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'We Were Meant To Create Something Special Together': Tim Finn On His Lost Collaboration With Chrissy Amphlett
Tim Finn divides his time between Sydney and Auckland these days, but we find him in Sydney.
The purpose of our chat is to discuss three long-lost tracks Tim wrote and recorded with Chrissy Amphlett back in 1998. She died 15 years later in 2013 at the age of 53.
The resulting songs – He’s In Love, Crash, and Sometimes – capture Amphlett in vulnerable, reflective mode, although her gritty timbre is unmistakable.
The Some Times EP – which explores “a deeper level of who Chrissy was”, according to Tim – will finally be released this week. In the accompanying presser, Tim reflects, “We were meant to create something special together. I only wish it could have gone on. But we have these three songs.“
When asked why the intimate tracks are just resurfacing now – coming up on 30 years since they were first committed to tape – Tim confesses, “I did sort of forget [about them]”.
“It was 1998, there was a lot happening,” he defends. “‘Cause our son [Harper] was born in February of that year, and so that was a whole new thing for me, and my wife Marie, of course, but particularly me, ‘cause I was already in my 40s, so I never thought I was going to actually get there [experience fatherhood].
"So that was an overwhelming and pretty amazing thing going on. Then there were other things as well, all intersecting, and so [the Amphlett/Finn recordings] did sort of get lost a little bit in the mists of time. But they were always in the back of my mind.
“Then when Charley [Drayton, bassist/drummer and Chrissy’s husband] reached out – a few years ago now – and asked me, did I still have the multi-track? I had a quick look for it – and I've got a whole lot of two-inch reels out in the garage from the days when I had a studio in Melbourne, the studio where we recorded quite a bit of Woodface [Crowded House’s 1991 album, their third], actually, and a few other things.
"And so I’d kept them all, ‘cause they were some precious recordings, but they were really – literally – stacked in my garage. So I didn't see anything, and I let it lie for another – I feel guilty saying this now, but probably about at least another year or so. Then just on an impulse, I went out again and had a more thorough search, and there it was, of course, this box!
“It was recorded in Surry Hills here in Sydney, and I got it baked, which you have to do with analog tape: they put them in these little ovens and bake them to get all the moisture and residue off the tape. And after that, it was digitised, and it all sounded splendid so, yeah! I sent it to Charley, and he got it mixed in New York. So one thing led to another…”
“I Was Able To Help Guide Chrissy Into A New Way Of Approaching Things”
“We had a couple of sessions of writing, and she went away and finished some lyrics that she wanted to sing. And I had a start on the songs and had some chords and melodies, and a couple of titles in mind. We were just sort of there in this place in Surry Hills where I had an old Bechstein upright piano that I had just bought.
“As I say, there was a lot going on, because I'd suddenly become a dad and, you know, Chrissy was looking for new things, new ways.
“I mean, you come out of a band – but we both went through it, like, we could relate to each other instantly. Lead singers of incredible bands that had toured and worked our arses off for years and years, and we were both kind of exhausted with that process and looking for change, looking for new things. And obviously my life was changing a lot anyway, but I think Chrissy was equally wanting to explore.
“That had been an amazing period, for me – the ‘90s and mid-’90s – when I’d worked with the poet Dorothy Porter, we wrote songs together [The Fiery Maze was conceived as a “rock concert album” by Porter/Finn in 1995], I’d jammed with Wendy Saddington, I'd made the Finn album with Neil [1995], ALT, the album [1995’s Altitude] I made with these Irish friends [Andy White and Liam Ó Maonlaí (from Hothouse Flowers)] – it'd been a very experimental period.
“So, in a sense, I was able to help guide Chrissy into a new way of approaching things, because I'd been through it two years prior. And she was, I think, desperately looking for – you know, we'd seen her in The Boy From Oz playing Judy Garland, and she was amazing – as charismatic as ever on stage, but doing something totally different from Divinyls, you know? So, yeah, I think it was just a great meeting and good timing for both of us.”
