Elegant Interviews!




Savage Garden - Rolling Stone Magazine
Savage Garden on the Rosie O'Donnell Show
Savage Garden - Interview 2




Savage Garden - Rolling Stone Magazine

ALL DARREN HAYES COULD THINK was "This is not happening!" It was a mantra the Savage Garden vocalist kept chanting to himself, but it wasn't taking. The nascent pop star went to take a sip of his Powerade, but then the Edge cracked a joke and Hayes involuntarily laughed, spitting purple liquid all over himself. Supermodel Helena Christensen giggled as the singer coughed and spluttered. The rain clouds were clearing in the aftermath of the Sydney leg of U2's PopMart tour, and Hayes had climbed the various levels of celebrity patronage - the shitkicker VIP tent; the serious VIP tent where Midnight Oil were rubbing shoulders with Keanu Reeves and Samuel L. Jackson - to here: U2's dressing room, "The Bunker". He was on his own. The other half of Savage Garden, Daniel Jones, was back on level two. "This is not happening! This is not happening!" he told himself.
When Bono's assistant brought Hayes in, he walked past Adam Clayton and had to remind himself to be cool. But fuck it, there he was, sitting there in the corner wearing a boxing hood and those black wraparound shades: Bono himself. The Fly, McPhisto, the man who wrote "One", the man who'd just left 50,000 people enthralled. Darren Hayes's godstar was sitting a few metres away. It was happening. Hayes was dripping wet. The Powerade had simply added to the downpour he's already stood through, dancing at the tip of the catwalk alongside the other true believers, lost in the music. He'd had the chance to meet Bono the previous August, when PopMart was in Los Angeles. Hayes had been transfixed by the show but decided not to go backstage. He didn't want to be the millionth hand Bono had shaken, another beaming face forgotten.
It was different now. Over the last year Savage Garden had sold approximately four million albums around the world - they were on course to double that - including a phenomenal 800,000 in Australia alone. They'd scooped the 1997 ARIA Awards and had a number one single in America with "Truly Madly Deeply", the first act to do so since INXS with "Need You Tonight" in 1987.
But Darren Hayes didn't want to meet Bono because he felt successful. He would never dare compare Savage Garden's achievements to U2. No, Darren Hayes wanted to meet Bono because he was starting to realize the baggage that came with the success. Savage Garden were in the midst of a sold-out national tour and he was starting to feel like he had nothing more to give, that he'd been stretched so thin he would either break in two or simply dissipate. A few nights before, in Tasmania, he'd been asking himself before a show if he could go on, if not tonight, then next week, or next month in New Zealand, or the month after that in Asia, or the looming months beyond in Europe and America. He was wondering why they'd become a teen sensation, if he could keep his marriage out of the public eye.
All of these thoughts were racing through Darren Hayes's mind. And then Bono was looking at him, gesturing for him to come over and talk...

LET IT BE SAID AGAIN: SAVAGE GARDEN ARE A phenomenon. Together with the Spice Girls they have spearheaded the return of pop music to the top of musical charts around the world, giving focus to the desires and needs of a generation of teenage, on the whole female, fans.
But behind all this is two young men from suburban Brisbane. Polite, inquisitive young men who worry a lot about what's happening to them, how they should handle success, how they can prove that their brand of pop is one that will mature and grow, which will reach for resonance and a sense of belief.
When I first met Savage Garden they are preparing to have their photo taken. It is Saturday afternoon and Savage Garden are standing in a Sydney hotel suite, looking at clothes, prior to shooting new press shots for America. On the Sunday and Monday, with a show also scheduled on Sunday night, they're to shoot a high-budget clip for the US release of "Break Me Shake Me".
Hayes is wearing all black, most noticeably a pair of jeans armour-plated with PVC. With his locks now cropped, his dewy features have lost some of their femininity. He moves around constantly, even as he fights the flu, breaking into snatches of song, delving off into varied topics of conversation without warning. Now he's appraising his outfit.
"How much is this stuff?" he asks the stylist, who's lacing up Hayes's boots for him.
"$290 for the top and $220 for the pants, less 10%," comes the reply.
Hayes pauses, then snorts. "Tell 'em to get f**ked," he retorts.
Sitting on a bed, patiently having his makeup done, Daniel Jones laughs. The keyboardist is tall and rangy, with blond, spiky hair. Up close, you can see the handful of acne scars which pit the right side of his face. When he smiles, which he does often for someone so observant and low-key, his angular face becomes quite disarming. He watched the PopMart show at the mixing desk, standing beside Helena Christensen. "I said hello and then spent the rest of the show trying to smell her," he notes, grinning broadly.

