By David Bauder
The Associated Press

The Police and Genesis rock reunions are getting most of the attention this summer. Two other bands with smaller but rabid followings — Crowded House and Squeeze — also are getting back together after taking dramatically different paths.

Squeeze's partial reunion is an exercise in nostalgia and a business calculation. Crowded House is trying to make a mark with new music after its two surviving original members bonded again over the death of their drummer.

Crowded House's new CD comes less than a year after the release of a DVD and disc of the band's 1996 farewell concert before hundreds of thousands of fans outside Australia's Sydney Opera House.

You say goodbye, we say hello?

The melodic pop trio from New Zealand was an instant sensation with hits such as "Don't Dream It's Over" and "Something So Strong" in 1987. It was a peak they never matched in the United States, although they had a more consistent popularity in other parts of the world.

Crowded House began unraveling when drummer Paul Hester quit in 1993. Drummers are in the background of many bands, but it was hard to miss Hester's outsized personality — in case you did, he'd leave his kit to perform handstands across the stage. Chief songwriter Neil Finn and bassist Nick Seymour dissolved the band a few years later.

Hester committed suicide in 2005. Such tragedies are always hard to explain, but Finn does not feel the lack of the band in Hester's life had anything to do with it. Hester even knew before he died that the three men might work together again.

Finn and Seymour began writing the next year, and the new CD they made, "Time on Earth," is suffused with the memory of Hester and the fragility of life.

It was only after the songs were together that Finn and Seymour decided that it felt like Crowded House again. Guitarist Mark Hart, who had joined the one-time trio in 1992, was invited back. Former Beck drummer Matt Sherrod came onboard, in part because Finn liked the freshness of someone who knew less about Crowded House than any of the others who auditioned.

In the cases of both Crowded House and Squeeze, age melted away some of the annoyances that had broken them apart.

"I just feel like being in a band again," Finn said. "It is true that more tolerance and appreciation of difference now exists. When we were younger we wanted each other to be like ourselves but now we realize with a band it's the difference that creates the interest."

The Squeeze that is touring this summer does not include original keyboardist Jools Holland or drummer Gilson Lavis. But it does bring together Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, the singing and songwriting team that was the band's heart.

Not that it was easy. Squeeze, which broke up in 1999, was once featured in a reality show that tried to reunite the band for a one-night gig. It failed.

"We had an exhausting marriage that went on for 25 years," Difford said. "It got to a point where we needed counseling, but we didn't bother with counseling. We just got into the boxing ring. The boxing ring of silence, really, because we didn't actually say or do anything."

The two men had to talk to make decisions surrounding the rerelease of some of their material in Britain. Tilbrook initially rejected a suggestion to tour together but changed his mind, Difford said.

Smart move. Tilbrook and Difford separately may draw some folks to a small club. As Squeeze, the name behind songs such as "Tempted," "Black Coffee in Bed" and "Up the Junction," they can fill much larger venues, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of the concert industry publication Pollstar.

There's another business reality behind the spate of reunions, Bongiovanni said.

"A lot of these musicians could get better paydays today than when they were touring at the height of their careers, when touring was done as a way to sell records," he said. "Today you tour to make money."

Finn said he doubts that he would be able to make considerably more money with Crowded House than he would as a solo artist.

"Sharing the proceeds with the band means I may end up with less, but it will be a lot more fun," he said. "In the end, the collaboration and band dynamic will make the future bigger and brighter."

A sense of appreciation for Squeeze's legacy, along with time, smoothed over many of the resentments that had kept him apart from Tilbrook, Difford said. His partner is, ultimately, "like another wing of my family," he said.

Unlike the men of Crowded House, Difford doesn't see Squeeze with a future as anything more than a nostalgia act.

"Things are far too complicated," he said. "Then again, I didn't think we would go on tour. Things can change and things will change and that's the beauty of our relationship."