Australian rockers INXS call it quits

Australian singer John Stevens of the group INXS participates in the international competition Festival de Vina, in Via Del Mar, Chile. AFP FILE PHOTO

SYDNEY – Australian rock band INXS have called it quits, reports said Monday, 15 years after the suicide of original frontman Michael Hutchence.

The band, which formed in 1977 and has sold more than 30 million records, made the announcement to fans at a concert in Perth on Sunday evening where they were supporting American rockers Matchbox 20, the city’s newspapers said.

Drummer Jon Farriss broke the news and admitted “I’m getting teary” before they launched into one of their biggest hits, “Need You Tonight”, the Perth Now website reported.

INXS management was not available for confirmation but Twitter was abuzz with the news and Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas tweeted “gonna miss the @inxs guys.”

JD Fortune, one of the vocalists who tried to take on the Hutchence role, also tweeted, saying: “So this is how it ends now, for them, xo.”

He followed it with: “They are my friends and I feel very sad for them. It was an honour to have been a part of the bands history. Love and Mayhem.”

The band was fronted by Hutchence for 20 years, becoming one of the world’s biggest rock groups in the 1980s and into the 1990s, fuelled by his charismatic performances.

But he was found dead in a Sydney hotel room in 1997, leaving behind a daughter, Tiger Lily, from a relationship with British TV presenter Paula Yates, who died of a heroin overdose in 2000.

Tiger Lily now lives with her legal guardian, Yates’s former husband Bob Geldof.

Since Hutchence’s death INXS has hired several other singers, and performed with the likes of Terence Trent D’Arby and Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes, but they were never able to revisit their early success.