Peter Frampton

Photo by Austin Lord

News

Peter Frampton On His Farewell Tour, Living With I.B.M. & Reclaiming 'Peter F**king Frampton'

On the tail end of his Farewell tour, the classic rock luminary opens up his ongoing creative renaissance, tackling inclusion body myositis one workout at a time and some of the most rewarding music friendships of his life

Rachel Brodsky

GRAMMYs

Sep 20, 2019 - 12:19 pm

The first thing you notice when speaking to guitar-rock pillar and GRAMMY winner Peter Frampton is what a sweet, upbeat guy he is. Calling me directly from a break on his Peter Frampton Finale—The Farewell Tour, Frampton is in cheery spirits as he recounts how Eric Clapton asked him to perform at Crossroads Guitar Festival, which takes place this weekend in Dallas.

Frampton's own tour, his ostensible last-ever one, wraps up in mid-October, but he could always add on more dates—it just depends on his overall health.

In February of this year, the "Baby, I Love Your Way" singer revealed to CBS This Morning that he had been living with a disease called inclusion body myositis (IBM), a progressive muscle disorder characterized by muscle inflammation, weakness and atrophy. For a performer like Frampton, who has been playing guitar since he was eight years old and is best known for his early work with '60s supergroup Humble Pie and for popularlizing the "talk box" as a solo artist (among other things), a diagnosis like this could be brutal. But it's only making him work harder: In June he and the Peter Frampton Band released All Blues, a collection of grooving classics featuring guest spots from the Fabulous Thunderbirds' Kim Wilson and guitarists Larry Carlton, Sonny Landreth and Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple).

And there's more music coming. When asked how this diagnosis has changed his professional life, he says frankly, "It's forced me into to not being lazy. I've never made three albums, four albums in a three-month period in all my life. It's very enjoyable to know that we can do that. I just want to do more of it. Whether it comes out or it doesn't come out, it's for me. I'm doing it for me. That's the only way an artist should work is to do it for yourself."

Below, Frampton dives deeper into his ongoing creative renaissance, his state of mind in dealing with the day to day of I.B.M. and why he's now totally fine with you calling him "Peter F**king Frampton."

Where are you on the touring timeline right now?

Well, right now we're in our second break. We've got four days off. Then we would've had a week off, only then Eric Clapton asked me to be on Crossroads. We're doing that on Friday. That's wonderful.

I looked at the remaining tour dates. According to Ticketmaster, your final tour date is on Oct. 12. Is that actually the case? Might you add some more?

Well, this is the thing. Yes, that is the last date of the official Farewell Tour. At that point, I'm going to reassess within November how I am, how my playing is and how much my playing is being affected by IBM. First of all, I don't ever want to stop playing.

That's obvious because of my passion for so many years. They say music is my life, but guitar playing is what I do for all my life. I do not want to go out and not play as well as I can play today, if you know what I mean. Because right now I'm doing really well. I'm really enjoying playing. But things are starting to change. I have to be realistic.

Have you found that by continuing to play every day that you’ve in some ways slowed what might be a typical progression of this disease?

I was on a plateau, we call them. But now it has started to speed up. It's such a slow moving thing. It's like watching paint dry, thank goodness. But I am noticing changes. Yes, in legs and arms. That's just the way it is. As far as there is no specific drug yet for IBM. It's the only myositis that doesn't have a drug, a known drug. I will be starting in October my first, when this tour finishes, I'm going straight to Baltimore to Johns Hopkins to start a drug trial.

Right. I'm sure that they have talked to you about what that entails, but what specifically does that look like when they say there's a drug trial for this?

I'm not a doctor, but basically they test your muscles the first visit. Then you go away and they take, it's a needle biopsy, and they send you away for three months. Nothing, you don't get the drug yet. Then you come back three months later and do the same thing to see how you have progressed in three months or what or not, or plateaued or whatever in that time. Then the second visit is when they do that. Then they give you the drug. Then it's eight months I believe on the drug. You come back and you do it again. That's when they get all the results from everybody as to progression, plateau, whatever at that point.

I also read that you do work out every day to strengthen your muscles. Is it tricky to work that into the touring schedule?

Well, it was an imperative thing for me. Whether I want to or not, every day I have someone that travels with me that it was necessary added expense. I've never had, that's like a luxury. Have a trainer on the road with you, but it sounds like very over the top. But for me it's a necessity. Health-wise it helps some, I can't tell you how much it helps exercising. It's just strengthening what you have left and confusing the IBM. Because now you're a little bit stronger than that last week maybe. You've just got to go at it full force.

Even if you don’t tour regularly—or at all—after The Farewell Tour, will you still record? Based on your output this year, I get the sense that you will.

Yes. We've done 3.6 projects right now. We have 0.4 to finish on the fourth project, which is a solo album. Then once we've done that, I think I just want to record and play as much as I can while I can with my incredible band. They are incredible as you can tell by the blues record. That's no session, well they are session players. Because if they're not playing with me, they could play with anybody. Because their that caliber of player. I'm so lucky to have them.

I know we joke but, but we would say, "Well, we've done four albums in three months, why don't we do, next is the Christmas album." I've never done a Christmas album. Maybe there'll be a Christmas album. Maybe there'll be an Easter album. I don't know at this point. All I know is I want to write and record whether they be my songs or cover other people's songs. I just want to have fun with my band in the studio for as long as possible. Yeah, that's it. I mean I have the studio in Nashville. I'm so lucky. It doesn't cost me anything to go in there, which is wonderful.

As somebody who has such a long, storied history with the guitar, do you ever feel a sense of frustration in the moment if and when your playing level isn’t what it used to be, due to the progression of IBM?

Yes, I do. Luckily, my frustration level is not high because I'm able to do pretty much everything I could do last year today. It's just getting a little bit more difficult. I'm 69. I think even Segovia, the legendary classical player, I remember he would and he would come to England and play. I remember seeing him once and he made a flub. He was in his 70s. He stopped. He put the guitar down. No, I mean he verbally put the guitar down and said, "She is not treating me well today." He made a joke about it, which I thought was so great and so positive. I know how to act if that sort of, but luckily I haven't had any really frustrating moments yet. I'm lucky.

Yes, absolutely. Backing up for a second to your recent release, All Blues, I would love to know what the genesis was of your deciding to go in this direction, sonically speaking?

Well, two-fold really. I wanted knowing what I had and knowing how it progresses, I just wanted to get into the studio as soon as possible. The easiest way to do that was to do covers. Then we had just done 71 shows last year. Maybe 50 of them were with Steve Miller Band. Steve I've known since I was 20. He came to England. I was obviously big friends with his producer/engineer, Glyn Johns, who'd worked with Humble Pie and The Stones and everything. It was all a very small circle.

I've got to meet Steve in 1970. We've been friends ever since. When we decided to go out and do a tour together, we actually ended up doing two summers together. He would ask me up to play some blues every show during his act. I really got back into it. It reminded me of Humble Pie days. That's part of my playing too. On the way home, I just said to the guys in the bus, I said, "When we get home, what do you think we take like a week, 10 days off. We just go into my studio and we do a blues album. Send me all your favorite blues numbers. Let's make a huge list and see how many we can do.”

That's what we did. We did not record that much, but in time we got a lot of tracks. We had enough for over 35 blues songs. We attempted 23, we kept, or 24 like that. There's another bunch, there's another album's worth of a blues album, but I wouldn't put that out next. Then we moved on to again, because I didn't have time to write, we did an instrumental record of covers of all different styles or whatever. Now we've done two blues albums, an instrumental album. Then I said, "I'm starting to write here guys. Why don't we go back in a couple of weeks. I've written a half a dozen songs." We went back in. We did some new stuff as well. That's the one we have to finish. It's like I say it's three quarters done, whatever. Then we'll move on to something else. But it's just, the more I play ... what's the thing, if you something you lose it?

If you don't use it, you lose it.

Right. If you don't use it, you lose it, right? The more I played, the better and longer I'll be able to play. That's why I want to go straight into the studio again when we come off the road. Maybe do another couple of 10-day sessions with my band or something. I don't even know what that will be yet. It's just so much fun to take them in the studio and create.

It sounds like this has been something of a creative Renaissance for you. Does that sound true?

Yes, absolutely. It's forced me into to not being lazy. In my later career life, now become prolific in a way that I ... I've never made three albums, four albums in a three-month period in all my life. It's very enjoyable to know that we can do that. I just want to do more of it. Whether it comes out or it doesn't come out, it's for me. I'm doing it for me. That's the only way an artist should work is to do it for yourself.

Because yes, you hope that other people will like it. But that's not the way I work. I did for a very short period in my career. It was the worst time trying to worry about what people might want from me. Instead of as always how I started was, you don't follow a trend, you make a trend by being a unique, hopefully. That's what I still maintain. I don't do things for anybody else but myself and the band. We're all on the same page. Who knows what we'll come up with.

One of the things that also struck me about just your career as a whole is the friendships you’ve formed. You’re such an affable guy. That quality seems to have birthed some really rewarding relationships and friendships in your career. Who were some of the most rewarding relationships that you can think of right off the top of your head when you look back.

Well, the first person that I met because Humble Pie first came over in '69 and we opened for Mountain. Those guys became really close friends. Felix Pappalardi, who produced Cream, I really looked up to. He was a mentor. He had a tragic end to his life, but he was someone that I really respected. He was an early mentor of mine and Leslie West, they were just good friends. They looked up the Humble Pie for that first tour. I mean the people that have meant the most to me, obviously George Harrison taking me under his wing and inviting me in to be part of the session group of these incredible players as I was leaving in 1970, '71 was a giant thing for me in my life to be accepted by all these top session musicians.

