Liam Finn could rightly be identified as a world citizen. The New Zealand native was a globetrotting toddler, accompanying father Neil Finn on Crowded House tours, repeating the experience as a young adult with his own band, the renowned Betchadupa. To record FOMO, the sophomore follow-up to 2007 solo debut I’ll Be Lightning, Finn relocated to London, but moved to New York City three years ago. Finn’s third solo set, The Nihilist, runs the gamut of his genetic and experiential influences. Finn will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on him.
Finn: When we were in Berlin, an old friend took us out to a hill called Teufelsberg (German for “Devil’s Mountain”). It is a man-made hill built out of rubble from Berlin’s ruins after World War II. In the ’60s, the U.S.’s NSA built a surveillance station on top of the hill that has since become derelict, and heavily vandalized. If you know the way, you can sneak into the empty building and explore the huge rooms and domes at the top of the station. The sound inside there is amazing. The empty circular levels on the way up to the top are all exposed with no outside walls, or safety railings and have amazing views of Berlin, while the lower floors are barren and dark, covered in graffiti, making them look like a post apocalyptic gang head quarters.
