INXS

0:03So tell me about the new record. What was the impetus for this? Why have different people come in and sing on this thing and read you the old tunes? Well Firstly, I mean it was sort of an idea that we had years and years ago really soon after Michael died One of the many ideas we threw around was all you know perhaps do an album with all different singers and kind of backburned it and then we took a big bunch of time off after the switch tour and Then five Aussie guys went into into a studio just to muck around and work on like some instrumental stuff for a different project And while we were doing that we we did a completely different version of one of our old tracks called this time and that's born the idea of kind of You know reimagining or remixing pulling apart a bunch of songs and getting a different thing on each track

0:52Those instrumentals you're talking about is that going to be a new record you're working on? No, it was it was for a sort of an audio visual idea that Now's a little bit was yeah kind of a surfing kind of thing, but we put it on the back burner You know it may eventually it may not but you know what what sort of was I guess important was that out that you know this is this sort of concept for this album spawned and Then we spent you know about 18 months or more putting them together. How'd you choose who's gonna sing what we made? list you know all of us made lists and then kind of compile them into a master list and and Just went from there But we you know first off we had to really put a lot of the the musical tracks down so that when we started approaching

1:40We're seeing and we had something to play them of you know the new direction that the song was going in and in the hopes that they liked it and You know of course Jd was on the top of the list there of course Yeah, I did two songs for the album so One of them things become bonus track bonus track. Yeah, I did love this as the official release on original sin and then Matt they have a bonus track called love is which is recorded in Melbourne So I guess things are good now. I mean I remember hearing stuff in the press I don't know about a year ago and and I don't want to get into it all but you guys are all good now Yeah, just don't believe what you read out fair enough So I hear there's a tour planned for next year. Yeah, we're we're starting with starting rehearsals sort of early January in Australia and

2:27doing a bunch of shows around Australia with train hoping for it a couple of Australian bands and then from there I think we might be doing a couple of things in South America and then coming up to Canada Well, there we go So so I guess Pat Monahan will come on stage with you to sing that tune when you do it now. Yeah, hopefully You know that if not trust me I'm sure you do I just he said train it got me thinking So so so JD how are you gonna do the arrangements because the arrangements are a little different on this record on some of the songs So how how are you guys gonna pull that one off? Are you gonna sing the original or you sing the new one? I think we were just talking about that yesterday. I think that basically, you know We'll have pretty much both barrels ready to go and I guess just depending on I guess it's you know as a band collective

3:12What we feel like like playing I mean in some of the songs may I may not lend themselves to sort of you know It might be you know if you're playing Your Canadian you should have a little French in there Yeah, I know those words won't go into it It must be a pretty good experience for you I mean if you if these guys are saying you're recording in Melbourne all the time you couldn't have asked for a better gig to You know you're working in Australia. Yeah, you know and not only that but you know, it's really just great to be back With the band and working it within that dynamic again, which is just really important to me So yeah, what if we had a big holiday now we're back to work. Well Kirk I hear you've been logging diaries basically since the beginning of the band

4:01Yeah, I have it was sort of It wasn't kind of intentional I mean I used to keep kind of records of in fact, you know the The beginnings of the band I was sort of doing the accounting when we didn't have management or any of that sort of enough You know doing gigs for 300 bucks and whatever I used to kind of keep a diary of where we performed and How much you got paid and you know a couple other little things and then it just developed into a journal You know by the time we sort of changed the name to an excess in late 79 It started sort of turning into more of a journal and yeah, I still still ain't only keep them But now I do gigs for 350 bucks Step up that's good So is there a book on the way do you because I know there's a lot of an excess fans that would probably want to hear about all that stuff

4:58Well and maybe something in there that I find interesting is that the album kick that people will know you're Tara Separte Devlin side Nusensation the album was almost not made is that true? No, no the album. Well the album made And when we you know Back in that in that era, you know, we we licensed From that sort of point on and so basically, you know We had free reign of whatever we wanted to record and then we delivered the album to the record company and then it was their job to make it happen and Chris Murphy our manager went into you know the head offices of Atlantic in Rockefeller Plaza and delivered the album and To the head guy at the time his name I won't mention And you basically said I'm not hearing singles, you know go and record something else and

5:45So basically Chris Frith mortgage himself and hired a bunch of you know radio pluggers and blah blah blah blah And we kind of felt funded it for a while and they had to release it, you know And of course, you know the rest is his Man went on to become Quincy Jones I Actually watched an interview with Quincy yesterday. He is he's an amazing man. Do you guys know him? Have you met him at all? I Met him. Yeah, I've met him once at in New York just briefly, but he is a very smart man What are you guys talk about? Did you get to talk to him or is it just like a quick hello? I Think was I mentioned his daughter on the show Isn't she on the office. Yeah, yeah and and parks and rec now Right. Yeah, I think I love your daughter's work. I'm trying to get in with the daughter. There you go