Beatles, it's tough when you're trying to work out a part for a track and you look up and half The Beatles are in the room.

No pressure.

It's intimidating, but they were such, and are ... Ringo is still one of my closest friends. I think he's someone that's, him and Bill Wyman of The Stones discovered me in this band The Preachers when I was 14. He became my older brother basically. David [Bowie], obviously, we went to school together. He was three years older than me. But we maintain friendship right until the end. Yeah, he was always, even then for the instrumental record, I told him I was going to do an instrumental record. He said, "Perfect." I said, "But I need," there was this one track, I needed a great sax player. I knew that Dave is cutting edge with musicians or was, always was. Even a sax player too, Dave. He loves sax playing. He recommended Courtney Pine from England. I called up Courtney Pine. David was even helping when I did my instrumental album.

Wow. That's amazing. Well, I’m afraid I can’t let you go without asking an obvious question. And I apologize if you’ve heard it a million times before. But the name “Peter Frampton” is a bit of a favorite to reference in pop culture, like, say, in Reality Bites, and then the obvious example of High Fidelity. I really do wonder to what extent people approach you and just say, "Is that Peter F**king Frampton?" If that does happen, how do you respond and what's your feeling around that? Do you laugh?

Well, I think one of my daughters walked out of the cinema, she was upset. So I didn't see it.

Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry.

But I said, "It's okay. It's okay." Then yes, for a while there it was, but it's still there. But after a while we started having one of our crew members dress up like the master of ceremonies at the circus and come out. He's a great character, Cody. He would go say, "Are you ready da, da, da?" Go, "Are you ready for Peter F**king Frampton?" He would announce me like that and they would go nuts. It was kind of a shock to start with, but I see it as a term of endearment.

I guess it's like the Affordable Care Act was then called by the right, Obamacare and Obama used it. It's the same thing, really.

David Crosby On 'Remember My Name': "It's An Opportunity To Tell The Truth"

Brian Fallon

Photo by Kelsey Hunter Ayres

News

Former Punk Frontman Brian Fallon Continues His Americana Metamorphosis On ‘Local Honey’

The onetime Gaslight Anthem vocalist opens up to the Recording Academy about how present-day moments—fatherhood, therapy, religion and relationships—have shaped his newest collection of solo songs

Will Hodge

GRAMMYs

Mar 27, 2020 - 9:16 am

"I got my first Tom Waits record when I was about 17 and ever since then I’ve thought, 'I can’t wait to be an old man.' I’ve always wanted to just be a crazy old man musician, banging on pots and pans and playing whatever I want," laughs former Gaslight Anthem frontman and current Americana solo artist Brian Fallon as he reflects on hitting 40 earlier this year. After spending his 20s and most of his 30s interpreting his classic-rock hero influences through a frenetic punk filter, the gravel-throated howler started slowly swapping out his low-slung, amped-up electric guitars for rootsy acoustics on a pair of increasingly introspective solo albums: 2016’s Painkillers and 2018’s Sleepwalkers.

On Local Honey, Fallon’s newest solo record out March 27 (the debut release from his own Lesser Known Records imprint on Thirty Tigers), the 40-year-old father of two has fully completed his own version of the punk-to-folk pipeline with a musically stark and emotionally vibrant collection of some of the best songwriting of his career. Led by gorgeously spacious acoustic guitars, hauntingly bare pianos, and the pitch-perfect sprinkling of ornamental instrumentation that masterfully shades in the outer corners, Local Honey’s austere musical palette provides the ideal backdrop for Fallon’s elegantly plainspoken lyrics full of diary-close honesty, heart-stirring resonance and vividly cinematic storytelling.

Fallon recently chatted with the Recording Academy to discuss the shifts in his approaches to songwriting, how taking guitar and piano lessons two decades into his musical career has affected his playing and how his present-day moments—fatherhood, therapy, religion and relationships—shape and define his newest collection of songs.

Brian Fallon: During the recording of my last solo record in New Orleans, I got to play with a bunch of really great musicians like the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and it caused something to click in my head. I decided I wanted to write and play music that directly gets to the point and is pure. To do that, I had to first analyze my own skillset to say, "I don’t know if you can do that right now with what you have." So I started taking piano lessons—I had never touched a piano before—and I went back into guitar lessons. I also took a course in lyric writing. I did my best to grab all the instructive information I could; not to get more fancy, but to get more direct and to the point. Honestly, I feel like I’ve just started scratching the surface of this new thing in my brain that I’m sure will continue to shape my songwriting from here on out.

To help achieve his new songwriting goals, Fallon set out to identify as many lyrical inspirations as he could find to dissect and analyze what made them work. He even compiled a playlist of over 40 songs that he felt conveyed the most direct and simplest statements to repetitively listen to in hopes of studying their inner-workings.

Brian Fallon: When I was writing for this record, I looked to the best lyricists that I could find for inspiration. Tom Waits is always kind of hanging over my head as someone that I aspire to write songs like. Jackson Browne’s The Pretender record has been a huge one for me, especially after I found out he wrote it after his wife had passed away. "You’re Bright Baby Blues" was the track I kept listening to over and over again. The playlist I made was full of songs where I felt the lyrical statement was just so pure: Nina Simone’s "I'm Feeling Good," Fleetwood Mac’s "Silver Springs," some Springsteen, old Rolling Stones songs like "Play With Fire." I would listen to these songs over and over to remind myself to not use metaphor alone and not rely on fancy language to convey the emotion. I wanted to boil everything down to just true, unembellished emotion.

As Fallon started writing the songs for what would eventually become Local Honey, he decided on two other important elements. First, after years of talking about it together, he knew he wanted production duties to be handled by Peter Katis (The National, Death Cab For Cutie, Frightened Rabbit). Second, he knew he didn’t want to make an album that felt like it had too many songs. In fact, instead of just being an amorphous target to keep in mind, Fallon went into the recording sessions knowingly exactly how many songs he wanted to walk out with.

Brian Fallon: Nailing the right song count was a conversation that Peter and I had a bunch of times. I told him that I only wanted it to be eight songs and thankfully he was all for it. I thought he might give me a bit of resistance, but he was into it because so many albums these days just feel too long. Even though I had written more songs, I knew these eight specific ones told the story I wanted to tell. I didn’t want to dilute that at all. Peter really helped me get where I wanted to go with these songs because I wanted them to be really bare and I wasn’t exactly sure how best to execute that in a way that would keep people interested. He responded very positively to the demos I sent him and to the direction I wanted to take them in. He basically just said, "You handle the songs and I’ll handle the sounds."

The first song Fallon and Katis ended up working on for the record was "Vincent," an arresting piano-scored murder ballad in the vein of country and blues standards like "Long Black Veil," "Delia’s Gone," "In the Pines/Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", Bob Dylan’s "Ballad Of Hollis Brown" and Nick Cave’s entire Murder Ballads album from 1996. The stirring narrative that unfolds in "Vincent" came to Fallon in a single night during a rush of inspiration that resulted in so many verses that it took him a month to whittle it down to a manageable song.

Brian Fallon: "Vincent" actually sprung up from a few different places. At the time, I was reading a Stephen King book called On Writing about his creative process. Then, I saw this documentary on Nick Cave where he was talking about how he creatively allows himself to write character stories. Then, I remembered hearing an interview where Bruce Springsteen talked about doing the same thing when he was writing songs for The Ghost Of Tom Joad. He had never been an immigrant living across the border, but he was able to write all these songs that actually felt like he had been arrested by a border patrolman and crazy stuff like that. All of these things were stirring around in my head and they all kind of oddly coalesced on this one night while I was sitting at the piano. I started playing a little bit and I felt like there was this character in my head speaking to me. I ended up writing something like 30 verses because I had never written in that way before and I really wanted to get it right. I’ve never written so much for one song, but it just wouldn’t stop. It was so weird how real the story felt to me.

Fallon notes that although he is really proud of the song, the opening line of "Vincent"—"My name is Jolene, but I hate that song"—has prompted a little cause for concern. His hope is that listeners will understand that he is singing in character and that he himself doesn’t actually hate the celebrated, GRAMMY-nominated Dolly Parton ballad from 1973.

Brian Fallon: I wrote that line because I think it’s funny when people are named after songs—my daughter is actually named after a song—and I often wonder if people hate that when they grow up. I love the song "Jolene" and I think Dolly Parton is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. I hope people get that I’m singing that line as a character. I think that with these types of character songs, maybe as long as the emotion is true, then the details can be more like a story or a novel and not be so dependent on what you actually think or believe yourself.

Back in December of 2019, Fallon announced Local Honey with the lead single, "You Have Stolen My Heart," a swaying, starry-eyed ballad that functions as the “always leave ‘em wanting more” album closer. Marked as “my most direct attempt at a love song” by Fallon, the song’s waltzy-strummed acoustic guitar and love-letter lyricism unfolds as intimately as an overheard conversation.

Brian Fallon: I had almost all of the songs finished up and I felt like I just needed one more that was kind of in this romantic vein. Surprisingly, this one came out pretty quickly. I was listening to The Smiths and that song “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” came on and I was struck by what a good, honest lyric it was. It was extremely direct in a way that could’ve gone so wrong. I think he really meant it though, and that was the trick. When I sat back down to write, I just tried to say exactly what I was feeling and “You Have Stolen My Heart” just came right out.

For his follow-up single, "21 Days," Fallon drew on his various experiences with therapy; finding inspiration in the targeted focus on process and progress. Casting addictions into a fractured relational context ("I miss you most in the morning, we used to talk over coffee, but now I’m going to have to find another friend"), Fallon’s "one day at a time" lyrics forego any mountaintop platitudes and instead place the listener in the thick of the struggle. "21 Days" also contains an interesting sonic touch that helps to drive the push-pull internal monologue of the song’s protagonist: Fallon double-tracked his vocal across distinct high and low registers and then blended them together into one ghostly reverberating amalgam.

