INXS "Kick" (1987): Track by Track!

<v Speaker 1>All right, everybody, welcome to the Surely You Can't Be
<v Speaker 1>Serious Podcast. This week, we are going to dive into
<v Speaker 1>Inexcess's Kick album d This is one of my favorite
<v Speaker 1>albums basically of nineteen eighty eight. I can't wait to
<v Speaker 1>get into this one with you. We are going to
<v Speaker 1>have a good time tonight and the rock and roll
<v Speaker 1>music is going to play all night.
<v Speaker 2>I'm standing you were here. Two worlds collided, and they
<v Speaker 2>will never tear us apart.
<v Speaker 1>As long as you don't ask me what you know
<v Speaker 1>is true, we should be good.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, this may not be the song that we
<v Speaker 2>need to listen to together c Sarea other than for this podcast.
<v Speaker 3>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely You Can't Be
<v Speaker 3>Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
<v Speaker 3>of eighties and nineties.
<v Speaker 1>Pop culture with your co hosts James D.
<v Speaker 2>Graves and Jason Colivin.
<v Speaker 1>Hey everybody, thank you for tuning into the Surely you
<v Speaker 1>Can't Be Serious Podcasts. For this week, we are going
<v Speaker 1>to dive into Inexcess's Kick album Super excited.
<v Speaker 2>To be here. I love so much of the music
<v Speaker 2>on this album. I'm excited to dive into it. But
<v Speaker 2>first you need to know is that we are comparing
<v Speaker 2>this album to George Michael's faith first solo album of
<v Speaker 2>the Bearded Wonder himself, and it's also an incredible album.
<v Speaker 2>So it'll be a neat competition to see which one
<v Speaker 2>of these two amazing albums from nineteen eighty seven head
<v Speaker 2>to head, see which one of them is the pop
<v Speaker 2>star best of the two.
<v Speaker 1>I'm excited because you and I have covered a lot
<v Speaker 1>of sort of heavier bands. We covered Nirvana and Pearl Jam,
<v Speaker 1>We've covered def Leppard and Van Halen, We've done Guns
<v Speaker 1>N' Roses in ACDC. But we're really we're going to
<v Speaker 1>cover all types of eighties bands. I really am excited
<v Speaker 1>what we got coming down the pipe.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we don't want to limit ourselves. We are certainly
<v Speaker 2>rockers at heart, but there's just no denying that some
<v Speaker 2>of these albums that were more in the pop realm
<v Speaker 2>than in the rock realm were huge facets in our
<v Speaker 2>lives during the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, And there's tons of interesting stories as we
<v Speaker 1>dive into these the stories behind the songs, the stories
<v Speaker 1>behind the artists. Both of the singers, George Michael and
<v Speaker 1>Michael hutches. They're gone, They're no longer with us. Yep,
<v Speaker 1>it's going to be interesting to dive in and take
<v Speaker 1>a fresh look and appreciate what they've left behind for us.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, two guys who look better than any other human
<v Speaker 2>being on earth in a leather jacket and no shirt.
<v Speaker 1>Two guys who could have bedded just about any lady
<v Speaker 1>in the entire world in nineteen eighty eight. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know why you're limiting it to lady.
<v Speaker 2>But.
<v Speaker 1>That's true. That's right.
<v Speaker 2>Knowing what we've got in front of us, let's dive in.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, this is really cool. In Excess is kick album.
<v Speaker 1>This is how old this is? It came out October twelfth,
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty seven, on LP and cassette and cassette Yes yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and October twenty six on CD. Had two different release dates,
<v Speaker 1>one for the tape, one for the CD.
<v Speaker 2>Basically so right, CDs were just becoming a thing around
<v Speaker 2>that time.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I didn't have a CD player at this time.
<v Speaker 1>I was cassette all the way, all right. So for
<v Speaker 1>those who are not familiar with this band, it is
<v Speaker 1>actually pronounced in excess right in inks no nothing screamed
<v Speaker 1>you were out of touch more in the eighties than
<v Speaker 1>calling these guys inks.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, so these guys are all from Australia. Michael
<v Speaker 2>Hutchins was born in Australia, then moved to Hong Kong
<v Speaker 2>for a while, then moved back to Australia and that
<v Speaker 2>he was just coming into high school at that time,
<v Speaker 2>and that's where he met Andrew Ferris. It was like
<v Speaker 2>the scene out of My Bodyguard. Michael Hutchins comes to
<v Speaker 2>school in his first ten minutes in school and he's
<v Speaker 2>already in a fight with somebody. And Andrew Ferris happens
<v Speaker 2>to know the guy who's four feet taller than everybody
<v Speaker 2>else and he's like, hey, go break up that fight.
<v Speaker 2>That's how Andrew Ferris and Michael Hutchins meet for the
<v Speaker 2>first time.
<v Speaker 1>That's a super cool story. I mean, we talked about
<v Speaker 1>moments in rock and roll history, right. This was the
<v Speaker 1>biggest band in the world at one time. It started
<v Speaker 1>because a school bully started beating up a guy and
<v Speaker 1>another guy stepped in.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so they became fast friends. But then Michael Hutchins's
<v Speaker 2>parents unfortunately split up and he moved with his mother
<v Speaker 2>to Hollywood for about a year or so he ultimately
<v Speaker 2>moved back, and at that time he met up with
<v Speaker 2>his old friend Andrew Ferris again, who by this time
<v Speaker 2>had started playing music. He actually had started playing long ago,
<v Speaker 2>but he had started putting together bands when Andrew Ferris
<v Speaker 2>was only five years old. His family took a holiday
<v Speaker 2>and they went and they saw the Beatles perform live.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, Yeah, that's awesome. Did I saw Kirk Pingilly talk
<v Speaker 1>about how they were in class? These guys were all five?
<v Speaker 1>These guy went to high school together. Well, first of all,
<v Speaker 1>three of them are brothers, right, right, Tim Ferris, Andrew Ferris,
<v Speaker 1>and John Ferris. You have Gary Gary Beers. That's I
<v Speaker 1>didn't stutter, that's his name, Gary Gary Beers, right, and
<v Speaker 1>then you have Michael Hutchins who was getting beat up
<v Speaker 1>by the by the school bully. These are six guys
<v Speaker 1>who were high school buddies. But I saw I saw
<v Speaker 1>Kirk Pingilly talking about how they were in biologic class
<v Speaker 1>or whatever. And I guess he knew Michael as a
<v Speaker 1>new friend of Andrews. And he looked and sort of
<v Speaker 1>looked over his shoulder in science class and he saw
<v Speaker 1>in his notebook that had sort of sketched out a
<v Speaker 1>drawing of two guitars and he thought, yeah, this guy's
<v Speaker 1>pretty cool and they hit it off right from there.
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's awesome. Yeah, so Gary Gary Beers his real
<v Speaker 2>name is actually Gary William Beers, and it's Gary double
<v Speaker 2>R Gary single R Beers if you if you need
<v Speaker 2>to know the spelling there, and the reason that there's
<v Speaker 2>a double R and single ar is that it was
<v Speaker 2>a misprint on the album In Excess, their first, their
<v Speaker 2>debut album, and he just decided to go with it. Yeah, well,
<v Speaker 2>I'll be Gary double R Gary Singlar Bears, and he
<v Speaker 2>was in a band called legaliss Elfin Warrior in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>seventy five. He played acoustic guitar for them, but he
<v Speaker 2>wasn't really very good at the acoustic guitar, and so
<v Speaker 2>he switched to bass, but then refused to take lessons
<v Speaker 2>and seemed to do well anyway despite the fact that
<v Speaker 2>he wasn't taking lessons, and so he formed Doctor Dolphin
<v Speaker 2>with Andrew Ferris and some other class mates named Jeff Kinley,
<v Speaker 2>Kent Kearney and Neil Sanders, and they can be put
<v Speaker 2>in that category of Mark Stone.
<v Speaker 1>No really, I used to be in in Excess for
<v Speaker 1>about five minutes. Yeah that guy. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So at the same time that they were doing Doctor Dolphin,
<v Speaker 2>Tim Ferris was playing in various groups with his friend
<v Speaker 2>Kirk Pengilly, and John had actually tried out. John was
<v Speaker 2>the youngest of the Farris Brothers. He had tried out
<v Speaker 2>to be a drummer with a band called Guinness with
<v Speaker 2>Tim and Kurt, but he was turned down because he
<v Speaker 2>was nine years old. When finally, you know, the two groups,
<v Speaker 2>Tim Ferris's group and Andrew Ferris's group merged together to
<v Speaker 2>become the Farris Brothers in nineteen seventy seven, John joined
<v Speaker 2>as the drummer. At that time. I can only imagine
<v Speaker 2>that they called themselves the Farris Brothers because like everybody
<v Speaker 2>at their high school knew them as the Farrest Brothers.
<v Speaker 2>Like that was just much easier than trying to figure
<v Speaker 2>out a new band name. They're like, evere knows you guys,
<v Speaker 2>We'll just call you the Farris Brothers.
