The Success Of Excess

By JAY COCKS

By actual count -- well, actual approximate count -- the Australian rock band INXS has played 2,000 performances during the past 13 years. And what have its members got to show for it? Folks still have trouble with the name. "In excess" would be phonetically correct, but it lacks the cool mystery of those four uppercase letters, which make the lads loom large, like something mythic: six electrified Druids with some new rhythmic spells to weave.

The spells are catching, and holding. The previous INXS album sold 9 million copies worldwide. The band's eighth and latest album, X, was released by Atlantic in September and promptly shot to the chart tops, where it has settled into the No. 19 position. The band is touring Europe at the moment, and will hit the U.S., where it is a campus favorite, in January.

"Touring is second nature to us, kind of automatic," explains Andrew Farriss, 30, the keyboardist and songwriter of the band. "We started off just playing in public, and our audience got bigger and bigger. Record companies in Australia had to sign us because our live-show following was bigger than some people's record sales." Adds Michael Hutchence, 30, who handles lyrics, lead vocals and sex-symbol assignments with equal panache: "We've toured a lot around the world for three or four years without a lot of success to tour on at first, because that's one of the ways we show what we're made of. I mean, we are one of the best live bands in the world."

All that and anachronistic too. Proudly so. "We come from a weird generation," Hutchence explains. "We were born on the cusp between the '70s and '80s, like U2 and Simple Minds. The whole live thing was very prominent in those days, before people made or broke their careers through video. We're an anachronism. But a good one. We're enjoying it."

INXS may have built their considerable success the old-fashioned way, as performers rather than video icons, but their music is snazzy and right up to the second. It has good melodic hooks (thanks to Farriss) and strong rhythmic underpinnings (courtesy of his brothers Tim, 31, on rhythm guitar, and Jon, 28, on drums, as well as bassist Garry Gary Beers, 28). It has a surprisingly soulful flow (from the sax of Kirk Pengilly, 29, who also plays lead guitar) and, in Hutchence's dramatic vocals, anthemic ambitions.

The new album shows off their diversity extravagantly and exuberantly. On previous albums, Farriss and Hutchence tended to write a given song in one particular style, but on X they've worked several styles into a single tune. The opening track, Suicide Blonde, starts off with a bluesy harmonica, then boots into a dance track that also rocks hard. By My Side has some suggestions of country, as well as overtones of a classic '40s-style saloon ballad. Says Farriss: "You've got to change musically."

Hutchence knows why. "Maybe people are fatigued with rock," he suggests. "Maybe rock's going to end up like jazz. In a way, that'll be good because at least it'll continue. You'll be able to do your thing and not be caught up in what's popular or unpopular." That's an appropriately worldly view coming from such an international band. Most of the musicians are based in Sydney, but Hutchence and Jon Farriss live in Hong Kong, where Hutchence grew up. The Sydneysiders juggle the rigors of touring with marriage (or, in the case of Beers, impending marriage) and parenthood. Hutchence's girlfriend of record is Aussie pop and soap-opera star Kylie Minogue. Only Jon Farriss remains flagrantly unattached.

The impending U.S. tour should provide, along with a lot of good music, a chance for the lads to live up to their own high, hard-earned opinion of themselves. There are, after all, already a fair number of best live bands in this part of the world.

With reporting by Farah Nayeri/Toulouse