Frenzy of Split Enz information in new radio documentary

Split Enz were always big on visual so the documentary includes lots of description of the band's shows.

The guy who played in Split Enz from 1972-73 is the only missing link in a new radio documentary about the band.

There were 15 band members who were part of Split Enz at various times during their 12-year career.

Only flautist Mike Howard declined to be interviewed for the new radio documentary, Enzology.

Getting interviews with 14 of the 15 members - including Tim and Neil Finn and a rare interview with Phil Judd - isn't bad going, says researcher and producer Jeremy Ansell.

"A lot of these guys still knew each other but I didn't know who knew who and I was a bit shy to ask everybody, 'Okay, do you know this person, this person and this person'. I chose the hard route and tried to find email addresses on the internet. But it did take a few months to get everybody."

The first programme in the 10-part documentary airs at 3pm tomorrow. It repeats at 9pm on Tuesdays. Enzology features interviews, rare musical excerpts and, of course, the band's hit songs as well as lesser known album tracks. Each programme is named after a different Split Enz album. The first, Beginning of the Enz, looks at the formation of the band and the songwriting partnership between Tim Finn and Judd. The second programme is named after the band's masterpiece and debut album, Mental Notes.

That album is Ansell's favourite, yet he sees why some people find it all a bit odd. "There's so many ideas in it, it's very dynamic and you can hear both the naivety of the band and their determination to do interesting, melodic stuff. It's very melodic but it's possibly a little too difficult for some people."

Enzology started out as an idea to turn Mike Chunn's book Stranger Than Fiction into a radio documentary. It was originally planned to coincide with the band's 25th anniversary in 1997 but was put on hold. It wasn't until 2003 that Ansell started working on the project solidly.

"There have been documentaries on Split Enz before but they've been very basic. This is my opportunity to make it like the Beatles anthology and illustrate the story with lots of rare recordings and rehearsals, and to just present the story and the music in a way that hasn't been done before."

The rare recordings of live concerts, television and radio performances and early rough band demos were sourced from band members and a number of Split Enz fans and collectors.

"Tapes end up in strange places," says Ansell. "There were people at concerts in the 70s doing audience recordings - the old bootleg stuff. There was also stuff recorded off radio by fans that Radio New Zealand never kept. There's even something recorded by TVNZ, from the Grunt Machine in 1976, that a fan recorded with a tape recorder up to the speaker of the TV. When we asked TVNZ if it was okay to use it they didn't even know it was done."

Ansell became hooked on Split Enz when he was 10 after hearing their 1980 album True Colours.

"It's the usual story, when you meet your childhood heroes they are actually just regular guys like most people, and they're not at all stuck up like musical heroes, or at least some of them, are supposed to be. They're all good people and Phil Judd has become a good friend."

The Judd interview is a coup. He rarely does interviews. Ansell and Judd - who co-founded Split Enz with Tim Finn and left the band in 1977 (he later rejoined and left again) - built up a friendship after meeting on a Split Enz "friends forum" on the internet.

"So he trusted me. And although he wasn't really keen on doing the interview, on the day he sat down and we had a good old natter."

Judd, who lives in Melbourne, is recording new music and hopes to release a new album next year.

Judd's relationship with Tim Finn has been a tumultuous one. It's rumoured the pair haven't talked for years.

"Although it [the Judd and Finn relationship] is a big part of the story, I didn't want to offend anybody," Ansell explains. "I guess if I wanted to be an investigative journalist I'd go for the jugular but in the end I want these guys to trust me and not feel that this documentary is an albatross around their neck.

"Initially I wanted it to be more about the music than anything else, but in the end it turned out pretty balanced between the music and what happened in their lives at the time. And of course Split Enz were a very visual group, so it's like 'this is radio so how do you get around that?' So there's lots of descriptions about the stage shows, and how they prepared for them.

"Everybody said, especially Tim, Eddie and Neil, that the fun was in the rehearsals. Just mucking around in the rehearsal room, writing new songs, and just having a laugh. That's something that I wanted to get across, that it was just a fun bunch of guys who happened to have some international success. But I didn't want to put too much emphasis on how successful they were in world-wide terms because, as Neil pointed out to me, a lot of documentaries have tried to do that before and that's not the interesting part of it."

Ansell says documentaries are about telling the true story of a band, but they are also a way of turning people on to a band they may not normally be into. "That's how I got into Stevie Wonder," he says.

Maybe there's a new generation ready for the return of the Enz.

On air

*What: Enzology - The Story of Split Enz, 10-part series about Split Enz

*Where: National Radio

*When: Saturdays 3pm, repeats Tuesdays 9pm

* Radio NZ (link provided below)