\n
![\"INXS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752861431_117_maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe annals of rock are peppered with instances of bands who took an inordinate amount of time to make it.<\/p>\n
Pulp and Flaming Lips are two outfits who honed their craft for over 15 years before scoring major success, while Goo Dolls and REO Speedwagon took a rather more sprightly 10.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s INXS, the Australian six-piece that formed in Sydney in 1977 but didn\u2019t achieve major recognition until a decade later with their whopping album Kick.<\/p>\n
You may like<\/p>\n
This was the band\u2019s sixth studio album and went top 10 in the UK and the US.<\/p>\n
But it was the lead single Need You Tonight that really blazed a trail and helped propel Kick\u2019s upwards trajectory.<\/p>\n
Need You Tonight became INXS\u2019s first and only US No.1 and reached No.2 in the UK.<\/p>\n
It remains one of their strongest and most memorable songs.<\/p>\n
For a band that became synonymous with stadiums, INXS\u2019s early choices of names were decidedly offbeat and indie. Doctor Dolphin and The Vegetables were two options chosen for the early line-up of the band formed by keyboardist\/guitarist Andrew Farriss and his Davidson High School classmate, singer Michael Hutchence.<\/p>\n
Farriss recruited his brothers Jon and Tim on drums and lead guitar respectively and the line-up was completed by Garry Gary Beers on bass and Kirk Pengilly on guitar and saxophone. By the end of the year they were called The Farriss Brothers.<\/p>\n
By 1980 they were being managed by Midnight Oil manager Gary Morris, had changed their name to INXS and signed a five-album deal with an Australian indie label Deluxe Records.<\/p>\n
From the outset, the band fused the raw energy of new wave with the danceability and groove of funk.<\/p>\n
Andrew Farriss\u2019s synth work was a key part of the sound as was his brother Jon\u2019s complex and danceable rhythms. Tim Farriss and Kirk Pengilly\u2019s guitar sounds, meanwhile, were clean, crisp and enhanced by chorus and delay.<\/p>\n
Then of course there was Michael Hutchence, a vocalist and frontman who had everything \u2013 the soulful voice, the captivating stage presence and, of course, the looks.<\/p>\n
The band toured relentlessly, notching up 300 shows in 1981 alone.<\/p>\n
In October 1982, they launched their third album Shabooh Shoobah, their first international release, which yielded four singles.<\/p>\n
In March 1983, they played their first US show, in San Diego, to 24 people. But in May that year, the single The One Thing gave them their first Top 30 US hit.<\/p>\n
INXS – The One Thing (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n<\/p>\n
Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n They supported artists such as Adam & The Ants and Stray Cats and by mid-1983, were headlining venues such as The Ritz club in New York.<\/p>\n In September that year, Nile Rodgers produced the single Original Sin, another Andrew Farriss\/Michael Hutchence composition.<\/p>\n Original Sin went to No.1 in Australia and performed well internationally, but UK interest eluded them.<\/p>\n Their 1985 album Listen Like Thieves did chart at No.48 in the UK but the British music press did not take to the band, with NME dubbing them \u201cINX-cusable\u201d and labelling Listen Like Thieves \u201ca complete and utter turkey\u201d.<\/p>\n America felt differently. In early 1986, the album\u2019s lead single What You Need became a top five hit in the US.<\/p>\n INXS – What You Need (Official Music Video) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n INXS\u2019s non-stop touring reaped dividends, particularly in the US, but it took their sixth album Kick to bring them true global success.<\/p>\n On this album, the band chose British producer Chris Thomas, who had worked on Listen Like Thieves.<\/p>\n Thomas had started out as an assistant at AIR studios. His first major roles included programming and playing Moog<\/a> synth on George Harrison<\/a>\u2019s All Things Must Pass and mixing on the final stages of Pink Floyd\u2019s The Dark Side Of The Moon.<\/p>\n Thomas went on to work with Elton John, Leonard Cohen, Roxy Music and \u2013 to the horror of some of his colleagues \u2013 the Sex Pistols. He also played a significant role in shaping the sound of The Pretenders. His work on their third album Learning To Crawl earned him the title of \u201cthe fifth Pretender\u201d.