Australian rock legends INXS briefly reunited this week to celebrate the release of a brand new book looking back on the band's 35-year career.
The surviving members of INXS (Garry Gary Beers, Kirk Pengilly, and brothers Andrew, Jon and Tim Farriss) collected at Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel on Tuesday (October 17) to reminisce about their days playing together, a lot of which is captured in a new book titled Calling All Nations, named after their 1987 song. The 400-plus page book is called a “love letter,” made possible by the contributions from the band's fan base.
Speaking to Billboard, Kirk Pengilly said they had “no idea how much it meant to so many individual fans. It wasn’t always about the show.”
The occasion marked the first time the band had gotten together since celebrating the 40th anniversary of their formation back in 2017.
After the tragic passing of frontman Michael Hutchence in 1997, INXS continued on with different singers, most notably Jon Stevens. In 2005, they appeared on the CBS reality competition show, Rock Star: INXS, to find a new lead singer. Mississauga, ON's J.D. Fortune won the contest and served as frontman from 2005 to 2011. The band then called it a day in 2012.
Andrew Farriss says there are no plans to reform as INXS, explaining, “To be fair to us is that, as people losing someone as talented, dynamic a frontman as Michael, it became really in the forefront of our minds that, okay, we’ve created this legacy and we own it."
However, Farriss didn't completely rule out a performance at some point, adding, "We’ll decide when we want to play or not. That’s the important point, to not have it dictated to what we can and can’t do when we feel like it. There must be someone that we haven’t even thought of or discovered or found it. That could be an amazing thing to happen.”
In addition to the new book, the band are gearing up to reissue 1993's Full Moon Dirty Hearts for its 30th anniversary with a new and exclusive immersive audio edition on November 2. In addition, All Juiced Up – Part 2, a collection of 12” records featuring remixes of “Need You Tonight,” “Listen Like Thieves," “New Sensation" and more INXS classics will arrive on October 21.
Calling All Nations will be available this Friday (October 21) at INXS.com.