“This Was Something Much More Intimate And Piano-Driven”
“She came to our place first. It was a little [loft studio apartment] in Sydney and a big open space – piano sounded great in there. So she walked in and we just looked at each other and we kind of just knew who we were in a weird sorta way and, you know, circled around things for a while – a bit of chit-chat – and then basically just started working. And it was great straight away, because she was leaning into the piano, you know, feeding off the chords.
“And I could tell it was a very different way of writing, ‘cause she'd probably written mostly with guitar with Mark [McEntee, Divinyls co-founder/guitarist] and just, you know, joining sessions that were quite rock and had a bit of strut and a bit of swagger and all that, and she was so good at all that. And this was something much more intimate and piano-driven, and I think she really enjoyed leaning into that and getting into the lyrics and the things that she wanted to say.
“I mean, singing about her dad in that song Sometimes – I don't think she'd probably ever done any of that kind of exploring with her words before.”
My father has shut right down/He fought in the war, can’t come to terms with what he saw/Don’t talk about much anymore/Now he’s just like anyone/He’s trying to do the best he can.
“And that song Crash, she's very – you can just see it, she's painting a picture of things that she's been through. So I think it was very personal for her. It wasn't anything to do with what she had done before, even though we had always felt like we knew Chrissy and she came over so strongly, and she was so present in videos and on stage and that.
"But I think this was a deeper level of who she was.”
“We’d Never Met”
Although Tim can’t remember exactly how these sessions were initially set up – who approached who? – he offers, “My gut is telling me that I wanted to do something with her, because I had been through – as I say – a very experimental phase of working with particularly female artists.
"I mean, I'd seen Chrissy, obviously, in the Divinyls, and I think probably the only time she'd seen me would’ve been on stage – we'd never met.
“And so even though we were contemporaneous and very much in that same lane with our bands – Split Enz had been going longer than Divinyls, but at the same time we had dissected in that ‘80s kinda period. But we never met. And so I think I did reach out as part of the process I was going through.”
“She Had The Room In The Palm Of Her Hand”
Tim reckons he saw Divinyls twice (“once was in Melbourne”).
“Everybody knows – who's seen them – just the way that she owned the stage; moved however she felt in the moment. There was nothing preconceived and she was reacting to – you could see her sorta looking across and even back sometimes; she was feeding off the band. I think she had such huge respect for the musicians and yet she was doing her own thing, but she was very much feeding off the band, you know, and I think I can relate exactly to that.
"I can't remember any specific outrageous things she did, she was just Chrissy and she had the room in the palm of her hand.
“To me, I dunno why, but [Chrissy’s onstage persona] makes me think of Iggy Pop, because you see Iggy Pop and he's completely fearless – you've never seen anything like it – and Chrissy was definitely like that.
“There was no vanity in her performance – that was one of the things that was extraordinary, is: most female artists of that period, they were sort of aware of how they looked. They were wanting to look good – guys too, but we were more used to kinda wild guys that didn't have vanity or, you know, they might’ve even been a bit ugly [laughs] and just, like, charismatic.
"But women were more, in a sense, forced into it or made to think more about how they looked. And Chrissy was – you know, looked incredible, but she had no vanity about that. She wasn't trying to sell you anything.
“I'd been thinking – this was in the ‘90s I was sort of thinking about this – how great it would be if a female artist came through who was, like, as if Janis Joplin hadn't died, you know? So I was imagining an older woman who was just wild, and I was thinking, ‘That's what we need. We need the crone,’ you know?
"We need this woman to come through and just blast us all away with fury and, in a sense – Chrissy was obviously not there, because she was still young, but she had that essence, a cleansing essence in the psyche of the audience. It's like, ‘WHOOOOAAA,’ you know? You come out feeling weirdly sanctified and purified, and yet it was very visceral and dark as well. So it wasn't all kinda like, ‘Ooooh, everybody, let's feel good’ – it wasn't like that; there was fury and anger in it, as well as a kind of grace.