6:36Yeah, I know what you're saying We play a bunch of the songs on the station I was hoping you guys might be able to give me like a couple of clips about them like a little storytellers that I can play before We play them kind of thing well We'll go what you need the original version with what you need actually it almost wasn't on the record We were recording, you know Well session with my fees and it was the first album we did with Chris Thomas but a very famous magnificent producer and we're basically finished the album and Chris was like ah, you know, we just the something we need something we need. I guess he probably said we need a hit and Anyway, Tim had recalled this this kind of rough little demo thing that Andrew had had put together which which you know was sort of the

7:23bones of the music for what you need and You know, Chris Thomas being very English, you know We used to work sort of five days a week and clock on and clock off and have the weekends off But that weekend you made a stay in in the studio over the weekend and Basically create bright finish writing what you need and then next Monday morning first thing when you recorded what you need And of course that went on to be our first You know top top five hit in America Well, we've to you JD with the stairs because we're getting tweets requests like you would not believe about it. Oh, really? Yeah, you got a fan club here in Edmonton that is massive That came about You know, basically I was in Los Angeles Andrew Ferris and Gary beers and I had had lunch in Los Angeles and you know

8:14there was room on the record for for another few songs and John Ferris and and ended up sending me the bed tracks for the stairs it was very very definitely very bottom sort of heavy drums and Just kept pounding and it was sounded great and got me excited and Basically tried singing it through four different ways until finally I came up with this sort of I was getting a real bowie feel from it hmm You know just from the vocal and and thinking that you know, oh wow It'd be really kind of cool to have this sort of hard rashing Drumbeat meet the more lilting sort of laid back restrained vocals and ended up You know just pretty much going with the first take actually after I said the John I tried this way Can I try it that way?

9:00You know just went back to the the original take that I did and ended up sounding fantastic Do you try and channeled Bowie in a way like were you were you trying to do that or is that just the way it came out? Quite the opposite actually I was trying to not sound like No 930 in the morning and I'm a baritone by trade. So it was just sort of like you know, that's down 930 in the morning that's when you guys record vocals I started singing anyway, yeah, wow Generally you do that as a rule, but I figured the man just did just flying from on Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles to record me Right I

9:48Want more tune Kirk you want to tell us about what do I want to play devil inside the original version? Yeah, well, there isn't a new one of devil inside is there Okay We had sort of done pretty much, you know through the 80s and actually even the 90s we did All our videos almost with a Melbourne boy, Richard Lowenstein Who was you know great director and great concept? Guy for you know videos anyway

10:33We've to come to working with an American guy, you know a little little known director Joel she make it Yeah, yeah, yeah little bone and I think he just done lost boys around that point or something And so we we decided you know to come to work with an American director and Came over and went down to Sandy a guy somewhere and I don't know he created this kind of really weird sort of it was almost Not film noir, but you can make it film one or in color Yeah, he's sort of directed this video that had just all freaked you know twin bodybuilders and Everything that we weren't really So you know we let him go with it we did the video and of course that ended up being another another one of the string

11:28of tops and hits that we had Through that period in North America You mentioned something interesting there about Ben Harper singing that tune on a different record So I heard Brandon Flowers did a track too, and that's not on the record. Yeah, Brandon originated a version of beautiful girl and You know the difficulty in some of this Really was all the singers like yeah, yeah, yeah And then all of a sudden you know when it comes to sort of put putting little documents together You've got record companies to deal with and you've gotten in that and and some of them just went south unfortunately Brandon was was working on a solo record and they were just about to release it And I think they just thought it might might sort of be a conflict or something like that so Brandon got pulled but you said there the devil inside may be released. Yeah

12:16Yeah, is there a plan for another one of these compilation records kind of thing Really it's just that we had a couple tracks left over and and when we were putting the you know the final sort of playlist together for the album You know we couldn't find a spot for isn't there But you know with these other tracks then rarely enough kind of coming out of you know bonus tracks down the track or something like that Right or give them away on the website. We live in the future now. There's so many options, right? Five quick questions one more answers. All right rotor studio Leninger McCartney Most important thing in a song lyrics melody or rhythm rhythm lyrics melody Song you've written your most proud of Well that one doesn't need to be one word but

13:12I wrote a song called white knuckle flyer about a friend of mine who passed away I'm pretty proud of that because it was it was just a really cool Kirk a Thunkhole crazy, which is yet to be heard all right and both of you one word in excess Powerful