Latest / DISGRACELAND / INXS Pt 1: All-Night Gigs, All-Night Orgies, and a Tragic Climax

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INXS Pt 1: All-Night Gigs, All-Night Orgies, and a Tragic Climax · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
0:03
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
0:08
Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Michael Hudgins
0:21
Speaker 1: are insane. His band in Excess cut their teeth on
0:25
Speaker 1: the lawless Australian pub circuit, three shows a night, from
0:29
Speaker 1: sunset to sunrise, hundreds of shows a year. He was
0:33
Speaker 1: a rock stars rock star, and true to his band's name,
0:37
Speaker 1: he did everything in excess. He did cocaine on the
0:41
Speaker 1: tour bus and ecstasy on stage. He was arrested in
0:45
Speaker 1: a Paris hotel completely naked as a drug fueled orgy
0:49
Speaker 1: raged around him. He was sucker punched by a taxi
0:52
Speaker 1: driver in the street and that attack left him unable
0:55
Speaker 1: to smell or taste. It altered his moods, It changed him,
1:00
Speaker 1: and it may have had something to do with the
1:01
Speaker 1: final day of his life. Michael Hutchins's death at the
1:05
Speaker 1: age of thirty seven left a hole in the hearts
1:08
Speaker 1: of Australians and the world. It also left behind great music.
1:14
Speaker 1: Unlike that clip I played for you at the top
1:16
Speaker 1: of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a
1:20
Speaker 1: preset loop from my melotron called We're the Pinheads MK one.
1:26
Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
1:28
Speaker 1: rights to a clip from Candle in the Wind nineteen
1:31
Speaker 1: ninety seven by Elton John And why would I play
1:35
Speaker 1: you that specific slice of Norma Jean Cheese? Could I
1:39
Speaker 1: afford it? Because that was the number one song in
1:43
Speaker 1: America on November twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, And that
1:48
Speaker 1: was the day that Michael Hutchins's body was found in
1:50
Speaker 1: a Sydney hotel room with his belt around his neck.
1:55
Speaker 1: On this episode The Lawless Australia Pub Circuit, Cocaine, Orgies,
2:01
Speaker 1: Sucker Punches and a rock Stars, rock Star in excesses
2:05
Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins, I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Before
2:35
Speaker 1: he sat down at the piano, Nick Cave asked the
2:38
Speaker 1: TV crew to kill the cameras. This song was personal,
2:42
Speaker 1: maybe too personal, A love song written by a recovering
2:46
Speaker 1: addict trying to quote make the best of a bad situation.
2:50
Speaker 2: Unquote.
2:52
Speaker 1: That's how Nick Cave described Into My Arms, a song
2:55
Speaker 1: he wrote while he was in rehab kicking his long
2:58
Speaker 1: running addiction to heroin. Not all that long ago. From
3:01
Speaker 1: this day. On this day, however, November twenty sixth, nineteen
3:07
Speaker 1: ninety seven, the song wasn't for him. It was for
3:11
Speaker 1: the approximately one thousand people packed inside Saint Andrew's Cathedral
3:15
Speaker 1: here in Sydney. One thousand people trying to make the
3:19
Speaker 1: best out of another bad situation, this situation being far
3:24
Speaker 1: more tragic than Nick Cave calling on the muse to
3:27
Speaker 1: shake a junk habit. That was because Nick's friend Michael Hutchins,
3:32
Speaker 1: just thirty seven years old, was dead. The news shocked
3:37
Speaker 1: Australia in the world without warning in excess, had lost
3:41
Speaker 1: their charismatic frontman. Australia had lost one of its most
3:45
Speaker 1: popular and beloved sons. Nick Cave did his best to
3:49
Speaker 1: pick up the mantle. In front of a thousand strangers,
3:52
Speaker 1: and under the watchful eyes of God himself, he played
3:56
Speaker 1: his piano ballad for the mourners, barely a dry eye
3:59
Speaker 1: in the house outside the cathedral. Thousands more stood just
4:04
Speaker 1: beyond the police barricades, silent, bereaved, struggling to hear the
4:09
Speaker 1: music inside, struggling to make sense out of something that
4:13
Speaker 1: didn't make sense, to feel less alone. Michael Hutchins did
4:20
Speaker 1: that for them. He made them feel loved and alive,
4:23
Speaker 1: and he did that by being a rock star, A
4:26
Speaker 1: rock star's rock star, the genuine article, suave, magnetic, seductive,
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Speaker 1: masculine and feminine, a euphoric and explosive presence on stage.
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Speaker 1: Every rock band that wasn't in excess wished that Michael
4:40
Speaker 1: Hutchins was their front man. Just look at him. He
4:43
Speaker 1: was like a pirate wallowing in the spoils of his
4:45
Speaker 1: rock and roll plunders. He dated a smoke show pop
4:49
Speaker 1: star and then a smoke show supermodel. He wore a
4:52
Speaker 1: leather jacket with hutch written in chainmail on the back,
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Speaker 1: a snake skin belt to hold his tight pants in place.