“You met her and she was humble, in a way. So discreet – you know, very respectful of any situation that we shared together – and listening and watching. But on stage – and I think it's the same with me, it's the same with a lot of performers – something happens, and it's coming out of the music.
“I think it cost her a lot – I mean, the life of rock’n’roll – and for a woman in a band, it's very hard. You give up any chance of domestic life, motherhood, all these things. You see so many female artists that end up in their 60s, 70s – never had kids. I mean, that's always a choice for any woman, but it's taken from you in rock’n’roll, in a sense, and you have to give everything to it. And I think she paid a price – you know, we all do – but it also bestows great blessings.”
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Tim’s Favourite Divinyls Song/s
“Like everyone, Boys In Town: the unforgettable performance where – the scornful, self-deprecating thing Chrissy does was iconic. But favourite song? You know, I really like I Touch Myself.
"I think the lyrics probably haven't aged that well, but the tune is so damn good. And I like Science Fiction – there's a lot, yeah, there's a few.”
He's In Love “Came From Sexual Jealousy”
“[Chrissy] told me what [He's In Love] was about, and it came from sexual jealousy, you know, Charley was working with a female artist and Chrissy felt threatened. The intimacy that comes from creative collaboration is very threatening to the partner who's not involved – it can be – and yet it's not about sex, you know, it's chemistry and energy and creativity. But you could perceive it as a sexual attraction if you’re looking at it from the outside, because it is very, very intimate.
“And I think she was feeling that strongly, having come out of the band, as well. I think it was all that period where the band was either imploding or had – I dunno if it had finished, but she was feeling very vulnerable and, ‘Who am I?’ and, ‘What am I?’ and that song comes very much out of that.”
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“You Have To Break Yourself Down And Build Yourself Back Up Again”
“I just watched the [Paul] McCartney doco, Man On The Run, and it's very much about that. Can you imagine? It's hard enough for me and Chrissy and lots of others to leave great bands, but if you were in The Beatles – how do you leave The Beatles? You know, who the hell are you?
"And so he was very open and confessional about that in this doco, and I do think that's right, you have to break yourself down and build yourself back up again.
“‘Cause, for me, I did Escapade [1983 debut solo album], and it gave me such a bolt of energy and it was so much fun and it did far better than anyone expected. So I thought it was gonna be a breeze, I'd just step out of the band and land lightly on my feet and off I went, hahaha. And they were some of the hardest years I've been through, you know. So, yeah, it's a big thing.”
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When Tim Met Chrissy: “Lead Singers, Great Bands, ‘Let's Write Some Songs!’”
“I really had no awareness of Chrissy other than being a singer with the Divinyls. I didn't know about the fact that when she was a child, she was kind of involved in theatre – I just didn't know that [aged ten, Chrissy joined the Geelong Musical Comedy Company].
"And I was yet to do my journey into music theatre and writing for musicals, and so that was really nothing to do with it. It was a very simple kind of connection we had of lead singers, great bands, ‘Let's write some songs’. And, yeah, I didn't know much [about Chrissy] at all, and I think that was good. I went in very naively.”
The trailer for Wild: Chrissy Amphlett – the two-part Australian Story special, Part 1 of which premiered last Monday, 28 September, on ABC TV and ABC iview – features an admission from Chrissy that men were often afraid of her, which she quite liked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tim clearly approves, laughing heartily, when I share Chrissy’s confession. “You can see that she had a poise, in that sense. I've seen her – she came down from Sydney, I was down [in Melbourne] doing this acoustic show at a club called ID’s, and she dared to get up and sing – He's In Love, actually – with me that night.
"'Cause when I say ‘dared to get up’, I mean she'd given up drinking, and so she didn't have a little tipple before she came out. It was a new song. It was a totally new situation. I'm playing the piano. That was it, you know,? Very raw.
“She got up and sang it with me, and then backstage there were guys there – and people there – and I could just see that, yeah, she played with that kind of energy. They weren't hitting on her or anything, nothing was happening, but it was just – you could see how she had a sense of dignity and kind of poise within that sloppy, messy, rock’n’ roll kinda situation, you know?
