It was 1996 when the music of famed Kiwi rock band Split Enz was given an orchestral makeover with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and New Zealand National Youth Choir.
The ENZSO album is one of the NZSO’s highest-selling records. It features tunes including ‘Poor Boy’, ‘Message to my Girl’ and ‘I Hope I Never’ – true Kiwi classics.
ENZSO original poster Photo: NZSO
Nearly 22 years later, the ENZSO show is back on the road, with a streamlined orchestra.
Split Enz keyboardist Eddie Rayner drove the original collaboration. He orchestrated the music, pitched the idea and brought it to life. All this time later, he thinks he’s getting close to perfection.
Although Eddie can’t read or write music, it didn’t stop him from creating four synthesised demo tracks which he took to Tim and Neil Finn, and conductor/composer Peter Scholes. “Everyone was knocked out by what they heard,” Eddie says. “Peter said ‘you think your demos sounds great, wait until you hear the orchestra play it’.”
ENZO Photo: Supplied
It took Eddie just three months to orchestrate some of Split Enz’s best-loved tunes. In part because he was already so familiar with the tunes, if not orchestration, which he undertook using keyboard and computer.
“I learnt basically about the structure of orchestra, who plays what, where and why, and write parts for the different facets of the orchestra.
“It was fun. It just flowed out of me. I found it quite easy to score for orchestra. But I didn’t write the actual scores,” he laughs. “The arrangements had credibility. They weren’t just copies [of pop songs].”
Working with an orchestra was a new experience for Eddie. Standing among the musicians for the first time as they performed his orchestrations impressed him. “It was glorious,” he says.
SPLIT ENZ in 1975. In front, Tim Finn, left, Mike Chunn, Wally Wilkinson, and Phil Judd. Back row: Emlyn Crowther, left, Noel Crombie, and Eddie Rayner. Photo: Evening Post
He made the decision not to have a rhythm section – guitar, keys, drum or bass – and looking back Eddie thinks it probably wasn’t the right choice as ENZSO lacked “groove” in the end. “It’s hard thing to articulate,” he says. “I know how the songs go; feel them rhythmically. We just missed it, we never quite got there with the record.
“It sounds incredible,” he admits. “[But] it lacked a pop aesthetic rhythmically.”
Nearly 22 years on he says he’s getting as close to what he was after in his original demos with the current 14-piece band, who are playing two gigs in Auckland and Christchurch in the coming week.
He’s pared it back to six strings, and four brass, with bass, guitar, keys, drums and vocals all part of the mix. Although it’s a smaller “orchestra” the sound, thanks to amplification, is still big and “loud”.
The brass and string musicians were handpicked. The “kids” - as Eddie refers to them – is exactly what he wants. “They know how to groove, they know where the down beat is,” he says. “The songs … [were] part of their childhood.”
Even though lots has changed in the past 21 years he still wouldn’t change the original ENZSO experience with the orchestra. “Listening to the orchestra’s technical prowess, and the sound they make as a whole… it was impressive.”
