double Elvis. This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of double Elvis. The stories about Michael Hutchence are insane. His band, In Excess, cut their teeth on the lawless Australian pub circuit. Three shows a night, from sunset to sunrise. Hundreds of shows a year. He was a rock star's rock star. And true to his band's name, he did everything in excess. He did cocaine on the tour bus and ecstasy on stage. He was arrested in a Paris hotel, completely naked, as a drug-fueled orgy raged around him. He was sucker-punched by a taxi driver in the street. That attack left him unable to smell or taste. It altered his moods. It changed him. And it may have had something to do with the final day of his life. Michael Hutchence's death at the age of 37 left a hole in the hearts of Australians and the world. It also left behind great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called We're the Pinheads MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to a clip from Candle in the Wind 1997 by Elton John. And why would I play you that specific slice of Norma Jean cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 22nd, 1997. And that was the day that Michael Hutchins' body was found in a Sydney hotel room with his belt around his neck. On this episode, the Lawless Australia pub circuit, cocaine, orgies, sucker punches, and a rock star's rock star. InXS' Michael Hutchins. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Before we sat down at the piano Nick Cave asked the TV crew to kill the cameras This song was personal, maybe too personal. A love song written by a recovering addict trying to, quote, make the best of a bad situation, unquote. That's how Nick Cave described Into My Arms, a song he wrote while he was in rehab, kicking his long-running addiction to heroin, not all that long ago from this day. On this day, however, November 26, 1997, the song wasn't for him. It was for the approximately 1,000 people packed inside St. Andrew's Cathedral here in Sydney. 1,000 people trying to make the best out of another bad situation. This situation being far more tragic than Nick Cave calling on the muse to shake a junk habit. That was because Nick's friend, Michael Hutchins, just 37 years old, was dead. The news shocked Australia and the world. Without warning, NXS had lost their charismatic frontman. Australia had lost one of its most popular and beloved sons. Nick Cave did his best to pick up the mantle in front of a thousand strangers and under the watchful eyes of God himself. He played his piano ballad for the mourners, barely a dry eye in the house. Outside the cathedral, thousands more stood just beyond the police barricades, Silent, bereaved, struggling to hear the music inside. Struggling to make sense out of something that didn't make sense. To feel less alone. Michael Hutchins did that for them. He made them feel loved and alive. And he did that by being a rock star. A rock star's rock star. The genuine article. Suave, magnetic, seductive, masculine and feminine. A euphoric and explosive presence on stage. Every rock band that wasn't in excess wished that Michael Hutchins was their front man. Just look at him. He was like a pirate wallowing in the spoils of his rock and roll plunders. He dated a smoke show pop star and then a smoke show supermodel. He wore a leather jacket with H-U-T-C-H written in chain mail on the back. A snakeskin belt to hold his tight pants in place. Michael Hutchins wasn't just Australia's preeminent rock star export. Hutch and his band were an international sensation. Which is a little ironic, because Michael Hutchins wasn't the person you saw on stage. This was a guy who took out his contact lenses when he performed so they wouldn't get freaked out by the enormity of the crowd in front of him. He once described himself as, and I quote, a dipshit from fuck off nowhere sitting in the back of the room shaking, unquote, when In Excess first started out. Being in a band gave that dipshit some confidence. He was a pack animal, a brother, a friend, a lover, a man who was nothing if he wasn't surrounded by the people he loved and who loved him back. Being in a band was a promise that he'd never be alone, all for one and one for all. Camaraderie and brotherhood were clutch because for a struggling rock band in Australia during the late 1970s and early 80s, Down Under and Upside Down, things were wild. The culture of Aussie rock from seeds sown by the likes of probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, rock and roll bands of all time, ACDC, fronted by Bon Scott, was feral and rebellious. Pubs and clubs open all hours of the night and day, 24-7. A thousand people stuffed into a room that could legally hold only 300. But Legalese wasn't spoken down under. Australian rock and roll was lawless. So were the substances that fueled it. Speed made from some kind of horse pills. Magic mushrooms growing in cow patties on the side of the road. LSD held over from a decade earlier. Good shit kept on ice for years to make that old sensation feel new again when the time was right. It was all about new sensations. When NXS blew up, so did the kinds of drugs and the amount of drugs. So did the party. 