THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO DO IT
A CONVERSATION WITH PRODUCER DANNY SABER
INXS’s legendary frontman, Michael Hutchence, passed tragically in 1997. Two of his formerly unreleased singles, “One Way” and “Save My Life”, were released last August on a 10” picture disc by producer Danny Saber, who knew Hutchence both personally and professionally.
“The timing is right to tell the story with the music,” claims Saber, who was responsible for the recording and production of the INXS vocalist’s solo recordings. “This is a process that has been going on for 20 years.
Why release it now? “I met Michael in 1995, he’d reached out to me because he a big fan of the Black Grape record.” They were an English rock band formed in Salford in 1993, featuring former members of Happy Mondays and Ruthless Rap Assassins. Their style fused funk and electronic rock with electronic programming and samples. Saber was their producer as well as a one-time member.
“They [INXS] had just come out with Elegantly Wasted and it was doing pretty well and Michael himself was really trying to find his identity and establish himself outside of the band,” says Saber. “Not because he’d wanted to leave the band, but because he was really creative and compelled to create and go to places outside the confines of being in a band as big as INXS was,” he continued. “It’s no knock on the band. It’s normal that when a band becomes that big, it sometimes becomes more about maintaining what you have than it is about taking creative risks,” he finished.
SPILL NEW MUSIC: MICHAEL HUTCHENCE’S “ONE-WAY” b/w “SAVE MY LIFE” SET FOR RELEASE AS 10″ PICTURE DISC ON AUGUST 9
Saber and Hutchence collaborated and worked closely together for approximately two years, becoming close friends prior to his untimely death in 1997. “Around 2008ish, a lot of recorded material that Michael himself had financed surfaced,” said Saber. “Anybody who was anywhere near him knew that one of the bright spots right before he died was the stuff we were doing, he was really into it, he loved it, it was going in a really amazing direction, so it naturally came back to me and it was like ‘all right, let’s see what’s there.”
Cut to a bunch of material on two-inch tape in a vault that Saber started to go through and determine if it was anything even worth producing and pursuing. “Back to 2023, it finally got to the point where some other things had happened behind the scenes and…the fans knew the material was there…I’ve been getting emails, notes, and messages since The Last Rockstar” [1997 documentary] asking ‘when’s the music coming out?’ so I found myself in a position to do it but I wanted to do something special, hence the picture disc. It’s been working pretty well, and the most important thing is that the music’s been received really, really well and ultimately, I think what would have made Michael happy is I’m talking to people like you, the more underground, sort of alternative world has embraced this music and that was where he really wanted to go with it. He didn’t want this sort of big mainstream success; he was just sort of flexing those muscles and it was about what wasn’t getting fulfilled within the band.”
Artist Links
Photo Credits: Chris Cuffaro
