United they sing for fallen brother

''I was devastated,'' Neil Finn says of the suicide of original Crowded House drummer Paul Hester. ''Paul was my best friend for the whole time we were in the band together, and you don't lose that just because you don't see somebody every day.''

Both alumni of cult New Zealand band Split Enz, Hester formed Crowded House with Finn and bassist Nick Seymour in 1984, going on to achieve huge international success. Ten years later, at the height of their fame and in the middle of an American tour, he quit the band in order to return to his pregnant girlfriend in Melbourne, Australia.

Life story

A hugely engaging character (nicknamed ‘Hester the Jester'), he went on to become a popular TV presenter in Australia, before hanging himself in 2005 following a separation from his girlfriend and two children.

''I knew that he had a lot of internal struggle. And he could get dark,'' Finn says. ''It wasn't so bad in Crowded House, but the seeds were there. He checked out of the band in quite a grand style and eventually checked out of life. I miss him tremendously.''

The band soldiered on with replacement drummers for two years before bowing out with a combined reunion and farewell concert on the steps of Sydney Opera House in 1996.

Singer and songwriter Neil Finn has enjoyed a critically acclaimed solo career. But the effect of Hester's death has been to reunite Crowded House.

''Nick and I shared something with Paul that was pivotal in both our lives, and in the shadow of his dying we just wanted to hang out,'' Finn explains. Seymour began playing on Finn's solo material, which metamorphosed into a group album with latter-day Crowded House guitarist Mark Hart and new drummer Matt Sherrod.

''If it looks like a band and it feels like a band, then what else could it be?''

The resulting album, Time On Earth, a real gem of melody and melancholy, entered the UK charts at No 3.

''We attached ourselves to the name with a bit of reverence and due respect,'' says Finn. ''I suppose I have re-established in my own head the principles of what makes a band valuable. You give people more room and look for things to turn out differently from how you imagined. The surprise element is good.''

If there seems to be an inevitability to reunions, Finn suggests the real issue is that most bands should not break up in the first place. ''It's the neuroses in bands that get to people, the intense scrutiny that comes with the industry.

''Management, to me, is a much misunderstood aspect of the business. It should be far more about the people and less about their career. When things were getting a bit difficult, we probably would have benefited from somebody saying, ‘Let the tour be, let's get you guys off the road and preserve the spark', but the neuroses swallow everyone up.''

The new album is permeated with a sense of loss, but simultaneously uplifted by an appreciation of life.

''In the light of losing Paul, a lot of the songs were informed feelings, considering what's valuable, what's revealed and not revealed in relationships with people, pondering those mysteries.''

Although full of sharp, poetic lines, there is a lack of specificity to much of Finn's writing. ''I figure if you leave a series of doors slightly open, then people can go through any one of them. Some people would call it vague, but I call it impressionism. I rely on a process of things dropping into my head from the here and now and then immediately suggesting something in the ethereal world as well.''

Songs of struggle

There is a quality of romantic domesticity to much of Crowded House, a sense that their songs and spirit are rooted in everyday struggles.

''Self-discovery is not necessarily a mystical process that happens on the side of a mountain in Nepal. It can happen at three in the morning when you're dealing with a sick child. That mixing up of the domestic side of life and greater truths is kind of what fuels the songs, I think. It's pretty abstract as a notion.''

With his rich sense of melody and mysterious yet accessible lyrics, Finn is widely recognised as a truly outstanding songwriter. The spirit of positivity and approachability that characterised Crowded House helped make them global multi-million sellers, yet, when he first split the band, there was a strong sense that Finn was deliberately shying away from the implications of international stardom. That is what makes this reunion so unexpected.

''I am a mass of contradictions,'' he confesses. ''I am always ambitious for the songs, but there was an anxiety attached to celebrity that I recoiled from.

''I don't really like being famous. What I like is a song being famous, and I've been quite touched to hear audiences joining in again. When everybody sings along, it fills my heart with good feelings.''