1988, Paris. NXS touring behind their megawatt record, Kick. Number one in Australia, number three in the US. Its first single, Need You Tonight, only peaked at number 10 in Paris. But that was fine, cuz Paris was where the party peaked. This five-star hotel suite was stocked with cocaine and ecstasy and more beautiful people than a tall stack of Vogue and glamour magazines. Some wore a few items of clothing, but most wore nothing. Michael Hutchins came stumbling out of a bedroom, completely naked and into the living room, only to realize that someone had already fallen through the glass coffee table. No matter. That was the rock star of life. As was this. Michael Hutchins. Never minding the bollocks. Golden fucking god. Curly locks, the devil inside, unlit cigarette in need of a flame. The room was a haze. It smelled like sex and champagne. But Michael could make out in excess his tour manager, also naked, sitting on a chair. Do us a favor of me and give me a light. Michael, their tour manager, was now saying, I do not have a light. You do not see that I'm sitting here naked, handcuffed to a fucking chair? Michael looked at his tour manager's hands. The cuffs shackled around his wrists weren part of whatever kinky role playing was currently being played out by the twisted mass of flesh in the living room They were police cuffs And the room wasn just full of naked crew members and hangers The cops were here Well shit Maybe one of Paris finest satellite No No it seemed they did not. What they did have was another pair of handcuffs for Michael, which they insisted he put on seeing as he was no longer a participant in a rock and roll orgy. He was under arrest. Almost a decade after that eventful night, the drugs were still a thing, but now they were no longer communal, no longer the glue that bonded the pack. Instead, the drugs kept the loner alone, and Michael Hutchins did not do alone. Murray River, however, did. Murray River being Michael Hutchins' numb to travel, the name he used to check into room 524 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Sydney on November 21st, 1997. Also the name of an actual river that split Australia in half. One piece of land separated from the other. Just the way Michael Hutchins was now separated from everything and everyone. His band, in excess, going through the motions in a rehearsal room, shaking off the cobwebs for another tour. His partner, Paula, that would be British television host Paula Yates and their daughter, Heavenly Hirani Tiger Lily, still in London, unable to travel to Australia for the holidays as he had hoped, both grounded indefinitely because Bob wanted it that way. Bob being Bob Geldof, he of the boomtown rats. You know, I don't like Mondays. The guy who organized live aid was knighted by the Queen, a living saint in the eyes of many, but to Michael Hutchins, he was simply Paula's ex, the man standing between Michael and the things he wanted. His partner and his child. A family. Not just with his biological daughter, but with Paula's three other children. Children that Michael Hutchins felt a connection with. Children that their father, Bob Geldof, now had legal custody of. Custody that was easy to come by after housekeepers found a shoebox of opium in Michael and Paula's London home. Michael and Paula denied it. Said it was planted. Just like Sergeant Pilcher planted that dope in John and Yoko's flat and probably in George's too. Whether or not they were telling the truth, what was Michael Hutchins going to do now? He was depressed, despondent. He was, as his friend Bono would later write in a U2 song, stuck in a moment that he couldn't get out of. He sought out any friends who could see him that night. A few came to his hotel room for drinks, but they eventually left. He called an ex-girlfriend and told her he needed her. He needed someone tonight. He called his personal manager, Martha. She didn't answer, so he left a message. Martha, Michael here. I fucking had enough. He even called Bob Geldof to work this whole thing out, convince the guy to see things his way, mano a mano. He called him twice. But Michael couldn't win Bob over the way he won over an audience. His powers of persuasion, of seduction, His rock star je ne sais quoi, well, it may have worked in a hotel orgy back in Paris in 88. Now, in 97, it wasn't working anymore. Which meant Michael Hutchins found himself facing his biggest fear. Being alone. We'll be right back. still seems to resonate with fans around the world today. Follow and listen to How We Made Your Mother wherever you get your podcasts. 