Brian Fallon: I’ve been to therapists for a few different things and I've found that the really helpful thing they can do when you’re facing a hard situation is not to give you a solution but to offer you a goal to work towards. Oftentimes, that goal is a measure of time because people always want to know how long it’s going to take before they start to feel better. That’s where that throwaway idea that it takes 21 days to break a habit comes from. But the truth is, going in, you never really know how long it’s going to take and it’s different for every person. That’s what that song is about. I’ve read that it’s about me quitting smoking, but not really, because that’s too small for what the song is saying. It’s about just encouraging yourself and reminding yourself that you will eventually feel better. On the right songs, I really enjoyed doing the double-vocal thing. The first time I heard somebody do that really well was Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs; going really high or really low, like beyond his reach in both directions. Mark Lanegan is amazing at it too. I have to be careful with it because sometimes it just sounds like you’re trying to make fun of Barry White or something.

In what may be Fallon’s most personal song to date, Local Honey opens up with "When You’re Ready," a song Fallon wrote about his two young kids. The song rides along warmly delivered reassurances ("In this life there will be trouble, but you shall overcome") and there’s something soothing in its mid-tempo roots rock shuffle that evokes familiar echoes of halcyon classics like Don Henley’s "End Of The Innocence," Neil Young’s Harvest Moon, and the breezier moments of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers album.

Brian Fallon: This song actually started off really loud but I couldn’t get it to quite work that way. One day, when I was right at the end of the session and was a little frustrated, I sat down and just started typing some words in what I can only describe as a moment of divine intervention—and I don’t get those moments too often. The words were coming out faster than I could type them and when I finished up, I read back over them and could see they were about my kids. I didn’t even know that stuff was kicking around in me. I guess it was just the timing—I had been off tour for a bit and was getting to be home every day. It was just one of those songwriting moments where the lyrics came out of nowhere and I was just really glad somebody else didn’t get that one.

Being a parent has also affected Fallon’s songwriting in his poetic use of spiritual themes and religious imagery. Not only recalling fond memories of his mother singing hymns around the house when he was a kid, but he also points to navigating his own approach to parenting as a factor in his existential contemplation. Luckily for Fallon, some of his biggest songwriting heroes have also managed to parse out their own spirituality in ways he connects with; being kind, leaving room for mystery, and operating with more questions than answers.

Brian Fallon: I learned early on that when you’re in a rock band playing loud and fast, it’s not really the time to get ultra-contemplative about the hereafter. I guess I did try a few times though. Spirituality is something I’ve grown up with my whole life. The first music I ever heard was my mom singing hymns. It’s always been around me, but I will say that having kids can really put your head in a position of considering the hereafter, for sure. You wonder if you’re raising them right and you get filled with these sensations of love that you never knew you were capable of feeling for another human being. I think that any artist that digs into life will eventually have to face their decisions on how they feel about all that. I’ve been really drawn to Iris Dement’s hymns record because she has such a beautiful voice and it was all songs I knew from when I was a kid. I’m also influenced by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and of course, Tom Waits when it comes to that too. I’ve always come at it from a place of it being something to be discovered, not to be understood. I mean, I personally don’t understand it at least. Maybe one verse, "Love thy neighbor," I get that one.

With Local Honey, Fallon now has three solo records under his belt—meaning he’s only two away from equaling the five full-length studio albums he recorded with the Gaslight Anthem. Although, when comparing the two seemingly disparate chapters of his career, he doesn’t actually see that much of a difference between his past punk roots and his current Americana aesthetic. While some of his fans may not be ready to place the two collections right beside each other on their record shelves, Fallon sees his whole musical body of work on a singularly threaded continuum.

Brian Fallon: The punk and Americana communities are so similar in the way that they allow artistic freedom but the funny thing for me is that what I did then and what I do now are so closely married to each other. When I was in the punk scene, so much of what I did was by default. Even in just the first few practices with the Gaslight Anthem, I told the guys that I didn’t know if I could write punk songs. I wanted to write in a more country or folk vein and they were totally cool with that. I wrote acoustic songs liked I wanted and they turned them into loud, fast punk songs. Almost every single song I wrote with them can be stripped back to those acoustic roots. To this day, my approach has remained very similar. When you get older, I guess you just don’t have to make your point so loud. I’ve learned that sometimes it can hit harder when it's quieter.

Cosmic Americana Duo Mapache On 'From Liberty Street,' Honoring Neal Casal & (Briefly) Going Electric

Grammys Newsletter

Cable Ties

Photo by Lisa Businovski

News

Cable Ties Hold it All Together

Ahead of the Melbourne-based punk trio's Merge Records debut, singer Jenny McKechnie spoke with the Recording Academy about her city's D.I.Y. scene and the anxiety around releasing music in the face of a pandemic

Lior Phillips

GRAMMYs

Mar 26, 2020 - 10:45 am

"Everything feels pretty chaotic at the moment," Jenny McKechnie says. "We're just hoping that people are still listening." And while it’s true the world has been upended by recent news, the guitarist-vocalist for Australian punk band Cable Ties isn’t exactly unfamiliar with chaos. The trio of McKechnie, bassist Nick Brown and drummer Shauna Boyle built a following on explosive live shows and scorched, thunderous punk. Their new album Far Enough—their first with legendary indie label Merge Records and first to be released outside of Australia—proves that there's intensity in Cable Ties' tenderness as much as their fierce determination to fight back against oppression.

"Writing this album, I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and depression, and figuring out ways to work myself through that," McKechnie says. "I was doing a lot more self-reflection about how I fit into the world and how I participate in and am affected by the systems of oppression that I talk about in my songs." Far Enough is a record built to bring the world together, flaws and all, to raise up something better.

The band’s roots in Melbourne’s D.I.Y. punk scene are palpable musically—and socially. The scene is powered by collaboration and cross-pollination, diversity and inclusion, care and support; before forming Cable Ties, McKechnie herself helped organize Wetfest, a backyard festival that highlighted women-led and gender-nonconforming bands. Community powers Cable Ties, so a catastrophic moment that has driven isolation and social distance seems particularly trying. "It’s hard not to think that this thing I’ve been working on my whole life is just going to be lost," McKechnie says. But if any punk album can inspire hope for change and the strength of unity, it’s Far Enough.

From the concussive "Sandcastles" to the expansive, aching opener "Hope," Cable Ties' shout-along choruses and smoldering mechanics fraying like lightning at the edges. Fusing proto-punk rhythms, whip-tight harmonies, and hard rock grandiosity, Far Enough is an exploration of how to turn passion, belief, protest and a refusal to succumb to patterns of societal abuse into action and forward motion.

McKechnie spoke with the Recording Academy about being fueled by Melbourne’s D.I.Y. scene, fusing punk energy with experimental song structures, the importance of recording live and the anticipation and anxiety of releasing music in the face of a pandemic.

With everything being shut down for the foreseeable future, how far ahead have you canceled your tours?

At this stage, we've just canceled the one that we're supposed to be on right now in the U.S., but we're supposed to be going back to Europe in July to play some festivals. We don't know, but I’m not very confident. We just don't know what it means for the release of the album, whether it's just going to get buried under all this craziness.

Having it coincide with all of this must feel frustrating, but how did it feel to make the jump and move to Merge Records for this album?

We've been making music for about five years, but we haven't ever released anything outside of Australia. We've done a couple of tours in the U.K. and Europe before this album, but we're trying to get it going internationally. But we couldn't be happier with Merge. We sent them the album and after a few months, they replied and said that they'd kept listening to it and it got under their skin.

You've built your sound in what seems to be a really tight-knit community in Melbourne. What has the last five years as a band looked like for you?

We are in the punk and D.I.Y. community in Melbourne, which is a really great, flourishing, supportive community. I moved to Melbourne when I was 20 and have played in bands here since then. We started Cable Ties just so we could play shows with the other people in the community at local places like The Tote and The Old Bar, and in people's backyards. And then when we released our first album, it got quite a lot of play on the national broadcast called Triple J. That meant that we were then able to do a lot of touring interstate, which was really awesome. We've just kept asking ourselves what we can do next.

One thing that's really important in Melbourne is our community radio stations—Triple R and PBS. They have a really wide listenership across Melbourne of people who are into interesting music that doesn't get played on mainstream radio. Those stations are run mostly by volunteers who will either do a show on a very specific genre of music that they're into or shows playing bands from the local scene.

It's also partially about venues and licensing laws. Melbourne is really great because there are venues that anyone can play at. The Old Bar has live music on every day of the week, sometimes two shows a day. So if you're in a punk band that's just started up and hasn't done much or is doing some weird thing that is challenging to people, you can go and jump on a lineup there and just go do it.

Is it different in Sydney or Perth, or the other big hubs?

Yeah. In Sydney, they do have more licensing restrictions. They had a big fight over lockout laws there, which meant that people were locked out of venues after 1 a.m. in some areas. And that just had huge effects on live music venues because if they have to lock people out, they can't afford to take the risk of having bands play. Melbourne recently had the 10-year anniversary of the Save Live Australian Music (SLAM) rally, which was when the government tried to bring in laws that meant that venues would have to do a few things like put on more security staff. It would have meant that venues like The Tote, which is a really iconic Melbourne venue, would be unable to afford to operate. People fought really hard and protested until they reversed those laws, and that's part of the reason that we have what we have in Melbourne today.

What are some of the misconceptions about the D.I.Y., punk scene?

Punk music in Melbourne is just whatever weird thing that you want to do—just being able to have free expression and not feel like you're constrained by what's going to get played on mainstream radio. It's not a specific sound, it's just an unfettered expression.

