SPLIT ENZ
SECONDS OUT
It’s 50 years since riotously costumed Kiwis Split Enz landed in England unannounced to record their debut album. Except it was actually their second. Co-frontman Tim Finn and producer Phil Manzanera tell the story.
ANDY FYFE
Enzyclopedia Volumes One & Two, Split Enz’s new early-years boxset, includes insights from the band as well as producer Phil Manzanera (pictured below)
© Peter Hill-Travis
As the wild-haired, bug-eyed glasses wearing guitarist for Roxy Music, Phil Manzanera was no stranger to the more theatrical side of the pop spectrum in 1975. Even for him, however, encountering New Zealand art rockers Split Enz for the first time was a startling experience.
Roxy Music had flown from London to Sydney to start their first ever Australian tour, promoting their recent
Country Life
album. They had few reference points of what to expect in Australia. At the time, the country was known for a brash “she’ll be right” attitude towards culture: more beer than Byron, more “sheilas” than sophistication.
“Australia was bloody miles away,” Manzanera says, sitting in the sunny music room of his house. “It took forever to get there. We arrived in Sydney, had
no
idea what to expect except the back of beyond. I got to the hotel after 28 hours or something, flop on the bed, turn on
the
telly, and there’s Split Enz. What the fuck!?”
Manzanera was captivated. Whatever concept he had of Australian (sic) bands involved long hair, T-shirts and loud, heads-down no-nonsense rocking.
Instead, Split Enz were a riot of strange, brightly coloured suits, wild hairdos and exaggerated, theatrical makeup.
The band were also on the cusp of releasing their debut album,
Mental
Notes
,
which is about to be re-released as a
50th
anniversary 5CD or 3LP boxset.
“I just thought, ‘Who the fuck were
these
guys?’” Manzanera laughs, still baffled
by
his first sight of a band he would soon
help
introduce to the wider world. “They were absolutely incredible. Then next day
we
discovered at the gig that they were our support act.”
UNSTABLE CHEMISTRY
Split Enz existed for only 12 years, but in that time the band burned through 16 members.
“It was very unstable at times,” Tim Finn admits, “but in some ways those instabilities spurred us on. We were quite insular, but we always thought everyone in the group was just marvellous.”
Some members, such as drummer Div Vercoe and flute player Mike Howard, only stayed around for a matter of months, while others such as co-founder Phil Judd rejoined several times. At the point the band finally called it quits in 1984, no original members remained.
Among the shorter-serving members, violinist with the original 1972 line-up Miles Golding went on to join the Royal Philharmonic and BBC Symphony orchestras, and brothers Geoff and Mike Chunn went on to found Citizen Band, one of New Zealand’s biggest-selling groups in the late 70s.
Judd, meanwhile, eventually formed The Swingers, who scored 1981’s biggest selling No.1 single in both Australia and New Zealand with
Counting The Beat
.
Tim Finn left in 1984. The year before he’d released a successful solo album,
Escapade
, and following Split Enz’s 1983 album
Conflicting Emotions
he departed to concentrate on his solo career.
Which left his younger brother Neil Finn in charge of the band. It was a role Neil never felt comfortable with as he always saw Split Enz as Tim and Phil Judd’s band, but neither were members now. After a final album, 1984’s
See Ya ’Round
, Neil disbanded Split Enz and eventually formed Crowded House, which featured not just Split Enz’s final drummer Paul Hester, but long-serving keyboard player Eddie Rayner as an unofficial fourth member.