11.50 a.m. The maid tried to open the door to room 524, but it wouldn't budge. Something was blocking it from behind. She pushed harder and with a bit of force was finally able to work her way in. There, slumped on the floor, directly behind the door, was the naked body of the room's guest. Murray River, a.k.a. Michael Hutchins. His snakeskin belt, that fine accoutrement befitting a golden god, a rock star's rock star, no longer around his waist. Instead, it was around his neck. Sydney detectives found some vodka and champagne bottles in the room, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was a scene they'd witnessed many times over, cut and dry, black and white. It was determined that Michael had tied the other end of his belt around the mechanism behind the door to hang himself. At some point, after he was gone, the belt snapped from the weight and broke, dropping him down. This physical evidence along with the phone records painted a simple picture. What was not part of that picture was any evidence or even a suggestion that Michael Hutchins died as a result of autoerotic asphyxiation. That idea entered the public consciousness when Michael's partner, Paula Yates, suggested it to the media. Paula Yates, distraught, grieving, and at this point addicted to heroin, was unable to accept the truth and thus created a scenario in her mind in which Michael's death was accidental. In reality, Michael Hutchins died not from kinky sex gone horribly wrong, but because he was terrified that he'd lost everything. By the time he checked into the Ritz-Carlton, Michael Hutchins had lost more than the ability to see the people he loved. He'd lost his cool. Both cools, actually. First, he lost his cool, as in that currency flaunted by a true blue rock and roll icon. Noel Gallagher of Oasis stuck the knife in deep and twisted it on live television, saying, has-beens shouldn't present fucking awards to gonna-bees. Noel said that when Michael handed him a Brit award, right there in front of everyone, the entire audience and everyone at home on their couches as well. Michael just laughed it off. But inside, Noel's dig hurt like hell. Michael was all too familiar with that pain. After InXS conquered the world with Kick and its follow-up album, X, which boasted a killer lead single, Suicide Blonde, written about Kylie Minogue, Michael's girlfriend at the time, they returned to Australia and were received not as heroes, but as sellouts. Aussies love an underdog, and so it was only natural that NXS got knocked down a peg so that their fellow countrymen could enjoy watching them struggle to the top again. It's kind of like that thing when your favorite band blows up, and suddenly everyone loves this thing that used to belong just to you, and it kind of pisses you off in this weird way. Only in this case, it's not you who's pissed, it's an entire continent. And that was enough to make a guy lose his other cool, as in the ability to remain calm and in control of yourself. But Michael had already lost that too. Something was very wrong with Michael Hodgins. Had been for years. His bandmates knew it. And the autopsy proved it. The biggest discovery from the autopsy wasn't the cocaine, Prozac, Valium, or benzos in Michael's blood and urine. It was the plum-sized lesions on his frontal lobe. Degenerative damage. Damage that he'd been carrying around for years. Ever since that incident in Denmark. 1992, Copenhagen. Michael Hutchins was doing what the locals did, traveling by bicycle, riding home from a night out with his girlfriend at the time. Not the suicide blonde, but the one after that, a drop-dead Danish brunette, supermodel Helena Christensen. You ever seen the music video for Chris Isaac's Wicked Game, the one on the beach with the uh yeah that the one that her Anyway it was late but they were hungry so they stopped to get a couple slices of pizza It being late the roads were fairly deserted so Michael figured no harm, no foul, if he simply straddled his bicycle in the middle of the road to use both hands to eat. That's when the taxi cab appeared. It came screaming out of the night, and then it came to a screeching halt right in front of where Michael was blocking the road. The cabbie leaned out of his window, screaming like his taxi had just been screaming, but instead of the roar of a small engine, it was now the roar of a big mouth. Get the fuck out of the road, you fucking idiot. Then the cabbie was out of his car, walking, an impatient, flustered stride, one foot in front of the other, cursing, furious, a beeline straight to where Michael was standing. There was no time to