Is This Who INXS Really Is???

It kinda makes you go "hmmm". One of my Facebook buddies posted an article yesterday of an interview that was done with JD Fortune. He has his own band now, and calls it "Fortune". But in this interview, he makes INXS sound like a bunch of assholes. Well, I always knew people in the music industry are assholes, I've known that for years. But it was concrete truth after I "met" dustingrey on YouTube. But not only was he an asshole, he was an ugly person inside and outside too. I got the feeling he had been badly abused all his life, and perhaps music, and being an asshole, was his way of "escaping" reality. But INXS I don't believe was anything like that. From all I've heard they had very loving parents growing up. They had good friends, and they were always kind to their fans. They do drink a lot, but then so do all Australians. Believe me, I know! I don't know about doing drugs. I do know the Farriss brothers are a religious family. I heard Timmy even used to teach the Bible in school to his peers. But it seems somewhere along the way, INXS lost their touch. I've met these guys and for the most part, they were nice people. Almost hard to believe there is an ounce of truth in anything JD says in this article. But I will quote some of the passages I found most interesting on this subject.

First of all, you can see the article here: http://www.theaquarian.com/2012/07/04/interview-with-jd-fortune-fortunes-phases/

Here are some things he said about his experiences with the band that caught my eyes. When the reporter mentioned INXS, JD's response to that was

"Who’s that? (Laughs)"

Then the interviewer talks about how things didn't work out between JD and INXS, and he wasn't "spinning his wheels". JD's response to that was

"There’s a certain freedom that I feel that I never felt with INXS. There was a certain lack of respect I think, too. [Pauses] Instead of saying anything bad about INXS, let me tell you what the difference is here: In this band (Fortune) I’d come down with bronchitis during a recording session and basically we were a family and everybody was asking me how I was feeling. Prior to that my experience would have been, “Yeah whatever, mate. We all get sick so suck it up.”"


He's basically saying INXS would not care about how he felt, they just wanted to get on with the show. When the interviewer asked JD where he is now with his creativity and personally speaking. JD speaks of Switch like he knew it's his last album:

"There’s a certain freedom that any artist will tell you comes when you get to play what’s inside of you. Although I did write INXS’ last platinum hit, “Pretty Vegas,” I felt in my heart that they weren’t going to give me another opportunity to write, especially because the best they did was to put out four records of previous hits, you know what I mean?
The next four albums they did after the Switch record were releases of four albums of stuff people already had. To me, that’s a bit narrow in vision, near-sighted. I was trying to get my songs together and work them into some of the band’s stuff because they had some world class writers like Andrew Ferris. But I think what had happened was unbeknownst to me Andrew was writing with the current guy that’s in the band (I don’t know his name). So when I was writing stuff he’d just keep putting me off, saying “Yeah, next week, yeah yeah.” And then it just never happened."

So it sounds like Andrew (and perhaps the rest of INXS) did not want to really progress. And I have to confess, I hated Original Sin!! It's not just about the cover design either, though the cover design was a bit of an augury of what the entire album was going to be like. To me, a tiger represents laziness, and that is exactly what INXS was being with that album. And for the most part the songs sucked! Kick used to be one of my life's theme songs, but that Nikka Costa murdered that song!! I hated what she did to it! She took an awesome song that used to have a lot of rhythm and beat to it, and turned it into this modern R&B/rap crap.

The thing that makes this whole thing so ironic is that JD is not the only of INXS's former lead singers to say all this shit. Seems INXS has had more than one lead singer since Michael died, and ALL of them have said pretty much the same thing about the band that JD has. Shoot! I even felt the same kind of energy come from some of Michael's last words! I once read that Michael said in an interview "I don't want to be the captain of a sinking ship!" He was speaking metaphorically about INXS. I wanted to support INXS in their last album, but I just couldn't. In my eyes, they were being lazy and I don't want to support laziness. Not from a band I always considered to be my favorite. But why INXS are always looking for new lead singers is beyond my realm of knowledge. Seems every time they have a chance to progress forward, they always wind up falling on their asses. They're like a toddler that never learns to walk. Just crawls for the rest of it's life. I feel for Ciaran Gribbin, because I have the feeling INXS are going to be the same with him that they have been with the other singers they've hired since Michael passed away. And I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt because I love these guys. And I want so badly to support them in ALL their decisions. But it's becoming perceptively harder as new albums come out, but no progress is being made on their part. I don't even know if they are still a rock band, or if they've become R&B modern or not.

I haven't even seen Rockstar: INXS in a long time! I have all the episodes now, but I just haven't seen it in years. The last time I saw that series was when my sis was working in Yellowstone. I tried to watch the series again, but it's just too painful to watch. That was actually the best summer of my life, because I thought back then that I was witnessing a bit of rock n roll history being made! I thought "This is it! INXS is finally going to be a complete band again!" I was telling people to give INXS and JD a chance, because it just might work out. I put my neck on the chopping block several times for them, and made some narrow escapes. All along thinking that this new relationship would somehow work. Even though JD Fortune was nearly 20 years younger than the oldest INXS band members. I didn't care much for JD Fortune when I first saw him on Rockstar, but he was who INXS chose, and so I supported INXS in their decision and gave JD a chance. I won't say I was disappointed, and I'd be lying if I said I agreed whole-heartedly with the choice INXS made. But I loved these guys and I wanted to see what JD could do with them. But it seems INXS does not want to do anything new or different. They had their chance to move on with JD. Ciaran is a great singer, but INXS will probably do nothing new with him either.

So is this who INXS really is? Are they really assholes like dustingrey? I mean, they were always nice when I met them, but deep inside, are they really nothing but a bunch of jerks and assholes in sensible shoes? Maybe it's a good thing I didn't support them in their new album. Maybe they are just a band going nowhere. Now, I don't know what to think of INXS or the entire music industry. INXS in it's heyday, played for royalty and hob-nobbed with celebrities. That's something a small-time, wannabe rockstar like dustingrey never did!! And most likely, never will do. He doesn't have enough talent for that, and he would be a real jerk to the fans. No one wants a musician like that around. But INXS were always described by fans who met them as being very down-to-earth, kind, gentle, caring, fun-loving people, which really is rare in the music business. It's almost unbelievable what they have become, according to JD's interview.

When the Original Sin album came out, I hated the design! Not only because I thought it looked evil, but I just plain hate tigers! But now that I look back on it, that tiger was the perfect metaphor for that album: lazy, stupid, and fleeting (INXS) toward extinction.