And your first gig I believe was at Wetfest, which was a festival you helped organize for female-led and gender-nonconforming bands, which fits that feeling.

That's right. Wetfest was a festival that my first punk band in Melbourne, Wet Lips, organized in our backyard. That band was a feminist queer band, and when we put on events like that, we put on a whole bunch of women and gender diverse and queer acts because they were the people in our community and also because we strongly believed in promoting their voices and giving those bands a platform. We did that for four years. That band finished a couple of years ago after seven years of playing, and that's where Cable Ties started as well.

That festival isn't happening anymore, but when we put on our own events, we have the same values. For us, it's not only about making sure that people are heard and that their contribution is valued, but it's also just about making sure that your lineup is interesting. If you're booking people who just sound and look like you, it's pretty boring and it doesn't benefit you, the bands, or your music community as a whole. Things tend to stagnate when you just book the same old thing.

"We as a band have strong collective values and every decision that we make is based on whether or not it aligns with the core values that we had at the start."

How do you ensure that the community offers that same potential for the next generation?

It's still definitely a huge part of our life. It's our whole social group and it's what we love doing. Every member of Cable Ties lives to go out to shows. There are so many new bands coming up in Melbourne. Every time I go out, I'm amazed to see a new punk band with a whole bunch of people who are 18 or 19. And there are other little scenes and communities cropping up outside of the community that we're a part of.

As you get bigger and gain a wider audience, what is it like transitioning out of being solely embedded in your scene and then now stepping out into a more industry environment? Obviously it's difficult because now the tour was canceled, but mentally and emotionally, you're all prepping for a newer audience.

It’s an interesting feeling. It's not something that we planned for at the outset of the band. Every time we do something new, we take a step more outside of our comfort zone of that music community. Sometimes I find certain aspects of the music industry challenging, but that's because it exists within the capitalist society like any other industry. We as a band have strong collective values and every decision that we make is based on whether or not it aligns with the core values that we had at the start.

It’s about having people around me that I trust to give me good advice to make a good decision. It's really about listening to your gut reaction and then checking it with other people.

Not many bands in the punk realm are bold enough to open an album with a six-and-a-half-minute track, let alone one that starts out as tender as "Hope." What was the importance of starting Far Enough with that track?

That track is a mission statement for the rest of the album. I really wanted the album to start from this vulnerable, tender place. From our last album, people know we can go to these in-your-face punk moments. But the writing process for this album was really different. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and depression and figuring out ways to work myself through that. I was doing a lot more self-reflection about how I fit into the world and how I participate in and am affected by the systems of oppression that I talk about in my songs. I really wanted the opening track to be vulnerable and speak to the more complicated, self-reflective nature of this album in contrast to the other one.

Grammys Newsletter

Photo courtesy of FOX

News

"The Simpsons" At 30: A Complete History Of Every Band That's Ever Rocked Springfield

From Lady Gaga to Little Richard, scores of musicians have popped up on the beloved animated show over the last three decades

Crystal Larsen

GRAMMYs

Dec 18, 2019 - 9:15 am

Following a Dec. 17 Christmas special, January 14 will mark 30 years since the official season premiere of "The Simpsons." Today, the show still holds the trophy as the longest-running primetime TV series. If you look back on the 670-plus episodes of the animated series, you're likely to find a few constants: Homer will undoubtedly cause a catastrophe, Lisa will voice her opinions on issues important to her, Bart will get into trouble and a musical guest or two will appear in nearly every season. In fact, since the series premiered, music has played an integral role in many of the storylines and has arguably helped "The Simpsons" become as venerable of a show as it is today.

As evidence of music's permanent place in "The Simpsons," we learn in multiple episodes that Homer is often regretful of not having lived out his dream to become a rock star; Lisa can often be found playing her baritone saxophone when not studying; the now-popular theme song was composed by GRAMMY winner Danny Elfman, and countless bands, artists and musicians have lent their voices to tons of episodes, often playing themselves but sometimes other characters.

What is it about music and "The Simpsons" that make the two pair so well together, and what has helped the show, after 30 years and counting, remain as popular and influential today? To help us understand the continued cultural impact of "The Simpsons," we asked a few of the guest stars, and one of the individuals behind the show, about the everlasting impression that Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and the rest of the cast have made on all of us.

"There's something so compelling about them," says supervising director Mike Anderson, who's been with the show for 30 years and was the one who made Sigur Rós' participation in season 24 happen. "I think somehow the Simpsons—the yellow Simpsons—represent all of us. I think we are them, we have seen the experiences, somehow, we understand them. And they're a part of us that we love. And also, we can watch from the safety of our homes as Homer bashes his head between a ship and a pier post or saws himself in half [Laughs]."

Peter Frampton, who appeared in the season seven episode "Homerpalooza" says it’s the juxtaposition of pairing artists who reach different demographics. "I’m on the same show as the Smashing Pumpkins, who started out much later," he says. "Everything put together makes the most impact for the script."

Shawn Colvin, who appeared in two episodes as the lead singer of a church band named Rachel Jordan, adds, "'The Simpsons' has a certain edge and sophistication and irreverence in its humor and content, while still being silly and fun, thus making it relevant to all ages. The characters are so lovable and well-developed, not to mention well-played. They are relatable. Ultimately, it’s an intelligent show that also succeeds in being kind of stupid, in the best possible way."

Randy Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive, who appeared with the band in season 11, says having music play such a large role on the series has "made the Simpsons a very hip and relevant contemporary show. Besides the continuing family adventures of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and all the other characters, it was unique to see musicians cartooned and hear their music integrated into the shows. It was a win-win-win for all."

Welsh singer/songwriter Judith Owen, who appeared in two episodes of the show, says, "One of the charms of 'The Simpsons' is that it actually has a foothold in reality. The fact that you've got this father, who's doing a really boring job in a factory but feels the regret of having given up his dream to be a musician, how many people are like that in real life? These are real experiences that people feel, which is having to give up their youthful dreams because they can’t pursue it because they have a family or obligations. Those are things that make the show pertinent and real."

Owen adds, "The music acts, like it so often does in life, as being the thing that connects you to humanity, and that is what music does anyway. Whether it be artists, or the very nature of the characters being musical, it connects the viewer to them in a very human way because even though it’s all make-believe, it has real things that we all understand."

Anderson adds that what makes "The Simpsons" so relevant 30 years later, is that we can find ourselves in one of the characters. "They hold up a mirror to the craziness in the world going on, but they make fun of it. It's a safe way to look at problems."

As far as the impact "The Simpsons" as had on all of us, the viewers, Anderson posits, "It's in our DNA now. It’s hard to imagine a world without the Simpsons."

To celebrate the 30th anniversary since the show's premiere, we've compiled a complete list, with some highlights, of every musical guest appearance on the show. Take a walk down memory lane and see if you can imagine a world without "The Simpsons."

Season 1

Episode 6—Ron Taylor: "Moaning Lisa"

In the inaugural season of "The Simpsons," Lisa is struggling to find purpose in the world. She finds solace in her saxophone, but characters, like her music teacher Mr. Largo, get in the way. Then, one night as she’s sulking in her room, feeling down and defeated, she hears the soulful sax sounds of "Bleeding Gums" Murphy, played by the late actor, singer and writer Ron Taylor. Lisa sneaks out of her room, follows the music and eventually meets "Bleeding Gums," who teaches her how to express her feelings through music. Together, they write "Moanin' Lisa Blues."

Season 2

Episode 5—Tony Bennett and Daryl Coley: "Dancin' Homer"
Episode 31—Ringo Starr: "Brush With Greatness"

In Season 2 episode "Dancin' Homer," Homer and family attend a baseball game to see the Springfield Isotopes. "Bleeding Gums" Murphy makes another appearance to perform the National Anthem, and this time his voice is supplied by the late singer Daryl Coley. As the title suggests, "dancin' Homer" fires up the crowd with a spur-of-the-moment performance, impressing the baseball big shots so much that they promote him to work for the Capital City Capitals. As the Simpsons arrive in Capital City, a song of the same name, performed by GRAMMY winner Tony Bennett, plays as Bennett himself makes a quick cameo with the line, "Hey, good to see you."

Adding more star—er, Starr?—power to the second season, the former Beatles drummer appears in episode 31 as Marge's once-upon-a-time art muse. When Homer is looking for his athletic gear in the attic—after deciding he’s going on a diet when he gets stuck in a tube slide during a trip to Mount Splashmore — he comes across several portraits of Starr painted by Marge. Lisa becomes interested in her mother's hidden talent, which sends Marge back in time, recalling how she sent her paintings to Starr a long time ago but never received a response. When Marge is encouraged to pick up painting again, the episode travels to England where we see Starr responding to fan mail seemingly from decades past. He picks up Marge's package out of the pack and finds her paintings. Impressed by her work, he sends a letter to Marge thanking her for her "fab" painting, which he "hung on me wall."

Season 3

Episode 1—Michael Jackson and Kipp Lennon: "Stark Raving Dad"
Episode 10—Aerosmith: "Flaming Moe's"
Episode 13—Sting: "Radio Bart"
Episode 17—Terry Cashman: "Homer At The Bat"
Episode 20—Beverly D'Angelo: "Colonel Homer"
Episode 22—Spinal Tap: "The Otto Show"

In the season opener, Michael Jackson guest stars as the voice of an institutionalized man: Leon Kompowsky of New Jersey, who looks nothing like the real Jackson but claims to be the King Of Pop. Due to contractual obligations with his label at the time, Jackson couldn’t sing the songs in the episode, including "Happy Birthday Lisa," which Jackson wrote, so the singing parts were done by musician Kipp Lennon, a founding member of the folk/rock band Venice.