BECAUSE THEY OWN THEIR VERY SUCCESSFUL records - they only lease them to Roadshow Music in Australia and New Zealand and Sony Music for the rest of the world - Savage Garden have a degree of control most bands can only dream of. "There's not one cent spent, not one colour used on a front cover that we don't approve," Hayes later explains. "It's very comforting."
Right now Savage Garden are working it for photographer Robin Sellick's camera. Hayes is a natural, staring off into the middle distance while standing in the foreground, masking his face in the very definition of broodiness. Jones stands behind him, biding his time for a practice he clearly doesn't place a great deal of faith in (although he's never less than professional).
As the shoot moves from hallway to penthouse, Hayes takes front and centre in every shot. "I'm always aware that I'm in the front of every photograph, but it's not because I step in front of him," he says. "Daniel takes two steps back. People just assume I'm an egomaniac."

THE FIRST ALBUM THAT BOTH HAYES, age 25, and Jones, 24, bought was Michael Jackson's Thriller. George Michael is a name they both mention with respect. Out in the suburbs of Brisbane both youngsters were pop fanatics, giving vent to their obsessions, Jones was so taken with the video for "Thriller" that he and a friend started digging graves behind his house so they could recreate the video; he even began work on making the famous red jacket. Hayes went one better: he built a papier mache ET and rode around with it in the basket of his bike.
But the divergent paths the two took towards Savage Garden illustrate the differences between them. By the time he was 13, Jones was more interested in making music than listening to it. He'd started buying keyboards and sequencers, creating musical beds for songs. On the New Year's eve of 1989, aged 15, he did his first two gigs back to back, with a covers band, and walked away with $400. He never went back to school after that. Financially astute, by the time he was 17 he owned his own PA, which he regularly loaded in and out of every pub and club in Queensland. "I kind of miss those moments," Jones recalls. "I enjoyed some of those innocent pressures more than these serious ones."
Darren Hayes had far more trouble realizing his dreams. "My whole life," he declares, "being a singer or performer was all I ever wanted to do." But growing up in one of Brisbane's rougher suburbs didn't make this easy. There's an undercurrent of anger in Hayes when he describes those years, as if he's still upset at how people tried to deny his dreams.
"Most people I went to school with had two babies before they were 20. One guy is in jail for armed robbery. Another one died in a car crash while on cocaine. Another one is a pimp. That was the level of my peers. I didn't know a single person who was even a singer. My family weren't that encouraging - which is not a criticism - but my career choice was the most alien thing you could do in my family."
Hayes started studying journalism at university, but then threw it in. "My mission was to be a star," he remembers, speaking with an earnestness which can easily veer into melodrama. With his then girlfriend, a fellow Madonna fanatic, the pair auditioned for theatre college. "I got in, she didn't, so I gave it all up for her. And then three months later she dumped me. I was gutted."
Hayes started a Bachelor of Education majoring in Primary School Teaching. "Something I did not have a drop of passion about." Still obsessed with his dreams of fame, he was sitting in a lecture in 1992, reading a Brisbane street paper, when he saw a "Singer Wanted" ad for a local covers band, Red Edge. Replying to the ad he found himself in a band room, being stared down by Jones and the rest of the band.
Red Edge didn't know any of Hayes's favourites, while the prospective vocalist ("I always knew I could sing, I knew I had soul") hated their Oz rock/pop 40 repertoire. He sang a piece from Little Shop Of Horrors, and even though his voice broke halfway through, he was in. It was not an easy adjustment. Hayes is not technically inclined, and he perversely refused to learn the words to the band's set, relying on lyric sheets instead ("I still don't know the words to 'Khe Sanh'," he announces with pride). The experience, he concludes, was "hideous".

HAYES IS WALKING DOWN A CORRIDOR to a meet and greet. In the lounge, Hayes is joined by Jones, fresh from dinner. Five girls - before some shows the number has been as high as 50 - appear breathless and nervous. There's nothing studied about teen hysteria, it has an immediacy which distances it from the adult world. Savage Garden are comfortable with it.
"So, would you like us to sign some stuff?" asks Jones genially. Tickets, CDs and a stuffed bear are produced. Photographs are taken. One of the girls is red in the face because she's not taking in enough oxygen.
"You all go to school, don't you?" asks Hayes. The girls indicate yes. "Well let me give you a lesson about school. All the kids that were popular end up on the dole with babies. All the nerds end up pop stars." "Hey!" retorts Jones, "I was never a nerd."