5:01
Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins wasn't just Australia's preeminent rock star export. Hutch
5:05
Speaker 1: and his band were an international sensation, which is a
5:09
Speaker 1: little ironic because Michael Hutchins wasn't the person he saw
5:12
Speaker 1: on stage. This was a guy I took out his
5:15
Speaker 1: contact lenses when he performed so that they wouldn't get
5:18
Speaker 1: freaked out by the enormity of the crowd in front
5:20
Speaker 1: of him. He once described himself as and I quote,
5:24
Speaker 1: a dipshit from fuck Off Nowhere, sitting in the back
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Speaker 1: of the room shaking unquote when in excess first started out.
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Speaker 1: Being in a band gave that dipshit some confidence. He
5:35
Speaker 1: was a pack animal, a brother, a friend, a lover,
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Speaker 1: a man who is nothing if he wasn't surrounded by
5:41
Speaker 1: the people he loved and who loved him back. Being
5:44
Speaker 1: in a band was a promise that he'd never be alone.
5:47
Speaker 1: All for one and one for all. Camaraderie the brotherhood
5:51
Speaker 1: would clutch. Because for a struggling rock band in Australia
5:55
Speaker 1: during the late nineteen seventies and early eighties, down under
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Speaker 1: an upside down, things were wild. The culture of Aussi
6:03
Speaker 1: rock from seeds, sown by the likes of probably one
6:06
Speaker 1: of the greatest, if not the greatest rock and roll
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Speaker 1: bands of all time, ac DC, fronted by Bond Scott,
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Speaker 1: was feral and rebellious. Pubs and clubs open all hours
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Speaker 1: of the night and day. Twenty four to seven, one
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Speaker 1: thousand people stuffed into a room that could legally hold
6:21
Speaker 1: only three hundred. But League Lee's wasn't spoken. Down Under,
6:26
Speaker 1: Australian rock and roll was lawless, so were the substances
6:31
Speaker 1: that fueled it. Speed made from some kind of horse pills,
6:35
Speaker 1: magic mushrooms growing in cow patties on the side of
6:38
Speaker 1: the road. LSD held over from a decade earlier, good
6:41
Speaker 1: shit kept on ice for years to make that old
6:44
Speaker 1: sensation feel new again when the time was right. It
6:49
Speaker 1: was all about new sensations. When in excess blew up,
6:53
Speaker 1: so did the kinds of drugs and the amount of drugs.
6:56
Speaker 1: So did the Party. Nineteen eighty eight, Paris in excess,
7:02
Speaker 1: touring behind their megawatt record Kick number one in Australia,
7:06
Speaker 1: number three in the US. Its first single, need You Tonight,
7:11
Speaker 1: only peaked at number ten in Paris, but that was fine,
7:14
Speaker 1: because Paris was where the Party peaked. This five star
7:18
Speaker 1: hotel suite was stocked with cocaine, an ecstasy, and more
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Speaker 1: beautiful people than a tall stack of Vogue and Glamour magazines.
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Speaker 1: Some wore a few items of clothing, but most wore nothing.
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Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins came stumbling out of a bedroom completely naked,
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Speaker 1: into the living room, only to realize that someone had
7:35
Speaker 1: already fallen through the glass coffee table. No matter, that
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Speaker 1: was the rock star life, as was this Michael Hutchins,
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Speaker 1: never minding the bollocks golden fucking God, curly locks the
7:47
Speaker 1: devil inside unlit cigarette, in need of a flame. The
7:51
Speaker 1: room was a haze. It smelled like sex and champagne,
7:55
Speaker 1: but Michael could make out an excessus tour manager, also naked,
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Speaker 1: sitting on a chair. It us a favor of me,
8:02
Speaker 1: and give me a light, Michael, their tour manager, was
8:05
Speaker 1: now saying, I do not have a light. He did
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Speaker 1: not see that I'm sitting here naked, handcuffed to a
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Speaker 1: fucking chair. Michael looked at his tour manager's hands. The
8:16
Speaker 1: cuffs shackled around his wrists weren't part of whatever kinky
8:19
Speaker 1: role playing was currently being played out by the twisted
8:22
Speaker 1: mass of flesh in the living room. They were police cuffs,
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Speaker 1: and the room wasn't just full of naked crew members
8:28
Speaker 1: and hangers on. The cops were here. Well, shit, maybe
8:33
Speaker 1: one of paris Is finest satellite. No, no, it seemed
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Speaker 1: they did not. What they did have was another pair
8:40
Speaker 1: of handcuffs for Michael, which they insisted he put on.
