Elegantly Wasted: Behind the scenes with Michael Hutchence
As INXS’s guitar technician, Mark Battle was closer than most to the rock legend – and doesn’t believe he took his own life. Here he recalls the hedonistic parties, volatile performances and the time he ‘met’ Paula Yates. By Paul Stenning
It is 24 years since Michael Hutchence passed away. There has never been anyone like him and the world was so much brighter with him in it. He affected so many people’s lives and every November he is missed more than ever. Michael and the guys in INXS affected me in a very positive way but it could have been so different. Their natural unassuming manner made me feel so welcome in their world.
When I joined up to work with the band as a guitar technician they were one of the most recognisable rock acts in the world, and they were my favourite band. A quirk of fate led to my being asked to fill in at the last possible minute. I had recently finished a tour with Jason Donovan but had nothing else in the pipeline.
One day in 1993 I received a surprise phone call from Richard “Dikka’”Jones, the production manager from the Jason tour. He told me INXS needed a new guitar tech desperately. The only thing was I had to be in Lyon in France the next morning to start straight away as the band were in the middle of a tour. There was no time to rehearse. Their longest serving crew member, Fergie, had suffered a heart attack in the back of the truck a few nights before.
The band had tried working with a few local crew but the language barrier was causing problems and I would soon find out why. For certain groups, being part of the road crew involved much more than just dealing with equipment. It was as much about needs, egos and drugs and I was nervous about meeting the band just in case they turned out to be egomaniacs or unpleasant people.
It was nice to be needed but at the time the band had no idea that I was pretty inexperienced. Normally it would be a person in their thirties or forties joining such a world class band. I was just 28 and couldn’t even play guitar too well. The band’s tour itinerary made it apparent just how they were on a different scale to anything else I had done before; instead of a notebook this was more like a novel.
That’s how these things can happen in the music business; one day you are at home with nothing to do and the next you’re on your way to join one of the most famous bands around, ready to travel the world. It was a good decision and over four years I did three tours with Michael Hutchence and INXS.
The band were good to me. I wonder how many founding members of a world famous band during their peak would allow a new guitar tech to insult them and get away with it. During my first day when I was hard at work trying to make sense of everything the guitarist and founder member Andrew Farriss was hanging around but didn’t say anything. I didn’t realise it was him and after several hours and repeat visits of this person, who was basically getting in the way, I told him to f*** off. Which he promptly did. Only for me to realise later as I came face to face with him in the dressing room, just who he was. I had to apologise and he couldn’t have been nicer, even saying he would probably have done the same thing himself.
I became responsible for everything from preparing the band’s guitars and the saxophones to making sure the next song from the set list appeared in front of everyone at the appropriate time. I also laid out towels for everyone and always prepared their drinks as requested. What became just as important was to ensure Michael had everything he needed, especially during the gigs.
He liked to use a microphone with a cable, which was fairly old school even in the late 1990s. Michael used to dance a lot around the stage and would climb on the amplifier stacks. When he could he also liked to jump down into the pit at the front of the stage where the security guards were. From here he would interact with the crowd.
Michael warned the security to stop being such arseholes and refrain from beating up the crowd for a $100 microphone
It was my job to make sure that he didn’t become entangled in the cable or wrap it around the speakers or amplifiers. The first time this happened I dashed out on to the stage and uncoiled him from various monitor wedges and his microphone stand and as I was running back to my work area I turned round and he was literally right in front of me singing into my face smiling. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The first time Michael winked at me, I smiled and then he was off. I soon realised that this meant he was about to go wild running around the stage. His wink would from now on mean that he was going do what he did best as a performer. He was a true professional so if he saw that I was busy with Kirk Pengilly’s guitars or saxophones he would wait until I was free before he started running around and jumping on to things. At the end of the song he came over to me and asked me “Un verre de vin s’il vous plait”.
Even though I had asked him what he wanted in the dressing room, his eyesight wasn’t very good and in the heat of the moment onstage, in the dark, he must have believed I was one of the locals that was filling in. I didn’t understand what he had said. I told him I was English.
“Oh, great, a glass of wine please.”
Michael’s antics were fantastic. If the PA speaker stacks were close enough to the sides of the stage he would always attempt to climb them. This meant that I would have to virtually follow him with his mic lead trailing behind him. The tricky part was always on the way down because he would often leap from three or four speakers high. We were both in danger every time he would jump.
During a fairly volatile show in Lisbon, Michael was in one of his teasing the crowd moments leaning towards them, holding the mic out for them to sing. Suddenly a girl grabbed the mic from his hand. I rushed out and grabbed the cable. By this time lots of people had also grabbed the cable. I pulled it hard to retrieve the mic but the security reacted badly to the crowd, hitting those in at the front with truncheons, even the girls who made up most of the front row.