<v Speaker 1>You know, as dorky as the Firest Brother's band sounds.
<v Speaker 1>Is that any different than Winger or bon Jovi or
<v Speaker 1>Van Halen.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, good point.
<v Speaker 1>I show that they were also called the Vegetables. Sometime
<v Speaker 1>between Doctor Dolphin and in Excess. That name is substantially
<v Speaker 1>less cool than in Excess, slightly slightly less cool than
<v Speaker 1>Doctor Dolphin, way less cool than in Excess.
<v Speaker 2>So once John had graduated from high school, that you
<v Speaker 2>their name to in Excess and they all moved to
<v Speaker 2>Sydney to start doing the pub scene.
<v Speaker 1>Let's talk about the name for just a second. Okay, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I want to get too far ahead. They were supporting
<v Speaker 1>Midnight Oil. Okay, Midnight Oil is a big Australian band,
<v Speaker 1>right Beds of Burning. You probably are familiar with that tune.
<v Speaker 1>That's it, you got it. But one of the guys
<v Speaker 1>from Midnight Oil encouraged them to change their name. He
<v Speaker 1>wanted them to have a new name and he recommended
<v Speaker 1>they change it in Excess. It's I INXS. That was
<v Speaker 1>inspired by the English band x t C Ecstasy, Ecstasy
<v Speaker 1>and IXL. So that's how they came up with the
<v Speaker 1>name In Excessive. All right. So the band's first performance
<v Speaker 1>as In Excess was September one, nineteen seventy nine, at
<v Speaker 1>the Ocean Beach Hotel. And this is the time in
<v Speaker 1>their career where they're kind of kicking around the idea
<v Speaker 1>of being a Christian band.
<v Speaker 2>Oh Yeah. So after performing on the pub scene for
<v Speaker 2>about a year, they landed a record contract and they
<v Speaker 2>released their debut album, which was called In Excess in
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 1>In Excess released their first single simple simon slash We
<v Speaker 1>Are the Vegetables in Australia and France in May of
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 2>Then they had another one called Underneath the Colors in
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty one. Both of those were big in Australia
<v Speaker 2>and that led to them getting a contract with at
<v Speaker 2>Co Records, and in nineteen eighty three they released their
<v Speaker 2>US debut which was Sheaboo Shabba, and they started touring
<v Speaker 2>with a big hit that they had off that album
<v Speaker 2>called Don't Change. So between nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 2>four they did four studio albums. But in nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 2>three they were a part of a festival that we
<v Speaker 2>have talked about before, the festival that involved the largest
<v Speaker 2>paydate for any band in history, that being Van Halen. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>But In Excess was a part of the US Festival
<v Speaker 2>second edition nineteen eighty three, and they talked about performing
<v Speaker 2>there and they got called back out for an encore
<v Speaker 2>and it felt amazing. This is eighty three. This is
<v Speaker 2>before any of these songs have made them international successes,
<v Speaker 2>and they were They got Encore back out, and then
<v Speaker 2>they went home and they had some chili and they
<v Speaker 2>watched the news, and the news was showing only them
<v Speaker 2>as the band for the US Festival. That had to
<v Speaker 2>be amazing.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, five high school buddies who used to copy off
<v Speaker 1>each other in science class are getting on cored at
<v Speaker 1>the US Festival.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, amazing. For the next album that they did, they
<v Speaker 2>did a few sessions with the producer Nile Rogers, and
<v Speaker 2>that's where they got that funky original Sin, which showed
<v Speaker 2>that they were kind of changing their feel from this
<v Speaker 2>kind of wave style to more of a combination of
<v Speaker 2>Rolling Stones type rock and dance music.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let's talk about the original first of all, Nile Rodgers,
<v Speaker 1>who you will remember from our Coming to America episode.
<v Speaker 1>He is the composer that has that big the Lion
<v Speaker 1>Sleeps Tonight intro at the beginning of Coming to America
<v Speaker 1>flashback they are Coming in America episode the original Sin
<v Speaker 1>that song in nineteen eighty four. Yes, that song was
<v Speaker 1>big and impactful, kind of in a negative way. So
<v Speaker 1>I saw this interview with the band. I thought this
<v Speaker 1>was really interesting. So there's a couple of lyrics in
<v Speaker 1>that song, and so some people took that as an
<v Speaker 1>a racial marriage and the world wasn't really ready for that, and.
<v Speaker 2>So certainly not the Bible Belt back in nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 1>Four, that's true. And so there are a lot of
<v Speaker 1>radio stations that wouldn't play that song. And so their manager,
<v Speaker 1>Chris Murphy was brought in before the head of the
<v Speaker 1>record company and basically said, you guys need to stop
<v Speaker 1>giving me this controversial crap and give me hits. You
<v Speaker 1>go talk to your f and band and tell them
<v Speaker 1>to stop this crap and give me something I can
<v Speaker 1>play in the radio.
<v Speaker 2>I feel like the record company is going to be
<v Speaker 2>the bad guy for a couple of stories on this
<v Speaker 2>particular episode.
<v Speaker 1>Before we get off the original sin, I did want
<v Speaker 1>to mention it wasn't like the song wasn't a hit either.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the record company guy was all mad, but
<v Speaker 1>that was a number one hit in Australia, I hit
<v Speaker 1>number one in France, hit number one in Arizena.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean it's a great song. Okay. So they
<v Speaker 2>had worked with producers. They had worked with the producer
<v Speaker 2>now Rogers, and they had also worked with another producer
<v Speaker 2>called Mike Opitz, but then in nineteen eighty five they
<v Speaker 2>decided to go with the producer Christopher Thomas Chris Thomas
<v Speaker 2>for Listen Like Thieves, which I got to listen to
<v Speaker 2>Christopher Thomas talk about. He is an interesting guy. So
<v Speaker 2>he was. He was born in forty seven. Just to
<v Speaker 2>give you a bass here, and he knew how to
<v Speaker 2>play instruments. He actually got offered a job to play
<v Speaker 2>bass with Jimmy Hendrix, but it was before Jimmy Hendrix
<v Speaker 2>became famous, so he's like, no thanks. And then he
<v Speaker 2>was like, what, I don't really like performing live. I
<v Speaker 2>really like being in the studio more. And so he decided, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I think I'd prefer to be on the
<v Speaker 2>production side of things. And so he decides, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to write a letter to George Martin, the
<v Speaker 2>guy who produces the Beatles albums, and see if he'll
<v Speaker 2>get me a job. He did, he did, wow, And
<v Speaker 2>so he's the Beatles are working on the White Album,
<v Speaker 2>which is like, I mean, it's one of their biggest
<v Speaker 2>albums of all time, and George Martin is there and
<v Speaker 2>then Chris Thomas goes on this holiday, goes on a vacation,
<v Speaker 2>as we call him here in the United States, and
<v Speaker 2>when he comes back, there's just a note from George
<v Speaker 2>and he says, I hope you enjoyed your holiday. I'm
<v Speaker 2>going on my holiday. Now you're in charge, this twenty
<v Speaker 2>year old guy in charge of producing a Beatles album.
<v Speaker 2>And so he's like okay, and then Paul McCartney walks
<v Speaker 2>in and he's like, where's George, and CAUs like he's left,
<v Speaker 2>and he's He looks at him and he's like, so,
<v Speaker 2>are you going to produce the album? And he says, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's I guess that's what's happening. He's like, well, I
<v Speaker 2>guess if you can produce, you can produce. And you know,
<v Speaker 2>he's probably just testing him. I mean he had to know,
<v Speaker 2>Like George Martin didn't just leave and not tell Paul McCartney.
<v Speaker 2>But Paul McCartney's totally screwing with him. And so they
<v Speaker 2>go down and they start playing and he's doing the
<v Speaker 2>best that he can. He's kind of quiet in the
<v Speaker 2>booth and the band would have meetings. They owned Apple
<v Speaker 2>Records at that point, and they would have meetings in
<v Speaker 2>the middle of their sessions about Apple Records, and he
<v Speaker 2>happens to overhear them talking in this meeting and they're like,
<v Speaker 2>this guy's just not doing his job at all, and
<v Speaker 2>they're probably talking about an Apple Records employee. But he thinks,
<v Speaker 2>oh gosh, it's me. I'm fired. I'm so fired. And
<v Speaker 2>that just gives him nothing to lose. And so when
<v Speaker 2>they go back for their afternoon session and they start
<v Speaker 2>recording again, they're playing their song through and all of
<v Speaker 2>a sudden, he buzzes from the booth and he's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>we're going to need to do that one again. There's mistake.
