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.

"I always felt more ambitious, in a promotional sense, than he did. He will sit in a studio 24/7 working on music, but when it came to promotion or touring I always felt I was dragging him along for the ride.

"I always felt we could have been so much bigger than we were. It was a marketing nightmare, trying to market this band that was two people, with one guy blurry in the background. I did millions of interviews that started with 'Where's Daniel?' and had to explain his story.

"I had to pay for his decision all through the promotion of Affirmation and it was exhausting. We earned exactly the same amount of money only I was doing three times the amount of work. That was difficult."

As was touring the world, with the threat of the job he had always dreamt of being suddenly terminated.

"I didn't leave the band, the band left me," Hayes clarifies, keen for fans to know he kept the band together.

Hayes says a turning point came when the pair were writing Affirmation's first single, The Animal Song.

He found out Jones was writing with another band, Aneiki, and felt thoroughly betrayed.

"I found out through other people," Hayes says, still hurt.

"He said 'I didn't know how to tell you' and I said 'Just be honest'.

"That was definitely a defining moment in our relationship. In my mind we were a band, I had fielded offers to work with other people, sing on other people's records, and I'd always said no out of respect to Daniel.

"I remember feeling like I'd been cheated on. Then the first time I wrote with someone else for my (solo) record it felt really strange. It was like the first time you have sex after you've broken up with someone."

Hayes put feelers out for his solo project, and before long realised it was actually now his solo career.

"I can write songs, I can sing. It wasn't like I can't do it without Daniel, it's just that I wouldn't have chosen to. I was put in a situation where I had to and it forced me to grow up and face a lot of challenges.

"I'm enormously proud of this record. I feel like I'm making the kind of music I should be making. I'm also enormously proud of Savage Garden, but it is time for me to get on with it."

His American record company even wanted to release the last Savage Garden single as 'Savage Garden featuring Darren Hayes' to boost his profile. He declined.

"I'm not trying to say to people 'If you liked Savage Garden you'll love Darren Hayes'. This is the start of my new career. Every lawyer or accountant or business person will tell you to never tell the fans you've broken up. Even Stevie Nicks told me that, but I just can't lie about it. I think it sucks too, but I can't go back now."

Hayes' solo album, Spin, was written with American uber-producer Walter Afanasieff, who steered Affirmation.

Spin is a sexed-up record. First single Insatiable has Hayes showcase his soulful falsetto, while Dirty and Strange Relationship channel the steamy funk Prince used to deal in, with lyrics to raise eyebrows among some and temperatures among others.

"I still love Affirmation but by God it's a dark record when I look back on it. It's quite ironic that it's called Affirmation. I was dealing with my divorce and when we finished recording it the band broke up.

"I had to shake that off. Life is good. Love is good. Even among the rumblings of war I'm pleased I've made a celebratory record."

And while his Mr Ballad reputation is upheld, he definitely loses his musical virginity – several times over – on Spin.

"I don't feel like I have to be the nicest, sweet-as-apple-pie, cute, say-all-the-right-things-and-romance-all-the-ladies guy any more.

"I had meetings with the record company where I had to say 'OK, Darren has blonde hair now, he does yoga, he's got a song called Dirty. Is everyone clear?' There's some songs about f..king and you know what? F..king is fun."

Insatiable (Roadshow/Sony) is released on Monday. Spin is due for release in March.