As he enjoys chart action right
around the globe with his debut solo album Spin, Darren Hayes is the first to admit
it’s all one big game.
From the first-class flights, video shoots and
glitzy album launches through to awards nights and TV interviews, Hayes is well aware how
easy it is to get caught in the trappings of pop stardom.
Talk to
Hayes and it soon becomes obvious he’s avoided falling under the limelight’s
spell, something he quickly attributes to his formative years growing up in Logan.
“I’m
glad I have this [background] in me because you could get caught up in so much bullshit
– and it is so much bullshit, ultimately,” Hayes says of the industry. “I
still think growing up in Logan and having that perspective about money and class systems
was really lucky. Ultimately we were really poor. There was a period in my life when we
were living in a caravan park and were bankrupt, but I never felt poor. I never really
thought about it till I grew up and started paying the rent and thinking ‘God, we had
it tough’. It’s given me a lot of appreciation and perspective on what I
do.”
For the
kid who once worked behind the counter at Woody’s music store, he’s gone from
pushing chart-topping CDs to making them.
“In
some ways it doesn’t feel like I’ve changed at all. Sometimes I feel like my
life is so surreal, but all I know is when I was the kid behind the counter at
Woody’s, I dreamed about this. I remember walking into that store in awe when I was
11 – and I used to be intimidated by the people behind the counter. I remember
finally getting a job there and thinking I was the shit [laughs].”
Spin
looks set to replicate that same feeling for Hayes, following Top Five debuts in Australia
and the UK and similar chart success elsewhere. Recorded in his home of San Francisco,
Hayes co-produced Spin with Grammy Award winner Walter Afanasieff (Ricky Martin, Savage
Garden) as well as co-writing 35 songs for the project with the likes of Rick Nowels
(Madonna, Dido), newcomer Greg Bieck and Afanasieff. Darren says he wrote that many songs
so as not to limit the songwriting process.
“There
was a part of me that was a little terrified to do it. I had to write the first 12 or 15
songs thinking they were the shit – the best things I’d ever done. Fifteen or 20
songs later, I looked back and thought ‘God, I thought I had it in one there’,
but I didn’t. I needed to have that kind of perspective and not be calculated about
it and see whatever came out.
“I
don’t care about justifying it, but I think people have always assumed that I just
wrote lyrics, but I’m actually a melodist, so sometimes I can have complete songs in
my head. I’ll sit down at a keyboard and show someone a chord progression or bass
progression and they’ll arrange that with me.
“I
think the thing with doing a solo record is that you can take more liberties and have more
fun. It can be more personal and you can fool around with irony or whatever. When
you’re writing in the context of a band, you have a responsibility to represent a
collective, but on a solo record you can get a bit cheekier.”
Freed
from the band constraints of Savage Garden, Hayes is certainly exploring new sides of his
persona, as demonstrated on the saucy album track ‘Dirty’. He does admit,
though, that he has regrets about the way the Savage Garden split was handled.
“I
really think any ‘mishandling’ was a media thing. We had our own issues
internally, but there were never any animosity – it wasn’t an ugly thing at all.
The reality is it made a sexy story to pit the two of us against each other and it just
spiralled. I found myself defending accusations and it became something I had to stop
doing. Now it makes so much sense to me. There would have never been a third album no
matter how much of a hiatus we would have taken. Music changed, we were changing and if
you listen to this record, it’s obvious I had this record inside me somewhere and it
had to be released.”
On the
subject of reminiscing, Hayes quickly recalls the circumstances surrounding the Time Off
classified which brought Savage Garden together.
“I
was at Uni at Lucia at the time and I used to read Time Off all the time, just getting
into bands and stuff. I did well at school and was the first kid ever to get into
university in the history of my family. It was a big deal and I felt all this pressure. I
remember being in line in a library and someone saying to me ‘Why are you always
criticising the course and why aren’t you happy?’ and I said ‘Because I
really want to be in a band’. They said ‘Well, why aren’t you?’.
“I
remember being so offended that I went away and ripped out my Time Off and found
Daniel’s ad and thought ‘I’m going to do this’. I remember going into
the audition and I was scared out of my brains. I was the last person and had no
experience – I was just a kid who’d sung in school musicals. I sang for them and
everything changed – there was a magic in the room. I knew that everything was going
to change forever – and boy did it!”
Spin
is out on Roadshow Music.
|
