INXS used to be a rock ‘n’ roll band of integrity.
When the Australian group released its third record, “Shoobah Shoobah,” in 1982 with the band-defining track “Don’t Change” leading the melodic charge, it was obvious that it was only beginning, that singer Michael Hutchence was a force and a soul and a voice that would be remembered long after his time.
But then Hutchence died prematurely, still young. He was found dead in a Sydney hotel room on Nov. 22, 1997, the victim of an apparent hanging suicide. The band halted, and its then-new “Elegantly Wasted” stalled. The members dabbled in playing live with various lead singers, but nothing jelled.
Cue the obvious: the 2005 sleeper hit reality TV series “Rock Star: INXS,” which served as a contrived and sickly vehicle to find INXS a new singer. It was TV gold, with the still-familiar band (1987’s “Kick” yielded four top-10 U.S. singles) picking its way through a group of contestants in a show developed by TV mastermind Mark Burnett, who created the “Survivor” series. Many INXS fans, obviously outnumbered by fans of the TV show, were saddened and shocked that the band would take the easy, money-hungry route of replacing the irreplaceable.
The INXS of today, which includes Canadian singer J.D. Fortune – the TV contest’s winner and a former Elvis impersonator – isn’t a band of rock ‘n’ roll integrity so much as it is pop capitalism. It’s a new era, and this is a new band even though its concerts, such as Monday night’s stop at the Colorado Convention Center’s Lecture Hall, include older tracks.
“There’s some sort of weird way we put the set together that it’s an even mix of the old and new,” Fortune said recently via telephone. “We’ve got six songs off ‘Switch.’ We’ve got some hot, heart-buster INXS songs in there and ones that are more oriented toward the hardcore fans. We’ve got the hits, too, and we mix all that up in an 80-minute set.”
This inaugural tour is Fortune’s proving grounds and an important stepping stone in the band’s quest for sustained longevity. If Fortune works out – on stage and behind the scenes, melding with the band as a unit – INXS could become a successful touring and recording entity. If the run of sellouts is just the post-ratings blitz honeymoon, hardcore fans’ suspicions will be correct: TV is fickle, and so are its viewers.
Fortune’s timeline with the band is eerie to the point of creepy: He won “Rock Star: INXS” on Sept. 20, 2005. The next day he cut his first single with the band, “Pretty Vegas,” a track he wrote the lyrics to while a contestant on the show. It was mixed and mastered in two days and immediately distributed to radio and iTunes.
“It was an earmark for modern technology,” Fortune said. “I couldn’t believe the track I had just cut two days ago was the same one my mom just heard on the radio.”
The band then wrote and recorded “Switch,” its first post-Hutchence full-length album. Fortune, Garry Beers, Kirk Pengilly and Andrew, Tim and Jon Farriss picked from more than 100 musical compositions the band wrote the past decade. Less than five weeks later they had a finished record, released Nov. 29. All this just two months after Fortune’s victory.
When asked if this gig was the toughest job he’s ever had, Fortune answered immediately: “By far. But it’s the one I’ve wanted the most. As much as there is and as hard as the work is, the other side of it is I wake up everyday and I go, ‘(Expletive), man, I’m the lead singer of INXS.”
This job is even tougher than his stint in the Canadian Army. “I got out because I realized that every living thing has a right to be here, and it didn’t sit well with me to be in a situation where I might go overseas and kill some kid,” he said. But there are some similarities between the two experiences.
“Basic training taught me a lot of discipline, but it was also a mind game to make you a non-
individual,” Fortune said. “But this is more about, ‘This is who I am and where I belong,’ and with that comes a lot of responsibilities. I’m constantly trying to improve myself and trying to find different ways of giving back to people and everything that’s going on around me. I don’t want to take anything for granted. I want to leave it in a better condition that I found it in.”
The show that brought Fortune together with INXS was the typical reality TV experience, one spurring highs and lows for the singer.
“I hated it when the other contestants made me feel very small,” he said. “And if you watch, I never said one malicious thing about anybody on there. It hurt my feelings while I watched the show. Some of the people I thought were my friends, they turned around and backstabbed me.
“But you live and learn, and then there’s the irony: They called me looking for work.”
His relationship with the band – which was playing under the name INXS before he started first grade – isn’t so much “us versus the new guy.”
“It feels like we’ve been together for a long time,” he said. “There is the big brother-little brother thing, but there are also times when I feel like a big brother. And there are other times where we’re peers and we sit down and look eye to eye and they’re taking my opinions and suggestions and we’re all working together.
“It’s also a little bizarre. And kinda cool. I have a copy of everything they’ve ever recorded, and it’s like, ‘Geez, when I was 7 this was pretty innovative.’ Then I have to think about, ‘What do you think about when you’re 7?’ And it’s candy and action figures.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
NXS
POP|Lecture Hall at the Colorado Convention Center, 8 p.m. Monday with Marty Casey & the Lovehammers opening|$35-$65|ticketmaster.com, 303-830-8497
