Split Enz tease new album ahead of first tour in 17 years: ‘We’d make a really good record now’

Always one step ahead, the new wave innovators are not done yet – and their hair is bigger than ever

Many things can kill you in the music business. For Split Enz, New Zealand’s first internationally successful rock group, the most lethal poison was hairspray – or it should have been. “How did I not die?” marvels bandleader Tim Finn, whose head – at its vertiginous peak – resembled an upturned paintbrush.

Sitting next to him, percussionist Noel Crombie grins as Finn continues the story. “Noel would lacquer merciless amounts of this toxic spray … the makeup would start to run but the hair would just somehow … sit there.”