"Singing for the Simpsons over the years has always been a pleasure and a joy," Lennon tells the Recording Academy. "I always know that whatever they are calling me for it’s going to be clever and fun... It's quite a legacy to be a part of... a true icon of American pop culture that set the bar so very high indeed."

Meanwhile, Aerosmith make their "Simpsons" debut in episode 10 as the featured musical guest at the grand reopening of "Flaming Moe's," where the famous Moe joins them onstage for a rendition of "Walk This Way."

Sting appears in episode 13 as part of a campaign to raise awareness about a young boy who had allegedly fallen down a well in Springfield. However, the audience knows that there really isn’t a boy in the well; instead, it’s Bart who throws a radio transmitter microphone down a well and tricks the town into thinking a little boy is stuck. In an ironic turn of events, Bart falls down the well and Sting helps dig him out.

Later, in "The Otto Show" episode, Bart attends a concert by Spinal Tap—a parody band who appeared in the 1984 mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap—and decides he wants to be a rock star. The episode guest stars Harry Shearer, a regular "Simpsons" cast member who reprises his role as Derek Smalls from This Is Spinal Tap.

Season 4

Episode 7—Tom Jones: "Marge Gets A Job"
Episode 9—Linda Ronstadt: "Mr. Plow"
Episode 20—Barry White: "Whacking Day"
Episode 21—David Crosby: "Marge In Chains"
Episode 22—Barry White, Bette Midler and Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Krusty Gets Kancelled"

Season four features an episode that fans and critics would go on to name one of the best in the animated series' history: "Mr. Plow." In the episode, Homer starts a snowplow business and calls it "Mr. Plow." In an attempt to get more customers, he creates a commercial to advertise his new business. When Barney sees how successful he is, he starts his own snowplow business, getting an even bigger snowplow and creating his own commercial, which features a jingle sung by Linda Rondstadt.

Barry White appears as the Grand Marshall for "Whacking Day"— a day created to drive snakes into the town's square and club them to death. David Crosby appears in episode 12 as the 12-step sponsor for Lionel Hutz; the episode references the Crosby, Stills And Nash song "Teach Your Children," when Crosby tells Hutz "and know that I love you."

Episode 22 features an all-star cast including White, Bettle Midler and Red Hot Chili Peppers, who come together to perform on Krusty's comeback special. It features the Red Hot Chili Peppers singing "Give It Away" in their underwear, and Krusty and Midler singing "Wind Beneath My Wings."

Season 5

Episode 1—David Crosby, George Harrison and the Dapper Dans: "Homer's Barbershop Quartet"
Episode 4—The Ramones: "Rosebud"
Episode 7—James Brown: "Bart's Inner Child"
Episode 10—Robert Goulet: "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)"
Episode 15—James Taylor: "Deep Space Homer"

In episode one of season five, viewers are reminded that Homer once had a promising career as a member of The Be Sharps, whose hit song "Baby On Board" won a fictitious GRAMMY. In a flashback, Homer meets George Harrison at the GRAMMY after-party, and David Crosby presents The Be Sharps with their GRAMMY. The Be Sharps end up reuniting for a performance at Moe's Tavern, with the signing voices provided by the Dapper Dans.

One of the most memorable episodes of season five is episode four, which featured The Ramones performing at Mr. Burns' birthday party. After the band sings happy birthday to Mr. Burns, which ends with them saying "go to hell you old bastard," Mr. Burns, mistaking the Ramones for the Rolling Stones, orders Smithers to "have the Rolling Stones killed."

James Brown appears in episode seven of the show for a performance of his 1965 song "I Got You (I Feel Good)" at the Do What You Feel festival. GRAMMY winner James Taylor appears in episode 15 to serenade Homer and fellow astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Race Banyon on their space shuttle mission.

Season 6

Episode 22—Ron Taylor: "Round Springfield"
Episode 25—Tito Puente: "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)"

In episode 22, Ron Taylor reprises his role as "Bleeding Gums" Murphy and lends his saxophone to Lisa for a school recital when she bumps into him at a hospital. Before Lisa could return the sax, "Bleeding Gums" dies. Lisa is the only one to attend his funeral and vows to make sure everyone in Springfield knows who "Bleeding Gums" Murphy is.

In the final episode of the season—part one of the two-parter "Who Shot Mr. Burns?"—Lisa convinces Principal Skinner to hire Tito Puente as a music teacher, but Puente quickly loses his job when the school loses an oil opportunity to Mr. Burns. Puente would appear again in part two of "Who Shot Mr. Burns?"

Season 7

Episode 1—Tito Puente: "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)"
Episode 5—Paul & Linda McCartney: "Lisa The Vegetarian"
Episode 6—Paul Anka: "Treehouse Of Horror VI"
Episode 24—Cypress Hill, Peter Frampton, Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth: "Homerpalooza"

The highlight of season seven is an episode that many "Simpsons" fans consider to be their favorite: "Homerpalooza." In the episode, Homer, in an attempt to prove to Bart and Lisa how cool he is, takes them to the Hullabalooza music festival where he’s hired as a sideshow freak who can withstand the force of a cannonball blast. The episode features appearances by Cypress Hill, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth and Peter Frampton, who Homer upsets when he accidently sends Frampton's stage prop (an inflatable pig he apparently purchased at a Roger Waters yard sale) flying into the air.

Recalling when he received the phone call from "The Simpsons" crew asking him to be on the show, Frampton remembers saying, "I think you want me to play the old, crusty rock star that’s done everything, been there and is a little bit fed up with everything, and [the crew] said, 'nailed it.'"

But for his part on "The Simpsons," Frampton didn’t simply read his lines, he also contributed to the story by adding one of his own. As Homer gets ready to be shot in the belly with a canon, Frampton walks by and quips, "25 years in this business and I’ve never seen anything like it."

As far as being "Simpson-ized," a.k.a. drawn like a "Simpsons" character, Frampton recalls that seeing himself as that way was iconic. The legendary guitarist even has a backstage pass of his character hanging from his speaker in his music room. "I'm very proud of it," he adds. "It's like getting a GRAMMY.

Season 8

Episode 2—Sally Stevens: "You Only Move Twice"
Episode 3—Sally Stevens: "The Homer They Fall"
Episode 9—Johnny Cash: "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)"

In episode nine of season eight of "The Simpsons," Homer eats several hot chili peppers and hallucinates, leading him on a mysterious voyage where he meets the "Space Coyote," played by Johnny Cash.

Season 9

Episode 15—Hank Williams, Jr.: "The Last Temptation Of Krust"
Episode 22—U2: "Trash Of The Titans"

In season nine, Hank Williams, Jr. sings the song "Canyonero," which was used in a commercial for the SUV of the same name.

In the "Trash of the Titans" episode, Homer runs for the position of Springfield's Sanitation Commissioner, but his campaign gets off to a bad start when he's beaten up after interrupting U2's PopMart Tour concert by inserting himself on the stage screens to promote his campaign.

Season 10

Episode 6—Yo La Tengo: "D'oh-in In The Wind"
Episode 10—The Moody Blues: "Viva Ned Flanders"
Episode 11—Cyndi Lauper: "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken"
Episode 12—Dolly Parton: "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday"
Episode 14—Elton John: "I'm With Cupid"
Episode 15—Hank Williams, Jr.: "Marge Simpson in: Screaming Yellow Honkers"
Episode 20—NRBQ: "The Old Man And The 'C' Student"

In a star-stacked season, "The Simpsons" welcomed musical guests for six episodes of season 10, including Elton John, who ends up at the Springfield airport when the chandelier on his private jet needs repairing and leads to an emergency landing. After John exits the plane, Homer greets him and tells him he’s his biggest fan. John responds by handing Homer one of his GRAMMYs. John later ends up performing a special Valentine's Day private concert for Apu and his wife.

This season also features Homer running into the Moody Blues in a casino, Cyndi Lauper performing the national anthem at a Springfield Isotopes game, and Dolly Parton helping Homer and others get out of "Super Bowl jail" with her "extra-strength makeup remover." Yo La Tengo appear in episode six of the season as one of only a few artists invited to rework "The Simpsons" theme song, giving it a psychedelic touch.

Season 11

Episode 5—The B-52's: "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)"
Episode 8—NRBQ: "Take My Wife, Sleaze"
Episode 9—Clarence Clemons: "Grift Of The Magi"
Episode 12—Britney Spears: "The Mansion Family" Episode 13—Bachman Turner Overdrive: "Saddlesore Galactica"
Episode 14—Shawn Colvin: "Alone Again, Natura-Diddly"
Episode 19—Joseph "Joe C." Calleja and Kid Rock: "Kill The Alligator And Run"
Episode 22—Willie Nelson: "Behind The Laughter"

In episode 12, Britney Spears hosts the Springfield Pride Awards with Kent Brockman and accidentally kills Springfield’s oldest resident, Cornelius Chapman, when she kisses him on the cheek after handing him an award. Canadian rock band Bachman Turner Overdrive performs at the Springfield state fair as Homer shouts for them to play their hit "Takin' Care Of Business.” Shawn Colvin returns as Rachel Jordan, the lead singer of a Christian rock band Kovenant, and Ned is attracted to her. In the final episode of the season, Willie Nelson performs at the Phony Awards show, as a request from his longtime friend, Dr. Hibbert.

On playing the character of Rachel Jordan, Colvin says, "Playing Rachel was a blast. I recorded the song in Austin and they built the animation around my performance, but I did some overdubs in L.A. to the animation itself of Rachel, making grunting noises as she lifted her sound equipment back into her van. That was a first for me."