Michael had gone to get the spare mic but was then talking to the band, who were still playing, with his back to the audience. I had to grab Michael and show him what was going on. He then warned the security to stop being such arseholes and refrain from beating up the crowd for a $100 microphone. In the end the band stopped the show until things calmed down a bit.
Need you tonight
It was only on the second gig that I noticed that at the side of the stage was a large bottle of compressed oxygen. I wondered what it was but took no real notice. That night during the show, Michael came rushing off stage puffing and panting, ran straight past me, grabbed the facemask that was hooked to the gas bottle and started breathing heavily from it. This was quite a shock for me. I wondered if he had a serious respiratory disease. I soon learned he had mild asthma and oxygen is one of the best things for this if you are out of breath from exertion.
On another occasion, Michael came rushing off stage out of breath looking for the oxygen. This time it wasn’t there. He panted at me: “I can’t breathe, I left my inhaler in the dressing room, please get it for me!” I believed at the time that I was responsible for whether Michael lived or died and, in a blind panic, I ran everywhere backstage until I eventually found the tour manager. I rushed over to him and spluttered that Michael needs his inhaler. He couldn’t understand me and had to calm me down so I could make proper sense to him.
He found Michael’s inhaler and by the time I got back to the stage he had recovered and was performing another song. Kirk had managed to change his own guitar so everything was ok. At the end of the song Michael came over and took a few blasts of his inhaler, winked at me and off he launched into another song.
During 1996 and early ’97 INXS were in and out of the UK while they rehearsed before recording their Elegantly Wasted album in Spain and Canada. At that time they were also doing pre-promotion for the album at various TV shows around the UK and Europe and recording videos for upcoming singles.
Just a few years earlier, Michael had started his relationship with Paula Yates. She and I had “met” a few times in the past during the recording of The Tube music show in Newcastle. The singer from Curiosity Killed The Cat, Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot, just happens to be my second cousin. I once caught Paula giving him a blow job in the back of a limousine outside Ritz Studios in Putney. Then at a Take That gig in Birmingham she had a bit of a fling backstage with Robbie Williams.
Me and Paula also passed each other in corridors at various TV studios. In the build up to the release of Elegantly Wasted we had been recording a session at Top of The Pops, which was then filmed in Boreham Wood in north London. After the recording we had very little time to get to Heathrow airport to catch a flight to Paris for another TV show. The tour manager decided that we should all travel in limousines because it would be quicker than a van driving the equipment to Heathrow.
The band travelled in four different vehicles with Michael and Paula travelling together. Although Paula was with Michael in the limo convoy she didn’t come to Paris. They said their goodbyes and off we went. It was a few days later that the news broke that Michael and Paula were having an affair with the driver selling his story to The Sun having seen them making love in the back of the limo through the rear-view mirror.
Bono and Lenny Kravitz had stayed here and it dawned on me that I was probably sleeping in the same bed that many superstars had occupied
It became a story around the world and led to a very disjointed time for Michael, the band and the crew. Michael had also started work on a solo album, recording at his villa in Roquefort-les-Pins based in the hills outside of Cannes. He collaborated with several session musicians, one of whom was Dave Clayton, the musical director for Simply Red and a long-term connection of mine. Both Dave and I lived in Putney, and I was also responsible for looking after the band’s equipment there.
Through this connection a call came to me that Michael needed a 24-track analogue tape machine transported from Putney to the south of France. He soon heard that it was going to be me driving the very large piece of equipment over to his villa and Michael immediately made arrangements for me to stay at his villa rather than in the pre-booked hotel.
I was driving with a guy named Scotty, who I had worked with on a tour for Nick Cave as Michael had requested both of us. We drove slowly up the winding road examining which was Michael’s villa out of the many huge houses along the road. We found what could only be the one.
There were large iron gates at the bottom of a sweeping driveway where we also saw the stunning grounds, which incorporated a magnificent olive grove. I rang the bell and a man came to the gate from the gatehouse at the bottom of the drive. I told him who I was and he opened up. A beaming Michael opened the front door with open arms to greet us. “Come on in mate,” he said in his inimitable Aussie accent.
Scotty and I were shown to our rooms and it immediately occurred to me that Michael had many famous friends come to stay with him at his home. Bono and Lenny Kravitz had stayed and it dawned on me that I was probably sleeping in the same bed that many superstars had occupied.
After being shown to our rooms I went downstairs and the dining room table was laid for dinner. Michael asked me what type of wine I liked and I said I didn’t really mind. He then showed me to the wine cellar and asked me to choose. He personally didn’t mind because he didn’t have a sense of smell or taste after his altercation with a taxi driver in Copenhagen in 1992. Before this he had been quite a wine connoisseur but a fractured skull and not seeking immediate medical attention meant he permanently lost his sense of taste and smell.
