Michael Hutchence - Stardom and Acting Career

Stardom and Acting Career

In March 1985, after Hutchence and INXS recorded their album The Swing (1984), WEA released the Australian version of Dekadance, as a limited edition cassette only EP of six tracks including remixes from the album. The cassette also included a cover version of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's hit "Jackson", which Hutchence sang as a duet with Jenny Morris, a backing singer for The Swing sessions. The EP reached No 2 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart. Hutchence provided vocals for new wave band Beargarden's 1985 single release.

On 19 May, INXS won seven awards at the 1984 Countdown Music and Video Awards ceremony, including 'Best Songwriter' for Hutchence and Andrew, and 'Most Popular Male' for Hutchence. They performed "Burn for You", dressed in Akubras (hats) and Drizabones (outdoor coats/oilskin jackets) followed by Hutchence and Morris singing "Jackson" to close. INXS performed five songs for the July Oz for Africa concert, in conjunction with the Live Aid benefit organised by United Kingdom musician, Bob Geldof. Two of their songs, "What You Need" and "Don't Change", were also in the BBC broadcast and are contained on Live Aid's four DVD boxed set released in 2004.

In 1986, Hutchence acted as Sam the lead male role, in the Australian film Dogs in Space, directed by long-time INXS music video collaborator Richard Lowenstein. Sam's girlfriend, Anna, was portrayed by Saskia Post as a "fragile peroxide blonde in op-shop clothes". Some events are based on Lowenstein's life when sharing a home in a Melbourne inner suburb with friend Sam Sejavka (Beargarden) when Sam was in the band The Ears, in the late 1970s. Hutchence provided four songs on the film's soundtrack. A cover version of "Rooms for the Memory", a song by Whirlywirld (a post punk band that included Ollie Olsen), was released as a solo single. It peaked at No. 11 in February 1987. Back in 1979, both INXS and Whirlywirld had played at the Crystal Ballroom, in Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, which featured in the film. According to music journalist and author, James Cockington, "St Kilda was about drugs. Fitzroy Street was the smack capital of Melbourne, with heroin being openly traded on the footpath."

Late in 1986, before commencing work on a new INXS album and while supposedly taking an eight-month break, their management decided to stage the Australian Made tour as a series of major outdoor concerts across the country. The roster featured INXS, Jimmy Barnes (Cold Chisel), Models, Divinyls, Mental as Anything, The Triffids and I'm Talking. To promote the tour, Hutchence and Barnes shared vocals on: The Easybeats cover "Good Times" and "Laying Down the Law" which Barnes cowrote with Beers, Andrew Farriss, Jon Farriss, Hutchence and Pengilly. "Good Times" was used as the theme for the concert series of 1986–1987. It peaked at No. 2 on the Australian charts, and months later was featured in the Joel Schumacher film The Lost Boys and its soundtrack, allowing it to peak at No. 47 in the U.S. on 1 August 1987. Divinyls' lead singer, Chrissie Amphlett enjoyed the tour and reconnected with Hutchence, " was a sweet man, who said in one interview that he wanted me to have his baby".

In 1987, Hutchence provided vocals for Richard Clapton's album Glory Road which was produced by Jon Farriss. INXS released Kick in October, which provided the band with worldwide popularity, it peaked at No. 1 in Australia, No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 9 in UK, and No. 15 in Austria. It was an upbeat, confident album that yielded four Top 10 U.S. singles, "New Sensation", "Never Tear Us Apart", "Devil Inside" and No. 1 "Need You Tonight". "Need You Tonight" peaked No. 2 on the UK charts, No. 3 in Australia, and No. 10 in France. The song is not lyrically complex, it is Hutchence's performance where "he sings in kittenish whisper, gently drawing back with the incredible lust of a tiger hunting in the night... Hutchence knows the prey will eventually come to him" that makes the song "as sexy and funky as any white rock group has ever been". They toured heavily behind the album throughout 1987 and 1988. The video, directed by Lowenstein, for the 1987 INXS track "Mediate" (which played after the video for "Need You Tonight") replicated the format of Bob Dylan's video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues", even in its use of apparently deliberate errors. In September 1988 the band swept the MTV Video Music Awards with the video for "Need You Tonight/Mediate" winning in five categories.

In 1989, Hutchence collaborated further with Olsen for the Max Q project, they were joined by members of Olsen's previous groups including Whirlywirld, No and Orchestra of Skin and Bone. They released a self-titled album and three singles, "Way of the World", "Sometimes" and "Monday Night by Satellite". Max Q disbanded in 1990. Max Q showed Hutchence explore the darker side of his music and, with Olsen, they created "one of the most innovative dance music albums of the decade". Hutchence wrote most of the music and provided "an extraordinary performance...it was one of the most significant statements Hutchence was to make". Hutchence, from the late-1980s lived outside Australia, mostly in the United Kingdom. In 1990, Hutchence portrayed nineteenth century Romantic poet, Percy Shelley, in Roger Corman's film version of Frankenstein Unbound based on a science fiction time travel story of the same name written by Brian Aldiss.

In 1990, INXS released X, which spawned more international hits such as "Suicide Blonde" and "Disappear" (both Top 10 in the US). "Suicide Blonde" peaked at No. 2 in Australia and No. 11 in the UK. Hutchence and Kylie Minogue attended the premiere of her 1989 film, The Delinquents, which depicts her in a platinum blonde wig. Hutchence, with Andrew Farriss, wrote the song after Minogue used the phrase, suicide blonde, to describe her look during filming. Hutchence won the 'Best International Artist' at the 1991 BRIT Awards with INXS winning the related group award. Hutchence provided vocals for pub rockers, Noiseworks' album, Love Versus Money (1991).

Welcome to Wherever You Are was released in August 1992 but INXS did not tour to support the album. It received good critical reviews and went to No. 1 in the UK and in Sweden; No. 2 in Australia and Switzerland, and No. 3 in Norway; but had less chart success in the U.S. peaking at No. 16. Helena Christensen and Hutchence were cycling when he collided with a taxi and its driver assaulted him. As a result, Hutchence's fractured skull left him with substantial loss of the sense of smell and partial loss of taste. This led to periods of depression and increased levels of aggression; he had not fully recovered after two weeks in a Copenhagen hospital. According to INXS bandmate Beers, Hutchence pulled a knife and threatened to kill him during the 1993 recording of Full Moon, Dirty Hearts on the isle of Capri. "Over those six weeks, Michael threatened or physically confronted nearly every member of the band. Suicide blonde, right?"