It is early evening in downtown LA and Michael Hutchence, bad boy of Australian rock, has just been talking movies with Michael Douglas.
INXS performed the title track in the John Travolta and Nicholas Cage film Face/Off. But Hutchence, in his own inimitable way, is not about to hype his chances of making it big in Hollywood.
"He seems to think I could sell some popcorn," he told Time Out of his meeting with Douglas. "But it's just talk at the moment."
Far more important is his attempt to rekindle the magic that once surrounded his career in music. A career that took him to the heights of filling London's 80,000 seat Wembley Stadium, and which will now see him start an Australian tour with a gig at Waves, in Wollongong, on November 25, and a couple of gigs at the State Theatre.
The venues might not sound that promising, but they could well be watershed performances for the band, nonetheless. Mostly because Hutchence believes his home country has failed to give INXS the place they deserve in the nation's music history. He maintains that, more than anyone else; including the likes of Midnight Oil and AC/DC; it was INXS who took the name of Australia and its pub-rock heritage onto the stages of the world.
They've sold 30 million albums, won Grammy nominations, won MTV awards, sold out Wembley. And still they can't get respect at home.
"I'm not looking for adulation or medals, and respect will come in the end because it should. But what we're looking for is just the tiniest touch of understanding, real understanding," says Hutchence. "We've been diplomats for Australia, we're always mentioning Australia, we're always plugging Australian bands."
So what about the current crop: silverchair, Regurgitator, Magic Dirt and the rest?
"Ah," he says dismissively. "The wasted angst of youth. In a couple of years, say, 10 albums of consistent music; they can come and hang out with us. It's funny, because I'm always singing their praises overseas."
There is no hiding the bitterness. Undoubtedly, the failure of the media to accord Michael Hutchence the place he believes he deserves, rankles.
"This naïve presumption that someone like me hasn't got a clue what is going on, that I haven't been to a gig, a rave, a jungle club, read a book, hung out with the devil, met God, you know. It's a big life. Make a difference, lads."
Since they were high school buddies, INXS have lived together, worked together, played together, been in trouble together, grown into young men together. They have seen each other's flaws, strengths and weaknesses, helping each other overcome demons.
But the past few years have seen the band go through more than their share of criticism and personal tragedy.
The Farriss brothers lost their mother to a long and cruel death by cancer; their manager resigned; their record contract expired; one member experienced a divorce, another a tempestuous separation, and they were forced to change agencies.
The Australian and British music media tried their damnedest to crucify them, aided and abetted by Hutchence himself. A whole generation now know him more for his one-fingered salute to the paparazzi and his affair with Bob Geldof's ex than for anything he has sung. And Hutchence acknowledges that his "unabashed sexuality" may have held back critical praise for the band's work. But he will hear nothing bad about his affair with Paula Yates.
"If you believed half the tabloids, Paula and I are evil. But actually, if you walk down the street in England, people are fabulous to us and they understand. Generally speaking, that can also be the case in Australia. They love Paula down there. She's a single working mother who raised her own family almost single-handedly, without any financial contribution from anyone. She's a hero. She deserves a medal."
But he concedes there have been problems both abroad and at home.
"For all the gung ho attitude of Australians, we're actually culturally all babes in the woods.
"In Australia, what I'm supposed to do is go down to the pub .. and I do go down to the pub .. but when a singer like me is NOT being Jimmy Barnes, or Peter Garrett, or whoever the f***, I'm a bit pale, and I'm a bit glam.
"Funny thing, really, it's the macho debit and credit bank. Jimmy understood that standing there with a bottle of vodka was a good thing.
"I used to drink mine before I went on stage. We're both full of Dutch courage. But remember, I was just more overtly a funky white boy, a little fey it seems.
"But Jimmy and I could do one of those "buddy" movies. He's a great friend. We could have Peter Garrett as the Samoan lawyer like in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Perhaps silverchair could be the unwashed help."
Kirk Pengilly, whose divorce from Deni Hines came in the middle of the group's worst period, explains it was the attacks on Hutchence that sparked the idea that the group ought to get back to work.
"The catalyst for bringing the whole thing back together and making the album Elegantly Wasted was all the absolute tabloid rubbish I was reading about Michael and Paula, all of it rubbish, all of it misinformation.
"People were putting the boot in left, right and centre. We had become a big target. At one point I said to myself, "I've had enough."
"Michael was working in upstate New York with Talking Heads, or Heads Not Talking as the project was called. I realised that Michael might be feeling lonely and very separate from the rest of us, so when he came on the phone, I asked, "How are you, mate, do you feel like talking to someone?"
"I didn't want to impose, just put out my hand an offer help. He wanted to talk, we started talking, and that was the catalyst to start writing songs."
Despite the sophisticated veneer, there is little doubt popularity back home is important. And that another drubbing from the critics in Australia will rub salt in the wounds.
Hutchence still toys with the idea of returning for good.
"Can't really say for sure at the moment," he says. "Paula and I and the kids love it in Australia. Sydney's the greatest city for the 21st century. London has become very difficult. People in Australia are so real and friendly. We love it. Paula is doing TV work there. It's all very good."
Even the attacks he has suffered at the hands of the Australian media seem to be forgotten in a wave of nostalgia.
"It's not just us. There's a lot of other bands copping flak down there. I've had a hard time of it during the past year, but you know what they say: love conquers all."
But will it conquer the crowd at Waves? That is the real question.
[transcribed by karen lobb at lobb@idl.net.au]