8:43
Speaker 1: Seeing as he was no longer a participant in a
8:45
Speaker 1: rock and roll orgy, he was under arrest. Almost a
8:53
Speaker 1: decade after that eventful night, the drugs were still a thing,
8:56
Speaker 1: but now they were no longer communal, no longer the
8:59
Speaker 1: glue that bonded the pack. Instead the drugs kept the
9:03
Speaker 1: loaner alone. That Michael Hutchins did not do alone. Murray River, however, did.
9:10
Speaker 1: Murray River, being Michael Hutchinson's numb to travel, the name
9:14
Speaker 1: he used to check into room five to two four
9:16
Speaker 1: with the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Sydney on November twenty first,
9:19
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, also the name of an actual river
9:22
Speaker 1: that split Australia in half, one piece of land separated
9:26
Speaker 1: from the other, just the way Michael Hutchins was now
9:29
Speaker 1: separated from everything in everyone, his band in excess, going
9:34
Speaker 1: through the motions in a rehearsal room, shaking off the
9:37
Speaker 1: cobwebs for another tour. His partner Paula. That would be
9:41
Speaker 1: British television host Paula Yates and their daughter Heavenly Harani
9:45
Speaker 1: Tiger Lily, still in London, unable to travel to Australia
9:48
Speaker 1: for the holidays as he had hoped, both grounded indefinitely
9:51
Speaker 1: because Bob wanted it that way. Bob being Bob Geldoff,
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Speaker 1: he of the Boomtown Rats, you know, I don't like Mondays,
10:01
Speaker 1: the guy who organized Live Aid was knighted by the Queen,
10:04
Speaker 1: a living saint in the eyes of many, but to
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Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins, he was simply Paula's ex the man standing
10:10
Speaker 1: between Michael and the things he wanted, his partner and
10:13
Speaker 1: his child, a family not just with his biological daughter,
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Speaker 1: but with Paula's three other children, children that Michael Hutchins felt,
10:22
Speaker 1: the connection with children that their father, Bob Geldoff, now
10:25
Speaker 1: had legal custody, of custody that was easy to come by.
10:29
Speaker 1: After housekeepers found a shoe box of opium in Michael
10:32
Speaker 1: and Paula's London home, Michael and Paula denied it, said
10:36
Speaker 1: it was planted, just like Sergeant Pilcher planted that dope
10:39
Speaker 1: in John and Yoko's flat, and probably in George's too.
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Speaker 1: Whether or not they were telling the truth, What was
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Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins going to do now? He was depressed? Despondent.
10:50
Speaker 1: He was, as his friend Bono would later write in
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Speaker 1: a U two song, stuck in a moment that he
10:55
Speaker 1: couldn't get out of. He sought out any friends who
10:58
Speaker 1: could see him that night. A few came to his
11:01
Speaker 1: hotel room for drinks, but they eventually left. He called
11:04
Speaker 1: an ext girlfriend and told her he needed her. He
11:07
Speaker 1: needed someone tonight. He called his personal manager, Martha. She
11:11
Speaker 1: didn't answer, so he left a message, Martha, Michael here,
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Speaker 1: I fucking had enough. He even called Bob Geldoff to
11:21
Speaker 1: work this whole thing out, convinced the guy to see
11:23
Speaker 1: things his way. Mano amano. He called them twice, but
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Speaker 1: Michael couldn't win Bob over the way he went over
11:31
Speaker 1: an audience. His power is a persuasion of seduction. His
11:35
Speaker 1: rock star Jeernessequah. It may have worked in a hotel
11:39
Speaker 1: orgy back in Paris in eighty eight. Now in ninety
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Speaker 1: seven it wasn't working anymore, which meant Michael Hutchins found
11:47
Speaker 1: himself facing his biggest fear, being alone. Eleven fifty am.
12:17
Speaker 1: The maid tried to open the door to a room
12:18
Speaker 1: five twenty four, but it wouldn't budge. Something was blocking
12:22
Speaker 1: it from behind. She pushed harder and with a bit
12:25
Speaker 1: of force, was finally able to work her way in.
12:28
Speaker 2: There.
