Latest / DISGRACELAND / INXS Pt. 2: Rock ‘n’ Roll Riots, Radio Bans, and a Letter Bomb

Transcript

INXS Pt. 2: Rock ‘n’ Roll Riots, Radio Bans, and a Letter Bomb · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:18
Speaker 1: story about danger, about how danger never really goes away,
0:24
Speaker 1: even after you've escaped the most dangerous place you've ever known.
0:28
Speaker 1: And this is also a story about a band that
0:30
Speaker 1: survived one of the most violent, lawless music scenes on Earth,
0:36
Speaker 1: only to discover that the farther they traveled from it,
0:39
Speaker 1: the nearer danger drew them in. This is about riots
0:43
Speaker 1: and near death experiences, about criminals hiding out in mining camps.
0:49
Speaker 1: It's about crossing over, about paying a price, and about controversy.
0:53
Speaker 1: It's a story about how even the bands that make
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Speaker 1: it out alive don't always make it out unscathed. This
1:00
Speaker 1: is the story of how Inexcess became one of the
1:04
Speaker 1: biggest rock and roll bands on the planet. So of
1:07
Speaker 1: course it's a story about great music. Unlike that clip
1:11
Speaker 1: I played for you at the top of the show.
1:13
Speaker 1: That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
1:16
Speaker 1: my mellotron called yah Na MK one. I played you
1:21
Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to my
1:24
Speaker 1: Sharona by the Nack. Hey, why would I play you
1:28
Speaker 1: that specific slice of Kurt Cobaine inspiring cheese could I
1:32
Speaker 1: afford it? Because that was the number one song in
1:36
Speaker 1: America on September nineteenth, nineteen seventy nine, and that was
1:41
Speaker 1: the day that Australia's music scene literally went up in flames,
1:45
Speaker 1: and six guys from down Under forged in the white
1:49
Speaker 1: hot Fire first set their sights on Global Superstar.
1:54
Speaker 2: On this a.
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Speaker 1: Special part two episode, wild Places, lawless scenes, criminals, mining camps,
2:01
Speaker 1: controversy and in excess. I'm Jake Brennan and this is
2:08
Speaker 1: Disgrace Land. It was a land of opportunity and dust,
2:35
Speaker 1: a place for men who weren't welcomed back home, men
2:38
Speaker 1: blown west by the wind and hardened by the sun,
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Speaker 1: Criminals running from their past and running from the law.
2:46
Speaker 1: It was a land without laws. Out here, there were
2:50
Speaker 1: only promises, promises of wealth, of fame, and of a
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Speaker 1: new life, of vast life, one that seemed as endless
2:59
Speaker 1: as the horizon. But those promises in that life were
3:04
Speaker 1: hard earned, and they came.
3:06
Speaker 2: At a price.
3:08
Speaker 1: And so this was also a land of violence. And
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Speaker 1: it was a land where you backed up your best
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Speaker 1: shot with bare knuckles, a land where blood was spilled
3:16
Speaker 1: and where justice came at the sharp end of a knife.
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Speaker 2: Blade or the jagged edge of a broken bottle.
3:22
Speaker 1: This land was not the wild West of America in
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Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds. This was the wild West of
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Speaker 1: Australia in the nineteen seventies, or should I say the
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Speaker 1: wild West of the Australian music.
3:36
Speaker 3: Scene in the nineteen seventies.
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Speaker 1: Of course, New York had the Ramones and suicide and
3:41
Speaker 1: Patti Smith and London had the Clash and the pistols.
3:44
Speaker 1: But by nineteen seventy seven Australia had something even more
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Speaker 1: untamed and unchecked. The Australian rock and roll circuit was lawless,
3:55
Speaker 1: from Sydney to Melbourne to far flung mining and fishing
3:58
Speaker 1: towns like Calgorily Headland in Bunbury. Australian audiences were desperate
4:04
Speaker 1: to rage as Midnight Oil as Peter Garrett wants to
4:07
Speaker 1: put it, And whether it was Midnight Oil or the
4:10
Speaker 1: Saints or Radio Birdman or Cold Chisel or even the
4:13
Speaker 1: Boys next Door, that's what Nick Cave and the Birthday
4:16
Speaker 1: Parreaty called themselves. At first, Australian audiences were radicalized, mobilized
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Speaker 1: and energized by the music.
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Speaker 2: They wanted to be.
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Speaker 1: Part of the show, and I mean, physically street tough,
4:29
Speaker 1: sun hardened subcultures.
4:31
Speaker 2: Like the Sharpies would roll up their crop.
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Speaker 1: Cuts tight, and their t shirts tight, and their jeans
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Speaker 1: tight too, all of it tight, all of it's sharp
4:38
Speaker 1: as fuck. They'd wait for a hippie or a moud
4:42
Speaker 1: or a rocker, anyone who wasn't a sharpie really to
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Speaker 1: do the wrong thing, to look at them the wrong way,
4:47
Speaker 1: to say the wrong word, and it was on, and
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Speaker 1: that night's entertainment would then soundtrack the raw, primordial violence
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Speaker 1: that ear splitting volume. Meanwhile, a couple of truck drivers
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Speaker 1: six pints deep would be to beat each other's faces,
5:01
Speaker 1: and while some half baked tounty at the bar weaponized
5:03
Speaker 1: a beer bottle in order to express his displeasure at
5:06
Speaker 1: the fact that he couldn't hear the football game on
5:08
Speaker 1: the shitty television set that hung above the cash register.
