- Reactions in Minneapolis on INXS's Michael
Hutchence
- from the St. Paul Pioneer press 11/24/97
& Kevin
-
- Local bands stunned by INXS leader's death
- Hutchence lived hard, says local musician
Levy
- JIM WALSH STAFF WRITER
- `The phrase that keeps coming to mind is
that he was just a really fabulous guy,'' said Adam Levy.
- Ever since the news broke Friday night
that INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence's body was found hanging from a leather belt in
his Sydney, Australia, hotel room, friends and fans of Levy and the Honeydogs have been
contacting the Twin Cities band.
- ``We were in Grand Forks Friday night,''
said Levy, the Honeydogs' singer/guitarist. ``We'd just got done with a show there, and
(drummer) Noah Levy saw it scrawl across the bottom of the screen on MTV. He just started
banging on the hotel room walls. We were just freaked.''
- The Honeydogs served as opening act for
INXS on what proved to be the Australian band's last American tour.
- For five weeks, from Aug. 24 to Oct. 3,
the Honeydogs traveled with INXS on their ``Elegantly Wasted'' tour, including an Aug. 26
date at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis.
- Both bands record for Mercury Records, and
during the course of the tour, Levy said the members of INXS took the Honeydogs under
their wing.
- ``They were super nice right from the
get-go,'' Levy said. ``We met them in Cleveland for the first show, and they were very
welcoming. Michael came out and said, `Oh, it's the Honeybabies, we've heard so much about
you.' They were full of advice, and seemed to genuinely like us.''
- The two bands spent most of their time
together at after-show parties, or in bars and hotel rooms.
- ``There was a lot of craziness,'' said
Levy. ``It was an amazing show every night, and they were totally on. For a band that
wasn't selling records and didn't have a hit, and that had been doing it for 20 years,
they really enjoyed touring. They seemed like they could have done it for as long as they
wanted.''
- Another Minneapolis band with ties to
Hutchence was Soul Asylum, which toured South America with INXS in 1995.
- ``It's sad, it's tragic, when you hear
something about a pal of yours, that you spent time with, and they go that way,'' said
Soul Asylum singer/guitarist Danny Murphy. ``I'm afraid they kind of lived up to their
name, you know, `In excess': We spent much time with Michael and those guys on the beach,
drinking beers until like 10 in the morning.''
- The coroner's report on Hutchence won't be
released until later this week, and Levy said that he had ``no clue'' about a motive for
the 37-year-old singer's apparent suicide.
- He did, however, echo a sentiment that
several Australian sources have put forth in the past two days -- that INXS was anxious
about an Australian tour that was set to have kicked off Tuesday.
- ``They said that they hadn't toured
Australia in four years, and they'd kind of soured on it because they've been slagged
there so much,'' said Levy.
- Still, Levy said that Hutchence was
excited about working on a solo album that would incorporate African music, and the fact
that he was being considered for a role in a forthcoming Quentin Tarentino film.
- ``Michael was obviously a live-fast,
love-hard kind of guy,'' he said. ``But he had all these side projects planned, which is
why we all were so totally taken aback by the news. I guess you never know everything
about somebody.''
