This one hits home

Neil FINN figured he knew exactly how it would go when he and his brother Tim played their mother a new song they’d written for her several years ago.

“We were absolutely thrilled at the idea of playing it for her for the first time, and we thought, ‘Oh, she’s just going to weep, and it’s going to be a great family moment,’ ” Neil, 46, says, seated in the booth of a West Hollywood restaurant next to his elder brother, who in 1972 started Split Enz, the band that put New Zealand on the pop music map.

“We chose the wrong moment, as it turned out,” the still boyish-looking Neil continues. “She was busy trying to cater for about five or six people who’d just arrived. We played it to her and she sat there quite patiently, and after about two minutes she said, ‘A bit long, isn’t it?’ ... She just wanted to get on and get the tea made.”

Far from sounding hurt or disappointed, the veteran singing and songwriting siblings share a laugh over the story. The left-field aspect of their mother’s response echoes the sense of the unexpected that has permeated the Finns’ work over the last 30 years, from Split Enz, which disbanded in 1984, through the highly regarded band Neil formed after that, Crowded House, and their various projects apart from each other.

Their new “Everyone Is Here” collaborative album, the successor to 1996’s “Finn” and due for release in August, addresses issues of loss -- at the top of the list is their mother’s death four years ago -- as well as joy, the struggle to find love and the dearness of family, typically in a way that seems to embody Shakespeare’s notion of “sweet sorrow.” Much of that sweetness comes in the form of insistently catchy melodies and harmonies that undulate and shift in constantly refreshing new directions.

The loss of their mother crystallized their commitment with this album to examining themes that hit closest to home, which in their case is Te Awamutu, New Zealand.

“I think it was Picasso who said, ‘Start with what belongs to you,’ and I think we were looking for that,” says Tim, 50, his graying, shoulder-length hair framing a weathered and slightly sunburned but still athletically spirited face.

“There are a couple of songs where we sing to each other as brothers, and in music that’s pretty unusual.... It just had a fresh feel to it. Anything we both didn’t feel something for, we discarded.”

The album is anything but one long paean to a departed loved one. “We dedicated it to her but it’s not about her,” Tim says, “and she’d be the first one to say, “Aw, for God’s sakes.... “

“Won’t Give In,” the leadoff track, offers a promise of commitment in love, “Anything Can Happen” examines the precariousness of life and “Homesick” combines melancholy and a sense of humor into a look at the yearning for home.

The centerpiece may be “All the Colours,” which offers a farewell, but with peaceful acceptance of the loss specific to two musicians: “Now we’re left here to get on with our things / Writing it down and working with wood and strings / And all the colors there to open us up and bring us luck.”

Luck came for the Finns when they shifted work on the album, which had been progressing in fits and starts in New Zealand, to L.A. this year and reunited with producer Mitchell Froom, producer of three of Crowded House’s four studio albums.

“I’m not a believer in destiny,” Neil says, “but it does feel like the stars lined up.”

Adds Tim: “Since coming to L.A., there’s been such a beautiful flow to it. I don’t think we would have had that if there hadn’t been some earlier struggles.”

Sibling revelry is evident during the interview and figures to be visible onstage as well in their new tour, which hits the Southland for three shows this week, including tonight at the Avalon in Hollywood and Friday at the Grove in Anaheim.

“I had one guy say to me, ‘How could you do that? I could never do that with my brother!’ ” Tim says. “It can be a pain to be with your sibling. You can lose your identity, and [because] Neil and I do exactly the same job, sometimes it’s almost too much.

“But for all that, there’s an incredible creative spark,” he says. “We can challenge each other like no one else.... It gets a bit fraught, because you have your ego and you have your pride. But it’s also good to go through that, and I think Neil and I have a better relationship now.”

Although the Finns developed a strong cult following, they’ve come to accept that they may never have the kind of commercial breakthrough some predicted for Split Enz and Crowded House.

“I just feel extraordinarily blessed to be in the exact situation that I’m in,” Neil adds. “We can come to America and play for 1,500 people a night who are really familiar with all of our work, who sing along, who are really good people, and we get to make records kind of whenever we want.”

*

Finn Brothers

Where: Avalon, 1735 N. Vine St., Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. today

Price: $35

Contact: (323) 462-8900

Also

Where: The Grove of Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Price: $34

Contact: (714) 712-2700