Hunt for new Split Enz MIKE CHUNN'S TALENT SEARCH

The musician and sidekick Stephanie are keeping an ear out for the future

- Rebekah Hebenton

As a founding member of Split Enz, Mike Chunn knows what makes a good song. It was the power of the music written by his friends Tim Finn and Phil Judd that made him so excited to be on stage.

So he was stunned to discover how little creative nurturing was happening in schools. That realisation set him on a mission: to show young artists that people care about what they have to say.

“I went to a secondary school to talk to them about songwriting,” the bass player explains. “I said, ‘How many of you think you could write a song?’ And there wasn’t one hand that was put up, and I thought, ‘Well, that sucks.’

“Then I was invited to my eight-year-old daughter’s class and I asked the same question. Every single one said yes. Between the ages of eight and 18, they lose that creative urge to tell their stories and talk about the world they live in.”

That moment inspired Mike to start Play It Strange, a songwriting competition for high school students. He knows better than most the challenges of starting a creative career, so he wanted to help create pathways for budding artists.