Lifting the Hayes
(Creme Magazine, New Zealand, April)

Congratulations on completing your first post-Savage Garden project. How liberating was it to do your own solo album?

D: It was great. It was terrifying because I was so used to doing everything with Daniel. I met him when I was 18 and all of a sudden
I'm 29 and I'm in the studio and everyone's looking at me and asking 'Which take? Shall we do another one? What do you think of  that guitar?'. I was producing - truly producing - for the first time in my career. I was a little nerve-wracking but the rewards - when
you come through it and something likes how you've heard it in your mind - is a very affirming thing. It gave me a lot of confidence.

Tell me about the songs on this album.

D: I wrote a lot for this record. I wrote 35 songs. I was very diligent in making sure that whatever was put on the album was what I wanted to see on the album. I wanted to make sure that it varied its tone. I don't know that Insatiable (Darren's first single from the album) is a clear example of what the album sounds like. I think it's really a bridge between where I came from and where I'm going, but I had a lot of fun making it.

How hard was it picking Insatiable as your first single knowing that it would play a major role in relaunching your solo career?

D: It was a really difficult decision because you have to have a song that one: you think could be a hit and number two: will be
identifiable. I definitely didn't want to release a song that sounded exactly where I had been before, but at the same time I didn't want
to release a song that alienated me from the market.

Launching a solo career after being in a band is almost like starting out all over again. Are you nervous or excited about that?

D: I tell you, it's making me feel much more enthusiastic. It's like 18 again. Obviously there's some nerves in terms of "It's
failing!". I'm not going to lie to you, if it didn't work at all I think I'd be disappointed but I think my anxiety came just in those
initial couple weeks of the recording process. Once I'd finished the album, I felt like I'd done the best job I could possibly do and
that's all you can do really. The rest of it is marketing and its radio play, peoples tastes, fashion it's things that you really can't
control. I quoted Alanis recently and she said 'I give a s**t but I don't give a s**t' and it's kind of how I feel aswell.

Do you get tired of the promotional aspect that comes with being a popstar?

D: No. I think that's the difference between why I'm still doing it and why I didn't stop. I'm a born performer, I'm a people person, I have
my own issues in terms of it's difficult when I'm travelling so much to have relationships, to feel like a normal regular person when
everyone else in the world that you know doesn't have your job so it's hard to be seperated, but in general I love it. There's physical
demands like any job but I love it.

You've been living in America for the past four years now. What's your profile like in America compared to Australasia?

D: Well obviously I'm much less famous [laughs]. It's amazing, I've sold a lot of records here but I have kind of managed to drift between the cracks a little bit, probably intentionally. At the moment it's weird being 'Darren Hayes'. I turned on the radio today and they said 'Coming up we've got the new single from Darren Hayes'. It still makes me embarrassed a little bit because it's like 'Oh my God, that's me!'. I could always hide behind the name Savage Garden but now it's about me. I get stopped in the street a couple times a day whereas if I went home, I probably couldn't go to a mall.

It must be quite relieving to have a sense of anonimity in America then.

D: It's great. That's why I love living over here. I get to just put on the costume and go out into the world and be the entertainer when the job requires but, when it doesn't, I largely go around unnoticed and I love it.

It's unlikely you're going to be able to maintain the same level of privacy in America after the release of your album though is it?

D: Probably not. I've noticed that the gossip about me is starting to become a bit more personal and a bit more false and it's interesting because it never really happened to me when I was in a band. I felt almost protected by it but now it is getting a little more personally focused.

Speaking of media gossip, do you think the media blew the demise of Savage Garden way out of proportion?

D: It got really negative and so far removed from what the reality was. The reality was that we'd [Darren and Daniel] worked together for six and a half years. Daniel was increasingly wanting to take a back seat and he wanted to produce records. It wasnt even a choice. It was like 'Okay, well I'm going to continue on'. The way the story broke and the way the story was sensationalised was the only time where I'd really seen that negative tension associated with my name. There's that old saying that any publicity is good publicity but I don't know. My name got thrown around a lot, but I don't know if I really appreciated it.

Were you prepared for the media onslaught?

D: Not at all. The story broke because I'd given an interview to a journalist and it was the first time that I had been able to speak
about the break up and he released it like a week earlier than we anticipated and that created a big snowball. you know, I was going to be at home in Australia and would have had a press conference and talked about it but it became this legend or whatever, but we've moved on and I definitely feel I'm glad that the story's out now. I'm glad that's done.

Another thing that has caused major media attention recently has been your hair colour change from black to blonde. Are you amazed that the colour of your hair can create headlines?

D: I really am. We were laughing about it before - me and my friend - just saying 'Do they say this about Madonna?' I'm a guy, what's the big deal? Here's the story. I used to dye it black. You can go to any chemist, get a black dye, put it in your blonde hair - it sticks. you don't do it for six weeks, you get regrowth, so i had a whole career where I had to dye my hair black because that was my image. I stopped doing it. I grew my hair out and this is what I look like.

The stories even went so far as to say your record company axed the first music video for Insatiable because they didn't like your new hair colour.

D: There has been no negative feedback from my record company. The record company love my hair colour so much that the story about the video was so funny to me because they loved what I looked like in that video. They hated the storyline and they didn't feel like it was romantic enough. It was my call. I talked to them about that, but they were insistent that I didn't change my hair or anything - we had just done a huge photo shoot. They were like 'We love the way you look, please stay the same', so I don't know where it came from. It's funny. It guess it's one of those things where it's like whatever. I guessed it caused some attention but, I mean, do I want that kind of attention? Not really! People just don't like change and it's been really amazing for me to see this happen. It's like 'Wow, you know, I guess there's been a few major changes - the band split up, I look different.
Woah!' [laughs]

For all the media's misconceptions about you, is there anything about Darren Hayes that you want the public to know about you?

D: Not really. I get portrayed a certain way and I look at someone like Madonna and I think 'My God'. She obviously must have been through hell trying to justify her opinions. She obviously got to a point in her life where she just gave up and I think I'm at that point. It's like, you know what, people who know me know me, my fans know me, if you listen to my record you know my personality.

In terms of your record reflecting your personality, what do you think this album ultimately says about you?

D: I wanted to capture more of my personality. I definitely wanted people to know that I don't take myself as seriously as you would
think - that I do have a sense of humour. I'm a goofball a lot of the time aswell as being a romantic. I can also find a situation sexy.
I'm not afraid to talk about lust and heat. I think before, everything had been very sort of Disney and PC and it felt like I had
to fit that image. On this record I really wanted to let my hair down and act natural and instinctual.