'How was the cocaine?'
Dad jokes rule in Crowded House.
A new album was finished remotely, all five band members spent time in quarantine, and lock down scares are threatening their 12-date New Zealand tour. A re-imagined Crowded House line-up, including Neil Finn’s sons, tells me how Covid-19 nearly derailed all of their plans - and still could. (This story first appeared on Stuff.co.nz)
Three weeks ago, Nick Seymour, a co-founding member of the Australian-New Zealand band Crowded House, woke early at his home in Sligo, Ireland. It was 2am and he faced a two-hour drive to catch a 7am flight out of Dublin Airport.
As he walked to his car, something crossed Seymour's mind for the first time.
"I thought, 'This is actually delusional. This is hare-brained,'" says the band’s bassist. "Someone is throwing money at this, it's never going to happen and we're getting deeper into it."
Seymour was about to embark on a 32-hour journey so he could take part in the latest iteration of his and Neil Finn's band Crowded House, an ongoing musical collaboration that began in Melbourne after Finn's previous group, Split Enz, split in 1984. It has lasted 36 years.
They initially planned to release a new album and spend 2021 touring the world, but the pandemic forced Crowded House to pare everything back to a 12-date trek in the one country where large-scale touring is still possible - the mostly Covid-free New Zealand.
Starting Thursday, the new-look Crowded House line-up of Neil Finn, his sons, drummer Elroy and guitarist and singer Liam, bassist Seymour and keyboardist Mitchell Froom, will perform Crowded House singalong classics for tens of thousands of Kiwis at arena shows around the country, several of which are already sold out.
They'll also be playing a selection of new cuts from Dreamers Are Waiting, the group's new album and first since 2010's Intriguer, set for release on June 4.
But, as Seymour neared Dublin Airport for his first overseas trip in more than a year, he was having second thoughts.
“I actually doubted what I was doing,” he says. “It was very hectic. Even organising (an airline) that wasn't going to cancel at the last minute ... was really fraught.”
Seymour, who is Australian but has called Ireland home for the past 20 years, wasn't the only one facing a long trip to New Zealand. Froom, who produced Crowded House's first three albums, plays on some of the group's most iconic songs and more recently became the group's full-time keyboardist, lives in Los Angeles. The group's tour manager, and Neil's tech, also traveled from overseas.
Once here, they spent two weeks in quarantine to comply with the country's strict border security measures to halt the spread of Covid-19.
Froom admits the transition from America, where the effects of the virus have upended normal life, was surreal. “Living in the States, it's like you're in mourning because you can't play (music) with another person,” he says. “It's so difficult.”
As soon as they emerged from quarantine there was another setback: three community cases of Covid-19 forced Auckland go back into Alert Level 3, with potential to move up to Level 4.
Level 4 means no rehearsals, and, depending on alert levels around the rest of the country, potentially postponing or cancelling some tour dates. “There could have been an outbreak,” admits Neil Finn.
Even worse, the band's five members faced the possibility of living up to the title of Crowded House's 2007 album, Together Alone, by being in the same city but unable to see each other.
“If we were in Level 4, they (Seymour and Froom) would have been in their hotel rooms unable to leave,” says Neil, who had already been through quarantine when he, Liam and Elroy returned from Los Angeles in October.
To counter that, he organised beds to be moved into the band's rehearsal space at Roundhead Studios on Auckland’s Newton Road. “We had plans to put beds in the building for everyone to sleep in, so we could all stay in the same bubble under level four,” he admits.
Doing all of this: filling out the necessary paperwork, booking flights, rehearsing for the shows remotely using dropbox click tracks, finishing the new album by collaborating online from opposite sides of the world, committing to quarantine, and co-ordinating everyone to be in the right place at the right time to make the tour happen, has not been easy.
“It was a big process fraught with the possibility of having our hopes dashed,” says Neil, perched on couches with the rest of the band around him in an office at Roundhead Studios. “Touch wood, cross every available limb, it looks good.
“We've just managed by the hairs of our chinny-chin-chin to get this thing going.”
‘We’re protecting the legacy’
As a nappy-clad toddler in the early '90s, Elroy Finn had a front row seat as Crowded House toured to promote hit-packed albums like 1988's Temple of Low Men and 1991's Woodface.
He grew up as Fall at Your Feet and Weather With You first became hits, then singalong standards, and finally era-defining classics.
Even from a young age, Elroy liked what he saw.
“Elroy used to stand on the side of the stage and imitate Nick (Seymour)'s dance moves,” says his dad, Neil Finn. “Nick would be doing a prance across the stage and Elroy would be there, pretending to be Nick.”
Likewise, Elroy's older brother Liam Finn grew up with Crowded House front and centre of his life, mastering both drums and guitar by mimicking the songs he heard his dad's band play.
“I idolised them. I probably know every song, even unreleased songs - it's all in the vault,” says Liam, who says the band's former drummer Paul Hester, who died in 2005, remains a big influence.
