After midnight Rod took Susie and me out on the Scarab for a cruise. Rod decided it was time that I proposed to Susie. In fact he demanded that I propose to her, right there and then. But I was both drunk and stubborn, and I procrastinated. Rod and Susie, meanwhile, took a dive into the harbour in the midnight darkness.
Finally, I somehow managed to make an impassioned proposal to Susie, who accepted. The rest of the night is a blur.
Very early on New Year’s morning, Rod bundled Susie and me into his car and raced us down to an expensive jeweller in Double Bay, Sydney’s most exclusive suburb. I was still wearing a terry-towelling bathrobe from the night before. Rod had called ahead and persuaded the jeweller to open his store at 8 a.m. on a public holiday. Rod and Susie disappeared inside, leaving me in a haze in the back seat.
I looked out the window and saw a woman sitting outside a coffee lounge a few doors down. I stumbled from the car in my bathrobe, and ambled up and politely asked her for a cigarette. She was an American, as I learned, on her first visit to Oz, and could barely contain her mirth. I began a bumbling explanation that I was like Australia’s Brian Wilson. She burst into laughter.
‘I see what you mean,’ she said, lighting my cigarette, running an eye over my dishevelled state.
Susie and Rod had been inside the store for a terribly long time, so I returned to the back seat of the car. Rod finally emerged brandishing a ring, which had a price tag of $600. I thought, ‘Fine, I can afford that. Now can we go?’
Trouble was, I hadn’t asked the cost of the huge diamond that was set into the ring. When I found out, I freaked. Rod insisted that it’d be an advance against publishing royalties, and there was to be no argument about this.
Our whirlwind courtship and wedding now seems more fantasy than reality. It was decided that we should be married in a civil ceremony in Paris, with a very select group of our closest friends. So once again we flew to Europe, back to the St James Albany Hotel.
The night before the wedding, we went to see INXS play at Paris Bercy, a 25,000-seater in the heart of Paris. The band was huge in France, and the gig was a total sell-out.
Hutch sought me out, boasting that he’d bought Susie and me the biggest, whitest wedding present, and that I should immediately find Roger the bagman (their tour manager), who’d present me with Michael’s gift. I found Roger, who produced a bag of ecstasy tablets. I recoiled with a mix of horror and humour—only Hutch could cook up something like this. No, no, no, I said, it was not my drug at all.
I was invited to the side of stage by the band. Chris Murphy, their manager, was also in the wings. Murphy had been so alarmed by the band’s habit of excessive partying that he’d imposed a strict no-drugs policy. This was a crucial stage of INXS’s career and as far as I’m aware, they’d been very well behaved.
That night Chris sent the guys out one at a time, to allow the crowd to build to fever pitch. Hutch was the last band member left side of stage. There were warm exchanges between the three of us, then, just as Michael was about to run on stage, he turned around, flashed some little white pills that he held in the palm of his hand, and threw them down his throat. Then he sprinted into the spotlight.
Murphy was furious. Sure enough, about 20 minutes into the set, the ecstasy kicked in and Michael started thrusting his groin at the audience, yelling: ‘Paris—je t’aime. I wanna fuck ya all!’
Sidestage, I cracked up, flashing back to the Paddington Green Hotel, when they’d played for a handful of drunks.
Susie and I were married at the Australian Embassy in Paris on 30 June 1988. A small gathering of friends joined us at Hotel Ritz Paris for the reception and another night of wild partying. The INXS guys were there, as was Warners Australia boss Philip Mortlock and his wife, along with Michael Hegerty, Chippa and Hamish Cameron, who had a film crew in tow working on a documentary on INXS. Rod Muir, in typical style, ordered the very finest champagne according to our years of birth (a ceremony he later repeated with Jon Farriss). So, yes, it was a no-expense-spared evening.
We spent our wedding night in a suite at Hotel Ritz and then set out on our honeymoon around Europe. We headed south to Florence, but really had no schedule, no clear plan. We just jumped in the car and let the wind take us wherever it blew. We first drove all over the South of France, and when we felt tired, we just checked into anywhere that looked appealing. If we were hungry, we found somewhere and ate. We were totally free, not shackled to any kind of schedule or itinerary.
The trip took us all over northern Italy, up through Monaco and Switzerland to Germany. I took Susie to meet Volker and Andrea, but unfortunately Volker and Susie took an instant dislike to each other, and Susie behaved rather badly and I thought very rudely to my old friend. It’s not the first time: for some odd reason, while I’ve always had the best relationships with my German friends, my Australian friends have trouble assimilating into their culture.
Back in Oz, despite my protestations, Rod insisted we hold a second wedding reception at Sydney’s Sebel Townhouse. This was going to be a very lavish affair with a huge number of guests and a very impressive celebrity list; it was really a PR exercise to get my profile up for the Glory Road album.
These lavish weddings sure take up an enormous amount of time, money and effort, and I wasn’t at all comfortable. Jimmy Barnes sang a great version of ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, while I danced uncomfortably with Susie; I always was a lousy dancer. The reception itself was quite stellar at first, yet veered down the path of pure decadence as the night rolled on.
