INXS
hailed from the pubs of Australia, which is part of the
reason they never comfortably fit in with new wave.
INXS had its roots in a family
act, the Farriss Brothers. The group came together while
Andrew Farriss (keyboard, guitar), the middle brother, was in
high school with Michael Hutchence (vocals). The two formed a
band with Gary Beers (bass). Simultaneously, Tim Farriss
(guitar) was playing in various groups with his friend, Kirk
Pengilly (guitar, saxophone). Eventually the two groups
merged in 1977, with Jon Farriss joining as drummer. Two
years later, when Jon graduated from high school, the band
renamed itself INXS, moved from
Perth to Sydney, and began to play the pub circuit. Within a
year, the group landed an Australian record contract,
releasing an eponymous debut on Deluxe in 1980. Even
when the band branched out into synth pop on its early
recordings, they were underpinned by a hard, Stonesy beat and
lead singer Michael Hutchence's Jagger-esque
strut.
Ultimately,
these were the very things that made INXS into international superstars in the late '80s.
By that time, the group had harnessed their hard rock, dance, and
new wave influences into a sleek, stylish groove that made their
1987 album Kick into a multi-million-selling hit. While that sound
was their key to stardom, it also proved to be their undoing; the
group became boxed in by their Stonesy pop-funk in the early '90s,
when their audience became entranced by harder-edged alternative
rock. INXS signed with PolyGram in
1994, yet it took them three years to release a new album. During
that time, Hutchence was involved in several tabloid scandals, most
notably his love affair with British TV personality Paula Yates
(which brought an end to her marriage to Bob Geldof), and he hinted
that he was recording a solo album. That record didn't materialize,
but INXS returned in the spring of
1997 with Elegantly Wasted. While the album was greeted with poor
reviews, its hedonistic dance-rock was better suited to the late
'90s than the early '90s, which made the record the group's biggest
hit since X. In spite of declining sales, INXS soldiered on, continuing to tour and record for
a dedicated fan base into the late '90s.
On November 22 of 1997, Hutchence was found dead in
his Sydney hotel room, the victim of an apparent hanging; his
long-in-the-works solo debut was posthumously issued in late
1999.
Though
Terence Trent D'Arby took the frontman role for an abbreviated set
at the opening of Sydney's Stadium Australia in 1999, Jon Stephens
filled the spot for occasional gigs that took place through the end
of 2003. The singer left to pursue a solo career.
INXS were quiet throughout the
following year, but in 2005 they teamed with reality-show
maverick Mark Burnett for Rock Star: INXS, an elaborate, globally-televised
audition that resulted in J.D. Fortune -- a former Elvis
impersonator from Canada -- becoming the band's new lead
singer.
This
cache has nothing other than its name to do with the band, it is
merely a trading post for your excess signature items ONLY
please, it was originally stocked with duplicate items I have
collected for one reason or another.