I still didn’t really want to choose one in case I chose a $10,000 bottle. I said this to Michael and he just smiled at me and said: “Why wouldn’t you want a $10,000 bottle?” With this he grabbed one from the cellar and it was certainly very nice although I have no idea of its value. We sat at the table while Michael’s housekeeper cooked dinner.
During our meal we began to talk about films. I didn’t know at the time that Michael had starred in any films, though in fact he appeared in three. After dinner we retired to the front room, where Michael lit the fire in the grate and we sat back on his huge green sofas and watched him in the 1986 movie Dogs in Space.
He knew that I smoked hash and he threw a little box over to me. He said that he didn’t smoke any more but to help myself. I think we had another couple of bottles of wine between the three of us and then went to bed. In the morning the crew arrived and we off-loaded the tape machine down the stone stairs into the basement. Once it was in place Scotty and I jumped in the van and drove back to London.
During this time I remember being with the band for a Later with Jools Holland show. Tiger Lily had just been born and I was in the dressing room asking the now familiar question of what the band wanted to drink on stage and Michael just turned to me with Tiger and said: “Can you hold her for a moment?” I really wasn’t comfortable with children, especially babies but I did my duty until Paula relieved me.
Kiss the dirt (falling down the mountain)
On one occasion I got a call from the manager to ask if I could take one of Michael’s guitars from the office to his house in Eton Square. When I arrived at Michael’s house I saw Paula and she recognised me. It was the first time I had seen her since her various exploits in front of me. She didn’t mention any of these things but did ask me if I was able to fix toilets. They had a problem with one of theirs and didn’t want to just call any old plumber, particularly given the nature of press stories at the time.
Michael entered the room and thanked me for the guitar. I told him that there was another old one, without a case, in the lock up with the rest of INXS’s equipment.
“Oh yeah,” he said, “that old Maton, that’s pretty beat up anyway.”
The next time I went to Michael’s French home to deliver more equipment he asked me to bring the old Maton guitar. Once I had settled in and freshened up I went downstairs, wandered into the kitchen where Michael offered me a beer and we went to the dining room. At the table was a beautiful girl that he introduced me to. Even though he told me her name I didn’t realise she might be famous; it was just another friend of his.
She was probably another supermodel that I should have recognised but it wasn’t unusual to see Michael with a beautiful woman. We sat and chatted for a while and I asked about places to eat in town that were not too expensive but of course all bars and restaurants in Cannes are expensive. He told me about a bar he often frequented that was nice. I asked him if it was possible to get a taxi because the van had the equipment in it and I didn’t want to park it on the street. Without saying anything he got up, went into the kitchen and came back with a bunch of keys.
This was the last INXS rehearsal before he died. When he left to go and have dinner with his dad he rode doughnuts in the middle of the rehearsal space before leaving
“Here, take the car,” he said throwing the keys on to the table. I noticed an Aston Martin key fob attached. It had not escaped my attention that there was an Aston Martin DB9 parked in the driveway as I had driven up.
“You’ll have to be a bit careful, it’s got no power steering and is a bitch to park,” Michael warned.
I laughed out loud and said that there was no way I was going to drive a vintage Aston into Cannes, especially one belonging to Michael Hutchence. I could imagine finding a parking space and totally messing it up trying to park with people looking on thinking it was Michael. When I got out I could be mobbed or jeered at.
“Ok, yeah, I see where you’re coming from”.
He picked up the keys and went back into the kitchen. He was gone a few minutes and when he came back he said, “Ok, we’ll come with you.”
We left the house and he went to the garage and came out driving a Mercedes Jeep. I jumped in and off we went. The road down to Cannes is winding with a few hairpin bends and at the time had no barriers on the side of the road. He flew down the road at hair-raising speeds, sometimes touching 70 miles per hour. As we went around bends at frightening velocity I looked out of the side window at the sheer drops and imagined the headlines if we were to go over the edge.
Perhaps something like, “Michael Hutchence and supermodel killed in car crash with roadie in back of car.”
We were lucky to arrive in one piece but this was just another day at the office for Michael. He was recognised at the bar and immediately we were guided through to a roped off area at the rear of the place. We began to chat about the beginnings of INXS and I told him about my time in the music business and about the similar ways bands have to slog it out when they first start out. I told him I had moved to London to become a rich and famous rock’n’roll star. I mentioned that I remembered playing at Camden Dingwalls. He said INXS had played there too when they first came to London.
I knew this because after my band, Poetic Injustice, had played there I recall seeing a poster for a band named INXS playing there the following weekend. I remember one of the guys in my band saying: “I wonder who these INKs guys are?”
When they first came to the UK many people thought this was the correct way to say “In-ex-cess”.
That night was really just about the three of us out on the town getting drunk and having dinner. We chatted about silly tour stories. He didn’t really say anything to me that has not already been recounted in other articles. I did not pry into his personal life and he appreciated that. By the end of the night we really were pretty drunk. There is no way he should have been driving but we got into the car and headed home. Along the coast road of the French Riviera there are a few roundabouts.
