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 printing, 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. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Together Alone ePub ISBN 9781864716009 Kindle ISBN 9781864716313 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 TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Dedication Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Coda Acknowledgements Notes Selected Discography About the Author More from Random House To Boo, Lili, D and the King Pitt Street Gardens, Sydney, July 1979 Sydney’s Pitt Street Gardens was not your typical rock-and-roll venue. The décor put a whole new spin on the term lurid: a cheesy mirrorball hovered above the dance floor, and there was a sea of dark carpet to hide the stains of spilled drinks and worse, while its location – smack dab in the centre of Sydney’s retail strip – made most serious music fans wary of the place. By its very nature, and location, this was a meat market where over-dressed suburban Kevins and Sharlenes came together and commingled on the dance floor, ideally to the soundtrack of the Village People or perhaps Sister Sledge. It was not the kind of joint where you’d expect to catch a greasepaint-splattered, be-suited group of expat Kiwis. Yet there were enough ‘real’ music lovers assembled on this weeknight, me included, to check out the band that would soon become the hottest act either side of the Tasman. I was still a few months shy of legal drinking age, but when a buddy suggested, strongly, that we check out this ‘weird’ band that the cool crowd was raving about, I knew it was my duty to catch the next city-bound train. ‘They’re crazy,’ he told me. ‘You should see their haircuts – and their costumes are ridiculous.’ That was more than enough to entice me, a restless teenager living in humdrum suburbia, to scratch together the cover charge and, hopefully, talk my way past the security guy on the door. I was mad keen to check out the freak show. Split Enz weren’t totally new to me. I had heard some of their recent offerings on Sydney’s left-of-the-dial radio station 2JJ, such as the tearaway rant ‘I See Red’ and the heady, giddy ‘Give It a Whirl’, among others, to know them well enough. But up until then I hadn’t had the chance to see them in the greasepainted flesh – not many rock shows of their theatrical bent included my blue-ring-around-the-collar neighbourhood in their tour schedule. Mine was more a ‘beer and Chisel’ kind of town, where the louder the band played, the better the response, this being the so-called glory days of Oz rock, the time of the Rads and the Tatts and the Oils. I knew that the Enz weren’t one of those bands, even if I wasn’t completely sure what to expect. All this was going through my head once my friend and I talked our way past the doorman and snagged a primo vantage spot upstairs, overlooking the pokey Pitt Street Gardens stage. What I hadn’t considered was that the support act would mess with my head almost as much as the headliners. Shock rockers Jimmy and the Boys – who’d soon score a major hit with the Tim Finn-penned ‘They Won’t Let My Girlfriend Talk to Me’ – were fronted by Ignatius Jones, a double-jointed, bisexual motormouth in leather bondage pants, and also featured a keyboardist in an evening gown and towering beehive, gender indeterminate, who went by the name Joylene Hairmouth. The rest of the band pulled the obligatory menacing poses, but I’d seen enough punk bands to know it was just a stance. But as for Joylene and Jimmy, well, shit, they were the real deal: a gender-bending, audience-baiting, extremely odd couple. That was made very clear when they began simulating, as I turned to my friend in disbelief, a sexual act of ‘mutual gratification’ towards the end of their sweaty set. This suburban boy couldn’t look away; they were just too weird for words. Tim Finn once wrote a song called ‘Hard Act to Follow’ and, though legend suggests it’s a nod to Midnight Oil, he may well have been talking about Jimmy and the Boys. I feared that it would be an anti-climax – excuse the pun – when the Enz hit the stage very late on this particular school night. What, for God’s sake, could they do to match what I’d just witnessed? But once they began to play it became apparent they were almost as visual a band as their opening act, and not just because of their garish bespoke suits and eye-popping light show. As they played, it was as if each member of the band had rubbed up against a live electrical wire: they crashed into one another while hurling themselves around the stage, their manic stares set just above the crowd’s head, their wild hair and pancake make-up greasy and running within minutes. It was impossible to tell if they were laughing, crying or sneering. To me, the impact was as much physical as it was musical – and I had no doubt this band could play – as they caromed off each other like human pinballs. And out front stood Tim Finn, whose dark, towering quiff gave him an extra few inches over the rest of the band, and whose intense stare, ghostwhite face dripping sweat, suggested a man who meant business. I went away duly impressed: I’d witnessed a freakshow and a frenetic display of muscle and musicianship. It sure beat a night of Charlie’s Angels re-runs. As my all-stations train lumbered home, I had the time to ponder just how many bruises each member of Split Enz had by set’s end; they were living proof that in order to feel music it sometimes also had to hurt. And within months the band’s star began to shine its brightest, on the back of their most commercially sharp set, 1980’s True Colours. I was now a fan and devoured the album as soon as it hit my local record store. Fast-forward 27 years to August 2006. I was again in the same room as Tim Finn, although we were now in a smart Kings Cross wine bar rather than some sleazy mid-town nightclub. (The Pitt Street Gardens is long gone, now the site of a ‘gentlemen’s club’.) I asked Tim about 1979 and he still remembered the show, not because it was a standout gig, but because it marked a huge turning point for the Enz, as they morphed from 2JJ favourites to ‘the band’ of 1980 – Countdown darlings, live must-sees and shifters of some serious units. Punters just couldn’t get enough of Neil Finn’s ‘I Got You’ and Tim’s sadly beautiful ballad ‘I Hope I Never’; both were huge hits and the album was an unstoppable commercial force. And in 1979 the Finns and their respectives had just moved to Sydney, so the Emerald City meant a lot to the brothers. Now, in 2006, Tim was easing himself back into the mainstream after many years of enforced ‘indiedom’. His new album, Imaginary Kingdom, unlike his previous few LPs, had been recorded on the major-label dollar. A new US-based management team was in place, and there was a definite push to try and return this Kiwi icon to the heart of the mainstream. The passing of the years was reflected in Tim’s shock of grey hair and lined face, but he was still handsome enough, albeit in a King Lear-ish kind of way. He was now regal rather than menacing; his gaze more benign than that of the 1979 pop star who admitted he was on an ‘odyssey’ with Split Enz. In theory, I was there to grab a sneak preview of Imaginary Kingdom, but truth be told I was there to speak with Tim about this book – and reminisce a little. Even though it wasn’t on his publicist’s run sheet, he was happy to speak with me, as we flashed back to that 1979 gig and caught up (our paths