After midnight, it became more like a night at Benny’s than a wedding party. However, we did get our fair share of publicity so I guess the night achieved its purpose. Because Susie had an excellent relationship with her agent, Peter Chadwick, and I had a PR machine going on around me, we became A-list celebrities for some time afterwards. Still, I found (and still find) fame an uncomfortable and undesirable way to live my life. It takes up so much oxygen that there’s little time left for doing anything worthwhile, like writing songs. Kids can have their 15 minutes of fame—it’s not for me.
I put together another great band and we set off on what was to be a long and arduous tour. It became another instance where everything started to go a little crazy after months on the road. I was only being paid a wage of $340 a week by MMA—INXS’s management company, who were managing me—whereas the band were on a weekly wage of $1500 each. It’s probably just as well; the entourage was partying hard every night and it was better that I was always short of money, otherwise I could have spiralled right out of control. A couple of the band members had sex worker girlfriends who were bringing drugs to the band in every corner of Australia. There had been decadent Richard Clapton Bands in the past, but these guys were the champions of partying.
The workload was a killer, and the obligatory partying every night started really taking its toll. We somehow managed to perform well, but I was burnt out after a relatively short time. I just didn’t feel like we were achieving anything, except maybe wrecking our health. I soon began to feel that it just wasn’t worth it.
Rod Muir spoke with me; he was very critical of the way the tour was going, and finally decided that he would sack the management. This, of course, was an enormous drama, but Rod was still my mentor, someone who’d made a fairly serious investment in my
career, and he decided to pull the plug. I was a wreck and people were starting to talk.
So we came off the road, and Rod decided that I should go and work for him in his office. This, in principle, seemed a most sensible (if unlikely) idea. It would give me time to consider my next move. However, the plan backfired, as Rod and I slipped back into our old habits. There was French champagne on tap and I was arriving home to Susie every night in an inebriated state.
Then Susie had news: she was pregnant (although this pregnancy didn’t go the distance). She put her foot down—and savagely. She gave me an ultimatum as she was driving me to Rod’s office one day. In heavy traffic, she jammed her foot on the brakes, and demanded I get out of the car.
‘It’s me or Rod!’ Susie said.
Since she was going to be the mother of our children it was a bit of a no brainer, and I complied. My fantasy world with Rod came to an abrupt end.
Susie and I moved into a rented flat in Bellevue Hill just a few minutes’ walk from Triple M, Sydney’s vanguard radio station. It was still OK for me to hang out with the people there, just not get crazy with the boss. Triple M was the most fun place to be, and I was a frequent visitor. I’d befriended huge-rating DJ Doug Mulray and his celebrated team, which included Andrew Denton and Dave Gibson (he of a thousand voices). I guess I sort of became the station mascot. I also formed lasting friendships with the stars like Jono and Danno, Rob Duckworth and Stuart Cranney and the Club Veg guys, as well as the folks in the back room, people like Trevor and Jan Smith, Charlie Fox and Hamish (Hulk) Cameron, the producers and directors.
It was a marvellous, tight-knit family. My socialising invariably led to me appearing on air. I became part of this crazy crew, who breathed so much fun and life and music into this town.
Australian broadcasting was at its peak in the eighties. In my view, broadcasters like Triple M were an important part of the character and fabric of Sydney. All the shenanigans that went on made for a rich tapestry of life outside the 9 to 5 grind, providing relief from the dull grey existence that pervaded the lives of normal people. Life was lived in the fast lane, and the Cross, Benny’s, Springfields and the Manzil Room were the modern-day speakeasies, places where everyone congregated until dawn.
Of course, drugs were everywhere. Drug-taking within media circles was widespread. I find it amusing to watch, read and listen to the exact same former fast-living journos, radio stars and TV personalities now pontificating about the evils of drugs. It really is quite sad that the ‘no-fun zone’ of the new millennium has sapped the very essence out of life in Australia, so now people are only free to work, eat, sleep and pay taxes and bills. I firmly believe in a God, but I’m sure he didn’t intend us to be wasting our lives on this mind-numbingly depressing existence.
I have a theory that when Rod Muir left Australian radio in the late 1980s, the entire country began to shift to the right. Music became corporatised, and multinational companies, intent on profit rather than on fostering original talent, signed up acts that catered for the majority taste. It was the beginning of the end.
So I really treasure the last couple of years of my personal rollercoaster ride. In my case it was probably just as well I eventually slowed down, because I was playing with a band of bad boys, still living life as if there was no tomorrow. After the Glory Road era, I had to think about doing something more constructive with my life.
Philip Mortlock suggested we produce a live album, but not merely another contract-fulfilling live set. This would be one of the classiest live albums ever produced in this country. I assembled a stellar group of musicians, people I knew well, like Jimmy Barnes, Jon Farriss and Garry Gary Beers, along with Venetta Fields, plus Michael Hegerty and Kirk Lorange from the Goodbye Tiger days. The record company constructed a small sound stage in Sydney’s Artarmon where we’d record the best songs of my career, live before an invited audience, on 16 April 1989.
