Inxs - The Original Sin of the Wave Era

"Some silken moment goes on forever"

Michael Hutchence

Pop? Rock? Funk? It's impossible to find a single word or a simple adjective that can convincingly capture every nuance of the musical story of Australia's Inxs. It would be even worse to slap a label on one of the liveliest, most sparkling chapters of the golden decade that was the Eighties. Champions of a quirky but effective pop song for some, the usual stadium rockers for others, and for still others the authors of frivolous but fun chart-friendly hooks. Inxs are all of this, and at the same time none of it. When asked directly, the band themselves answer with the idea of "white boy dance-music". The only certainty is that behind all those number-one hits, the heavy rotation radio tunes and the crowds that followed them everywhere, lies the flair and imagination of six real musicians who know their craft damn well, and who, moving confidently through the heart of the new wave era, managed to surprise. And more often than not, they hit the mark.

The Beginnings: From Family Band to Untouchable Group

The story begins in 1977 in Sydney, Australia. The band forms when former schoolmates Andrew Farriss (keyboards and guitar) and Michael Hutchence (vocals) team up with bassist Garry Gary Beers to form Doctor Dolphin. At the same time, Tim Farriss (guitar) and his friend Kirk Pengilly (guitar and saxophone) are active on the local circuit under the name Guinness. By the end of the year, with the addition of the third Farriss brother, Jon (drums), the two groups merge: thus the Farriss Brothers are born.

The following year the whole band relocated to Perth: a journey of over 7,000 kilometres through the heart of Australia, spent writing their first songs and playing in small-town hotels. In 1979, when Jon graduated, the band moved back to Sydney for good, and after a few months serving their apprenticeship on the pub circuit, on 1 September they played a show at the Oceanview Hotel in Toukley, performing for the first time under the name that would make them famous: Inxs (pronounced "in excess", i.e. "in X S"). The name was inspired by the English band Xtc (an acronym that can also be read as "Ecstasy") and by a popular ad for the Australian jam brand Ixl (the protagonist of the commercial, very well known at the time, whispers to the viewer "I excel in all I do"): the Farriss brothers picked up on the idea and reworked it into Inxs, meaning "inaccessible".

Shortly afterward the band signed to the independent label Deluxe Records and released their debut single "Simple Simon/We Are The Vegetables", followed in 1980 by their first studio album, the self-titled Inxs.

In Europe this was the height of the new wave era, while the former Farriss Brothers were still searching for a well-defined sound; so the album, though still a bit raw like many debut records, nonetheless offers some genuinely interesting ideas for these latitudes, perhaps precisely because of the members' previous stints in other bands with wildly different musical influences.

Inxs skilfully fuses hard rock with nods to the then-rampant new wave fashion, and while on one hand the guitars (later revisited in the grunge era) and the constant presence of saxophone give an almost ska flavour to tracks like "Jumping", "Wishy Washy" and "Body Language" (in the manner of Madness, Specials, Dexys Midnight Runners or the very earliest Red Hot Chili Peppers, to name just a few), on the other the keyboards seem to underline dance influences, in line with the dictates of the time, on "Rollerskating" and "In Vain".

The album was launched by the single "Just Keep Walking", which thanks to a memorable chorus immediately made the top 40 of the Australian singles charts and earned the band a fair amount of popularity at home.

The follow-up, Underneath The Colours, released in 1981, adds little to the band's sonic palette. Worth mentioning are the ballads "Stay Young", the title track "Underneath The Colours" and "Horizons", but on the whole the singles are less explosive than those on the previous album. The record as a whole is perhaps the weakest entry in this early phase of their career, but alongside a certain maturing of Michael Hutchence and co.'s songwriting skills, it led to an American deal with Atco Records, which in 1983 would result in Shabooh Shoobah, Inxs's first release in the United States.

It's the best record of this first phase, launched by the gorgeous "Don't Change", destined to remain one of the band's most beloved songs, and by the singles "Black And White" (a bold, defiant anthem in the vein of Clash — the fire that had set London ablaze a few years earlier flares up here too) and "To Look At You".

The album was followed by a tour that took the band outside Australia's borders for the first time.

1984-1997: from the swing to the fall, by way of glory

But it was in 1984, with the release of The Swing, that the band reached the height of its artistic maturity and defined the signature sound that would set it apart during its years of success. Musically speaking, the album remains arguably the band's finest, thanks to the increasingly prominent presence of electronic keyboards, which now allowed the band to range across refined dark atmospheres, dance rhythms and gleaming pop-funk gems; combined with the use of sax and certain new romantic touches, this brings Inxs, in this second phase, closer to the Bowie of "Let's Dance", the Japan of "Gentlemen Take Polaroids", the Prince of "1999" or the more inspired Spandau Ballet, rather than to the robotically-derived synth-pop that in Britain was making the fortune of bands like Ultravox, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell and so on.