Season 12

Episode 2—The Who: "A Tale Of Two Springfields"
Episode 14—'NSYNC: "New Kids On The Bleech"
Episode 19—Shawn Colvin: "I'm Goin' To Praiseland"

The Who perform in Springfield to destroy the wall that separates "Olde Springfield" from "New Springfield" with Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle voicing themselves. 'NSYNC appear in episode 14 to prevent L.T. Smash—who manage the short-lived boy band (featuring Bart) Party Posse—from destroying part of New York City. Colvin again reprises her role as Christian singer Rachel Jordan.

Season 13

Episode 3—R.E.M.: "Homer The Moe"
Episode 5—Judith Owen: "The Blunder Years
Episode 16—Phish: "Weekend At Burnsie's"

In episode three of Season 13, Homer tricks R.E.M. into playing a concert in his garage bar, which he opened to steal regulars from Moe's Tavern. The band plays their hit song "It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Judith Owen appears in episode five as herself, playing piano and singing at the Pimento Grove. Jam band Phish appear in episode 16 to play a rally in support of the benefits of medical marijuana, which Homer enjoys.

Recalling seeing herself animated for the first time on "The Blunder Years" episode, Welsh singer/songwriter Owen says, "It was absolutely hysterical. I had an enormous and mouth, and massive eyes, and it was just fantastic."

Season 14

Episode 2—Elvis Costello, Lenny Kravitz, Mick Jagger, Tom Petty, Keith Richards, Brian Setzer: "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation"
Episode 3—Tony Bennett: "Bart vs. Lisa vs. 3rd Grade"
Episode 4—Baha Men: "Large Marge"
Episode 6—Sally Stevens: "The Great Louse Detective"
Episode 7—Little Richard: "Special Edna"
Episode 11—Blink-182: "Barting Over"
Episode 17—"Weird Al" Yankovic: "Three Gays Of The Condo"
Episode 18—David Byrne: "Dude, Where's My Ranch?"
Episode 20—Jackson Browne: "Brake My Wife, Please"

In one of the most rockin' seasons of "The Simpsons," the creators managed to get some of music's biggest stars to appear in "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation.” In this episode, viewers are again reminded of Homer’s long-lost rock star dreams, and the Simpsons family, realizing how they may have contributed to his dreams never becoming reality, send him to a Rock 'n Roll Fantasy Camp run by the Rolling Stones. At the camp, Homer and other Springfield residents learn about rock music from instructors such as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Elvis Costello, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Petty and Brian Setzer. The campers end with a mock rock concert that features Homer on guitar and vocals.

Also, Blink-182 appear in episode 11, performing at a party being thrown by skateboard legend Tony Hawk, who Bart happens to be neighbors with when he temporarily moves into a downtown loft.

Season 15

Episode 7—Jim Gilstrap: "Tis the Fifteenth Season"
Episode 15—Brave Combo: "Co-Dependent's Day"

This season of "The Simpsons" featured appearances by singer Jim Gilstrap and polka band Brave Combo, who series creator Matt Groening learned about when he was a college radio DJ in the 1980s.

Season 16

Episode 9—50 Cent: "Pranksta Rap"
Episode 18—Fantasia Barrino: "A Star Is Torn"
Episode 19—Baha Men and Los Lobos: "Thank God It's Doomsday"

In episode nine, Bart sneaks out of the house to attend a rap concert featuring hip-hop artist “Alcatraaz.” After Alcatraaz drops his microphone during the concert, it lands in Bart’s hands and the hip-hop artist challenges him to a rap battle. Bart wins and gets to ride home with Alcatraaz in his limo, meeting 50 Cent along the way. In episode 18, "American Idol" winner Fantasia Barrino plays the role of Clarissa Wellington, who is one of the contestants of Krusty the Clown's Lil'l Starmaker singing contest.

Season 17

Episode 19—Jim Gilstrap: "Girls Just Want To Have Sums"
Episode 22—Mandy Moore: "Marge And Homer Turn A Couple Play"

Mandy Moore plays the role of pop star Tabitha Vixx—the wife of Springfield Isotopes' Buck "Home Run King" Mitchell. After Tabitha embarrasses Buck by stripping down to lingerie during one of his games, he asks Homer and Marge for help with his marriage in exchange for season tickets. After a few hiccups in the relationship, Tabitha and Buck are able to patch things up.

Season 18

Episode 1—Metallica: "The Mook, The Chef, The Wife And Her Homer"
Episode 2—White Stripes: "Jazzy And The Pussycats"
Episode 4—Sir Mix-A-Lot: "Treehouse Of Horror XVII"
Episode 14—Stephen Sondheim: "Yokel Chords"
Episode 22 — Ludacris: "You Kent Always Say What You Want"

In the opening episode of season 18, Otto is driving the kids to school when he sees Metallica’s tour bus broken down on the side of the road. Otto pulls over to talk to them and Bart hijacks the school bus, forcing Metallica to hitch a ride with Hans Moleman.

This season also features appearances by The White Stripes, who performed a parody of their video "The Hardest Button To Button" with Bart. When Bart’s drum kit crashes into theirs, Meg White says she’s going to kick Bart’s "ass," but before she has a chance, the band falls off a bridge into a landfill.

Ludacris, who plays himself as "Luda Crest," a toothpaste that’s "the enemy of the cavity." Luda Crest appears in an informational video Lisa watches while at the dentist's office called "Menace Tooth Society."

Season 19

Episode 1—Lionel Richie: "He Loves To Fly And He D'ohs"
Episode 2—Plácido Domingo: "The Homer Of Seville"
Episode 4—Ted Nugent: "I Don't Wanna Know Why The Caged Bird Sings"
Episode 7—Jack Black: "Husbands and Knives"
Episode 11 — "Weird Al" Yankovic: "That's '90s Show"
Episode 16 — Dixie Chicks and Beverly D'Angelo: "Papa Don't Leech"
Episode 17 — Zooey Deschanel: "Apocalypse Cow"

The 19th season of "The Simpsons"—the first produced after "The Simpsons Movie"—opened with a guest appearance by GRAMMY winner Lionel Richie. When Homer saves Mr. Burns from nearly drowning in a fountain, Burns rewards him with a trip to Chicago on his private jet for some deep-dish pizza. On the plane, Homer gets serenaded by Richie, who sings him a song about beer upon his request.

In the second episode of the season, an injury Homer sustained when accidentally falling into an open grave (after he and family snuck into a wake for some food) gives him a powerful opera voice and he stars as Rodolfo in La bohème at the Springfield Opera House, subsequently giving advice to GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY winner Plácido Domingo.

This season also features Jack Black as the character Milo, the hipster owner of the comic bookstore Coolsville Comics & Toys—a rival to Comic Book Guy, the return of Beverly D’Angelo as Lurleel Lumpkin, and the Dixie Chicks.

Episode 11 features a cameo by MTV talking head Kurt Loder, and during a flashback we see another glimpse of Homer reminiscing on the early days when he could have become a rock star. The flashback involves his 1990s band Sadgasm inventing a new musical genre called "grunge.” In a sign that the band gained some popularity, "Weird Al" Yankovic covered their hit "Shave Me" as "Brain Freeze."

Season 20

Episode 9—Fall Out Boy: "Lisa The Drama Queen"
Episode 14—Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova: "In The Name Of The Grandfather"
Episode 19—Weezer: "Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh"

A special version of the end credits theme for episode nine was performed by GRAMMY-nominated rock band Fall Out Boy, whose name was directly inspired by a character in the "Radioactive Man" comic book series. Episode 14 was inspired by a New York Times article on the effects of Ireland's smoking ban on pubs, and featured Irish singer/songwriter Glen Hansard as a street musician and Markéta Irglová—the other half of the Swell Season—as an Eastern European woman.

Though not technically an appearance, a reworked version of Weezer's classic "Beverly Hills" played during the credits for "Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh."

Season 21

Episode 8—Smothers Brothers: "Oh Brother, Where Bart Thou?”
Episode 10—Anne Hathaway and Eartha Kitt: "Once Upon a Time in Springfield"
Episode 11—Chris Martin: "Million-Dollar Maybe"
Episode 16—Yael Naim: "The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed"

Though technically known as an actress rather than a singer, Anne Hathaway appeared in episode 10 of season 21 and sang as "Princess Penelope," and her appearance ranks as one of Mike Anderson's most memorable.

"Anne Hathaway showed up at a table read and when she sang as Princess Penelope everyone at the table had their mouth hanging open just staring," he recalls. "The whole place was silent as she sang her part because it was so beautiful. Those are the memories I take away from the show."

Season 21 also featured Coldplay performing a private gig for Bart and Homer after Homer wins a million dollars in the lottery (the band must stop performing when Bart gets up to go to the bathroom).

Season 22

Episode 1—Flight Of The Conchords and "Glee" cast: "Elementary School Musical"
Episode 8—Katy Perry: "The Fight Before Christmas"
Episode 22—Joey Kramer: "The Ned-Liest Catch"

Season 22 of "The Simpsons" opened with appearances by Flight Of The Conchords' Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement, who play hipster camp counselors Kurt Hardwick and Ethan Ballantyne at an art camp that Lisa attends. When she returns, Lisa has trouble acclimating to normal life and runs away to "Sprooklyn," described by the counselors as the "artistic hotbed of Springfield," but she quickly realizes it’s not as cool as they made it out to be. She returns home and the camp counselors create a mural in her honor.

GRAMMY-nominated pop star Katy Perry also appears in a live-action episode of season 22, the holiday special "The Fight Before Christmas." In the episode, Perry appears with the Simpsons as puppets and plays the part of Moe's girlfriend.