12:29
Speaker 1: Slumped on the floor directly behind the door was the
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Speaker 1: naked body of the room's guest, Murray River aka Michael Hutchins,
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Speaker 1: his snakeskin belt, that fine accouterment befitting a golden god,
12:43
Speaker 1: a rock star's rockstar, no longer around his waist. Instead,
12:49
Speaker 1: it was around his neck. Sydney detectives found some vodka
12:54
Speaker 1: and champagne bottles in the room, but nothing out of
12:57
Speaker 1: the ordinary. It was a scene they'd witness many times,
13:00
Speaker 1: over cut and dry, black and white. It was determined
13:05
Speaker 1: that Michael had tied the other end of his belt
13:06
Speaker 1: around the mechanism behind the door to hang himself. At
13:10
Speaker 1: some point after he was gone, the belt snapped from
13:13
Speaker 1: the weight and broke, dropping him down. This physical evidence,
13:17
Speaker 1: along with the phone records, painted a simple picture. What
13:21
Speaker 1: was not part of that picture was any evidence or
13:24
Speaker 1: even a suggestion that Michael Hutchins died as a result
13:27
Speaker 1: of autoerotic asphyxiation. That idea entered the public consciousness when
13:32
Speaker 1: Michael's partner, Polly Yates, suggested it to the media. Paully Yates, distraught,
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Speaker 1: grieving and at this point addicted to heroin, was unable
13:42
Speaker 1: to accept the truth and thus created a scenario in
13:45
Speaker 1: her mind in which Michael's death was accidental. In reality,
13:50
Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins died not from Kinky Sex Gone Horribly Wrong,
13:53
Speaker 1: but because he was terrified that he'd lost everything. By
13:59
Speaker 1: the time he checked in to the Ritz, Carlton Michael
14:01
Speaker 1: Hutchins had lost more than the ability to see the
14:04
Speaker 1: people he loved. He lost his cool. Both cools. Actually, First,
14:11
Speaker 1: he lost his cool as in that currency flaunted by
14:15
Speaker 1: a true blue rock and roll icon. Noel Gallagher of
14:18
Speaker 1: Oasis stuck the knife in deep and twisted it on
14:21
Speaker 1: live television, saying has been shouldn't present fooking Awards to Gunnabes.
14:27
Speaker 1: Noel said that when Michael handed him a brit award
14:30
Speaker 1: right there in front of everyone, the entire audience and
14:32
Speaker 1: everyone at home on their couches as well, Michael just
14:36
Speaker 1: laughed it off, but inside Noel's dig hurt like hell.
14:41
Speaker 1: Michael was all too familiar with that pain. After in
14:44
Speaker 1: Excess Conquered the World was Kick and his follow up
14:47
Speaker 1: album X, which boasted a killer lead single, Suicide Blonde,
14:51
Speaker 1: written about Kylie Minogue, Michael's girlfriend at the time. They
14:54
Speaker 1: returned to Australia and were received not as heroes but
14:57
Speaker 1: as sellouts Aussie love and underdog, and so it was
15:02
Speaker 1: only natural that In Excess got knocked down a peg
15:04
Speaker 1: so that their fellow countrymen could enjoy watching them struggle
15:07
Speaker 1: to the top again. It's kind of like that thing
15:09
Speaker 1: when your favorite band blows up and suddenly everyone loves
15:12
Speaker 1: this thing that used to belong just to you, and
15:14
Speaker 1: it kind of pisses you off in this weird way,
15:16
Speaker 1: Only in this case, it's not you who's pissed. It's
15:19
Speaker 1: an entire continent. And that was enough to make a
15:22
Speaker 1: guy lose his other cool, as in the ability to
15:25
Speaker 1: remain calm and in control of yourself. But Michael had
15:29
Speaker 1: already lost that too. Something was very wrong with Michael
15:34
Speaker 1: Hutchins had been for years. His bandmates knew it, and
15:39
Speaker 1: the autops he proved it. The biggest discovery from the
15:42
Speaker 1: autops he wasn't the cocaine, prozac, valume er benzos in
15:45
Speaker 1: Michael's blood and urine. It was the plumb sized lesions
15:49
Speaker 1: on his frontal lobe degenerative damage, damage that he'd been
15:53
Speaker 1: carrying around for years. Ever since that incident in Denmark
16:00
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, Copenhagen, Michael Hutchins was doing what the
16:05
Speaker 1: locals did, traveling by bicycle riding home from a night
16:08
Speaker 1: out with his girlfriend at the time, not the suicide blonde,
16:11
Speaker 1: but the one after that, a drop dead Danish brunette
16:14
Speaker 1: supermodel Helena Christensen. You ever seen the music video for
16:19
Speaker 1: Chris Isaac's Wicked Game, the one on the beach with
16:21
Speaker 1: the uh yeah, that's the one that's her. Anyway, it
16:25
Speaker 1: was late, but they were hungry, so they stopped to
16:27
Speaker 1: get a couple slices of pizza. It being late, the
16:30
Speaker 1: roads were fairly deserted, so Michael figured no harm, no
16:33
Speaker 1: foul if he simply straddled his bicycle in the middle
16:35
Speaker 1: of the road to use both hands to eat. That's
16:38
Speaker 1: when the taxi cab appeared. It came screaming out of
16:42
Speaker 1: the night, and then it came to a screeching hall
16:43
Speaker 1: right in front of where Michael was blocking the road.
