OVERDRIVE with Savage Garden
VIVA, November 99
Hey I’m Darren Hayes from Savage Garden. I’m hanging out here, hosting OVERDRIVE, on VIVA, my favorite show. You’re gonna see us performing some new songs. You’re going to see me hanging out, chatting about my favorite bands, playing some music and some videos so stick around !
~Affirmation live ~
Truly Madly Deeply ! * sigh* It was our big hit, it was number one in America and probably the reason why I’m talking to you right now. Hum…it’s a love song. And it doesn’t matter how many times I sing it, it’s…it gets me, still. It’s a song I actually wrote for my wife. I was in Sydney, recording our first ever album and I missed her so much and… so I wrote this song. And it was originally intended to be a bonus track on our first album and the producer loved it… and, it ended up this big hit so…this is ‘Truly’.
~Truly Madly Deeply live~
I remember seeing a video for Placebo, and I thought it was one of the most amazing video of all time.
A man was standing on a lench (not sure of the spelling,but that’s what I’ve heard ?), and he was gonna jump off and eventually he jumps, but he lands and he’s free. And I was walking around New York and I saw the front cover of their album ‘Without you I’m nothing’. It intrigued me. I thought that it’s a band that’s really interesting and the lead singer’s voice, I dig it because it’s kind of androgynous, his look is kind of androgynous. I dig it. That’s truly intelligent. So, this is Placebo.
~Placebo – Pure Morning live~
*Clip of I knew I loved you live
Recording the second album was a joy. It was amazing actually because our first album ended up selling something like 10 or 11 million copies worldwide, and we had no idea it would sell that much so we had the opportunity to work with a producer by the name of Walter Afanasieff in San Francisco. And we spent 4 and a half months making ‘Affirmation’.
*Clip of Truly Madly Deeply video
Apart from the fact that Daniel and I were both isolated in another city, there’s a similarity [I didn’t get everything, Darren’s talking too fast for me ?] in the way we write the song was different, the sort of musician ship that we used on the album was different. We had Nathan East playing bass, and Steve Smith from Journey playing drums on tracks. Hum… we had access to a recording studio 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it was wonderful, it was wonderful to be able to have the technology and the money to spend to make the songs sound the way we heard them in our minds.
*Clip of I knew I loved you video
I knew that it would be a dark record in some ways and it’s actually a pop album, very much. But the first record was kind of naive and this one is a little bit more realistic about relationships. It’s completely autobiographical, and it’s a very very personal record, and you know, a lot of the time I spent in New York was me being single for the first time in 10 years and dealing with that, and working out who I was as a man, and just really looking at myself.
I wanted this record to sound like a snapshot, I wanted it to be a bit of a soundtrack to a period of life, and it is, and I think that New York episode sort of helped. It’s funny because since we finished recording the record, I moved, I didn’t want to live here anymore…yeah (laugh)
*Clip of I want you live
You couldn’t probably get two more different people than Daniel and I. But he’s like my brother. We’re very tight emotionally, very close. Hum…while we work together, usually Daniel comes up with an instrumental, and I provide a vocal melody and a lyric to that, and that could achieved with him on a piano and me singing next to him, or me being on the other side of the world and him sending me zip discs, you know. I had a hard disc recording system in New York and he had a little studio home, and he would send me zip discs, I’d put them in the zip drive. There’s be 2 tracks, I’d sing, I’d put down vocals, I’d send it back to him and you know, there’s many ways that we write songs together but they all usually end up with him providing some kind of oral sound [ ?] and me telling a story.
On this record there’s a song called ‘I don’t know you anymore’,… ‘Affirmation’, ‘Two beds and a coffee machine’, and even the single ‘I knew I loved you’ were written face to face in the studio. We had some down time and we had written 15 or 16 songs that was supposed to be the album, and in our down time we’re writing songs and they’re better than the ones that we’ve written previously so we keep kicking them off the record.
*Clip of The Animal song live
I love playing live actually. We have a 7 piece band, well 8 piece actually. We just had a new keyboard player as well. So there’s like a bass player, guitar, a drummer, two backing singers, a keyboard player who sings, Daniel and myself all onstage. You know, ths songs initially, sometimes, were written with just one keyboard playing all the different sounds, and we went in the studio and you can get a great bass player to play the bass line, a great drummer to interpret the percussions that you pre-record on keyboards. Hum... it'’s like the next step, you know, the studio is all about control and live is all about spontaneity, whatever happens it’s one moment and it’s gone forever since it’s finished.
