Back in 1985, everything was big. Hollywood heroes. Boom boxes. Hair. And music video budgets. The title track from INXS’s fifth studio album, “Listen Like Thieves,” is a fine example of a feature film crammed into a five-minute promo.
“Some of the budgets of videos back then were, for one song, greater than what you spent on making the whole album,” recounts Kirk Pengilly, INXS’ founding sax player, guitarist and backing vocalist. “It was ridiculous.”
Although it looked like a million bucks, the clip for ‘Listen Like Thieves’ was a shrew recycling project.
Filmed by Richard Lowenstein, the music video was shot on the set of “Dogs in Space,” the feature film he was working on at the time. INXS’ late frontman Michael Hutchence was one of its lead actors.
“We flew down to Melbourne and utilised a whole lot of the set and the stuff that he was using to make the ‘Dogs in Space,'” Pengilly tells Variety AU/NZ.
Lowenstein worked on many INXS projects, including the iconic music video for ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ and the 2019 documentary “Mystify”.
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Pengilly spoke with Variety AU/NZ as Petrol Records and Universal Music Group marked the 40th anniversary of “Listen Like Thieves”, INXS’s fifth studio LP, with a “deluxe” release.
“It was a very important album,” notes Pengilly. “It was the first one we did with (producer) Chris Thomas. And it spawned our first top 5 North American hit with ‘What You Need.’”
From today, Thieves is available as a 3CD/LP set packaged with a new 2025 mix by Giles Martin and Paul Hicks on CD and vinyl, plus extensive, previously unreleased outtakes and demos, a rare 1986 BBC recording from London’s Royal Albert Hall 1986 and a new interview with the surviving band members by celebrated UK-based journalist Paul Sexton.
The “Extended Edition” 2CD contains the new mix; the CD-2 splash has a selection of B-sides, remixes and live recordings; the 1LP “40th Anniversary Edition” vinyl contains the new 2025 mix.
Those 40 years have passed like both a blink of the eye, and a fully-lived lifetime. Pengilly remembers the excitement and nerves of working in the studio with Thomas, and new lessons learned. Thomas was INXS’ “first really big Magumba producer,” he quips, “a lot of the stuff that he produced were records that we used to listen to growing up, like early Roxy Music. We felt really like, well, this is gonna be good. It’ll get us to the next level.”
It did.
Released October 1985, the LP was promoted with four singles: ‘What You Need’, ‘This Time’, ‘Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)’, and ‘Listen Like Thieves’.
The album peaked at No. 1 in Australia and No. 11 on the Billboard 200, logging more than a year on the chart. By 1997, the year of frontman Michael Hutchence’s untimely passing, the album was certified double platinum.
Thomas, in reality, was “just an English bloke. Work was confined to Monday to Friday, weekends were off. “It was like Bundy on when we go in there,” Pengilly enthuses. “But we made use of the weekend time,” recording b-sides and more, some of which appear on the anniversary release.
“The most memorable thing,” he continues, “it was the first time we’d ever really been made to choose the songs along with him, and then rehearse them outside of the studio, and then demo them, in this little rehearsal studio that we’d been in.
“We were like, why are we demoing them when we’ll just go into the studio and do it? We realised later that his whole premise with to get us to perform the songs live in the studio. He’d seen us live a whole lot of times, and he couldn’t understand because it was so powerful on stage, but it didn’t really come across that way on our records. He wanted to try and capture that live essence, in the studio. We had to learn all our parts so that we could actually play the songs together as a band in the studio. It was a different process.”
In the mid-80s, INXS were road warriors. “We opened for Queen through Europe for about two or three months,” remarks Pengilly.“We toured for a long time on this record.”
Formed in Perth in 1977, INXS climbed the highest mountain of rock with six U.K. top 10 albums (including a No. 1 with “Welcome To Wherever You Are” from 1992) and five U.S. top 20 albums, a BRIT Award (in 1991 for best international group) and, in 2001, elevation into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
“I’m surprised by the kind of response it’s been getting,” Pengilly says of the “Listen Like Thieves” reissue. “It was obviously a really important album for us.”
And what of Pengilly’s own acting career? Did he have big screen ambitions to match Michael Hutchence? “I did, but I was shit,” he says with a laugh. “I get so nervous, that I forget the lines. I’ve got a shocking memory. I’m absolutely useless, unless I’ve got an autocue. I’d be a great news reader, but an absolutely shit actor. I’ve had couple of cameos and I’ve never been asked back. And I know why.”
INXS – Listen Like Thieves – 40th Anniversary (DLX 1LP + 3CD)
LP + CD1: Listen Like Thieves (Giles Martin 2025 Mix)
- What You Need
- Listen Like Thieves
- Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)
- Shine Like It Does
- Good + Bad Times
- Biting Bullets
- This Time
- Three Sisters
- Same Direction
- One x One
- Red Red Sun
CD2: Demos & Outtakes
- “We’re rolling, it’s 1985″ – Studio Chat
- Funk Song #11 – Take 2 (Working Title of What You Need)
- “Press the blue and red button” – Studio Chat
- Kiss The Dirt – Demo
- Listen Like Thieves Track Commentary – Michael commenting
- Listen Like Thieves – Demo
- Listen Like Thieves Radio Intro
- One X One – Demo
- This Time – Demo
- Shine Like It Does – Demo
- Good and Bad Times – Alternate Take
- Red Red Sun – Rehearsal Fragment
- Red Red Sun – Alternate Outtake
- Same Direction Track Commentary
- Funk Song #9 (Working Title of Same Direction) – Studio Demo
- What You Need – ‘Calvin Bell’ Home Demo
- Shine Like It Does – Home Demo
- Listen Like Thieves – Home Demo
- Kiss the Dirt – ‘Calvin Bell’ Home Demo
CD3: Live From Royal Albert Hall
- Intro
- Same Direction
- Soul Mistake
- Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)
- Biting Bullets
- Burn For You
- Do Wot You Do
- Original Sin
- Different World
- Shine Like It Does
- Listen Like Thieves
- One x One
- What You Need
- Red Red Sun