J.D. Fortune knows what it's like to lose big. But as his name suggests, he also knows what it's like to win big. The erstwhile Elvis impersonator won big on the network reality television show "Rock Star: INXS," and now he's the lead singer for the legendary Australian pop band.
"The workload has been a lot harder than I thought it would be," said Fortune, a 31-year-old Canadian who replaced Michael Hutchence (who died in November 1997) as the band's singer. "I have the same responsibilities as everybody else, and with that comes all the trimmings: picking and co-writing songs, rehearsal schedules, everything.
"The real work began when I won the show. Being under a microscope for three months was nothing compared to the workload I'm facing now." Fortune translated his go-big philosophy into music via the track "Pretty Vegas," which is the band's first single with him singing. The song actually grew organically out of the show, which was criticized for being inorganic and forced.
"In the show, we were divided into two writing groups, and we had to write a song around Andrew Farriss tracks, but what (my group) was writing was crap, so I went off on my own and brought my song to them. They didn't like it, so I wrote it on my own. And it was inspired by the good and bad of life, and having North Americans relating to fortunes found and fortunes lost, and how Las Vegas, out in the middle of nowhere, is so representative of all that."
Fortune said fans have responded well to his chemistry with the band, but in the band's native Australia, it's been overwhelmingly positive.
"We did a show when we first got here, their equivalent of the 'Today Show,' and we played outside and set a record for outdoor attendance - there were five or six thousand people there, and they had to call the cops," Fortune said recently from Australia, where the band was rehearsing for the current tour, which stops in Vegas on Jan. 28. "It's been really, really overwhelmingly supportive. The band's been away for eight years, and if it would have been two years after Michael had passed, it would have been different. But it's been one big, giant party ever since we got here."