"Both me and Elroy learnt how to play drums by playing Fall at your Feet without anyone looking at you like it was slow. That was a memorable thing growing up. I think that's why we can slip into this.”
Elroy, 31, and Liam, 37, have enjoyed successful solo careers: Liam formed the rock act Betchadupa in his teens and released three acclaimed solo albums, while Elroy has performed with Lawrence Arabia, Connan Mockasin and Cut Off Your Hands, and released his own album of askew indie-pop in 2019.
Both were living in Los Angeles when their dad Neil, who had spent the previous year touring as part of Fleetwood Mac, asked them a question.
“I went, ‘What do you think about the possibility of Crowded House?’” remembers Neil, who was re-energised by his time spent with a classic British-American band and imagined a “revitalised, fresh” version of Crowded House emerging.
"I didn't know what anyone would think. It was just an idea in my brain (but) it seemed so right.”
Their response was an immediate yes. They'd already spent years playing together, learning their instruments as kids, jamming at home as teenagers and recording and touring with their father under various guises ever since. Liam had previously joined Crowded House during a 2007 tour for their album Time On Earth.
This time, though, it's been made more permanent. With Liam stepping up on guitar and vocals, and Elroy playing drums, they realise there's instant pressure to get this right.
Both know the weight of what they're working on.
"Getting to be part of protecting this legacy and ... helping to evolve the legacy was what was appealing,” says Liam. “We grew up with this. It was drilled into us. I don't think there's anyone in the world that probably cares about it as much as me and Elroy.”
Liam points out that he and Elroy aren't just fill-ins. There might not be signed contracts in place, but they're fully-fledged band members, taking over from drummer Matt Sherrod, who joined the group after Hester's death and left in 2016, and guitarist Mark Hart, who was with the group until 2019.
"Full credit to Matt and Mark - by no means are we sweeping that under the rug. That's something that was really important to the band,” says Liam. “But for us to do this felt like there was a chance to make some new movement and a new era of the band.”
There are tough discussions too. Many of Neil's new songs, some written while touring with Fleetwood Mac, others dating back more than five years, were shaped into entirely new forms for the new album. “No one glosses over anything. It's straight talking and that can be confronting at times, but we know how to deal with it,” says Liam.
He points out that it feels like “a real band,” one that's developed its own dynamic. There's even a “text thread” on which they share jokes.
“We all make each other laugh,” says Liam. “It doesn't feel like we're even different generations. That's kind of what a band should be, a gang of people that enjoys making music together.”
It's true. Spend time with the five-piece and you'll see their easy camaraderie constantly in action. During an hour-long discussion, there are lengthy divergences into historic family issues, old Crowded House performances gone awry, and a sudden and extremely passionate comparison of all James Bond theme tunes.
At one point, when Elroy leaves the room, he jokes about being “addicted to heroin”.
Later on, during rehearsals, when he exits the room again, Neil quips, “How was the cocaine?” upon his return.
It might be a dad joke, but it's still funny, and everyone laughs.
‘We don’t want to waste a moment’
Crowded House’s new-found family connection can be seen in action as soon as they pick up their instruments.
At Roundhead Studios, where Crowded House will rehearse the full concert setlist every day before their tour starts, as long as alert levels allow them to, they whip through gorgeous, elegant renditions of set staples World Where You Live and Fall at Your Feet.
Crowded House will perform for two hours at each show, with a set list numbering up to 26 songs. “Two hours is enough for everyone - even the boss,” jokes Neil about his stamina. He's been singing so much in rehearsals he's been losing his voice.
During new song To the Island, a rockier track with lyrics that directly reference the worldwide pandemic and a video that pays tribute to how their album was recorded remotely, there's a moment that shows those family dynamics, honed over years of playing together, in action.
Froom makes the group redo a verse-chorus transition, so he can practice his part again. Once he's done it, he signals that he's nailed it, and they can end the song early. But he can't get the band's attention. Neil's left leg is jiggling up and down as he rocks out, while Elroy and Seymour hammer out the rhythm section and Liam loses himself in a solo.
They're jamming a completely different extended ending to the song, one that's more electric and heavier than that on record, and they're clearly enjoying the workout.
Afterwards, Neil grins at Elroy, Seymour is all smiles and Liam gives Froom a thumbs up, nodding his head and declaring: “Cool!”
It's moments like that, says Neil, that makes putting his band back together worth all the struggles of the past six months.
“Every morning I wake up and can't believe my luck. We're in a remarkably fortunate position. We don't want to waste a moment of it,” he says.
“We're going to put every ounce into it and enjoy the hell out of it.”
Crowded House's nationwide tour was supposed to begin at Claudelands Arena in Hamilton this Thursday, but that, and the band’s two Napier shows, have been postponed due to the move to Alert Level 3 in Auckland, and to Level 2 in the rest of the country. The band's new album, Dreamers are Waiting, is due out on June 4.
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