Tim Finn steps back into solo spotlight with new album

Tim Finn's new solo album will be released this week.

Nashville, Tennessee, the country-music capital of America, is about as far removed from the New Zealand music scene as you can get.

But for Auckland-based singer, songwriter Tim Finn, recording his latest solo album Imaginary Kingdom in Nashville, was a natural fit.

"Nashville has got a lot of sides to it. It's actually a really good town to make pop music, as well as country music and they do hip-hop there -- not very much, but they do a bit."

Imaginary Kingdom is the second album the 54-year-old has recorded in Nashville.

Finn recorded Say It Is So there seven years ago on his first visit to the state's capital.

Nashville has everything a musician could want, Finn said.

"It's a music town where everybody is working like crazy, making music all the time. Everyone's got a backyard studio and anything you want, you name it -- it's there."

The location had another appeal for Finn.

"Once I have written the songs I kind of like to leave home and hearth and be somewhere where I can't wait to get back home, so there's kind of an edge to it all. And I just want to do the job and get it done."

Getting it done has led to Finn releasing his first solo album since Feeding the Gods in 2001, after several years of recording and touring with other big-name musicians -- including Dave Dobbyn, Bic Runga and brother Neil.

After his latest tour with Neil, Tim thought he would release a "best of" album but found himself instead inspired to pen new songs.

"Every time I got home [from touring] -- there's always a relief and you're glad to have a break. I found during those periods I was feeling pretty up and I was writing a lot.

"So by the time the touring was over I had a whole lot of songs that were either finished or nearly finished."

Finn said he did not put any pressure on himself to produce anything and the songs came "through really freely" .

"I wasn't forcing it, I wasn't thinking 'as soon as I get off the road I'm going to make an album' -- in fact that was the last thing on my mind.

"I thought I was going to actually nest for a while and put out 'a best of'."

Instead, nesting was put on the backburner as touring left Finn inspired.

"Touring really feeds into the writing. Having contact with the audience, there's nothing like it really.

"You may not write it at the time but as soon as you get home you just feel you connected.

"When the songs start coming it does quicken your desire, you can't wait to put them down and hear them in the studio."

Choosing Nashville to record in paid-off for Finn.

"In about three weeks we had broken the back of it. All the vocals were done in the first week and then we started to lay on some extra sounds. It came really well and really fast and I had a great team."

While it's Finn's name on the album, the influence of band members Bobby Huff (producer and drummer), John Painter (bass) and Dale Oliver (guitar) was "all over" the album, Finn said.

"I'm very collaborative and so I do allow people to bring themselves to it. I don't just walk in there with a set plan and say "right can you play this, can you play that"'.

"I really like to just present them with a song in a very simple form, acoustic guitar or whatever, and then let their imaginations get to work."

The collaboration between the band members continued when Finn returned to Auckland.

"They would send MP3s through and I would be able to burn a CD, sit out in my car in the garage in the middle of the night, listening to a mix."

The process worked well for Finn who is a firm fan of long-distance mixing.

"It's a real team that can work internationally as well as being in the same room at the same time and that's great -- that's happening more and more in music now."

Finn is reluctant to single out any one track from the album, as he sees a "wholeness to the album" which he believes has been absent from some of his previous work.

"That for me is the stand-out quality -- it flows which has not always been the case with some of my records.

"There's always been a cluster of good ones and then maybe a couple that aren't so good or a bit abstract.

While Finn has enjoyed the freedom of being a solo artist, the confidence of trusting his own instincts has not always been there.

"There's something great about being in a band. When I started being a solo artist I used to agonise over things and get a bit fraught because there wasn't that support around me.

"But this album I really trusted in it intuitively."

Finn decided to record Imaginary Kingdom in Nashville after working with Huff on Winter Light, a song to the soundtrack of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

"We had a week to go and we had to produce a track in a week."

Huff was in Nashville, Finn was in Auckland and the two had never met.

"We had a couple of phone calls, MP3s and suddenly he produced this wonderful sounding track and I thought 'I've got to be in the same room as this guy'."

Finn said there was a lot of intuitive decisions involved with the making of Imaginary Kingdom, "but it all turned out right".

"I feel great about that."

- NZPA