Timothy William Farriss (born 16 August 1957) is an Australian musician, founding member and the lead guitarist of the rock band :INXS.

Early life and the formation of INXS

Farriss was born in

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

, Western Australia, to Dennis and Jill Farriss, and is the oldest of four children: he has two brothers,

Andrew Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is frequently shortened to "Andy" or "Drew". The word is derived ...

and Jon, and a sister, Alison. He was classically trained on the guitar from the ages of eight to twelve by Peter Fredericci who played with the Australian Symphony Orchestra. As an adolescent, Farriss attended The Forest High School in Sydney. There he quickly formed a friendship with

Kirk Pengilly Kirk Pengilly ( ; born 4 July 1958) is an Australian musician and member of the Australian rock group INXS. Kirk plays saxophone, guitar and also performs as a backing vocalist. Early career Pengilly moved to Sydney in 1966, and became best fri ...

. Farriss (lead guitar) and Pengilly (guitar and

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

) soon formed the band "Guinness," the eventual base and bedrock to the future internationally successful group, INXS. During Farriss' painful recovery from an operation to remove abnormal bone growths in his legs, the result of a

Hereditary Multiple Exostoses Hereditary multiple osteochondromas (HMO), also known as hereditary multiple exostoses, is a disorder characterized by the development of multiple benign osteocartilaginous masses ( exostoses) in relation to the ends of long bones of the lower li ...

(which his brother Jon also suffers from), his brother Andrew recruited school friends and "Doctor Dolphin" bandmates

Garry Gary Beers Garry William Beers (born 22 June 1957), known as Garry Gary Beers, is an Australian musician and was the bass guitarist for the new wave rock group INXS. Career Garry William Beers was born to Lola (died 2011) and William Beers. William Beer ...

(bass guitar) and

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 ...

(vocals). During the ''Summer XS'' tour in 1991 INXS played

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...

in front of 73,791 people, at one point

told Farriss to ''"play the fucking riff Timmy"'', which led to Farriss being nicknamed the Riff Meister, and later the Riff Sheriff. The moment was captured on film and CD for "Live Baby Live". Farriss plays various G&L (with which INXS hold an endorsement) and Fender guitars, his favourite being a 1956

Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously ...

. During the 2006 ''Switch'' tour Farriss suffered a knee injury, leading to surgery and the cancellation of several performances; after a short time recuperating he went back on stage wearing a knee support.

Solo projects

Farriss recorded the CD ''Deep Inside'' in 1996, which features over 1000 samples of various instruments. He has also made a fishing video ''Fish in Space'' in 1989, the name coming as a humorous reference to bandmate

's film, ''

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 l ...

''. Farriss wrote and performed the song "Any Day But Sunday" on the soundtrack for the 1984 film ''

No Small Affair ''No Small Affair'' is a 1984 American comedy-drama film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Jon Cryer and Demi Moore. Cryer, Jennifer Tilly, Tim Robbins and Tate Donovan make their film debuts. Plot The 16-year-old amateur photographer Ch ...

'', starring

Demi Moore Demi Gene Moore ( ; née Guynes; born November 11, 1962) is an American actress. After making her film debut in 1981, Moore appeared on the soap opera '' General Hospital'' (1982–1984) and subsequently gained recognition as a member of the B ...

and

Jon Cryer Jonathan Niven Cryer (born April 16, 1965) is an American actor, writer, director and producer. Born into a show business family, he made his motion picture debut as a teenage photographer in the 1984 romantic comedy '' No Small Affair''; his br ...

. He also has his own studio, 'Montana', in which he and his

sound engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

work with many up and coming Australian

artists An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the ...

Personal life

On 6 February 1981, Farriss married his high school sweetheart Bethany Anne (Buffy) Reefman and subsequently had two sons. INXS bandmates see Farriss as the "father figure", as he was the first to get married and to have children.

Tim is like the ballast in the band...He's the one who gives the band a bit of leadership, a sense of unity, and he'll usually project a very practical, logical view of everything.

Farriss is a very private man who enjoys deep-sea fishing (tag and release), cricket, swimming, tennis, scuba diving, golf, snowboarding and working on the Kangaroo Valley family farm which he bought from his brother Andrew. He once served as president of the Manly Warringah District Cricket Club. In January 2015, Farriss severed a finger whilst operating a winch on his boat. He underwent operations to attempt to reattach the finger, followed by physiotherapy. It was uncertain at the time whether he would be able to continue a musical career. Farriss began legal action in 2019 against the owners of the boat for damages, and revealed that he is only able to play a few beginner level chords on the guitar since the accident. He lost his legal case on 28 January 2022 when the Supreme Court of New South Wales handed down its judgment in favour of the defendants. The Court also ordered that Farriss pay the defendants' legal costs.

Awards

West Australian Music Industry Awards

The

West Australian Music Industry Awards The Western Australian Music Industry Awards (commonly known as WAMis) are annual awards presented to the local contemporary music industry, put on by the Western Australian Music Industry Association Inc (WAM). The WAMi Awards are Western Aust ...

(WAMIs) are annual awards presented to the local contemporary music industry, put on annually by the Western Australian Music Industry Association Inc (WAM).2007 West Australian Music Industry Award Winners
, - , 2008 , The Farriss Brothers (Tim (

and Jon) , Hall of Fame , , -

References

External links

''Websites''
INXS.com – the official INXS websiteINXS.PL – Polish INXS websiteTim Farriss' Bio at ROCKBANDLOUNGE.COM
''Interview''
Interview with Tim Farriss (7 November 2003)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farriss, Tim 1957 births Living people Australian guitarists Musicians from Perth, Western Australia INXS members Lead guitarists 20th-century Australian musicians 21st-century Australian musicians