If you’re INXS, the Australian band that scored No. 1 hits all over the world before lead singer Michael Hutchence hanged himself in 1997, how do you move forward with your music in 2011?
There was the private grieving that immediately followed Hutchence’s shocking death. And later came the public unveiling of the band post-Hutchence, which involved a couple of shows with guest vocalists. There was the postmodern “Rock Star,” the reality-TV show that found the band a new lead singer “American Idol”- style.
And now there is “Original Sin,” a new album that features reimagined takes of the band’s best-loved songs with guest vocalists ranging from Train frontman Pat Monahan to “Rock Star” champ J.D. Fortune.
It sounds predictable, yes. But the end results aren’t what you’d expect from the pop band that ruled MTV and FM radio with hits that included “New Sensation,” “Mystify” and “Don’t Change.” As Denver fans will see when INXS plays the Ogden Theatre on Monday, these new arrangements are as foreign as they are familiar.
“It was an interesting project, because it wasn’t carefully designed in the beginning,” said Andrew Farriss, one of the three brothers who founded INXS with Hutchence in late-’70s Sydney. “It just evolved from there, but the way it took shape got more and more interesting because it took a form that we had no idea it was going to take.
“Once we realized what that form was, it got interesting and exciting because it gave us an idea to explore — such as not having just English as the only language on the album.”
We spoke with Farriss a few weeks ago from a Toronto hotel about his new “Sin” and how it has helped him say goodbye to Hutchence, his former songwriting partner.
Q: How was it working with Rob Thomas and Pat Monahan and all of these different personalities?
A: All these artists who put up their hand to be in the project — including J.D. — were really great. Surprisingly, some people thought it was a greatest- hits album, and it’s certainly not that.
Q: You mentioned J.D. Fortune. Where’s he at these days?
A: J.D. is out on tour with us at the moment. He’s a guest singer on the tour. We went through a very pressurized period after the television show in 2005. After that, J.D. wanted to do his own thing, and we were OK with that.
Q: Was the “Rock Star” experience a good one for you and the band?
A: In hindsight, it was a good experience. We come from a very organic pop-rock background, like AC/DC or Midnight Oil. It was a highly commercialized situation, and that was weird.
But being a songwriter, the other thing for me was: I was aware the whole time during the TV show that I had no idea who the singer was going to be. Male or female? And I felt a lot of pressure during that experience.
Q: You wrote some of the songs on “Original Sin” back in the day with Michael. Was that a trip at all?
A: For me, as one of the main songwriters of the material on this project, it messed with my head at the beginning. I couldn’t forget about how many years it took to put a lot of this work together in the first place. The writing of the songs, the recordings. It was done with passion, and it was exciting, but it was also done under pressure.
And it’s hard to forget all that, but as we went along, it helped galvanize us as a band.
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com; @RVRB on Twitter
INXS.
’80s pop, modernized and reimagined. Ogden Theatre, with Monroe Monroe opening. 8 p.m. Monday. $50-$55
