Unreleased Michael Hutchence song drops next month
Sydney tech entrepreneur Ron Creevey has been teasing multiple Michael Hutchence-related projects since mid-July this year.
In September, he posted an 11-second song snippet on his Facebook. The track is part of an album of 15 previously unheard tracks recorded shortly before his death on November 22 in Sydney in 1997.
Now, Creevey has announced a full single, titled Temptation, will be premiered worldwide in January at two listening sessions in Los Angeles and Sydney in January. The track will be made available for download immediately afterwards.
TMN understands a full album of 15 unheard tracks is currently being produced by Los Angeles producer Danny Saber, who co-produced Hutchence’s solo posthumous album, Michael Hutchence.
The album is believed to be released through Creevey’s Helipad Records label in late 2017 as part of a year-long year of remembrance, marking the 20thanniversary of the INXS singer’s passing.
Speaking to TMN over the phone from the US this morning, Michael Hutchence’s sister Tina said she was invited by Danny Saber and Ron Creevey to listen to the unheard tracks.
“Ron is trying to bring everyone together,” she said. “He’s just doing such a great job with that. They offered for me to listen and it was so wonderful. I sat in a dark studio and just listened.”
“[…] Really only [Saber] knows what Michael was trying to do with that album and what I’ve heard so far is just brilliant. I think Michael would be so, so happy. It’s fantastic.”
TMN understands Michael Hutchence’s family has heard the recordings and supports their release – “He has the blessings of everybody,” said Tina Hutchence.
“Michael was working on these recordings with (LA producer) Danny Saber in the months leading up to his fateful trip to Sydney,” Creevey told Noise11. “He was proud of what he created and intended for his fans to hear this music.
“For Michael, these recordings were to be the start of his solo career and his break from INXS,” he added. “They were done with Danny Saber and totally independent of anyone involved with the band. Had he not died, we would be looking back today at these recordings as classic Michael.”
“I think some people are going to be very surprised. It’s not your INXS that’s for sure,” Tina Hutchencesaid.
Tina told TMN the Hutchence family was not consulted before the release of Michael Hutchence the album in 1999 (out through Richard Branson’s now PIAS-owned V2 Records).
“The family was never asked to hear the posthumous album ever before it came out,” she said. “INXS and everybody heard it before us. As a matter of fact it was a music journalist in LA who brought it over to me.”
The first time Tina heard Michael Hutchence was when a journalist from the LA Times brought it over to her condo to play for her.
“He just called me one day and said, ‘This new posthumous album is out, what do you think of it?’ And I said ‘Well I’d need to hear it first, I haven’t heard anything’.
“He was just aghast and actually embarrassed and he came over to my condo immediately and we sat there and listened to it. It was bitter sweet listening but I can hear Danny [Saber’s] influences in there.”
Tina Hutchence is the driving force behind the proposed bronze Michael Hutchence statue in Sydney, which is planned for unveiling in 2017. Tina told TMN she has been approached by three different artists for the project.
A Change.org petition proposes for the statue to be placed outside the new Entertainment Theatre in the ICC precinct, at Darling Harbour. The petition has over 2,120 signatures at time of publishing.
Creevey is also releasing what Noise11 has called “the only official Michael Hutchence approved documentary to be released in 2017”. It will feature never-before-seen footage from Hutchence, released with family approval.
INXS and their creative manager Christopher M. Murphy are also working on a documentary on Hutchence with Universal Music Group (UMG). In August, Murphy told TMN he’s aiming for a late 2017 release date for the film or early 2018, in time for the Sundance Film Festival.