INXS almost went with a female singer after Michael Hutchence’s death

When Michael Hutchence passed away 25 years ago Tuesday, his band INXS was left wondering what to do next, and apparently they considered going with a female singer. In a new interview for theLiSTNR podcast Behind The Hits, Baby Animals singer Suze DeMarchi says she was approached about being a permanent replacement for the band’s late frontman.

“There was a formal offer from their manager,” she explains. “They didn’t say, ‘You’re going to make this, we’ll do this, some of that … It hadn’t got[ten] to that point, but [there were] conversations with their manager at the time.”

Ultimately the band decided to find a new lead singer on the reality show Rock Star: INXS and hired JD Fortune, who sang on two albums: 2005’s Switch and 2010’s Original Sin.

“Just before they had done that show, I was really seriously thinking about doing it,” DeMarchi explains. “I was just about to go, ‘Yeah, maybe we could try this,’ and then they said, ‘Well, we want to do this show.’ So that’s how it went down.”