' Nick also branded submissions of ChatGPT-generated lyrics written in the style of Nick Cave as "bulls***' and 'a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human."
News.com.au
4 days ago
- News.com.au
Peter Garrett urges Aussies to fight proposed laws to allow AI models to steal music and books
Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett has said proposals to water down copyright law to allow AI companies to steal music, books and other art to train their models would make 'roadkill' out of songwriters, authors and playwrights. During a creative industries town hall on Tuesday, Garrett said the push by Big Tech to scrape text and data contained in songs, books, plays and films without paying for it was a 'moment of reckoning' for Australia. The virtual protest meeting comes after Crowded House were forced to call out a fake AI ad on social media that cloned Neil Finn's likeness and voice. Dressed up as a nightly news report, the ad for a men's health product featured the fake Finn saying he had become a father again at 67 after battling erectile dysfunction. 'We're not sure where this came from but please don't be fooled. Neil's never had trouble with erections,' the band captioned their warning about the AI ad. The Stolen Property: Big Tech's Push to Mine Our Culture virtual protest meeting aims to galvanise a national campaign against the Productivity Commission interim report which featured a policy option to create a new fair-dealing exception under the Copyright Act. That policy would allow 'text and data mining' to train AI models with songs and other works without compensating songwriters. 'The threat here is literally to our cultural, political, social and economic sovereignty and capacity to make decisions and to be protected in an environment where there are massive behemoths of unparalleled power and influence, with extremely powerful technologies getting ready to let rip,' Garrett said. 'And if we don't take it up to our politicians, then we'll be left as roadkill on the side of the road. 'It won't just be musicians lying there, wounded and bleeding. It'll be all be all of us.' Digital Rights Watch chair Lizzie O'Shea warned it wasn't just the creators of Australian culture whose livelihoods would be impacted by the Productivity Commission recommendations. She said the personal information of all Australians would be exploited by Big Tech and AI models if privacy laws were also watered down. O'Shea shared how two security researchers last month exposed the security vulnerability of an AI chatbot created by that allowed them to access the personal information of thousands of Australians applying for a job at McDonald's. 'AI is only as good as the data it's trained on and this includes not just copyrighted material but also personal information,' O'Shea said. 'And that personal information was often collected for an entirely different purpose than training a large language model, for example, and that has obviously quite serious ethical implications.' Garrett said the government needed to implement robust guardrails to protect Australian culture and the income of our storytellers against the 'thievery' of the world's biggest tech companies, who take billions of dollars out of the country even as they complain about media regulations and copyright laws. The former Federal Government minister said Australians concerned about the threat of AI should lobby their local members against the Productivity Commission policy recommendations.