<v Speaker 2>They like, what the Beatles the Beatles the Beatles like,
<v Speaker 2>there wasn't a mistake. He's like, there's a mistake. You
<v Speaker 2>need to start it over again, and they come up
<v Speaker 2>to the booth. They come up to the booth and
<v Speaker 2>he's sitting there, little twenty year old guy, and they're like,
<v Speaker 2>what mistake. He replays on the tape and they listen
<v Speaker 2>to it and they go, okay, yeah, that was a mistake. Sorry,
<v Speaker 2>they and they go back down and start recording. And
<v Speaker 2>at the end of the day, when he's expecting to
<v Speaker 2>get fired. They're like, okay, bye. He's like, do I
<v Speaker 2>come back tomorrow if you want to?
<v Speaker 1>And that was it.
<v Speaker 2>So he became He became this producer for the Beatles
<v Speaker 2>White album, ended up playing music like he played keyboards
<v Speaker 2>on some of the songs in the White Album and
<v Speaker 2>became this huge producer.
<v Speaker 1>That's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Did Pretenders, did Sex Pistols, did Pink Floyd And so
<v Speaker 2>then we fast forward. It's time for Inexcess to come
<v Speaker 2>knocking on this guy's door. So he is the producer
<v Speaker 2>for the album Listen Like Thieves, And it's just it's
<v Speaker 2>another one of these stories that I know that we've
<v Speaker 2>told multiple times, where they've recorded all of the music
<v Speaker 2>on the album, they have a day left of time
<v Speaker 2>to record and Chris Thomas says, we still don't have
<v Speaker 2>a hit, and so they scramble and they put something
<v Speaker 2>together and they record it that day in a bit
<v Speaker 2>of passion and fury, and it is called Right. And
<v Speaker 2>the song that they record is called what you Need.
<v Speaker 1>This song was huge in nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 2>What you Need reached that key piece of success that
<v Speaker 2>so many bands that we have talked about so far
<v Speaker 2>have reached that I feel I could be remiss not
<v Speaker 2>to mention it. It was covered by weird Al Yankovic
<v Speaker 2>in his nineteen eighty six Poka Parties.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, another appearance by weird Al on the show that
<v Speaker 1>You Can't Be Serious podcast.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not sure that the Muppets are going to come
<v Speaker 2>up in this episode, but we've got to have one
<v Speaker 2>or the other in just about every single episode, I think.
<v Speaker 1>All right, So, after What you Need becomes this huge
<v Speaker 1>hit in nineteen eighty five, they had this eight month
<v Speaker 1>break where they're beginning to work on a new album
<v Speaker 1>what we're going to talk about here in a minute,
<v Speaker 1>their manager Chris Murphy decided to take a bunch of
<v Speaker 1>bands have this big outdoor Australian concert. It was going
<v Speaker 1>to feature in Excess and Jimmy Barnes and the Models
<v Speaker 1>and the the Vinyls and Mental as Anything, all these
<v Speaker 1>sort of big Australian bands, and so to promote the
<v Speaker 1>tour and Excess recorded two songs. They recorded a song
<v Speaker 1>with Jimmy Barnes that was a cover of the Easybats
<v Speaker 1>tune good Times, and they also recorded the song Laying
<v Speaker 1>Down the Law good Times. You may remember as the
<v Speaker 1>theme song from the movie The Lost Boys.
<v Speaker 2>The Easybeat you may remember, was the band started by
<v Speaker 2>Georgie Young, brother of Angus and Malcolm Young from our
<v Speaker 2>ac DC episode.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so this song good Times is a fantastic song.
<v Speaker 1>This is where I jump on board with in excess.
<v Speaker 1>First of all, I love the movie The Lost Boys.
<v Speaker 1>I'm a big fan of the soundtrack. One of the
<v Speaker 1>things about this band, like George Michael, like Def Flapper,
<v Speaker 1>like bon Jovi, like Motley Crewe, all these guys were
<v Speaker 1>gonna cover, is their timing is absolutely perfect for MTV.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely They have a.
<v Speaker 1>Great looking, charismatic front man that MTV can put at
<v Speaker 1>the front of their videos and teenagers all over the
<v Speaker 1>world will watch.
<v Speaker 2>And he has a very unique voice, like he's I
<v Speaker 2>mean in this album that we're about to talk about.
<v Speaker 2>He grunts, he shouts, he whispers, and he's got this
<v Speaker 2>kind of breath y It's not like what you would
<v Speaker 2>describe as a beautiful voice. It's just it's full and resonant,
<v Speaker 2>like a twelve string guitar. It's just it's engaging, like
<v Speaker 2>you want to listen to him sing.
<v Speaker 1>That's true, And he always had a complex about his voice.
<v Speaker 1>He didn't think he was any good?
<v Speaker 2>Oh right, yeah, we didn't even talk about how he
<v Speaker 2>became their singer. Like the Farris brothers were together and
<v Speaker 2>were playing together and he was just over and Andrew Ferris
<v Speaker 2>hands him a microphone and says, I want you to
<v Speaker 2>try singing, and he kind of awkwardly sings. But they
<v Speaker 2>said that's it, that's what we want. And Kirk Pengilly
<v Speaker 2>had been the singer for his band with Tim Ferriss,
<v Speaker 2>but once they heard Michael Hutchins sing, Kirk said, I'll
<v Speaker 2>be the backup singer from now on.
<v Speaker 1>So after this of Listen Like Thieves and particularly the
<v Speaker 1>song what You Need, they go back to the studio
<v Speaker 1>to work on their next album Yes.
<v Speaker 2>In January nineteen eighty seven, they go into Rhinoceros Studios,
<v Speaker 2>which is in Sydney, and they start recording Kick. This
<v Speaker 2>is their sixth studio album. They bring Chris Thomas back
<v Speaker 2>to produce. They were on such a high from their
<v Speaker 2>success that Nicholas said that when they started recording, he said,
<v Speaker 2>there was this really good feeling in the studio that
<v Speaker 2>this was going to be something big. The band had
<v Speaker 2>just come off a really successful tour of the US
<v Speaker 2>on the back of listen like Thieves, which really broke
<v Speaker 2>them and they were on fire.
<v Speaker 1>According to guitarist and saxophonist Kirk Pengilly, he said, we
<v Speaker 1>wanted to make an album where all the songs could
<v Speaker 1>be possible singles.
<v Speaker 2>Andrew Ferriss said, anyone can write a song that sounds contemporary.
<v Speaker 2>We wanted our songs to sound like the future.
<v Speaker 1>In preparation for this podcast, I watched some of their
<v Speaker 1>early videos. They seem more kind of like like Devo
<v Speaker 1>or something. They're kind of new wave and they're definitely
<v Speaker 1>not the pop rock, you know, hit making band that
<v Speaker 1>they later became. All right, so I think you mentioned this,
<v Speaker 1>but I did want to talk about this for just
<v Speaker 1>a second. Towards the end of nineteen eighty six, the
<v Speaker 1>band members gathered at the Sydney Opera House to rehearse
<v Speaker 1>songs that later became the album Kick. Is there any
<v Speaker 1>better place for an Australian band to meet and rehearse
<v Speaker 1>other than the Sydney Opera House?
<v Speaker 2>I mean, Okay, So during the production of this album,
<v Speaker 2>they were still booking dates for the band's upcoming European tour,
<v Speaker 2>and this was irritating Chris Thomas because he felt like
<v Speaker 2>they were devoting so much time to that that they
<v Speaker 2>weren't creating good songs. And he said, they had this
<v Speaker 2>incredible momentum building and we're gaining fans all the time,
<v Speaker 2>and there was this audience waiting for this product. But
<v Speaker 2>I decided they didn't have the right songs yet. And
<v Speaker 2>so what he said to him was, you guys need
<v Speaker 2>to go be alone for a while and write some
<v Speaker 2>more songs before this album, Like the band was credited
<v Speaker 2>as the writers of the song, but before they produced
<v Speaker 2>this album. Based on the success of What You Need,
<v Speaker 2>Hutchins and Andrew Ferriss said to the rest of the band,
<v Speaker 2>we would like to write all of the songs for
<v Speaker 2>this album. And the rest of the band said that
<v Speaker 2>sounds good to us.
<v Speaker 1>So remember that song called what You Need that you
<v Speaker 1>guys wrote, and we think it's pretty good. So if
<v Speaker 1>you can come up with about nine or ten of those,
<v Speaker 1>that'd be great.
<v Speaker 2>So Thomas at the time that they were doing stuff,
<v Speaker 2>said okay, you guys need to fly out to Hong
<v Speaker 2>Kong and you got to write some more mature and
<v Speaker 2>so that's what they did. They spent two weeks out
<v Speaker 2>there writing stuff. So many of the songs are these
<v Speaker 2>inspiration five minutes ten minute long masterpieces that just kind
<v Speaker 2>of are divinely inspired.