"Original Sin", produced by Nile Rodgers, is INXS's first great step towards an unstoppable rise. The single, sinuous and irresistible, with its Orientalist keyboard riff and an instantly knockout refrain, shot straight to the top of the Australian charts (where it would stay for two consecutive years), marking the group's turn towards a thoroughly compelling rock-dance hybrid. The video, shot in Japan, is memorable: Hutchence, backed on vocals by Daryl Hall, arrives singing astride a motorcycle. The lyrics, meanwhile, turn the story of original sin into an anthem against racial discrimination.

The album was also a hit in the United States, driven by that single and by the ones that followed: "I Send A Message" (with its funky pulse) and the sparkling "Burn For You" (elegantly funky, with backing vocals carrying a faint gospel flavour). Also particularly successful are the title track "The Swing" (with its driving rhythm and martial drumbeat), "Dancing On The Jetty" (with fierce bursts of bass and guitar, here softened by synths à la Depeche Mode), the more aggressive "Melting In The Sun" and the romantic "Love Is What I Say". Closing the circle is the aching, melancholy "Johnson's Aeroplane", one of the finest moments in the band's entire output.

A year later, in 1985, came international stardom with Listen Like Thieves, the Australian band's fifth studio album, which immediately sent its first single, "What You Need", into the US top 5, and was carried, among others, by the title track "Listen Like Thieves", a genuine rock anthem of the mid-Eighties. The first successful ballads also emerge here, such as "Shine Like It Does", "Kiss The Dirt" and "This Time", in the vein of polished rock-FM.

Compared with the previous record, Listen Like Thieves certainly contains fewer ideas, but veers towards a decidedly harder sound, putting it in competition with the likes of U2, who in those very years were rising to fame with "The Unforgettable Fire" and "The Joshua Tree".

Although their rock-star status was by now well established in Australia and the United States, the band still met with a certain coolness in Britain and was largely snubbed elsewhere in Europe, where they would finally force their way in through the front door two years later with the album Kick, the Australian band's biggest success and arguably their masterpiece. Musically speaking, there's nothing particularly complicated, dark, convoluted or tortuous about it: just a pop record whose DNA is built on directness, exuberance and irresistible choruses.

While The Swing remains in some ways their most ambitious and unmatched work, Kick is the classic album that breaks the bank. The record explodes onto the world stage in October 1987, propelled by the single "Need You Tonight", a genuine bombshell that tops the charts everywhere and finally hits number 1 in the UK too, thanks to its sultry vocals and a memorable guitar riff. The album places all four of its singles in the US top 10 ("Devil Inside", "New Sensation" and "Never Tear Us Apart", alongside the aforementioned "Need You Tonight") but it could easily have achieved the same results with any of the other eight tracks.

"We wanted an album where every song could become a single," says guitarist and saxophonist Kirk Pengilly. And indeed Kick reaps enormous commercial success, thanks to inspired, raw-sounding guitars that flirt with hard rock (besides "Need You Tonight", also notable are the riffs of "Devil Inside" and the opener "Guns In The Sky"), sparkling funk-tinged dance-pop rides like "New Sensation" (whose opening line, "Live baby live", would later give its title to their only live album, released in 1991) and "Calling All Nations", the gorgeous, vaguely soulful ballad "Mystify" – with an intro for just piano and voice building to a tumultuous rock crescendo – and the unforgettable "Never Tear Us Apart", punctuated by backing vocals and Pengilly's sax: it's the record's tearjerker, later covered repeatedly by artists of all stripes with mixed results (Joe Cocker's version is the most famous) but none ever matching the beauty of the original.

Kick immediately earns six platinum discs in the United States and a shower of awards everywhere, so much so that their friend, Australian director Richard Lowenstein, decides to make a documentary film about the making of the record, which features, alongside the official single videos, clips for "Mystify" and especially "Mediate" (a true gem of the album, marked by Pengilly's soprano sax, whose video in the film is merged with that of "Need You Tonight", a song with which it shares the same opening notes). The video for "Mediate" sees Inxs paying tribute to Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", with the deliberate insertion of some "meaningful" printing errors on the cue cards that flash by over the song, and the result is electrifying.

With over eight million copies sold, Kick stands as the eleventh best-selling Australian album of all time.

