Neil Finn

IF you're after proof of the impact Neil Finn has made on the music scene, you need look no further than the special homecoming concerts he played in New Zealand in April. As supergroups go, his backing band couldn't have been much more super: ex-Smith Johnny Marr, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, and Phil Selway and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead . It's proof of the enormous esteem in which the former Crowded House mainman is held that these titans of rock all agreed to take time out of their schedules to join him on stage for a five-night residency in his home town of Auckland.

When Finn plays next month at T On The Fringe in Edinburgh he won't be accompanied by such a stellar line-up, but he will have made his point: namely that, with the Crowded House years behind him, he is still a major force in music.

'The idea behind the Auckland show was to bring something special to my home town, to do a season of shows rather than one or two as I passed through,' he says. 'I wanted it to be an extravaganza, and it just happened that some people were free and thought it was a pretty interesting idea.'

Finn has been a prolific, inventive and exceptional songwriter on the fringes of the listening public's consciousness for 15 years now. You probably wouldn't recognise him on the street, but he has penned a handful of songs -- Weather With You, Don't Dream It's Over, It's Only Natural -- that people will hum all day after a radio reminder . His music is all about the tune, full of unexpected but naturally melodic twists and turns . They are songs that surprise but never shock.

'Crowded House was a combination of individuals -- we had our sound, we developed our own stamp,' he says. 'At the start we were a rollicking pop band. By the end, by the Together Alone album, we were not cheery.'

Spring's Auckland concert allowed Finn to recapture some of that lost band atmosphere. 'We were playing at being in a band. We had three days' rehearsal and did five gigs, then we broke up. The process was fascinating.'

In conversation Finn comes across as a serious, rather humourless character who clearly spends a lot of time thinking -- maybe too much time. Having been the agitated, edgy young pretender with Split Enz in New Zealand 20 years ago and then the major global star with Crowded House, he still has one major preoccupation. He may have no money worries, but finding a creative space brings a different set of troubles.

His is a career that he still feels is only half done. When he joined his brother Tim's band Split Enz in the late 1970s, the spiky-haired, make-up-sporting collective were trying to buck the entrenched macho stereotype that Finn feels constricts New Zealand men. Their music was anarcho-pop, combining ska, Bowie falsetto, Queen harmonies, 1920s jazz and extended experimentalism, often all on one track.

Split Enz split in 1984, and Finn went on to experience massive chart success with Crowded House, who pursued a more poppy direction. By 1991's Woodface, he had joined forces with his brother once more, and the pair still play together -- Tim was another special guest at the Auckland gigs.

Finn made the decision to disband Crowded House in 1996 before the band had a chance to go stale. This obsession with keeping his music fresh runs through his solo work, beginning with 1998's Try Whistling This and continuing on One Nil, released earlier this year.

'At the moment I'm attacking every album with the thirst of a band, but you don't have to have the same band for the next album,' he says. 'There is more diversity, there are more avenues to explore. I am enjoying how it feels being solo, with no fixed line-up. I'm just looking for intense musical experiences. When you're flying by the seat of your pants making intense music, it doesn't get much better than that.'

Neil Finn is at the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, on August 17