5:12
Speaker 1: But one venue's bar in particular served as a buffer
5:15
Speaker 1: between the audience and the band. At the Star Hotel
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Speaker 1: in Newcastle, New South Wales, the band played behind the bar,
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Speaker 1: while the two hundred or so patrons packed inside had
5:26
Speaker 1: to stand on the bar if they wanted to really
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Speaker 1: connect with the music on that untamed, physical level, but
5:33
Speaker 1: the physical state of the Star Hotel was just about
5:37
Speaker 1: his dodgy as it's rough around the Edge's clientele, and
5:41
Speaker 1: so On September nineteenth, nineteen seventy nine, the Venerable Live
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Speaker 1: music venue hosted its final shows before shutting down for good.
5:50
Speaker 1: The bands began playing at noon that day and they
5:53
Speaker 1: went until ten pm that night, which, per a local ordinance,
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Speaker 1: was curfew. The club was at capacity inside, but outside
6:02
Speaker 1: thousands more had gathered to give their beloved Star Hotel
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Speaker 1: to send off it deserved.
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Speaker 2: The cops walked.
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Speaker 1: Into the Star at ten pm on the dot. One
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Speaker 1: of the local band's heroes were wrapping up their final song,
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Speaker 1: and the thin walls were shaking and the stench of
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Speaker 1: sweat and beer and cigarettes was as strong as heroes
6:20
Speaker 1: were alloud, but the cops aimed to be louder just
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Speaker 1: by being present. They forced the music to stop before
6:28
Speaker 1: that final song was technically over, but not before Heroes
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Speaker 1: as lead singer leaned into the mic with a parting.
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Speaker 2: Thought the pig say we gotta go the place erupted.
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Speaker 1: All that untamed energy that had been put into the music,
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Speaker 1: into this codependent symbiotic relationship now had nowhere else to
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Speaker 1: go but to refocus itself on the ones who had
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Speaker 1: denied them their joy and communion and rage. As the
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Speaker 1: cops put the heroes as defiant singer and handcuffs, the
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Speaker 1: crowd emptied up onto the street, and.
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Speaker 2: Out there in the warm spring air, a.
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Speaker 1: Riot broke out chance of piss off pigs while the
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Speaker 1: locals wrestled with the police. As one bystander was led
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Speaker 1: into a waiting ambulance with blood running down his face,
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Speaker 1: another managed to steal a cops service revolver. A group
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Speaker 1: of men rocked the police car back and forth, finally
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Speaker 1: tipping it over, and as it came to rest on
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Speaker 1: its hood, fuel began to leak from the gas tank
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Speaker 1: and spill.
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Speaker 2: Onto the pavement.
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Speaker 1: Some random source of ignition was then tossed onto the liquid,
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Speaker 1: a stray cigarette perhaps, and within seconds the cruiser erupted
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Speaker 1: in a fireball. The flames quickly spread to a nearby paddywagon,
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Speaker 1: which burned alongside the cruiser, while the memories of all
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Speaker 1: the shows inside the tiny Star hotel drifted off into
7:48
Speaker 1: the night like the smoke that was now billowing from
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Speaker 1: the wreckage. Only a few weeks before, the now infamous
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Speaker 1: Star Hotel Riots the Sydney by way of earth band,
8:00
Speaker 1: the Ferris Brothers had just played their first gig under
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Speaker 1: the catchier new name in Excess. Just like Heroes in
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Speaker 1: Cold Chisel and Midnight Oil and all the rest, in
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Speaker 1: Excess and the Brothers Ferris that's Andrew, John and Tim,
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Speaker 1: along with Gary Beers, Kirk Pengilly and lead singer Michael Hutchins,
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Speaker 1: had come up in the lawless years of the Australian
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Speaker 1: pub rock circuit.
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Speaker 2: They were forged by the white hot danger of the scene.
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Speaker 1: Even if your perception of in Excess has always been
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Speaker 1: the pretty boys of the nineteen eighties and early nineteen
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Speaker 1: nineties era of rock and roll, the pretty boy thing
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Speaker 1: was just attention getting. The pretty boy thing sold records,
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Speaker 1: millions of records. But I'm getting ahead of myself. By
8:44
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, in Excess were a product of
8:47
Speaker 1: an exceedingly hostile environment. And this environment wasn't necessarily the
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Speaker 1: Star Hotel on the evening of September nineteenth, nineteen seventy nine. Instead,
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Speaker 1: theirs was a mining camp in Goldsworthy, a two day
9:01
Speaker 1: drive from Sydney, where they were offered one thousand dollars
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Speaker 1: to entertain the workers for a week.
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Speaker 2: And like some of the.
