In town to promote a Greatest Hits compilation for their old record company, and do some advance thumping of a new album for a new company, Hutch and saxist Kirk Pengilly agree this is watershed time for INXS.
"The collection definitly marks the first stage of INXS. It's been 15 years, 11 albums, loads of awards. We've reached heights we frankly never expected, and we've dealt with the aftermath of sudden, blinding success, and survived to make good music."
"All the demons have been sorted out," Hutch is convinced. "It took some doing and as you imply, it's all tied to Kick."
The year was 1987, the summer was warm, ideal for outdoor touring. Kick busted out at the beginning of the season and went on to sell nine million worldwide, including a mil in Canada. For the men of INXS, all heaven broke loose.
"We have from this funky Aussie rock-n-roll band to selling nine million albums and I don't think there's anything to prepare one for what happens with that."
"Of course it was great to have happen, and there's a lot of satisfaction in making that kind of money. But what you pay back sometimes outweights the success."
"Because there's no sane reason why one minute you're this band with a stable audience and the next, millions of people are buying your album, you tend to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. We examined everything in the equation."
"We realized that most of our new audience was buying the hot thing of the moment and next month would be off buying the next hot thing. It's just the nature of pop music and good thing for us too. That's great, it helps keep pop fresh."
"But on the downside, while the grannies are out buying the album for their grandkiddies, you're losing control of how your perceived. It happens so big and so suddenly, resistance is futile and you can't help but be swept up in it."
"You pay another price with great success because what the band is, and who you are, becomes diluted."
"All kinds of things can happen on tours and, over a period of time, an image of you is built up. But what's taken for totality is only a slice of your life."
"The longer you stay in this business, the more you need your mates to keep from going totally critical. As I go on, I've learned there's less and less black and white to life, and more gray areas. And that the horrible truth is a very slippery thing."
"This is some of the stuff going against us when it was time to make the follow-up album. The natural inclination was to go, 'Okay,we didn't expect anything with Kick. Let's put that behind us, relax and just make an album we like. But it's never that simple, if only because it took a while to get over ourselves."
That's all behind them, assures Hutch. Has beenfor some time, espeically with a new album, to look forward to. All things relative, INXS has been invisible in North America for three years. Re-establishing the band as a force in the public mind is one of the hoped-for accomplichments of the as-yet-untitled new album.
"Well, re-establish from the standpoint that once you've been out of the public eye in North America, you have to jog memories a bit when you're coming back. But to prove? No, beacause we didn't set out to be a mega pop band. That happened, it had its effects but they haven't affected the crux of what the band is about."
"Also, we've jumped the hurdle of critical acclaims with the last two albums. Believe me, that was a big hurdle for this band. Up until that point, we were reviewed souly in terms of Kick."
"It's early days yet to be talking about what the next album will be like. We've go tons of songs and there's not much unity among them. About all I can say is it'll be likely be funky, groove-oriented."
"We're looking at experimenting with some elements we haven't played with a lot. In terms of continuity, we had our big studio album with strings, we had our pub rock album, so this could be the funk album."
"It should be ready for mid-next year and it'll be psychologically good for the band to have something out. It'll be an INXS album, I don't know if it'll be a fan album. The diversity in the albums since X may have confused some people, because we're not what they think we are, which is some formula pop group."
"I'm afriad there will be more diversity coming their way. We'll have to wait and see how the American audience responds."
"I find Canadian audiences to be more like the Europeans in that regard. They take longer to decide about you, but once they do, they're less fickle and you've got a friend for life. For that, we thank each and every one of them."
Then it's off to the next interview, then New York for two days of the same, and two days later, Hutchence goes home to his Paris flat.
Muchly travelled remains any head that ever wore pop music's crown.