When their first single What You Need finally broke to become an international hit last year, no one was more susprised that the band, but it certainly was a long time coming, adds saxman Kirk Pengilly.
Ever since Shabooh Shoobah landed on North American shores several years ago,INXS have delivered consistantly; whether on the road or on vinyl. Consistancy is the name of their game and they're consistantly good. Now, if there's one band hailing from Australia that the music industry would agree is the best - the one to beat - it's INXS. Following the release of Listen Like Thieves, from which the international hit single What You Need was culled, no one was more suprised than the band memebers themselves, who maintain it was "a long time coming," According to founding member Kirk Pengilly, they deserved a hit anyway, "with the amount of work that we've spent touring America," he adds.

"In a lot of ways, we were surprised that What You Need did as well as it did," Pengilly continues, "But it really gave us a boost to keep pushing. Basically, there were other songs on the album which, to my ears, sounded more like singles and so that's why we were surprised."
For the band, that last album signalled a change in sound. They wanted to get back to the basics in the studio and produce a more "live" feel to their album. This approach has again been employed on the new album Kick, recorded by Chris Thomas, with a slight twist though.

"For years we'd talked about doing an album where we'd complete each song as we do it," the band's saxman explains, "Rather than laying all the rhythm tracks down and going back to each song and finishing them off, whish is really good fun and a good way to do it."
"All your thoughts are channeled at once, rather than being mixed up, whenever you feel like making songs. I think each sone took the same amount of time, perhaps less, than Listen Like Thieves. We has the luxury of being able to complete about half the album, walk away, come back and write what we felt the albumneeded. In actual fact,. we ended up with too many songs, and we just picked those twelve for the album."

Call it a luxury or call it neccessity, but once again the band in tune with the times have delivered a hit album to their record company, the music industy and an unsuspecting public.
"When we'd finished all the touring last year, a couple of the songs had been written, but we'd been on the road for 18 months, and we really needed a break. Then we wrote some more songs between September and Christmas and did some more songs and the playing." Pengilly states, "it's our finest work."
The band have already began touring and have included an Eastern Canadain swing to their itinerary: Toronto (Nov. 20), London (21), Ottawa (22), Montreal (23). The inclusion of these dates is the band's admission and an acknowledgement if Canada's efforts to break the band "I don't know if it has anything to do with colonization and the heritage or whatever, but Canada does seem quite a bit more open," reasons Pengilly.
Kick is a diverse album, not so much fromsong to song, yet within each song. by combining the energy of funk and the strength of rock guitar, INXS display an innovative edge, capturing effortlessly by producer Thomas. "Yes," Pengilly agrees, "but we wouldn't pick a producer who would tell us what to play and what to do and how to do it. He was there to help arrange in an interesting manner," he concludes, "and also though to help put down on tape what we wanted to hear."

Comparatively, INXS represent to this new generation of rock 'n' rawlers (as lead singer Michael Hutchence once said) what their compatriots two decades ago appreciated in the Stones' music.