After selling more than 20 million albums worldwide in four years, Darren Hayes revealed yesterday [October 5, 2001] that Daniel and he would never record together again.
"Savage Garden is done," said Hayes, who wants to pursue a solo career.
"That's it. I always thought we'd do three or four albums, then maybe I'd go solo. "But going solo wasn't an ego thing. It wasn't that I left the band, the band left me."
Hayes said Jones was so sick of being in a group he almost scrapped the release of their million-selling second album Affirmation.
"Daniel told me he didn't want to do it any more, didn't want to be in the public eye, didn't even want to release Affirmation," Hayes said.
"He felt miscast. The travelling was getting him down. He was really unhappy and that broke my heart. When he actually said he didn't want to be in a band any more it came as a huge surprise."
Hayes talked Jones into staying in the band by promising to front all the promotions. "I said, I'll do everything, you just have to turn up to TV shows and stand there and play and go on tour. He said OK," Hayes said.
"He was happy on the Affirmation tour but he knew it was the end."
Hayes said the creative tension that fuelled the band who topped the charts with hits like Truly Madly Deeply and To the Moon and Back also helped end it.
However, they remain on friendly terms. "There really isn't any animosity. It's not like the Beatles when they split," Hayes said.
Hayes is in San Francisco where he is now based finishing off his debut solo album Spin, which adopts a more progressive and electronic musical sound.
The final show of the Affirmation tour in South Africa last December was their last show, according to Hayes.
He said there are no unreleased Savage Garden songs and no plans to record or tour again.
"I'm done. I gave everything," he said.
"We might bump into each other at award shows in the future but I can't imagine the need to make another Savage Garden album.
"I have nothing else to say with Daniel musically. You can't go back."
Hayes sings on the new charity single What's Going On with the likes of Bono, Britney Spears and Destiny's Child and plans to release his first solo single before Christmas.
Jones, who has formed a record label to nurture new talent, produced a single for new Brisbane band
Aneiki - Pleased to Meet You - which was a recent top 30 hit.
Jones told Reuters on Friday (October 5), "We achieved something so great in a short period of time that we had to look for something else. We've both had a lot of success together. We'll probably have a lot of success independently in the future."
While Jones plans a career outside of music, Hayes said he has finished recording his debut solo record.
"Way back after the last tour, Daniel decided he wanted to take a break from the band and I was forced into a big vacation I didn't want to take," Hayes explained from the set of the video for the all-star remake of "What's Going On." "So I started writing songs with Rick Nowels [Dido, Melanie C], Walter Afanasieff [Celine Dion, Mariah Carey] and people like that."
Hayes recorded his upcoming album, Spin, in San Francisco during the past year.
"It's really cool. It's probably the thing I'm most proud of, ever," he said. "It's a mixture of pop, R&B and electronica. Savage Garden was always a collaboration. This was me on my own, which was scary but cool because I could muck around with electronica and things I couldn't do in the band."
Spin's first single will be released in late November, with the album to follow early next year. Hayes wouldn't reveal the single's title but described the song as "very sexy" and said his record company is negotiating with a noted director to film its video in Australia.
Hayes wrote 35 new songs for the record, though only 13 made the final cut. "The cool thing is, a lot of the ones I didn't use will be B-sides, bonus tracks or stuff you can download on the Internet," he said.
Savage Garden scored a #1 single in 1998 with the love song "Truly Madly Deeply," from their eponymous 1997 debut. The album sold nearly 5 million copies, according to SoundScan.
Their second album, 1999's Affirmation, sold more than 2.6 million copies and yielded the group's second #1 single, "I Knew I Loved You."