Crowded House drummer found dead

Crowded House drummer Paul Hester has been found dead in a park in Melbourne.

Hester, 46, the father of two young girls, failed to return home from walking his two dogs on Saturday night, Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper said today.

It said police found his body yesterday in Elsternwick Park near his home.

Police said there were no suspicious circumstances, and friends said they were not aware of Hester having been depressed.

Hester quit Crowded House in 1994 but had reinvented himself as a drummer for hire, cafe owner and charismatic frontman of Music Max Sessions on Foxtel.

He lived in Elwood -- a fashionable bayside suburb of Melbourne -- with his partner Mardi Sommerfeld and their two daughters aged eight and 10.

Hester, born in 1959, teamed up with New Zealand brothers Neil and Tim Finn, to form 80s band Split Enz.

Formed out of the ashes of Split Enz in 1985, Crowded House featured Hester on drums, Neil Finn on vocals and guitar, and Nick Seymour on bass.

Based in Australia, the band went on to become one of New Zealand's most successful pop groups of the late 1980s and early 90s.

Guitarist Kev Garant, who played with Hester in the Bay of Pigs, said: "He was considered an absolute world class drummer in the pop field."

As recently as two weeks ago, Hester, 46, was at the Espy in St Kilda to appear in the SBS music quiz show, RockWiz.

RockWiz's Brian Nankervis said: "He could be everything and anything in one go. He had a lightning wit, he could be wonderfully sensitive, clever and unpredictable."

- AAP and NZPA