In 1990 X is released, the band's seventh studio album. Inxs are by now internationally recognized rock stars, and like many protagonists of Eighties new wave, following in the wake of bands such as Simple Minds, U2 and others, their sound now evolves toward stadium rock; the sound gets harder (following the emerging grunge trend), and the result is an album that doesn't match the glories of its predecessor, even though it still manages to achieve decent commercial success.

The lead single is "Suicide Blonde", embellished by a wonderfully inspired harmonica solo from American bluesman Charlie Musselwhite. The title is suggested unintentionally by Kylie Minogue, who, at the premiere of her film "The Delinquents" in the company of Michael Hutchence, then her boyfriend, describes her own look on the big screen with the phrase "suicide blonde".

Also worth noting are the other single, "Disappear", the catchy "Bitter Tears" and the romantic, syrupy "By My Side".

Inxs are at the peak of their popularity among fans and embark on a long and successful world tour, immortalized on the 1991 live album Live Baby Live, featuring live performances recorded in various locations, while the video version captures exclusively the explosive concert held at Wembley on July 13, 1991, the same date and venue as Live Aid, precisely to celebrate the charity event's sixth anniversary. The response from audiences is warm everywhere, as proven by the crowds that greet them at their appearance at the extraordinary Rock in Rio show.

1992 brings Welcome To Wherever You Are. The sound gets rawer, but at the same time is enriched by a wide variety of instruments, including sitars typical of Indian folk music and the accompaniment of a sixty-piece orchestra. In short, the Farriss brothers this time try to go big, but the experiment only partly succeeds: it's mainly the sparkling "Baby Don't Cry", the sensual "Not Enough Time" and the sentimental "Beautiful Girl" that make the record's fortune, while the rest of the tracklist begins to reveal some cracks in the band's inspiration and creative spark. MTV censors the video for "Taste It", which contains references to sadomasochism.

1993 is the year of Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, but by now the Australian band has entered its downward arc. The album, whose title track is a fine duet between Hutchence and Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, contains "Kill The Pain", "Please (You Got That)" with Ray Charles, and the single "The Gift" (the most successful track), accompanied by a much-discussed video due to its overly graphic images of the Gulf War and Nazi deportations.

Full Moon, Dirty Hearts is a flop, because it comes out right in the middle of the grunge era and also due to poor promotion by the record label, since, after the cancelled tour for Welcome To Wherever You Are, the contract was drawing ever closer to its expiration. Hutchence and his bandmates then take a four-year break, returning in 1997 with Elegantly Wasted, which would prove to be Inxs's swan song.

The album is a lackluster attempt to revive the band's fortunes through a stripped-down form of rock-dance that finds its best expressions in the title track and in "Don't Lose Your Head". The long silence officially allows the band members to spend time with their families and pursue other solo projects, while Hutchence, by now a true rock icon of worldwide fame, devotes himself to excess and abuse of every kind.

Michael Hutchence: the devil inside

It's impossible, then, not to say a few words about the band's leader, Michael Hutchence: never more than in this case is the story of a rock group so inextricably bound up with its leading man. A frontman with a warm, sensual voice and always sinuous, transgressive moves, Hutch, as fans call him, truly seems to have "the devil in him". His ever brilliant and effervescent presence both onstage and off, along with a certain Stones-like swagger that runs through much of his band's output, hint at him as the designated heir to Mick Jagger.

The son of businessman Kelland "Kell" Hutchence and make-up artist Patricia Kennedy, Michael Kelland Hutchence (born 22 January 1960) is born in Sydney but spends his entire childhood and adolescence in Hong Kong, following his father, who finds there the main hub of his business interests. After a brief spell in California with his sister Tina, he returns to Sydney in 1977, where his story with the Farriss Brothers begins.

A leader with a charismatic personality, besides his career with Inxs he also takes on acting roles in "Dogs In Space" (again directed by his friend Lowenstein, which yields the top-ten single "Rooms For The Memory") and "Frankenstein Unbound" (in which he plays the nineteenth-century Romantic poet Percy Shelley, directed by Roger Corman).