react, no time to move. The cabbie was on him now, right in front of him. It happened fast, the brisk walk, the sudden halt, and there he was, balling his fist and cocking back his arm, and then... The cabbie's bald fist caught Michael Hutchins in the head. It came in fast and hard. The punch sent him flying. Michael wobbled backward, stunned, his entire body in shock, and then he dropped straight down. His body sprawled out on the pavement, blood oozing from his mouth and his ear. Helena rushed to his side. He wasn't moving. Was he, was Michael dead? The cabbie was back in his taxi, peeling off into the Copenhagen night. Gone, just like Michael now seemed to be. Helena panicked. Michael finally came to at the hospital, but he did so in a rage, as impulsive and hostile as the taxi driver who had raged at him minutes earlier. For the next month, he stayed in bed at Helena's apartment, throwing out, not eating. Not that eating would have given him any pleasure. He could no longer taste food, could no longer smell his girlfriend when she brushed up against him. It was like Michael Hudgens had gone unconscious and someone else woke up in his place. At the recording sessions for the next In Excess album, the guys in the band were all asking the same question. What's happening to Michael? They had no clue. Michael swore Helena to secrecy, but it was clear something was wrong. As it was, the band was already outside their comfort zone. Sure, the Isle of Capri was a picturesque place to make an album, but it was a haul to get there. 20-hour flight to Rome, bus to Naples, ferry to the island, and then a long walk to the studio, only to arrive and find Michael throwing tantrums, spraying champagne on the mixing board, tossing equipment off the breathtaking cliffs. Surrounded by his band, his friends, but seemingly alone in his own mind, an island far from shore, just sitting there in the middle of the studio, staring into nothing. dropping a knife into the hardwood floor, over and over. Donk. Pull it out. Hold it in midair. Let it fall. Donk. The tip of the blade sinking into the wood. Once again, Michael pulled it out, extracted it. Gary Beers, an excessist bassist and Michael's longtime friend, was confused and worried. Michael, he asked. Why are you destroying that nice floor? Michael yanked the knife from the wood again, but this time turned to Gary and thrust the blade in his direction. I'll fucking stab you instead. This wasn't Michael. This wasn't the guy they'd all grown up with. The one they'd met at high school in Sydney. Born an Aussie who'd gone away for years living in Hong Kong with his family, educated in British schools. An outsider looking for a way back in. A dipshit from fuck off nowhere. That guy wasn't anywhere to be seen. That guy was in their memories. In their minds. the Michael Hutchence they all knew was in the past. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. In excess knew they had a hit on their hands. Numerous hits, that is. The new album they'd just finished recording was loaded with them. Need You Tonight, Devil Inside, New Sensation. The grooves were incredible. The low end was deep. There was something about it that just, you know, made you sweat. I had to say it. And that ballad, Never Tear Us Apart, forget about it. Michael Hutchins sang the shit out of that song. Kick was the band's sixth studio album, but the first one that felt like they tapped into something wholly unique. They leveled up and found another gear. Working once again with producer Chris Thomas, whose resume stretched from the Beatles to the Sex Pistols, In excess, that's Michael Hutchins, Gary Beers, Kirk Pemgillian, the Ferris Brothers, Andrew, John, and Tim, were confident that 1987 was going to be their year. The endless touring, the minor hits, the videos on MTV, it all led to this. A breakthrough. They all knew it. Their manager, Chris Murphy, he knew it too. But now, standing in front of Atlantic Records sales and marketing teams, Chris Murphy couldn't help but wonder, was he crazy? Was 1987 not their year? Were they fucked? The Atlantic suits were just sitting there, as if they hadn't just listened to Need You Tonight. The song Chris and the band were proposing as the record's first single. A killer song. One part James Brown, one part chic, one part talking heads, and 100% Michael Hutchins and his golden god charisma in full effect. But the room didn't get it. It was too dancey for rock radio, they said. It was too rock and roll for the R&B market, they said. It didn't fit the mold, they said. Any mold, they said. And if the sales team didn't get it, if the sales team couldn't put it neatly in a box, then the sales team couldn't sell it. Chris felt his heart lodge inside his throat. This bullshit take out of left field that Need You