Michael Hutchence
Michael Hutchence, the lead singer and lyricist of the Australian rock band INXS, was 37 years old when he died in a Sydney hotel room. The band was due to open its 20th anniversary tour in Sydney on the 23rd of November 1997. With Hutchence at the front, INXS sold more than 50 million records worldwide. He also acted in films, led a side band, and filled the international press with his love affairs.
How did a boy who spent part of his childhood in Hong Kong become one of the great frontmen of his era? What did an attack on a Copenhagen street change in him? And what does the evidence say about the last morning of his life, and why did a false rumour about it travel so far?
Michael Kelland John Hutchence was born on the 22nd of January 1960 in the Sydney suburb of Crows Nest. His mother, Patricia Glassop, worked as a make-up artist. His father, Kelland Frank Hutchence, known as Kell, was a businessman, and Michael had an elder half-sister named Tina. His paternal grandparents were an English couple who had moved to Sydney in 1922, while his maternal grandfather came from County Cork in Ireland.
Kell's business interests carried the family to Brisbane, where Michael's younger brother Rhett was born. They later left Australia for Hong Kong. There both boys attended Glenealy Junior School and Beacon Hill School, and Michael went on to King George V School in his early teens. He showed promise as a swimmer until he badly broke his arm. After that he turned to poetry, and he performed his first song in a commercial for a local toy store.
The family returned to Sydney in 1972 and bought a house in Belrose. At Davidson High School, Hutchence met Andrew Farriss, and the two became friends. They spent long hours jamming in a garage with Farriss's brothers Tim and Jon. Farriss then persuaded him to join his band, Doctor Dolphin. The line-up included their classmates Kent Kerny and Neil Sanders, along with bassist Garry Beers and drummer Geoff Kennelly from nearby Forest High School.
Hutchence was 15 when his parents separated. In 1976 he spent a short time in California with his mother and half-sister before returning with them to Sydney. The following year a new band called the Farriss Brothers took shape. Andrew played keyboards, Tim lead guitar and Jon drums. Hutchence sang, Beers played bass, and Kirk Pengilly joined on guitar and saxophone. They made their debut on the 16th of August 1977 at a venue in Whale Beach.
For a short time the group performed as the Vegetables, singing a song called "We Are the Vegetables". Ten months later they came back to Sydney and recorded a set of demos. They regularly supported the hard rockers Midnight Oil on the pub rock circuit. In 1979 they were renamed INXS, and their first show under that name took place on the 1st of September at the Oceanview Hotel in Toukley.
In May 1980 the group released its first single, "Simple Simon", with "We Are the Vegetables" on the other side. The debut album, INXS, followed in October. September 1980 had already brought "Just Keep Walking", their first Top 40 Australian hit on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Hutchence became the band's main spokesman, and he co-wrote almost all of its songs with Andrew Farriss.
The second album, Underneath the Colours, was written in a rush, and Hutchence saw a benefit in that. He said: "Most bands shudder at the prospect of having 20 years to write their first album and four days to write their second. For us, though, it was good. It left less room for us to go off on all sorts of tangents." Richard Clapton produced the sessions.
Soon after they ended, band members began outside projects. Hutchence recorded "Speed Kills", written by Don Walker of the hard rockers Cold Chisel, for the soundtrack of the 1982 film Freedom, directed by Scott Hicks. Released by WEA in April 1982, it was his first solo single.
On the 19th of May 1984, INXS won seven awards at the Countdown Music and Video Awards ceremony. Hutchence and Andrew Farriss took Best Songwriter, and Hutchence was named Most Popular Male. The band performed "Burn for You" dressed in Akubras, a brand of hats, and Drizabones, a brand of oilskin jackets. Hutchence then closed the night with "Jackson", a duet with Jenny Morris, who had been a backing singer on the sessions for the album The Swing.
In March 1985 WEA released the Australian version of Dekadance, a limited-edition cassette EP of six tracks, including remixes from The Swing. It also held that cover of the Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood hit "Jackson". The EP reached No 2 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart.
