THERE'S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT, AND THERE ARE MANY, MANY WAYS TO MAKE GOOD MUSIC. BUT, AS MUSICIAN LIAM FINN HAS DISCOVERED, THERE'S REALLY ONLY ONE WAY TO MAKE YOUR FIRST SOLO ALBUM.

First you form a one man band. This involves knowing how to play a variety of instruments, and sometimes several of them at the same time. This hasn't been a problem for Finn, member of Betchadupa and heir apparent to the Finn family's musical talent. He has recently given live audiences in London, LA, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland a bit of a thrill by singing, playing guitar lines, bass lines and the drums onstage at his solo gigs, with only a looping effects pedal (and even more recently E.J Barnes) for company.

You what? "Well, there were always a lot of instruments around so I guess playing lots of different things just became second nature really," Finn explains, modestly shrugging off any suggestion that this must be pretty difficult. Then secondly, you gather a bunch of suitably solitary compositions together. Finn has been writing the songs that will appear on this album, I'LL BE LIGHTNING, for the past few years while he and his band have been resident in Australia and the UK.

Initially he imagined some of the songs being used by Betchadupa - the group are currently taking a break but will record together again - but, as Finn says, "the stuff I was writing was very personal and pretty intimate. These songs are very honest, they're like the story of my life over the past few years and I think they're some of the best songs I've ever written. But," he laughs, "because of that I guess I was a bit more sensitive about them. So I didn't take them to the band immediately because I felt a bit self conscious about it."

Then finally, once you've gathered the songs and the instruments, you find a studio and record them. Also alone, Finn spent two months at the beginning of this year at Roundhead, a central Auckland studio, playing, recording, engineering and producing his own album. "Mainly because I didn't want to compromise or collaborate," he acknowledges. "I wanted to record these songs the way I heard them in my head. And I had a very clear idea of how I wanted them recorded." Part of this had to do with what Finn describes as the sort of passion and raw enthusiasm musicians get when they're recording demo tracks - that is, when they're recording a new song - for the first time. "It's a pretty special feeling. But usually you don't record them well enough to convince anyone to release them. So I wanted to get myself into a situation where I could translate that special mood into a recording."

To do this, Finn also stayed away from anything digital or computerized, instead opting for old fashioned analog gear, including a vintage Nieve recording desk that The Who had once owned and a bunch of two inch tape. "It's like the difference between digital video and film," Finn explains. "There's just something you can't capture on computers.

But that's not to say this album of what Finn calls 'unique pop songs' was without a fair few rock 'n' roll moments. For instance, at one stage during the recording process, Finn's father, Neil, Betchadupa bandmate, Matt Eccles, and guitar virtuoso Connan Hosford of New Zealand band, Connan and the Mockasins, had all been out to dinner. Inspired by the fine food and lashings of wine, the quartet all went back to the studio and recorded a song Connan and he had written that day, which was also destined to be the albums' title track. Recorded in one take, this number appears on the album complete with its live, 'you-feel-like-you're-right-there' flaws.

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