16:46
Speaker 1: The cabby leaned out of his window, screaming like his
16:49
Speaker 1: taxi had just been screaming, but instead of the roar
16:51
Speaker 1: of a small engine, it was now the roar of
16:53
Speaker 1: a big mouth. Get the fuck out of the road,
16:55
Speaker 1: you fucking get in. Then the cabby was out of
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Speaker 1: his car, walking and in patient, flustered stride one foot
17:02
Speaker 1: in front of the other, cursing furious, a bee line
17:05
Speaker 1: straight to where Michael was standing. There was no time
17:07
Speaker 1: to react, no time to move. The cabby was on him, now,
17:10
Speaker 1: right in front of him, and happened fast, the brisk walk,
17:14
Speaker 1: the sudden halt, and there he was, bawling his fist
17:16
Speaker 1: and cocking back his arm. And then the Cabby's bald
17:21
Speaker 1: fist caught Michael Hutchins in the head. It came in
17:24
Speaker 1: fast and hard. The punch sent him flying. Michael wabbled backward, stunned,
17:30
Speaker 1: his entire body in shock, and then he dropped straight down.
17:35
Speaker 1: His body sprawled out on the pavement, blood oozing from
17:38
Speaker 1: his mouth and his ear. Helena rushed to his side.
17:41
Speaker 1: He wasn't moving. Was Michael dead. The Cabby was back
17:45
Speaker 1: in his taxi, peeling off into the Copenhagen night, gone,
17:49
Speaker 1: just like Michael now seemed to be. Helena panicked. Michael
17:56
Speaker 1: finally came to at the hospital, but he did so
17:59
Speaker 1: in a as impulsive and hostile as a taxi driver
18:03
Speaker 1: who raged at him minutes earlier. For the next month,
18:07
Speaker 1: he stayed in bed at Helena's apartment, throwing out, not eating,
18:12
Speaker 1: not that eating would have given him any pleasure. He
18:14
Speaker 1: could no longer taste food, could no longer smell his
18:17
Speaker 1: girlfriend when she brushed up against him. It was like
18:19
Speaker 1: Michael Hudgens had gone unconscious and someone else woke up
18:22
Speaker 1: in his place. At the recording sessions for the next
18:27
Speaker 1: In Excess album, the guys in the band were all
18:30
Speaker 1: asking the same question, What's happening to Michael. They had
18:34
Speaker 1: no clue. Michael swore Helena A's secrecy, but it was
18:38
Speaker 1: clear something was wrong. As it was, the band was
18:41
Speaker 1: already outside their comfort zone. Sure, the Isle of Capri
18:44
Speaker 1: was a picturesque place to make an album, but it
18:47
Speaker 1: was a haul to get there. Twenty hour flight to Rome,
18:50
Speaker 1: busted naples, ferry to the island, and then a long
18:53
Speaker 1: walk to the studio, only to arrive and find Michael
18:56
Speaker 1: throwing tantrums, sprang champagne on the mixing board, tossing equipment
19:00
Speaker 1: off the breathtaking cliffs, surrounded by his band, his friends,
19:04
Speaker 1: but seemingly alone in his own mind an island far
19:07
Speaker 1: from shore, just sitting there in the middle of the studio,
19:11
Speaker 1: staring into nothing, dropping a knife into the hardwood floor
19:14
Speaker 1: over and over, thunk, pull it out, hold it in
19:19
Speaker 1: mid air, let it fall thunk, the tip of the
19:22
Speaker 1: blade sinking into the wood. Once again, Michael pulled it
19:25
Speaker 1: out extracted it. Gary Biers, an Excessus bassist in Michael's
19:30
Speaker 1: longtime friend, was confused and worried Michael. He asked, why
19:34
Speaker 1: are you destroying that nice floor? Michael yanked the knife
19:38
Speaker 1: in the wood again, but this time turned to Gary
19:40
Speaker 1: and thrust the blade in his direction. I'll fucking stab
19:44
Speaker 1: you instead. This wasn't Michael. This wasn't the guy they'd
19:52
Speaker 1: all grown up with, the one they met at high
19:54
Speaker 1: school in Sydney, born in Aussie who'd gone away for years,
19:57
Speaker 1: living in Hong Kong with his family, educated in British schools,
20:01
Speaker 1: then outside a looking for a way back in a
20:03
Speaker 1: dipshit from fuck off nowhere. That guy wasn't anywhere to
20:07
Speaker 1: be seen. That guy was in their memories, in their minds.
20:11
Speaker 1: That Michael Hutchins, they all knew was in the past.
20:18
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word word word in
20:28
Speaker 1: Excess knew they had a hit on their hands, numerous hits.
20:31
Speaker 1: That is, the new album they had just finished recording
20:34
Speaker 1: was loaded with them Need You Tonight Devil inside New Sensation,
20:40
Speaker 1: The Guruves were incredible, The low end was deep. There
20:44
Speaker 1: was something about it that just you know, Maji sweat,
20:46
Speaker 1: I had to say it, and that ballad never tear
20:49
Speaker 1: us apart, forget about it. Michael Hutchins sang the shit
20:52
Speaker 1: out of that song. Kick was the band's sixth studio album,
20:56
Speaker 1: but the first one that felt like they tapped into
20:58
Speaker 1: something wholly unique. They leveled up and found another gear,
21:03
Speaker 1: working once again with producer Chris Thomas, whose resume stretched
21:06
Speaker 1: from the Beatles to the sex Pistols in Excess. That's
21:10
Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins, Gary Beiers, Kirk Pengilly and the Farris brothers Andrew,
21:14
Speaker 1: John and Tim were confident that nineteen eighty seven was
21:17
Speaker 1: going to be their year. The endless touring, the minor hits,
21:21
Speaker 1: the videos on MTV that all led to this a breakthrough.