<v Speaker 1>So I don't know if we want to jump into
<v Speaker 1>this now, but before we break down the songs, their manager,
<v Speaker 1>Chris Murphy gathers up the album as a meeting with
<v Speaker 1>the head of the record company, sits down with him
<v Speaker 1>and they hit play and they're gonna listen to the
<v Speaker 1>entire album. The head of the record company listens to
<v Speaker 1>the entire album, sitting there dead silent, arms crossed, and
<v Speaker 1>when the tape hit stop, he said, I'll give you
<v Speaker 1>a million dollars to start completely over and throw this
<v Speaker 1>in the garbage. And the manager's like, what are you
<v Speaker 1>talking about. I mean, this is the album. He's like, no,
<v Speaker 1>this is garbage. This is not good. Start over and
<v Speaker 1>he said, I'm sorry, did you say a million dollars?
<v Speaker 1>He said, I'll give you a million dollars to start fresh.
<v Speaker 1>And he said at that time, none of them had
<v Speaker 1>seeing a million bucks. I mean, so it's a real temptation.
<v Speaker 1>And Chris Murphy's like, dude, I mean, did you hear
<v Speaker 1>need you tonight? I mean, this is a smash hit.
<v Speaker 1>Are you crazy? And the guy's like, no million bucks,
<v Speaker 1>and Chris Murphy he walks out of the office and
<v Speaker 1>he says, I'm not doing that, And so he started
<v Speaker 1>to send the songs to college radio. When college radio
<v Speaker 1>started playing these songs and people started requesting them, and
<v Speaker 1>all of a sudden, Boom needs you tonight. Is like
<v Speaker 1>getting a requests stid left and right. And they realized
<v Speaker 1>this sounds like a hit, and then the record company
<v Speaker 1>back down.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they finally decided to add Kick to their release
<v Speaker 2>schedule for October.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we ready to dive in.
<v Speaker 2>Let's do it.
<v Speaker 1>First song right off the bat in your face, it's
<v Speaker 1>called Guns in the Sky.
<v Speaker 2>So this song came from even though these were Australian guys,
<v Speaker 2>this came from Reagan's plan called the sd I, which
<v Speaker 2>was more colloquially known in our day back in the
<v Speaker 2>eighties as star Wars, that there would be machines up
<v Speaker 2>in the sky that would be able to shoot down
<v Speaker 2>Soviet missiles to keep them from the Soviets from being
<v Speaker 2>able to bomb the United States. And I got to
<v Speaker 2>tell you that that probably led to the Soviets going
<v Speaker 2>that you guys win. I guess I give you're seriously
<v Speaker 2>gonna have lasers in the sky. So so Michael Hutchins
<v Speaker 2>writes this song with his idea being why are we
<v Speaker 2>going to spend money on lasers in the sky when
<v Speaker 2>there's so many more worthy causes that can help people.
<v Speaker 2>There's actually a video for this one. I had never
<v Speaker 2>seen it before, but it's this is one of many
<v Speaker 2>videos directed by Richard Lowenstein from this album, and it's
<v Speaker 2>it's just Michael Hutchins walking down the hallway filled with
<v Speaker 2>the band members, intermingled with images of Reagan and Gorbachev
<v Speaker 2>and the words sd I.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so I watched this video. I really like this
<v Speaker 1>video number one. It's uh, it's constant movement, right. So
<v Speaker 1>the song's really rocky, you know, heavy guitars, especially for them,
<v Speaker 1>and it's a lot of yelling like guns in the sky,
<v Speaker 1>you know. But they're walking down the hallways and they're
<v Speaker 1>all playing the guitars. I think I was telling this. So,
<v Speaker 1>you know, some of the guys play keyboard, one of
<v Speaker 1>the guys plays a saxophone. You know, you have drummer
<v Speaker 1>and bass and guitarists, but they all know how to
<v Speaker 1>play guitar. And so Michael Hutchins along with he's being
<v Speaker 1>escorted by four other guys who are playing strong guitar
<v Speaker 1>and the drummer. But they're walking down the hallways of
<v Speaker 1>a hotel in constant movement. Right. The camera just keeps
<v Speaker 1>moving and it looks to me like it's the freaking
<v Speaker 1>Overlook Hotel from the Shining But but yeah, they're interspliced
<v Speaker 1>with big words and it's guns and sky and SDI
<v Speaker 1>USA CCCP if you remember those days, right, And then
<v Speaker 1>at the very end it says in excess stop, I
<v Speaker 1>love this song. It's a great kickoff song to the album.
<v Speaker 1>It's high energy. Like I said, it's a hard rocking,
<v Speaker 1>rocking song for them, and it's like a chin it's
<v Speaker 1>like a fist bumper, you know. In the concert you're
<v Speaker 1>yelling guns in the sky. I will make minch too
<v Speaker 1>that during this time in my life, of course, I'm
<v Speaker 1>fourteen and nineteen eighty seven Star Wars defense program. I
<v Speaker 1>was all on board just because it's called Star Wars.
<v Speaker 2>Wars. Yes, when do we get to meet Luke?
<v Speaker 1>I freaking love star Wars.
<v Speaker 2>That that's a bit of brilliant marketing right there is
<v Speaker 2>with that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly, I think that Han and Cheuwei. You're gonna
<v Speaker 1>be chasing down missiles, but I'm not sure. Some interesting
<v Speaker 1>lyrics on this one. So this song was actually not
<v Speaker 1>written by Andrew Ferris and Michael Hutchins. This is just
<v Speaker 1>Michael Hutchins by himself. He wrote this one all by himself.
<v Speaker 2>Right, well supposedly, Okay, yeah, I mean so they they
<v Speaker 2>as the duo, wrote all of the songs on this album,
<v Speaker 2>but they had decided together, hey, well you'll you'll have one,
<v Speaker 2>I'll have one, and so Guns in the Sky was
<v Speaker 2>Michael Hutchins one and Meditate was Andrew ferris is one.
<v Speaker 2>But really they ended up helping each other out on
<v Speaker 2>those two on both of those songs as well. It's
<v Speaker 2>really really the duo on all of them. But yes,
<v Speaker 2>the Guns in the Sky was primarily Michael Hutchinson.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, that's cool. There's some interesting lyrics in this one.
<v Speaker 1>You know these are concert type lyrics, right, so you
<v Speaker 1>raise them up, you bring them down like a clock
<v Speaker 1>at two. It's concert stuff. Put your hands all right,
<v Speaker 1>you in the back like a clock at two. So
<v Speaker 1>the next track on the album is New Sensation Moment. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>this song is amazing. This is a pop masterpiece. The
<v Speaker 1>hook is incredible in the.
<v Speaker 2>Song, one of the best songs on the album, arguably
<v Speaker 2>the best. Not my favorite, but arguably the best song
<v Speaker 2>on the album.
<v Speaker 1>I would say the same thing. It's not my favorite,
<v Speaker 1>but it's arguably the best. This song reached number three
<v Speaker 1>on the US charts, the number one song in the
<v Speaker 1>country that week hold on to the Knights by Richard Marx.
<v Speaker 1>Right the number two song was Pour Some Sugar on
<v Speaker 1>Me by def Leppard Flashback to our Hysteria episode, and
<v Speaker 1>then number three New Sensation at number three for the record,
<v Speaker 1>New Sensation is a way better song than hold On
<v Speaker 1>to the Knights by Richard Marx.
<v Speaker 2>For Richard Marks, I did actually like a couple of
<v Speaker 2>his songs, but we do kind of trounce on him
<v Speaker 2>a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>We do, and I'm sorry about that. Maybe we should.
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, no, I'm not saying we're wrong. I was
<v Speaker 2>still a way better. So you went to a Richard
<v Speaker 2>Marks concert.
<v Speaker 1>I did, We're too So my girlfriend forgot our coat
<v Speaker 1>and the cold front moved in and I froze my
<v Speaker 1>butt off.
<v Speaker 2>So this song, the lyrics are about seizing the day,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the celebration of life, which is really I mean,
<v Speaker 2>certainly for Michael Hutchins what he's he seemed to be
<v Speaker 2>all about the music. You you got a banjo in there,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that's that's a surprise for me for an
<v Speaker 2>Australian new wave slash dance, slash funk slash rock band.
<v Speaker 2>Throw some band some banjo in there. But what you
<v Speaker 2>don't have in there is a trumpet. Even though Michael
<v Speaker 2>Hutchins yells trumpet before the sax solo, Tim Ferris wanted
<v Speaker 2>this to be a trumpet solo. He wanted to do
<v Speaker 2>the trumpet solo on this track, but Ngilly, who always
<v Speaker 2>does their saxophone solo, said no, sir, we are going
<v Speaker 2>to like this a sax solo because we do sax solos.
<v Speaker 2>So if you were only familiar with this song from
<v Speaker 2>the video, you're not gonna know what I'm talking about
<v Speaker 2>because they took that trumpet part out because how stupid
<v Speaker 2>would it have looked for.
<v Speaker 1>Michael Hutchinds to go trumpet.
<v Speaker 2>He comes out with a saxophone.
<v Speaker 1>Okay. So the video for the song, like you mentioned,
<v Speaker 1>it was directed by Richard Lowenstein. It was filmed on
<v Speaker 1>the roof of the Municipal house in Prague.
