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Darren Hayes.
 Not
so long ago Darren Hayes was half of one of Australia's biggest
ever musical exports. Then, after in excess of twenty million
sales, the wheels began to fall off the Savage Garden juggernaut.
According to media reports, Brisbane born Hayes and best friend/guitarist
Daniel Jones acrimoniously split. It didn't take long for Hayes
to resurface and launch his solo career with 'Spin'; an album
which shifted over 2 million units but was judged by critics
and fans worldwide as a listless flop.
Hayes now lives in San Francisco but is speaking from London where he's based himself for six months in order to promote his sophomore solo attempt. Hayes describes 'The Tension And The Spark' as a confronting record, and if you've seen the very funny video for first single Pop!ular you might suspect that there's also a fair amount of self mockery in the mix too.
"Yeah, I don't think you'd be alone with what you said about 'Spin,'" he concurs, "and I think that you'd probably be shocked to hear that I thought that as well. All I can tell you, from an emotional point of view is that these two records are a world apart. I think 'Spin' was a record I thought I had to make, and this is a record that I wanted to make.
"'Spin' was created in a very self conscious way under a very high pressure situation, and I kind of chickened out really. I underestimated what it was that an audience wanted from me and what I can give; and this album is a heavy mother, it's very personal. From a career point of view it could be deemed as suicidal because I'm turning my back on everything that's familiar to me and I'm leaving myself completely unguarded, lyrically. I've worked with hardcore electronic producers and engineers, and I've done all that presuming that maybe I was going to get dropped from my label. So nothing was done on this record for any other reason than just the pure urgency and love of it, and the frustration of feeling that I'd become an awful parody of myself, some sort of whitewashed parody of something that was beautiful once. And then there's me singing lower keys than I've ever sung before and not polishing or perfecting anything, so often the vocals are the very first take. It's a very immediate vocal treatment. So yes, there's definitely a bit of redemption."
With song titles like Unlovable, Sense Of Humour, Ego and I Forgive You, one immediately senses this album to be honest and confessional. I asked Hayes if there's any hidden messages aimed toward Jones. "No," he sternly replies, "and do you know what? There's nothing on this record about Daniel, and I think that whole concept of the band splitting up was so much less than what people thought it was. It wasn't this whole, horrible acidic cat fight between two people. It was just like any relationship, at first it was amazing and then it just stopped going in the same direction and so it just had to end, but there was no animosity and I think the press certainly turned it into something that was much worse than what it was. But no, the themes on this record are about my relationship with my father, my relationship with my lover and my concept of what my view of myself is, you know? My self worth, my acceptance, my feeling unloved, and forgiving those who've trespassed against me, you know what I mean? This record is very heavy in a lot of ways because it even dates back to the reason why I'm a performer, like the fact that I've been compensated for something I felt I've lost in the past. It's not a record about being a celebrity and it's not about Daniel Jones or Savage Garden."
As mentioned before, the film clip to Pop!ular is hilarious; aside from almost being arrested for not having permits to shoot in Oxford Street and other locations, Hayes purposely sent himself up as the pathetic stooge. "As you can see, I'm truly annoying people," he laughs, "I'm there hawking myself and I'm desperate for fame. And then there was the amount of people for whom the penny had dropped, 'Oh my God! Is that the guy out of Savage Garden?' I'm sure they thought, 'Oh that poor bastard, he must be just so desperate now!'"
Steve Jones
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'The Tension And The Spark' is out now through Sony.
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