INXS songwriter Andrew Farriss returns to WA in song

He was the songwriting powerhouse behind INXS, and after switching from music to farming, Andrew Farriss is now finding his way back to centre stage.

Mr Farriss has been writing songs since he was a teenager, growing up in Cottesloe, a dinky die “sandgroper”.

He’s now in his 60s — that’s a lot of tunes.

Some of them you would know — the hit songs he wrote for INXS, for example — but like most prolific songwriters, there was a lot of other stuff, too.

Much of it recorded on dinky little tapes scratched and worn by time.

They sounded, Farriss admits, “like crap”.

But he was sure there was some gold amid the dross.

So a few years ago, he decided to pluck those songs from their sad little tapes and see what they sounded like with all the bells and whistles of a modern recording studio.

“I started re-recording a lot of my older songs,” Farriss explains.

“And in that process I said to the recording engineer, ‘look, when I find someone who is a really good singer — I’ll invite them to sing on these recordings’.

“And the engineer turned around to me and said, ‘what’s wrong with your voice?’

“And I said, ‘well, it’s ME — we can only imagine what was going through that sound engineer’s head: yeah, exactly, you’re Andrew Farriss?

“I got so used to the idea of: Andrew Farriss? Who is that guy?” he says with wry self-deprecation.

“‘He was in INXS? I don’t know him. I know Michael (Hutchence) and I know Kirk (Pengilly), I think. But who’s that guy?

“‘Oh, he just wrote all the music for the band. Oh OK, right.’”

So, after more than 40 years in music, Farriss found himself stepping up to the mic.

“I developed this other person: ‘hi, have we met?’” he jokes.

“I’d look at myself in the mirror: ‘now I’m a lead singer? Wow, how did that happen?’

“At first, I was terrified, to be honest.

“And I thought, ‘what on earth am I doing?’”

The result is a new chapter in the storied music career of Farriss, this time with a different beat as the rock star turned cattle farmer goes country — grazing Hereford beef cattle in NSW.

You can hear his ‘new sensation’ voice on latest single Something Stronger, while an album titled The Prospector (his second solo effort) is due out next year.

In the meantime, he is hitting the road, playing WA in November.

His last WA performance was with INXS in 2012 — he was the musical powerhouse behind the band that had its beginnings in WA, then known as The Farriss Brothers before their musical genius became one of Australia’s first major rock’n’roll exports.

He played in the band alongside his brothers Jon and Tim and high school friends Kirk Pengilly, Gary Beers and the late Michael Hutchence.

Venturing out on his own and playing country music, Farriss said he feels more grounded than ever after living on the road as an international rock star, songwriter, and musician.

He continues to mix it up with other international artists and songwriters — “I have a reputation in Nashville, and they damn well know who I am, which is a good thing”.

Farriss will be accompanied by NSW guitarist Travis New and singer Ashely Leeds, who sang with INXS; together they will perform a few of the rock band’s legendary tunes while mixing it up with country.

His ambition is to combine his musical journey into lyrics that are meaningful to people who live and work on the land — “the souls of the earth”.

“It’s a dream until it’s a drought, then it’s very real,” he said.

Countryman is backing Farriss by offering readers two free tickets — see page 7 for details.

Andrew Farriss plays Gatsby Skyline in Manjimup on November 7, The River in Margaret River on November 8, Froth Craft Brewery in Bunbury on November 9, and Mojos, Fremantle, on November 10.

Tickets from andrewfarriss.com