The 1986 Music Video That Nearly Cost INXS Their Lives: “It Was Like a ‘Crocodile Dundee’ Movie”

While INXS were nearly finished recording their breakthrough album Listen Like Thieves in 1985, the band wrote one of their biggest hits in the very last hours when producer Chris Thomas told the band they needed one more track. Keyboardist Andrew Farriss, who was the band’s chief songwriter along with singer Michael Hutchence, had one song tucked away in a batch of demos that didn’t have much more than a bass line, some guitar, and a Roland 808 beat.

Initially, the band didn’t think much of the song, but guitarist Tim Farriss heard its potential. “I was pushing to turn this into something,” Farriss told American Songwriter. “Chris didn’t come in for the day, and the band rehearsed, and we came up with ‘What You Need’ in the eleventh hour.”

Once released, “What You Need,” co-written by Andrew and Hutchence and drummer Jon Farriss, became the band’s first Top 10 hit at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Listen Like Thieves went to No. 11.

“Had Tim not brought it to our attention, it wouldn’t have made it,” said INXS’ saxophonist and guitarist Kirk Pengilly. “I think it [‘What You Need’] set our musical identity in a way that fusion of rock and funk, which is something that we really expanded on after the ‘Listen Like Thieves’ album. I don’t think any of us saw that [Top 10] coming, but we were very pleased.”

Smacked right in the middle of the MTV Generation, “What You Need” was also given a special music video treatment, configured by the band’s longtime collaborator Richard Lowenstein and director Lynn-Maree Milburn. Using an SLR motor drive camera, rolls of film were hand-painted and pieced together to create the animation and stop motion effects.

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“Kiss the Dirt”

Next, the band released “This Time,” followed by their third single, “Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain,” written by Andrew Farriss and Hutchence, released in March 1986. “The lyric of ‘Kiss The Dirt’ is about how it doesn’t matter how big you get as an actor or an artist or whatever field or endeavor you are involved in,” shared Farriss in a 2020 interview. “Eventually, whether it’s age or the tyranny of time, there’s a myriad of things that can happen to you, and none of us really knows where we’re really going in the end. It’s not supposed to be a depressing lyric. The idea is, everybody falls off the mountain eventually, doesn’t matter how high you get.”

He added, “What Michael wrote is really beautiful poetically. When you’re a little kid, you play in the dirt. If you’ve got some dirt to play on, a bit of earth, you might build a sand castle, or you might just dig a hole in your backyard, just messing around. But, you’re always going to kiss the dirt in the end. Everything reverts back to the earth in the end. Everything.”

Playing in the dirt
We find the seeds of doubt
Don’t water them with your tears
Don’t think about all the years
You’d rather be without

Eden lets me in
I find the seeds of love
And climb upon the high wire
I kiss and tell all my fears

Falling down the mountain
End up kissing dirt
Look a little closer
Sometimes it wouldn’t hurt

[RELATED: INXS’ Tim Farriss and Kirk Pengilly Remember Making of ‘Listen Like Thieves’]

A ‘Sleeper’ Plane

For the “Kiss the Dirt” music video, the band opted for a more remote location, filming on a salt lake on the moon plains of Coober Pedy in South Australia, where portions of the original Mad Max were filmed.

“We all got filthy and everything got covered in red dust, which was kind of ironic since we started our career driving to mining towns,” said Farris. “So it was all very fitting.”

The video moves through footage of the band performing on the dry and dusty moon-like terrain, as the imagery transitions from a white to a more russet tone with fire and smoke as a backdrop. “I love that shot with the fire in the background,” said Farris. “The zoom lens made it look like we were really close to it.”

Flying to the site from the United States, the band filmed the video, directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow, I, Robot), overnight and planned to make their way back to the U.S. After shooting for hours under the scorching sun and dust-filled air, the band made their way out of the outback aboard a small, one-engine plane. All was running smoothly until Tim Farriss woke up and saw his brother Andrew steering the aircraft after the pilot passed out.

“Everyone on the plane was asleep, including the pilot, and I was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’” recalled Farriss. “Andrew was flying the f– king plane. He’s not a pilot.”

Pengilly says the pilot asked Andrew if he wanted to “have a steer” before falling asleep. “We don’t know how long he was asleep,” said Pengilly, “but Andrew was frozen because he didn’t want to take his hand off the steering wheel in case something would happen.”

Eventually, Farris managed to shake the pilot awake. “I’m like, ‘Do you know where we are? Can you show me on a chart where we are?’” said Farriss. “And he said, ‘I could.’ And I said, ‘Where are the charts?’ And he goes, ‘They’re out on the wing.’”

Adding more stress to the flight, the plane made a 360 spin upon landing on the runway after a tire blew out. The band had made it halfway to Sydney and stayed at a hotel for the night since their plane was out of commission.

“Everyone was fine, but it was really out there,” laughs Pengilly, “It was like a ‘Crocodile Dundee’ movie.”

Photo: Courtesy of UIMG