Neil Finn

Neil Mullane Finn ( born May 27, 1958 in Te Awamutu ) is a New Zealand rock musicians of Irish descent. He sings, plays guitar and piano and pop songwriter. Known to a wider audience, he has been a member / songwriter of the band Split Enz and Crowded House.

  • 2.1 Albums with Split Enz
  • 2.2 Albums with Crowded House
  • 2.3 Albums with Tim as " Finn Brothers"
  • 2.4 solo albums and other publications

Life

Childhood and youth

Neil Mullane Finn was in Te Awamutu, New Zealand, the son of the accountant Richard Finn and his wife Mary ( nee Mullane ) was born as the youngest of four children. The musical talent was encouraged by both parents in the children, first appeared in Neil's older brother Brian, who - born 1952 - British intensively with schoolmates rock music heard and soon played.

Neil heard, influenced by his older brother, a lot of music from the Beatles, Kinks, the Dave Clark Five and the Bee Gees. He learned guitar and piano playing, and proven polyphonic vocal harmonies of his idols as a child.

When Brian 1972 at the age of 19 along with school friend Philip Judd, the avant-garde Combo Split Ends and founded his second name Timothy / Tim took as an artist name, Neil began to emulate him.

In Split Enz

After a short-lived band 's After-hours, the 18- year-old had founded in 1976 with two friends, Neil joined in 1977 right after the end of schooling Split Enz as a guitarist at ( the altered spelling pointed to the New Zealand origin back ). He went through here a steep learning curve in the band that had already released three albums at the time and was considered the discovery of Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera. First tentative steps as a songwriter led, after two flops in 1980 for the first international success of the band with the single I Got You, which reached number 12 in England.

From then on, the brothers Tim and Neil share with Split Enz most of the work as a songwriter. Three albums later, Tim left the band to pursue a solo career. Without frontman Tim the future seemed questionable, despite continued success, so to Split Enz broke up after a final tour at the end of 1984.

Transitional period

1983, shortly before the end of Split Enz, the band of young drummer Paul Hester had joined. With him, the Reels guitarist Craig Hooper and an enthusiastic bass player named Nicholas Seymour Neil appeared as The Mullane, who made a tour of Australia, which proved to be a total flop. Hooper joined soon after, and the future seemed uncertain. Finn and Hester went for months to Los Angeles in search of record company and producers. In 1986, she got a contract with Capitol Records and Mitchell Froom with a talented producer. Only towards the end of the recording of the first album, the band spent the strange name Crowded House decided.

Crowded House

The eponymous debut album (1986 ) threatened to be a flop, after the first two singles, World Where You Live and Mean to Me perished without resonance. With the third single and a sophisticated " guerrilla " promotion campaign made ​​a breakthrough: Do not Dream It's Over, a melancholy rock ballad with soulful impact and an old-fashioned -sounding Hammond organ in the instrumental part, brought it up to # 2 on the U.S. charts. In its wake, it also brought the album to larger sales figures and the following single Something So Strong in the Top 10, the second album Temple of Low Men ( 1988) brought disillusionment. The sales figures in the U.S. and the rest of the world were disappointing. 1989 sparked Finn in creative crisis, the trio for a few weeks. 1990 Tim joined the band in (whose solo career was stalled ). Together, the brothers Neil overcame writer's block, and brought as a quartet in 1991, the album Woodface out that first brought considerable success in England and continental Europe with several singles the band. Since then, the title Weather with You is an integral part rock -oriented radio stations. Another album, Together Alone (1993 ), is now regarded as an artistic climax of Crowded House. Here elements song oriented rock music with New Zealand - ethnic influences were skillfully mixed. Crowded House had already won the 1992 Brit Award for "Best Live Act"; 1992 and 1993 Neil won the Q Award as the world's best songwriters. After Paul Hester during the 1994 American tour left the band, it was clear the end: Two years later, Finn broke his second tape. In 2007, Neil Finn and Nick Seymour did get back together as Crowded House, released the album Time on Earth and went on an extensive world tour. The album Intriguer was published in June 2010 in parallel with a world tour.

Solo career / collaborations / Finn Brothers

Appeared in 1998 Neil's first solo album. Try Whistling This was a respectable sales success as an album; in the UK charts, it reached # 5 Three years later, Finn tried it as the only producer with his album One Nil and put this album together with famous musicians like Eddie Vedder, Johnny Marr and Ed O'Brien under the title 7 Worlds Collide in a later released as a live CD and DVD series of live concerts in Auckland before. Also in 2001, Neil Finn has composed his first film score ( for Christine Jeffs film Rain).

The concept 7 Worlds Collide was continued in 2008 /2009.

Together with brother Tim, he had in 1995 received a lo-fi album, on which the brothers played all the instruments himself, and let the songs speak relatively " unhewn " for themselves. Nine years later, in 2004 Everyone Is Here another duo album, the sound reminds strongly of Wood Face.

The Finn, based on the dwarf song by Howard Shore ( with tolkien between lines of text ) written and sung Song of the Lonely Mountain is part of the published in December 2012 soundtrack for the film The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey, directed by Peter Jackson.

Private life

Neil Finn has been married since 1982, with his wife, two sons (* 1983, * 1987), who are already self -employed in the music business.

Discography

Albums with Split Enz

  • Dizrythmia (1977 )
  • Frenzy (1979 )
  • True Colours (1980 )
  • Waiata / Corroborree (1981 )
  • Time and Tide ( 1982)
  • Conflicting Emotions ( 1983)
  • See Ya Round (1984 )
  • The Living Enz ( double live album, 1985)

Albums with Crowded House

  • Crowded House (1986 )
  • Temple Of Low Men ( 1988)
  • Wood Face ( 1991)
  • Together Alone (1993 )
  • Recurring Dream ( Best Of CD, 1996 )
  • Afterglow (rarities album, 1999)
  • Farewell To The World (Live Album, 2006)
  • Time On Earth ( 2007)
  • Intriguer (2010)

Albums with Tim as " Finn Brothers"

  • Finn ( 1995)
  • Everyone Is Here ( 2004)

Solo albums and other publications

  • Try Whistling This ( 1998)
  • One Nil (2001)
  • Rain ( soundtrack, 2001)
  • One All (2002, U.S. only)
  • 7 Worlds Collide (Live album and DVD, 2002) - with Eddie Vedder, Radiohead's Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway members, Johnny Marr and Lisa Germano )
  • 7 Worlds Collide: The Sun Came Out ( Double Album, 2009) - with Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway, Johnny Marr, Sebastian Steinberg, Wilco and KT Tunstall )
  • Song of the Lonely Mountain ( theme song to The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey, 2012)
  • Goin ' Your Way ( Neil Finn & Paul Kelly, 2013)
  • Dizzy Heights (2014)
Two of Us (song) Paul Kelly (Australian musician) Integrated Authority File
597358
de