Season 23

Episode 10—Ted Nugent: "Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson"
Episode 11—The Tiger Lillies: "The D'oh-cial Network"
Episode 14—Alison Krauss: "At Long Last Leave"
Episode 15—Nick McKaig: "Exit Through the Kwik-E-Mart"
Episode 22—Lady Gaga: "Lisa Goes Gaga"

Proving just how diverse the artists who guest star on "The Simpsons" are, the 23rd season featured the return of Ted Nugent, who is chosen by Homer to be the Republican candidate for the next presidential election, and an appearance by GRAMMY winner Lady Gaga. GRAMMY winner Alison Krauss and her band Union Station recorded a bluegrass version of the theme song over the closing credits in episode 14, and Nick McKaig—known for his covers on YouTube—performed "The Simpsons" theme over the closing credits in episode 15.

In the final episode of the season, "Lisa Goes Gaga," Lady Gaga visits Springfield, where everyone is in a state of depression, with Lisa being arguably the most depressed after having been voted the most unpopular student by her peers. Gaga attempts to lift her spirits, but instead Lisa unleashes her anger on Gaga, prompting her to realize that bottling up her feelings has been her problem all along. She apologizes to Gaga and the two sing a duet called "Super Star" together. In the end, Homer can be heard singing "Poker Face" over the credits.

Season 24

Episode 1—Zooey Deschanel and Anne Hathaway: "Moonshine River"
Episode 4—Marvin Hamlisch and Anika Noni Rose: "Gone Abie Gone"
Episode 7—The Decemberists, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein: "The Day The Earth Stood Cool"
Episode 9—Tom Waits: "Homer Goes To Prep School"
Episode 12—Zooey Deschanel and Max Weinberg: "Love Is A Many-Splintered Thing"
Episode 19—Sonny Rollins: "Whiskey Business"
Episode 20—Justin Bieber: "The Fabulous Faker Boy"
Episode 21—Sigur Ros: "The Saga Of Carl"

Season 24 featured a plethora of guest artists, including singer Zooey Deschanel who appears in two episodes, including the season opener wherein she reprises her season 19 role as Bart's girlfriend, Mary Spuckler.

Episode seven of the season was packed with guest stars as Homer goes hipster after meeting a goateed food truck proprietor played by musician, actor and comedian Fred Armisen. The episode also featured guest star, and Armisen’s "Portlandia" co-star, Carrie Brownstein and the Decemberists, who were hired to replace M.I.A. music teacher Dewey Largo.

Justin Bieber plays himself in episode 20 when he tries to get into a talent show that Bart is performing in and gets turned away. "The Simpsons" head to Iceland in episode 21 of the season when Carl attempts to connect with his roots. Mike Anderson commissioned Icelandic band Sigur Rós to participate, and the band’s music was featured in the episode, along with their interpretation of the opening theme.

Season 25

Episode 9—Rob Halford: "Steal This Episode"

Rob Hilford appeared in episode nine of season 25, an appearance that the Judas Priest lead singer would eventually call the "biggest thrill" of his life. In the episode, Homer gets involved in illegal film downloading, which leads the FBI to launch an anti-piracy investigation. When the Simpsons family seek refuge in a Swedish consulate, Halford ends up singing a parody of the band's classic "Breaking The Law" in an effort to get Homer out of the foreign building.

Season 26

Episode 6—Katey Sagal and Billy West: "Simpsorama"
Episode 8—Sammy Hagar: "Covercraft"
Episode 13—Pharrell Williams: "Walking Big & Tall"
Episode 15—Richard Branson: "The Princess Guide"
Episode 17—Cat Deeley: "Waiting For Duffman"
Episode 20—Carice van Houten: "Let’s Go Fly A Coot"
Episode 21—Johnny Mathis: "Bull-E"

In another point in "The Simpsons" where we catch a glimpse of Homer's long-lost rock star dreams, he starts a band in episode eight with Springfield dads and calls it Covercraft, featuring Apu on vocals. Apu is discovered by the famous (fictitious) '80s glam metal band Sungazer and they recruit him to replace their lead singer, who has passed away. Apu admits to Homer that he's feeling lonely and homesick, so Homer decides to take revenge on Sungazer by poisoning them with Kwik-E-Mart hot dogs, and is later arrested. In jail, he and Apu listen to a story from a Hawaiian shirt-wearing Sammy Hagar. This wasn’t the first time Hagar’s likeness has appeared on the show: in season 11 Hagar was spotted in the crowd at a pseudo-VH1 awards show next to Willie Nelson.

Season 26 also features appearances by Pharrell Williams, who offers to write a city anthem for Springfield in episode 13; Recording Academy Special Merit Award recipient Richard Branson, who plays himself as the neighbor of Mr. Burns, greeting him daily in a Ned Flanders way by saying "hey-dibbley-do, neighboroonie," to which Burns replies, "stupid Branson."

Finally, Johnny Mathis appears in Smithers' dream in which Groundskeeper Willie is returning to Scotland and will be replaced by the standards singer.

Season 27

Episode 1—Zosia Mamet and Allison Williams: "Every Man's Dream"
Episode 3—Yo-Yo Ma: "Puffless"
Episode 14—Natalie Maines: "Gal Of A Constant Sorrow"
Episode 16—Jon Wurster: "The Marge-ian Chronicles"

GRAMMY-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma makes a cameo as himself to help Mr. Burns serenade Mrs. Bouvier. He also performed the show’s theme song, which played over the closing credits. Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines returns as the singing voice of a homeless woman with a secret singing talent named Hettie Mae Boggs, who Bart and Lisa house in their closet.

Season 28

Episode 4—Donald Fagen and Judith Owen: "Treehouse Of Horror XXVII"
Episode 12 & 13—Jim Beanz, Common, Dawnn Lewis, RZA and Snoop Dogg: "The Great Phatsby Parts 1 & 2"
Episode 18—Brian Posehn: "A Father's Watch"
Episode 20—Jennifer Saunders: "Looking For Mr. Goodbart"

In the 600th episode of "The Simpsons," Judith Owen sings the song "600" in "Treehouse Of Horror XXVII," and a quick cameo from Donald Fagen performing with Steely Dan at Duff Stadium, annoyed at the drunks in the audience. In the two-part, hip-hop-themed, Great Gatsby-inspired episode titled "The Great Phatsby," Common, RZA and Snoop Dogg play themselves. The hour-long special tells the story of a condemned friendship between Mr. Burns and a cryptic hip-hop mogul named "Jay G." Original songs for the episode were created by Jim Beanz, a producer on Fox's hip-hop drama "Empire."

Season 29

Episode 1—Billy Boyd: "The Serfsons"
Episode 2—Rachel Bloom and Martin Short: "Springfield Splendor"
Episode 8—Kipp Lennon: "Mr. Lisa’s Opus"
Episode 9—Shaquille O'Neal: "Gone Boy"
Episode 10—Ed Sheeran: "Haw-Haw Land"
Episode 14—Damian Kulash and Tim Nordwind (OK Go): "Fears Of A Clown"
Episode 17—Trombone Shorty: "Lisa Gets The Blues"

Martin Short (of the Steep Canyon Rangers with Steve Martin) guest stars as theatrical director Guthrie Frenel, who wants to make Marge and Lisa’s comic book, Sad Girl, into a stage musical. Shaquille O’Neal (part retired basketball player, part rapper) searches for Bart when he falls down a manhole. GRAMMY winner Ed Sheeran plays the voice of a crooning jazz pianist that Lisa falls for named Brendan Beiderbecke. In a New Orleans-flavored episode, the Simpsons end up in the Crescent City and stumble upon a group of jazz musicians, including Trombone Shorty, playing under a banner that said "celebrate." Marge asked Trombone Shorty what he was celebrating, and he replied with "humidity at 98 percent."

Season 30

Episode 1—Jonathan Groff: "Bart's Not Dead"
Episode 2—George Segal (also a musician): "Heartbreak Hotel"
Episode 12—Patti LuPone: "The Girl On The Bus"
Episode 18—Awkwafina: "Bart vs. Itchy & Scratchy"
Episode 19—Dave Matthews: "Girl's In The Band"
Episode 20—Okilly Dokilly and Josh Groban: “I'm Just A Girl Who Can’t Say D’oh”
Episode 21—Awkwafina: "D'oh Canada"

GRAMMY winner Dave Matthews lends his voice to a bartender named Lloyd in "Girl's In The Band" and gives Homer advice to kill his family; fortunately, Homer didn’t take it. Josh Groban plays the singing voice of Professor Frink in episode 20 after his songs "You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)," "So She Dances" and "In Her Eyes" were played in the season 20 episode "Lisa The Drama Queen." Rapper/actress Awkwafina appears in two episodes of the 30th season, as Carmen, sixth grade student and member of the gang Bossy Riot, in episode 18, and Canadian doctor, Dr. Chang, who treats Lisa after she goes over Niagara Falls in episode 21.

Season 31

Episode 3—Dawnn Lewis: "The Fat Blue Line"
Episode 5—Dawnn Lewis: "Gorillas On The Mast"
Episode 6—Jill Sobule: "Marge The Lumberjill"

On the current season of "The Simpsons," singer/songwriter Jill Sobule wrote and sang the song "Lumberjill" for the episode "Marge The Lumberjill." In the episode, Marge takes up lumber-jacking when she realizes everyone thinks she's boring. (As if that were even possible.)

And there you have it: The last three decades of music on "The Simpsons." Now go get a donut and a can of Duff. You've earned it.

