At the Brit Awards in 1996, Inxs singer Michael Hutchence presented the British colleague of Oasis the trophy for “Wonderwall” as a “best song”. In his speech, Noel Gallagher said: “Has-Beens Should’t Present Fucking Awards to Gonna-Be.” – “Those who mean nothing should not give prices to those who are still significant.” And thus referred to the falling popularity of Inxs. According to reports, these words have “crushed” Hutchence; At the same time, he indicated that Liam was a fan of him.
In the Rolling-Stone interview of May 1997, on the occasion of the publication of the new record “Elegantly Wasted”, the 35-year-old Hutchence spoke about his band half a year after the Brit Awards-and comes to an oasis in the course of the conversation. He died six months later.
The last inxs albums did not go very well. Nobody wants to hear anything from you today?
Michael Hutchence: Nonsense, we may have experimented a little too much on our last plates. But if it is only a question of whether an album sells well or not, it only depends on the music. One should think that with such a large and successful band the record company is fully behind you, but our company in America, which was under contract with the last record, took care of us. They literally put our US career in the sand.
At the end of the 1980s you sold the Wembley Stadium. On your last European tour, however, you only played in medium-sized halls. It’s not just the blame of the record company.
Okay, we didn’t go to the Wembley Stadium anymore, but we played in huge stadiums in the nineties in Asia and South America. Of course, that is not in any organic. And admittedly, we no longer sell ten million copies per album, but maybe four, but this is not because our songs have become worse, but because people no longer think of us for pop stars.
How should you understand that?
Well, until the early 1990s we were hip. The 17-year-old girls hung our poster into the room, but we never actually made music for 17-year-old girls, but serious records that we believe in ourselves. Then came the Nirvana generation that nothing wants to know about us, and that gaps this gap. But the very young kids are now on us again.
“We sound more modern than Oasis”
Would you call your music as a “modern skirt”?
Very good question, to be honest, I would like to know that too. I think we sound at least as contemporary as most other rock bands, much more modern than the Grungs faction and much more modern than Oasis. We would not want to take in damn something that already exists in a better form.
But your latest album “Elegantly Wasted” does not sound revolutionary. It offers pretty much what you expect from an inxs album.
Right. We have tried this in recent years, sometimes that, but this LP should be really inxic again. She should listen to a horde of white boys playing funky rock’n’roll, and we succeeded. On the one hand, we wanted a plate on which we are honest with ourselves and that the old fans also lose our fans. But on the other hand, we didn’t want to sound like the same old shit from ten years ago.
Did you not have any difficulties in this regard to motivate yourself for this high goal?
I say, if you have good songs, then you also have a happy band; So there were no problems. But not much would have been missing after the last album, and we would have threw the chunks. If you have the feeling that the whole industry keeps you to fool you, it is simply no longer fun. But we don’t want to clear the field without a fight. After all, we are Australians.
“I don’t even know if the poor boys still have friends”
What distinguishes the Australian as such?
He is a fighter. Sensitive has no chance in Australia. Everyone always knows what’s going on with us. That makes us so strong. We have been together for 17 years, longer than most couples.
Are you still friends with the Gallagher brothers?
They were always very nice to me, but suddenly they weren’t nice. I don’t even know if the poor boys still have friends, because after what I can tell, there should be no one all over London who has not yet been made stupid. But I still admire you for how you have made this whole rock’n’roll lifestyle.
After all, you recently had similar headlines.
Which ones who have to move on the photographer? Yes and police, drugs and arrest. Yes, yes. Someone has to make the headlines. I am not embarrassed. But I really didn’t stow no opium in the bedroom to bring the band back into the spotlight.
With OASIS, this should actually run that way. Such stories are constantly put into the world, only so that the boys are in the newspaper.
Honestly, something like that goes about my hat snur. If you ask me, that’s half men, but to the other puppets of their management. I have my doubts as to whether they even know what is going on. But we should also lose a sentence about the English press: everything is bugged, and wherever you go, the camera is already there. In the past, the newspapers have uncovered political scandals, today they follow you through half the city to look at which restaurant you go to. I call this the “Murdoch effect”.
Then why don’t you move back to Australia?
If you pay my legal fees in England, I would think about it. Make me an offer