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Savage Garden brought him phenomenal success across
the world; now he's working overtime to make it as a solo singer. Iain Shedden drops in on
Darren Hayes, a Brisbane lad who's never let being uncool get in the way of megastardom.
You know you've made it in show business when your hair becomes a matter for international
media attention. Should Darren Hayes have kept his dyed black, in the style that served
him so well throughout his Savage Garden career? Or was the singer right to wipe the scalp
clean and go back to his natural blond - thus rendering himself almost unrecognisable even
to his fans - before relaunching himself as a solo artist? Does anyone really care?
It's a tough one that will be answered in the coming months and years, when the world
decides whether to take the solitary Hayes to its bosom in the manner of of his
now-defunct duo. In the meantime, there's work to be done and, it appears, hair to be
fixed.
It's 10 am as I walk into Hayes's Miami Beach hotel suite and he's getting primed for
interviews. The first of them is by phone to Guatemala, which he conducts with a natural
good cheer while sitting on the toilet (the other phones in his suite are malfunctioning).
Between calls, a stylist fondles the controversial locks, combing, shaping, teasing them
into a form that will be presentable later in the day to the good folk at MTV South
America's Miami studio.Although the public may be having trouble identifying Hayes's
reconstituted visage, there's no mistaking his status in private. As he sits centre-stage
in his dressing-gown, looking out at Miami's up-market South Beach, he is surrounded by
his people. Manager and best friend Leonie Messer is on the phone to room service getting
her charge a sandwich. His personal assistant is holding one of his shoes, waiting for him
to put it on, while his personal trainer lurks in the wings, ready to give him a boxing
work-out.
It's another day at the office and, Hayes hopes, a positive stride towards a solo career
even greater than the pop phenomenon he created with his Brisbane partner and musical
mastermind Daniel Jones.Savage Garden's achievements in its seven-year tenure are
unprecedented in Australian pop history. In 1997 the duo won a record eight?! (Ten is what
it was, my remark) ARIA awards. It is the only Aussie act to have two No 1 songs in the US
(Truly Madly Deeply and I Knew I Loved You; both songs stayed in the Billboard adult
contemporary chart for more than two years). Since 1997 the band's two albums, Savage
Garden and Affirmation, have collectively sold 20 million copies, second only to Kylie in
pop terms but in a much shorter time span, and its world tours were box-office hits.The
act broke up - in public at least - last year, although Jones had signalled his intentions
to shy away from the glitz of the pop business even before the release of the group's
second album in 2000 (1999, my remark). Now that the dust has settled, Jones is back in
Brisbane with his girlfriend and his dogs and a plan to take a back-seat role in the music
industry, producing other acts such as Brisbane's Aneiki.Hayes, however, has never
entertained any notion of sitting back. As soon as he knew everything in the garden wasn't
rosy, his mind fixed on how he might proceed alone under the spotlight. He may have
pondered his potential, but he didn't think twice about what he had to do.
"At the end of Savage Garden it wasn't even a question for me," he says,
relaxing in the restaurant of the Tides Hotel, one of several in the Miami Beach
neighbourhood owned by former Island Records supremo Chris Blackwell."It was
terrifying, but I knew I had to do it myself. What am I going to do? Go work in
Starbucks?"
In his jeans, T-shirt and sneakers, you'd pick Hayes more as a coffee waiter than a pop
star. Certainly no one in the hotel has so much as glanced curiously during his stay and
he seems perfectly happy in this anonymity. He exudes warmth and good humour, is funny,
articulate and remarkably open about his career and some - but not all - aspects of his
private life. This genuine bonhomie is punctuated by a passion for what he has become - a
star - and a thirst to not only retain that position but to expand on it. Basically, he
wants to be Madonna.
"I do covet success," he says. "Totally, because it's about your personal
best. I'm just industrious. I am a hard worker. I don't sit down when I eat. Yoga is the
only thing where I sit down with my own thoughts ... even that gives me the shits
sometimes.
"I'm a flake in terms of the business side of things, but in terms of being an
entertainer, being a perfectionist, hitting the high notes, being in shape, that stuff I'm
absolutely, agressively ambitious about. "But the trappings of fame...I don't feel
famous at all."