<v Speaker 2>So Richard Lowenstein before, like I said, he's gonna come
<v Speaker 2>up a few more times, but I gotta say it now.
<v Speaker 2>Richard Lowenstein also directed a movie called Dogs in Space
<v Speaker 2>starring Michael Hutchins. I can't say that I've seen it.
<v Speaker 1>This is actually their most played live song of all time.
<v Speaker 2>This is the video that has Michael Hutchins with his
<v Speaker 2>hair slick back. Right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he's wearing a tie, like a coat and a tie.
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, so totally different, totally different looks. And when
<v Speaker 2>I went back and watched it again, I was like,
<v Speaker 2>this is very Robert Palmer, Like this is I mean,
<v Speaker 2>he's got the band and behind him instead of you know,
<v Speaker 2>girls pretending to play music. But it's very Robert Palmer.
<v Speaker 2>And then we also have this very cool effect that's
<v Speaker 2>another part of the video where the band is singing
<v Speaker 2>in kind of a stop motion style the lyrics to
<v Speaker 2>the song as these tracers of lights go.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's really cool.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, very reminiscent of the Sledgehammer video, that's right. And
<v Speaker 2>so yeah, there's some pretty cool, cool effects going on.
<v Speaker 2>Cool things that they did with this video.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna mention in February of twenty fourteen, the
<v Speaker 1>mini series and Excess Never Tear Us Apart on Australia television,
<v Speaker 1>which I would love to see. I couldn't find it
<v Speaker 1>on YouTube. I was looking for it. I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>watch it. New Sensation charted again in Australia after that
<v Speaker 1>mini series aired. Sometimes I like to think about the
<v Speaker 1>track listing, right, and for me, album ought to be
<v Speaker 1>like a concert, right. You start off with a bang,
<v Speaker 1>then you kind of ramp up to your hits, and
<v Speaker 1>then you mix in a few softers and then you
<v Speaker 1>close with the encore. Guns in the Sky is a
<v Speaker 1>great beginning. It's real short, but I think maybe New
<v Speaker 1>Sensation would have been a great kickoff song for this album.
<v Speaker 1>Sure pop it in push play and you get that boom,
<v Speaker 1>that hook right off the back. Great song, huge, huge song.
<v Speaker 1>This was their third single, released March thirty first, nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty eight.
<v Speaker 2>We Ready to go on?
<v Speaker 1>Are we moving on?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? All right? Yes?
<v Speaker 1>Next track on the album is.
<v Speaker 4>Devil Inside, Devil Inside, every single one of those side
<v Speaker 4>the Woman the Loki.
<v Speaker 1>With Flesh on the all right. So this was the
<v Speaker 1>second single, Yeah, released February thirteenth, nineteen eighty eighty one.
<v Speaker 1>This reached number two on the Hot one hundred.
<v Speaker 2>This is another killer song. The beat is so solid
<v Speaker 2>and so strong. Dun't dun du du u d d
<v Speaker 2>d duh da, No, don't du duh it's it is awesome.
<v Speaker 2>And the lyrics again, they just use that kind of
<v Speaker 2>they're forbidden and you know what you want that you
<v Speaker 2>can't get. And Hutchins said when he was writing these lyrics,
<v Speaker 2>he was in kind of a God in the Devil phase,
<v Speaker 2>and he said he thought that it kind of had
<v Speaker 2>to do with the chaos of everything, and when you
<v Speaker 2>put it into religious terms, the devil is the thing
<v Speaker 2>that's chaotic, this is what he said, so that every
<v Speaker 2>time you think something is right, he comes in and
<v Speaker 2>changes everything. Kind of a sad concept when you consider
<v Speaker 2>his life.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, his personal life ends in complete chaos. But
<v Speaker 1>we'll talk about that later. Yeah, the beginning of this song,
<v Speaker 1>you have that sort of Caribbean type of sound and
<v Speaker 1>then you have that real hard strum of the guitar
<v Speaker 1>and at that moment, I'm like, I'm in.
<v Speaker 2>I'm in.
<v Speaker 1>This song is great. Five seconds into the song and
<v Speaker 1>I love it already.
<v Speaker 2>So video for this one, Kirk Bengilly was not a
<v Speaker 2>fan because he felt like it was too American, which
<v Speaker 2>I don't really know what that means. But it was
<v Speaker 2>filmed in California, so I can guess I can see
<v Speaker 2>how that would be pretty American. I can tell you
<v Speaker 2>that anytime, I can forget all things about this video,
<v Speaker 2>but the girl in the white dress getting onto the
<v Speaker 2>back of the motorcycle with the black leather clad bikers,
<v Speaker 2>it's going to be etched into my memory for it.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, this video had I mean it had the
<v Speaker 1>devil mask right, like Michael Hutchins had that double mask
<v Speaker 1>on backwards. Ye when he flips around to do that. Right.
<v Speaker 1>But it's in a bar. You've got the skateboard, which
<v Speaker 1>is kind of cool. You've got all these sixty girls.
<v Speaker 1>It has a lost boys type of feel to it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and you have this kind of beat it moment
<v Speaker 2>where the two you know rival, You got the white preppy,
<v Speaker 2>you know, elite coming up against the black leather biker gang.
<v Speaker 2>And then the band starts walking through like Michael Jackson
<v Speaker 2>pushing everybody apart, but more and more of a kind
<v Speaker 2>of I don't know, sultry and you know, move out,
<v Speaker 2>of our wig as We're coming through kind of way.
<v Speaker 1>The reason why this video has a Lost Boys feel
<v Speaker 1>is because it was directed by Joel.
<v Speaker 2>Schumacher, who directed The Lost Boys.
<v Speaker 1>Who directed The Lost Boys. Yeah, and he directed the
<v Speaker 1>video as a favorite to them for them contributing those
<v Speaker 1>two songs to his movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yep. He did not direct another music video until Kiss
<v Speaker 2>from a Rose by Seal, which was on the soundtrack
<v Speaker 2>for Batman Forever. Joel Schumacher did a good job with
<v Speaker 2>The Lost Boys, but I don't know that there's been
<v Speaker 2>another movie that I thought was great of his.
<v Speaker 1>He did a great job with The Lost Boys, and
<v Speaker 1>I'll stop there. I know our good friend John reid
<v Speaker 1>Over at the thirty something podcast is a huge fan
<v Speaker 1>of Batman and Robin That's joke, really joke sod like, no,
<v Speaker 1>it's not right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Shout out to the thirty something Podcast.
<v Speaker 2>Love those guys. When you're done with this episode, download
<v Speaker 2>their episodes, especially the Batman from eighty nine.
<v Speaker 1>Devil Inside made it to number two. I want to
<v Speaker 1>know what songs are good enough to keep this out
<v Speaker 1>of the number one spot, And as it turns out,
<v Speaker 1>there are two songs that are good enough to keep
<v Speaker 1>it out of the number one spot, all right. So, yep,
<v Speaker 1>that week in nineteen eighty eight, the first time it
<v Speaker 1>was blocked, it was blocked by Get Out of My Dreams,
<v Speaker 1>Get Into My Car by Billy Ocean, And then the
<v Speaker 1>next week Whitney Houston jumps over him with where Do
<v Speaker 1>Broken Hearts.
<v Speaker 2>Go, which is not even her best song.
<v Speaker 1>No Devil Inside is way better than both of those songs. Now, yep,
<v Speaker 1>these songs come on on my radio. Secretly I'm turning
<v Speaker 1>them up. But double Inside is louder. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>I hate to tell you, I don't think he's a
<v Speaker 2>secret anymore.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you know where's their weapons? Sharper than night? Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So this brings us to probably their most famous, best known.
<v Speaker 2>Again arguably the best song on the album. You know
<v Speaker 2>we talk. We talked all the time about how much
<v Speaker 2>nostalgia is playing into our feelings behind a particular song.
<v Speaker 2>And I've got to say that the video for this
<v Speaker 2>one has a huge nostalgia impact for me. This video
<v Speaker 2>was on and on and on, and I watched it
<v Speaker 2>every time that it came on. I was fascinated. It
<v Speaker 2>was really really unique style of video. And then their
<v Speaker 2>combination of meditate at the end, which was a totally
<v Speaker 2>different style but was still very cool. I just was, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>this this is a song that I'm going to listen
<v Speaker 2>to and I'm still gonna I want to think of
<v Speaker 2>all of the cool effects that were going on with
<v Speaker 2>this video.
<v Speaker 1>It's super super cool video, great song. So this was
<v Speaker 1>actually their first release. This is the one that their manager,
<v Speaker 1>Chris Murphy to college radio and said, play this, we
<v Speaker 1>think this is a hit. Play this song, see what happens.
<v Speaker 1>And it turns out it was a hit. This reached
<v Speaker 1>number one on the Hot one hundred. This is their
<v Speaker 1>only number one hit, Number one January thirtieth, nineteen eighty eight,
<v Speaker 1>knocking out of the number one spot. The Way You
<v Speaker 1>Make Me Feel by Michael Jackson flashback to Our Bad
<v Speaker 1>episode episode two.
