The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (196 page)

Thursday 6

Epic Soundtracks

(Kevin Paul Godfrey - Croydon, Surrey, 23 March 1959)

Swell Maps

(Various acts)

Although never a huge star, in his later years the extravagantly named drummer must have enjoyed the power he had to enforce Epic Records’ change of name to Soundtrax for their film-music division. Epic Soundtracks formed early UK punk band Swell Maps in 1974 with his brother, Nikki Sudden (Nick Godfrey
g March 2006),
while the pair were looking after their parents’ home in Solihull, Birmingham. While Soundtracks was studying at art school, Swell Maps recorded their classic ‘Read About Seymour’ single (1977), followed by two albums and two sessions for omnipresent DJ John Peel. Too arty for the punk set, the group split in 1980, though Soundtracks rejoined his brother later in the decade in his band The Jacobites, and also contributed to records by Crime & The City Solution, Red Crayola and latterly These Immortal Souls. While working at London’s Record & Tape Exchange, voracious music hound Soundtracks produced material for three solo albums, beginning with
Rise Above
(1991), which is regarded by many as his best work.

By the time of his death Epic Soundtracks had grown frustrated by the authorities’ unwillingness to allow him to work in the USA, where he had something of a following – Evan Dando of The Lemonheads, with whom he had recently co-written material, was a noted fan. He had also recently split with a long-term girlfriend, and this weighed heavily on his mind. Having apparently overdosed on prescription drugs, Soundtracks had been dead for some weeks before his landlord discovered the body. Although no note was left, a verdict of suicide was returned.

See also
Rowland S Howard (
December 2009)

‘Don’t you get depressed? I can’t understand that.’

Epic Soundtracks, to his brother, Nikki Sudden

Sunday 22

Michael Hutchence

(Lain Cove, Sydney, 22 January 1960)

INXS

He was frequently described as the ‘lovechild’ of Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison – a portrayal that certainly captures the pose and definitely the lifestyle and predilections, if not the character or musical output. At the time of his death, though, Michael Hutchence was a hollow impression of the rock god he’d originally aspired to be, famous for little more than
being
famous, his world shrunk by constant tabloid pressure.

Hutchence spent much of his upbringing in Hong Kong, the financial centre where his father gained and lost most of his fortune. Less concerned with money in those days, Hutchence was bereft when his parents subsequently separated, a move that also split him from his older brother, Rhett. In his place, Hutchence found three new brothers back in his native Sydney – Andrew (keyboards), Tim (guitar) and Jon Farriss (drums) – and the four created the embryonic band that would become INXS. Garry Morris, manager of Australian stadium agitpropsters Midnight Oil, saw potential in the band – and particularly in leather-clad Hutchence; INXS recorded their self-titled debut album in 1980. It took a further two years for the band to go global, but they did so with
Shabooh Shoobah
(1982) and
The Swing
(1984), which housed the Australian number one ‘Original Sin’ – and finally in some style with
Kick,
the dance-tinged 1987 album that spawned the band’s largest worldwide hit, the very fetching ‘Need You Tonight’ (US number one, UK number two). A band completely at home with multi-formatting, INXS also picked up five MTV awards for the single’s promotional video.

By now the willowy Hutchence had morphed into a much cooler ‘Jon Bon Jovi’ look, with feathered, highlighted hair and designer garb on request. For the singer, these were his salad days: all his wildest dreams of rock success had been achieved many times over (9 million times, if you rack up the sales of
Kick),
a succession of seemingly endless A-list beauties queuing up to take his arm. Hutchence’s relationships with first fellow Aussie Kylie Minogue and then model Helena Christensen gave the singer a taste of the paparazzi furore to come. But this was nothing compared to the tabloid frenzy occasioned by his relationship with former model, TV presenter and rock-biz socialite Paula Yates. The pair had begun an affair allegedly half an hour after she interviewed the INXS singer on Channel 4’s
The Big Breakfast,
and London’s gutter press turned Hutchence into Public Enemy Number One for ending the marriage of ‘Saint’ Bob Geldof – while Hutchence’s mother, Patricia, turned
her
wrath on the substance-fuelled Ms Yates. It would be unfair to place all the blame for Hutchence’s sudden downturn in fortunes on Yates, but it did seem to coincide with her arrival. Since 1992’s
Welcome to Wherever You Are,
INXS’s sales had fallen (particularly in America, where their distinctly eighties amalgam of dance and rock was now considered passé) and the press were quick to jump all over
Elegantly Wasted,
the band’s 1997 ‘twentieth-anniversary comeback’ album. The target of the hacks’ wrath was not just the patchy musical content, but also Hutchence himself, whose appearance, most felt, was
less
than ‘elegantly wasted’.

