Darren: To The Moon And Back, I guess, um…one of our favorite songs only because it was written very early on in the piece. It was on our first demo and probably the reason why we got a record deal. Um…it was initially a piece of music that Daniel showed to me and it was pretty complete. I think that my job was really simple. I took it away and uh…the next day I had the melody and the lyric and just sang it and uh…we both had goosebumps. Daniel: This was the song I had to fight for, to get onto the demo tape because I believed in it so much. It went to number one. Three years ago, I said, "This is gonna go to number one." So it actually did, throughout the whole of Australia, it went to number one. Darren: One thing we didn't say about To The Moon And Back was the fact that it was incredibly hard to record because the demo was so perfect. It was a really simple song and it had out of key singing in the demo…um…had sheet (?) keyboard sounds, but it was so believable. And that's the reason why everyone hooked on that song. And recording To The Moon And Back , we really tried to jazz it up, change it, or make it this and make it that and we almost lost it. I think we only just got To The Moon And Back. (pause) I'd have to say that I definitely was a pop fan um…because I grew up, you know, I was born in 1972 and I watched the whole pop thing happen. I think that the album that changed my life wasn't The Beatles, it was Prince's Purple Rain…um…Duran Duran …"Pretty in Pink" was one of my favorite teen films, so yeah, I was living and breathing the whole (?) experience. Daniel (laughs): Pop definitely not all the time for me. Um…I went through a phase of scar and punk, boy music for a while there when I was a teenager, but what that did is open up a lot of various types of influences throughout my music. Um…and I think it's done not a bad job. (pause) Carry On Dancing…very grand, very avant-garde, very over-the-top. It expels a lot of Darren's inner personality. I love the combination of strings and pianos. Um…in the recording process, we managed to get some timpani samples and some…uh…castanets and what not, so uh…we just tried to make this bigger than life. Darren: Um…I think Carry On Dancing is probably my favorite track on the record. It just jumps out at you and uh…I remember hearing the finished mix and it was bigger than I'd hoped it could get. It was just um…it just feels so grandiose…I think that's a good word for it. When I hear it, I see things like um… a masquerade ball in the 18th century and a werewolf or a vampire perhaps outside stalking the people inside. It's a very moody track and it's one that I love to sing live. I think Carry On Dancing sounds like my personality in the way that it is theatrical…it is grandiose. You know, it's got the big breakdown section in the middle, with the collapse and the castanets. And uh…I guess it sums up my interest in vampires and that kind of thing. (both laugh) Daniel: I'm probably a lot more introverted than Darren. Um…I sit on things perhaps a little longer. I take things away. I'm a Cancer, which is a star sign. I'll go in, walk sideways into it, grab it, walk sideways out of it, and then get back and think about what I've just done. There is a difference…it's very, very hard to put it into words from my point of view but... Darren: I think the difference is that I'm impulsive and you're not, but being impulsive is very dangerous anyway, so… (laughs) Daniel: Yeah, I'll think.. .I digest things perhaps a little longer than Darren would. Darren: Tears Of Pearls…um…it's funny, I love the track-listing of the Australian album. It's actually different to the rest of the world. To me, it starts off with To The Moon And Back and we hear the strings and Carry On Dancing comes in at full force, and Pearls carries it along. It's…again, we hear the strings section. Um…it was a very different song. I mean, once again, this was a piece of music that Daniel showed to me. We were driving in his car once and we were never really that keen on it, and it changed a lot during the recording process, and Charles Fisher did a wonderful job of producing… just the little things in that track…like there's a string line which is in unison with my melody. There's a glockenspiel in the chorus. It was all very…uh…Diana Ross and The Supremes, Motown kind of production values which we'd talked a little bit about. Um…it's nice. It's a got a real Eastern feels to it now in the guitar solos and um…I think it's quite exciting. And once again, live…it really um…there's a lot of adrenaline there. I like it. Daniel: It is a good live song. Um…I don't actually recall writing it. For some strange reason, I can't remember writing this song and it sort of popped up in the recording process, and it was a few people's favorites within their companies, and Charles and the people that we were dealing with. And I just didn't know where it had come from. It'd come out of nowhere. But I did like the