Full Moon, Dirty Hearts

Days of Rust
The Gift
Make Your Peace
Time
I'm Only Looking
Please (You Got That)
Full Moon, Dirty Hearts
Freedom Deep
Kill The Pain
Cut Your Roses Down
Viking Juice

"We're a people's band" says singer Michael Hutchence. "We've always known that it was essential to keep faith with the audience". Fresh from a four month "Get Out of The House Tour" that saw the Australian sextet going back to their gritty roots and sweating with their fans in small clubs on three continents, INXS veered off the beaten track for their tenth album, Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, recording it in a diffused hotel on the Isle of Capri, the resulting seclusion coaxed a return to the spirit of the band's beginnings. "It was the kind of atmosphere that we hadn't had in a while - all of us living together. It was very immediate. We could really get things done," says Michael.

From that precipice come the truly immediate power of Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, with INXS going soul to soul with their listeners. Andrew says, "To really work, you have to have a feel for what people want to listen to, you need to know excites them as well as what excites us." For the band, this album was spurred on by the unbridled energy of the "Get Out of The House Tour".

The songwriting process for the album exemplifies the democracy of the band. "Andrew brings along literally hundreds of song ideas," Michael explains. "These ideas may be guitar hooks or drum feels," according to Andrew. And it's by working with the same musicians for years that Andrew comes up with the arrangements that allow each member to shine.

It's a way that obviously works. Not only is Full Moon, Dirty Hearts musically broad based and brilliant but it's lyrics are freely open-ended. "I try to go for a sense of atmosphere," says Michael. "People can then go into their own worlds, all kinds of different worlds, and interpret the songs." Hutchence was one of rocks most original wordsmiths. "In a very broad sense, I write about the individual human element mixing with the political element," he says. For Michael, INXS meant a way of working out a vision. "Rock 'n' roll to me is fifty one percent music, forty nine percent the style, the trip, the way it's done." His years in INXS have been more than just a career, they've meant "music and a life that's very rich in experience."

The band shares his sense of vision. "Musically, we're a complicated band," explains Andrew. "We're not easy to put into a hole, but then we don't want to be put in a hole." Reflecting that, Full Moon, Dirty Hearts found INXS moving forward and taking risks, the music, as always, soulful from a peoples band.