Tim Finn has amassed a body of work that most songwriters and creative visionaries could only dream of producing.
Tim is back on the road because he "loves performing live with a band that is tight and focused".Expect to hear musicians of the highest calibre who will be "playing all the parts that belong on the recordings", when he returns to Australia for an east-coast tour in September.
Tim has crafted a chronological set list of songs that he "can still fully inhabit, and never tire of singing". The upcoming tour, 'The Lives And Times Of Tim Finn' will epically run the gamut of his best work from 1977 to the present day.
When considering his influences, Tim still has a deep reverence for The Beatles and declares that, "I'm as old as rock & roll itself". As a seasoned visionary ensconced in the sonic realms, he believes "playing live is the link between a songwriter and his or her next album". Performing "feeds into the writing, and it never gets old".
Should you be new to the world of Tim Finn, the rabbit hole leading to his body of work is a rewarding trip. What albums would Tim recommend to you as a new listener?
"I think it's a good idea to start with 'Escapade' [1983], because that's where it kicked off for me. I stepped out from the band Split Enz and just discovered the joys of working in a room with different people and different projects.
"'Before & After' [1993] would be the next one, and that is a good place to go because there's a song on there called 'Many's The Time' where I was basically in Dublin for the first time and my mother was born in Ireland. So wow, it was an awakening you know – my hereditary life and all my ancestors and it just was a great time for me.
"I would probably [then] go to 'Feeding The Gods' [2001] from there because it was a second album I made with a producer in America called Jay Joyce and I wanted to go to do quite a lot of guitars and sort of crank them up on that record and see what that did to my voice.
"And the other side of me, with a quiet and tender sort of feeling to it is 'The Conversation' [2008], which is the complete opposite and is a very acoustic record without drums. It was like a chamber kind of group consisting of guitar, piano, violin, and bass."
Recently, Tim released 'AT' [2023] in collaboration with Andy White, as well as 'The Ghost Of Santiago' [2022] and 'Caught By The Heart' [2021] with Phil Manzanera.
On keeping the song writing fresh, Tim has this to say. "The fact that I've been working in theatre and with musicals and opera, over the last ten years, has really liberated me with lyrics because I'm used to getting inside the head of characters.
"And of course, I'm looking for things. There's always new ways you can find a way of tricking yourself into writing a song."
A project with members of Split Enz called Forenzics started in 2020 gave Tim another creative angle. "We started by finding little sections of early Split Enz songs and then looping them up and creating whole new songs," shares Tim.
"We had all that kind of personal nostalgia and memory. Also sadness and poignancy to the passing of time. And what you lose and what you gain and then you suddenly write this new song, and it's got this very fertile seed at the heart of it. So that was exciting."
Recording has changed considerably since Tim's first album and he embraces the possibilities, particularly with emails and home studios. "It's incredibly exciting because you don't have to get on a plane and travel 5,000 miles and book a studio.
"You, on a whim, send a file. Boom! Off you go and you're song writing across the planet. It's unbelievable. It's miraculous to me. And it can be very liberating."
Tim has mixed feelings about streaming. "On the one hand, it's very accessible, on the other hand, it's very disposable. And so you lose something you know."
And he loves albums. "I think because the preciousness of the artefact, you know, going out to buy an album."
He's excited that albums are embraced by "people now in their 20s or late teens who are weirdly nostalgic for a time they weren't alive and they can sense that something was special about it.
"I love albums. And I still want to be able to sit down and play an album. You do spend a long time deciding on the song order, you know, it's part of the beauty of an album."
On preparation for the tour and maintaining his amazing voice range and dexterity, Tim has a plan. "I will be going into training.
"I do have a set of vocal exercises that I do when I'm playing live. And they're great and given to me by this guy in New York. I can still use my falsetto. It seems to have remained really clear and strong.
"But the upper registers needs a bit of help as you age, but then something else happens in the voice that can be right as well, you know, experience and the wear and tear kind of come through and the emotion of time passing."
Tim Finn 2023 Tour Dates
Wed 13 Sep - Palais Theatre (Melbourne)Thu 14 Sep - The Fortitude Music Hall (Brisbane)
Sun 17 Sep - Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
