Meet the Designer Part 3: Neil Finn
On tapping into your creativity...
I think to a greater or lesser extent, everybody's creative. I think when you're a kid, the way you play and make up games and invent characters is not dissimilar to the mindset you have to have when you're being creative in your adult years, except that you have the benefit, hopefully, of having an adult mind to be able to edit what you do and make it into something that's suitable for the world. Kids don't care about how it ends up. They just do it. But the play thing is really important, that's the key.
On discovering music...
I realised at some point that I was good at music. I could hear a song on the radio and I could pick it out and figure out how to play it from ear. That becomes like a form of play because suddenly a whole world opens up to you. You don't appreciate till later the skill, the artistry and intellectual process of making music - the art is to make it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world as natural as doing a little drawing when you're a kid. The combination of both makes you feel like you've got involved in something pretty special.
On being disciplined as a musician...
Sometimes it's just work and turning up every day and having a process – you’re not uncovering great gems all the time, it is just perseverance. It's like getting fit. If you want to develop your body or recover from an injury, you've just got to do it every day and it's slow progress. Same with music sometimes. But then you're at your workstation and the mics are switched on when something magical happens. So that's the reward. You get those little moments of inspiration that come because you're working. When you're young, I think sometimes it's possible to get flashes of inspiration at the drop of a hat in the middle of having a great time, but I don't think that lasts your whole life because your discipline and the work becomes really important as you go on.
On finding inspiration through collaboration...
Being in a band is [an] incredibly good environment for bringing forward creative ideas because you've got people to play them to.... and then, in the process of hearing other people, take your ideas and making them into something. It's invigorating and it inspires you to keep going and finish things as well. Collaboration is incredibly valuable. It's not always with the same person. I’ve been lucky enough to be in two great bands with really inspiring people, and to have some good producers. I'm kind of restless and I like working with a lot of different people. I just think you're always looking for a new angle to keep it fresh.
On listening to music as a musician...
I’ve got all my songs in my digital playlist and I make playlists when I'm at the beach. I've got records now, vinyl that I listen to. I often listen to other cultures like African, Indian and South American music, because I can listen to it without thinking about it too much. When I listen to pop music or other bands, I'm often distracted from the pure enjoyment of it or by trying to understand how it's put together.
On advice for those starting out in music...
The only thing I can figure out, because everyone has to make their own way and make their own decisions, is just not to learn anybody else's solos or learn anybody else's devices or tricks. As much as you can, allow your brain to make mistakes because that's your character and in a way you're nothing without your character. There's a million great voices out there but there's only a few that have their own quirky ways of getting it wrong.
On how being creative is good for your wellbeing...
I think there's similar feelings for whatever you end up doing [creatively]. If I do a painting or a drawing, it's the same: you get absorbed in it, It doesn't always turn out to be great work that's worthy of putting on the wall, but [that] getting absorbed is really good for your brain, I think, in terms of switching off the alternating, contradictory currents of what the brain's normally dishing out. It's good to concentrate on something creative. I think it puts your brain in a better state for the way you are interacting with the world and looking for ways to apply kindness to things. If you're creative, it's like a fine tuning for your brain.