change that it took in the recording session with the Eastern feel, the guitar riffs and the intros. Um…it was a…sort of a technical thing, and the bottom E string was actually tuned to a D…um…I think accidentally. It actually sounded a little Satari-like (?), um….and it worked. Darren: I think I didn't choose it. Neither of us chose this career, but for different reasons, I think. Daniel didn't choose to be a musician because it was almost like a family tradition. I didn't choose it because from as young as I can remember, every time I saw anyone on television or went to a concert, I was secretly substituting myself there. I've always been a voyeur. I've always stood outside a concert or a performance and thought, "I wish that was me," or if that was me, what would I do, so I can't answer that question. I think the whole reason I'm doing this is the answer to that question. I think once I get to a point which is, I don't know, worldwide success or something, it will actually teach me something. I think I have to learn something about this career. I'm not sure what that is. Daniel: I think I actually got into making music before that I actually got into listening to music. And I still don't listen to a hell of a lot of music these days. It's a bizarre thing. I think from a lot of covers bands in previous days learning a thousand songs kind of burnt you out very quickly on what we had a chance to listen to. So I've still yet to experiment with music that I really, really love. (pause) I Want You…this took 3, 4 different avenues in the writing process. Um…it's actually given us the opportunity to write 2 or 3 other songs out of it. Great one for live, since how it was a good single. People love it. It's a really good song. Darren: I think I Want You is really special. I think that it has such a unique sound, and once again, I sometimes don't even feel responsible for it, because I listen to the CD in context and it always seems to jump out at you. I think it was a really obvious choice for a first single. I think it's got a hell of a lot of personality. I'm really proud of just the production value and I love the blend of the vocals. There's about 12 vocals in the chorus, all double-tracked and harmonized. And the vocal in the verse is so fast and so um…intricate that it always seems to fascinate people. I like it. (silence, but it sounds like he's responding to a question that you can't hear) It just seemed to happen. I remember coming back the next day in the little room out in the front and sort of singing it. It was really quickly written, to be honest. I mean, we…I think I sang this song 2 days before we flew to Sydney to record the record. And we had it on TDK tape (Daniel says something I can't figure out), just on a TDK tape. And it was the least produced or finished demo that we had for this record and was, in fact, almost shelved. It was…we tentatively put it up for selection, and it was politely looked at but sort of sat by the wayside. But by the time we recorded about 8 tracks, I guess we just slipped it in somehow. It was assumed that we'd record this one and it seemed to uh…turn out really well. (again, sounds like he's responding to a question) Absolutely. Um…it was probably one of those turning points in your life. I think you meet a few special people in your life. One of them would be your soul-mate, and one would be that special person that you would connect with. And I think Daniel is probably one of those people. Um…I saw an ad in a music trader for a band that needed a singer, and I called Daniel up and there was about 5 or 6 ads I could've chosen. I chose his ad. It was the first audition I ever went to. Um…when I spoke to him on the phone, I clicked, and even after the audition, I remember leaving his house. I went to a restaurant with a friend of mine and I actually said to her, "I think that I'm gonna be really successful. Like I can feel it in my bones. Just from meeting this person." Daniel: Hmmm…I definitely remember the phone call. Um…that was the first thing…the first time I've ever heard someone speak so humble, yet he had a bit of power in his voice that I just picked up on and loved. And actually to the point where he came around and I met with him. It wasn't a definite "Oh, of course." It was "There's something happening. Something happening." And once he sang, I realized he had a superb voice. Um…the relationship sort of tended to grow from there. Darren: Truly Madly Deeply is one of our favorite songs. It's strange, this one, because before we recorded the record, it was a very different song. It was faster. It had a completely different chorus. And during the process of recording the record, I guess we changed a lot. We'd been relocated to Sydney. We were there for 8 months. It was the first time either of us had really left our families. Um…we were living in a one bedroom apartment, on each other's case every day. It was quite a stressful situation, and it was the