21:26
Speaker 1: They all knew it. Their manager, Chris Murphy, he knew
21:29
Speaker 1: it too, But now standing in front of Atlantic Records
21:33
Speaker 1: sales and marketing teams, Chris Murphy couldn't help. But wonder
21:37
Speaker 1: was he crazy? Was nineteen eighty seven not their year?
21:40
Speaker 1: Were they fucked? The Atlantic suits were just sitting there
21:44
Speaker 1: as if they hadn't just listened to Need You Tonight,
21:46
Speaker 1: the song Chris and the band were proposing as the
21:48
Speaker 1: records for a single, a killer song one part James Brown,
21:52
Speaker 1: one part Chic, one part Talking Heads, and one hundred
21:55
Speaker 1: percent Michael Hutchins and his Golden God charisma in full effect.
21:59
Speaker 1: But the room didn't get it. It was too dancy
22:02
Speaker 1: for rock radio, they said, and too rock and roll
22:05
Speaker 1: for the R and B market.
22:06
Speaker 2: They said.
22:06
Speaker 1: It didn't fit the mold, they said, any mold, they said.
22:10
Speaker 1: And if the sales team didn't get it, if the
22:12
Speaker 1: sales team couldn't put it neatly in a box, then
22:15
Speaker 1: the sales team couldn't sell it. Chris felt his heart
22:21
Speaker 1: lodge inside his throat. This bullshit take out a left
22:24
Speaker 1: field that Need You Tonight and the entirety of the
22:27
Speaker 1: inexcess album Kick was a colossal dud. Went straight up
22:31
Speaker 1: the chain of command all the way to Atlantic's president,
22:34
Speaker 1: who hated the record so much that he offered Chris
22:37
Speaker 1: and the band one million dollars to erase the tapes
22:41
Speaker 1: and start all over again. That's a lot of dough ringo.
22:45
Speaker 1: If you made something that you were really proud of,
22:47
Speaker 1: the best thing you'd ever made in your life and
22:49
Speaker 1: someone offered you a mill to get rid of it?
22:51
Speaker 1: Would you do it? In Excess did not do it,
22:55
Speaker 1: which maybe that was crazy, because who knows. Again, when
22:59
Speaker 1: you make something, do you really know how good it is?
23:02
Speaker 1: I like to think I do, but I don't. But
23:04
Speaker 1: In Access they knew because the record was that good,
23:09
Speaker 1: crazy good. The record company, on the other hand, was
23:12
Speaker 1: crazy crazy, though to be fair, In Excess had no
23:15
Speaker 1: idea that their manager, Chris Murphy was doing something crazy
23:18
Speaker 1: on his own, going behind Atlantic's backs and without the
23:24
Speaker 1: blessing of Michael Hutchins and the band, with all of
23:26
Speaker 1: In Excess's existing money and using it to drum up
23:29
Speaker 1: buzz and thus demand for Kick before Atlantic even agreed
23:32
Speaker 1: to release it. It was a risk, a huge risk,
23:36
Speaker 1: a ballsy risk. When Chris Murphy contacted college radio stations
23:40
Speaker 1: in the US and played them the album, though the
23:42
Speaker 1: risk began to payoff. Colleges loved it, so he bought
23:46
Speaker 1: ads on those college radio stations, and then he booked
23:49
Speaker 1: shows that those colleges. The shows sold out, The kids
23:53
Speaker 1: went nuts. They wanted to own a physical copy of
23:55
Speaker 1: the songs that were hearing at the shows and on
23:57
Speaker 1: the radio. The tables were turned. Would now be crazy
24:01
Speaker 1: not to release kick, which in October of nineteen eighty
24:05
Speaker 1: seven they did. The record wound up making in Excess
24:08
Speaker 1: extremely rich and extremely famous. Not to mention all that
24:12
Speaker 1: money for Atlantic part and parcel of the rich and
24:16
Speaker 1: famous life was getting fucked up. It came with the territory.