Towards the end of the Eighties, together with musician Ollie Olsen, he launched the post-punk project Max Q, and recorded a solo album featuring various collaborators, which would be released posthumously in 1999. The record contains "Slide Away", a duet with Bono Vox. And it was precisely with his friends Bono, Simon Le Bon and Michael Stipe that Hutchence spent a period of excess during the years of hiatus that separated Kick from the release of its follow-up, X, in 1990. His peers describe him as a person of undeniable charisma and magnetism, incredibly generous and at the same time deeply shy, whose main goal was precisely to deflect the attention that the press, the music world and the whole of Australia kept pouring on him. But because of his unmistakable sex appeal, and the fame and popularity which by the early Nineties had already reached the level of planetary stars like Bono Vox himself or Axl Rose, Hutchence had no trouble at all securing a permanent front-row spot in the world of high-society nightlife, inevitably (and perhaps against his own will) getting sucked into the vices of the star-system and into an unspeakable fate. Adored by female fans, at the height of his success Hutchence was constantly in the spotlight and on the covers of gossip magazines because of his many relationships with famous women. The tabloids devoured his romances with fellow Australian pop star Kylie Minogue and Danish model Helena Christensen, but what really made headlines was the liaison he struck up in the Nineties with British TV presenter Paula Yates, while she was still married to former Boomtown Rats frontman and Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof.

The two embarked on an intense relationship and had a daughter together, Tiger Lily, in 1996, but before long they would both be bound by a shared tragic fate. On the morning of 22 November 1997, while INXS were in the middle of a world tour that was due to end in Australia itself, Michael was found hanged in his room at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Double Bay, Sydney (today the Stamford Plaza). Some immediately assumed suicide, but the forensic examination of the singer's body, the absence of a farewell note, and the fact that the body was found naked all point to the more plausible theory of a tragic act of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong.

Michael Hutchence's coffin was carried out of St. Andrew's Cathedral by the other members of the band and his younger brother Rhett to the strains of "Never Tear Us Apart". Only a few months earlier, in what turned out to be an eerie omen, his friend Simon Le Bon had dedicated "Michael You've Got A Lot To Answer For" to him, included on the 1997 album "Medazzaland" (precisely because of its delicate and poignant subject, it was performed live only once by Duran Duran, with Simon Le Bon bursting into tears on stage during the performance).

Some time later U2 also wanted to pay tribute to him, writing "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" for him, included on the album "All That You Can't Leave Behind".

Paula Yates, meanwhile, after attempting suicide in '98, would die in 2000 of a heroin overdose. Little Tiger Lily was taken into custody by Geldof himself.

Michael Hutchence's place in the band was briefly filled by Jimmy Barnes, while in 2000, for the opening ceremony of the Olympics held that year in Sydney, INXS turned to the voice of Terence Trent D'Arby. But for Australians, finding Michael's replacement was a matter of national interest, so much so that in 2005 the travelling reality show Rock Star: INXS was launched on CBS, in which 15 aspiring vocalists competed against each other song by song: after 11 weeks, Canadian J.D. Fortune came out on top, winning over the other contenders with his renditions of the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and INXS's own "What You Need".

But it was no serious affair. With J.D. Fortune on vocals, the band released Switch in 2005, a kind of revival good only for the most die-hard record executives. The album contains the single "Pretty Vegas", which nonetheless went completely unnoticed.

In 2010 came Original Sin, the last official release under the INXS name: an anthology/tribute album featuring twelve of the Australian band's greatest classics, each one completely overhauled and reinvented with the help of a number of special guest stars. The tempos are considerably slowed down, but on the whole the album makes for a pleasant listen without too many highs or lows. Worth noting are the delicate French-language versions of "Never Tear Us Apart" (a successful duet between Ben Harper and Mylène Farmer) and "Mystify" (a graceful rendition by chanteuse Loane), while the trip-hop reworking of "Mediate", entrusted to Bristol-sound guru Tricky, only half works. What is surprising, though, is the elegant R&B-tinged revamp of "Kick": the refined atmosphere, the care taken over the arrangements, and the welcome return of former child-prodigy Nikka Costa on vocals all add more than a touch of wistfulness to this fine chapter of music (and more) that is now drawing to a bittersweet close.

But not even with Original Sin did the curtain fall for good on the band's story. The survivors carried on, still with J.D. Fortune on vocals for the tour promoting the tribute album, then with a new frontman, Northern Irish singer Ciaran Gribbin, for the world tours that followed in 2011. Meanwhile, a new track, "Tiny Summer", was also released as a stream on their official website.

So what remains of INXS? After AC/DC, INXS are the best-selling Australian band in the world. As is often the case, the death of a star inevitably causes sales to spike, along with a surge of sentiment and legend that can sometimes lead, even unwittingly, to overstating the value and importance of what is, after all, just one of rock's many stories. But in Michael Hutchence's case, all of this only deepens the sense of loss for a man who remains one of the most passionate, authentic and beloved vocalists of the last thirty years.

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