last song that we recorded for the record. And I think, we talk about this now, even though it's a love song and it's based on a very personal experience, it's still a song about being homesick for us actually, just about the people that you love. And uh…we re-wrote it, and suddenly the tempo came down. The chorus, lyric changed…um…and it was a real surprise. It was intended to be a very quiet, down-key finish to the record. And um… that's how we tried to produce it. And during the recording process, it just showed itself as a much stronger track, and uh…when we looked at the finished record, we realized it was probably one of the strongest tracks on there. Daniel: There was a day when…um…Charles and I were just hanging around, not really doing much in the studio, and uh, we had this song, Magical Kisses it was called and uh…we wanted to play around with it a little bit. And we found a loop from um…some CD there and it was like really slow, and we were trying to put it to this track and it just wasn't working. So we said, "Well, why don't we slow the whole song down so it fits this loop?" And that was the way it sort of ended up getting, you know, half the speed that it started out with. And it was a bonus. It just came out of nowhere. A definite bonus. Darren: I remember I wrote the chorus…in I think it's called the (can't figure out what he's saying) by Sydney. I'd have a capaccino and we actually had…um… a keyboard and everything set up on in the hotel and I went back and sort of sang the song. It just seemed right. And suddenly this song was a much more credible, believable song than Magical Kisses had ever been, and it was because it was from the heart. (pause) I don't think there was ever a stage when we decided that it was started and that's why I think there'll never be a stage when we realize that it's over. I think it will just happen. It's like we decided to invest a night to write a song together and see how it went, and that song was A Thousand Words. And it's a song that's on this record. And we were so confident after that, that we just decided to come back to each other's house every day. And really that's all this band has been. It's just a decision for both of us to keep coming back every day and keep doing it. But now we have a record deal. Now we have an album out. Daniel: Now we have to do it. (both laugh) Darren: But it was always just…um…wow, that was promising. Let's keep doing it. And then, before we knew it, we were a band and we were… you know, we had a record deal and we had songs on the radio. Daniel: In some way I enjoy going for my goals than actually getting my goals. I think the struggle of achieving something is a hell of a lot more rewarding while you're doing it because it happens gradually, rather than just…I mean winning the lot I wouldn't be a struggle, would it? And it would be…it would happen fairly easy, where working up to earn, you know, if money is your success, a million dollars, then I guess that's probably more enjoyable and it will take a lot longer and you would look back on the whole thing and go, "Yup, I enjoyed this. You know, I'm well deserved of it." (pause) Great idea from Charles of the bass line came out in the studio, um, started distorting it, made it really fuzzy, funky, blues…this song's got everything. Darren: Violet…it seems like every song we're talking about changed during the recording process, but this song, I guess one of the only things that changed was the bass line. It moves and jumps now, and it's fat and fuzzy and very funky and um…as soon as that happened, the whole song just came alive and then we were lucky enough to have Rex Goh and come in and play some fantastic guitar on the track. Um…it's probably one of my favorite tracks as well. I can't decide whether it's really commercial or whether it's just really cool but I…I really like it and um…it reminds me of the energy that you hear in a Prince track or um…Need You Tonight by INXS. There's just something about it. It has a sonic quality that just…it bubbles and pops along. I really enjoy listening to it. Daniel: It was actually a really hard song to record cause it was our first one. Darren and I had just flown down to Sydney, just met with this producer called Charles Fisher, walked into the studio, and all looked at each other and said "Where do we start?" And one of us said "Violet." And about a month later, we actually got something happening on Violet. That's how long it took before we actually got something moving in the studio. Darren: We actually shelved it halfway through and thought well, hang on. You know, spent copious amounts of time working on the rhythm loop and the bass line, just trying to make it work, and in the end the solution was really simple. Daniel: It's definitely not part of my makeup, I don't think. I'd like to speak to an audience through a guitar or through a keyboard, rather than my personality. Um…it's not to say I can't do it because I've learned