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Speaker 1: Crowd at the Star, many of these mining workers lived
9:11
Speaker 1: one step ahead of the law. They came to Goldsworthy
9:15
Speaker 1: to hide from judges and lawyers and women. Out here
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Speaker 1: in the dust, in the dirt, all their pent up aggression,
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Speaker 1: all their violence that ripped into the ground beneath them,
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Speaker 1: with their shovels, with their picks that they held in
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Speaker 1: their calloused hands. This area of Australia was unforgiving, a
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Speaker 1: dystopian mad Max vision, where chaos and disorder lingered in
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Speaker 1: the silences, where the miners made it through another day
9:43
Speaker 1: only because they knew that a bunch of bust in
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Speaker 1: horrors were waiting for them in the decrepit shacks on site.
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Speaker 1: This was a land where as in excessus tor van
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Speaker 1: rocketed west and then north, John Ferris looked out the
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Speaker 1: window only to see a pile of dead kangaroos on
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Speaker 1: the side of the road. It was a land where
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Speaker 1: you didn't know whether the audience was going to applaud
10:02
Speaker 1: or jump from their chair and strangle.
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Speaker 2: You to the life with squeeze from your body. There
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Speaker 2: was a.
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Speaker 1: Land where there was fear, even in the communal bathroom,
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Speaker 1: which was crawling with spiders as big as one of
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Speaker 1: those working men's callous hands. But a thousand bucks was
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Speaker 1: a thousand bucks, and so John Ferris and Michael Hutchinson
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Speaker 1: in Excess did what any other band in Australia circle
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Speaker 1: of the late nineteen seventies would do. They took the gig. Besides,
10:29
Speaker 1: some steady money meant that Kirk no longer had to
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Speaker 1: sell weed out of his guitar case to make ends.
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Speaker 1: Me and in making the drive and taking the gig,
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Speaker 1: surrounded by dead kangaroos and giant spiders and hardened criminals
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Speaker 1: and all in Excess learned how to survive. But survival
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Speaker 1: wasn't enough. John Kirk, Michael and the guys aspired to
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Speaker 1: things bigger than the vastness of the brutal Australian scene.
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Speaker 2: They wanted the world. They wanted to cross over to
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Speaker 2: the world, which.
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Speaker 1: Was something that some of even the most popular Australian
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Speaker 1: bands like The Great Cold Chisel were never able to achieve.
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Speaker 1: In Excess also didn't exactly fit in with the Australia thing.
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Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is that they weren't
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Speaker 1: a banned for the raging crowd. They didn't inspire the
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Speaker 1: sharpies and their rivals to bang. Hence, they were a
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Speaker 1: band that made you shake your ass instead, and so
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Speaker 1: they used that to their advantage to pull themselves up
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Speaker 1: to that next rung of success. But it took more
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Speaker 1: than ask shaking funk, more than talent and drive to
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Speaker 1: realize crossover worldwide success. It required an ever present danger
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Speaker 1: as your companion. Because once in Excess left Australia to
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Speaker 1: take on the world, danger followed them that rode with
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Speaker 1: them in tandem until it eventually threatened their lives. It
12:17
Speaker 1: took a little over three years from their first official
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Speaker 1: gig as in Excess for Michael Gary Kirk and the
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Speaker 1: Farris Brothers to break into America. Three years in which
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Speaker 1: they kept their collective nose to the grindstone, recording, touring
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Speaker 1: and honing their sound, which continued to be a little
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Speaker 1: more sleek and a lot more funky than most of
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Speaker 1: their contemporaries back home. Three years in which they went
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Speaker 1: into autopilot put in the reps, kept hammering at the
12:43
Speaker 1: dream just like those lawless miners, kept hammering at the
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Speaker 1: ground with their shovels. And when it last, They hit
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Speaker 1: the golden shores of America in March of nineteen eighty three.
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Speaker 1: They did so on the back of their first album
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Speaker 1: to be released stateside, Shabu Shabbab, which was actually their
13:00
Speaker 1: third album in Australia. The album's lead single, The One Thing,
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Speaker 1: had even gone all the way to number thirty on
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Speaker 1: the Billboard Hot one hundred. But waiting for them at
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Speaker 1: the club in San Diego where they were to begin
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Speaker 1: a tour opening for Adam and the Ants, was not
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Speaker 1: a crowd anywhere near the size of the crowd that
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Speaker 1: had rioted outside the Star Hotel on its final night.
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Speaker 1: It was even smaller than a typical audience of redneck
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Speaker 1: manual laborers back in Goldsworthy.
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Speaker 2: Twenty four people.
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Speaker 1: That's who was waiting for Inexcess in America, twenty four people. Clearly,
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Speaker 1: there was more work to do. Clearly they had to
13:38
Speaker 1: push themselves even harder in order to set themselves apart,
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Speaker 1: which meant they had to funk even harder. There was
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Speaker 1: only one man in America who could take them to
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Speaker 1: the promised land of funk, with a touch so deft
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Speaker 1: and a sound so smooth that it could not be denied,
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Speaker 1: and they found that man where all walks of funk
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Speaker 1: and rock melted down into one undeniable group. New York City,
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Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins took it all in the pine paneled walls,
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Speaker 1: the thirty five foot high ceilings, the state of the
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Speaker 1: art neave mixing console, the hell's kitchen recording studio known
14:14
Speaker 1: as the Power Station came as advertised, this was where
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Speaker 1: real bands made records, and it was where In Excess
14:21
Speaker 1: was now beginning to make The Swing their fourth LP.