Late in 1986 the band was supposedly taking an eight-month break before a new album. Its management instead staged the Australian Made tour, a series of major outdoor concerts across the country. The roster featured INXS, Jimmy Barnes of Cold Chisel, Models, Divinyls, Mental as Anything, the Triffids and I'm Talking. To promote it, Hutchence and Barnes shared vocals on a cover of the Easybeats song "Good Times" and on "Laying Down the Law". Barnes co-wrote the second song with Beers, the Farriss brothers Andrew and Jon, Hutchence and Pengilly.
"Good Times" became the theme of the 1986-87 concert series and peaked at No. 2 on the Australian charts. Months later it featured in Joel Schumacher's film The Lost Boys, which lifted it to No. 47 in the US on the 1st of August 1987. Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett enjoyed the tour and reconnected with Hutchence. She recalled that he "was a sweet man, who said in one interview that he wanted me to have his baby". In 1987 Hutchence also sang on Richard Clapton's album Glory Road, which Jon Farriss produced.
INXS released Kick in October 1987, and the album gave the band worldwide popularity. It reached No. 1 in Australia, No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, No. 9 in the UK and No. 15 in Austria. Certified six times platinum by the RIAA, it remains their most successful studio album. It spawned four US top 10 singles: "New Sensation", "Never Tear Us Apart", "Devil Inside" and "Need You Tonight". The last of these reached the top of the US Billboard singles chart.
The book 1001 Songs argues that "Need You Tonight" is not lyrically complex. In its view the song works because of Hutchence's delivery, where "he sings in kittenish whisper, gently drawing back with the incredible lust of a tiger hunting in the night". In September 1988 the video for "Need You Tonight/Mediate" won in five categories at the MTV Video Music Awards, and the band swept the ceremony.
The album X arrived in 1990 and produced more international hits, including "Suicide Blonde" and "Disappear", both US Top 10 entries. "Suicide Blonde" peaked at No. 2 in Australia and No. 11 in the UK. Hutchence wrote it with Andrew Farriss after his then-girlfriend Kylie Minogue used the phrase "suicide blonde" to describe her look in her 1989 film The Delinquents, where she wore a platinum blonde wig.
At the 1991 BRIT Awards, Hutchence won Best International Artist, while INXS took the related group award. Welcome to Wherever You Are followed in August 1992 and drew good critical reviews. It went to No. 1 in the UK.
In 1986 Hutchence played Sam, the male lead in the Australian film Dogs in Space. Its director, Richard Lowenstein, was a long-time collaborator on INXS music videos. Hutchence supplied four songs to the soundtrack, and Ollie Olsen, formerly of the band Whirlywirld, worked on the film as music director.
Max Q began in 1989 when Hutchence teamed up with Olsen again. They were joined by members of Olsen's earlier groups: Whirlywirld, No and Orchestra of Skin and Bone. The project released a self-titled album and three singles, "Way of the World", "Sometimes" and "Monday Night by Satellite". It disbanded in 1990. Max Q showed Hutchence exploring the darker side of his music. One assessment calls the album "one of the most innovative dance music albums of the decade". The same account says Hutchence wrote most of the music and gave "an extraordinary performance".
In 1990 Hutchence portrayed the nineteenth-century Romantic poet Percy Shelley in Roger Corman's film Frankenstein Unbound. The film was based on a science fiction time travel story of the same name by Brian Aldiss. His voice also appeared on records by other acts, including a 1985 single by the new wave band Beargarden and the 1991 Noiseworks album Love Versus Money.
Hutchence was a baritone, and his vocal range stretched from the bass B1 to the high tenor F#5. In 2013 News.com.au ranked him fourth in a list of the 15 greatest Australian singers of all time. Billboard called him "charismatic", with a "seductive purr" and a "lithe, magnetic stage presence". Paul Donoughue of Australia's ABC praised a voice that was "moody, sexual, and dynamic, able to shift effortlessly from fragile to cocksure".
Dave Simpson of The Guardian reviewed an INXS concert and wrote that "here was a man born to be onstage, living and loving every minute, an explosion of sexual energy." Hutchence's biographer Toby Creswell went further. He called Hutchence "one of the truly great frontmen" and said few others expressed music so dynamically.
London tabloids dubbed Hutchence the "wild man of rock", according to People, citing his public brawls and onetime open drug use. His most lasting love came earlier. From 1982 to 1987 he dated Australian film producer Michele Bennett, sharing a flat in Paddington with her and Jenny Morris. Bennett inspired the 1988 hit "Never Tear Us Apart". She also introduced him to Lowenstein, who went on to direct several INXS videos, including the one for that song.