to do it. And I'm having to do it. I enjoy some days of it, and I hate other days of it. It's just…it's…you've got to be ready for it, basically. Darren: I love being a public person because I think I'm a person who feels the need to express himself all the time, whether or not people want to hear it or not. Um…but I know one thing…doing this job has made me realize…um…a lot of things about myself that I didn't know. Because you hear everything you said come back at you. You see your words printed, and for the first time in your life, you see yourself from an objective point of view. And that can be a very humbling experience…um...and it's certainly changing my personality. For good or bad, it's changing me. Daniel: In a good way or a bad way? Darren: I think in a good way. I think it's making me…it's making me stop doing things that I've always done and never thought about. It's making me think a little bit more about what I say. About…um…the fact that I'm a person who always, you know, I'm a very one-sided person and see everything from my point of view, and it's making me realize that there's a zillion personalities and there's a zillion opinions in the world. That's what I mean about humbling me a little bit. (pause) All Around Me...quirky, freaky, bizarre, fun. Um…initially it was my attempt, lyrically, to include an aspect of Daniel's life in our music. Because I felt a bit selfish that I'd taken over certain things and whatever, and Daniel has an obsession with Meg Ryan, but it's a healthy one. He loves Meg Ryan very much. (Daniel laughs) And in our little home studio there's about 14 or 15 pictures of Meg…some of them wall-mounted. One of them from me as a gift to Daniel. And there's a scene in a Meg Ryan film called "When a Man Loves a Woman" and she's dancing. And she dances in a certain way and she says the words "stick-on tattoo." And the way she says those words is the personality of this song. We wrote a song for Meg Ryan to dance to, and it's all about being obsessed with Meg Ryan. Daniel: And I thank you for that. (both laugh) Darren: Although you'd never know it. Daniel: Um…it's a very bitty song. The song's in bits and pieces, and it's a little funky and a little disco and there's hippie elements to the song as well. It's like computerized hippies. Darren: It's pretty (?) too. It's pretty crazy and we were really unsure about whether to put it on the record or not , and it was only decided at the very last minute to put it on. Only because I think it's one of the only tracks where we really let our hair down. I'm really proud of the rap in the middle. It's quirky. Daniel: fantastic lyrics Darren: But it's…lyrically, I'm really proud of it and you know, everyone who listens to the record says "Who did the rap?" And I'm like "Well, me." Yeah, it's just a quirky little song. It's not meant to be taken seriously. It's like being an actor. It's like performing. It's doing to your voice what a costume can do to your voice in a stage play. Um…to be honest, really, the only effective part of this song is the rap. And it's actually the speed of the vocal and it was…it was a mistake. I was stuffing around with the vary speed dial on the multi-track recorder, and I realized that you could change the pitch of your voice. So I um…pitched it up a notch, basically. Like it's pretty close to the normal pitch of my voice, so there's a hell of a lot of play acting happening in that rap. Um…and when it came back, it sounded like chipmunks on steroids. (both laughs) And I really liked it, so we kept it. Daniel: Uh…Universe…um…it actually started out…it sounded like Eric Clapton had met Joe Tetriani in a pub and said, "Let's go home now and write a song." When it first started, it was a guitar-based groove. Um…it had lush sort of keyboards creeping in there and there. Then I gave it to Darren and he did this. Darren: Well, I heard it in a different way. I thought once again, like Moon And Back, I thought it was one of the strongest pieces of music that Daniel had written, at that stage. He's since eclipsed himself. But at that stage, it really was, and I just had some ideas for a feel and the bass line subsequently changed. It became more Smokey Robinson, I guess. Um…to be honest, we'd been listening to That's The Way Love Goes by Janet Jackson. I thought it was a fantastic, sexy slow groove and I really wanted to sing a sexy, slow song and that was Universe. Um…then, mixing the track was another story. It was um…finished and recorded and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, and we really liked it. We were really happy with it. When we went to America, the Americans had an idea for it. They really wanted to see if they could change it. Um…and it was given to Mike Pela, who's done a lot of work with Sade, Fine Young Cannibals, um…and when he came back with the finished track, it sounded like a Smokey Robinson song. It was really… really ironic that it would go that way. Um…really sweet, I