Spinning Around

When Savage Garden split almost five years ago, they were at the peak of their career, having sold 25 million records worldwide. Swiftly going solo, the more prominent member, Darren Hayes has since released two albums and is working on a third but with the imminent arrival of his band’s greatest hits collection, he’s agreed to give his backing and to share his thoughts with uk-fusion

I’ve been really busy, which I’m sure you guys hear all the time from performers but it’s weird. I’ve been working on a new record that comes out next year but then this ‘best of’ Savage Garden’s come up and I’ve stopped working on my record, thinking, “Oh yeah, this will be fun”. It has but there’s been a lot of travel. Tomorrow I fly to Australia for just four days, then I fly to Bangkok for three or four days and then I’m back in Denmark but I’m good.

Are you going to have a quiet Christmas?

I hope so. I think I’m going to be here. I have some family in London and we’ll go to a really nice, posh hotel rather than cook.

You’ve been solo for nearly five years. Are you comfortable now?

Yeah, I think so. It’s funny because Savage Garden was such a phenomenon because of how little we did and how many records we sold. We only had two albums but each record was a number one in America and that profoundly changes your life as a musician. It probably took me a couple of years not compare myself to the success of the band. Certainly from a media and a record company’s point of view when you’ve come from something that’s been massively and commercially successful, the pressure to repeat that will be enormous but yeah, I’m good now.

Do you think the demise of Savage Garden was premature?

Yes and no. I didn’t really have a lot of say over it. He [Daniel Jones] had a life change, which at the time was a complete shock. I knew that he wasn’t happy in the role but the timing of it was really weird because we were about to put out our second record and he very honestly sat down with all the people that love him and said, “I can’t do this any more”. My life just came off the train track, and I kept thinking, “What am I going to do with my life?” Then I realised this was something he really needed to do. In the moment I think his timing was pretty good because music changed and shifted. There’s been a good five years where it’s been about hip-hop and rock and as a band, Savage Garden would have slipped between the cracks.

What do you miss about Savage Garden?

The hair-cuts! Probably the brotherhood of having somebody else that goes through it with you, it’s like having a partner in crime. I miss the tour bus, I miss the group experience…really big shows were fun but I don’t know if I necessarily miss all that. There’s definitely a lot of pressure when you’ve got a busy touring schedule but I definitely miss the family. We had an incredible touring band and crew we worked with for years and that was really hard to say goodbye to that.

Savage Garden have just released a greatest hits album. Why now? Why not when you had called it a day five years ago?

Because we kept saying no. Sometimes that’s a bit opportunistic; ‘Best ofs’ in a lot of ways are quite calculated and can seem like a blatant attempt to get money out of the fan-base. We only had two records and the record company had wanted to put out a ‘best of’ (as they do) every year for the last five years but we kept saying no. I really wanted there to be a distance between what I’d done and what I do today. It took a while for them to agree to let me put new music on there. I wanted it to be an anthology and not just ‘the greatest hits of Savage Garden’ where somebody’s just taken two records and burned them together on a CD. What would be the point of that? You could do that at home.

Do you prefer being dark to blonde?

It changes all the time – depends on what record I’m putting out.

What colour will your hair be for the next one?
Who knows! I might go darker. I’m a blondie at heart. The last thing I did was a really dark record and I wanted to present myself as a dark-haired person. It’s like having a character, I guess. I remember listening to my last record, thinking, “I can’t sing these songs and have blonde hair – it doesn’t feel right”, so it depends what the music is going to be like.

I prefer dark.

Oh! There you go! [to Alana, his PA] We have one more for the dark – just put that on the list, she prefers dark. (laughs)

Is it true you were stopped by the police when filming the video for ‘Pop!ular’?

Oh! Yeah we got arrested! Well, we escaped being arrested. What the production company didn’t tell me (but I thought it was really quite smart) was that they didn’t get permission to film and it was good because it gave the video that sense of urgency – it really was meant to be a very desperate attempt to get attention. I had these two girls whom I’m contractually obliged to refer to as ‘dancers’ (I think I was calling them strippers and they got really upset about that) and one of them was going, (adopts a girlie, weepy voice) “What am I going to do? What am I going to tell my dad?!” and she’s standing there in gold, platform like heels, a gold bikini and hair done up like someone from Dallas.

In a recent web chat on your official website you said: “I adore women because I think they're underrated and under appreciated. I think women are insightful and intuitive and I possess similar qualities.”  Explain. 

I think I’m intuitive. I’m ruled by my senses and my feelings and I think when I was younger, I used to really grapple with that ‘cos I could get my feelings hurt really easily. Men are very much taught not to be like that and still today in our society, we’re not allowed to act sensitively. Emotionally women are usually five years ahead of men and I do think they are underrated. My mum is an incredible woman, she’s a survivor of so many things and she really kept our family unit together so I respect women for that. Women have to put up with so much immaturity from men but men always come around to it – that’s the stupid thing.

Would you say you’re metrosexual?

I know what a metrosexual is but no, I’m just human. I think a lot more men probably feel the way I feel but don’t admit it.

Did you follow the recent Ashes series?

Don’t do sport. I do the Olympics, sometimes the floor events, sometimes the synchronised swimming…

But you don’t give a toss about the cricket.
No, but cabbies in London do and whenever they hear me speak, they say, “You’re Australian?! How do you feel about the cricket?” They give me such a hard time and I’m like, “I don’t even watch it, mate!”

Do you know how it works?
I know we lost and I know there’s a wicket, three stumps and you bowl. I played cricket as a kid but I was terrible. I was OK batting but yeah, not into it because when I was a kid, cricket always meant that the cartoons weren’t on.

Why is Shane Warne so fat? And he gets laid easily too.

Is he fat? See I don’t even know! I know his name’s Shane… I don’t know…maybe it’s the outfit, maybe the ladies like the white, I don’t know…I personally don’t like cricket.

Well there are 10 other players to choose from.

Does he do well with the ladies?

Er, yes. Sort of.

Really? Maybe it’s ‘cos he’s rich. Maybe he’s a nice person.

Do you have a favourite Australian dish? Ever tried kangaroos’ testicles?

(groans) No! I would never eat kangaroos or their testicles! I very rarely eat meat actually. What’s my favourite Australian dish? (thinks) Alana, do I have a favourite Australian dish? What is it with Australian dishes?! You know what, I like damper – it’s kind of like what you guys would have with a baked dinner like Yorkshire pudding. It’s basically pastry that the old bushmen used to make ‘cos they didn’t have a lot of money – brown sugar, flour and water and they cooked it in the camp oven, which is a big steal oven. That’s probably it. (to Alana) Apart from that, everything else in Australia is English or American, don’t you think? We thought we invented the meat pie till I came here!

What was kinky the first time?

Kinky the first time…hmm. This won’t be the answer that you want at all but you know, I only recently tried (giggles) cheese and fruit together. I thought it was kinky and weird and it was really good the first time but I’m not going to talk to you about what you really want to know!

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