I’m more excited about music at the moment than I’ve ever been,” says Neil Finn in his laid-back New Zealand tones.

“The next five years will be especially prolific because I’ve got my studio at home in Auckland, which I’m starting to feel at home in. I’d love to make a record with my son Liam, which we’ve talked about. But it all feels like such a privilege to still be doing this after this long. I’ve been granted a lifetime pass.”

So speaks the Crowded House lead singer and chief song-writer, whose career has spanned close on 35 years.

From the highs of his 1993 OBE to the lows of drummer Paul Hester committing suicide in 2005, Crowded House have managed to ride the storm and emerged more focused than ever with a new album Intriguer.

All of which means the band is back on the road and coming to Oxford’s New Theatre on June 6. And as a fan, if you don’t feel old yet, you will soon.

“Now we’re at a stage where the sons and daughters of Crowded House fans have grown up with the songs,” Neil says, hammering home the point. “Our fans have fanned out, as it were, and we’ve noticed a lot of young fans coming along who can sing half our songs back to us.”

But he disputes that Crowded House fit into any decade: “Our songs have permeated, I think, because we never did, and still don’t, belong to a particular movement.

“We don’t have an image that relates to a particular era, either. I say that for better and for worse, too.

“Because sometimes people have difficulty getting a handle on what Crowded House is, what we look like or what our image is. It’s not like a band that wears the same clothes all the time and has a strong identity. The upside of that for us is that it’s the songs that are our calling card.”

And with a stable of classics such as Weather With You, Don’t Dream It’s Over, Fall At Your Feet and It’s Only Natural under their belts, you an understand his pride and for his die-hard followers none of this will make any difference, they’ll be at the gigs come rain or shine.

And yet the 51-year-old, who first sprang to prominence with the seminal New Zealand band Split Enz, resists the urge to rest on his laurels and the groups strong back catalogue, by remaining a prolific songwriter, hence the forthcoming album and of course the tour.

“We will be playing new songs on the tour, but I reckon half the set will be the old stuff too,” Neil says.

But for them to be here at all is a miracle. After splitting up 10 years previously, Crowded House reformed in 2006, spurred on by Hester’s suicide. Intriguer is the band’s second release since their reformation; how does Neil keep coming up with the goods?

“It’s a craft, but I’ve always thought of craft as a self-satisfied word. To me, it’s far more primitive than that.

“The moments of greatness are nothing to do with craft, it’s do with instinct and a flash of inspiration.

“I can talk about this forever, but writing songs will always be a mystery. If I knew how I wrote a classic song, I would do it every day, and I can’t.

“Luckily for me, not many other people know how to do it either.”

And with Neil’s wife Sharon now on board, writing songs with him under the moniker The Pyjama Party, future is as crazily unknown as always, which suits Neil down to the ground.

He said: “I don’t think I’m ready to be a classic band,” he says. “But then it’s glorious that it’s already lasted so long.”