think it's a really…it's almost a perfect pop song. (pause) It's funny…not as much as we believed a producer would do. I think we went into this record waiting for people to just turn it into a great record. We have the songs. Tell me where to sing, tell Danny what to play, we'll do it. It was slow process, and what it did…it taught us to take responsibility. More than anything, I think Charles taught us to make it our record, without taking anything away from Charles. He made us sit down and make decisions and be responsible for what was on tape. Um…taught me a lot about the physical nature of recording, about using equipment, um…introduced us to the sampler, suggests little…little sections in songs, which you don't think are that important, but in the end, actually really top off the song. Especially in a song…there's a b-side called Promises and there was an (?) section he suggested me inserting that in the middle of that, in the middle of the song and I did, and to this day, it's such a great…it's a perfect arrangement. I like the song, actually, I think it's perfect. Daniel: Charles' motto would be "Less is more." And it was a perfect motto to have, for Darren and I, because we like to feel things out. We like as much as we can put down, we'll put it down. Um…and we needed someone like Charles to go, "OK, think about this, guys, why do you actually want to do this? You don't have to if you do this." And it was as simple as that. And we'd go, "Yeah, great idea." And it was a handful of them that helped make Charles produce this record the way he had. That's all it was. It was so simple. Darren: It was um… simplifying things. Him saying "You don't need it to be that chaotic. Do this. Do that." And then, his real talent is that Charles baby-sits the record when you leave. He spent two weeks tweaking it. We came back into the mix and there were little glockenspiels and there were string sections in there and just tiny little padbits that he had added at the end. Um…which just…they were like the seasoning, you know, on the meal. It just really touched it off really nicely. (pause) The first track Daniel and I wrote and finished together was A Thousand Words. And it was…funny, I remember sitting in his front room and we said, "Let's write some songs" and he said "What do you want to do?" And I said, "I've been working on this song" and I pulled out the chords to Right On Time by…uh…that band, whoever that was (Daniel laughs, Darren sings tune)… really simple house song and you know and sang this different melody over the top, thinking I could fudge it, and Daniel said, "Well, you know, we could go that way, but a zillion bands have, you know, what do you actually want to do?" and we started talking about music and I was really into Achtung Baby by U2 at the time and, I don't know, Daniel was a big fan of INXS and Seal, I guess, but he pulled out a chord progression, which is the chord progression in this song and I pulled out a like a Manchester kind of beat to go over the top of it, and it became…it filled the room. I remember thinking, "Wow, this is the most full, you know, piece of music I've ever heard in my life." And when I look back now, Daniel probably thought it was really simple, but for me, it was the most musical thing I'd ever seen or heard and lyrically, it was about a real conflict that I've had with…uh…a friend of mine and it's someone I don't even speak to anymore. Um…it's funny, I'd had an argument with the person and uh…the song basically is about me phoning the person up and just telling them all the things that I'd always wanted to say to them, and that's why it's called A Thousand Words…um…cause it's about me realizing that in the end, um…however sad it is to admit it, there's probably not a single word you could say to make me want to go through this hell and get back on line again and have this a part of my life again. And it's funny because I since sort of reconciled with that person and now I'm really not in that person's life anymore, but this song sums up the whole vibe of that relationship for me. Daniel: A Thousand Words…(laughs) A Thousand Words is a song that was…it was the virgin song. It was the first song that happened. I still think you can see Darren and I learning about each other in listening to that song. It's… that was sitting there sort of like looking up at Darren and looking up at Daniel and the songs can say different things to each of us. But I think it's great that it's on our first record because it means a lot in that way. Darren: Yeah, we do admire each other because our jobs are completely different. And I can't do what Daniel does and I'm not jealous of it. I just admire it. And vice versa. Daniel: Yeah, it's like, I mean I know my job, Darren knows his, and it's working so why, why the hell would you want to change it? You know, um, it's a good relationship. Darren: I think it's with…it is with fondness that we remember writing songs and recording