The Age
article
From Savage to
solo 
October 23,
2004
Darren Hayes
Photo: Drew Ryan
Former Savage Garden
frontman Darren Hayes tells
Joanne Brookfield what he has learned, both before
and after he found fame.
I'm a performer because the
first 11 years of my
life I lived in a family with alcoholism and domestic
violence. My father is my hero today and hasn't had
a drink for 20 years, but I have never talked about
this. The first 11 years of my life were horrific and
turbulent and violent and I dreamed myself out of that.
I became a pop star, I
became someone else, and
that worked for years. It was great because I jumped
and people applauded. I sang and people cried and
all the love that I felt I was missing in my life I
created out of this job. But that only works for a
while because the fame bubble is like Nutra-Sweet,
you know, it kind of fulfils a need in you, but not really.
I've always been quite sad
underneath all of the
smiling. I never realised that's the reason I became
a performer and beyond that, that's the reason why
I couldn't have successful, romantic relationships,
why I felt so unloved, why I felt this void of whatever
and now I'm really taking responsibility for that.
Really forgiving my father, really accepting that I
am an adult now.
I mean, you can only blame
your childhood for so
many years. When are you going to move forward?
Your father doesn't drink anymore, so why do you
act like he does?
I'm such a pleaser. I've
always been so concerned
with being loved and making people happy and
making sure that I'm giving everybody what they
wanted that by the time I had made (debut solo
album) Spin I forgot to please myself. I also
underestimated what it is that people probably
loved about Savage Garden, which was that there
was a huge piece of me in there.
On Spin, I just tried to
keep up appearances.
There was this well of emotion building up in
me - it happens to everyone when you reach
your 30s - and every part of my life converged
upon one moment and that coincided with me
leaving a very successful band and trying to
restart my career and it was just a big train wreck.
It really knocked me off my
pedestal. In some
ways I think the pedestal was just smashed
out from underneath me anyway because, in
general, the job of hero has an expiry date.
People just thought, whether it be the media
or whatever, "Hmm, you know, we're done with
you now," and it was such a shock. It really
put me in a headspace where my ego was so
bruised that I just skulked away and didn't
even want to make an album. A lot of the
megalomaniac, the egomaniac in me, was
killed off.
I dusted him off for this
album. You know he's
the guy in the video for Popular and then I use
that guy to sell my record to you, but ultimately,
I'm a much calmer, softer, more sort of humiliated
and humble person today because of that experience.
I was so sad back then, I
really was. I was just
under so much pressure and I got so much blame
for the break-up of the band. It didn't matter how
many times I said it wasn't my idea. I was cast
as the villain and I was made to pay and that was
happening at the same time I was really
understanding that I had been, in some ways, the
architect of my own misery for so long in my life.
I had created this pop star
role and this career to
distract me, but now the distraction wasn't working
any more. Now I had to face up to the demons in
my life, and that all coincided with what was the
most difficult couple of years of my career, where
the pressure was on.
So that's what I regret a
little about the Spin period.
I wish I had taken a little bit more time, but in the
end, I guess I don't wish it because that album
and the perceived failure of it - even though it
sold 2 million copies, and in anyone else's book
that's amazing - but the perceived failure of that
was the catalyst for me to go and reinvent
myself and so for that reason, I love it.
I was never an arsehole. I
think that people's
perception of me was very different to the person
that I actually am. Because I was that kid that
just wanted to be loved, I think I was so ambitious
and desperate for fame, but not because I wanted
to be famous, it was because I wanted to feel loved.
It definitely became like a drug.
I wanted to be the biggest,
best, the most successful,
whereas I think if you look at the person onstage
singing for Delta Goodrem at the ARIAs, there's a
visible change there. I think that I've surrendered.
Even the fact my hair was darker again, I kind of
came full circle: I reconciled and I'm at peace now
with the person that I created.
Writing this new album was
terrifying, but it was
almost like I had Tourette syndrome. The song
Unlovable is about the moment the relationship I
was in was ending and me being so devastated.
I guess I was in grief, I was probably depressed
and there's a lyric in it where I say denial, anger,
bargaining, depression, just a few stages of
accepting that it's really over. I was talking
about the clinical stages of grief and I realised,
"Wow, we have stepped behind the curtain of my
mind and it's a gloomy place, but we're going
to be here for a while so can someone please
find a flashlight?" It was an amazingly cathartic
and cleansing experience, to have found forgiveness
and light and to feel like I'm so proud of this record.
I'm not really afraid of
anything anymore. What
have I got to lose? I've got everything to gain
right now, so it's a beautiful feeling.
The Tension and The Spark
is out now.