<v Speaker 2>I Believe Yeah, this one. It was also monumental on MTV.
<v Speaker 2>It won five different MTV Music Video Awards, including Best Video.
<v Speaker 2>They ended up playing the final song that night. It
<v Speaker 2>was It was a big sweep for the MTV Video
<v Speaker 2>Music Awards.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they won five moon Men on the MTV Music Awards.
<v Speaker 2>You'll remember from the video seeing John Ferris standing up
<v Speaker 2>with no drums but playing with drumsticks Allah Journey Separate
<v Speaker 2>Ways video, although this is a much much cooler effect.
<v Speaker 1>Well, they didn't do it at the wharf, which you know.
<v Speaker 2>This is the leather jacket no Shirt video where Michael
<v Speaker 2>Hutchins is walking around. So it's seductively that it makes
<v Speaker 2>me feel uncomfortable as a heterosexual.
<v Speaker 1>But it.
<v Speaker 2>Is something that blasted them into the spot, like this
<v Speaker 2>is the one that made them a worldwide, major, huge success.
<v Speaker 2>So the guitar riff on this one is incredibly famous.
<v Speaker 2>And it appeared to Andrew Ferris in his head as
<v Speaker 2>he was just about to get into a cab to
<v Speaker 2>fly to the airport to Hong Kong, and so he
<v Speaker 2>said to the cab driver, wait just a couple of minutes.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna go grab something from my room. And then
<v Speaker 2>he went up to his room and spent the next
<v Speaker 2>forty five minutes recording the riff and came back down
<v Speaker 2>an hour later, and the cab driver was very unhappy,
<v Speaker 2>and Michael Hutchins started writing the lyric immediately and wrote
<v Speaker 2>them all within ten minutes.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we're done with need You Tonight.
<v Speaker 2>Well here's the thing is need You Tonight part of
<v Speaker 2>another song or not.
<v Speaker 1>That's an interesting question.
<v Speaker 2>I say, no, okay, well you know, then here's my
<v Speaker 2>next question for you. If you are listening to the
<v Speaker 2>radio and they play we Will Rock You and they
<v Speaker 2>don't play we are the Champions after that, are you irritated?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, easily. I don't really understand that. But they go
<v Speaker 1>together like peas and carrots.
<v Speaker 2>For some reason, they were they're recording medi eight and
<v Speaker 2>somehow somebody had left a tape on of Need You
<v Speaker 2>Tonight in the background, and so as they're like, oh, wait,
<v Speaker 2>you know, there's something else going on, and they stopped
<v Speaker 2>and they listened to it to see if you could
<v Speaker 2>hear the song. And as they listen, they're like, wait
<v Speaker 2>a minute, this actually fits really really well. The click
<v Speaker 2>track was the same speed, and so Andrew Ferriss said,
<v Speaker 2>you know what, I think we need to kind of
<v Speaker 2>have these songs merged together at the end, and so
<v Speaker 2>that's exactly what they did. So I guess at this
<v Speaker 2>point we're moving on to mediate or meditate or meditate.
<v Speaker 1>Or try not to hate or love your mate or
<v Speaker 1>don't suffocate, right right, So this song is not was
<v Speaker 1>never released as a single, but they played it at
<v Speaker 1>the end of the video Need You Tonight. It's modeled
<v Speaker 1>after Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues video If you've ever
<v Speaker 1>seen that, They flip over que cards and there's words
<v Speaker 1>written on them, and then Kirk Bengilly has his saxophone
<v Speaker 1>solo at the end.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so yeah, so the song mediate was actually longer.
<v Speaker 2>The engineer said that when he rewound his tape and
<v Speaker 2>hit play just as Needs You Tonight ended, it synced
<v Speaker 2>up so perfectly that he actually thought there was something wrong.
<v Speaker 2>And so that's how that's how they came together.
<v Speaker 1>You've seen this video, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So the Q cards, just like in the Bob
<v Speaker 2>d version, have some misspelled words on there. And then
<v Speaker 2>whenever he whenever he talks about an important date, you know,
<v Speaker 2>the date that comes.
<v Speaker 1>Up, Yeah, nine to eight nineteen forty five.
<v Speaker 2>Which if you're in the United States like US, that
<v Speaker 2>sounds like September eighth, nineteen forty five, which is not
<v Speaker 2>a particularly eventful date. However, uh huh. That's not the
<v Speaker 2>format that people in Australia and New Zealand and some
<v Speaker 2>of the other countries in the world use, which is
<v Speaker 2>to put the day first and then the month and
<v Speaker 2>then the year, and when you do that, that is
<v Speaker 2>the ninth of August nineteen forty five, which.
<v Speaker 1>That refers to the date that the atomic bomb was
<v Speaker 1>dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. That's incredible, that's incredible. Yeah. When
<v Speaker 1>I saw that as a kid, I'm like, what the heck.
<v Speaker 1>First of all, I didn't have Google back then, so
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't look it up.
<v Speaker 2>Especially even if you had World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica.
<v Speaker 2>You could not just go look up a date.
<v Speaker 1>That's right. I was going through National g Graphics left
<v Speaker 1>and right. I couldn't find anything. Okay for me, Media
<v Speaker 1>eight is just kind of an extension of Need You Tonight.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what'd you think of it? I mean, yeah, no,
<v Speaker 2>for me, this is a part of this is a
<v Speaker 2>part of this song. To me, I want that ending,
<v Speaker 2>especially if I'm watching the videos. But no, it's such
<v Speaker 2>a great transition that they do from Need You Tonight
<v Speaker 2>into this song and then once that sax solo comes in,
<v Speaker 2>it's totally different. Is it totally different sound? But it's
<v Speaker 2>beautiful and I love it.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's move on. That brings us to the
<v Speaker 1>song the loved One. This is a original hit by
<v Speaker 1>the Australian R and B band called the loved Ones.
<v Speaker 1>This was a hit in May of nineteen sixty six.
<v Speaker 1>I love this song. This is one of my favorite
<v Speaker 1>songs on the album.
<v Speaker 2>This one. They had actually recorded it twice. The original
<v Speaker 2>The original studio version was done as a standalone single
<v Speaker 2>in March of nineteen eighty one in Australia only and
<v Speaker 2>it ended up at number twenty on the National charts,
<v Speaker 2>and it was later on the compilation album. They did
<v Speaker 2>an eighty two call in Excessive. Then they re recorded
<v Speaker 2>it for this album and it sounds better now. I
<v Speaker 2>will say that I'm not a huge fan of the lyrics.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, obviously they didn't write the lyrics, but I
<v Speaker 2>think what they do with the music on this is solid.
<v Speaker 2>It's such a great intro. The music is fantastic. The
<v Speaker 2>band does a great job with this one and singing.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there's not a problem with Michael Hutchins's voice.
<v Speaker 2>I just think the chorus of the song's kind of sophomoric.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's just not very interesting to me. So
<v Speaker 2>it's not my favorite. But but as far as the
<v Speaker 2>music goes, I think they do a great job.
<v Speaker 1>I love it. So we've covered Pearl Jam, and we've
<v Speaker 1>talked about how Eddie Vedder tries to cram a whole
<v Speaker 1>bunch of words into a song and sometimes it's difficult
<v Speaker 1>to understand what he's saying. These just flow right out
<v Speaker 1>and they're so singable. You have that Oh baby, I
<v Speaker 1>love you so, I need you now, I want you back.
<v Speaker 1>I can't go on when I'm so simple. It's simple.
<v Speaker 2>It's simple and boring. It's boring. I just think, I
<v Speaker 2>think it's great.
<v Speaker 1>Anytime we're driving down the road and I want on
<v Speaker 1>Kathy to come out right, I put this in and
<v Speaker 1>turn it up and she is singing and waving, and
<v Speaker 1>she and I are both big fans of The Loved One.
<v Speaker 1>So my lovely wife. So you mentioned earlier their album
<v Speaker 1>Inexcessive that was released in nineteen eighty two. So off
<v Speaker 1>of their album Inexcessive in nineteen eighty two, they have
<v Speaker 1>a song called the Unloved One, which I thought that
<v Speaker 1>was kind of interesting. This is for our Australian friends,
<v Speaker 1>all right. So in two thousand and one, The Loved
<v Speaker 1>One was selected as the number six song on the
<v Speaker 1>list of top thirty Australian Songs of all time.
<v Speaker 2>How about that.
<v Speaker 1>It's the number six Australian song of all time.
<v Speaker 2>It's fantastic. Stick. I'm glad you loved this song and
<v Speaker 2>the fun Kathy comes out. Can we about never tear
<v Speaker 2>us apart? Please? I've been waiting for this song.
<v Speaker 1>All right, stop the tape, kick it out, flip it over,
<v Speaker 1>let's go aside to you ready?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay?