songs because it's never a struggle. It's never a battle. It's just "here, I've done this" and it's a little game almost. We try to top each other. Daniel will write a piece of music and it's like oh my God, it threatens me because it's better than anything we've done so I'll go "OK" and I'll have to go away. Daniel (laughs): It is…it's very much like that. Darren: And I come up with something that's better than ever, and then so I might come up with a song lyrically that just blows him out of the water and the melody's really quick and he'll go, "Well, have a go at this." And then he'll pull Carry On Dancing out of the hat and just show me that and… Daniel (laughs): That's why I think a lot of people say…a lot of people who know that story say that we can't write a b-side because we're constantly struggling up against each other to make it a better song than what it was actually supposed to be. I mean, b-side, it's like hey, let's just do a song on a single here, but we just can't do it. It's like no, I want to write a great song. Darren: We have a lot of trouble writing a b-side. Someone once said to us "Don't write b-sides. Just write songs." And just…you know, some songs you'll spend more money on and others you won't, but for me it's like but every one could be a potential hit, what do we do? What do we do? But, you know. Daniel: Break Me Shake Me, again, was re-written from a track called Stepping Stone. For anybody who can get their hands on our first demo tape…there should be a few out there somewhere. Darren: I would strongly advise it, but… Daniel: (laughs) Um…this is a guitar rock song, This is about putting a guitar over your shoulder and being a hero for me (laughs). Live, it's a great performing song. The light and shade in this song is incredible. It's just either in your face or it's whispering at you. Um…I think it's a really strong track. Darren: Break Me Shake Me, once again, to me, it's…I see this song, A Thousand Words and Mine as like a little trilogy. It's a theme in the record and to me they're all really moody and we play them very close together live. Um…Break Me Shake Me, once again, is about conflict with a friendship, um…but it's someone that I love dearly but it was about a very real tension, a very real conflict that I had with the person. And um…it was a song called Stepping Stone. And we reconciled after that song and we became friends and everything was fine, but the same sorts of things started to happen to our relationship and um…subsequently, the song had to be re-written. Because the first song didn't describe the situation anymore. This is part two to that song. Um…and yeah, it's schizophrenic. It really is quite crazy. I remember we started recording Break…uh… Stepping Stone and it just didn't feel right and I started singing a different melody. I started singing the words "I never thought I'd change my opinion again" um…and Daniel said, "That's a great melody," and then we ended up re-writing the song. Um…love it. It's probably close to my favorite song on the record, probably just underneath Carry On Dancing and live, it's my favorite song to do. It's just great. (pause) These songs were born out of a union which really started on stage. We met in live bands. And then we retreated to a studio. And even though I love song-writing, recording is not the most pleasant experience. It really isn't. Writing songs is great. Recording songs is tedious, and it can be scary because you're always verging on losing the song and you always feel like you just got it. You just saved it. And you shove the lid on it, and that's the record. And it's there. But it, I don't know, it's like you get to re-live it again live. They're actually almost re-writing themselves, so live for me is a necessary. Daniel: Mmmm… likewise. I think that I could survive on song-writing and live performance only in all what happens within this business and that's from videos, the photo-shoots, the press, whatever, I mean, if I could just have that hour up on stage and then a few hours during the day to write a song to get up on that stage, I'd be happy. That's all I need. Darren: I need a little bit more than that but (both laugh)…because I really do enjoy…I love the visuals. I love writing, I love being involved in video and the creative side, and I do enjoy media, but…um…yeah…writing songs and being on stage is probably what this is all about. (pause) You Could Be Mine is a song that's really, musically, all about delay. Um…it started off with a bass line and a drum beat which delayed, and subsequently every instrument just had to be delayed too. Um…I think… Daniel: Well, I only had one delay in it. (Darren laughs) (?) the whole thing through or nothing. (laughs) Darren: And it's just beautiful. It's such a swirling…um…it's a one of my favorite songs on the record. I think that it slowly builds, it's quite beautiful, and it's a very cyclic song. When I hear it, I think of like a slow tornado or um…I