Tonight and the entirety of the NXS album Kick was a colossal dud went straight up the chain of command. All the way to Atlantic's president, who hated the record so much that he offered Chris and the band $1 million to erase the tapes and start all over again. That's a lot of dough, Ringo. If you made something that you were really proud of, the best thing you'd ever made in your life, and someone offered you a mill to get rid of it, would you do it? In excess did not do it. Which, maybe that was crazy. Because who knows? Again, when you make something, do you really know how good it is? I like to think I do, but I don't. But In Excess, they knew. Because the record was that good. Crazy good. The record company, on the other hand, was crazy crazy. Though to be fair, In Excess had no idea that their manager, Chris Murphy, was doing something crazy on his own. Going behind Atlantic's backs, and without the blessing of Michael Hutchinson and the band, with all of In Excess' existing money and using it to drum up buzz and thus demand for kick, before Atlantic even agreed to release it. It was a risk, a huge risk, a ballsy risk. When Chris Murphy contacted college radio stations in the US and played them the album, though, the risk began to pay off. Colleges loved it, so he bought ads on those college radio stations. And then he booked shows at those colleges. The shows sold out. The kids went nuts. They wanted to own a physical copy of the songs they were hearing at the shows and on the radio. The tables were turned. Atlantic would now be crazy not to release Kick. Which, in October of 1987, they did, and the record wound up making In Excess extremely rich and extremely famous. Not to mention all that money for Atlantic. Part and parcel of the rich and famous life was getting fucked up. It came with the territory. It was territory that Michael Hutchinson and In Excess had been exploring for years. All the way back to those smoky, overcrowded Australian pubs where surfers smuggled hash inside their longboards and a five-hour psychedelic trip was just a pile of cow shit away. Michael and the boys were a pack, a gang, six guys sharing a collective experience. By now, the stakes were raised. The crowds were bigger. The girls were hotter, much hotter. The drugs were more plentiful. In Rio, the cocaine fell from the sky. For real there was so much of it What didn go up their noses got tossed off their hotel balcony Same thing on the bus in Canada headed for the U border Doing blow became a game that passed the time Toss a handful up in the air and try to snort it as it falls down all over your face. Why? Because it's what rock bands do, right? That's why. It's right there in this particular band's name. In excess. In excess. In excess. So corny, yet so fucking perfect. Michael Hudgens learned excess from the best. He learned long before Kick made him a rock and roll icon, back when in excess were opening shows for Adam Ant, for the Stray Cats, for Men at Work. He learned from the king of debauchery himself, Mr. Freddie Mercury, and the penthouse of a London hotel, where the party wasn't just coke, but also flamingos and mimes. Little people walking around with trays of cocaine balanced on their heads and circus acrobats demonstrating wildly flexible new ways to fuck. Michael took notes. The Freddie Mercury School of Debauchery was in session inside that Parisian hotel room and again at a show in Phoenix where Michael ran his hand up the short skirt of a ready and willing female fan, like steel to a magnet. Michael sang about being lonely, but with fans and friends like these, he didn't have to worry about actually being lonely. July 91, Wembley Stadium, capacity crowd, 72,000, no less than five opening bands. Debbie Harry, Hothouse Flowers, Rochefort, Jellyfish, and Jesus Jones. And then, in excess. Leaving the backstage spread of sushi and champagne behind to take the main stage for two and a half hours. Michael, in his shiny black leather jacket, and those killer black and white pants with stripes on one leg and stars on the other, already primed with booze and pills. Three songs in, he found the other three pills in his pocket. Three doses of ecstasy. One for him, Kirk, and Tim. Right there in the middle of the set. It came with the territory. Business and pleasure. All for one and one for all. And although the stage, both literally and figuratively, was now bigger, that shared experience of a rock and roll band, that brotherhood of in excess, kept them grounded even as their egos began to take flight. Not that they were ever truly grounded. They were Aussies, after all. Wildlings from Down Under. Feral and rebellious, just like any truly great rock star is wild and feral and rebellious. But in excess were tougher than most. Hardened by years on the pub circuit Down Under. Three shows a night. First one at midnight. Next at 3am. And a final one at 6am. Each show at a different venue. They worked day and night. Tough work that made them the toughest. So tough that you could never imagine that anything could crack the exterior. Nothing could ever tear it apart. Their connection, their strength, their bond. From this vantage point, on stage at Wembley, in front of 72,000 rolling on E, in love with everything, the people, the music, your mates, you couldn't even fathom a scenario where it all went wrong. But that one random accident, just one punch, could send it all spiraling out of control. 