Nicholas Britell On Scoring 'Succession' And 'The King' & Learning From Steve McQueen

Tim Farriss, Kirk Pengilly, Jon Farriss and Andrew Farriss of INXS

Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

News

INXS Guitarist Tim Farriss Talks Wembley Show, Partying With Queen & The Band's Legacy

On the heels of their concert film "Live Baby Live" returning to theaters for one night only, the INXS guitarist looks back on the Aussie rock favorites' famed 1991 show

Bryan Reesman

GRAMMYs

Dec 3, 2019 - 11:38 am

INXS fans are getting a royal treat on Monday, Dec. 9. The band's famed Wembley Stadium show from July 1991 in front of 72,000 fans—released back then as the CD and concert film "Live Baby Live"—has been upgraded to high definition, with audio remixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios, and it will be screened in theaters across the country for one night only. For longtime fans and new converts, it will be a vivid trip back in time when the Australian sextet was at the peak of their musical powers, with late singer Michael Hutchence leading the charge.

It's been a pleasure for guitarist/co-founding member Tim Farriss as well. "What blew me away is I'd never seen my band like that before," he tells the Recording Academy of the HD reissue. "I'd seen it on television and computer screens, but I'd never seen it on a big screen. It was extraordinary. The band started back in '77, but I'd never had that experience before."

A bonus on the new "Live Baby Live" is the inclusion of "Lately" from the album X. It was recovered through former band manager/Petrol Records founder Chris Murphy's decade-long search for the original 35mm film cans which were found in Australia. From Farriss' recollections, an audio glitch, likely from tapes being switched in the middle of the song, kept "Lately" from being used back then. Through the wonders of modern digital technology, that problem was fixed. Farriss and his bandmates—brothers Jon and Andrew, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Gary Beers—could not tell when watching the new version. He adds that the three standout performances for him are "Lately," "Hear That Sound" and "The Stairs," and that "Who Pays The Price," "Lately" and "Hear That Sound" only received a very short run in their touring career.

Interestingly enough, the opening song "Guns In The Sky" blasts off from an extended jam resulting from drummer Jon Farriss running out on stage, while the band was finishing their champagne, to get the groove going. It was neither planned nor rehearsed and shows how comfortable INXS were as a unit. Their exuberance and love for playing together clearly shows.

"The attitude we had was, 'Let's have a good time, guys,'" remarks the guitarist. "We didn't start with a hit. We started with the first song off the last album, then went into playing songs that a large percentage of the audience wouldn't have known because we were promoting a new album. We were doing what we normally did in a club—try out the new songs."

While "Live Baby Live" features plenty of hits like "Suicide Blonde," "Need You Tonight" and "Never Tear Us Apart," the set is unusual in that it comprises mostly two albums, Kick and X, which were their most recent studio offerings at the time. Nothing is featured from their first three records including Shabooh Shoobah (not even "Don't Change"), and The Swing and Listen Like Thieves are represented by only one track apiece. Farris says that this was not a conscious decision towards commercialism. The band just wanted to play the songs they connected with most emotionally and musically.

"The version of 'Send A Message' is so different from The Swing version, and 'What You Need' was always fun to play live," recalls Farriss. "Then Michael went into the audience singing a part that went for much longer than it normally would. We just had a really fun time playing that show. We didn't want it to finish. The who's who of our friends all wanted in on the Wembley Stadium show. It was just a great party."

The new triple vinyl, double CD, and digital reissues of "Live Baby Live" represent the Wembley show, as opposed to the original CD release which collected tracks from different concerts on the tour and was criticized for being inconsistent and not sounding very energized. The new package comes with fresh liner notes by the band and by broadcaster Jamie East who attended the show.

Farriss says one of his fondest memories from playing at Wembley was recalling their previous engagement there opening for Queen during their 1986 European tour together. He remembers how approachable and friendly they were.

"They would go out for dinner together," he says. "In fact, they invited us to go to dinner with them in places like Belgium. We suddenly realized that there was this amazing similarity with how they were amongst themselves and how we were." While Farriss felt that some bands they had toured with were lacking in great personal chemistry, Queen "seemed like genuine friends."

On one special night in Montreux, Switzerland, Freddie Mercury had the presidential suite at the Grand Hôtel Suisse-Majestic. He invited Hutchence, Farriss, his brother Jon and their tour manager Gary Grant to party there.

"Freddie had his personal assistant there, and he had a big stereo system and a microphone in his room," says Farriss. "We were partying up there, just the five of us, and Freddie's playing us this stuff. He's got Michael singing into this microphone with Freddie holding the microphone. They had their noses about an inch apart, and they're both belting it out to some new music for Queen. I was sitting on the sofa with Jon going, 'Hey, this sounds pretty good.' At the time it was just fun. Now I look back and I think, ‘Holy sh*t, if only I'd had an iPhone then.'" (That said, he is glad INXS came up at a time when people actually watched concerts live without holding up their phones.)

Farriss hopes that the "Live Baby Live" re-release will attract a younger generation of fans to the group. While there are two video screens flanking the stage (but barely visible on film), the Wembley show features just music and pure adrenaline emanating from the band.

"There were no dancers or backing vocals, there was no grand piano wheeled out for the ballad," says Farriss. "There were no pyrotechnics." It is an organic experience that feels anathema to the multimedia overload of today. "I see young kids today loving vinyl, and I think that they'd love a band of guys that do it tough together and grow up in front of everyone and stick it out. It gives everyone hope, you know? That's the one thing that we hung onto and that worked out for us. I think every young person deserves to have that."

INXS at their Wembley Stadium show in July 1991
Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Films

These days, many classic rock icons have been getting their due with accolades. One can hope that INXS will get long overdue recognition from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The 2014 Australian television mini-series about the band, "Never Tear Us Apart" (which has not aired in the U.S.), was the highest rated of all time Down Under, although, despite having consulted on it, Farriss did not feel it accurately captured the group. A proposed Broadway musical is reportedly in the works, although Farriss is more excited about the possibility of a full-length documentary. The Michael Hutchence documentary "Mystify" is being shown in U.S. theaters for one night on Jan. 7. While Farriss and his bandmates participated in the film, he does not want the INXS story to end there.

The guitarist says that while "Mystify" director and longtime INXS music video collaborator Richard Lowenstein "was a great mate, it's a story about Michael. It's not just about INXS, it's about Michael from the time he was a child and delves into a lot of what really happened to him after the accident. There’s stuff in it that we just didn't know about at the time of the mini-series, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think that would have made as good television either."

Farriss adds that there has not been a comprehensive documentary about INXS. The iconic Australian band won six Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) awards, have sold an estimated 60 million albums globally, won five MTV Music Video Awards and were nominated for three GRAMMY Awards.

"A television series is one thing, but there hasn't actually been a blood, sweat and tears documentary," stresses Farriss. "And it shouldn't finish with Michael either. It needs to go on to post-Michael because some of the stuff we did after Michael passed [in 1997] makes him all the more relevant, and as well shows the depth." He feels that the album they made with singer JD Fortune, 2005’s Switch, was fantastic, and that making that record with producer Guy Chambers, plus doing the "Rock Star: INXS" reality show where they procured Fortune, was an intense experience. "It was so different for us as opposed to just album-tour/album-tour/album-tour."

Michael Hutchence of INXS
Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Films

Farriss is also open to doing a book as he feels his perspective is different from anybody else. "Looking back, the whole idea of the six of us getting together was really my doing," he declares. "And being the person who did 85% of the publicity with Michael, I had a pretty good gauge on where he was at, sitting in limousines going from radio station to radio station or television station to television station, just having a whole day of media. It was exhausting. All that stuff could be used in a documentary. I quite enjoy that doco side of things, so that's something I'd really like to get my teeth into."

Until recently, the world has not heard much from INXS. Their last album, 2010's Original Sin, offered re-recorded and reworked greatest hits with different singers. They released the new songs "Tiny Summer" (studio track) and "We Are United" (live) with singer Ciaran Gribbin through the internet in 2011. The last time they played live was 2012 when they announced their retirement from touring.

Many years ago, Farriss opened a recording studio and recently slowed down with that, but he wants to get back to making music, particularly as he wrote songs for Switch that he inexplicably did not offer up. "I've got this catalog of material," he reveals. "I feel like now's the time to go there again and maybe get into writing some more."

When asked how his left hand is doing—his ring finger was severed in a boating accident in 2015, then reattached, but he cannot play with it—Farriss says solemnly, "It's pretty f**ked. It's painful emotionally. It's painful psychologically. It's painful just as in nerve pain." But that's not stopping him from writing new music.

Indeed, if there is anything that has defined INXS beyond music throughout their career, it is persistence and passion. When asked about advice he would give to younger musicians, Farriss replies, "Keep it fresh. Keep it real, keep it fun, and always be positive. Even if you're feeling like you want to be melancholic, do it in a positive way."

That ethos served INXS very well and will cascade from the Wembley stage into theaters this week.

(GRAMMY.com contributor Bryan Reesman is the host of the podcast "Side Jams" and author of "Bon Jovi: The Story.")

Jeff Goldblum On His Lifelong Passion For Jazz And His New Album

Peter Frampton On His Farewell Tour, Living With I.B.M. & Reclaiming 'Peter F**king Frampton'

Former Punk Frontman Brian Fallon Continues His Americana Metamorphosis On ‘Local Honey’

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Cable Ties Hold it All Together

Read More: Courtney Barnett Talks Life, Music And (Almost) Everything

GRAMMYs Newsletter

"The Simpsons" At 30: A Complete History Of Every Band That's Ever Rocked Springfield

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

Season 6

Season 7

Season 8

Season 9

Season 10

Season 11

Season 12

Season 13

Season 14

Season 15

Season 16

Season 17

Season 18

Season 19

Season 20

Season 21

Season 22

Season 23

Season 24

Season 25

Season 26

Season 27

Season 28

Season 29

Season 30

Season 31

INXS Guitarist Tim Farriss Talks Wembley Show, Partying With Queen & The Band's Legacy