14:25
Speaker 1: But even better than the legendary location was the company
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Speaker 1: sitting next to Michael in front of the knave knocking
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Speaker 1: out those trademark rhythmic chunks on a stratocaster.
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Speaker 2: Was Nile Rogers.
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Speaker 1: The Nile Rogers as in Chic, as in a freak out,
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Speaker 1: as in the guy who had just helmed mega hits
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Speaker 1: by Sister Sledge and Diana Ross, and only one year
14:49
Speaker 1: prior had produced David Bowie's album Let's Dance in this
14:52
Speaker 1: very same space. Nile cleared his calendar after seeing In
14:57
Speaker 1: Excess open in Toronto for men at Work, the Australian
15:00
Speaker 1: band who were having their own moment in North America
15:02
Speaker 1: with their huge hit down Under now Here was an
15:07
Speaker 1: excess at the power station, laying down Michael and Andrew's
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Speaker 1: new song Original Sin, with now Rogers adding his unmistakable
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Speaker 1: rhythm guitar.
15:16
Speaker 3: To the track.
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Speaker 2: It was just the thing.
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Speaker 1: It was American groove meets Australian grit. It was minimal,
15:24
Speaker 1: it was tight, and it had style. For days music
15:28
Speaker 1: maybe the universal language, but style was the currency, and
15:33
Speaker 1: now Rogers knew this, as did Nile's friend Daryl Hall
15:37
Speaker 1: of Hall and Oates, who sat in on a session
15:40
Speaker 1: as a favor and sang backing vocals. But style also
15:44
Speaker 1: required substance, something that Nile also knew, just like rock
15:48
Speaker 1: and roll needed that little bit of danger. So Now
15:51
Speaker 1: pulled Michael aside when they were recording the lead vocal
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Speaker 1: track and he made a suggestion. Instead of singing dream
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Speaker 1: on white Boy, dream on White Girl in the chorus,
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Speaker 1: Nile said, how about making it dream on black boy,
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Speaker 1: dream on white Girl. Now came from an interracial family,
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Speaker 1: so the note was personal for him. But also this
16:13
Speaker 1: was rock and roll. It was supposed to be provocative.
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Speaker 1: It was supposed to cross barriers by blending black and
16:20
Speaker 1: white in the lyrics in excess could cleverly mirror how
16:23
Speaker 1: their music was now blending black R and B with
16:25
Speaker 1: white new wave. Not only did it sound good and
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Speaker 1: make a big statement, it also seemed like the perfect
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Speaker 1: recipe to really cross over into America. But crossing over
16:37
Speaker 1: into America in this way would come with a price,
16:41
Speaker 1: just like those hard earned promises out in the wild
16:43
Speaker 1: west of the Australian music scene once came with a cost.
16:47
Speaker 1: Original Sin may have been the band's first number one
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Speaker 1: hit back in their native country, but in the States,
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Speaker 1: its moderate success was tinged with controversy. It seems crazy
16:58
Speaker 1: now in twenty twenty six, but in nineteen eighty four,
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Speaker 1: a song about an interracial romance could be a dangerous
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Speaker 1: prospect depending on who was listening and where.
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Speaker 2: Darrel Hall's manager was listening. And he was pissed.
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Speaker 1: And when he heard the final mix, he wasted no
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Speaker 1: time calling up now Rogers and giving him a piece
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Speaker 1: of his mind. Who the fuck did he think he
17:17
Speaker 1: was changing that line without first getting permission?
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Speaker 2: Dream on black Boy? Was he fucking crazy?
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Speaker 1: Did he understand how problematic that was, how problematic that
17:26
Speaker 1: was for his client? He was downright scandalous is what
17:30
Speaker 1: it was. And Daryl Hall didn't do scandal. Now Rogers
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Speaker 1: didn't let the criticism bother him. The rest of the
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Speaker 1: country not so much. American radio stations banned the song
17:42
Speaker 1: from rotation, thus preventing it from charting any higher than
17:45
Speaker 1: number fifty eight, where it stalled out on the Billboard
17:48
Speaker 1: Hot one hundred one radio station in Illinois even received
17:52
Speaker 1: a bomb thread from a caller who demanded the song
17:54
Speaker 1: be taking out the air immediately. In excess, escape from
17:58
Speaker 1: the controversy relatively unscathed, after all, they'd been shaped and
18:02
Speaker 1: molded by far worse back in the down underscene. If anything,
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Speaker 1: all the attention in both positive and negative strengthened their result.
18:11
Speaker 1: You know you touch a nerve, you're doing it right
18:14
Speaker 1: and all that. Andrew and Michael continued to contribute most
18:18
Speaker 1: of the band's songwriting, crafting a number of killer tracks
18:21
Speaker 1: for their next record, nineteen eighty five Listen Like Thieves.
