Crowded House may be best known for its late-1980s radio hits, but the group's music has earned universal appeal over the decades for its themes of hope and acceptance.

The beloved Australian rock band is back — and makes a rare appearance at Atlanta's Chastain Park Amphitheater on Aug. 30, featuring singer Neil Finn, his musician sons Liam (guitar) and Elroy (drums), original bassist Nick Seymour and producer-now-keyboardist Mitchell Froom. 

Since its first Georgia show in 1987, the group has only played here a handful of times and its members have often changed. Neil Finn's most recent visit to Atlanta was as a member of Fleetwood Mac for a concert at State Farm Arena in 2019. 

Crowded House released Gravity Stairs, laden with jangle, melody and harmony, earlier this year.

GPB's Kristi York Wooten spoke with the band ahead of its long-awaited return to Georgia. Below are excerpts from the conversation.
 

On the importance of music in times of turmoil

Neil Finn: I very seldom write specifically from current affairs, but they inevitably influence you. I try not to spend my time scrolling through the news, because it seems pointless. But I’m all the more certain that music is sort of universally a good thing and a positive influence on the world, and it makes me feel like it's incredibly worth putting every ounce of effort into it, because there's just the possibility that the right song at the right time might help somebody to gain some comfort or to make a good decision or to think better of somebody that they're, battling or, you know, to bring people together… So I think what we try to do is going to bring a real joy to the sense of the, the show, that we're doing and a sense of anything could happen, to allow people to, to imagine possibilities.

 

On the relaxed vibe of new album Gravity Stairs

Mitchell Froom: Maybe I just think about it slightly differently, but I think about it like, “If a band is great, a band plays a mood.” Now, that mood in a song, sometimes the song requires that things be very organized and, maybe short form. But other times … some songs, like you're mentioning, “Magic Piano,” it just it feels like you're playing kind of open music that is free to go a different ways, if you're paying attention. So Neil might do something or he might sing something or and it takes you in a different direction. So I think as a band, maybe we're trying to play in a way that that acknowledges composition but also is open to the moment. So, you know, some of my problem with modern music is that it feels very regimented, like, “Okay, I've got my verse, and every time this verse comes, I'm going to sing this verse” … I think that's what we try to do is to just stay with the music and kind of follow what people are feeling and seeing where it might go.

Neil Finn: We feel to some degree like we are on the way to becoming a jam band. And ... the way the jam bands get license to just, you know, endlessly invent themselves every week. But we would have to do it with the songs and melodies intact and not — it would be a non-indulgent jam band. But yeah, that's why we are here in Nashville [ahead of the Chastain Park show]. We're going to spend five days becoming one.

 

On creating 'connective tissue' with songwriting and live performances

Neil Finn: Well, that's a really nice way of putting it. Actually, I hadn't thought of the term "connective tissue," but it feels a little bit like I never really know exactly what I'm doing. That's common with a lot of musicians and artists. You enter the arena as a kind of plaything, and you become, you sort of fold things around — well, I do anyway — and throw them up in the air and see how they land, and then try a few things adding to them and put a few atmospheres together. And all of a sudden it catches your feelings itself. And it has a weird chemical reaction. And it is like connective tissue that you that connects you to the ephemeral or the ethereal. And I love to keep [the writing process] in that state for as long as possible, which is part of the reason I take so long to finish things [laughs]. Because I quite like that intermediate state of it not being totally defined. And certainly on stage, we have a very strong feeling that mistakes are opportunities. We're happy to step off the program. We're happy to find connection with the audience in ways that weren't preordained. We don't talk about the same things every night. There's just looking for things that sets day apart. ... It's a different day, different little set of rules, different chemistries. So you try and find the spark that ignites all of that. And I think that's a lovely way you put it. Thank you. 

Elroy Finn: It's like Mitchell said before, when certain music isn't as regimented, or it has a bit of an ability to adapt or morph and breathe like an organism or something, it'll adapt throughout the years, and you'll see them slightly different on one tour versus the next tour. But it's sort of like you're saying, it’s a great aspect of the band … And so the song is the song, of course, but you can treat it with — with a different approach each time.
 

On playing daily shows online during the pandemic

Neil Finn: It was really — What a strange time. And I think we're still we're still getting over it a little bit. Everything feels different since [David] Bowie died. And the pandemic happened. And I think that particularly [the 2021 Crowded House album] Dreamers Are Waiting was a bit of a pandemic record. Essentially, we went in three weeks and recorded in a traditional way before that happened, which we'll be very grateful for, because the band evolved its own sound at that time in a very new, fresh way. And then we went to it into our little private spaces and communicated by Zooms. And we were lucky enough to have the family in one place. In L.A., we were able to interact with, and Liam and Elroy and I did a few broadcasts on Fangradio that were, really enjoyable. And that was a blessing for me and hopefully for the audience, because it just came out of sitting there and I just opened my computer one day and started singing, on this program somebody told me about and with no expectations at all. And it grew very slowly but steadily to a really lovely audience every day. I tried to keep it up and yeah, that was connective tissue at the time. Gave me something to do, and it was very creative, and I enjoyed it. I got to a point where I couldn't keep it up every day because it started to feel like a, an obligation. And I'm a bit suspicious of things when they become obligatory, that they lose their heart.

 

On the many lives of Crowded House's 1986 hit, 'Don't Dream It's Over'

Note: From Stephen King's 1994 TV miniseries The Stand to Crowded House's first farewell concert on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in 1996 to Ariana Grande's concert after the Manchester bombing in 2017 to Stevie Nicks singing the song on the Fleetwood Mac tour in 208 to U2 playing the song on its last night at the Sphere venue in Las Vegas and the band performing it for Global Citizen, the tune keeps building steam over the decades.

Neil Finn: It's a gift that keeps on giving. That really has had a really unusual and wonderful path, and you watch it with — with great awe, you know. That was — that was a lovely thing that happened where they started playing that song on stage in a beautiful spot on their set. And I thought I looked — I've kept a little version of that song tucked away for a special occasion. I didn't know what it would be, and I thought, "I'll send them this. You never know. They might want to put their vocals on it." I didn't imagine I'd play it on the show, but they did YouTube and — Yeah, apparently it was a lovely moment, for all concerned. Very generous of them to do so. And, yeah, but the song just keeps surprising, turning up in the strangest places. I don't know what will be next.

On Atlanta memories

Note: Crowded House's notable appearances in Atlanta include five shows at the Roxy (now Buckhead Theatre), a "Live X" / 99 X radio appearance at Purple Dragon Studios in Atlanta in 1994, and their 2007 and 2010 performances at the Tabernacle, the latter at which Neil Finn told the crowd he'd heard the band's song on a jukebox at the Clermont Lounge the night before.

Neil Finn: Last time I was in Atlanta, I came out of my hotel, and my hair must have been getting a bit long, and I and a guy [on the street] looked up at me and went, “Hey, Rod Stewart. And I still remember that I was slightly amused by it, but also slightly horrified by it, but I was on my way to the lovely park in Atlanta. But the thing is, Atlanta's had a very pivotal, you know, not entirely happy and pivotal part of our history in that Paul [Hester, original drummer for the group who died by suicide in 2005] left the band in Atlanta. But the gig we did that night he left was one of the best gigs we ever did, which was just one of those profound moments that happens when everybody's emotions are fully engaged. And strangely, years and years earlier and my brother's band, Split Enz, before I joined, Phil George who was one of the original members, also left the band in Atlanta. So it's a place where pivotal moments happen in bands. And let's hope that it's not going to happen this time … Maybe this time somebody will join the band [laughs].

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