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**Final Cover Art:Layout 1 6/4/10 9:54 AM Page 1 26 mm The hits of Neil and Tim Finn read like a checklist of recent pop history. And to think it all began in sleepy, rural Te Awamutu, New Zealand, where Brian Timothy Finn fell in love with the Beatles, an obsession that would also work its way straight into his younger brother Neil’s DNA. Success for the brothers was a long time coming: it took several turbulent years in Split Enz before they produced a genuine hit and connected with the mainstream. And it was achieved by one of Neil’s songs, ‘I Got You’, which wasn’t the sweetest pill brother Tim had ever tasted. After all, Split Enz was his band, his odyssey, his obsession. When the Enz came undone, their paths split. Neil led world-beaters Crowded House, while Tim immersed himself in a series of bold, if not always successful, solo projects. Eventually the brothers reunited, leading to Woodface, an album considered by many to be Crowded House’s finest. Based on interviews, critical analysis, extensive research and the author’s 30-plus years of following the Finns, Together Alone is the first biography written about the Finn brothers. This is a story of breakthroughs, breakdowns, sibling rivalry and respect – and some of the best pop songs this side of Lennon and McCartney. www.randomhouse.com.au ISBN 978-1-74166-816-2 Front cover photo: Paul Spencer Back cover photo: Alan Wild Cover design: Darian Causby/Highway 51 Design Works 9 781741 668162 BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC Copyright © Jeff Apter 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. A William Heinemann book Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060 www.randomhouse.com.au First published by William Heinemann in 2010 Copyright © Jeff Apter 2010 The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry Apter, Jeff, 1961– Together alone: the story of the Finn brothers. ISBN 978 1 74166 816 2 (pbk.) Finn, Tim, 1952–. Finn, Neil, 1958–. Split Enz (Musical group). Crowded House (Musical group). Composers – New Zealand – Biography. Composers – Australia – Biography. Rock musicians – New Zealand – Biography. Rock musicians – Australia – Biography. Rock groups – New Zealand – Biography. Rock groups – Australia – Biography. 782.42166092 Front cover photo by Paul Spencer, back cover photo by Alan Wild Cover design by Darian Causby/Highway 51 Design Internal design and typesetting by Post Pre-press Group Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, an Accredited ISO AS/NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper this book is printed on is certified by the © 1996 Forest Stewardship Council A.C. (FSC). Griffin Press holds FSC chain of custody SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests. Copyright © Jeff Apter 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Together Alone_RH_3rd pages.indd 4 12/04/10 10:21 AM Chapter 1 ‘Ten pounds of boy’ ike any songwriter with a fully functional imagination, Tim LFinn is sometimes prone to exaggeration. So in 1982, when he sang in ‘Haul Away’, one of the most blatantly autobiographi- cal tracks from a guy who never thought twice about sharing, that he was born in ‘Te Awamutu, 25th of June 1952, ten pounds of boy’, he was playing with the truth, just a little. The real story is that Brian Timothy Finn, the first son of Dick and Mary Finn, actually tipped the scales at eight and a half pounds when he came into the world at Wharenoho Hospital, Te Awamutu’s first maternity facility. But what’s a pound and a half among friends when it works better in a lyric? Carolyn was the Finns’ firstborn, followed by Brian, Judy and, finally in 1958, Neil, the youngest of the Finn family. From Elvis Presley onwards, the history of popular music is littered with the unlikely stories of stars who have emerged from the toughest of upbringings to rise to the top of the heap, seem- ingly defying both logic and society’s natural order of things. Not Copyright © Jeff Apter 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 8 Together Alone_RH_final pages.indd 8 12/04/10 3:18 PM ‘TeN Pounds of Boy’ so with the Finns. Dick Finn was a solid-state citizen, a partner in a Te Awamutu accounting firm, a reserved, well-mannered man described by Tim as the ‘more chilled’ of his parents, fond of snooker and good whiskey. 1 Dick and his wife, Mary, were resolutely middle class – the Finns were no Gallagher brothers, fighting both society and the odds to make a name for them- selves. ‘I had great loving parents,’ Neil said of Dick and Mary, and that was clearly the case. Mary Finn was devoutly Catholic. Her spiritual belief may not have been practised with any commitment by her famous sons later in their lives, but it always lurked somewhere in the background, guiding their decisions and influencing their states of mind. Catholicism also provided them with plenty of source material, if their lyrical stocks ever ran a little dry (‘Into Tempta- tion’, anyone?). As Neil readily admitted in 1998, ‘I was Catholic through and through. It’s still ingrained, and you know, it’s a great fertile ground for pulling lyrics out. [There’s] lots of good stuff going on in there, good rituals and imagery and lots of guilt. It’s a very potent combination. I think you’re blessed, really, to be brought up with some kind of weird dogma like that.’ 2 When a book of Neil’s lyrics was published, one reviewer zeroed in on this undeniably strong aspect of Finn’s wordplay. ‘It’s fair to say,’ the critic noted, ‘there’s more than a whiff of the fire and brim- stone of a rural Catholic upbringing about his imagery.’ 3 ‘Dick and Mary were very protective of their family – espe- cially their baby [Neil],’ said a Te Awamutu friend of the youngest Finn, who’d spend time at their house with a collection of Neil’s schoolfriends. ‘And of course none of us were Catholic, so I’m not sure we were ever really accepted.’ Not surprisingly, this emphasis on all things Catholic emerged Copyright © Jeff Apter 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 9 Together Alone_RH_3rd pages.indd 9 12/04/10 10:21 AM TogeTher AloNe from Mary’s staunchly Irish side of the family. Mary Mullane was born in Limerick and at the age of two, along with her mother and sister, joined their father, Tim, who had shifted to New Zea- land six months earlier. Tim Mullane was a farmhand, who’d been invited by his Protestant employer – who was being pursued by the IRA – to follow him and settle in New Zealand. Running dairy farms in the towns of Te Aroha and Putaruru, the Mullanes set up their home in the Waikato province in New Zealand’s North Island. 3a Mary may have only lived in her country of birth for two years, but her Irish blood ran deep: her eldest son would often refer to her as an ‘Irish poet’ and, many years later, both her boys would make significant efforts to connect with their Irish roots. Neil even considered relocating to the Emerald Isle when he felt the time was right to move his young family out of Australia. And he did name his firstborn Liam. ‘I wanted an Irish name,’ Neil would tell an American radio DJ, ‘because of my mother.’ Dick Finn, meanwhile, was the son of a Waikato farmer, who took up accountancy during World War II, studying for his exams in Wellington while tuning into the sounds of big bands on his radio. Dick’s brother served in the air force, and Dick would also serve, in the army in Italy, towards the end of the war. Before his path crossed with Mary Mullane, he had little involvement with the Catholic church. But that would change soon enough. If the Finn brothers’ ‘Irishness’ came from Mary’s people, it’s fair to say that both Mary and Dick contributed heavily to their love of music. Mary’s mother, Nora, was a natural singer, with a good ear.