think it's really romantic and really moody and very tragic, and um…I think Daniel did a fantastic job with the instrumentation. Daniel: I really enjoyed working with the strings. I…It was one of the first songs that I had sort of thought about doing a string arrangement in some of the string breakdowns and what not. And I really thoroughly enjoyed it. Um…I would love to actually work on films or something like that, just as a hobby at the end of all of this or something, because I really enjoyed bringing out emotion within the string instrument world. Darren: That's the thing, I think, with this song and a lot of songs is that I think they feel visual or almost a little bit cinematic, and Carry On Dancing has that feel as well. Daniel: And To The Moon And Back at the end… Darren: Mmmmm…so it's really easy…it's um…I like it because it's a song about unquenchable desire and I think that's a really…it's a common theme…um…I think in our song-writing….in my song-writing. (pause) Artwork was always a really important issue for me. And if I could, I would have included a 20-page color booklet. And there would have been, you know, art references and all sorts of things. And obviously for our first record, it just wasn't possible. The interesting thing about the front cover is that the name of the band is called Savage Garden. That's inspired from a reference in Anne Rice's vampire novels and she talks about a vampire's world is a savage garden because they're beautiful, they're immortal… um…they have all these fantastic super powers, and yet the reality is that they're just like a savage beast because they have to kill to survive. And in the end, they're just like an earthworm or a lion or, you know, a caveman in the jungle. They're all part of a savage garden. Um…a photographer in New York, Yelena Yemchuck, she works with um…the Smashing Pumpkins. When she heard the name of the band, she came out to the photo-shoot with her own (?) painting and it was called the Garden of Early Delights, and inside that painting there was all this beautiful imagery, and there was fruit and owls and stuff, and so that carried through to the photo-shoot and uh…it just seemed like a really natural thing to put throughout the record. It just seemed to sum it up really nicely. I think the front cover's just a really interesting photograph. It was actually…it's taken out of context…it was a funnier photo. The photo's actually quite funny, and when you look at it blown up, it's actually the two of us sitting next to a 60's television, and I'm rolling my eyes and Daniel's staring down the camera. And it was funny because I think it showed how different we are. Um…when they blew it up, it actually becomes a lot more serious, and I think that the front cover, the way it's cropped, is a lot more dramatic… uh...and I like it because it's dark and it's black and it's white and without meaning to, I think it does say a lot about us as individuals. Daniel: Absolutely, yeah. I'm an angry, twisted person. (Darren laughs) And you're like "yoo hoo" (both laugh) (pause) Uh…Santa Monica…um…this was a song that was never…had no intentions to actually be on this record. It was recorded in Brisbane at home for zero dollars. This song cost nothing to record. Um…and the song, as itself, is the reason why you didn't have to spend any money on it. It was just saying "I'm a great song." (laughs) Darren: Um…Santa Monica was intended to be a b-side, and it's…we actually pushed a recorded track off this record to put this one on. We dropped a track to put this on. Um…it was a song that, for me, started with a hand-held tape recorder on the way to a train station. We had finished recording the record, and I was walking along, and the pace of my walk probably set the tempo of this song. And the chorus came straight away. The chorus, melody and the lyric was there on this tape deck and I went back to Daniel and said, "Look, I've got this song. I think it's really, really good," and played it. Um…but I… there was no verse progression at all. And so Daniel played the progression and I started singing over that and it just came really easily, and lyrically, it's one of my favorite songs. Um…it's funny because it really has captured for me just a sense of um… uncertainty we were feeling or I was feeling at the time of the record. It ties in my American reaction and my experiences with America as a first-timer and uh… and for me, just hints at a little bit about the public mask that we've started to put on and uh…how through the telephone or through my computer or on the internet…um…I can hide behind something and I can be anything I want to be and you wouldn't know the difference. And that's that song. (pause) In the future, I think I'd just like to be able to have the opportunity to make another one of these records. To be honest, it's really hard to see too far down the line. I see, you know, us making another 2 or 3 really good records and then I wanna start