blondambition

-Part 1

AS THE public half of Savage Garden, Darren Hayes sang the songs couples the world over claimed as their own, provoking more than a few tears in the process.

Talking for the first time about his accidental and unplanned solo career, tears well up in Hayes's own eyes when discussing the final Savage Garden concert.
"Cape Town. South Africa. December 17, 2000," Hayes recalls with military precision.

"It was really tense. The whole touring party was getting ready to go home because it was the end of the (Affirmation) tour, but it was also the end of the band and no one really knew.

"I cried on stage. A couple of times. Especially during Affirmation at the end. I still get upset thinking about it. But at the end I just sang a little bit of that Doors song, This is The End and gave Daniel (Jones) a big hug and it was cool. We left separately and didn't speak for the longest time.

"We've tried to maintain a friendly rapport but I think it'll be a while before we're buddy-buddies. We always had a bizarre relationship anyway. I always felt he kept a healthy distance from me.

"In many ways he was my mentor. It was like a student-teacher relationship when we began. He was developing me for greater things, then he let me go. But I didn't want to be let go."

It's no secret that the working relationship between Savage Gardeners Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones was a strange one.
And after their 1997 debut self-titled album sold ten million copies, it became an estranged one.

Jones stayed put in Brisbane, Hayes moved to America, and much of their second – and final – album, Affirmation, was written on separate continents via e-mail.

Hayes says Affirmation was almost never released at all.

The pair were in Japan preparing to come back to Australia to launch the album when Jones abruptly jettisoned himself from Savage Garden, unwilling to go through it all again.

"He just didn't want to be in Savage Garden any more," Hayes recalls. "Didn't want the album to come out.

"He kind of disconnected from the job. He felt really miscast. The travelling was getting him down. We'd been trying to negotiate around him, be sensitive to his needs, because there were a lot of times when he was really unhappy.

"We'd be in another country and he'd just have to go home because he missed his dogs, missed his girlfriend, missed his life.

"When you're in a band with someone, working that closely together, it broke my heart."

Hayes says Jones's decision to effectively retire from public view was similarly devastating.

"I remember sitting there saying 'What do I do? Where do I go?' I couldn't understand why anyone would want to walk away from Savage Garden, especially just after making Affirmation, which I thought was such an artistic triumph.

"The fact that that record dealt with so much pain, I felt like my private life had suffered for this career, I had sacrificed a lot for fame.

"To be sitting at this precipice of releasing an album, after paying all those sacrifices, and to think that maybe the album wasn't even going to come out, that was scary.

"Daniel was reasonable. I freaked out and then I said the next day 'This is your responsibility. If you don't release this album you're going to f..k up my career. I've stood by you'. He heard what I was saying, he stood by me."

Hayes had a plan. He would effectively become Mr Savage Garden as far as the media was concerned. Jones would simply be the blurry face in the background of the photos and the guitarist on stage at TV shows.

Hayes also insisted Jones join a world tour, but it would be his last.

"He suddenly got happy. I think I've had some of the best times I've had with Daniel on that tour, after he'd left the band, because he knew it was the end.