18:25
Speaker 1: The album was made with English producer Chris Thomas, who
18:28
Speaker 1: had worked previously with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music,
18:32
Speaker 1: and the Sex Pistols. Thomas held on to the funky
18:35
Speaker 1: swagger that now Rogers had brought to the table, but
18:38
Speaker 1: he folded it into an album that sounded like an
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Speaker 1: inexcessed show, felt big, sweaty, sexy. The album was their
18:46
Speaker 1: first global smash, and the last song they recorded for
18:49
Speaker 1: the most excellent lead single, What You Need, finally cracked
18:53
Speaker 1: the top ten in America.
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Speaker 2: Where the album quickly went gold.
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Speaker 1: This was all happening as Australia's cultural cachet in the
19:01
Speaker 1: States was set to soar with the blockbuster movie Crocodile
19:05
Speaker 1: Dundee and those ubiquitous Fosters beer commercials right around the corner.
19:10
Speaker 1: It was also happening with the promotional arm of MTV,
19:13
Speaker 1: which put the music video for What You.
19:15
Speaker 2: Need into heavy rotation.
19:18
Speaker 1: All this newfound fame and success allowed in Excess to
19:21
Speaker 1: settle into the welcoming arms of rock and roll Excess,
19:24
Speaker 1: where they could make psychotic rock and roll choices like
19:28
Speaker 1: fly from America to Australia overnight, down and back just
19:31
Speaker 1: so they could shoot their next music video for their
19:34
Speaker 1: song Kiss the Dirt on a salt lake with horizon
19:37
Speaker 1: for days. It was a crazy idea and that said,
19:43
Speaker 1: the flight there and the shoot itself, all that went
19:46
Speaker 1: just fine. But the trouble started on the flight back.
19:49
Speaker 1: To the States when Tim Ferris woke up from his
19:53
Speaker 1: rock and roll slumber thirty thousand feet up in the air,
19:57
Speaker 1: only to find the pilot passed out.
20:03
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this.
20:05
Speaker 1: We're We're, We're.
20:12
Speaker 2: Okay.
20:13
Speaker 1: So we've established that, when done right, rock and roll
20:16
Speaker 1: is a dangerous game. But rock and roll is also
20:18
Speaker 1: a young man's game, and you can only pull off
20:21
Speaker 1: the kinds of stunts in excess we're pulling off in
20:23
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, if you were young mid to late
20:26
Speaker 1: twenties tops, which happened to the age of all the
20:29
Speaker 1: members of the band at the time, and incidentally, as
20:32
Speaker 1: old as you possibly can be, to hop a private
20:34
Speaker 1: plane in the States, land in Australia, fifteen hours later,
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Speaker 1: shoot a music video on the moon planes north of
20:39
Speaker 1: Adelaide and then the so called Opal capital of the World,
20:43
Speaker 1: a town called kober Petes.
20:45
Speaker 2: Get back on the plane just a few hours.
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Speaker 1: Later, ragged but right, ride a high pressure system back
20:50
Speaker 1: to the good old US of a and Bob's your uncle.
20:54
Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins was neither Bob, nor was he your uncle,
20:57
Speaker 1: but he was known to the rest of the guys
20:59
Speaker 1: as the camp on account of all the mind altering
21:02
Speaker 1: goodies he carried in his candy bag or candy satchel,
21:05
Speaker 1: or whatever he called the receptacle on which he hit
21:07
Speaker 1: away his stash of illicit drugs. Right now, however, the
21:11
Speaker 1: Candyman was fast asleep, slumped in his seat aboard the
21:16
Speaker 1: band's private plane, high above the deep dark abyss of
21:20
Speaker 1: the Pacific, en route back to the Land of the
21:22
Speaker 1: Free and home of the brave. Just hours earlier, the
21:26
Speaker 1: Candyman had bravely stood atop the windshield planes of Kuber Petes,
21:30
Speaker 1: the sun beating down and the sand flying in his face,
21:34
Speaker 1: black T shirt, jeans, big belt buckle, moves like Jagger,
21:37
Speaker 1: lips sinking while looking like anyone's platonic ideal of a
21:41
Speaker 1: front man, while a director shot footage for the music
21:44
Speaker 1: video for Inexcess's latest single, Kissed the Dirt Falling down
21:48
Speaker 1: the Mountain. Now it was the aftermath of that shoot,
21:52
Speaker 1: and most everyone was asleep on the plane, perhaps courtesy
21:55
Speaker 1: of some of the goodies in the candy Man's bag.
21:57
Speaker 1: But at some point Tim Ferris, who was shaken awake
22:01
Speaker 1: by a little burst of turbulence, He wiped his eyes,
22:05
Speaker 1: stood up and carefully made his way from the back
22:08
Speaker 1: of the plane to the front, curious to see whether
22:10
Speaker 1: the pilot knew if they were heading into more nasty
22:13
Speaker 1: weather ahead. As he approached the cockpit, the plane shifted again.