24:21
Speaker 1: It was territory that Michael Hutchinson in Excess had been
24:23
Speaker 1: exploring for years, all the way back to those smoky,
24:26
Speaker 1: overcrowded Australian pubs were a surfer smuggled hash inside their longboards,
24:30
Speaker 1: and a five hour psychedelic trip was just a pile
24:33
Speaker 1: of cowshit away. Michael and the boys were a pack,
24:37
Speaker 1: a gang, six guys sharing a collective experience. By now
24:42
Speaker 1: the stakes were raised, The crowds were bigger, the girls
24:45
Speaker 1: were hotter, much hotter. The drugs were more plentiful. In Rio,
24:50
Speaker 1: the cocaine fell from the sky for real, there was
24:54
Speaker 1: so much of it. What didn't go up their noses
24:56
Speaker 1: got tossed out their hotel balcony. Same thing on the
24:59
Speaker 1: bus in Canada had for the US border. Doing blow
25:02
Speaker 1: became a game that passed the time toss a hanfle
25:05
Speaker 1: up in the air and try to snort it as
25:07
Speaker 1: it falls down all over your face. Why because it's
25:10
Speaker 1: what rock bands do, right, That's why it's right there
25:14
Speaker 1: in this particular band's name. In Excess, in excess, so corny,
25:20
Speaker 1: yet so fucking perfect. Michael Hudgens learned excess from the best.
25:25
Speaker 1: He learned long before kick made of a rock and
25:27
Speaker 1: roll icon, back when in excess we're opening shows for
25:30
Speaker 1: Adam Ann, for the Stray Cats, for men at work.
25:34
Speaker 1: He learned from the king of debauchery himself, mister Freddy Mercury,
25:37
Speaker 1: in the penthouse of a London hotel, where the party
25:39
Speaker 1: wasn't just coke, but also flamingos and mimes, little people
25:43
Speaker 1: walking around with trays of cocaine balanced on their heads,
25:45
Speaker 1: and circus acrobats demonstrating wildly flexible new ways to fuck.
25:50
Speaker 1: Michael took notes The Freddie Mercury School of debauchery was
25:53
Speaker 1: in session inside that Parisian hotel room, and again at
25:56
Speaker 1: a show in Phoenix, where Michael ran his hand up
25:58
Speaker 1: the short skirt of ay and willing female fan like
26:01
Speaker 1: steel to a magnet. Michael sang about being lonely but
26:05
Speaker 1: with fans and friends like these, he didn't have to
26:07
Speaker 1: worry about actually being lonely. July ninety one, Wembley Stadium,
26:13
Speaker 1: capacity crowd seventy two thousand, no less than five opening
26:17
Speaker 1: bands Debbie Harry, Hothouse, Flowers, Roachford, Jellyfish and Jesus Shones
26:24
Speaker 1: and then in Excess, leaving the backstage spread of sushi
26:28
Speaker 1: and champagne behind to take the main stage for two
26:31
Speaker 1: and a half hours. Michael and his shiny black leather
26:33
Speaker 1: jacket and those killer black and white pants with stripes
26:36
Speaker 1: on one leg and stars on the other, Already primed
26:39
Speaker 1: with booze and pills. Three songs in, he found the
26:42
Speaker 1: other three pills in his pocket, three doses of ecstasy,
26:46
Speaker 1: one for him, Kirk and Tim right there in the
26:50
Speaker 1: middle of the set. It came with the territory, business
26:53
Speaker 1: and pleasure, all for one and one for all. And
27:00
Speaker 1: although the stage both literally and figuratively was now bigger,
27:03
Speaker 1: that shared experience of a rock and roll band, that
27:06
Speaker 1: brotherhood of in Excess, kept them grounded even as their
27:09
Speaker 1: egos began to take flight, not that they were ever
27:12
Speaker 1: truly grounded. They were Aussies, after all, wildlings from down under,
27:17
Speaker 1: feral and rebellious, just like any truly great rock stars,
27:20
Speaker 1: wild and feral and rebellious, but in excess were tougher,
27:24
Speaker 1: the most hardened by years on the pub circuit, down
27:28
Speaker 1: under three shows at night, first one at midnight, next
27:31
Speaker 1: at three am, and a final one at six am,
27:35
Speaker 1: each show at a different venue. They worked day and night,
27:39
Speaker 1: tough work that made them the toughest, so tough that
27:42
Speaker 1: you could never imagine that anything could crack the exterior,
27:46
Speaker 1: nothing could ever tear it apart. Their connection, their strength,
27:50
Speaker 1: their bond. From this vantage point on stage at Wembley,
27:54
Speaker 1: in front of seventy two thousand rolling on e in
27:57
Speaker 1: love with everything, the people, the music mates, you couldn't
28:01
Speaker 1: even fathom a scenario where it all went wrong, but
28:04
Speaker 1: that one random accident, just one punch, could send it
28:08
Speaker 1: all spiraling out of control. Nineteen seventy seven, no Elvis,
28:32
Speaker 1: Beetles or the Rolling Stones, New York and London were calling,
28:38
Speaker 1: ten thousand miles from either New York or London. In Sydney,
28:42
Speaker 1: New South Wales, the call came through loud and clear.
28:45
Speaker 1: The Beatles were done, the Stones were on their way out,
28:49
Speaker 1: and Elvis, well, Elvis was dead. The day the King
28:55
Speaker 1: left the building for the final time. Was the day
28:57
Speaker 1: the band known as the Farris Brothers played their first
29:00
Speaker 1: show at a house in Whale Beach, just north of Sydney.
