INXS (a phonetic play on "in excess") were an Australian rock band formed in 1977 in Sydney. Originally called the Farriss Brothers, the band's founding members were bassist Garry Gary Beers, main composer and keyboardist Andrew Farriss, drummer Jon Farriss, guitarist Tim Farriss, lead singer and main lyricist Michael Hutchence, and guitarist and saxophonist Kirk Pengilly. For 20 years, INXS were fronted by Hutchence, whose stage presence made him the focal point of the band.
In 1984, INXS had their first number-one hit in Australia with "Original Sin". The band achieved international success in the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s with the hit albums Listen Like Thieves, Kick, and X and the singles "What You Need" (1985), "Need You Tonight" (1987) (the band's only US number-one single), "New Sensation" (1987), "Devil Inside" (1988), "Never Tear Us Apart" (1988), and "Suicide Blonde" (1990).
After Hutchence's death on 22 November 1997, INXS made appearances with several guest singers. Beginning in 2000, the band toured and recorded with Jon Stevens as lead singer. In 2005, members of INXS participated in Rock Star: INXS, a reality television series that culminated in the selection of Canadian J.D. Fortune as their new lead singer. Irish singer-songwriter Ciaran Gribbin replaced Fortune as lead singer in 2011. INXS performed their final concert on 11 November 2012.
INXS won six Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) awards, including the award for "Best Group" in 1987, 1989 and 1992, respectively. In addition, the band were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. They have sold over 50 million records worldwide.
History Early years The origins of the band began with Andrew Farriss convincing his Davidson High School classmate, Michael Hutchence, to join his band, Doctor Dolphin. The band contained two further classmates, Kent Kerny and Neil Sanders, as well as Garry Beers and Geoff Kennely, both from the nearby Forest High School. In 1977, Tim Farriss, Andrew's older brother, invited Andrew, Hutchence and Beers to join him and his schoolmate Kirk Pengilly. Tim and Pengilly had been playing together since 1971 as either an acoustic duo known as Kirk and Tim or as a four-piece band called Guinness (named after their bass player's dog). Together with younger brother Jon Farriss, they formed "The Farriss Brothers", which consisted of Garry Beers on bass guitar, Andrew Farriss on keyboards, Jon Farriss on drums, Tim Farriss on lead guitar, Michael Hutchence on lead vocals and Kirk Pengilly on guitar and saxophone. The band made their debut on 16 August 1977 at Whale Beach, 40 km (25 mi) north of Sydney.
The parents of the Farriss boys relocated to Perth, Western Australia in 1978, taking Jon to continue his schooling and as soon as Hutchence and Andrew finished school, the rest of the band followed. They briefly performed as The Vegetables before returning to Sydney ten months later and recording a set of demos. At a chance meeting in the car park of the Royal Antler, a pub in Narrabeen, Tim was approached by Midnight Oil manager Gary Morris.
The band began to regularly support Midnight Oil and other local bands. Morris advised that a member of the Oils crew had come up with a new name and suggested they change it to INXS. The name INXS was inspired by English band XTC and Australian jam makers IXL. Pengilly later explained that Morris was interested in turning the group into a Christian band, which the band briefly considered before rejecting the idea. The band's name is a word play on the phrase "in excess".
The band's first performance as INXS was on 1 September 1979 at the Ocean Beach Hotel in Umina on the Central Coast of New South Wales and by the end of 1979, after passing on the Christian band image, they hired Chris "CM" Murphy as their manager and continued taking on the Australian pub circuit. Murphy was an adept business manager and negotiator and by early 1980 the band had signed a five-album record deal with a Sydney independent label, Deluxe Records, run by Michael Browning, a former manager of AC/DC.
1980s From "Simple Simon" to Shabooh Shoobah
INXS released their first single, "Simple Simon"/"We Are the Vegetables", in Australia and France in May 1980. The single had its debut TV performance on Simon Townsend's Wonder World. Their debut album, INXS, was recorded at Trafalgar Studios in Annandale, Sydney. It was co-produced by the band and Duncan McGuire (ex-Ayers Rock), with all songs attributed to the entire band, at the insistence of Murphy. Deluxe gave them a budget of $10,000 to record the album, so to keep within the budget they had to record from midnight to dawn, usually after doing one or more performances earlier that night. The album was released in October 1980. It featured "Just Keep Walking" which was their first Australian Top 40 single, NOTE: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting until ARIA created their own charts in mid-1988. with the album peaking in the Top 30 of the Kent Music Report for Australian albums. The album eventually went gold (selling over 35,000 units) but it took a number of years to do so.
These early records demonstrated their new wave/ska/pop style, and were followed by near constant touring with almost 300 shows during 1981 as the band developed their status as a live act. In 1981, they signed Gary Grant as their tour manager, who then became co-manager a year later. Between touring commitments, the band released their third single in May 1981, "The Loved One", which was a cover of a 1966 song by Australian group the Loved Ones. The song was recorded at Studios 301 in Sydney; it was produced by Richard Clapton and peaked in the Top 20.