Hutchence's sister Tina said Bennett was the only woman he had ever considered marrying. Lowenstein, a close friend, agreed. He told The Independent in 1998: "I always felt that, after everything, he'd go back and marry Michele and have a baby with her." The two stayed close after the romance ended. Bennett has been described as his "first real love" and his "closest friend and confidante".
Other names were linked with his. They included the American singer Belinda Carlisle, the British actress and model Patsy Kensit and the Australian actress Kym Wilson. The Danish model Helena Christensen was his partner from 1991 to 1995.
In August 1992 Hutchence and Christensen were riding bicycles at night in Copenhagen. He refused to move for a taxi, and the driver, who had not sounded his horn, assaulted him. Hutchence fell backwards and hit his head on the pavement, fracturing his skull. He waited several days before seeing a doctor. The injury left him with brain damage, an almost total loss of smell and a significant loss of taste. It also brought periods of depression and increased aggression, and two weeks in a Copenhagen hospital did not fully heal him.
Bandmate Garry Beers later described the effects during the 1993 recording of Full Moon, Dirty Hearts. He said Hutchence brandished a knife and threatened to kill him. "Over those six weeks, Michael threatened or physically confronted nearly every member of the band," Beers recalled. The album and its predecessor Dirty Hearts brought reduced commercial success, especially in the US. The band took time off to rest and be with their families, while Hutchence stayed in the public eye through his romances. He began a self-titled solo album in the mid-1990s.
He had first met the British television presenter Paula Yates in 1985, during an interview for the British program The Tube. She interviewed him again in 1994 for her Big Breakfast show, and the press soon uncovered their affair. Yates was then married to Bob Geldof, the Boomtown Rats singer and Live Aid organiser. Media scrutiny was intense, and Hutchence assaulted a photographer who had followed the couple. Yates separated from Geldof in February 1995, which set off a public and at times bitter custody battle over their daughters. They divorced in May 1996.
On the 22nd of July 1996, Yates gave birth to Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence in the bathroom of their London home, with Hutchence helping with the delivery. In September 1996 the couple made headlines when they were arrested on suspicion of drug possession. The family nanny had reportedly found a small amount of opium in a shoebox under their bed. The case was dropped for lack of evidence.
Yates died on the 17th of September 2000 of an accidental heroin overdose. Their four-year-old daughter was with her when she was found. Geldof took foster custody so the girl could grow up with her three older half-sisters, Fifi, Peaches and Pixie. In 2007 he adopted her and legally changed her surname, over the opposition of Hutchence's mother and sister. Her full legal name became Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence-Geldof.
The Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Double Bay suburb of Sydney is where Hutchence was found dead in his room on the 22nd of November 1997. Earlier that year he had begun a world tour with INXS to support the album Elegantly Wasted, released in April 1997. The band rehearsed in Sydney on the 21st of November. His cause of death was recorded as suicide.
The phone calls of that week centred on a custody fight. Paula Yates had planned to visit Sydney for Christmas and stay three months with their daughter and two of her other children, Peaches and Pixie. Her custody battle with Bob Geldof prevented the trip. In a police statement on the 26th of November she said she had told Hutchence the custody hearing was adjourned until the 17th of December. According to Yates, he "was frightened and couldn't stand a minute more without his baby... he was terribly upset and he said 'I don't know how I'll live without seeing Tiger'."
Yates said Hutchence planned to call Geldof and ask him to let the girls come to Australia. Geldof told police and the coroner that he did receive a call from Hutchence, who was "hectoring and abusive and threatening". Both gave statements about the calls, though neither volunteered their phone records. The occupant of the next room heard a loud male voice swearing at about 5:00 am. The coroner was satisfied it was Hutchence arguing with Geldof.
Kym Wilson and her then-boyfriend Andrew Rayment were the last people to see Hutchence alive. They arrived some time after 11:00 pm on the 21st of November and left around 5:00 am. Wilson said the three shared between six and eight drinks but were hardly drunk. She said Hutchence spoke passionately about Yates and their daughter and was anxious about the custody case. He was proud, she said, that Yates and Geldof's daughters called him "daddy". She denied that there were drugs in the room or that they had sex.