"And that would’ve scared a lotta guys – they would not have known what to do with that, I think – especially if they saw her on stage rocking out with the Divinyls. But even in this situation, she had an aura around her.”
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Split Enz – Forever Enz Tour: “A Nothing-Could-Go-Wrong Feeling”
Split Enz re-formed for 2026’s Split Enz – Forever Enz tour, which kicked off in Hamilton, New Zealand on 2 May.
Bedecked in custom Noel Crombie suits, classic Split Enz members Tim and Neil Finn, Eddie Rayner, and Crombie reunited for these spectacular shows, joined by drummer Matt Eccles and bassist James Milne.
Tim reflects of said tour: “We all did have an amazing time. And, yeah, it just went like a dream, really. We had a dream run, if you like, because the rehearsals were just perfect right from the start. The first song we played, after 15 years of not playing together – or 17, or something – we played Shark Attack and it was off! [Laughs delightedly] We were on the train roaring through the tunnel and, yeah, it was great.
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“It seemed like the perfect timing for us and the audience. There was a lot of joy in the crowd, they had a deep connection with the songs and with us, and with Noel's costumes and everything. So afterwards it was pretty tough, really, ‘cause you come off something like that and you're gonna fall into ‘the slough of despond’, as they say.
“But, yeah, about a month or so passed and it was all fine. And I'm sort of used to that [post-tour blues], but it was intense with Split Enz ‘cause there was so much memory and friendship and brotherhood involved; you know, looking around the stage seeing Neil and seeing Eddie and Noel, it was just a nothing-could-go-wrong feeling.”
This scribe was fortunate enough to experience back-to-back Rod Laver shows during the Split Enz – Forever Enz tour and was told to sit down by security guards multiple times for dancing in front of my seat. But when Dirty Creature’s stalking bassline hit, nothing was gonna break my stride. So I turned to face the approaching bouncer and simply hollered, “One song!” – pointer finger raised for emphasis. He thankfully left me to it. And the live version they played was lengthy – result!
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When asked to estimate the duration of this particular live version of Dirty Creature, Tim considers, “We did a longer outro and I guess it was probably about five minutes long, or maybe six. But we wanted it to jam-out at the end and see if we could get the crowd into that sort of voodoo space.
“We started singing the keyboard refrain that Eddie plays on the record – it's just this really ghostly, amazing melody – and so we started singing that as a vocal refrain, and we just drifted. And then Noel did his kind of solo on his bongos. It just seemed like the crowd wanted it – it wasn't indulgent, it just felt great – and we all wanted to stay in that space for a while.”
From an audience member’s perspective? Spellbinding.
“It did have that feeling,” Tim concurs, “and that's amazing to go into that when you're the band, you're the catalyst for that feeling and you can just tell it's connecting, you know? Nothing needs to be said, it's just there with all of us. And it's a great release, that song, because it does go to a dark place, in a sense. But there's something weirdly uplifting about it, as well.”
It’s so incredibly danceable, too. “Yeah, exactly, yeah.” Bring on a Dirty Creature remix, please! “Eddie’ll be onto that, if you tell him.” Consider him told, then? “You give him half a chance, he'll be doing a remix [laughs].”
“I'd Love To Do One Last Record. I Think It Would Be A Special One”
So were there any discussions about perhaps recording some new Split Enz material, in the afterglow of Forever Enz shows?
“No discussions,” Tim teases, “although it has come up over the years, occasionally – the idea – and I think we'd all enjoy it. Again, I think it would be a timing thing. It would be, like, the time is right and suddenly we all just wanna do it – it was like that with the tour, ‘cause there would be various people who might want to do things at certain times and others don't.
"But I think if we all felt the same way, we'd do it. I'd love to do one last record. I think it would be a special one. But, yeah! It would just be when the time is right, if it happens.”
Chrissy Amphlett's Some Times is available digitally on 2 October.
