by: Andrea Jones
Ever since INXS began five years ago, Michael Hutchence has been converting observers into fans with his charismatic stage presence.
But, while Michael has been an important part of INXS's appeal, the band is a little touchy about the amount of attention that is constantly heaped on him. And when you flip through the reviews of INXS that have appeared in newspapers throughout the world, you can see why. All of them say the same thing: Michael Hutchence is a star. And then, in small type at the bottom of the article, the rest of the band get a mention it what seems to be an afterthought.
As their drummer Jon Farriss tried to tell me, "Someone's missing the point if they're focusing on Michael and pulling him out of the bunch because that is not what INXS means."
The band is so concerned about presenting themselves as a group and not as Michael Hutchence's backing band, that they get very anxious about people wanting to speak to Michael. In fact, they can make life difficult for a reporter trying to do her job.
However, against all obstacles, I did meet up with Michael at Paradise Recording Studios in Sydney where he was putting the finishing touches on the forthcoming INXS album, which is due out next month.
He looked very tired and explained that he had been partying the night before at the Men At Work concert. It was late in the afternoon but his chin was stubbled and his long, curly hair got more and more dishevelled as he idly pulled his fingers through it while he talked.
For someone who cultivates a carefully ruffled appearance, it comes as a shock to hear Michael talk because aside from a slight lisp, he has the most polished news reader diction I've ever encountered from a rock musician.
But then, Michael's life hasn't been entirely ordinary. The Hutchence family moved from Australia to Hong Kong when Michael was a small child and their life in Hong Kong was very comfortable with a private beach, a chauffer driven car, servants and for Michael, a private schooling. His mother was a make-up artist for various films and one of Michael's earliest memories in Hong Kong is of playing on a film set with a pretty little girl called Natassia Kinski.
When Michael was 12, his family moved back to Sydney and settled in the comfortable suburb of Belrose. It was while Michael was attending the nearby high school at Killarney Heights that he met keyboard player, Andrew Farriss.
Andrew had a band and Michael spent a lot of time hanging around with them and watching them play. Then, in fifth form, the vacancy for a lead singer came up and Michael made his crude, rough voiced debut.
By the time he reached sixth form, music had become Michael's number one priority and so he dropped out of the school. At 17, he and the band decided to head for Perth which is where the real INXS story began.
In Perth they lived fast and recklessly, yet by rehearsing and performing continuously, INXS was honed into a sharp, flashy rock band. When they returned to Sydney nine months later and released their first single, "Just Keep Walking", the foundations were laid for international success.
Now at 23, Michael Hutchence is travelled, worldly and articulate. INXS is poised on the verge of huge international success and they've rapidly gone from touring Australia in a beat up old bus to travelling America in chauffer driven limousines.
Needless to say, Michael has thoroughly enjoyed it all. Travelling is one of the exciting fringe benefits of his
lifestyle and 1983 saw INXS tour America as support to Adam Ant and Men At Work, record their forthcoming album in London and make several videos for the new album in Japan.
And it has paid off for the band because their Shabooh Shoobah album made the US Top 40 along with two hit singles "The One Thing" and "Don't Change".
When INXS first arrived in America, the biggest shock was the way rock bands are pampered like spoilt children.
"In America, throwing your television set out the window of the motel is big time, it's respected. You're supposed to do that! That sort of indulgence is tolerated because you're in a band. I can't stand it. So we're regarded as fairly nice boys in America."
And there's a story about INXS's debut performance in San Francisco where the promoters had the band's name branded into a plaque on the dressing room door and a huge cake decorated with a map of Australia and the words "Welcome INXS" and they were only the support band!
"To land smack bang in the middle of that is quite unnerving," Michael observed. "People expect you to want these things. They don't realise we're an Australian band and we're much more earthy. You couldn't arrive at a gig in Australia in a limo if you tried, you'd get beer bottles thrown at you. But in America it's accepted as the norm."
As Jon Farriss commented to me later, "I think we're lucky to be Australian and have Australia to come home to. Otherwise we'd be overboard by now, smoking four foot long cigars."
"Road managers over there are baby sitters," Michael said with contempt. "They say, 'Here's the key to your room', 'You've got to be here at four o'clock and do you want me to give you two rings in the morning?' and 'How's your laundry.'
"It's a cocoon that closes in around you before you see it and you think you're getting nice treatment and everyone is being nice to you but actually they're babying you so you don't see the outside. But we're fairly down the line, we don't let people get away with it."
Still, it must have been hard for Michael to remain unaffected by it all, especially when at the same time the papers were full of rave reviews. One newspaper in Indiana ran a review of the Adam Ant show for which INXS was support band and devoted the entire page to INXS, mentioning Adam Ant in one small paragraph at the end. Another review in El Paso of the Adam Ant tour said "The British teen idol was simply outclassed by an upstart Australian band named INXS."
And predictably, Michael was singled out as "truely exciting presence".
So how did Michael acquire his sinuous, energetic performance style?
"I've never thought about it. To me, it's like a pattern, it becomes your rhythm and that's a really natural way for me to react on stage. I went backwards earlier on when I started thinking about what I was doing. When you start reading about what your doing and when you start seeing it on filmclips, that's scary. I don't want that, I don't like being conscious of what I'm doing on stage."
These days Michael's lifestyle is far from ordinary, so what are the most enjoyable aspects?
"Well I'm fairly stateless at the moment but I love travelling and I have a fair amount of control over what I can do. I don't have much money and my lifestyle's not exactly champagne and sportscars or anything. I wouldn't want it to be. But few people in bands really make money.
"The best thing is just the satisfaction of knowing that something is actually working. We've always been lucky enough to progress, slowly but surely.
"I can remember getting 300 people along to a small place and being ecstatic, then later playing something like 17,000 people with Men At Work and the audience knowing who we are so obviously our ambitions get higher and higher as we achieve them."
When Michael's not working he leads a fairly low key life. He enjoys spending time with his girlfriend Michele, a Sydney model and watching TV. "Just normal things," he commented.
But there isn't much time to do normal things at the moment while INXS are making a major world offensive. After finishing their new album with producer Nick Launay (who also produced Midnight Oil's 10, 9, 8 ... LP and The Model's The Pleasure of Your Company), the band will make a whirlwind tour of Australia this month, forsaking the clubs where they began for major concert halls. And then they will head overseas again to consolidate their American success and tour Canada, England, Europe and Japan.
"We're really ecstatic over our initial success in America and we basically want to do that around the world what we've started in America.
"And I think time is on our side. We have a lot of plans we will be able to fulfil before we're 30. We've always considered the band to be a long term situation and we're going to be around for a few years yet."