At 9:38 am on the 22nd, Hutchence left a voicemail for his manager, Martha Troup, saying he had had enough. Troup rang his room at once and got no answer. He called her again at 9:50 am and left a message that sounded, it was reported, slow and deep, as if something was affecting him. Troup spoke to INXS tour manager John Martin, who had received a note from Hutchence saying he was "not going to rehearsals today".
At 9:54 am Hutchence spoke with Michele Bennett, the last person he called that morning. She said he was crying, could not sleep and needed to see her. Bennett reached his door at about 10:40 am and got no response. She assumed he had fallen asleep, wrote a note and left it at reception. A hotel maid found him at 11:50 am.
Police statements began arriving soon after. Bennett, who handed her phone records to detectives without being asked, said Hutchence had never voiced suicidal thoughts before. His mother, Patricia Glassop, said he had been depressed. On the 17th of October 1997 he had consulted a London psychiatrist, Mark Collins, about a minor depression. Collins saw no hint of suicidal thinking. A London doctor, Dr. J. Borham, had first prescribed Prozac in December 1995. The last prescription came on the 1st of November 1997, three weeks before his death.
On the 6th of February 1998, New South Wales state coroner Derrick Hand presented his report after an autopsy and inquest. He ruled that Hutchence's death was suicide while depressed and under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. The report noted a blood analysis showing "the presence of alcohol, cocaine, Prozac and prescription drugs." Hand had considered accidental death, partly because Hutchence left no note. He discounted it on the strength of substantial contrary evidence.
In 1999 Yates offered a different account in an interview on 60 Minutes and in the Channel 4 documentary In Excess: The Death of Michael Hutchence. She suggested his death might have resulted from an accident during a sexual act. The claim contradicted her earlier statements to police and the coroner, and police dismissed it. Yates had initially blamed Geldof, saying the custody battle and the last phone call had driven Hutchence to despair.
Richard Lowenstein took up the question while researching his 2019 documentary Mystify: Michael Hutchence. He found six or seven interviews in which Hutchence mentioned suicide, saying things such as "no one minds if you kill yourself". His diaries from the 1980s held stick figures that Hutchence had drawn of himself with a noose around his neck. Lowenstein also had access to the full autopsy report. He said it contained no evidence for Yates's version.
The rumour had fed on the fact that Hutchence was found undressed, and British tabloids spread it. Tina Hutchence wrote in her 2000 book Just a Man: The Real Michael Hutchence that he had slept naked since his teens. Lowenstein said in 2019 that Hutchence often lounged naked in his hotel room, even when guests visited. "The press went berserk, but there was absolutely no evidence," he said. "It just didn't add up." He pointed to the call Hutchence made to Bennett minutes before his death. He also said he asked all of Hutchence's girlfriends whether he liked being strangled or tied up, and every one said no.
On the 27th of November 1997, 600 people filled St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney for Hutchence's funeral, which was broadcast live on Australian television. Family and bandmates came, along with Paula Yates and their daughter. So did his favourite singer, Tom Jones, and former girlfriends Kylie Minogue and Helena Christensen. Members of INXS and his younger brother, Rhett, carried the casket out while "Never Tear Us Apart" played.
Nick Cave, a friend of Hutchence, sang his 1997 song "Into My Arms" and asked that the television cameras be switched off. The family asked that donations go to UNICEF and the Starlight Foundation in place of flowers. In his 2004 book Total XS, Rhett claimed that Yates had slipped a gram of heroin into his brother's pocket at the funeral home the day before.
Hutchence was cremated, and a dispute between his family and Yates began over his wish to be cremated. His ashes were divided into thirds, among his parents, his siblings, and Yates and their daughter. His mother's portion was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California. His father's was scattered in Sydney Harbour at Rose Bay on the 22nd of January 1998, the day he would have turned 38. A tombstone stands at Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens in North Ryde. Yates kept her portion in a cushion that she slept with.
INXS kept recording and performing until 2012. The RIAA counts 15 million units sold by the band in the United States alone. The band entered the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001, and Hutchence was inducted into the Australian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016. His songwriting credit also appears on "Break My Heart" by Dua Lipa, which was up for Song of the Year at the 2021 APRA Awards.