22:19
Speaker 1: Tim grabbed one of the overhead compartments to stabilize himself
22:22
Speaker 1: and rubbed his eyes once more, and this time because
22:24
Speaker 1: he wasn't believing what he was seeing. His brother, Andrew
22:29
Speaker 1: was sitting in the pilot's seat, frozen in fear, white
22:32
Speaker 1: knuckling the yoke in his hands. Tim's eyes then went
22:36
Speaker 1: from one shocking sight to the next, turning his head
22:38
Speaker 1: slightly to witness the plane's pilot snoring in the seat
22:42
Speaker 1: next to Andrew, way off in dreamland with drool running
22:45
Speaker 1: down his chin. Tim darted forward as Andrew struggled to
22:49
Speaker 1: keep the plane level. The fuck is going on, Andrew.
22:53
Speaker 1: Andrew couldn't take his eyes off the sky.
22:54
Speaker 3: In front of him. I don't know, he said to
22:58
Speaker 3: his brother.
22:58
Speaker 1: The pilot asked if I wanted to say, and the
23:00
Speaker 1: next thing I know, he's out. As Tim shook the
23:03
Speaker 1: pilot awake, he couldn't help but wonder what.
23:06
Speaker 2: If he hadn't woken up when he did?
23:08
Speaker 3: What if the pilot hadn't woken up.
23:11
Speaker 1: All the what ifs began to bounce around in his
23:13
Speaker 1: mind along with.
23:15
Speaker 3: This one, what if we just cheated death.
23:21
Speaker 1: That's an intoxicating thought, especially for young men playing a
23:25
Speaker 1: dangerous game. That feeling of invincibility of being able to
23:30
Speaker 1: do anything, including flying a plane, and that's sort of
23:34
Speaker 1: high carried over into the sessions for Inexcess's next album,
23:38
Speaker 1: their follow up to their big breakthrough Listen Like Thieves.
23:42
Speaker 1: Once again they worked with producer Chris Thomas, this time
23:46
Speaker 1: recording not only at a studio in Sydney, but also
23:49
Speaker 1: at a studio in Paris, where they found the recording
23:52
Speaker 1: console dusted with cocaine left behind from a recent Rolling
23:55
Speaker 1: Stone session, or so the French speaking studio assistant a
23:59
Speaker 1: shirt them. Such was rock and roll, a world of
24:03
Speaker 1: myths that has built brick by brick by the observers
24:06
Speaker 1: hanging out on the sidelines. As the sessions for album
24:10
Speaker 1: number six wound down, Chris Thomas feared they had a
24:13
Speaker 1: problem similar to one.
24:15
Speaker 2: They'd had with the last album. They didn't have a
24:17
Speaker 2: strong lead single.
24:20
Speaker 1: What You Need had been the last song recorded for
24:22
Speaker 1: Listen Like Thieves, written explicitly to be a hit, and
24:26
Speaker 1: it did manage to become one of in Excess's biggest singles.
24:30
Speaker 1: So Thomas told Andrew and Michael that they had two
24:32
Speaker 1: weeks two weeks to write the album's best song and
24:36
Speaker 1: lead single. The pressure was intense, even for a couple
24:41
Speaker 1: of guys who felt invincible and had faced more treacherous
24:43
Speaker 1: predicaments in their past. But necessity is the mother of invention.
24:49
Speaker 1: So Andrew found himself leaving his apartment and getting into
24:52
Speaker 1: the back of a taxi waiting outside his place so
24:55
Speaker 1: that he could go to the airport and fly to
24:56
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, where he and Michael would hold up with
24:59
Speaker 1: his brother John on his apartment and squeeze out a
25:01
Speaker 1: hit song. As soon as he closed the door and
25:05
Speaker 1: the cabby began to pull away from the curb, Andrew
25:08
Speaker 1: heard it in his head.
25:10
Speaker 3: Down don don don hun don don done stop.
25:17
Speaker 1: He yelled at the cab driver stop, I forgot something
25:20
Speaker 1: back in my place, and the cabby side clearly annoyed.
25:25
Speaker 2: Andrew struggled to keep the riff in his head.
25:27
Speaker 1: Done done, done don, and he threw op at the
25:32
Speaker 1: door and tumbled out and ran upstairs to his apartment.
