Silo Park becomes Harper Finn’s anchor — a place of stillness amid love, loss, and city lights
New Zealand-born singer-songwriter Harper Finn has spent the past few years bouncing between hemispheres, and you can hear every bit of that restless energy on his debut album Silo Park.
Landing today, it’s an analog fever dream – part Aotearoa nostalgia, part New York chaos – recorded to 16-track tape in Woodstock with Sam Evian (Big Thief, Cass McCombs).
The result is cinematic, bruised, and quietly magnetic — a coming-of-age story filtered through love, loss, and city lights, with echoes of Michael Penn and, dare we say it, a pinch of mid-80’s Tim Finn (must be those hella good genes). It’s a record that feels lived-in and wise beyond its years.
When we catch Harper over the weekend, he’s back in Sydney, decompressing after release day. He’s been walking, talking, thinking – trying to make sense of a project that took him halfway across the world and deep into himself.
He tells us about tape machines, Big Star, and what it means to chase stillness in a city that never sleeps.
HAPPY: What are you up to today?
HARPER: It’s Sunday, so I’ve had a bit of a slow day after the release weekend. I spent some time reading messages and doing a bit of social media work.
I had lunch with my grandparents in Darling Square and then went for a walk around Sydney with my sister, just the two of us, which was really nice.
HAPPY: Tell us a little bit about where you live, what do you love about it?
HARPER: I guess I don’t really live anywhere at the moment. I’ve been living in New York for the past few years, but lately I’ve been kind of everywhere, which has its pros and cons.
I definitely love being able to travel for music. It’s something I’ve always dreamed about, and I feel very grateful to be doing it right now.
HAPPY: ‘Silo Park’ is being called a deeply personal and cinematic debut. What story were you most excited to tell with this album?
HARPER: I was most excited to tell the story of my first year moving to New York as someone from New Zealand.
Growing up and going through my mid-twenties in a new city, experiencing love and loss in a very different environment, and seeing that world through my own eyes.
HAPPY: You recorded the album on 16-track tape in Woodstock with Sam Evian – how did that setting and process shape the sound?
HARPER: Using tape felt like a very different approach. Tape is finite, so everything has to be more considered.
I liken it to writing lyrics with a pen on paper instead of typing on a computer.
There’s an extra level of commitment when your work is tangible from the start.
From the beginning, the record felt like it had to be made differently than anything I’d done before.
We had to learn and rehearse the songs and feel confident about the material before pressing record, instead of just recording and knowing we could delete it later.
HAPPY: Growing up in New Zealand but spending a lot of time in New York, how do those contrasting worlds show up in your music?
HARPER: I think they’re almost opposites. In New Zealand, most nights I’d go for a walk and see no one on the streets, at least where I was staying.
In New York, go out at any time and there could be hundreds of people around. There’s a stillness to the record, but also a lot of movement, highs and lows.
For me, I guess it’s that mixture of living life slowly and also kind of fast, double speed.
HAPPY: ‘Love & Loneliness’ has really resonated with listeners – what inspired that track?
HARPER: What inspired that track was living in an apartment for the first time and feeling how small a space can feel when there’s conflict or tension.
The song came during my first winter in New York, when I wasn’t sure if I was staying with someone because we were in love, or if we were just too afraid of being lonely and separate from each other.
HAPPY: Which song on the album challenged you the most, creatively or emotionally?
HARPER: I think it might have been ‘Man or Machine’. That song really took a while to crack.
It’s also one of the oldest songs I’ve had, and it’s been recorded a few times, so it felt like a bit of an odyssey.
I went through a lot of stages getting to the final version, and finishing it was really satisfying for me.
There’s an epic quality towards the end, a key change, and so many layers.
HAPPY: Touring as Balu Brigada’s pianist opened doors around the world. What lessons did you bring back to your own music?
HARPER: I think it was really about the experiences we were having live and the lessons from performing night after night.
We played a lot of shows, including arenas, and it taught me how creating or playing music that fills those spaces is just different.
The way songs can change and morph depending on the room or the crowd was really eye-opening.
It got me excited to go back and think about my own music, visualizing the spaces and places I’d play it.
HAPPY: Being Tim Finn’s son comes with a musical legacy. How do you carve out your own sound and identity?
HARPER: I guess I’ve never really felt that conscious of it. Growing up, my friends knew me for me and the music I was making. It was my music.
No one really made those connections, at least not my friends. So I’ve never felt like it’s something I had to be conscious of or deliberately navigate.
I’ve just followed my own instincts and creative journey. It happens to be part of my world, but it’s never something that’s dictated it.
HAPPY: Who or what were your biggest influences while making ‘Silo Park’?
HARPER: I think my biggest influence for this record was a band called Big Star. I remember playing their song Thirteen in high school. I used to play it at the processional.
There’s something in the way Alex Chilton sings and writes lyrics that really resonated with me early on. Making this record felt like going back to the music that inspired me as a teenager.
I was that kid playing guitar and singing at school assemblies, or sitting in the piano room playing songs.
HAPPY: If someone heard only one song from the album, which would you want them to hear first – and why?
HARPER: I’d probably want them to hear the title track, Silo Park. The song leaves you with more questions than answers, which I like.
It’s probably the darkest song I’ve ever written in terms of mood and visuals. I think it’s the most intense version of my songwriting, and even now, listening back, I don’t really know how I wrote it.
HAPPY: What makes you happy?
HARPER: Honestly, being around my friends. They’re spread out these days, so being able to see them on tour has made me feel quite blessed.