1977. No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones. New York and London were calling. 10,000 miles from either New York or London. In Sydney, New South Wales, the call came through loud and clear. The Beatles were done. The Stones were on their way out. And Elvis, well, Elvis was dead. The day the King left the building for the final time was the day the band known as the Ferris Brothers played their first show at a house in Whale Beach, just north of Sydney. Fresh out of high school, the Ferris Brothers, along with their lead singer, Michael Hutchins, were compelled by punk rock, galvanized by the DIY movement. It was in the air, the same air breathed by Nick Cave and the Birthday Party, who were busy releasing the bats and making an unholy racket. The Saints, obsessed with the Ramones and the Heartbreakers. Johnny Thunders, that is, not Tom Petty. At Midnight Oil, fiercely political, musically aggressive, another tough-as-leather Aussie unit made tougher by the rejection of traditional rock radio. Midnight Oil tore their asses off, built up their fan base, and boom, Bob's your uncle. Fuck radio. They worked for it, and they were rewarded. The Ferris Brothers, in turn, were inspired by this work ethic. Just like they were inspired when Midnight Oil suggested they change their name to something more compelling. Something like that English band XTC. You know, ecstasy, but it's spelled out with three capital letters. InXS picked up where the Ferris Brothers left off. They gigged hard, year in, year out. 300 shows in 1981 alone. Pubs and clubs packed the rafters a hodgepodge of patrons. Stone surfers and the industrial working class, all sweating because the air conditioning had been turned off and all drinking way more beer than they'd planned, which was precisely why the AC had turned off in the first place. Rock music was rebellious, but it was also a moneymaker. The money came from everywhere, even from fuck off nowhere. Way out in the desert on the edge of the world, where the boys made a cool five grand for a week's hot work. The house band for workers at a strip mine. The miners all covered in blood red dirt. Some of them ex-cons. Some of them soon-to-be cons. Honest-to-God Mad Max shit come to life. But it was a good life. A life Michael Hutchins had stumbled into. Just a few years earlier, when he returned to Australia as a teenager after living in Hong Kong for eight years. He knew no one. He made his way sheepishly into Killarney Heights High School, all eyes watching his every move. The girls, of course, were instantly attracted as they always were and always would be, and so the boys wanted to beat the piss out of him. Look at this dipshit. He may have been an Aussie on paper, but as far as they were concerned, he was from away. Far away. Eight years of British schools. Eight years of British customs. He had that colonial bastard stink all over him. The group of boys circled around him and began to close in. What the fuck was he looking at? And who the hell did he think he was? And then, a voice from the back. Leave him alone. The bullies spun around. Another boy, not a bully, but another new classmate, stood on the outskirts of the impending beatdown with his own crew. He repeated himself and his crew backed him up. Leave him alone. The bullies decided they'd mess with the new kids some other time. They backed down and fucked off. Then Michael Hutchins shook the hand of Andrew Ferris, the kid who just saved him from an ass-kicking. He gained a new friend, a bandmate even. And with that simple fact came the most important thing, the reassurance that he'd never be alone again. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. members can listen to every episode of disgraceland ad free plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month weekly unscripted bonus episodes special audio collections and early access to merchandise and events visit disgracelandpod.com slash membership for details rate and review the show and follow us on instagram tiktok twitter and facebook at disgraceland pod and on youtube at youtube.com slash at disgraceland pod rock and roll He's a bad, bad man.