We rehearsed for a number of days on a roster system, but the guitar player demanded an outrageous fee, and was promptly dumped. In a panic I employed a very young guitarist, Ben Butler, the son of a federal senator and the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations, and threw him in at the deep end. I took Ben into the rehearsal room and introduced him to the all-star band.
‘Oh,’ I said to Ben, ‘we’ll be recording the gig tonight.’
Ben’s playing was nothing short of spectacular, and can still be heard on the album, which was aptly titled The Best Years of Our Lives.
Despite the absence of drugs, some imbibing took place under the radar. The concert was recorded in four parts, and during the third quarter, just as the director counted us in, a techie in the recording truck nodded off, slumping onto the console, totally catatonic. His quick-thinking assistant whacked him over the head and hit the red record button, missing only the first three beats of Jonnie Farriss’s drum intro.
In the break before the last quarter I was busting for a piss, and the irate director told me to slip into a tiny room behind the stage and piss in the sink.
‘And be back in 30 seconds!’
I ducked into the darkened room, attended to business and jumped back on stage. I introduced ‘I Am an Island’, the last song of the night, and as I was talking, Jimmy came hurtling out onto the stage growling: ‘You fucking music industry wankers, you’re as boring as batshit! Get up off your fucking arses.’ Then he hurled himself on to the front table and sent champagne bottles and glasses flying everywhere, yelling: ‘I’m gonna kick your fucking arses to fucking death!’ But Jimmy was laughing his guts out throughout this mayhem, so it was patently obvious that this was just one of Barnesy’s practical jokes.
We had only a few days to mix the entire concert, ready to be aired on prime time on Channel Ten the following Friday night. We mixed and mixed with barely any sleep, triumphantly delivering the master tapes to Warners on the Friday morning. I was utterly exhausted and not even sure I would be able to stay up until 8.30 to watch the concert on TV.
But during the afternoon, all hell broke loose. Normally, a TV network would not bother auditioning a show like this before they put it to air. However, I had enthusiastic fans at Channel Ten who’d decided to give themselves a sneak preview. The boss of the network phoned Philip Mortlock, outraged and threatening to pull the show off air. We had been so exhausted at the end of the mixing we had left in the Jimmy Barnes bit, about ‘kick your fucking arses to fucking death!’ Peace was made, his outburst was edited, and the show made it on air.
Shortly afterwards, Jon Farriss invited Susie and me up to his apartment at Stanley, in Hong Kong. He and Michael Hutchence had relocated there, but Michael was in a whirlwind relationship with Kylie Minogue, and they were jet-setting around the world. Jon had the place to himself. Their apartment was stunning, just beautiful. The vista from the windows reminded me of Monte Carlo, and the houses in the area were unbelievable.
Jonnie and I planned to do as much songwriting as possible during my stay and initially we churned them out. I wrote ‘Happy Valley’, which appeared on my Distant Thunder album, and it still reminds me of those carefree days in Honkers.
The record company had decided we should shoot a video for ‘Ace of Hearts’ in Hong Kong, so Philip Mortlock flew up Phil Deamer, who’d produced the video for ‘Angelou’ a couple of years earlier. Phil decided that we shoul
d employ a model to play my girlfriend and we were like kids in a candy store, thumbing through the photos of all the local models. We decided on a Colombian girl, Vivien, because of her fiery good looks—and her acting ability, of course. She proved to be an excellent choice.
Phil’s choice for the other guy in the story was a gallant Frenchman, a local nightclub identity. The rest of the crew was Chinese. The entire video was great fun. For three days we drove through every little nook and cranny of Hong Kong, including the New Territories, which are extraordinarily beautiful, dotted with ancient villages that must have been unoccupied for who knows how long; the tranquillity around the various waterways was so cathartic. I couldn’t think of a better way to experience Hong Kong.
On the last night of the shoot, Phil directed Vivien and me acting out a vicious lover’s tiff on a busy Hong Kong street. Apparently we acted it out a bit too well. For a long time afterwards I had trouble convincing Susie that there’d been nothing going on between Vivien and myself. Susie refused to believe that I could act that well.
In the last scene of the video, we took the crew up to Vivien’s apartment, about forty floors up. Then Phil wanted to film a rather juicy scene between Vivien and myself. When we learnt that her boyfriend—an Italian New Yorker—was due home at any moment, I leaned over the balcony and freaked. I don’t think we actually went ahead with the scene.
I stayed on for a further few weeks, writing more with Jon. There was so much chatter from all the band members, who were scattered all over the globe. One morning I woke up hours before Jonnie and the fax machine was spewing out an incredibly long document. It took me ages to recognise that it was a six-foot-long drawing of a penis, courtesy of Tim Farriss. At least the guys still had their sense of humour.
The Best Years of Our Lives Page 22