`I went out last night and got trashed." Interviewing Neil Finn the day after his 40th birthday wasn't, in retrospect, the best idea in the world. But he's a trooper, and an intelligent one at that, so as the minutes wore on the more focused he became. "I'm actually far less concerned about turning 40 that I was turning 30, for some reason," he says, sitting in a hotel suite so large that it threatens to engulf the two of us. "Forty is the traditional age for people to go through their mid-life crises, but there's no particular age that can happen. It can strike you at any time, and it's more dependent on circumstances. As it is, I feel quite blessed to have got this far. I still have a huge affection for music and what I do. I have a fantastic family, and I've made some money out of what I do, so I'm comfortably off. I'm a little bit more relaxed about things as well. A modicum of wisdom has been achieved in all those years."

Before he went out and got "trashed", Neil Finn played one of the best showcase gigs I've ever experienced. The location was Abbey Road Studios, London's famed recording facility that has played host to a vast number of some of the best-known pop and rock groups of the last 35 years, including - as if you really needed to know - The Beatles and Oasis. In many ways, it made sense that Finn played there, as he has gained over the past 20 years a reputation for constructing perfect pop songs - initially with Split Enz, and then Crowded House.

"I make of them as much as I can," he says of showcase gigs, which are mostly a dreaded promotional thorn in the side of the pop/rock artist. "It was particularly attentive for an industry crowd. Often, you get the feeling that half are chatting amongst themselves, and you're struggling to get through the set list. Basically, I'm always happy to have a guitar in my hand. In the context of a promotional tour where I'm talking about things all the time, it's a blessing to be able to play."

What about playing in the hallowed studio rooms of Abbey Road? Was that not a thrill for Neil? Did he receive robust resonances from beyond the grave? "Not really,"' is the surprising desultory reply. "It was a nice-sounding room, but short of The Beatles being there doing their stuff, I'm not hugely sentimental about things like that. I remember when I first came to London, when I was 18 with Split Enz, the first place I checked out was The Marquee, the legendary rock club on Wardour Street. "I went in there with romantic visions of what it would be like, but the place was just a stench of beer and urine - a bit tawdry at the end of the day - so that cured me. Legendary places are the sum of the people that were in there creating the legends, and are not in themselves very startling places."

Now that Neil has decided to go solo, he feels slightly awkward about seeing his name being bandied about as an item of corporative marketing. "On the other hand, it's about time I owned up to it," he maintains. "It feels like a lot less responsibility, even though some would say on the surface of it there's a lot more, because I'm not sharing the load of work. In terms of my responsibility to other people, and having to account for other people's lives every time there's a decision to be made, I'm really enjoying the freedom of being able to consider my family and myself first.

"You could say I might be painted as an ungrateful bastard, because the band and the people around it achieved a very good level of commercial success shortly before we broke up. In terms of the core of what it is to be a band, however, it resides in how the music is feeling, the combined will, the shared sense of direction, and I wasn't feeling that. It didn't seem right in all of those areas.

"We rehearsed before I made the decision, and the rehearsal period didn't suggest a direction to me. It was actually quite hard work. There was a chemistry between us in the early days which was undeniable, but this time it felt different and not in a good way."

Aside from the Spinal Tap stigma he briefly experienced of going solo (ex-lead singer of successful band releases much-hyped debut solo record, only to discover that the "fans" are busy washing their hair) Neil says he always intended to continue working. Ultimately, he contends, nothing has changed. "I made a record, and here I am with a few less characters involved."

Try Whistling This is a hugely satisfying album that hammers the final nail into the Crowded House coffin. Focused and resolute in its execution, Finn's ear for a gorgeous melody is as intact as it ever was, while his lyrics are far more searching and honest than heretofore. "I may not be entirely the wisest man on earth," he remarks, "but something has been learnt. I sense I'm more at ease with myself."

WITHIN the economic nature of a well-honed pop song, Neil tries to make every line count. An admirer of people whose lyrics are well crafted - "that are magical and mysterious, but seem to have a very consistent emotional centre to them" - he doesn't necessarily feel he has arrived at that point yet. "I get flashes of lines and sections of songs - occasionally whole songs - that I'm very proud of. But there are places where the songs have a vagueness that I would like to clear up."

Disingenuousness and self-criticism are unusual traits for someone who has a pop profile as high and credible as Finn's. While some pop stars seem to think their hollow lyrics are revelatory figures of speech, Finn's self-doubted "impressionistic" lyrical style actually holds the key to the confession box. Is there anything that holds him back as a songwriter?

"Any no go areas? I think I've been prepared to commit any thoughts I've had to paper and stick with them," he says. "There are times when I've talked myself out of going down certain roads because I think there's a danger people will read too much into them, or that it's revealing more than I'd like to. It's a complex thing. I'd acknowledge that certain parts of songs are intimately connected with my life - there are a few lines that resonate from direct experience - but then you fill out the song with another person's life. I get uncomfortable when people read the songs as a diary.

"I'm more interested in the confessional thing, because when I was a kid I used to love it when it felt like a singer was revealing something. I'm attracted to that notion of the song; more so than actually wanting to confess anything directly. By the time I'm halfway through the song, I'm thinking of the singer of the song as a third party, with the audience taking great comfort in someone exposing a weakness or a doubt that they may have felt themselves."

So it's good to talk, then? "Absolutely. I really believe that one of the functions of music is to offer comfort and reassurance, even more so than escape."

Fact File

Then: New Zealander Neil Finn was a member of both Split Enz and Crowded House, two of the most successful Australasian rock groups of the past 20 years. In 1993, Neil (along with his brother Tim, also a member of the two bands) was awarded the OBE for his contribution to the music of New Zealand. The mainstay of Crowded House, Neil split up that group towards the end of 1996. Inevitably, there is the obligatory Irish connection: Neil's mother was born in Kilmallock, near Limerick.

Now: Neil Finn's debut solo album, Try Whistling This, is currently on release. Q magazine remarked in its review that Finn "appears to have struck gold in his attempt to remould his undisputed talent for classic melody." Neil Finn will be play at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin on September 14th.