Devil Inside Us Game
Joslyn Moreci
Bart Herbison: I have been a disciple of yours since day one, the great band INXS, musically and onstage, but you as the songwriter, Andrew. I was really giving it some thought last night. I'm calling a tie. ("Devil Inside") ties with "Satisfaction" for the greatest damn guitar riff in history. You're the keyboard player, but you came up with (sings "Devil Inside" guitar riff). I turned that on last night. My wife went, "That's infectious." I said, "That's the point.!" You take us back, man, because you had this riff, and it preceded the writing of the song, right? ,
Andrew Farriss: That's right. But thank you for the accolades, too, Bart. I appreciate it… I co-wrote that with Michael Hutchence all those years ago, a long time ago now. In fact, Michael and I probably wrote about 300 songs together. I wrote a lot on my own, and still do. And Michael wrote a little bit on his own, but he liked to write with other people, mostly. And I miss him.
…I already had the groove and I had the riff and I knew what I wanted to do. But I know when Michael first heard it, he goes, "What's that?...We gotta have it." And so he scribbled down that rough idea of, "Every single one of us/ The devil inside." And I thought, "This is pretty groovy."
But I have a confession to make...He used to love that song. And it was great live, as well. The crowd went bananas, you know, but it wasn't that so much as I used to struggle with the song a little bit, because I didn't write the lyric. He wrote the lyric and I you know, I have some beliefs about life and the afterlife. And I thought, "Ooh, this is kinda interesting, this lyric?" But then again, I took the view of "Well, that's art." You know, like, that's what he thought.
AF: We all knew we had something special. But you have to take yourself back in a time capsule, up to 1987. We took it to the record label, including "Devil Inside." And they went "What's this?" And we said, "This is our new album." And it had "Need You Tonight" on it and "New Sensation" and "Never Tear Us Apart," these big monster songs. We had five top five hits internationally (from) that one record. And when we first took it to the record label, they were like, "We don't understand it. We'll give you a lot of money. Go back and rerecord it." That's what they said to us.
AF: "No, we're not re-recording this album. We love this album. And we believe in it." And Chris Murphy, our band manager who sadly passed away in 2021, he really fought for us. And he said, "No, that's, that's not going to happen. The band is proud of this record. And just trust me, you take it to radio, it's gonna be huge." And he was right about that.
AF: I credit Michael, because he wrote that lyric. Michael had a real genius for that, though, just the way of putting words together, construction in words, he was brilliant. And what used to really impress me the most with the way we worked together is that he would never question what I was doing musically, or be competitive. He wouldn't say, "If I had done that, I would have done it this way," He would just trust me implicitly. ...And then I would have the same respect for him with lyrics. So sometimes if I didn't quite understand some of the lyrics that he was (writing), I just went, "Maybe I just don't get it quite yet."
In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, the "Story Behind the Song" video interview series features Nashville-connected songwriters discussing one of their compositions. For full video interviews with all of our subjects, visit www.tennessean.com/music.
Plenty of movies, games, television shows, and other works of fiction deal with the idea of watching sensationalist depravity as entertainment. When The Devil Inside came out in 2000, the concept was newly relevant. Reality TV was exploding; Survivor and Big Brother would debut in America that year. Audiences demanded more even as they criticized it. It was ripe for parody.
Shadow Gate makes for an appropriately creepy horror setting, ornately furnished and cloaked in fog. The interiors are often too cramped to walk around or fight inside, but like other horror games at the time, it has an abundance of desk drawers, closets, and cabinets to root around in for items. Some of the demons haunting Shadow Gate have imaginatively bizarre designs, looking like human-shaped meat with extra limbs; the Night Howler looks like he got his wardrobe by graverobbing a 19th century British military band, which perfectly sits on the edge between dorky and appropriate for a demon to wear.
Yeah I never got this to work but it did give of a vibe of being parody, its surprising it embraces what its meant to joke about.
The Dave/Deva thing is interesting, it sure isnt that common and sounds like a good idea. Thanks for your work!
Released In February 1988 as the second single from the group's sixth LP, "Devil Inside" not only capitalized on the massive success of Kick's first single, "Need You Tonight," it also marked a definitive turning point in the band's slow-burning rise over the past five years.
Rock artists have never shied away from their fascination with the devil, and with "Devil Inside," INXS singer Michael Hutchence said the song was meant to examine the fight between good and evil that he believed was inside everyone. "I was on a God-and-the-devil phase there," Hutchence said of the song's lyrics, which he wrote. "I suppose it's to do with the chaos of everything, you know? And we can put it into religious terms, I suppose. The devil is chaotic. So that every time you think something's right, he comes in and changes everything."
INXS' rising stature with "Devil Inside" happened to coincide with the downfall of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. A year earlier, Swaggart had accused fellow televangelist Jim Bakker of "immoral sexual behavior." But his skeletons surfaced, too, including the revelation that he had "performed voyeuristic acts" with a prostitute.
None of this was lost on Hutchence, who discussed the duplicity of televangelists in the Rolling Stone interview. It wasn't long before he began dedicating "Devil Inside" to Swaggart during the band's concerts.
Even with the song's massive success - "Devil Inside" reached No. 2 on the Billboard chart - other INXS members weren't particularly comfortable with its subject matter. In a 2022 interview with Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International, "Devil Inside" co-writer and INXS keyboardist Andrew Farris admitted he "used to struggle" with the sentiment behind the song.
"[Hutchence] used to love that song. And it was great live, as well," Farris said. "The crowd went bananas, you know, but it wasn't that so much as I used to struggle with the song a little bit, because I didn't write the lyric. He wrote the lyric and ... I have some beliefs about life and the afterlife. And I thought, 'Ooh, this is kinda interesting, this lyric?' But then again, I took the view of 'Well, that's art.'"
"Michael had a real genius for ... putting words together," he said. "And what used to really impress me the most with the way we worked together is that he would never question what I was doing musically or be competitive. He wouldn't say, 'If I had done that, I would have done it this way,' He would just trust me implicitly. ... And then I would have the same respect for him with lyrics. So sometimes if I didn't quite understand some of the lyrics that he was writing, I just went, 'Maybe I just don't get it quite yet.'"
c80f0f1006