Split Enz by Noel Crombie & Michael Dwyer
Split Enz: An Adventure in Music and Design understands something essential about its subject: Split Enz were never only a band to be heard. They were a band to be seen. The angular costumes, painted faces, improbable hairstyles and theatrical gestures were not decorative extras attached to the music. They belonged to the same restless creative impulse that produced the songs.
That makes Noel Crombie an ideal guide. As percussionist, performer, costume designer, hair stylist, album-cover artist and visual instigator, he occupied a peculiar position inside Split Enz, simultaneously making the spectacle and appearing within it. Working with veteran music journalist Michael Dwyer, he offers an account in which design, performance and music develop together, supported by photographs, sketches, costumes and memorabilia drawn from across the band’s career.
The book traces Split Enz from the art-school experimentation of early-1970s New Zealand through years of shifting line-ups, overseas struggle and cult recognition to the breakthrough of True Colours in 1980. Yet its strongest material lies in the creative process surrounding that history. Crombie’s descriptions of learning to sew because the clothes he imagined did not exist, or treating hair as something close to sculpture, reveal how thoroughly the band’s eccentricity was constructed. The look could be playful, absurd or unsettling, but it was rarely accidental.
What emerges is also a portrait of collaboration. Dressing and applying make-up together before a performance became part of the group’s preparation, turning separate musicians into a collective visual identity before they reached the stage. Crombie’s determination to reinvent that identity repeatedly is equally revealing. Split Enz avoided settling into a recognisable costume in the manner of bands whose visual trademarks eventually became uniforms. Change was the trademark.
Dwyer’s interviews give the book breadth beyond Crombie’s memories, allowing different members to reflect on the songs, imagery and chemistry that held such disparate personalities together. The lavish visual presentation is not incidental to the project. This is one of those music books where the physical object contributes directly to the argument, demonstrating on the page why Split Enz looked as radical as they sounded.
The full participation of the band inevitably means the book leans towards celebration rather than forensic reassessment. Readers seeking a combative biography or detailed excavation of internal tensions may find the perspective somewhat affectionate. But critical distance is not really its purpose.
Instead, Split Enz captures the extraordinary coherence of a group that treated pop music as a meeting place for melody, theatre, fashion, humour and visual art. It records not only what Split Enz made, but how fiercely they believed in making it their own way. For fans, it is a beautifully assembled archive. For readers interested in Australasian music history, it is an illuminating study of how a band created an identity strong enough to remain instantly recognisable while refusing to stay still.
Reviewer: Chris Reed
Allen & Unwin