25:38
Speaker 1: Forty minutes later, he emerged climbing into the backseat of
25:42
Speaker 1: the cab once more, now with a cassette tape in
25:44
Speaker 1: his hand, watching the cave up front, shifting clearly annoyed,
25:48
Speaker 1: but not too annoyed honestly, because the meter was running
25:51
Speaker 1: in well. Time was money, Yes, Andrew thought time was money,
25:57
Speaker 1: And with those forty minutes of time upstairs, he was
26:00
Speaker 1: able to lay down that razor sharp rhythm guitar roof
26:03
Speaker 1: that had come to him like divine intervention, along with
26:06
Speaker 1: a complimentary bass part and a drum machine beat, thus
26:09
Speaker 1: laying down the groundwork for the most money he and
26:12
Speaker 1: the guys would ever make in their lives. And when
26:14
Speaker 1: he got to Hong Kong, he played the track for Michael,
26:17
Speaker 1: who ran with him, and in far less than There
26:19
Speaker 1: Are a Lot of two weeks they had their hit
26:22
Speaker 1: Need You Tonight, became Inexcess's first and only number one
26:27
Speaker 1: song in America. The full album Kick was a certifiable sensation,
26:32
Speaker 1: a new sensation, a ubiquitous slab of funk rock that
26:37
Speaker 1: took over the world. Even detractors like the Dean of
26:40
Speaker 1: American rock critics, Robert Chriscau, called them silly, middlebrow hacks,
26:45
Speaker 1: which is what he wrote at the time. The printed
26:48
Speaker 1: word couldn't hurt In Excess, not in nineteen eighty seven
26:52
Speaker 1: when they were on top of the world, Nor could
26:54
Speaker 1: it hurt them back in nineteen seventy seven when they
26:57
Speaker 1: were beset on all sides by criminals, wild West opportunists.
27:02
Speaker 1: But a few years after the smashed success of Meet
27:05
Speaker 1: You Tonight, as In Excess continued to solidify their status
27:08
Speaker 1: as one of the greatest modern rock and roll bands.
27:12
Speaker 1: An envelope arrived at the hotel room of Michael Hutchins,
27:15
Speaker 1: an envelope containing not the printed word, as one would expect,
27:19
Speaker 1: but something far more sinister because his fame, notoriety, success.
27:24
Speaker 1: As all those things increase, so too does danger, but not.
27:30
Speaker 2: In direct proportion.
27:33
Speaker 3: The danger increases tenfold.
27:51
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Back in our part one episode on In Excess,
27:54
Speaker 1: I briefly mentioned how the Gallagher Brothers of Oasis used
27:59
Speaker 1: their speech had an awards show to throw a shade
28:01
Speaker 1: at Michael Hutchins and In Excess, and how that affected Michael,
28:05
Speaker 1: how it really messed him up in a lot of ways.
28:06
Speaker 1: So what we didn't have time to get into was
28:08
Speaker 1: the aftermath of that disk and how Michael eventually got
28:13
Speaker 1: his own revenge, Eternal Infinite Revenge. Actually, it's a pretty
28:17
Speaker 1: entertaining and surprising story, and you can hear all about
28:20
Speaker 1: it in this week's Disgraceland mini episode. To do that,
28:23
Speaker 1: you got to be a member of Disgraceland All Access.
28:25
Speaker 1: Sign up through Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Go to disgracelandpod
28:28
Speaker 1: dot com to do just that. All right, back to
28:31
Speaker 1: our part two episode on in Excess right now. In
28:42
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, rock and roll was in crisis. Bands
28:46
Speaker 1: that had dominated MTV in the airways for years, bands
28:49
Speaker 1: like Guns N' Roses, def Leppard, Metallica, even in excess,
28:53
Speaker 1: bands that still managed to represent a threat to the
28:56
Speaker 1: moral order of things, Suddenly, in the cold light of day,
29:00
Speaker 1: in the light now ushered in by the so called
29:03
Speaker 1: grunge movement, these older bands began to feel less authentic
29:07
Speaker 1: or even worse uncool.
29:10
Speaker 2: By the time Nirvana released in.
29:12
Speaker 1: Utero in September of that year, the very idea of
29:15
Speaker 1: the rock star had become suspect. Kurt Cobain was the
29:18
Speaker 1: biggest rock star on the planet, But then no, he
29:20
Speaker 1: wasn't Kurt was the anti rock star. He was the
29:23
Speaker 1: flip side of what Michael Hutchins so easily and effectively embodied,
29:28
Speaker 1: the guy preening and prowling on stage with his shirt unbuttoned,
29:32
Speaker 1: and rock and roll as we Knew It was being
29:35
Speaker 1: reframed as nothing but myth in the light of Kurt
29:37
Speaker 1: and Grunge's realism.
29:40
Speaker 2: Of course, it was all.
29:41
Speaker 1: A pose, whether you were in a hair band or
29:43
Speaker 1: in a Seattle band, or whether or not your band
29:45
Speaker 1: still had a saxophone player as in excessive. My point
29:50
Speaker 1: here is that as early as nineteen ninety three the
29:52
Speaker 1: writing was on the wall, and by the end of
29:55
Speaker 1: the decade, at the turn of the century, rock and roll.
29:58
Speaker 2: As we Knew it would be dead. Don't get me
30:00
Speaker 2: wrong here.
30:01
Speaker 1: We still had rock bands, and we still do, some
30:03
Speaker 1: very good ones at that but rock and roll as
30:05
Speaker 1: a cultural force, as a menace to society, that was
30:08
Speaker 1: long gone by two thousand. All that was left was
30:12
Speaker 1: for rock to become institutional and nostalgic and corporatized, while
30:17
Speaker 1: hip hop.
30:18
Speaker 2: Rushed in to fill the cultural void.
30:21
Speaker 1: But again, in ninety three, rock wasn't quite dead yet.
