Aussie rockers INXS are officially turning their discography and their story into INXS The Musical, which is set to open in Sydney in 2017.
As News Corp Australia reports, the band’s manager, Chris M Murphy, has set up a theatre company — Murphy Theatrical — for the project, which has been anticipated since the success of last year’s INXS: Never Tear Us Apart mini-series.
Murphy says he has some of international theatre’s biggest “creatives” on board to write and produce INXS The Musical, and that his original idea for the project has changed since its conception.
“I started thinking Vegas before I started to think Broadway. I have been talking to Giles Martin about what he did with The Beatles music for the Cirque du Soleil show LOVE,” Murphy says.
“We want the show to be sexy and dramatic, not a jukebox of hits.”
Murphy says he was approached to open the show in London, but he and the band decided to premiere it for Australian audiences first.
“A lot of young people who are now fans never got a chance to see INXS live and this will be the place to see their music in a live setting,” Murphy says.
INXS guitarist Tim Farriss, who will act as a consultant after injuring his hand and subsequently cutting short his playing days in a boating accident in February, says the band’s songs will suit a musical production.
“The whole thing about us is we wrote our music for the live stage because we were a live band and these songs are meant to be performed,” Farris says.
“The biggest common denominator here is the music and to be frank, I don’t know how important the story is at this point because it has already been told. I am thinking more of a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds vibe as far as a theatrical production goes.”
INXS The Musical will reportedly focus on the band’s music, and not their rise to fame or the death of frontman Michael Hutchence. The musical is set to include tracks from INXS’ extensive back-catalogue, thanks to a global publishing deal the band signed with Universal back in 2013.
The production is also hoping to cast relatively unknown actors instead of well-known ones or those who acted in the INXS mini-series.
Watch: INXS – Never Tear Us Apart
