Finn Andrews on starring in Twin Peaks

A thick shroud of mystery clouds the new season of Twin Peaks. While precious few details have escaped the deliberate haze, one of the more intriguing is that Finn Andrews, expat, and frontman for The Veils, has a guest role on the series.

But the blanket haze that director David Lynch has draped over the show doesn't just extend to the press. Andrews doesn't have a clue either.

"I want to see Twin Peaks because I don't know what's happening," Andrews says. "That will be a nice moment."

So what was it like working with Lynch on the show?

"It was fantastically surreal," Andrews says. "It was really great to hang out with him, someone who we all grew up idolising, and be able to watch him do his thing."

Lynch is celebrated for injecting his dreamlike surrealism with a disturbing and macabre menace. Does that seep on to the set?

"He and everyone around him are all so warm. It was such a pleasure to see," Andrews says. "But he's created a whole world of his own. An amazing quality where everywhere he goes everything takes on a Lynchian look. It's amazing to see.

"Even the parking lot - out the back of where they were filming there was this weird old high school, a really creepy 50s high school. They weren't even filming there. But it's like a sort of radiation around him that makes everything Lynchian. It's amazing. He's just created a whole universe of his own that he operates in. And to be invited in, in any way, was a real pleasure."

Twin Peaks starts next week but we're not entirely sure when Andrews will appear on screen.

But if you want to see him up close and in person, Andrews will be performing two solo shows in June. They promise to be intimate affairs as he eschews the safety of the band to run through songs from The Veils catalogue, unheard songs, and even some new material while seated at a piano.

"It's a good excuse for me to try out a few new songs that have just recently come into the world," he says.

LOWDOWN
Who: Finn Andrews
What: Starring in Twin Peaks and performing two solo shows in June.
When: Twin Peaks starts next week, gigs in Wellington and Auckland June 16 and 18 respectively.