These are grassy mounds with flower beds in the middle. Michael being really drunk didn’t go round the roundabout but straight over the top of it, or rather over three of them, nearly leaving the ground at the same time. After the third one we turned off right and up the mountain road back to the house.
It was not a complete surprise as he was quite renowned for behaving recklessly with vehicles and motorbikes. On one occasion he was riding a motorbike in a parking lot in Sydney. He was spinning round and round in circles each time getting faster and faster and closer and closer to a wall. So close that at one point he took the rubber off the end of the handlebar. His last stint was riding his Harley Davidson into the rehearsal studio in Sydney. This was the last INXS rehearsal before he died. When he left to go and have dinner with his dad he rode doughnuts in the middle of the rehearsal space before leaving.
Mystify
When we arrived back at the house I remembered to bring in the Maton guitar. “Oh shit, I haven’t seen this for so long,” Michael said, caressing the neck. The first Matons made were not particularly good and it wasn’t in great shape either. It had a big crack down the back and the fretboard was nearly impossible to play.
We sat at the dining-room table and Michael played for a little while and then suddenly said: “You know what? This is a pile of shit, you can have it if you like.”
In the morning I was looking forward to some company, and breakfast. It was 11am but there was nobody around. I made some tea and toast knowing that Dave Clayton and the band would be arriving soon. As I was sitting in the kitchen the doorbell went. I knew it would also ring the entry phone at the bottom of the driveway and that Ernesto, the groundskeeper, would let them in or his wife would answer the entry phone in the house.
I can imagine that he was possibly high on cocaine and champagne. If he then took some prescription drugs such as Prozac then it’s quite possible that everything had an adverse reaction
The bell continued to ring and so eventually I picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” replied a female voice on the other end, “is Michael there?”
“Who is this?” I asked.
The lady introduced herself as a reporter from The Times newspaper in London. “I wonder if you could me tell if the rumours about Michael and Paula Yates are true?” she asked.
It seemed obvious that Michael was still upstairs in bed with the supermodel. Rather than make a quick fortune telling a world exclusive I told her that I didn’t know anything about Michael and Paula and that she would have to wait until Michael was out of bed to talk to him and that I would let him know that she was there.
She kept pressing me, asking who I was and how I knew Michael and what my relationship to him was. All I could say was that I was not at liberty to say anything about his relationships and that she would have to talk to him in person. In the end I had to hang up on her.
As I hung up I heard Michael coming down the stairs.
“Who was that?”
“It was a reporter from The Times.”
“What the fuck did you say to her?”
I explained what I had told her, that I didn’t know anything and that I was not at liberty to say anything, even if I did, and that she would have to talk to him directly. At that point he opened his arms and gave me a big hug and said.
“Thank you so much!”
Shortly after that the band did arrive but there was no sign of the reporter and once they were settled I said my goodbyes and got in the van ready to drive back to London. It was then that Michael came out of the front door with the guitar in his hand and said: “Don’t forget this,” and passed it through the window.
I didn’t have much more to do with the recording and that was the last time that I saw Michael. I first heard about Michael’s death when I was in Germany touring with Vanessa Mae. The notion that Michael took his own life does not remotely fit with the person I knew.
He may have been playing around with his thoughts and wondering what it might be like to die by suicide. I can imagine him thinking what the press stories would be like if he did it. He might have role-played the scenario and got closer and closer before it went too far and he lost consciousness. Yet even with his mental health the way it was anyone close to him knew that there was no way he would have intentionally left Tiger Lily. He may have wanted to leave Paula but he loved Tiger so much he would never have done this intentionally.
At first, it seemed more likely that his death was due to auto-erotic asphyxiation. He was very much a ladies man and into experimenting with all sorts of things, sexually and non-sexually. There was a lot going on for him at the time so it is difficult to know what to believe. Yet it’s also worth remembering that Michael had asthma and would struggle when he didn’t have oxygen, so it might be a stretch to believe he was actively encouraging that experience.
He was certainly having a hard time that night attempting to convince Bob Geldof to allow Paula go to Sydney with the kids. There was a huge argument between them. He called some close friends who were not able to answer his calls so he was obviously in a depressed state. I can imagine that he was possibly high on cocaine and champagne. If he then took some prescription drugs such as Prozac then it’s quite possible that everything had an adverse reaction. Regardless of the outcome I believe it was an accident.
I still have Michael’s guitar with the same strings on it as the day he gave it to me. It has the serial number 705, which is a very early edition of a Maton guitar. It is rare enough without formerly belonging to Michael Hutchence. If she were to get in touch I would be happy to pass it to Tiger Lily as I feel she should be the rightful owner.
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