INXS- Early Best- Andrew & Tim Farriss, Kirk Pengilly, the late Michael Hutchence
When two fresh-sounding songs, “Don’t Change” and “The One Thing” from the Australian band INXS, made it to America forty years ago, most Americans couldn’t find the huge continent on a map. Little wonder, according to INXS keyboard player/songwriter Andrew Farriss, who grew up with older guitarist brother Tim and younger drummer sibling John in the far western Australian city of Perth. “It is still the most remote geographical city in the world,” says Andrew. “To the west is the Indian Ocean. To the north is two thousand miles until you reach the next Australian city. To the south is the Antarctic. And to the east you have Adelaide which is, again, two thousand miles away. Andrew Farriss continues, “As kids growing up (in Perth)…that sense of space and openness is something I truly remember with a lot of fondness…It was a very secure environment, too. Nobody locked their houses much, there was no point to even locking your car, really. If someone stole a car, where are they going to drive it to?”
When we Americans first saw the MTV videos and heard INXS sing “The One Thing” and “Don’t Change” in late 1982, Tyranosaurus Rock that had roamed and roared in North American stadiums and arenas throughout the Seventies was about to stumble. Led Zeppelin was gone. The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton, and Pink Floyd self-consciously were making forgettable albums around 1982 after the Punk Rockers had rattled their dinosaur cages. Then the Punks’ promise was never kept and they self-destructed. By 1982, progressive rockers YES and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer were as equally anachronistic for the MTV Eighties as the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band. Lynyrd Skynyrd had fallen from the sky five years earlier and Southern Rock was running out of ammunition for its 38 Specials. America’s premiere hard rock band, Aerosmith, appeared to be on a permanent vacation by 1982, and the cinderella band Boston, with only two albums, had more court dates than concert dates back then. Journey, Styx, and REO Speedwagon, emphasizing the “pop” side in rock popularity, would never gain critical acclaim or equal their respective previous sales peaks again. So where else but the historical music business meccas of London, New York City, or Los Angeles could we expect to find music that was tight and right for the time?
The answer, as it turned out, was “down under”. AC/DC, Split Enz ( later to morph into the great Crowded House ) with “I Got You”, Men at Work with the phenomenal #1 , all set the table for INXS. The band’s keyboard player/ songwriter Andrew Farriss, guitar-playing brother Tim Farriss, and guitar/sax man Kirk Pengilly tell of the tough and tender early days forming in the most remote city in the world, Perth Australia; surviving the one-nighters there, in Sydney and in Melbourne; allying with a talented singer from Hong Kong-via-Hollywood, the mercurial snake-hipped Michael Hutchence.
It was their third album Shabooh Shoobah where INXS finally made the leap to America and the UK late in 1982 with “The One Thing”and “Don’t Change”. For the story of INXS’ breakthrough album Listen Like Thieves in 1985 ( Billboard sales peak at #11), I stumbled upon my 1988 interview with the late lead singer for INXS, Michael Hutchence, in which he matter-of-factly admitted to me that INXS was his first and only band! And then the title song to October 1985’s “Listen Like Thieves”, “This Time”,”Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)”, and the Top Five hit “What You Need”. Along with the charming memories of Andrew, Tim, and Kirk we include my rare archival classic rock interviews with the late Michael Hutchence, who we lost tragically in November 1997. –Redbeard
