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INXS
INXS
is Australia’s all-time most successful band, also establishing a vast
international following, second only to AC/DC as Australia’s most important
and best known music export to the rest of the world.
The INXS story begins as a tale in two
parts, first of a tight-knit family which encouraged its children to do
whatever they wanted - even joining rock and roll bands - welcoming their sons’ friends into the Farriss family. The second part of the story is of a
child born into a family constantly pulling apart, emotionally and
physically. Michael Hutchence’s parents
separated when he was young, but old enough to feel it hard. He was sent
bouncing between his parents. His father’s import business meant that he
was also sent bouncing between countries and cultures.
The
Farriss brothers, Tim, Andrew and Jon and their
younger sister were born and raised in Perth. Father Dennis wasn’t a
musician but a music fan. He made sure there was a banjo and ukulele on
hand for the boys to make a noise with as a nightly ritual before they went
to bed. The musical awakening happened early in the boys’ life. They were
three (Jon), five (Andrew), and seven (Tim) and were in London visiting
their father’s family, when an old school friend of their mother's named
Rolf Harris, gave them tickets to a taping of a TV show he was hosting. His
guests were The Beatles. The Farris brothers saw the performance, and the
fans’ reaction. It was a moment that would be in the back of their minds in
the years to follow, on the way to their own career in music.
Seven
years later, in 1971 Dennis was promoted to assistant manager for all of
Australia of the international company he worked for and relocated the
family to Sydney, just as eldest son Tim, who was already an accomplished
guitarist, turned fourteen. That same year, at school Tim met another avid
bedroom guitarist, Kirk Pengilly. They became
inseparable friends. Kirk’s home was a long way from school and he started
bunking at the Farriss’, their first “honorary”
brother. Andrew in the meantime had instinctively taken to playing piano.
Jon, still ten, was playing drums and jammed with both his brothers. There
was no grand design to do something together, just a noisy accommodating
household with three brothers separately taking an interest in music.
Michael Hutchence
first encountered the Farriss family when Andrew
rescued Michael from being roughed up as the new boy in high school. The
two became instant friends although his own family situation sent him away
again, to live with his mother in Los Angeles. Michael and Andrew stayed in
touch through letters mostly talking about their musical interests in
music. When Hutchence returned to Sydney a year
later Andrew immediately invited him to join his band. Playing alongside
Andrew on bass was a schoolmate of Tim’s, Gary Beers. Tim and Kirk in the meantime were playing
in bands of their own. The brothers’ respective bands kept breaking up
until finally they decided to join forces with Jon on drums.
On
Tim's 20th birthday August 16 1977, the day Elvis Presley died,
at Whale Beach, 40 km north of Sydney The Farriss
Brothers band played publicly for the first time.
Jon
was still 16, still going to school, so when his parents decided to move
back to Perth Jon was obliged to go with them. Rather than lose their
drummer the rest of the band decided to go with him. In Perth they moved
into a communal home and spent 10 months writing, rehearsing, and playing
local hotels and mining towns near Perth before returning to Sydney in
early 1979. It proved to be time well spent. The band that returned to
Sydney was fresh, relatively young, but able to hold its own against the
popular bands of the day. If audiences were looking for something new they
immediately recognized it the Farriss Brothers.
Midnight Oil recognized it too. Their first tour was supporting the Oils,
whose manager Gary Morris took over management from Tim and Kirk, much to
their relief. Morris insisted they change their name. He thought they should
perform behind bars and be “INXS-ible”. A name
was all they took from the idea anyway and on September 1 gave their first
performance as INXS at Oceanview Hotel in
Toukley. They approached Chris Murphy who had booked the Oils dates to take
over management.
From
the beginning INXS established the work ethic which would mark their
career, often doing two gigs a night. Singer songwriter Richard Clapton was
someone else who took notice. He offered to produce their first album but
in the end they couldn’t make schedules work and job was handled by Ayres Rock’s
Duncan McGuire during rushed sessions on the graveyard shift of a Sydney
studio, the band and producer fitting recording in between gigs. McGuire
was often found slumped with exhaustion at the control desk.