29:04
Speaker 1: Fresh out of high school, the Farris Brothers, along with
29:07
Speaker 1: their lead singer Michael Hutchins, were compelled by punk rock,
29:10
Speaker 1: galvanized by the DIY movement. It was in the air,
29:14
Speaker 1: the same air breathed by Nick Cave and the Birthday Party,
29:17
Speaker 1: who were busy releasing the bats and making an unholy racket.
29:21
Speaker 1: The Saints, obsessed with the Ramones and the Heartbreakers, Johnny
29:25
Speaker 1: thunders that is not Tom Petty and Midnight Oil fiercely political,
29:30
Speaker 1: musically aggressive, another toughest leather OSSI unit made tougher by
29:34
Speaker 1: the rejection of traditional rock radio. Midnight Oil toreed their
29:38
Speaker 1: asses off, built up their fanbase and boom Bob's your
29:41
Speaker 1: uncle fuck radio. They worked for it and they were rewarded.
29:46
Speaker 1: The Ferris Brothers, in turn, were inspired by this work ethic,
29:50
Speaker 1: just like they were inspired when Midnight Oil suggested they
29:53
Speaker 1: changed their name to something more compelling, something like that
29:56
Speaker 1: English band XTC. You know, Ecstasy, but it spelled out
30:00
Speaker 1: with three capital letters in excess picked up where the
30:04
Speaker 1: Ferris Brothers left off. They gigged hard year in year out,
30:09
Speaker 1: three hundred shows in nineteen eighty one alone. Pubs and
30:12
Speaker 1: clubs packed the rafters, a hodgepodge of patrons, stone surfers,
30:17
Speaker 1: and the industrial working class, all sweating because the air
30:20
Speaker 1: conditioning had had turned off, and all drinking way more
30:23
Speaker 1: beer than they planned, which was precisely why the ac
30:26
Speaker 1: had turned off in the first place. Rock music was rebellious,
30:30
Speaker 1: but it was also a money maker. The money came
30:32
Speaker 1: from everywhere, even from fuck off nowhere, way out in
30:36
Speaker 1: the desert on the edge of the world, where the
30:38
Speaker 1: boys made a cool five grand for a week's hot work,
30:41
Speaker 1: the house band for workers at a strip mine, the
30:44
Speaker 1: miners all covered in blood, red dirt, some of the Mexicans,
30:47
Speaker 1: some of them soon to be cons honest to God,
30:50
Speaker 1: mad Max shit come to life. But it was a
30:56
Speaker 1: good life, a life Michael Hutchins had stumbled into just
31:00
Speaker 1: a few years earlier when he returned to Australia as
31:03
Speaker 1: a teenager after living in Hong Kong for eight years.
31:06
Speaker 1: He knew no one. He made his way sheepishly into
31:09
Speaker 1: Kilarney Heights, high school, all eyes watching his every move.
31:13
Speaker 1: The girls, of course, were instantly attracted, as they always
31:17
Speaker 1: were and always would be, and so the boys wanted
31:19
Speaker 1: to beat the piss out of him. Look at this dipshit.
31:22
Speaker 1: He may have been an Aussie on paper, but as
31:24
Speaker 1: far as they were concerned, he was from away, far away,
31:28
Speaker 1: eight years of British schools, eight years of British customs.
31:32
Speaker 1: He had that colonial bastard stink all over him. The
31:36
Speaker 1: group of boys circled around him and began to close in.
31:38
Speaker 1: What the fuck was he looking at and who the
31:40
Speaker 1: hell did he think he was? And then a voice
31:44
Speaker 1: from the back, leave him alone. The bullies spun around.
31:48
Speaker 1: Another boy, not a bully, but another new classmate, stood
31:52
Speaker 1: on the outskirts of the impending beatdown with his own crew.
31:55
Speaker 1: He repeated himself, and his crew backed him up. Leave
31:58
Speaker 1: him alone, the bully, he's decided. They'd mess with the
32:01
Speaker 1: new kids some other time. They backed down and fucked off.
32:05
Speaker 1: Then Michael Hutchins shook the hand of Andrew Ferris, the
32:08
Speaker 1: kid who just saved him from an ass kicking. He
32:12
Speaker 1: gained a new friend, a bandmate even, and with that
32:15
Speaker 1: simple fact came the most important thing, the reassurance that
32:19
Speaker 1: he'll never be alone again. I'm Jake Brennan and this
32:24
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland.
32:35
Speaker 3: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and has produced in
32:38
Speaker 3: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
32:41
Speaker 3: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
32:45
Speaker 3: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank
32:48
Speaker 3: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it, and
32:51
Speaker 3: if not, you can become a member right now by
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Speaker 3: going to disgracelamppod dot com.
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33:28
Speaker 1: The bed Man