"DARREN IS BRUTALLY HONEST, EVEN TO himself," answers Jones when asked to describe his bandmate. "Sometimes he's his own worst critic. He's so honest that anything he's feeling comes to the surface, which really helps clear the air in the intense relationship we have. He reminds me of a kid, not in a bad way, but in his naivete."
Asked the same question, Hayes replies, "He's probably the most intelligent person I've ever met in my life. He doesn't say anything unless he's thought it through and it's right. It might take him two or three days, but he'll come to you and say, 'I think you look really insecure when you do that. I'm just being honest.' And you'll go red because he's absolutely right. He's intuitive. Intelligent. Calm and confident. He's devoid of insecurity."

WHEN U2 BROUGHT THE ZOO TV tour to Australia in 1993, Red Edge was scheduled to play a residency in Alice Springs. Darren Hayes didn't have to think for long. He left the band. But the other thing he was pondering was writing songs with Daniel Jones. The two had slowly developed a rapport, and Hayes was impressed that Jones and several other band members already had a music publishing deal. The actual songs, however, he hated. "They were watered down 1927." he laments.
"It wasn't really my thing," says Jones. "But then I hooked up with Darren and left that band." The pair began to experiment. Happily working by himself at home, Jones would create the musical backing, Hayes would suggest refinements and then add his vocals. The fourth song they wrote together was their astral retooling of "She's Leaving Home", "To The Moon And Back", and afterwards they knew they were on to something.
"I turned around," says Jones, "and said, 'This is as good as anything out there. It's as good as U2, or a seal song - the benchmarks.' That's when we became really serious."
Savage Garden's five song demo - the duo envisaged themselves as a studio project and were heavily influenced by U2's Actung Baby - was well-received, although the pair were disheartened by the amount of music industry players whose first queries to them were, "What do you look like?" and "Can you dance?" The duo eventually signed with veteran manager John Woodruff (Baby Animals, Diesel, Icehouse) in 1995 and he remains the linchpin of the Savage Garden organisation and their business partner. It was a relationship forged in adversity. Because they couldn't get a record deal (whether because no one could see the band's potential or because no one was willing to give Woodruff a deal for his own record label is unclear), Woodruff self-financed the album, bringing the pair to Sydney for eight months to record at the home studio of veteran producer Charles Fisher (Hoodoo Gurus, 1927). Hayes first choice for producer was George Michael.
Living in a Kings Cross Hotel on a diet of noodles and missing their families, Savage Garden struggled to finish their album. Their doubts were constant, their aims shifting each month.
Woodruff licensed the album to startup label Roadshow Music, whose early signings had been anything but auspicious. Their first single, "I Want You" - a Hayes tale about an extraordinary vivid dream where he met and fell in love with someone so deeply that when he lost them upon waking he became depressed - was released in June 1996.
"What makes me laugh about our record is that we couldn't get a deal, so we signed to the joke of the industry, Roadshow," Hayes explains. "We had dodgy artwork, dodgy videos. We had trouble getting airplay at the start. Basically, we fulfilled every criteria to be unearthed by Triple J."
"The day I realized how commercial we were was the day I realized that Triple J didn't playlist 'I Want You'. I was thinking that it would be an indie-pop hit that they'd play. Then it was like, 'Actually, you're more the most played band on the Austereo network.'" He pauses, then smiles. "And I'll take that any day."
The band did their first in-store appearance as "I Want You" climbed to number three on the charts. "All these 13 and 14-year-olds turned up, screaming 'Darren!' and 'Daniel!'" remembers Jones. "I was like, 'Oh fuck!' I didn't want to go through that."
By the time "To The Moon And Back" and "Truly Madly Deeply" had gone to number one, to be followed by their self-titled debut album in March 1997, Savage Garden had acclimatized to their new surroundings. Hayes and Jones make no bones about making commercial music, but under that banner they see a world of subtle differences.
"I think the best pop is the one that shoots from the hip," asserts Hayes. "What troubles me sometimes is that we've always wanted to be completely true to ourselves, but people always assume that since we make pop music it has to be calculated and all about marketing. It was never that. There are a lot of pop bands and vocal bands which just aren't real. They're not coming from a real place."
"What's so magical about the record we made is that it's so innocent and earnest. It went out there and said this is what we want to be. We didn't care about being hip or cool. It was unassuming. I think we write really good pop songs, we have a great ear for melody and we have a directness when it comes to emotion."

