EXCLUSIVE: Michael Hutchence Doco Producer Fires Back At INXS

The executive producer of the new Michael Hutchence documentary has hit back at comments made by INXS this morning that the content is not authorised, saying that the project is about the iconic singer's life, not the band. 

The legendary rock outfit said they were "never approached" about the Michael Hutchence: The Last Rockstar documentary, however its executive producer, Michael Llewellyn, has responded ahead of its premiere on the Seven network tonight, speaking exclusively to The Music.

"My understanding is that there were announcements made over a year ago that [band manager] Chris Murphy and the band were connected to another documentary," Llewellyn said.

"So in that sense, it was always thought they were doing their own version of INXS including Michael…  although the story of INXS is inevitably intertwined with Michael's life… the story of Michael Hutchence as opposed to the band is not that well told and not that well known.

"What we were trying to do, and i took a very strong view right from the word dot, was to go to those that knew him as his family and his closest friends; people we hadn't heard this from…this was a direction that was quite deliberately chosen because we wanted the perspective of people who knew him outside of the band."

Llewellyn says he did not seek authorisation from INXS because that was not the direction the documentary went in.

"I'm not asking for the band to authorise another story about the band," he said.

"What I was telling, and what I think I've told well, is a story about Michael Hutchence and to do that, we needed to go to people who knew him beyond the band… and that made it harder for us in may respects because a lot of people took a lot of time to speak to us.

"We had to earn their trust and secondly, the impact of Michael's death was so traumatic that it took them a long time to be able to say the sorts of things that they've been living with for 20 years."

Llewellyn added that he believes the band's opinion of the two-part series will change if they watch it in its entirety. 

"I think they would [like the documentary], " he said.

"Those who knew Michael speak with a great deal of affection about the reverence he had for the band. They talk about how Michael considered the band his band of brothers. They talk about the links that bound him to [band member]Andrew Farriss, who as the documentary says, he regarded as a 'genius'.

"There's a great deal of affection with which those stories are recounted."

Michael Hutchence: The Last Rockstar airs tonight and tomorrow at 7.30pm on Channel 7.