Andrew Farriss releases debut solo album at 61 as INXS forges ahead after manager’s death

Andrew Farriss has finally come out of the shadows, decades after writing INXS hits with his late mate Michael Hutchence to release his solo album.

Andrew Farriss is finally releasing his debut solo album at 61, finding his own voice after decades of writing INXS hits with his late mate Michael Hutchence.

Farriss releases his self-titled Americana-flavoured album as he continues to mourn INXS’s chief cheerleader and brand builder Chris “C.M.” Murphy, who died of a rare blood cancer in January.

While the award-winning songwriter has never stopped composing, it took the encouragement of young sound engineers in Nashville who weren’t aware of his chart-topping legacy to convince him to step up to the mic.

Andrew Farriss releases his first solo record on Friday. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The musician and his wife Marlina had become regular visitors to the American hitmaker capital during trips to the US to visit her family.

When he used the opportunity to hit a local studio to polish up some new tracks and others from his considerable vault, Farriss sang the “demo” versions of the songs and intended them to be eventually recorded by “good singers”.

“These guys were just telling me to put it out so that was when I started thinking maybe there is hope for me at the end of the tunnel here,” he said.

“They didn’t care about preconceptions of what band I was in or whatever. They’re just saying we like this stuff. And in country music, it’s not totally pop-driven, there’s still some grittiness to it.”

Farriss and his wife Marlina are part of the Tamworth crowd. Picture: AAP Image/Brendan Esposito.

Many of the tracks on the record were inspired by his love of Americana and the stories of the Wild West which Farriss and his family explored during horseriding adventures along old stagecoach routes near the Mexican border.

A farmer for the past 30 years when not on the road with the band – Farriss and his family live outside Tamworth – he found a home in country music where he could wear his big, authentic, felt hats and sing about big skies, outlaws and frontiers.

“It was liberating for me and not in the way of wanting to deliberately distance myself from the sound of INXS; those are my brothers and my mates and I was incredibly fortunate to write with great artists, especially Michael Hutchence,” he says.

“A lot of these songs are about connection to land, so there’s a lot of Australiana in that sense.”

The album’s first single Come Midnight was initially written in the mid 1980s during sessions for their global breakthrough album Kick.

Farriss resurrected it because his wife had a demo version of it as her morning alarm song.

“The last thing I want to hear every morning was me singing some demo,” he says, chuckling.

“But it proved to be literally a wake-up call; I finally woke up to the fact she liked that song, that she was making a pitch for me to record it.”

Farriss and his wife now have this vision for a tour of old theatres with box seats and velvet curtains reminiscent of the turn-of-the-century vaudevillian music halls in America.

Farriss and Michael Hutchence wrote most of the band’s hits together. Picture: Supplied.

The team who have steered the affairs of INXS in Australia and the US in recent years are keeping the ball rolling in the wake of Murphy’s death.

There are big projects in the works, including another AFL-related venture, but Farriss insists his focus is entirely on the launch of his solo record for now.

“Chris Murphy had a tenacity and passion for INXS – he was always telling us, if we were grizzling, ‘Shut up and let me make this happen!’ He knew how to fight for the things we wanted to do and cleverly strategise how to do that,” he says.

Farriss on his property outside of Tamworth. Photo: Glenn Hunt / The Australian

“I’ve dedicated so much of my life, as the other guys have, to INXS and to nurture and continue what we are doing but it has built its own momentum as an international career.

“It’s in the back of my mind but in the front of my heart. And for now, I want to focus on the record I made and being me after all these years.”

Andrew Farriss, the album, is out on March 19.

Originally published as Andrew Farriss releases debut solo album at 61 as INXS forges ahead after manager’s death