Crowded House

This is a biography for Crowded House in the year Twenty Ten in which I will attempt to provide a bit of history, lay out the facts surrounding the making of our upcoming record and to signal our intention for new shows and extra curricular activity thereof…..right then.  

This is Neil talking. The whole thing started with Split Enz.  In 1972 I watched it unfold in real life as a glassy eyed teenage brother, became immersed in it and then at the age of 19, that was 1977,  I got to be part of that mighty and mental  NZ invention. We took it to every corner of the globe, stumbling from one opportunity to another. I wrote some songs along the way, I Got You, Message To My Girl , One Step Ahead, History Never Repeats , they helped to give the band a bigger audience but that early music will always stand tall for me, original and uncompromising, my inspiration…check out Mental Notes! Respect to brother Tim, Eddie , Noel , Phil and the others  for blazing the trail. After all, they started it.  I was invited in.  It was intense and truly excellent.   

Paul Hester (drums) and I (singer / guitar) went onwards from Split Enz to Crowded House, we wanted to be in a 3 piece band that could fit into one rental car. We found our bass player Nick Seymour, fresh from the catwalk, clearly loving the attention. We liked how he wore his bass low, had aspirations to funk and after a while we let him paint our suits with Masonic symbols. Despite all that and along the way we became a really good band. I think we tried to make ourselves even smaller by turning to acoustic, bass, snare drum, 3 part harmonising our way through lounge rooms and restaurants, busking, unplugged, whatever they ended up calling it on MTV. It made us very interested in our audience and we learnt how to draw them in, to sing together like it’s a party. That’s became our way of doing things, wishing for accidents, showing artifice and awkwardness the door.  

I remember Nick wanted us to be the biggest band in the world and was convinced that it was right there and we should take it. He was probably right but I didn’t really like the attention that much and so I pulled away from it.  I dyed my hair one too many times and worried about it all far too much. Paul built up a layer of contempt for the whole circus and after a while just couldn’t find the joy in it. He wanted to go home and watch telly, he even got a tattoo of TV’s on his arm, and then he left in the middle of a U.S tour, Atlanta it was, but we carried on undaunted until ……can’t exactly remember what made me break up the band. I was just over it. That was 1995.

When we lost Paul it was like someone pulled the rug out from underneath everything, a terrible jolt out of the dark blue. He was the best drummer I had ever played with and for many years, my closest friend . I thought our history was good, how could it have ended up in this place?  Later that year I started making music with Nick again, and it felt right somehow that we put another chapter in the book, the motive was simply to exist again and put our belief into it, reconnect with the kindred spirit.  

And so the 4 of us Nick Seymour ( bass ), Mark Hart  ( keys / guitar ), Matt Sherrod (drums) and myself  Neil ( singer, player )  began our new record last year at Roundhead studios in Auckland with Mr Jim Scott as our producer ally. Some of these 11 songs were first played at a little gig north of Auckland The Leigh Sawmill back in Feb 2008. They have been worked over on the road and transformed a few times, some all the way back to square one, it’s a good place to return, from time to time.

And yes, the tour will follow, from the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Music festival  to The Isle of Wight, May/ June theatres in The U.K and Europe, late summer in the U.S  and maybe a few far flung cities, new destinations, we could turn up anywhere. The intention is the same as ever to get the people involved, to hit some heights and leave the songs hanging in the air….

This 11 track album is exotic in parts, traditional in origin, through many a twist and turn we fashioned some drama and intrigue. You will find some threads that go back through all that history and some new discoveries as well that will need to be followed up. Its part of the continuum and it may just be the best thing we’ve done ……till the next one.

Tickets are available on www.ticketmaster.ie as well as from the Royal Theatre Box Office on 0818 300 000. Tickets are priced €54.80 incl. booking fee, other service charges may apply. For further information please check the Royal Theatre website on: www.theroyal.ie or www.ticketmaster.ie