* * *
Hayes is in Miami as part of a round-the-world trip to promote his debut solo single,
Insatiable, and the album to follow this month, Spin, on which his future hangs.This leg
is to take care of South American media. Savage Garden were big in most territories there,
so it's an essential strategy.During the two-day stop he talks to journalists from
Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Guatemala and more, in person or by phone; always polite,
always professional, even when answering the same question for the 50th time. At 29 he's
wise to the demands of the pop machine, a veteran of "What's your favourite
colour?" and "This is Darren Hayes and you're listening to wonderful Radio
Whatnot", and he takes it all in his stride.He makes no secret of the fact that he
loves being in the pop game. Ironically, it's the main reason he and Jones were such
opposites. Although Hayes revelled in the attention on stage, where he is the consummate
showman, Jones felt increasingly uncomfortable in the public eye.Yet there is a difference
between being in an incredibly successful pop group, where you can at least hide behind
your pop persona, and being a professional Darren Hayes product for most of your waking
hours. That, so far, has been the most difficult transition Hayes has had to make.
"I think I've been a little naive about it," he says. "In Savage Garden I
was playing a character. When I look back on that part of my life I don't in terms of
being a pop star or whatever, recognise a lot of old photographs of me. It's like I was
really trying." Now, he says, the focus has changed. "People will write about me
and I think, 'Where did that come from?' Now everything is about me and before it was
about the business. People talk about me in the third person and I cringe. I get
embarrassed. "There have been a lot of pressures that have been going on since the
band broke up, even something as ludicrous as the colour of my hair. It does kind of
bemuse me, the public reaction to change."Yet the hair matter was more than just a
fuss about colour or change. Hayes's initial video for Insatiable, much of it shot in
Sydney, was pulled by his record company at the 11th hour, despite costing hundreds of
thousands of dollars.Speculation was that it had to be reshot because no one would
recognise him in his new guise. This, according to Hayes, is rubbish. As if to back him
up, the new clip, shot in Los Angeles over two days, has just arrived at the hotel and
he's pleased with it. His blond hair features throughout."It was more just that the
first clip didn't suit the song," he says. "It was a bit cold."
Whatever the reason or expense, Insatiable has been a successful start to his new
campaign, sharting in most territories, although only peaking at No 3 in Australia. It was
most added song to adult contemporary play lists on US radio in January and in Australia
the month before. "This could fail miserably or it could be an incredible
success," he reasons, although failure hardly seems an option. No expense has been
spared in the recording of Spin, with Hayes co-writing the material with big-name producer
Walter Afanasieff (Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men). It is focused on the big ballad for which
Savage Garden was famous, but there's a sexier edge to some of it, drawing on elements of
Prince, Michael Jackson, electronica and R&B. This, in part, is the stinger striving
for something that has eluded him throughout his musical life: street cred. As he freely
admits, aspiring to pop stardom and achieving it doesn't make you the coolest kid on the
block.
"I know that I'm the milk 'n' cookies kid," he laughs. "So I knew that I
could afford to take my straight-up sweetness and my delivery and combine it with
something more edgy. I had all these aspirations of what this interesting album was. I
thought I could do this reinvention. [He adopts a cool-dude pose.] 'Hey, have you heard
the new Darren Hayes record. It's quite experimenta.' But I just can't do it. Or can't do
it at the moment. I can listen to those Bjork or Madonna records for inspiration, but when
it comes down to it I can't do it. I've yet to make a record so far that my friends really
thought was cool. So I'm just going to be what I am."
* * *
Back in Brisbane, at Mabel Park High School and the University of Queensland (where he
studied journalism), Hayes never felt comfortable with his lot. "It wasn't cool in my
neighbourhood to say you wanted to be anything other than what the social system was going
to set up for you. I got beaten up at school. I was arty. I was theatrical. I was not
cool. It was something that I kept inside me, but I knew I was going to make it, and I'm
sure the fact that I was different and went against the grain is why I'm here today,
because I just tried that bit harder."
The journey from Brisbane video store assistant to Madonna-in-waiting was remarkably
short. In 1993 he answered an ad in Brisbane's Time Off magazine for a singer. Jones and
his brother had a pub convers band called red Edge and Hayes got the gig. "I only
ever wanted to be a solo artist. I never imagined being in a band and I hated the band we
were in because we were doing classic rock covers. Can you imagine me doing Khe Sahn? Men
at Work? I'm lucky to be alive. They almost slaughtered me. But it was a great
education." After a year on the Queensland circuit, the pair quit the band to
concentrate on songwriting. A five-song demo combining Hayes's theatrical croon with
Jones's '80s pop sensibility was the result. Sent out to the industry, the demo was heard
by manager John Woodruff. Soon after the duo signed to Roadshow Music in Australia then
Columbia overseas.
