“I love the clone Strats and Teles that Tokai made illegally in the ’80s. I asked Nile Rodgers how he got the sound on David Bowie’s China Girl, and he pulled out a Tokai Strat”: INXS's Tim Farriss on tonal touchstones, and that reality TV show
Speaking to GP about the studio rig he used for the band's then-new comeback album, Switch, Farriss cited his love for guitars both traditional and unusual for an arena-rocker
![Tim Farriss performs with INXS at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 28, 2006](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Gj6jxmzAqnsgurkvWAUd3G-320-80.jpg)
Back in 2004, INXS raised more than a few eyebrows when it announced Rock Star: INXS, a competition reality show in which the band held high-profile auditions for a new frontman to replace the late Michael Hutchence, who died tragically in 1997.
Shortly after the conclusion of the show, which resulted in the hiring of J. D. Fortune as the band's new singer, all three of the band's guitarists – brothers Tim and Andrew Farriss, and Kirk Pengilly – sat down for a chat with Guitar Player.
Questioned first, with a fair bit of skepticism, about Rock Star: INXS, Tim Farriss was more than happy to defend the televised audition process, contrasting it with other music-centered reality shows of the time.
“We knew that doing the show would be like going into the dentist’s chair,” Farriss explained to GP. “You know it’s going to hurt, but you’ll come out with much better teeth.
“We figured our old fans would be pissed off, but, in the end, we finally had great rock and roll on television, and someone had to come along and knock that American Idol crap out of the way. That show is destroying music.”
Farriss also took the time to detail the studio rig he used for the band's then-new comeback album, Switch, citing his love for electric guitars both traditional and unusual for an arena-rocker, and one of his great tonal touchstones.
“My favorite guitars are Telecasters,” Farriss revealed. “I also love the clone Strats and Teles that Tokai made – illegally – in the ’80s. Nile Rogers turned me on to those when we were recording Original Sin for The Swing in 1984.
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“I asked him how he got that sound on David Bowie's version of China Girl, and he pulled out a Tokai Strat and said, ‘This is it.’ I loved the teardrop-shaped Talbo aluminum guitars that Tokai made for a while, too.”
Though slightly unique in his choice of Tokai, Farriss, of course, is far from the only arena-rocking guitarist to wield a cheap guitar onstage...
Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com and GuitarPlayer.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
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