30:24
Speaker 1: It was simply in crisis. It would be another four
30:28
Speaker 1: years before Michael Hutchins found himself in a crisis in
30:31
Speaker 1: a Sydney hotel room, attempting to navigate the impassable that
30:36
Speaker 1: dark night of the soul. Tonight, it was a different
30:40
Speaker 1: hotel room somewhere in Germany, where In Excess were performing
30:44
Speaker 1: as part of their Get Out of the House Tour.
30:47
Speaker 1: Their ninth and latest album, Full Moon Dirty Hearts, was
30:50
Speaker 1: already suffering from the grunge effect. It didn't even break
30:54
Speaker 1: the top fifty in America, a far cry from the
30:57
Speaker 1: commercial triumph of Kick and its.
30:59
Speaker 2: Follower of X.
31:01
Speaker 1: No matter, this tour was all about going back back
31:05
Speaker 1: to basics, back to small clubs and even smaller audiences,
31:10
Speaker 1: back to the way things were before In Excess became
31:12
Speaker 1: worldwide superstars. But there was no going back. These guys
31:17
Speaker 1: were superstars. They've been the subjects of adulation, coveted and
31:21
Speaker 1: obsessed over and despised all the same time. They were
31:24
Speaker 1: the recipients of shrieks and screams of love, sick confessions,
31:27
Speaker 1: and of strange correspondences. And one of those correspondences, sent
31:31
Speaker 1: to Michael Hutchins at his hotel, almost went down like this,
31:39
Speaker 1: Michael turned the envelope over in his hands. It was
31:42
Speaker 1: heavier than it seemed, an oddly shaped, and he was
31:46
Speaker 1: unsure if the letter had been mailed to the hotel
31:48
Speaker 1: or simply dropped off, as German was rusty and the
31:52
Speaker 1: front lobby could only help so much. But there was
31:55
Speaker 1: no return address. And again it was so oddly shaped,
31:59
Speaker 1: so lump, so strange, this envelope. He wondered what could
32:02
Speaker 1: be inside. Fans said all sorts of creepy and wonderful things,
32:06
Speaker 1: dependent on the day and the fan. Michael grabbed hold
32:10
Speaker 1: of the end of the envelope with his fingers, and
32:12
Speaker 1: as he tore it open, he saw the flash before
32:15
Speaker 1: he heard the explosion, and then Fortunately for Michael, this
32:23
Speaker 1: didn't actually happen, although he was in fact sent a
32:28
Speaker 1: letter bomb at his German hotel. A man who had
32:32
Speaker 1: worked for in Excess for a decade after years as
32:34
Speaker 1: a police officer intercepted the envelope and identified it as
32:38
Speaker 1: an explosive device long before Michael got his hands on it.
32:42
Speaker 2: It was a.
32:42
Speaker 1: Poorly cheaply made letter bomb, but a bomb nevertheless, one
32:47
Speaker 1: that could have done significant damage to Michael had.
32:49
Speaker 2: He opened it. Could have even killed him.
32:52
Speaker 1: Michael and his bodyguard kept this nearly fatal incident a
32:56
Speaker 1: secret for years, and Michael took it to his grave,
32:59
Speaker 1: and the body guard only revealed what had happened seven
33:02
Speaker 1: years after Michael's death. In twenty fourteen. He recalled that
33:06
Speaker 1: Michael was pretty even keeled when he was initially informed
33:09
Speaker 1: about the letter bomb. He understood that no one was
33:13
Speaker 1: ever really safe in this world, and that someone in
33:16
Speaker 1: his position was perhaps more susceptible to danger than most.
33:21
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, he was an entertainer.
33:24
Speaker 1: He was a rock star, as were the other members
33:27
Speaker 1: of his band, and so it was on to the
33:30
Speaker 1: next show, and then the next town, the next country,
33:34
Speaker 1: and so on. It turns out, for Michael Hutchins, at least,
33:39
Speaker 1: the real danger was hidden not in an envelope or
33:43
Speaker 1: in a spider infested mining camp out in the wild
33:45
Speaker 1: boonies of Australia, but inside himself. And when Michael died,
33:51
Speaker 1: the danger died with him.
33:53
Speaker 3: And that is a disgrace.
33:57
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan in This is Disgrace Sland. Hey, guys,
34:14
Speaker 1: thanks for checking out this episode of Disgraceland on Inexcess listen.
34:18
Speaker 2: We're asking the question this.
34:20
Speaker 1: Week which artists have had the most cultural impact? That
34:26
Speaker 1: We're not from the United States or England, So basically,
34:29
Speaker 1: which international artist has made the biggest cultural impact. Obviously
34:33
Speaker 1: we're talking about this because in excess being from Australia,
34:36
Speaker 1: but it can be a band or.
34:37
Speaker 2: An artist from any country.
34:38
Speaker 1: Let me know six one, seven, nine oh six sixty
34:40
Speaker 1: sixty three eight voicemail and text at disgrace lamd pod
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34:46
Speaker 1: can leave a review to support the show over on
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Speaker 1: can do so at Patreon. By becoming an all Access
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35:04
Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
35:07
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
35:11
Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
35:14
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Speaker 3: He Ann