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Eddy Says
Eddy Says: The sexiest man in the world
By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Wednesday 10 November 2010
Eddy has had his fair share of ups and downs when it comes to meeting people he admires. Time now for another up. Though one that saw him plucked from the comfort of his radio studio and dropped into the middle of the strange world of celebrity. Yes, it’s when Eddy met Michael Hutchence.
My nice friends from Melbourne, Xavier and Lionel, collectively known as Gypsy And The Cat, came round for dinner last week. I had a Jamie Oliver curry with all the trimmings to test out and they had a day off from their hectic whistle stop tour of the UK.
After dinner I confessed both my geographical ignorance of Australia and my burning desire to go there, since so many of my friends and colleagues have been playing there for a decade and telling me how much “they’d love what you do there”. I love Aussies. I love their unflinching positivity. And I love their joie-de-vivre. And every time Aussies come for lunch or dinner they come laiden with drink, and I end up with a two to three month supply of booze in my fridge.
Over the course of the meal, we ended up talking about Sydney vs Melbourne, and then eminent Aussies, which brought the conversation round, inevitably, to Michael Hutchence.
Cue my Michael Hutchence story: Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Let me nestle back into this friction-faded burgundy leather, Chesterfield armchair, flick a piece of dust of the waffled lapel of this silk dressing gown, tap my Armstrong & Miller RAF pipe over the crackling log fire, and recount the tale.
Many of you know I used to write, voice and produce the jingles, sweepers, promos and idents at Radio 1 in the mid-90s. Part of this job was to occasionally write and produce promos for bands that Radio 1 had ‘done deals with’ in exchange for access to and/or exclusivity with a band or artist, or a track. I’d have to interview said artist, or write a script for them, and make this advert
Hutchence was one of these. I remember being quite excited; I was a big INXS fan. I remember seeing their first UK performance on my then favourite TV show, ‘The Tube’, and found their lead singer mesmerising. Of course I was prepared for him to be an utter knob. I’d met much lesser mortals in similar positions who’d turned out to be utter bell-ends, and was braced for the worst.
When he came to the little studio, I was bowled over by two things. Firstly, how utterly sexy this man was. He really was drop dead gorgeous. Secondly, he was so nice! Polite, funny, self-deprecatory and charming. But above all else, it was his sexiness that blew me away. Those amazing quotes from Kylie Minogue, saying she’d never really had proper sex until she met Michael, made perfect sense.
I’d written a series of scripts for him to read, and, for the purpose of making one of the edits easier, I needed him to say a random word, that began with the letter ‘B’ – so I put the word ‘Bumcheeks’ at the end of that sentence, more for my own amusement than anything else.
I’d done similar ads for the likes of Wet Wet Wet and The Cranberries – I’m not proud of it, I was young, needed the money etc – and they were both particularly vile, but Hutchence knew how to play the game. He was the consummate professional and read all the scripts just as I needed them. When he arrived at the random word, he stopped, then crumpled laughing, and after composing himself he said: “Mate, that’s the best word I’ve ever seen” with a big sexy grin. “Bumcheeks”, he repeated, joyfully, like a kid who had just discovered a new rude word and been given permission to use it liberally.
“Bum… cheeks”, he continued. “It’s such a great combination of words, I’ve never seen them together before, I love it, and I’m going to use it forever now… BUMCHEEKS”. As he said it this time he lifted his hands and squeezed an imaginary pair of pert buttocks with them, in the air, right in front of my face. Not in a sleazy, ‘phwoar’ sort of way, but in a more charming way, like he was fondling them with the tips of his fingers. I like to think he was imagining Kylie’s bumcheeks at that very moment. I’m at peace with the fact I shall never personally see these wondrous globes of joy, but I got to imagine their size and shape right there and then with a man who’d had had first hand experience!
We chortled our way through the session and he eventually thanked me “for making something that’s usually really boring into something really fun” and then he vanished into the labyrinth that was Radio 1 at that time. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, but the Polygram plugger, then something of a legend in plugger circles, collared me a day or two afterwards.
“Eddy! Oi, EDDY!” Her words slapped against the old marble on the grand stairway of Egton House. I was in a hurry, as I always was. There was so much to do, largely to make the likes of Steve Wright and Mark Goodier, Emma Freud and Nicky Campbell, the outgoing Radio 1 old guard, sound cool, and big up the sexier new shows, like Jo Whiley and Steve Lamacq on ‘The Evening Session’.
“Eddy, I’ve got to tell you something”, she splurged, excitedly. “Listen, you must have made a real impression on Michael Hutchence cos he’s asked me, specifically, to ask you to a party he’s throwing!”
“You what?!” I gauped. “Michael Hutchence…? ME?!”
