Boyz Magazine Interview
As one half of multi-platinum selling duo
Savage Garden, Darren Hayes was no stranger to the slightly cheesy
love ballad. But with the release of his more experimental second
solo album, he's determined that gay audiences will soon be quite
literally begging for him...
Why have you
changed? Is it a different ‘you', less radio-friendly?
No, I was just really bored of
myself. And I think I felt disappointed and disillusioned with the
music scene.
You're doing lots of gay things now, aren't
you?
We did Heaven.
And G-A-Y. And you're doing Manchester
Pride.
Apparently I am. It's funny, it's actually
hard to get onto these things. London Pride, I don't know if they
thought I was gay enough or hip enough, whatever you have to be to
be on there, but we couldn't get onto that one.
Did that hurt your
feelings?
No, I
just thought you wait and see, you'll be begging for
me.
Did you think ‘I've got to gay this shit up a
bit'?
God, I'm sure I have.
What, gayed it up?
I'm sure my
whole career has been quite camp in some ways. I mean, come on, it's
showbiz! This is possibly the most camp thing I've ever done actually, this
record.
So how come you're doing the gay stuff when you
haven't done it before?
Because I think with this
record I can. For one, I think it's a really cool record. And I
think that in the past I've been marketed to whatever the mainstream
was, and anytime I wanted to do anything alternative, whether it's
gay or whether it's doing a festival, no-one's ever put Darren Hayes
and any of those things in the same basket together. And certainly
being marketed to a gay audience or even having exposure with a gay
audience is something that I think people have been terrified for me
to do in the past.
Why?
Well, because there's the fear
that if you dare to perform to the gays that, are you gay and
therefore, did you just alienate a whole section of the market? And
you know me, I don't even think about sexuality anyway, when it
comes to me being a performer. And I think it started to bother me
that there was a whole audience that I was never really being
aggressively marketed to.
Are you just using
us?
That's the feeling
I had on stage in Heaven, and it's interesting ‘cause during the
first song, I think that was the sentence in most people's minds, it
was like, ‘Are you just using us?' Whereas I think we were just
celebrating, I think it felt really hip. It was one of the hippest,
coolest things I've ever done. I didn't know people went on stage
after 1am. Apparently, they do. But it was great and they just got
it, they got the jokes, they got the irony. I'm sure a lot of people
watch the video and think ‘what's going on?' But onstage in Heaven
when they pulled out the sequinned blow-dryers, I think no-one
batted an eyelid.
So you're not nervous about speaking to the gay press,
because you've always held your cards close to your chest haven't
you?
I think everyone else has always been
nervous about me speaking to the gay press. You know me, I think I'm
pretty naïve...
Did they think you
were going to get talked into saying stuff that you didn't really
want to say?
I think everyone's
always concerned. I'm sure on some level there's some unwritten,
very un-PC rule that if you sell records to girls, then you don't
want to go to the gay media.
Are you never going to do power ballads
again?
I'm sure the answer to that is I will
never, ever. I've changed.
Why did you stop dying your hair and plucking your
eyebrows?
You know, I think I only ever plucked
them in the 90s. It's bad; everybody should just stop! It's just a
bad look.
What about those crazy eyebrows everyone
gets?
Oh, they just pull those out. I admit to
those being forcibly removed.
Are there any other areas where hair gets forcibly
removed?
No, I'm all hairy and proud of
it.
Do you go to the gym a lot?
Can't
you tell? Yeah, I do.
Do you have a good body
image?
Yeah, I think finally I
do.
What needs
work?
My love of
carbohydrates probably. I really love food and I'm 32 and I'm aware
of what I have to do when I put a record out – eating a certain way
and going to the gym. In-between records, I love putting on
weight.
What's your best bit?
I think I
have nice eyes, I don't have a problem with saying that. I don't
feel like I could say, ‘Wow! My biceps are nice!' There are bits
that other people say are nice. You need to ask
them!
Source: http://www.boyz.co.uk/JD04/tmPgs/B/interview.lasso
