SPLAT! INXS MAKES THE SOUND OF SUXS

INXS frontman Michael Hutchence is draped casually across an easy chair in a suite at West Hollywood’s Sunset Marquis Hotel. An industrial vacuum cleaner rests behind him, as several maids ponder the formidable task at hand. “Another rock ’n’ roll band,” their eyes seem to say. “Another mountain of rock ’n’ roll refuse to be disposed of.” Hutchence, though, is oblivious to their stirrings; he has more important things to ponder.

A pretty girl sits on the floor beside him, her arms wrapped possessively around his dangling legs. The singer’s hair now reaches his shoulders, framing his pouty, full-lipped face in David Lee Roth-like splendor. In his free hand he holds a plastic fork, with which he tentatively pokes at the peel of a perfect banana someone has left on the adjacent table. Consciously or instinctively, Hutchence is primed for the role he’s been called upon