<\/p>\n Pretenders – Back on the Chain Gang (Official Music Video) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Thomas would prove equally pivotal for INXS, as they began work on the album that would become Kick.<\/p>\n He had been an INXS fan for some time. \u201cOh, they were a great band,\u201d he recalled in an interview with Mix magazine in 1998. \u201cI remember before I worked with them seeing them at the Hollywood Palladium in 1984. That gig was incredible. It was one of the best gigs I ever saw by any band. God, they were good. Michael was absolutely brilliant. And the style of their music \u2013 it was funk but it was white and rock \u2013 a great mixture.\u201d<\/p>\n Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney was the location for the recording of Need You Tonight, which was produced by Thomas and mixed by Bob Clearmountain.<\/p>\n The initial idea for the song first came to Andrew Farriss as he was climbing into a cab to take him to an airport. It was early 1987 and Farriss was flying to Hong Kong, where Michael Hutchence lived at the time. They were about to embark on writing sessions for the new album.<\/p>\n As Farriss got into the cab the idea for a guitar riff suddenly came to him. \u201cJust before the guy could pull away, I heard the guitar line in my head, told the guy I’d forgotten something and ran upstairs,\u201d Farriss told Ultimate Classic Rock.<\/p>\n Farris went back into his house where he immediately started laying down tracks on his Fostex 8-track.<\/p>\n \u201cI used a Roland<\/a> 707 drum machine to programme the groove for what became Need You Tonight,\u201d he told Mix magazine. \u201cWhat\u2019s on the record is pretty much exactly what I put into the drum machine.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I also tracked from memory was the guitar riff, the bass part \u2013 which I played on a keyboard bass \u2013 and there was a rhythm guitar part that never actually ended up on the record.<\/p>\n “There was something about it that sounded right in my head, so that\u2019s why I made the cassette recording of it: \u2018I don\u2019t know what this thing is, but there\u2019s something in it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Farriss grabbed the cassette, rushed back out to the waiting cab and its disgruntled driver and managed to catch his flight. After landing in Hong Kong, he headed straight to Hutchence\u2019s property.<\/p>\n As Farriss recalled on the Australian TV show The Project in 2024: \u201cI got out the other end in Hong Kong\u2026 and Michael said, \u2018What have you got?\u2019 I said, \u2018Well I\u2019ve got this\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI gave it to him, he put it on and he said fantastic and he wrote that lyric you know, Need You Tonight, just in one stream of consciousness. I would say that song was probably written in about ten minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n Farriss and Hutchence spent the next two weeks laying down tracks for the Kick album in a demo studio at the property.<\/p>\n \u201cThe engineer there, whose name I don\u2019t remember, had a good little set-up with 2-inch 24-track, and besides the cassettes I had taken my 707 drum machine with me,\u201d Farriss told Mix magazine in 2012. \u201cSo we came up with the idea of re-creating what I had done and that turned into Need You Tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n When the rest of the band heard the 2-inch tape that Farriss and Hutchence brought back from Hong Kong, they were similarly enthused about Need You Tonight. Like most of the Kick album, the songs were tracked live at Rhinoceros studio, with the band positioned in the main room.<\/p>\n David Nicholas, the engineer on the album, told Mix magazine that the drums, bass and main guitar parts were all captured from the live take. He recalls that in the wood-walled live-sounding drum room at Rhinoceros, two large Yamaha<\/a> speakers were placed behind the kit so that drummer Jon Farriss could hear samples of kick drum and hand claps to play along to. \u201cThat way, the samples wouldn\u2019t sound so different from the drum kit,\u201d said Nicholas. \u201cThey\u2019d come out sounding like they were in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n![\"INXS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752861431_461_maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n![\"Pretenders](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752861432_854_maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"INXS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752861432_957_maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n