All about this artist
Biography:
Born Brian Timothy Finn, 25 June 1952, Te Awamutu, New Zealand. As lead singer of the New Zealand band Split Enz, Finn was soon recognized as a major songwriter and vocalist with a very distinctive singing voice. Even before his departure from the band in 1985, he had recorded his first solo album, Escapade, distributed worldwide by A&M Records, which became the Top Album of 1983 in Australia.
It featured the singles, "Fraction Too Much Friction", "Made My Day" and "Staring At The Embers", all excellent melodic pop tunes. The set also made a minor impact on the US charts. However, despite a high budget and more emphasis on production, his follow-up albums were not internationally successful.
Moving from A&M to Virgin Records in 1985, Finn released Big Canoe, but the concentration on production buried his songs under layers of sound and the melodies were lost. A move to Capitol Records resulted in a critically acclaimed, self-titled third album, but commercial success continued to elude him.
However, the switch to Capitol made it possible for Finn to join stablemates Crowded House in 1991 - the band formed by his brother Neil Finn after the break-up of Split Enz. After achieving international success with Crowded House following the release of Woodface, which had originally been mooted as a one-off project helmed by the brothers, Tim elected to return to a solo career.
1993's Before & After, inspired by his two-week sojourn in the Blue Mountains of Australia, utilized two tracks the Finn brothers were working on during the sessions for Woodface, and also boasted the services of guest contributors Andy White and Liam O Maonlai (Hothouse Flowers).
The same year Tim and Neil were made OBEs for services to New Zealand music in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. Tim briefly reunited with his brother on the Finn project in 1995 and worked with White and O Maonlai in Alt. After appearing with Split Enz in December 1999 for two reunion concerts in Auckland, Finn self-released his fifth album, Say It Is So, which was recorded in Nashville and Sydney.
The equally low-key Feeding The Gods followed in 2001 before Finn teamed up with his brother Neil and Crowded House associates Mitchell Froom and Bob Clearmountain to record a new duo album. The excellent Everyone Is Here was released under the Finn Brothers name in summer 2004.
Tim resumed his solo career in 2006 with Imaginary Kingdom.