His solo album, Michael Hutchence, came out in 1999. He had last worked on it three days before his death, and the final song he recorded was "Possibilities". The album includes "Slide Away", a duet with U2's Bono, who recorded his vocals after Hutchence's death. The 1999 film Limp includes a cameo by Hutchence.
On the 18th of June 2000, his mother and sister published Just a Man: The Real Michael Hutchence. One description calls it an odd biography that mixes basic facts with an almost too-intimate view of its authors' feelings. On the 20th of August 2005, Melbourne's The Age reported that his estate was once estimated at between $10 million and $20 million. It amounted to virtually nothing, with the remainder reportedly sold off or swallowed by legal fees.
Musicians answered his death in song. Duran Duran wrote "Michael You've Got a Lot to Answer For" for their 1997 album Medazzaland. Andrew Farriss wrote INXS's 2006 single "God's Top Ten", sung by new singer J.D. Fortune, as a tribute to Hutchence and his daughter. Bono wrote "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" for the 2000 U2 album All That You Can't Leave Behind. It takes the form of an argument about suicide, in which he tries to convince Hutchence of its foolishness. Bono called it a good old row between friends and felt guilty that he never had one with Hutchence in real life.
Documentaries followed. Michael Hutchence: The Last Rockstar aired on Australia's Seven Network in 2017, and Lowenstein's Mystify arrived in 2019. On the 23rd of November 2019, U2 paid tribute to Hutchence in Sydney on their Joshua Tree Tour.
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Common questions
Who was Michael Hutchence?
Michael Hutchence was an Australian singer and songwriter, born on the 22nd of January 1960 in Crows Nest, Sydney. He co-founded INXS and was its lead singer and lyricist from 1977 until his death in 1997.
What was Michael Hutchence's biggest album with INXS?
Kick, released in October 1987, was the biggest studio album of Michael Hutchence's career with INXS. It reached No. 3 on the US Billboard 200, went six times platinum with the RIAA and produced four US top 10 singles, including "Need You Tonight", which topped the US singles chart.
How did Michael Hutchence die?
Michael Hutchence died by suicide in his room at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Double Bay, Sydney, on the 22nd of November 1997, aged 37. On the 6th of February 1998, state coroner Derrick Hand ruled that he died while depressed and under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.
Did Michael Hutchence die from autoerotic asphyxiation?
No evidence supports that claim about Michael Hutchence. Paula Yates raised it in 1999, but police dismissed it and the coroner had already ruled suicide. Director Richard Lowenstein said the full autopsy report held no evidence for it.
Who was Michael Hutchence's daughter?
Michael Hutchence's daughter with Paula Yates is Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence-Geldof, born on the 22nd of July 1996 in London. Bob Geldof adopted her in 2007 and legally changed her surname.
How did the 1992 Copenhagen injury affect Michael Hutchence?
In August 1992 a taxi driver assaulted Michael Hutchence in Copenhagen, and he fractured his skull on the pavement. The injury caused brain damage and an almost complete loss of smell, and it was followed by periods of depression and increased aggression.
All sources
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- 128INXS: SwitchMike Schiller — 13 January 2006
- 129MagazineSix Songs Inspired by INXS Frontman Michael Hutchence's Life and DeathEric Spitznagel — 19 October 2017
- 130U2 pay tribute to INXS' Michael Hutchence on the anniversary of his deathAbi Moustafa — 24 November 2019
- 131APRA HistoryAustralasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS)
- 132One of these songs will be the Peer-Voted APRA Song of the Year!3 February 2021
- 133Nominees announced for the 2021 APRA Music AwardsAPRA AMCOS — 2021
- 134Hall of Fame
- 135Countdown to the AwardsAustralian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) — March 1987
- 137BookThe covert war against rock: what you don't know about the deaths of Jim Morrison, Tupac Shakur, Michael Hutchence, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Phil Ochs, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, John Lennon, the Notorious B.I.G.Alex Constantine — Feral House — 2000
- 138Whammo HomepageIan McFarlane — Allen & Unwin — 1999
- 139BookThe Who's Who of Australian RockChris Spencer et al. — Five Mile Press — 2002