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NEW ENZ: Split Enz as they appear today - Eddie Rayner, Malcolm Green, Tim Finn, Noel Crombie, Neil Finn and Nigel Griggs. MARTIN PHILBEY/Sydney Morning Herald BACK IN THE DAY: Splitz Enz as they appeared in the early days.

New beginning for the Enz

Not since he was asked to join his big brother Tim's band, Split Enz, the band that began as the quintessential '70s art rock group in New Zealand, all make-up, wild hair and strange, elongated songs.

The band moved to Australia and channelled that strangeness into oddball but irresistible songs led by the elder Finn and became one of the most successful pop acts there, often with songs written by the younger Finn.

Split Enz, currently performing for the largest cumulative audience of its career - 22 years after splitting the first time - still provides gainful employment occasionally for Neil Finn, but he doesn't discount the value of his early career choices.

"I was a storeman and packer and a retail shop assistant before I was a [hospital] orderly," he recalls.

"I remember my first job out of school I was selling home organs and records, most of which were Charley Pride or Klaus Wunderlich [a German organist who recorded instrumental versions of popular songs], who outsold everyone by 10 to one. We were selling these Kawai organs I had to demonstrate and people would walk out of the shop with a Klaus Wunderlich record, having ordered delivery of an organ. I could make them sound pretty good."

It's hard to imagine the shop owners would have been happy to lose their super salesman.

"They were pretty dark when I left. When I started they said we'd like to think you'll be here for at least two years; and I was there for nine months. Then I moved to Auckland to work as a storeman and packer and start playing music, and then became an orderly."

So when he joined Split Enz, the young Finn already had a reputation as someone who didn't stick around. These days he'd be considered a bit of a dodgy hiring proposition.

"I didn't have a great resumefor a future employer, no," Finn admits. "On the other hand, when I think about it now, I learnt [in those earlier jobs] how to sell things to people. I learnt how to wrap things up, package things, and I learnt how to be compassionate to some people in my hospital orderly job, cleaning up mucky bits and learning how to deal with quite unpleasant things."

Very much like working in music, then. What messes did he have to clean up in Split Enz?

"Well, there were always savaged egos lying on the floor in the rehearsal room and I had to do some peacemaking," he chuckles.

"Obviously I'm taking this analogy a bit too far but I think what it did for me in actual literal terms, working as an orderly, was that it cured me of any fear of hospitals. So when anyone around me is sick, I'm actually a very good nurse. [Wife] Sharon is good with needles; I'm good with vomit."

With the impending Australian tour, it's probably appropriate, then, to ask if he is as comfortable with the necessary medical demands on men of his age? "You mean am I happy with a doctor putting his finger up my arse?" he laughs.

"There are quite a lot of, maybe humiliations is a little strong, moments where a man has to confront himself in a medical sense. In terms of my general level of anxieties, my 30s were far worse than my 40s. I feel now a lot more at ease with myself."

One side-effect of that ease was his ready acceptance of the suggestion to put Split Enz back together for this tour, after the great reception last year, when the band was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Finn was a reluctant starter when the idea of reformation arose in recent years, but this time was among the first to sign up.

"I'm realising now that bands are where it's at," says the man who pulled the plug on Split Enz (the year after his brother had left the group) and Crowded House and has been a solo act for a decade.

"All my formative experiences as a musician were in Split Enz. I bought into a set of values that were already well established but it was no less profound for it.

"If you're fortunate enough to be in [a band] that has a special chemistry and has an honesty and tradition, in a way it never gets better than that. You couldn't hope for more in music."

Is honesty always good, even when it's the ugly truth from a bandmate? "It just helps that everybody has their place set in stone in Split Enz. So there is mutual respect and acknowledgement that I'm one of six," Finn says. "And it's a great relief to not have to be the only decision-maker.

"Being solo is hard," he sighs. "Split Enz still has it the minute we walk into the room. We have our moments but we are still brothers."

Why re-form now? "The whole band, with a very obvious exception of Paul [Hester, their last drummer, who died two years ago], who we'll miss terribly on this tour, is still alive and can do it, so why wouldn't I want to play these songs that I love?" Finn says.

"There is just a lot of goodwill out there and Tim and I noticed it when we did Homebake and Splendour in the Grass [last year]. We were absolutely blown away by how many really young people were singing the words back at us.

"It felt like these songs had had a quite beautiful resurgence. Or maybe they never went away."

Split Enz are currently touring Australia. Several shows are rumoured for New Zealand but nothing has yet been scheduled.

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