An audience in extremely important because we’re only as good as they are in some ways you know. I mean no one ever pays money for a concert ticket to fall their arms and be bored, you know, they want to be entertained and that’s a challenge in every city. Sometimes people respond better to different kind of songs. In Asia, Japan, they go hysterical for very fast songs and, yeah I mean, some countries they love ballads,and it just depends. You just have to get to know the audience.
*Clip of Affirmation live
We love playing live in Germany. I think that Germany really loves the music and party. I said to my friend on the way here, the radio stations playing dance music, the others playing rock bands. And she’s saying to me how was it that you played that festival ? because festivals are usually rock bands, and you know, I said that I didn’t care. Just appreciated that it was live, so it didn’t matter if we’re pop and that straight after us there was Skunk Anansie or something like that, it was like…it was live music !
The tour that’s coming up will be very slick, and the word ‘theater’ comes to mind again. I guess I wanted it to be very visual but personal, and a very big focus on musician ship [ ?]. I love our band and I’m proud of the fact that it’s live you know. This is a live show. This isn’t just a miming troup of acrobats. _(smile)
I just love Skunk Anansie.It’s all about the voice. They just keep making records don’t they ?Everytime I come to Europe, there’s a new Skunk Anansie video. And I keep thinking her voice is going to the centigrade because she sings so hard and so well. It’s just a really passionate band. I think I fell in love with them when I heard….a ballad of theirs which I can’t remember but hum…’just because you fell right..doesn’t make it right’…what’s that song called ? Remember that song ? Anyway, Skunk Anansie, she’s just got that really beautiful voice because she can rock out like a mother and she can be just sensitive like an angel and…Skunk Anansie.
~Skunk Anansie – Hedonism live
Americans call the song the ‘chic-a-cherry cola song’, because there’s a line somewhere in the song that says ‘sweet like a chic-a-cherry cola’. Hum… I’m completely obsessed with love to be honest. This is a song about the fact that I fall in love 20 times a day. I walk down the street and I fall in love. And this is a song about a dream, about me dreaming of meeting the perfect love like a soulmate maybe. And it’s so real. I remember waking up, and I could smell, and I could feel and taste and touch. And I had all these very raw memories and I spent about a week, mourning the dream because I knew I’d meet someone. And then suddenly, years later, I did meet this person that I’m dreaming about. And there’s a track on our new album called ‘Chained to you’, and ‘Chained to you’ is about the fact that I realise I met the person I’m talking about in ‘I want you’. But this is ‘I want you’.
~I Want You live
Un ! Dos ! Tres ! Un pasito delante Maria ! ! Ricky Martinez ! [and I didn’t misspelled anything, Darren really said Martinez instead of Martin here ? ] Ricky is the bomb. He’s cool. He’s the hardest working man in show business. I’m sure of this, and a very nice person. And I’m so happy that he’s exploded because when we first started off, we were travelling Europe, and Ricky Martin was always on airplanes, and always working, and we were running into him in hotel lobbies all the time. And I was surprised he hasn’t fallen over and just drop dead because he works so hard so…and it’s all about shaking that butt ! isn’t it Ricky ? So this is Ricky Martin.
~Ricky Martin – Maria live~
The son, the bride of Truly Madly Deeply is I knew I loved you. It was never intended to be a copy song or anything like that. I think that Daniel and I have a natural affinity to write honest love songs and it is…it’s the most honest song on the record but it’s the most naive song. And AFFIRMATION is a song about broken hearts, and mending hearts and falling down but getting back up again, and this song, I knew I loved you is definitely a hopeful song, you know. It’s…I’m not in love at the moment but it was…it’s a song about me remembering what it was like to fall in love and hoping that it would happen again, so this is I knew I loved you.
~I knew I loved you live~
We’re actually managed by the same company that manages this band, that’s the Goo Goo Dolls. And I remember seeing the movie ‘City of Angels’, and hearing the hit and just fall in love with it. I thought it was a very honest song, a beautiful song and..is it Johnny ? He’s Johnny, I love Johnny’s voice. I think he’s got a great voice and great haircut too. Hum… ‘Dizzy up the girl’ is a great record and I enjoyed watching them live at the [I didn’t understand the name of the place]. So this is the Goo Goo Dolls.
~Goo Goo Dolls – Iris live~
Now…I’m leaving. I’ve had a great time. Thanks for hanging out with me and I think we’re gonna play you one more song that we performed live just for you. Until next time, peace (does peace sign), be good, bye !
~The Animal Song live~
Just before Karl starts the intro, Darren shouts ‘OKAY ! !’ in the mic, which made everyone smile or laugh