“I know”, she conceded. “It’s only celebrity nobs and bigtime guests, but he said ‘please can you invite that funny guy from Radio 1 who made me laugh that day, I really liked him and I want you to ask him if he’d come to my party”.
I was gobsmacked.
“Erm, OK”, I said and thanked her, awkwardly and nervously.
The night of the party and I went, on my own, to witness what a celebrity ding dong looks like. It was in a tiny club in Mayfair. It was rammed. You could barely slide a fish slice between the guests, like an overstuffed keep-net, bubbling with salmon.
I saw people I recognised from telly, radio and music. I saw Mutoid Waste Company insect people, on stilts, stalking laboriously through the crowd as best they could, and fire breathers, jugglers, it was like the prelude to a roman orgy or something. A couple of bigtime Radio 1 producers were there, laughing and chatting to celebrities. I felt very ordinary as I sipped a free Rolling Rock beer and gawped at everything around me, while simultaneously trying extra hard to look as if this was all commonplace and not a big deal at all.
I couldn’t see Michael there. I hoped I’d at least catch a final glimpse of him. Then I remember a sort of collective gasp from the packed little club. People were pointing at the corner, where through a ‘Private No Entry’ marked door, the sexiest Aussie ever sliced into the room with a knee-bucklingly gorgeous Helena Christensen at his immaculately dressed side.
The scene that followed was like some sort of Hollywood pisstake celebrity film. It was like someone had dropped a massive turd into a room full of bluebottles. Everybody, except me and a few others, strained over to that side of the club, things looked very uncomfortable. I just hung back and watched the carnage, as burly minders protected their glamorous charges by swatting well wishers away. People were craning in from all angles, trying to say something to him, or her, attempting a picture or thrusting gifts or autograph pads in their direction. I’d never seen such wild adoration at such close quarters. It was like seeing a pack of wild dogs descend on a pair of swans, protected by lions and bears.
All of a sudden, Hutchence caught my eye. His look of mild panic turned to an infectious smile and I remember him putting his palm up to all the people asking him stuff and asking his gorillas to cut a path in my direction.
They cleared the way like Indiana Jones hacking through dense rainforest, and in no time at all he was there right in front me of me, with an impish smile, ignoring every plea in his orbit, and every incredulous face, wondering what he was doing talking to this ‘nobody’.
He gave me a hug.
“Hello, Bumcheeks”, he said in his soft spoken way, his devilish demeanour combined with his unexpected warmth and generosity knocking me for six. We chatted for a few minutes, for the life of me I cannot remember what about, I was so starstruck and very out of place. I remember him finishing with something like: “I’d love to hang and talk with you more Bumcheeks, but they’re all after me, I’ve gotta go…” And with that he wheeled around and disappeared into celeb world, and I never saw him again.
When the news hit the streets in 1997 that he’d been found dead in a hotel room, and had allegedly committed suicide, I was gutted beyond reason. I didn’t know the guy, I mean really *know* him, but we’d made a big impression on each other. When Chaz Haddon hanged himself backstage at Pukkelpop in August this year (no, he didn’t fling himself from the top of anything), I had the same, awful, empty feeling of disappointment, of unrealised potential I think. It’s a bit like unrequited love, a very powerful and emotional thing.
But I don’t believe Hutchence committed suicide. I reckon he was having what High Rankin gloriously described on Twitter the other day as a ‘danger-wank’. He was clearly a deeply sexual being and this makes so much more sense to me. He just didn’t seem like the type of person who would hang himself from a doorknob. But then again, Chazz didn’t seem the type to slash his wrists and hang himself after the greatest gig he’d ever played. All the more reason to re-iterate what I said at Chazzstock, and in the Eddy Says blog that week, that we have to support the Campaign Against Living Miserably, and make sure we talk to each other, so we can identify and help those silently living in misery.
This ‘Two Minute Silence’ thing, being staged for Remembrance Day, has made me double my efforts on the CALM-supporting Cage Against The Machine project, not give up, despite the similarities. The poppy campaign generates millions for a very deserving and generously funded cause. But we also have to help the little guys, the charities who get just hundreds, not millions of pounds, given to them each year. CALM and the British Tinnitus Association are the two I’m focussing on and I urge you to do the same, via www.facebook.com/cageagainstthemachine.
I seem to have veered a bit from the Hutchence story, but there was too irresistible a link to what we’re trying to do with Cage Against The Machine project.
Until next time, talk to each other, and let me come back to the beginning of this by saying Losers now have a deal in Australia, so going there to play will be inevitable, and I’m so happy about that. Aussies (and Kiwis – who’ve had my love for even longer), I really do love you lot and cannot wait to see you on your home turf.
Eddy x
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