On Friday I was sent a photo of a Ticket CD that was on sale at Basement Discs in the city. As the sender is Australian, I had to explain where Ticket sat in NZ music in the early ’70s: which led me to thinking about brothers in music across the world from the very end of the ’50s to the mid-’70s like UK brothers Ray & Dave Davies of the Kinks; US brothers Don & Phil Everly in the Everly Brothers.

My thinking then moved to brothers in bands with links to Australia like Malcolm & Angus Young in AC/DC or Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb in the Bee Gees.

And then my thinking went to NZ brothers in music … The Finn brothers are the ones who spring to mind immediately (& will to huge numbers of people). Although for the scope of the book I am writing it is only Tim who is relevant. He came to Australia with Split Enz in 1975.

But there are more NZ brothers in bands. These are a handful I was aware of quite quickly. The Hunter brothers, Marc & Todd – both of whom were in Dragon who also came to Australia in 1975.

From the SONY MUSIC (Australia) ESSENTIAL DRAGON CD compilation 2007

The Forrer brothers – Martin was bass player in the Chants R&B though he didn’t come to Australia when the band came over late in 1966 & Andrew who was in Beech with Brent Parlane and later in Tole Puddle. Tole Puddle came to Australia though I am unsure of the exact line-up of the band when they arrived here.

The Stevens brothers – Frankie is the one who came in the time span the book covers & worked with the Castaways after Peter Nelson departed. Jon is younger & is known in Australia as a solo artist but he did spend some time in INXS, where of course there were three brothers … Jon Stevens was their vocalist for a short time after Michael Hutchence’s death.

The Hanson brothers – Pete was in the Chants R&B though he didn’t come to Australia with them. Eddie was in the Christchurch group Revival in 1969; in Ticket in 1972 … Ticket being the trigger for the thoughts about NZ brothers in music …