to get a bit crazy. I wanna start to shake things up a little bit. I can see I'd be doing different things. I really want to get into films and writing and visual things. Um…maybe even stage musicals. I'm not sure. There's…there are other things I wanna do, apart from just being the lead singer of Savage Garden, but for the next 10 years or 3 or 4 albums, it definitely involves me working with Daniel Jones and writing songs together. Um… Daniel: I think you could weigh up all the pros and cons now and look 2 weeks into the future and sometimes it looks at negative, that you could destroy it before you even realize how damn positive the whole thing is. Um…it's there…it's ready to be kicked along for as long as it can be. And I think it's gonna be a lot of fun for us. And I think we will get another successful record out, and that's the short-term goal that I'm heading for. And I believe that it's gonna be bigger and better and stronger than this one. And why would you stop at anything less? Darren: I think even in the shortest-term goal, it would be to successfully take this record on the road and uh…just see the next stage. You know, here's the recorded piece of music and here's the live performance and see how we can take those experiences away and write music and see what happens. Just get on board and see what happens. This transcript was found thanks to Savage Garden Request Line. Thank you Cindy :)              ~*~ My Humble Turn ~*~              to the moon and back: I LOVE this song, its musically so different than the run of the mill pop that is out there - although I admit that the first time I put the CD into my stereo I just heard the spacey sounds at the start and thought uh oh and skipped to the next tracks lol but I got over it and listened to the whole song and came to love it. carry on dancing: Gorgeous too you know if I keep saying I'll LOVE this song I'll probably say it for *all* the songs here so I'll try to stop :D Anyway what I love about this song is the layers and the moooooonlight in the chorus - mmmmm tasty song. tears of pearls: The bridge adds so much to the song, so simple lyrically but so powerful. But yeh the whole song rocks. i want you: I like this song because it does take from Numb and IF when I heard it or the two other songs its like a triple threat reminder. Plus its the frist song I heard, the one that dragged me in, I can't deny its fabulousness. truly madly deeply: *sigh* No its not a sad one its a wow how did you do that kind of a sigh. As Anniken said its innocent really unlike any other love song out there. What I remember always is my first impression I was just zooming through the album, going back and forth through the tracks when it hit this track and the first magical opening musical note that just seems to drown the whole room (okay maybe its just me) but its really something, I was sitting on the corner of my couch and I just remember slowly lying down and feeling like I was swimming in this warmth and sweet innocence of love - this really did it for me (okay I didn't have "Mine" on my first copy since it was in North America) but when it took me over like that, I knew SG was really something different and something in my life had really changed. violet: Very boppy fun song. I like the disco in my head line, its so out there, so much fun. I even used this song title to come up with one of my nicks, well that and a U2 song *grin* all around me: First got to listen to this one online - I was so happy that there was a funky rap, I missed that from the 80s Wham days. universe: This one is kind of kinky which is always a plus, I liked it more before its true but I still love singing with it and all its falsettoness, don't ask why, I just do. May be its cause its fun to belt stuff like in the animal song. a thousand words: When I was first listening to the album this song caught my attention because I really like that it was going for lyrics and its just easy to catch on to - my dad likes it lol break me shake me: This is a ROCKER, its awesome head banging stuff. I used to well okay I used to sing the whole album on the top of my lungs in my last year of highschool (and a certain airport lol) but it was always fun to just feel how your whole body would react to the power in this song. Diversty is priceless. mine: This is a favourite, along with some b-sides I love and the lover after me from affa, this has the lyrics, the music, the singing, everything going for it. I remember whenever I would first listen to it I would get very emotional (okay I still do). But I really couldn't help it, there is a rawness to the vocals for me, especially in the parts near the end "I'm just a fool to believe, In the death of the night can you feel me inside?" santa monica: OK took me a while to get into this song because of all the layers and depth in the other songs, but it caught on and I especially loved it LIVE like the version at Hard Rock - that's when it really shines.