SAVAGE GARDEN'S SHOW IS MILDLY choreographed, well-designed and given U2 homages (which Hayes happily admits to) that the young audience (seeded with over-30s brought in by) "Truly Madly Deeply") scream along to. With just one album and a handful of b-sides to draw on, there are noticeable low points. But live, Savage Garden are a guitar band. Jones plays more guitar then keyboards, while their stage sound is fleshed out by a rhythm section, extra guitarist and backing singers. "I think we're a pop band desperately wanting to be a rock & roll band and I think that's what's funny about us," claims Hayes.
The strangest moment is when Hayes, who has so much desire and extreme emotion projected at him from an audience he works relentlessly, dedicates a song to his wife, Colby. Fans want their pop stars to be free and magical, not married with a home in the Brisbane suburbs.
Hayes is vocal on every topic bar one: his wife of three years.
"I think it's strange to be young and married," he says, choosing his words carefully. "Imagine being young and married and a pop star. It's tough. We refuse to be an example of a happy marriage to anyone. The reason I very rarely talk about Colby or do Women's Weekly spreads about our new glamorous house is that it's hard enough being married without being a celebrity couple. When you're happy together they love you, but Jesus, when there's problems they don't care, they tear you to bits. And I'm not ready for that."
Both Hayes and Jones (who is also in a long-term relationship) decided from the start not to discuss their private lives with the media. On their first tour in May 1997 a tabloid journalist who wanted to follow up his interview with Hayes with a quick phone chat was directed by Woodruff to call him on his mobile: "His wife Colby has it."
"The next day he writes some article in the paper: 'Exclusive: Singer Tries To Hide Wife!" spits Hayes, recalling the spectre of John Lennon, who really did keep his first marriage a secret under management orders. "When did I ever say I wasn't married? When did I ever say I wanted to talk about my private life? What the fuck does it matter? Is my music any different because I have a wedding ring?"

FOR ONE SECOND I KNEW WHAT IT was like to be Savage Garden. After their sold-out show I leave the Entertainment Centre. Their road manager directs me out the door to the car park. As soon as I open it the 500 fans awaiting the band's departure scream in anticipation. It is electrifying, even a little scary. But when they see it's only an anonymous figure, 500 fans go, "Ohhhhh." Pop music is a cruel, cruel mistress.

LAST OCTOBER, ON THE FLIGHT TO Sydney for the ARIAs, where they would clean up with 10 awards, Daniel Jones told Darren Hayes that he couldn't take it any more and that he was ready to leave Savage Garden. The music, which is all Jones really cared about, had been overtaken by the promotion. Instead of being allowed to hide away in a recording studio, Jones was giving 40 interviews a day in America, traipsing across Europe miming on TV shows in every country.
"It was pissing me off. Music was becoming more about talking about it than actually making it. I had to get back to the studio. I enjoy it and miss it. The whole monster size of this machine takes it away from you," he notes.
"The whole pep talk I now give video directors and photographers is that I don't want to be up front. I've drawn a line for myself, and that's the compromise I had to make to deal with being on this band. Now everyone understands what it is about these two people. One wants to be here, the other wants to be here." He holds up his hands to indicate the difference, the gap between them is a metre wide.
"That's the deal we made around the time of the ARIAs, but to be honest I think I've always done it," claims Hayes later. "I've always been lumbered with it because everyone assumes I love it. And lately I'm the one saying I want out, I can't do this anymore. If we ever broke up it would be because one of us wanted to be George Michael and one of us wanted to be Dave Stewart."
Right now though, the topic the pair are focusing on is their next album. "We matured faster than the album," Jones says. In their mid-20s now, they're not comfortable playing songs they wrote as 19 and 20-year-olds. At the end of their concert Hayes tells the cheering crowd, "We have to go away now and think it all up again."
"It's seriously not about chart positions," clarifies Hayes. "I want a career, so if it sells half as well as this one, thank you, I'll take that. I believe a career is about ups and downs. I shouldn't be a steady gradient. The next record has to be true to itself. It won't be a knee-jerk reaction to critics. To turn around and make a Portishead record would be a big mistake. We'll fuck around with technology, we'll fuck around with drumbeats. We're courting William Orbit at the moment, because we heard the new Madonna record and I thought, 'I like what you added to that record. You added spice and flavour without taking over.' And that's what we're looking for. We want to grow up a little bit. And we're prepared to do whatever it takes."

DARREN HAYES WAS THINKING THAT Bono was a wise old man, a wizard. The icon was talking about life, how he searches every day for new inspiration, music, their show, and Hayes was rapt, once more the little boy in love with a mysterious extra-terrestrial. And then he started telling Bono how he felt, like a rag doll that had been twisted around too much. How sometimes after a show he considered himself a prostitute because he had to give so much from his soul to every person in the room.
Bono leaned closer to Hayes and grabbed his hand, putting it to his chest. Hayes could feel the pulmonary kick of the Irishman's heartbeat. And then he spoke: "As long as the music comes from here," he said, pushing Hayes's hand harder against his chest, "then it's going to scream louder than any of those kids will."
And for the few seconds that followed, Darren Hayes felt at peace with himself.