<v Speaker 1>First song is Wildlife. I skipped Wildlife, Jake, what's that.
<v Speaker 3>Have them?
<v Speaker 1>I love it?
<v Speaker 2>This was a new This was a new song for me.
<v Speaker 2>I did not own the Kick album and so I
<v Speaker 2>hadn't really listened to this song for I think it's great.
<v Speaker 1>It's great. It's great.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's I don't I think the song is about
<v Speaker 2>freedom that The lyrics are pretty vague, but I think
<v Speaker 2>it's just kind of about doing what you want to
<v Speaker 2>do and even if it's bad, it ain't bad.
<v Speaker 1>Enough, so that's it.
<v Speaker 2>That's it.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's about going out and having a little fun,
<v Speaker 1>living the wildlife. I mean, this is not one of
<v Speaker 1>the stronger songs on the album, but it's still good.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I don't think there's a bad song on
<v Speaker 1>this album. This is a great concert song.
<v Speaker 2>This is not a skipper, No, this is this is
<v Speaker 2>a good song. This is a really good song. Yeah
<v Speaker 2>for sure. I think they say it's still a strong track. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>all right, and it's a good it's a good intro
<v Speaker 2>to the side too. He talked about the you know,
<v Speaker 2>the beginning of the album needs to be something big,
<v Speaker 2>and I think this is a good this is a
<v Speaker 2>good beginning.
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying not to gush over's song. Well, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I'm just just telling you.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think that they're I mean, I think there
<v Speaker 2>are there. There is a bad song on this album,
<v Speaker 2>so I will get there. It's just not this one.
<v Speaker 2>This one's a good.
<v Speaker 1>One, Okay, very good. I think there's there's one part
<v Speaker 1>in the song that he says, what we do, what
<v Speaker 1>we do? He repeats himself, and that little part what
<v Speaker 1>sounds like what you need yep, And that makes it fun.
<v Speaker 1>I like picking that up my ear tingles. I'm like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>that's what you need? Yes, all right, So we both
<v Speaker 1>like wildlife. It's not a single, but it's not a skipper.
<v Speaker 1>It's a good song.
<v Speaker 2>Can we talk about never terrorists apart? I've been waiting
<v Speaker 2>and waiting. This is my favorite in excess song. I'm dying.
<v Speaker 2>Can we talk about never Tear Us Apart?
<v Speaker 1>Now, let's talk about never tear us apart.
<v Speaker 4>Don't ask men.
<v Speaker 5>Watch you know it's true, don't have to tell you.
<v Speaker 1>That's just.
<v Speaker 2>This is so good. I don't want to talk. I
<v Speaker 2>want to just listen to the song. Because you have
<v Speaker 2>beautiful parts throughout the song. You start off with this
<v Speaker 2>kind of waltzy string section going, and the lyrics are
<v Speaker 2>simple and beautiful and romantic and sensual, and then you
<v Speaker 2>have this break and the guitar comes in and it's
<v Speaker 2>hard and it's rock and roll, and it's awesome. What
<v Speaker 2>a fantastic song.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this song's amazing. It's amazing.
<v Speaker 2>I like it a little bit.
<v Speaker 4>Now.
<v Speaker 1>This song is incredible. I could listen to it all day.
<v Speaker 2>I love it so this song. When they originally did it,
<v Speaker 2>it was a piano ballad and it didn't have the
<v Speaker 2>orchestra in there at all, and Chris Thomas.
<v Speaker 1>The producer, said it was a Fats.
<v Speaker 2>Domino bluesy kind of Rolling Stone Es the early sixties song.
<v Speaker 2>I heard it and I thought we can do more,
<v Speaker 2>and I came up with the idea to substitute the
<v Speaker 2>strings for the piano, and that changed everything. It was
<v Speaker 2>what the song deserved because in the structure and the lyrics,
<v Speaker 2>it was so strong already, and then you got more
<v Speaker 2>of these lyrics and they're intensified, and then you have
<v Speaker 2>the break and that saxophone. Holy crap when that saxophone
<v Speaker 2>comes in, Oh my gosh. Is a song that exudes
<v Speaker 2>passion and sensuality with all of these kind of elements.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's a waltz along with a rock song,
<v Speaker 2>along with the jazzy saxophone. It's amazing. It is absolutely incredible.
<v Speaker 1>I have a very specific memory about this song. I
<v Speaker 1>will take to my grave every time the song comes.
<v Speaker 1>On the first day of my sophomore year in high school.
<v Speaker 1>This is the song that my alarm clock kicked on.
<v Speaker 1>It will always be to me the first song I
<v Speaker 1>heard on the first day of school my sophomore year.
<v Speaker 2>This the video for this one, another one, directed by
<v Speaker 2>Richard Lowenstein. It was done in Prague, and you'll remember
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of this long, one shot take that starts
<v Speaker 2>off really with an establishing shot of the city itself
<v Speaker 2>and the they're in a park and then Michael Hutchins
<v Speaker 2>is walking along this very kind of autumn weather and
<v Speaker 2>he walks by the string quartet as they're playing, and
<v Speaker 2>it is the video matches the feeling of the song perfectly.
<v Speaker 1>So this song has two stops in it right, one
<v Speaker 1>at the forty eight second mark and one at the
<v Speaker 1>one nine mark. Right During live shows, they would stop
<v Speaker 1>and the band would turn out the lights and they
<v Speaker 1>would wait. I could just see this being great in concert, right,
<v Speaker 1>So that hard stop in the song and just kill
<v Speaker 1>the lights and just let the crowd just get warmped
<v Speaker 1>up and then and then come in with the boom boom,
<v Speaker 1>boom boom.
<v Speaker 2>I feel justified. And this is a sad thing that
<v Speaker 2>I'm about to say, but when Michael Hutchins died, they
<v Speaker 2>had his funeral at Saint Andrew's Cathedral and the band
<v Speaker 2>members were the pallbearers, and as they carried his casket,
<v Speaker 2>this was the song that was playing in the background,
<v Speaker 2>the kind of idea that even though you're gone, will
<v Speaker 2>never be apart, and the lyrics I was standing you
<v Speaker 2>were there, two worlds collided and they could never tear
<v Speaker 2>us apart. I don't know if you've had those moments
<v Speaker 2>in life where you must have everybody had. Everybody has
<v Speaker 2>had these moments where you like a girl, you're with
<v Speaker 2>the girl together, you haven't expressed your feelings for her,
<v Speaker 2>she hasn't expressed feelings for you. But suddenly, without any
<v Speaker 2>real preparation or idea, your eyes just lock and then
<v Speaker 2>you throw yourselves at each other in a passionate kiss
<v Speaker 2>and embrace. And I think of that every time when
<v Speaker 2>I hear this song, just those worlds colliding. It's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's talk about the chart history for just
<v Speaker 1>a second. I think this is interesting.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>This song charted again in February of twenty fourteen, after
<v Speaker 1>that Australian TV series Never Taris apart the mini series
<v Speaker 1>on in Excess, which I would love to see. So
<v Speaker 1>it peaked at number eleven in Australia, surpassing its original
<v Speaker 1>peak of fourteen back in nineteen eighty eight. In the
<v Speaker 1>United States, this song got to number seven the week
<v Speaker 1>of November fifth, nineteen eighty eight. The number one song
<v Speaker 1>in the country that week Kokomo by The Beach Boys.
<v Speaker 2>I cannot imagine why this wasn't at the very least
<v Speaker 2>the top five songs.
<v Speaker 1>The number four song that same week, the Locomotion by
<v Speaker 1>Kylie Minogue.
<v Speaker 2>Who ooh Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Michael Hutchins and Kylie Minogue were kind of Australia's hot
<v Speaker 1>couple there for a little bit. Are we done with
<v Speaker 1>never tarists apart?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>I hate to be but yeah, yes, yes.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So this brings us to a song called Mystify.
<v Speaker 2>Oh fll was missing.
<v Speaker 4>Streets.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm going to stay here at the beginning that
<v Speaker 2>I very much like the way that the beginning the
<v Speaker 2>song starts, but the video I like it even better.
<v Speaker 1>I'm with you, I totally agree with you.
<v Speaker 2>In the video, it is just Michael and Andrew Ferris
<v Speaker 2>sitting at a piano and going over the song almost
<v Speaker 2>as if they're writing it. I don't know how they
<v Speaker 2>did the video and how all this worked, but it's
<v Speaker 2>just the piano and Michael Hutchins singing like they're working together.
<v Speaker 2>It is not even I'm performing, it's I'm just singing
<v Speaker 2>like he's putting his hair in a ponytail. It's very
<v Speaker 2>casual and it's it's a much better introduction to the song.