Released
in October 1980, the self-titled debut album contained the singles ‘Simple
Simon’ and ‘Just Keep Walking’, the band’s first hit. The album was
recorded for about $7000 for the Deluxe label founded by former AC/DC
manager Michael Browning with his “kiss off” when Accaddaca
took on international management. Deluxe also released INXS’ second album,
‘Underneath The Colours’, this time produced by Richard Clapton and
containing INXS’ version of the Australian classic ‘The Loved One’.
Ambitious
for success, INXS and their manager felt that Deluxe could take them no further.
The label had been unable to secure them an international release. With
that in mind the band recorded a demo of a new song ‘Don’t Change’, at
their own expense with Mark Opitz, the producer
who had been instrumental in bringing the Angels and Cold Chisel’s music
into shape. INXS were offered a recording contract with Warners on the
strength of that one song, but they were not convinced Opitz
was the right man for a whole album. Looking around the world for a
producer they were consistently advised they couldn’t do better than what Opitz promised. The end result was ‘Shabooh
Shoobah’, INXS’ breakthrough album. Mark Opitz had also managed to bring out the essence in
INXS’ music.
At
home it was the band’s first top ten album, and
modestly started the ball rolling internationally. The band followed up
with ‘Listen Like Thieves’, ‘The Swing’ and ‘Kick’, supported by that
famous work ethic, as the band toured America again and again. By the end
of the 80s they were not just Australia’s most successful band, but one of
the world’s most popular bands, with a Grammy nomination for ‘Kick’.
England had taken some time to come on board. The local record company
decided they knew their market and changed the band’s single sleeve images,
portraying the band misleadingly as glam rockers. A sold out performance in
front of 74,000 fans at the Wembly Stadium on
July 13, 1991 set the record straight.
The
90s saw the band strutting the world stage,
Michael Hutchence creating headlines and gossip
with his relationships with Kylie Minogue and
Paula Yates. The band’s popularity gradually seemed to wane. During their
rise, manager Chris Murphy had used strongarm tactics on the band’s behalf,
and now when the band needed moral support, maybe because of Murphy’s past
efforts that support was less inclined to be offered. Murphy and the band
decided to part ways.
If there
was going to be a renaissance – and INXS was clearly determined there would
be and should be – it would be
generated from within, as before, through concerted effort in the studio
and on stage and in 1997 there was every sign that indeed the tide was
turning. With another bout of solo recordings out of his system – he had
previously stepped out of the INXS context for the ‘Dogs In Space’
soundtrack and Max Q - Michael Hutchence was
again able to focus on what he could offer the band.
INXS’
April 1997 tenth studio album ‘Elegantly Wasted’ – their first with hard
rock producer Bruce Fairbairn (Bon Jovi,
Aerosmith, AC/DC) -
was well received. The world tour supporting the album got
off to a strong start in South Africa where the title track ‘Elegantly
Wasted’; made No.1. The American dates saw some sell-out houses.
November/December’s Australian end-of-tour dates promised to be a strong
climax.
With
posters promoting the ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ tour on display around the
country the band
arrived in Sydney for rehearsals, two months after a show in
Pittsburgh which would prove to be their last. On the morning
of 22 November 1997, Hutchence, aged 37, was
found dead in Room 524 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Double Bay, Sydney. The
Coroner ruled that it was suicide. Maybe it was accidental.
After the initial period of grieving what followed
for INXS was behavior akin to a beast thrashing about after its head had
been cut off. They refused to say “die”. They performed with guests, they
tried various options before appointing ex-Noiseworks singer Jon Stevens as Hutchence’s replacement. But they were clearly never
comfortable with their choice. Stevens fronted the band for three years,
but when he left in October 2003 INXS had managed to record just one track
with him, a charity single.
What followed was even more astounding – survival
yes, credibility no. INXS became the vehicle for a world-wide television
search for a new singer, ‘RockStar:INXS’. Eventually Canadian singer J.D.Fortune
was anointed winner and rushed into the studio to record INXS’ first album
for eight years, ‘Switch’. Poor sales internationally saw the termination
of the band’s international recording contract.
Still determined not to allow Michael Hutchence’s absence rob them of the career they had
worked so hard for and given so much to INXS reunited with former manager
Chris Murphy and in 2010 released ‘Original Sin’- the band reinventing
their past hits with a various guest vocalists, including J D Fortune. Ben Harper, Tricky, Rob Thomas and Suzi DiMarchi who had
seriously been considered to fill Michael’s shoes very early in this long
and arduous transition.
CONTINUED
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