Max Q were an Australian band formed in 1989. Playing electronic music, the band was a collaboration between

Michael Hutchence Michael Kelland John Hutchence (22 January 1960 – 22 November 1997) was an Australian musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Hutchence co-founded the rock band INXS, which sold over 75 million records worldwide and was inducted into th ...

INXS INXS (a word play, phonetic play on "in excess") were an Australian Rock music, rock band, formed as The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales. The band's founding members were bassist Garry Gary Beers, main composer and keyboar ...

and

Ollie Olsen Ollie Olsen is an Australian multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound designer. He has performed, recorded and produced rock, electronic and experimental music since the mid-1970s. His post punk groups included Whirlywirld (1978–80), Orches ...

(Whirlywirld, ''

Dogs in Space During the 1950s and 1960s the Soviet space program used dogs for sub-orbital and orbital space flights to determine whether human spaceflight was feasible. In this period, the Soviet Union launched missions with passenger slots for at le ...

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

Biography

Max Q consisted of Hutchence (vocals and songwriting) and Olsen (songwriting and production), who were accompanied by key members of the

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

scene in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia; most of whom had previously collaborated with Olsen. The project followed on from Hutchence and Olsen's work on the film, ''

'', where they had first met. Max Q released its sole self-titled album in 1989 and had minor hits with the songs " Way of the World" and " Sometimes". The album was certified

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

in Australia, and was the 93rd highest-selling album of 1989 in Australia. ''Max Q'' was less successful in other countries. The album is no longer in print and has never been re-issued. The band never performed any live shows. In 2019, INXS' manager

Chris Murphy Christopher Scott Murphy (born August 3, 1973) is an American lawyer, author, and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Connecticut since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the United States Hou ...

said he would love to reissue the Max Q album, but that legal issues were not yet resolved.

Name

While the project was named after Ollie Olsen's dog Max, max q is also an aerospace term referring to the point at which the dynamic pressure (q) on a launch vehicle is greatest. Consequently, there is another band called Max Q, which consists of astronauts assigned to the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late U ...

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

Band members

In a 1989 interview, Hutchence revealed his perspective on the Max Q musicians:

Ollie isn't supposed to hang around with pop stars and I'm not supposed to hang around with punk types. The band is made up of rowdy friends from Melbourne. These guys are good musicians who've never had a chance. Most of them have never even been in a studio. These are real underground people who don't have any money. Some of them have never been on a plane before. They were worried that working with me, they'd lose their underground status.

– vocals, songwriting (died 1997) *

– production, songwriting * Arne Hanna – guitar * Michael Sheridan – guitar, feedback * Bill McDonald – bass guitar * Gus Till – piano, MIDI programming * John Murphy – drums, percussion, trumpet, screams (died 2015) Additional musicians * Peggy Harley – backing vocals * Marie Hoy – backing vocals ("Soul Engine") * Pat Powell – backing vocals ("Bucket Head") * Pam Ross – narration * Recorded at Rhino Studios, Darlinghurst * Paula (Peej) Jones – engineer

Discography

Albums

Singles

ARIA Awards

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ARIA Music Awards of 1990 The Fourth Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (generally known as the ARIA Music Awards or simply The ARIAS) was held on 26 March 1990 at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre in Sydney. Australian host Glenn Shorrock of L ...

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ARIA Award for Breakthrough Artist – Single The ARIA Music Award for Breakthrough Artist – Single was an award presented at the annual ARIA Music Awards. It was presented from 1989 through to 2009 and 2011. This, and the ARIA Award for Breakthrough Artist – Album was merged in 2012 t ...

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ARIA Award for Single of the Year The ARIA Music Award for Single of the Year/Song of the Year, is an award presented at the annual ARIA Music Awards, which recognises "the many achievements of Aussie artists across all music genres", since 1987. It is handed out by the Austral ...

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ARIA Award for Breakthrough Artist – Album The ARIA Music Award for Breakthrough ArtistAlbum is an award presented at the annual ARIA Music Awards, which recognises "the many achievements of Aussie artists across all music genres", since 1987. It is handed out by the Australian Recordin ...

References

External links

The Complete Official Michael Hutchence website

Michael Hutchence Fan Forum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Max Q Musical groups from Melbourne Australian rock music groups Michael Hutchence Australian synthpop groups 1989 establishments in Australia 1990 disestablishments in Australia Musical groups established in 1989 Musical groups disestablished in 1990 Atlantic Records artists CBS Records artists Mercury Records artists