Canadian J.D. Fortune's hopes for fame and fortune as the lead singer for INXS were realized last night on Rock Star: INXS.
In the weeks and months to come, the Toronto musician will front a world tour with the band and sing on the group's new album.
Shortly after a rousing rendition of You Can't Always Get What You Want, Mr. Fortune was chosen in a glitzy finale to the popular show to replace Michael Hutchence, who hanged himself in a hotel room in 1997.
Mr. Fortune said that being on the show, which began 11 weeks ago with 15 unsigned rockers vying for one spot, had changed him.
"What I've put into this experience, I've gotten back," he said. "I never would have been able to be in this band if I was the guy who walked through those doors three months ago."
Three contestants were left heading into the finale of the televised singing competition -- Mr. Fortune, as well as Chicago musician Marty Casey and MiG Ayesa, a London stage performer raised in Australia.
In previous weeks, three other Canadians had been eliminated -- Suzie McNeil and Tara Sloane of Toronto and Deanna Johnston, originally from Kingston, Ont.
Throughout the course of the contest, which Mr. Fortune described as "insanely gruelling," he became more focused as he paraded his talents before a screaming audience, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro and the band, made up of Garry Beers, Kirk Pengilly and brothers Andrew, Tim and Jon Farriss.
A song he wrote to impress the band, Pretty Vega s, was a hit with the audience and the band, and even got some radio play.
"I'm just literally grateful to have come this far in the contest," he said before the outcome was known.
Mr. Fortune, 32, was born in Mississauga, outside Toronto, but moved to Pictou County in Nova Scotia when he was 5 after his parents divorced. He lived in Nova Scotia until his mid-teens before moving back to Ontario.
For the past few years, he's lived in Toronto and travelled with bands.
After gaining this worldwide television exposure, he's in a far better situation career-wise, he said, than he was before being selected for the INXS competition, when he was practically living in his car.
"I made some wrong decisions and I was couch-hopping as much as I could, and you don't want to impose upon your friends if you want to keep them friends, you know," he told The Canadian Press in an interview last week. "So I was spending a few nights at one friend's, a few nights at another, and then it ended up it was more convenient for me to have a snooze in my car at night."
During the day, he was trying to put a demo together and doing some singing on the side -- sometimes at the subway.