The success of the single led to Clapton and the band returning to Studios 301 between July and August 1981 to create an album. In October 1981, their second album Underneath the Colours was released and became a hit in Australia peaking at No. 15.
Soon after recording sessions had finished, band members started work on outside projects. Beers, Jon and Andrew Farriss played on Clapton's solo album, The Great Escape. Hutchence recorded "Speed Kills", written by Don Walker of Cold Chisel for the soundtrack of the film Freedom directed by Scott Hicks. It was his first solo single and was released by WEA in early 1982.
Deluxe had been unable to attract international interest so the band decided to record a new song, "The One Thing" at their own expense with Mark Opitz at Paradise Studios. The song turned out so well that Murphy hired Opitz to produce three more songs. Murphy approached WEA Australia with copies of the song, leading to INXS signing a recording deal in July 1982 with WEA for releases in Australia, South East Asia, Japan, New Zealand, Atco Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records) for North America, and PolyGram for Europe including the UK.
Murphy and the band were not entirely convinced that Opitz could produce an entire album that would attract international interest, so before recording their third album Pengilly, Hutchence, and Andrew Farriss visited the United Kingdom and USA, with a view to selecting a suitable producer, only to find that no one they wanted was available and that most people advised them that Opitz's work on their single was as good as they could wish for.
In mid-1982, INXS began recording at Rhinoceros Studios with Opitz. In October 1982, Shabooh Shoobah was released internationally on Atlantic/Atco Records, peaking at No. 52 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 46 on the Hot Pop Albums chart. In Australia it peaked at No. 5 and remained in the albums charts for 94 weeks. The single "The One Thing" brought them their first Top 30 hit in United States peaking at No. 30 on 28 May 1983, It was also a Top 20 hit in Canada, and peaked at No. 14 in Australia on 23 August 1982. "One Thing" was their first video to air on the fledgling MTV and significantly added to the ultimate success of the single.
INXS undertook their first US performance in San Diego in March 1983 to a crowd of 24 patrons. Their first tour was as support for Adam and the Ants, then support for Stray Cats, The Kinks, and Hall & Oates followed by The Go-Go's. INXS played alongside many of their contemporaries on New Wave Day in May 1983 at the US Festival in Devore, San Bernardino, California. During that time, their co-manager Gary Grant relocated permanently to New York City to ensure a continual presence in the northern hemisphere. The band remained on the road in the US for most of the year, including support for Men at Work and by mid-1983 were headlining venues such as The Ritz in New York.
From "Original Sin" to Listen Like Thieves
After a performance in Toronto the band was approached by producer Nile Rodgers; by September 1983, the band had recorded "Original Sin" (originally entitled "Brand New Day") at New York's Power Station Studios. Three tracks from Shabooh Shoobah were featured in the soundtrack for the 1984 film Reckless. The band then travelled to the UK to begin sessions on their fourth album with Nick Launay at the Manor Studios in Oxford.
The album The Swing, released in April 1984, received significant attention from around the world, as "Original Sin" became the band's first No. 1 single in Australia and was popular worldwide with fans and reviewers. During 1984, the single reached no. 1 in Australia (for two weeks in January), Argentina, and France; No. 6 in New Zealand; No. 11 in Canada; No. 23 in Switzerland; No. 31 in the Netherlands; and No. 58 in the U.S. However, "Original Sin" was largely ignored in the UK, and INXS would not have any Top 50 chart success in the United Kingdom until the 1985 album Listen Like Thieves.
During 1984, INXS toured non-stop, performing across Europe, the UK, the US and Australia. By December 1984, The Swing had gone double platinum, making it one of the five biggest domestic albums in the history of Australian music at the time.
In March 1985, the band returned to Sydney's Rhinoceros Studios and recorded the Listen Like Thieves album along with producer Chris Thomas (the Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, the Pretenders, Elton John). As the band was finishing the recording sessions, Thomas stated that the album was not good enough and still had no "killer" track. Andrew produced a demo tape of a funk song he had been working on called "Funk Song No. 13" and evolved it into "What You Need".
While the band was recording, WEA released Dekadance, a limited edition 12" Vinyl and cassette only EP of INXS remixes from their albums The Swing and Shabooh Shoobah.
On 19 May 1985, INXS won seven awards at the 1984 Countdown Music and Video Awards ceremony. They performed "Burn for You", dressed in Akubras (hats) and Drizabones (outdoor coats/oilskin jackets). The band performed five songs for the July 1985 Oz for Africa concert, in conjunction with the Live Aid benefit. Two INXS songs, "What You Need" and "Don't Change", were also in the BBC's Live Aid broadcast and are contained on the four DVD boxed set released in 2004.