Something so strong pulls Neil Finn back to the open road, even 40 years on

You might assume that after 40 years with Crowded House, Neil Finn would’ve done it all. But then you see a viral video where he’s singing Don’t Dream It’s Over with pop star Dua Lipa and you think, hmm, that’s unexpected.

“I just got an email, turns out she and her father, who manages her, are big fans. I was very happy to be asked,” says Finn about being invited onstage by Lipa at her gig in Auckland in April.

Crowded House will headline the Red Hot Summer Tour this October and November.

“I happen to have an affection for her music, in part because my grandsons Buddy and Manaia danced to Houdini and Levitating all summer. I like her stuff and I like her, she emanates something really positive and good and she was a delight.”

Also unexpected? That there are somehow places left in Australia that Crowded House have never yet managed to play. It’s partly the reason the band will headline Red Hot Summer, a touring festival that’ll take them through regional Australia this October and November, alongside acts like The Church, Angus & Julia Stone, and old acquaintances Mark Seymour and Vika & Linda.

“It’s going to be quite a hanging-out-with-the-family kind of vibe, a pretty tight crew getting around to some interesting parts of Australia that we haven’t been to for years or sometimes ever,” says Finn.

“There’s a bit of extra excitement in the audience when you turn up in a place that’s off the beaten track a little bit, where they don’t necessarily get things like this. We’re pleased to be part of that, and we aim to make it an unforgettable night”.

Ever the ageing muso with his tousled grey hair, horn-rimmed glasses and pilling green jumper, Finn, 67 – Zooming from his sun-dappled writing room in Auckland – says he’s a creature of habit when it comes to music these days. “I have a fairly strict life. Not ‘strict’ because I love it, but a routine of coming into this room here every day and just exploring,” he says.

He’s been getting new songs going for Crowded House’s next album, which he hopes to record in August, with the same lineup – his sons Liam and Elroy, and super-producer Mitch Froom on keyboards – established on 2021’s acclaimed comeback Dreamers Are Waiting and last year’s Gravity Stairs.

“They’re such good musicians that it’s been a joy, and everybody’s deeply connected to the soul and history of the band,” says Finn. “They bring a lot to it – their own songs, their own perspectives – so it feels like a fresh thing. I feel like we might reach a great new height as a band on this record.”

It’s a promising sentiment, considering it’s coming almost exactly 40 years to the day that Crowded House first played live – as the Mullanes on June 11, 1985 in Melbourne.

“I remember that whole tour,” Finn laughs. “We learned some songs I had lying around, songs that were later on the first Crowded House album but were in a fairly ragged state at that point, and we did a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Dancing Days, so that was fun.”

There were also the daily indignities that fuel any band’s salad days. “I was also the tour manager, so I had the slightly embarrassing position of having to collect the money every night,” Finn recalls.

“We didn’t do very well in terms of attracting large audiences, but we had a good agent who negotiated good fees for us, so I would go backstage after the shows and the promoter would be counting out money over an ironing board or something and he’d go, ‘It was $2000, right?’ and I’d say, ‘Actually it’s supposed to be $4000’, and he’d go, ‘Aw shit!’.

“I think we burnt every promoter from one end of Australia to the other, but hopefully we went back and made them some money at some point.”

In today’s nostalgia era, anniversary celebrations can get a bit arbitrary. But does 40 years of Crowded House mean something special to Finn?

“It’s just an unbelievable milestone,” he says. “I think the band’s got a great legacy, but I feel good about the fact that music still feels compelling and vital and that I’ve got every bit of energy I have now as I had then. In some ways, maybe even more because I feel like I’ve got too much to do. There’s a lot of good stuff to get done.”

At least touring life is more comfortable than it was back then. “So much that I can’t even compare it,” says Finn. “That was the frontier. We were driving ourselves around big distances in Australia, and it was fun being a young band, but we had no idea what we were. Now we know what we are, but I still see it as a wide frontier open in front of us.”

The Red Hot Summer Tour with Crowded House, Angus & Julia Stone, The Church, Mark Seymour with Vika & Linda, and The Waifs starts on October 18.