Tim Finn: Interview: Rip It Up

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INTERVIEW: "BACK FROM THE DEAD!"

Rip It Up: April, 2000
By Richard Cooke
(Contributed by Emma George)

NZ hero, sex symbol and cultural icon, the fellow has an OBE for Christ's sake. The press have lapped him up; recently married and now with a young son. "Tim, how does it feel to be back? How are you really feeling? Are you happy?" He's a bit over it and was pleased to talk to Richard Cooke about his music, and his videos.

The real news here is that last September Tim went on a journey to Nashville and found producer Jay Joyce. Thirteen days later Say It Is So was in the can and it was NOT a Country album. Tim then decided he would release this album himself using EMI International for distribution purposes. On returning home he opted not for an 'In-Vogue' director to make his video but instead utilised the unorthodox methods of the hugely talented Back Of The Y crew. They had him wrestling with a persistent windscreen washer on the roof of his speeding Holden for the video of 'Big Wave Rider' and then rising from the dead after a fatal drive-by in 'Death Of A Popular Song.' Had Tim lost his marbles?

"A friend said to me, 'Why don't you go to Nashville?" It sounded so wacky I thought, Why not? and I met producer Jay Joyce very soon after arriving. It was a bit of a fanciful notion in one way but in another way it was like total commitment and a make or break situation because I'd done some recordings prior to that and I'd chucked them all away. I didn't like any of them, I didn't have a label, so it cost me a lot of money to go to the States with my family and to dig in for two months. So I had to make it work really. Paying studio costs, Jay's fee, my own accommodation, transport, everything all added up. I mean, it was as simple as that, backs against the wall. Yet I had no idea what I was doing actually, it wasn't like a very logical plan to go to Nashville, 'cos I didn't want to make a country record, so why go to Nashville you know? It had a bit of lateral thinking in it, it was like the last place I expected to go, so therefore something good had to happen, it was a lot like that you know. It's hard to be too logical in rock and roll anyway, unless you're a record company marketing team or something."

Which brings us to your decision to release the album yourself?

"Yeh, it's an independent release, I've got distribution deals in various countries but I'm basically the record company. I went through a phase prior to this where as I said earlier I was doing recordings and I was shopping them around. I wasn't having any luck and looking back I can see why as I didn't like the stuff myself much. It reminded me once again of that whole procedure of committee's deciding your fate. Your manager, the label boss, the marketing team and all the rest of it, and I've done it all so many times. First of all I gave my manager the flick, then I thought well I may as well give any thought of trying to get a label the flick because I was starting to enjoy the feeling of being small and being in control. I was really starting to enjoy it and I was talking to people in Nashville about it, there's this guy who works for EMI publishing over there and I'm with them for the rest of the world so I kinda got to meet him and talk to him about it all and he was talking to be about the growth of the net and all these things. I'd obviously heard about them but he was giving me more of the specifics and more of the passion of that approach, and I don't know, I just got a taste for it. I thought, I'm not going to shop it, I'm not going to send it to anyone, I'm just gonna make it and put it out, and that's what I've done."

If you had a manger or record company, do you think they'd have been as happy to use the BOTY boys to make your clip?

"No, I mean when you're with a record company it's so easy to be susceptible to other opinions, you usually have a meeting about the video and look at the latest reels from the 'hot' directors. You go 'Oh, well that one looks alright,' it ends up being a bunch of crap and you hate it and it's cost $50,000, so I've avoided ALL of that. Basically my wife Marie was working on Ground Zero, she saw their work and said you've gotta meet these guys, we did and I said to them that they could choose any song they wanted. They chose 'Big Wave Rider,' it'll never be a single so it was just a film really, it was a film with a soundtrack in it. Got shown once on Havoc and I've had more reaction to it than any other video I've done... and it was fun!"

So apart from starring in your new 'films', what else have you been up to?

"Being a parent has really been the main thing I've done in the last two years but I've also done some songwriting which is this record. I guess I'm more inclined to throw things away now that I've ever been, so I've probably made 3 albums which has resulted in this one. I've recorded lots of stuff, chucked it away, chucked it away, chucked it away, wasn't happy, wasn't happy, finally got the right feeling and just did it, quickly, in just 13 days. But it took 2 years to get to that 13 days."

On the subject of further recordings in NZ, do you think that the production houses here are up to scratch?

"It's more a personality based thing for me, I mean like Jay was great and he was sorta like a good counterpoint for me. He's more rock and I mean rock in a good way, he's more guitar, he comes from a punk background in Cleveland so he's got that sort of Urban Decay in his bones, whereas I come from a pastoral NZ background, so it was a good balance. If there was someone here who had an opposite to me, I'd work with him in a flash. I've worked with
too many like-minded souls and I'm really into now trying to find opposites and balance... so I've got nothing against working here it would just be finding the right person to work with."

Have you caught up with your Nephews band Betchadupa?

"Oh yeh, I'm well up with Betchadupa, I love it, we went and saw them in Hamilton the other night with the feelers and you know, they're off to a good start."

What's the touring schedule looking like?

"I'm looking at a winter tour after a couple of shows at the Wellington fringe fest. I'd like to find a circuit throughout NZ that was smaller venues, 2-300 people, early gigs ... I'd maybe take a bass player as I now like to play the drums and the guitar at the same time. I've worked out how to do that now, I just play the snare with my left foot to give me a backbeat and a bass drum with my right, and then I've got the guitar which sorta does what the highhat does and it's sort of a one man band vibe. It means I've got a beat going and I can sorta get into it with my body. Yeh, so I want to do some of those kinda shows, with a mixture of new and old stuff. Then I'll do the States and Europe..."