One-man band Liam Finn, who plays at the Powerstation on Saturday as part of his Better Be Home Soon Tour.
KEY POINTS:
How you been?
Yeah, I'm good. It's good to be home. Although I got the inevitable cold. This year I've been on the most intensive and full-on touring schedule I've ever done in my life, really. I haven't had one proper day off until now. We jumped from
tour to tour, did Ireland for a week, two nights in London, and straight back to the West Coast of America. So I've been doing stuff like that, which kind of makes you question why the hell you do it. But it's all gone relatively smoothly. And it's fun.
Since I'll Be Lightning was released mid-last year, how has the one-man show evolved?
It's kind of hard to say for me because it's like watching a child grow. Doing it the whole time it seems like I'm not doing the same thing but at least keeping the same aesthetic and letting each show have its own life and not writing set lists and trying to do at least one improvised song a night. Letting it go where it wants to go. I think we've really honed that craft of making it seamless. It's just been really good doing so many shows that you really do end up thriving on it and making the 10-hour drives really seem worth it and not such a chore. But we've done 67 shows since we last played in Auckland, so I think we've just got better.
Have people around the world grasped the idea of the one-man show?
Yeah, people are welcoming something different. It's not like it's that intricate an experiment that people don't understand it and relate to it. It seems relatively human and getting myself into the manic state that I do amuses people.
Going by the Letterman performance you seem to have perfected the art of firing yourself off the drum stool.
It's involuntary actually. I got every bit of anxiety of doing Letterman out on that last drum roll and I managed to just smack the shit out of it. I think that's why it propelled me back, because that last hit was quite triumphant.
Do you miss having a band?
Um, not really. Not at the moment. I miss aspects of it and they're my best mates, those guys, so I miss seeing them. But at the moment I'm just really enjoying and find really stimulating doing what I'm doing. I think it'll be quite interesting when we start expanding on what we do and whether that involves other band members _ maybe not in the traditional guitar, drums and bass sense, but I'm looking forward to getting the buzz from working with new people. I'm trying to get my little brother [Elroy] to get involved.
So what direction do you want to take in the future?
I just want to push to keep it as unique as possible because I think that's what people are responding to about my music at the moment. It's still songs but just a little bit different.
Have you been writing new songs?
It's hard to find time. I've been doing improvised songs, and we record a lot of the shows and you get things out of it, and it's not preconceived in any way. You actually come out with quite good little simple hooks that you'd overlook if you were jamming, but because it's there in the moment, there's something special about it.
I see there's a photo on your website of EJ [Finn's singing sidekick] with Elijah Wood. Have any other big stars been to your shows?
On tour with Eddie Vedder was pretty bizarre. My favourite one was Gisele, who rubbed my arm and said she loved the show. John Doe [from LA punk band] was really into it and [U2 producer] Daniel Lanois has been to a few shows. I can't say I love U2 or anything but obviously it's quite nice to know that people of that legendary status are digging it.
