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Interview: Andrew Farriss from INXS


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 A bit excited to have spent some time interviewing Andrew Farriss from INXS. Lovely guy, brilliant songwriter and keyboard player.

 

 

Audio link

 

Huge thanks to Paul for his brilliant first episode as co-host :thu:

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Holy smokes. What a get. Congratulations! But you didn't ask him about his five desert island albums. ;)

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Holy smokes. What a get. Congratulations! But you didn't ask him about his five desert island albums. ;)

 

Thanks Joe! And yes was thrilled to have him on. I realised after we'd finished that I'd missed his five discs :(

 

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I figured. You-all talked about so much that the "standard questions" mostly went to the wind! I was just :poke: you guys about it. ;)

 

It was super interesting to hear about his process with Hutch.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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It was super interesting to hear about his process with Hutch.

 

It was - I had no intention for us to go into detail in that area but Andrew chose to do so and we obviously ran with it - such a great songwriting partnership!

 

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A little OT: I find what the band has done recently to be an interesting approach. Once they threw in the towel on Ciaran Gribbin*, their web site reverted back to saying INXS was the band with Hutch, period. It was an interesting reversion, after being engrossed in the show Rock Star:INXS and thinking they were all in with JD Fortune. I sort of get why they backed away from him, but for a while there, he really seemed like the guy. I thought some of the tracks on Switch showed immense potential and I would have liked to have seen where the band would have went with proper time to do an album (Switch seemed a bit rushed to strike while the iron was hot after the TV show, and many of the tunes were written or started before JD was selected).

 

* After he was announced as the lead singer, I saw an interview with Kirk about him. Before I had a chance to finish telling my wife about it (she being a bigger INXS fan than me), she said, "did Kirk say finding him was 'organic'?" I laughed and said yes. Kirk seemed to pitch these new singers as the most natural thing, which was only funny because it never actually lasted.

 

To me, the tragedy of Hutch was the 1992 assault, apparently after which he was never the same. Brain injuries can do that. :(

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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INXS were a massive part of my teenage years and were in fact my favourite band throughout high school, particularly the period when Listen Like Thieves was released. It's still my favourite INXS album, and The Swing was the first album by any artist that I bought with my own money.

 

I was devastated when Michael passed, and like you Joe I watched Rockstar INXS with great interest. I really thought Pretty Vegas and Afterglow were great tracks. One of my bands covers Pretty Vegas from time to time and it always goes down well with punters.

 

When INXS toured with JD I watched them play at WIN Stadium (coincidentally in David's home town of Wollongong) and they were excellent. I absolutely "got it" with regard to the selection of JD having watched them live. He delivered a great energy on stage without trying to impersonate Michael (impossible anyway). Vocally he did Michael's tracks plenty of justice, particularly in the lower register.

 

From reading excerpts of interviews with both the band and JD, while there are differing viewpoints of what occurred, overall it seems to me that the pressure of finding a place as a much younger frontman to a decades-long established and globally successful act was ultimately too much for JD to deal with. An interesting contrast with Adam Lambert or Arnel Pineda, both of whom appear to have made every post a winner given similar opportunities.

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I was devastated when Michael passed, and like you Joe I watched Rockstar INXS with great interest. I really thought Pretty Vegas and Afterglow were great tracks. One of my bands covers Pretty Vegas from time to time and it always goes down well with punters.

 

When INXS toured with JD I watched them play at WIN Stadium (coincidentally in David's home town of Wollongong) and they were excellent. I absolutely "got it" with regard to the selection of JD having watched them live. He delivered a great energy on stage without trying to impersonate Michael (impossible anyway). Vocally he did Michael's tracks plenty of justice, particularly in the lower register.

 

From reading excerpts of interviews with both the band and JD, while there are differing viewpoints of what occurred, overall it seems to me that the pressure of finding a place as a much younger frontman to a decades-long established and globally successful act was ultimately too much for JD to deal with. An interesting contrast with Adam Lambert or Arnel Pineda, both of whom appear to have made every post a winner given similar opportunities.

That's 100% what I'm saying. JD seemed to struggle with his place. The other guys seemed to be mostly of the age where they were well past that kind of thing, and then suddenly they have this "kid" who has had his struggles and is still finding his way with them in the band. He clearly has his issues, having been homeless and seeing his behavior at times on the show (especially if you watched the web episodes of the contestants in the home and behind the scenes). Like I said, I was excited to see what they would do together. Oh well.

 

Why didn't you ask Andy about JD??? :poke:;) I'm just kidding.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Indeed :D

 

Joe: a couple of years back I did a series of 13 podcasts where we interviewed people on their favorite albums. You may really enjoy this one:

 

LINK

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Indeed :D

 

Joe: a couple of years back I did a series of 13 podcasts where we interviewed people on their favorite albums. You may really enjoy this one:

 

LINK

:cool: I will check it out!

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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I just about finished the episode. That was fun. I also let my wife listen, as she's a big INXS fan. (She disagreed with you guys about Thieves vs. Kick, she loves them both.)

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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I just about finished the episode. That was fun. I also let my wife listen, as she's a big INXS fan. (She disagreed with you guys about Thieves vs. Kick, she loves them both.)

 

I can see her point :) As you know, a lot of album favouritism is about timing. For me, Listen Like Thieves (and the Swing) covered most of my teenage years so they are the big ones for me but obviously Kick was the one that made them the worldwide hit they became and there are brilliant songs on there: I'd argue Never Tear Us Apart is my favourite song of theirs and I love playing the string line on keys :thu:

 

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She's pretty sure she owned The Swing and Thieves but I think she's not sure when she bought them relative to each other and Kick. She might have bought Thieves when it started hitting here.

 

But yeah, it's about timing and what you're listening to and how old you are.

 

I hadn't listened to Thieves in a while and put it on after we listened to the episode and I immediately thought things like, "this is how rock and roll should be played" and "stuff like this makes me want to play rock and roll!" :2thu:

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Indeed! How great would it have been, being in the room when albums like that were recorded. As Al said in the interview, he (or others) would go grab lyrics from Michael in the other room. A fascinating process :thu:
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