The pressure finally got to rock’s erstwhile least flappable man, it seems. Although he was delighted by the birth in 1996 of his first child – Heavenly Haraani Tiger Lily, Yates’s fourth exotically named daughter – friends described Hutchence as distracted, over-imbibing and profligate with his money, leading to the (unproven) suggestion that his partner was draining his resources to fund her drug habit and increasingly protracted legal proceedings. The couple were keen to win custody of Yates’s other three children (with Geldof) and bring them to Australia for an INXS tour; in the early morning of 22 November, the dispute was to come to a head. Hutchence had begun the previous evening happily enough – after all, he was back in Sydney, booked into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on the beautiful Double Bay – spending quality time with first his father and then British actress Kym Wilson (another Hutchence ‘ex’) and her boyfriend, Andrew Rayment, the trio spending considerably on the hotel bar’s champagne and beer. The party continued in room 524, Hutchence’s suite, the singer drinking vodka by now, until almost 5 am, when his guests left. Some hours later, a series of calls to and from Britain altered his mood considerably. A tearful Yates, in London, explained that Geldof was not prepared to allow the children to travel with him; Hutchence then flew into a rage, telephoning their father and yelling, ‘Your children fucking hate you.
I’m
their father – when are you going to realize that?’ The last person to hear from the singer was another ex-girlfriend, Michelle Bennett, who received his answerphone messages some time after they were left. She described him as ‘sounding drunk and very upset’. Bennett raced to the hotel: when there was no reply from his room, she placed a note at reception and left.

At around midday, a hotel maid made the grim discovery of Michael Hutchence’s body, naked and prone by the door of his room. He had hanged himself, it seems, with his belt from the door, the weight of his body having broken the buckle. The room was reportedly littered with empties – alcohol, tablets, you name it. A coroner confirmed that as well as alcohol and cocaine, the INXS star’s system contained Prozac. Auto-erotic asphyxiation was ruled out early on and his death filed as a suicide. But the lack of any explanation to his friends, fans or even his family left enduring questions unanswered – perhaps most mysterious is the fact that his estate left no more than $50K to his daughter.

Hutchence’s memorial was relayed like a state funeral on live television in his homeland on 27 November. Attendees included Diana Ross, Kylie Minogue, the rest of INXS and a distressed Paula Yates, who had flown in from the UK with their daughter on hearing of his death. It’s said that relations between her and Hutchence’s family were so bad (his mother blamed her indirectly for his death) that the ashes of the singer – who had stated in his will that he did not want to be cremated – had to be divided up in order to maintain the peace. The family continues to fight over the remainder of his assets, much of which is tied up in discretionary trusts.

A person with the possibly apt name of Peter Hore briefly became Australia’s Most Hated Man when he performed an extraordinary mock hanging at Hutchence’s televized funeral: shouting, ‘This is how he did it, Paula!’, the sick individual – well known for disrupting major events – threw himself from a balcony with a dog-collar and leash around his neck. None of this helped Yates, who never recovered from her lover’s death. She allegedly kept Hutchence’s ashes under her pillow and a giant poster of the singer on her bedroom wall until her own tragic death from an overdose on 17 September 2000. (In a remarkable though gratifying twist, Geldof became legal custodian of the orphaned Tiger Lily, now able to grow up with her three half-sisters.)

‘How do I keep sane? I am barely doing it.’

Michael Hutchence in his last major interview, September 1997

Paula and Michael: Paying for an ‘original sin’?

Friday 28

Michael Hedges