INXS Profiled (transcript) - Page 2

Oh, very positive I think. I think the last three years for the band have been overwhelmingly positive. I think we've been in a recording career for 10 years, we've been together for 13 years and I know the way that we work, and it wouldn't surprise me if we were here for another 13 years and y'know - we're friends and we do things outside the group when we get away but we like playing together, been down a lot of roads together. It hasn't been all holding hands, theres been some healthy fights and disagreements about things, but overall, we like playing together. (Andrew Farriss)

13. Michael, you co-wrote Faith In Each Other and Disappear with drummer Jon. How was that?

It was interesting, we thought we might as well do something, spent a fair amount of time doing nothing, sit around listening to music and stuff, so we thought we'd do something and see if the band liked it. Jon plays a bit of guitars and keyboard, I muck around a little, put ideas down, it's more rhythmic writing. I guess that's more why I was interested in doing it, cause Jon's a real rhythm nut obviously, because he's a drummer. That was interesting, because you've got a drummer and a singer trying to write a song, so it's much more based around rhythm. (Michael Hutchence)

14. Between your last tour and the recording of X, you both worked on outside projects. What did those experiences bring to INXS?

Confidence mainly, because your doing something else, your not just doing something that's in a way you don't know if it's successful, you don't even know really if your capable of doing anything else even though we've had a lot of success and it's been incredible, you don't really know what you can do outside the band. It's almost like proving something because you don't know if it's just this cosmic fluke or you can do it...sing or produce or play bass or something else, it's great. I think everything we did outside the band was pretty successful, so y'know you go back in saying "Hey, I can do this." (Michael Hutchence)

15. How do you feel about your vocals on this album Mike?

Good. I worked hard on that. I learnt a lot about singing in the past couple of years funnily enough, because to be honest I never really sat around and...I was just singing for a band, I never really had any great singing heroes or I didn't try to emulate somebody, and lately the last couple of years, I've tried to learn a lot more about music and singing and...I've got a record collection now and a record player and so it's been really revolutionary for me, and I learnt about phrasing, timing, stuff like that, so hopefully it's on the album.
(Michael Hutchence)

16. Your one of the few bands you can hear in a danceclub and on rock radio. Is your brand of crossover music international?

That's what we like to play, there's a lot of bands like that now, or have been around for a while and are getting known, ranging from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers right over to...Living Colour is a great example of a band that should be playing funk or something, rock, and the same with us, we're supposed to be playing AC/DC or something and we're not, we're attempting funk, which is where we really started in the pubs in Australia, we stood up there and went, "this is a dance groove with a big guitar to boot," and there all like "what...you don't do that in a pub." That's where we started, so we've always been pretty adamant about that. (Michael Hutchence)

I've always loved that kind of music anyway. When your a kid and your listening to a record or records that you like, you get influenced, it doesn't matter. I never thought I was going to be in a rock group running around the world, quite frankly. I just loved music, and even when I was writing I never really thought about it, I thought...I'm never going to do that. And it wasn't until later on that I took it a lot more seriously, but at the time your absorbing influences. I've always loved R & B music, I've always loved dance music. (Andrew Farriss)

17. How important is it for you to keep up with music trends?

I'm a bit of a rebel as far as modern trends go, because in ten years time everything is going to be completely different again, so I've been very wary of trends, whether it's us or anyone. I don't know about this sort of being fashionable because in some ways it's great because it helps music to evolve into whatever it's, to wherever this strange thing, music, is going. And to be a part of that is very exciting, but there's only so much importance you can place on what's happening in a year or two years time. It's not as important as some people make it out to be, sometimes it can be and sometimes the things people don't even notice are much more important than the things their noticing. But the thing is for me, I drew influences from all sorts of cultures, and one thing that I'd like to add to that is, it's very refreshing to me that Australian music has been taken notice of. It's interesting to me to notice that the Gypsy Kings are being taken notice of, and Paul Simon's work with people and stuff. It's not just do you come from the interior, Indiana or...I think it's more interesting to have that, that's great but there all sorts of people in the world, all sorts of different music, and to me that's what should be focused on. (Andrew Farriss)

18. Andrew, your keyboards always sound very subtle in the bands music.

That's because the producer turns them down, no but seriously, I think I've always thought that my keyboard work was backing the guitars, and just because I'm playing then doesn't mean they have to be louder, y'know I look at my keyboard work as supporting the structure of the guitars, not the other way around. Because I don't happen to play guitars all that much down at the front, running around, then I guess maybe if I played guitar down the front with the keyboard player behind me, it would probably make more sense, that's the way I do it on the record, yeah I like backing the music. (Andrew Farriss)

19. Was there ever a turning point for INXS?

I think, when we recorded the song The One Thing it was the real beginnings for a style for us, it was funny, we were with Mark Opitz, an Australian producer who had done a lot of the big pub acts that turned into big acts in Australia, Cold Chisel, The Angels, and he heard us and said the same thing Chris (Thomas) did a few years earlier, "How come you don't sound anything on record like you do live?" and...I dunno really um, so I suppose there was an expertise needed to pull out some big sounds for us, and he helped us mix in that funk with the rock and to make it sound right really. (Michael Hutchence)

20. What was it that made you take the band out of Australia and start touring the world?

We just really thought that we're not going to repeat the mistakes that a couple of great bands did, what they did is they played and played and played all over Australia, then they end up in a corner going oh...y'know how many times can we ply a pub, how many times can we be down a road and everybody appreciates us but now at the end of everything we're going overseas and do that again ...no way. And a lot of bands got burnt. So I thought while we were young, we'll get out there and do it at the same time. Where much bigger now in Australia than when we left Australia to tour overseas and stuff, do you know what I mean, we built it up at the same time. It was good, we were pleasantly surprised at, we expected to be really...obviously the work part of it is hard and stuff, but we didn't think anybody would know who the hell we were, but they did, that was great. (Michael Hutchence)

21. What is the most satisfying part about being in INXS?

We genuinely want to be in the bane because it is a whatever, a business or this or that we like being there, the rides still enjoyable, and taking everything into consideration, it's a good job. If I came along and I was looking for a job somewhere and I said I need to feed my family what does this job pay? If they said it gives you a lot of artistic satisfaction and a hell of a lot of wealth, I'd go well that sounds like a very nice job thank you very much. It's not that bad, it's a very lucky situation, there are some tough moments sure, but it's not that bad. (Andrew Farriss)

The funny thing about being in a band is that you reach some successes, that your not just six guys you really are about sixty people and taking a lot of responsibilities. I've met the road crews kids, you realise that it's enormous and this enormous domino effect that you have and you're carting around a lot of peoples lives. (Michael Hutchence)

That's a self discipline thing in itself and it's a wonderful feeling to say at the end of a tour to have those crew guys come up and you know there family or whatever, and they say listen we had a great time, genuinely, and we say that's good and that, way beyond band ego sort of things gives you an enormous amount of satisfaction. (Andrew Farriss)