Article by Craig Mathieson.


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Savage Garden's First Appearance on The Rosie O'Donnell Show

Rosie: Savage Garden! How are you?
Darren & Daniel: Good.
Rosie: Come on over, say hello! Savage Garden, nice to meet you!
Darren & Daniel: Nice to meet you.
Rosie: That was great!!
Darren: Thank you!
Rosie: That was Savage Garden unpluggled.
Darren: Unpluggled.
Rosie: I love this!
Darren & Daniel: Thank you.
Rosie: This is Darren...
Daniel: Daniel.
Rosie: ...and Daniel, and it is so nice to have you here.
Darren: It's great to be here!
Rosie: Well, I've read in the research that your name is from an Anne Rice novel.
Darren: Yeah...um...We would really like to stay that it's sort of inspired by her because we don't want to get slipped and sued.
Daniel: Legal reasons.
(All of them laughed)
Rosie: Yeah she won't sue you, she's very nice.
Darren: Oh...I'm a big fan.
Rosie: I'm a big fan too. Only the Vampire books?
Darren: I've only read the Vampire Cronicles, but I started getting into the Witching Hour and stuff... But I love....I actually saw the movie before I read any of the books.
Rosie: How about my Tommy?
(audience started laughing)
Darren: Tommy?
Rosie: Tom Cruise?
Darren: Amazing!
Rosie: Amazing in there, right.
Darren: He got...he got a lot of flack for doing that film.
Rosie: He did get flacked.
Darren: But I thought he was incredible.
Rosie: He was awesome.
Darren: fantastic.
Rosie: Totally sexy and unbelievable.
Darren: Amazing, he was great!
Rosie: I love that!
(They all laughed again)
Rosie: Well now, listen... Have you read Feast Of All Saints?
Darren: Not yet....
Rosie: It's about the Creole Cultures in New Orleans.
Darren: Really?
Rosie: Unbelievably brilliant. Also Cry to The Heavens. That's about the Castradi over in Italy.
Darren: Sounds amazing.
Rosie: She wrote the best books I think.
Darren: Actually I um... There was someone on the internet that somehow managed to get a copy of her books signed to us, and we're really excited about that.
Rosie: Really? And they're going to get it over to you?
Darren: I believe so.
Rosie: You know... I went to Burtanos once in the Central City mall in L.A., and I had all nine of my books of hers and I stood in line for 2 hours to wait, and she signed all my books.
Darren: That's fantastic.
Rosie: She's phenomenal...and so are you guys!
Darren and Daniel: Thank you!
Rosie: And I just love the song as you know...
(Rosie plays a part of I Want You on a recorder: "anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes and I'm taken to a place where your crystal minds and magenta feelings taking shelter in the base of my spine")
(Darren and Dan laughed)
Rosie: Sweet like a Chic-a-cherry cola! That's my favorite line!!
Daniel: We heard about you this...we heard about you plugging our song on the internet, so we have to thank you!! (Turns to audience) Should we repay her?
(Audience claps and cheers)
Darren: We have this little gift to you. Because.. um. It's a gold record, and it's presented to Rosie from Savage Garden, from Columbia Records.
Rosie: You guys...that's so nice of you. Thank you! I'm so happy! You know...you have a little bit of a George Michael quality to your voice that I enjoy. Has people said that before?
Darren: I don't know.... People say a lot of things. I mean I grow up listen to lots of kinds of music, and I guess it comes though in the way we write songs.
Daniel: I hear a little bit, but I think that George is great anyway. Wasn't he?
Rosie: Yeah I love George Michael, are you kidding me? And I love you guys!! Savage Garden. Darren & Daniel: Thank you.
Rosie: That's their CD, self-titled debut CD. Here in the US, go buy it if you haven't yet. And thanks for being here! And come back whenever you want.
Darren & Daniel: Thank you!


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Savage Garden - Interview 2

The Wallflowers dropped out of number 1, leaving it open to the Australian band Savage Garden . The song "I Want You" which you know was partially inspired by the soft drink!? Darren? DARREN: Well are first trip to America , we didn't have umm....we don't have Cherry Coke or Dr. Pepper. Actually Dr.Pepper just came and I was fascinated by it. I just think it was the most amazing taste . It was really, really cool and it summed up what I thought of America and uh ... I guess it was just a way of slipping in a compliment to someone. I say "Your sweet like Cherry Cola" . There 's a lot of things in that, but that's where it came from...


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