<v Speaker 2>And then when it when the big part kicks it in,
<v Speaker 2>that's the point that you get the whole band coming in,
<v Speaker 2>and you've got this very you got a black and
<v Speaker 2>white style where it's like they're recording. They're they're doing
<v Speaker 2>their recording of the song on the studio. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>When I watch the video, to me, it looks like
<v Speaker 1>you're getting a look behind the curtain. So Andrew Ferris
<v Speaker 1>is at the piano, Michael Hutchins is kind of working
<v Speaker 1>with him. He's like, okay, yeah, do that again, all right,
<v Speaker 1>and then he just starts singing. It looks like they're
<v Speaker 1>writing the song.
<v Speaker 5>Fast song, twist go with Me.
<v Speaker 1>This was actually the fifth single released. It was released
<v Speaker 1>in March of nineteen eighty nine. Didn't chart in the US,
<v Speaker 1>but I really don't know why. I mean, the video's cool,
<v Speaker 1>the song's great. I don't know why it didn't quite
<v Speaker 1>strike a chord with with the American audience at that time.
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, this song was written, fantastic song.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna let you know.
<v Speaker 1>I reached out to a college and high school friend
<v Speaker 1>of mine, Geenie Alexander, and I knew she was a
<v Speaker 1>big an excess fan. I just sit her a text
<v Speaker 1>this week and I said, hey, I know you're a
<v Speaker 1>big an xcess fan. What what do you have for
<v Speaker 1>me on Kick? You know what? What memories do you have?
<v Speaker 1>And so she wrote me some stuff, but specifically, she
<v Speaker 1>said that Mystifies her favorite song. She says it's silky,
<v Speaker 1>smooth and powerful. The lyrics that start with that silky
<v Speaker 1>silk moment and just meshes with the twisted, tangled, powerful,
<v Speaker 1>wild with power. So how could one not love it?
<v Speaker 1>And so she's a big fan of Michael Hutchins. She
<v Speaker 1>said that was kind of one of her first big crushes.
<v Speaker 1>She said he was a good boy and a bad
<v Speaker 1>boy mixed together. So Annie, thanks for that. We appreciate you,
<v Speaker 1>thanks for listening, and thanks for that little tidbit.
<v Speaker 2>On Mystify very well, save very well.
<v Speaker 1>So all right, so this brings us to the song Kick.
<v Speaker 2>This big ka good song.
<v Speaker 1>This song just makes me feel good man. This is
<v Speaker 1>a fun song. It's got those strong horns and it's upbeat.
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's just I love it.
<v Speaker 1>This was the song that they led concerts off with
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty seven, and it makes sense because it's
<v Speaker 1>just it's high energy, upbeat. We're getting ready to have
<v Speaker 1>a great time, get on board.
<v Speaker 2>How can you not be excited about what's to come
<v Speaker 2>when this is what leads you off, That's for sure.
<v Speaker 2>I think this one would have been a better first
<v Speaker 2>song on either side A or Side B.
<v Speaker 1>No, I agree with you. That's totally a kickoff song.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and really when they got the title of the album,
<v Speaker 1>this really kind of makes sense to be the number
<v Speaker 1>one slot, I think, sure, yeah, instead of guns in
<v Speaker 1>this Guy. I don't know why they didn't release this
<v Speaker 1>one as a single. It is a quality song that
<v Speaker 1>I could see doing well in the charts.
<v Speaker 2>How they released it?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>The only thing about the song that I didn't like
<v Speaker 1>as much, the sex solo is not quite as full
<v Speaker 1>and as energetic as I think it could be. I
<v Speaker 1>would probably put a guitar solo in right there. That's
<v Speaker 1>high energy fun get after it. But that's just me
<v Speaker 1>moving on after that fun song that brings us to
<v Speaker 1>a song called Colleen All Nations.
<v Speaker 2>This song you don't like your The music is okay,
<v Speaker 2>but this is the I mean, media was like a
<v Speaker 2>minute and a half long of this repetitive, kind of
<v Speaker 2>rappy kind of no no no no no, no no no,
<v Speaker 2>none and no no, no no, and this is an
<v Speaker 2>entire song of that. This is bland and a boring melody.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well, that's fine. I still like this song. I'm
<v Speaker 1>not skipping this song if I'm listening. However, this sounds
<v Speaker 1>like a broken down version of New Sensation. In fact,
<v Speaker 1>I thought it was when I heard it for the
<v Speaker 1>first time.
<v Speaker 2>It has that same feel. It's just unlike New Sensation.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't have a melody.
<v Speaker 1>To its right, that's right.
<v Speaker 2>It's like a droning it's not I don't enjoy it.
<v Speaker 1>My biggest memory of this song came the summer of
<v Speaker 1>eighty eight, and I think I told you the story
<v Speaker 1>off air, but MTV gave away this big Inexcess prize
<v Speaker 1>package the summer of eighty eight, and I remember going,
<v Speaker 1>that'd be freaking awesome. So MTV had this big summer
<v Speaker 1>giveaway and it basically it was win tickets to see
<v Speaker 1>in Excess and you know, travel around the world. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know exactly where it was, but you got to
<v Speaker 1>go see Nxcess for free, and it was the callon
<v Speaker 1>All Nations concert prize from MTV. So that for me,
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, oh yeah, freaking yeah. Calling all nations. But
<v Speaker 1>one of the things that they gave away if you
<v Speaker 1>won this prize from MTV was a Texas trailer park.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, what a Texas trailer park? That was the prize. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I've always wanted to own a Texas trailer park and
<v Speaker 1>I missed my opportunity for.
<v Speaker 2>Summer of nineteen eighty eight Broken Rams.
<v Speaker 1>I like this song, but it other than.
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes you get kicked, Sometimes you kid, sometimes you get.
<v Speaker 1>Kicked, this is probably the other than medi eight. It's
<v Speaker 1>my probably my least favorite song on the album, but
<v Speaker 1>I still like it. Not a bad song on the
<v Speaker 1>entire album for me. I think what Inaccess did so
<v Speaker 1>well as they found great hooks, they paired them with
<v Speaker 1>great sing along choruses, and then they minimized everything else
<v Speaker 1>and they just kind of put those out front. But
<v Speaker 1>this is just not one of their strongest offerings. This
<v Speaker 1>brings us to the final song on the album, Tiny Daggers.
<v Speaker 2>What a happy way end the album. I like it
<v Speaker 2>so much. This could be the end of a John
<v Speaker 2>Hughes movie. Molly Ringwald is finally getting to go out
<v Speaker 2>with the boy that she loves. This is a great
<v Speaker 2>eighties song. This is so very eighties. I like it.
<v Speaker 2>It makes me feel good. This is a feel good song.
<v Speaker 1>Like we talked about the track listing, this is a
<v Speaker 1>great encore song or like a close it out song. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's a thanks for listening, feel good, thanks for buying
<v Speaker 1>the CD, come back next time. Yeah. I love this
<v Speaker 1>song too. I think this could have been a successful single.
<v Speaker 1>I am behind it as one that they could have
<v Speaker 1>released and done something with. This is one of those
<v Speaker 1>where if, in my mind anyway, if they had made
<v Speaker 1>the we talked about the road concert video where it's
<v Speaker 1>you know, you travel with the band and it shows
<v Speaker 1>them backstage and then they go out front and you know,
<v Speaker 1>similar to like Home Sweet Home anyway, one of those
<v Speaker 1>videos where you see him rehearsing, you see him prepping,
<v Speaker 1>and then they come out and they're pumping their fists
<v Speaker 1>and the crowd I'm thinking Wembley Stadium, you know, you know,
<v Speaker 1>ninety thousand people pumping to tiny daggers. This song does
<v Speaker 1>it for me. I love it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So the lyrics. The lyrics are about about that
<v Speaker 2>girlfriend who doesn't like you anymore. Whatever it was that
<v Speaker 2>I did that put those tiny daggers in your heart
<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry kind of do you ever think about me?
<v Speaker 2>Maybe I shouldn't even ask that question.
<v Speaker 1>It's funny that it's those kind of a sad lyrics
<v Speaker 1>to such a feel good you know. Yeah, I think
<v Speaker 1>it's cool that they come right out of the gate
<v Speaker 1>on this song Boom. You're in the middle of the
<v Speaker 1>song and it starts off with the chorus. Yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>such a good song. It's a great, great close out
<v Speaker 1>to the album. It makes me feel good, all right.
<v Speaker 1>So that wraps up the track listing for Kick. No
<v Speaker 1>bad songs for me. I'm turning it up. I'm having
<v Speaker 1>a great time. I'm feeling good.
<v Speaker 2>All right, Jason. So, this album peaked at number three
<v Speaker 2>on the Billboard Charts Yes. Number two was Dirty Dancing Yes,
<v Speaker 2>and the number one spot was held.
<v Speaker 1>By George Michael's Faith, which we will.
<v Speaker 2>Take up on our next episode to determine who is
<v Speaker 2>the best pop star of October nineteen eighty seven.
<v Speaker 1>Releases come back next week as we dive into another fantastic,
<v Speaker 1>full throttle hit machine, George Michael's Faith from nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>seven