Savage Garden released their first single I Want You in September 1996, reaching No 4 on
the national chart. From there the group's rise was quick and exponential, peaking in 2000
when their second album, Affirmation, and its single I Knew I Loved You topped the US
charts. Aworld tour followed, a lavishly choreographed affair complete with a set from the
designers behind U2's Popmart extravaganza, but by then Jones's lack of enthusiasm for the
band he created was causing a rift between the two. looking at it now, Hayes has nothing
but praise for his former partner, even if they have been portrayed as arch enemies in the
press since the split became official. "The way it got portrayed got twisted,"
he says. "There would be things that Daniel would say at press conferences that would
read antagonistically and some of my comments would read antagonistically. We talked at
one point during it and we weere saying: 'No, I didn't say that.' In terms of the band
break-up, Australia is the only place that has really focused on it. Everywhere else it
has been very positive."
This is understandable since Savage Garden were the country's biggest pop export by a long
margin. Hayes and Jones are millionaires many times over, although the singer says he has
no idea how much money he has. "I get in trouble for not opening my accountant's
emails," he says.Despite his wealth he is not extravagant, nor does he lead the
archetypal rock 'n' roll lifestyle. He lives modestly, by star standards, in a house he
bought three years ago in Marin County outside San Francisco. His only indulgence is
flying friends and family around the world. "One of the things I enjoy most about
having money is being able to spoil my mum and dad. I'm always bringing my mum or my dad
or my brother over. My sister runs a lot of my finances and runs the fan club. I try to
make everyone a part of it. I don't want to get home and everyone be precious about my
career. Because they're so involved in it, they don't."
His travelling entourage is made up entirely of Australians. Messer, once his Australian
publicist at Roadshow Music, lives in Marin County too, as does his personal assistant.
Trainer and stylist fly out from Sydney whenever they are required - a surrogate family,
it would seem. "More and more Australians keep popping up in my inner circle and I
keep pushing to have more and more and more to be able to travel with me because it does
get lonely and it does get surreal, especially now it's about 'Darren Hayes'. Being out of
Australia and not having my family ... having those other people with me keeps me
sane."
The closest the remarkably welladjusted Hayes has come to mental instability was in New
York, where he lived before his move to San Francisco. At the time his marriage to
childhood sweetheart and wardrobe emplyee Colby Taylor had ended in divorce. He was
lonely, the phone didn't ring and he felt like a stranger in the city. "When I was in
New York I didn't have family or friends. I was working at a soup kitchen for AIDS
sufferers. I'd go on Tuesday and Thursday nights, not because I would get an award as a
humanitarian but just because I was so lonely. It was my way of building up a sense of
community."He was also distressed by the fact that "the job emotionally
distances you from everyone and everything". "I have such a short attention
span. I can be talking to someone and just drift off. Everybody wants a piece of your
time, all the time. You don't have permission to be an arsehole. You can't wake up and be
in a bad mood and take it out on the public, so you take it out on the people closest to
you. I think I saw that happening with my family, particularly when I was living in New
York. I just wanted to pour out this story about how lonely I was. They just wanted to
hear how fantastic it was."
Lyrically, Affirmation was a caatharsis and, as it transpired, for more than one reason.
"All the songs were about heartache and redefining who I was. When I wrote the stuff
it was about my personal life, but at the end of the tour it was about another marriage
(Savage Garden) and this time I didn't want it to end. It was karma. It was payback time.
That's how life goes." The move to Marin County, and even the break-up of the duo,
eventually served to rekindle his enthusiasm. His solo album and his overt ambition
confirm it.
Still as he approaches his 30th birthday in May he has other, more down-to-earth goals.
"I want stability and I want family and I want a certain sense of normality because I
feel like since I was 18 I never really had that. Sometimes I wonder if I'll be 60 and
still be wanting attention. "What I'm beginning to understand is that what I've been
chasing all my life, what I think I need, is very different to what I need. It's as simple
as that. I used to think love was external, it was something that I needed and needed to
be built up by through my job, my relationships, whatever. I was a very needy person.
"Where I'm getting to, through reading books about spirituality, through yoga,
through just falling down and having to get back up ..." He pauses to frame his
thoughts. "When I get to a point where I really feel good about myself, that's when
I'm going to be truly attractive. I think I'm getting there."
Iain Shedden travelled to Miami courtesy of Roadshow Music. Spin is released on March 18.
Truly madly Darren * Hayes gave up studying journalism at university because "you
couldn't use adjectives".
* Likes Starbucks coffee.
* Is keen to have children.
* Is a big fan of Spiritualized and Basement Jaxx.
* Has Kylie Minogue's mobile number but has only used it once (last month when they were
both in New York).
* Admits he can write sappy songs "in my sleep".
* Got a bit teary for Australia when he saw Powderfinger on The Late Show with David
Letterman.
* Would like to write a screenplay.
* Studied the works of John Lennon and his relationship with Yoko Ono before making his
album Spin.
* Wants to be "a Peter Gabriel, Sting or Bono, making records when I'm 40 or
50".
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