House-Less, Neil Finn Feels at Home : The Rocker, Whose Tour Stops in San Juan Capistrano Tonight, Enjoys Solo Route

For Neil Finn, getting out of Crowded House has meant a chance to reap the pleasures of the uncrowded stage.

Finn, 40, is on a somewhat unaccompanied tour of the United States. He dismantled Crowded House in 1996, 10 years after its debut album, “Crowded House,” sold a million copies and spawned the Top 10 singles “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong.” Finn’s dawning solo career featured a tour with a band last summer, but now he’s back on his own, touring sans backup for the first time since his mid-teens.

“It’s really quite new,” he said in a phone interview earlier this week from a hotel in Los Angeles. “In some ways, it’s one of the most enjoyable things I’ve done in years.”

But, hailing from the isolated island nation of New Zealand, where farm animals outnumber the 3.5 million bipeds by a world’s record ratio of 25 to 1, Finn does like a bit of company when he can get it.

He brought along his family for most of the tour, which meant that son Liam, 15, was available to sit in on guitar and backing vocals. And on selected dates, Finn has lined up guests to collaborate on a few numbers per gig, including Eddie Vedder in Boston, Shawn Colvin in Austin, Sheryl Crow in Los Angeles and Grant Lee of Grant Lee Buffalo in San Francisco.

In San Juan Capistrano, where Finn plays tonight at the Coach House, he appears to be on his own. His wife and two sons have flown back to New Zealand; no famous company has been lined up. In a pinch, Finn said, he may call on his opening act, countryman Dave Dobbyn, to give him some musical company.

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The caliber of Finn’s guest stars points to the esteem other musicians have for his songwriting and performing skills. “Try Whistling This,” his first solo album, is a strong example of his craft.

But apart from those gorgeous or zippy early hits with Crowded House, Finn’s songs tend to be ambiguous and complex, with moodiness gaining equal time with warmth. Oblique lyrics force a listener to contemplate a song and not just jump in for quick immersion in its melodic riches.

“There’s always a contradictory element in my lyrics because I allow them to come out without thinking too much, and I’m attracted to contrary images,” he said. “It’s like the slightly random, disconnected thoughts before you go to sleep.”

In a waking dream a few years ago, Finn saw himself vilified as the guy who got Eddie Vedder killed.

Asked how he and the Pearl Jam singer had made their acquaintance, Finn said: “I pulled him from the surf in New Zealand when he was drowning.”

Actually, Finn admitted in the next breath, it was a lifeguard who did the saving; Finn stood on the beach watching his future flash before him: “When Pearl Jam was touring, we took him to the beach and he got caught in a riptide, and the lifeguard had to go out and save him. I got this awful specter of being the guy they blamed for Eddie drowning, death threats from Pearl Jam fans all over the world.”

Vedder lived; last week, on the opening night of Finn’s current tour, the buddies harmonized on material from Crowded House, Split Enz (Finn’s first band, founded by his older brother, Tim) and Pearl Jam.

The treacherous currents of the pop-music biz prevented Crowded House from exceeding large-cult status in the United States after its first-album breakthrough.

“In England and Europe, the first album didn’t really make a dent at all.” Three subsequent albums sold more and more.

“It’s actually quite mysterious when you think of it. We were disadvantaged by a record company [Capitol in the U.S.] that was dysfunctional through much of that period with staff changing. MTV turned against us. We went through grunge, and I suppose the times weren’t in our favor.”

So would Finn consider aiming for a return to the readily embraceable love-song approach of those two Top 10 hits?

“To some extent [mass appeal] is what I’m trying to do every time,” he said with a wan laugh.

“I’m not trying to exclude anybody. I suppose there could be more obvious ways of making commercial records,” he said. “I’m working at my own path and little journey. At certain points it’s possible my inclination will be to do very simple and direct albums. But I don’t see any reason why people can’t come on the journey” when the musical direction becomes a bit elliptical.

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With “Try Whistling This,” Finn crafted a textured, technological work that at times sounded like a warmer bookend to Radiohead’s “OK Computer.” For the follow-up, he’s contemplating a traditional pop-rock approach.

“I learned heaps on this record,” he said. “I learned what computers can do and what they can’t do in assisting me. I would maybe feel less inclined to spend hours and hours on it, but to use it at key points for a bit of cut and paste.

“Next time, I would do a more traditional approach, getting a small group of musicians to perform spirited versions of the songs, then I would mess with it. That way you’ve got an inherent wholeness.”

Playing shows with Crowded House, Finn was part of a whole with two distinct halves: the music-making side, and the joshing-around side, with cutup drummer Paul Hester as comic ringleader in an act that prefigured the currently popular Barenaked Ladies.

Playing solo, Finn can fine-tune what he saw as an imbalance in Crowded House’s stagecraft.

“It tended to be a bit much, really, at times. There were people, and I understand why, who thought it was quite distracting. The mood of the songs is often quite dramatic, and the humor could undercut the drama.

“On a good night, it was great, but I was ready for a different approach,” he said.

“I’m still very conversational with the audience. As the evening progresses, there’s plenty of room for conversation and humor as well. But I’m not trying to copy Crowded House.”

* Neil Finn and Dave Dobbyn play tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $21.50-$23.50. (949) 496-8930.