Darren Hayes found fame as one half of Australian pop duo Savage Garden, whose hits include the songs 'I Want You', 'Truly Madly Deeply' and 'I Knew I Loved You'.

Now a solo artist, Hayes has released two solo albums and has also written some new material for the recently-released Savage Garden Greatest Hits. GaydarRadio's Simon Le Vans caught up with him to talk about his career.

I can’t believe it, but it’s been 7 years since 'Truly, Madly, Deeply'.
I know! It’s now ten years since I got a record deal.

Where’s it all gone?
In the bank!

I meant the time [laughter]!
Well, the first four years after I got the record deal were pretty crazy and I don’t remember much of it, sadly. I was just trying to stay afloat. But the last five years have been my favourite time. It’s been a much slower pace and the quality of my life is very different.

Towards the end of Savage Garden you were kind-of a solo artist anyway - you seemed to be doing most of the work. Is this correct?
It’s funny because the last video we did was just me, and for about the past year I did all the press on my own. I knew that Daniel was leaving but contractually we weren’t allowed to admit it. I kept it in the back of my mind that I would have a continuing career in some shape or form but it was a lot of hard work doing it on my own.

Was it difficult to do a solo album once Savage Garden was over?
Well, because internally we knew that the band was going to call it a day there was a lot of pressure on me. In retrospect I do wish that I had taken a year off to work out who I wanted to be as an artist.

Was it scary being onstage on your own?
Yeah, it was scary. Daniel was in the first band I was ever in and I hadn’t had experience before, so all my travels around the world and everything that had happened to us we’d done as brothers. So it was definitely weird singing Savage Garden songs without him, but now it feels like second nature and I’ve got used to it.

Let’s talk about 'Affirmation'; it seems like a very personal song.
Well, that song was written for the second Savage Garden album and we were in a really interesting mindset because the break-up had begun at that time. Daniel was still living in Australia and I had been living in New York for a year. We wrote most of the record separately so symbolically we both felt the band ending. Most of the songs on the record were quite sad and I wanted to make sure there was something affirmative, so it was that literal. I was feeling a bit cynical about the world and all of the clichés that we’re told and I was trying to find my way as seeing the glass half-full, so that’s where it came from.

It’s got such an uplifting lyric too.
I still perform it to close my own shows because it’s quite anthemic. I got to sing it to my parents once in a concert and got to look my father in the eye and say, “I believe my parents did the best job they knew how to do.” So the song still continues to move me, which is great.

Do you find it easy to write?
Yes; I’d feel dead if I couldn’t be a songwriter. I’m plagued by melodies; they’re always there and I think it’s been a life-saver for someone like me who’s so expressive and emotional. I’m a bit of a nutcase and music’s always been this incredible saviour.

How do you feel about your gay following?
I think I’ve always had a pretty mixed appeal and I actively love dance and club music which is such a huge part of gay culture. For the first few years of my career, from a marketing point of view, people were always very scared to chase after a gay audience. I felt very respectful though because I think it’s very cheesy sometimes when people see a certain audience and think, 'I need their dollar'. It was never like that for me because there are certain sensibilities about gay culture that I really dig.

Some of my favourite performers are gay icons. I adore Madonna because she’s so smart and so respectful of the different niches that she’s had. With someone like Wayne G, who remixed 'Popular', showing an interest in my music it felt like a very legitimate way to play to an audience that I adore without being condescending.

I did a lot of appearances in clubs and I think, at first, the audience thought, 'What does he want from us?' But I like the fact that I’ve had to earn my stripes a little bit because there’s a hell of a lot of good taste in gay culture.

Now, tell us about the Savage Garden Greatest Hits album.
Well, I was working on my next solo record and a ‘best of’ is something that I’ve been putting my fingers in my ears about for five years. I always see them as very opportunistic and unless there’s a reason to put a ‘best of’ out I didn’t want to be a part of it. But the band is no longer and my requirements were that I wanted it to be archival with remasters and rare B-sides and cheesy things that people wouldn’t necessarily need, but that I felt were important. So ,I put my record on hold for a bit to come out and talk about this album.

There are two new tracks on the album. Were they originally for your next record?
Yes, they were actually. It was quite hard to give up the song ‘So Beautiful’, but I’m glad that I did because I’m not quite sure of the direction of my new record and the way it sounds was very much in allowing it to fit into the Savage Garden record. I think some of the stuff that I’ve done since Savage Garden probably isn’t as commercially viable and not as mainstream, so I didn’t want to mix any of that on a Savage ‘best of’.

I also didn’t want to piss anybody off that really loves the band, so I wanted 'So Beautiful' to sound like it fitted in!

Read our review of Truly Madly Completely: The Greatest Hits and our Totty Watch feature on Darren Hayes.

Truly, Madly, Completely - The Greatest Hits, by Savage Garden 
Label: Sony
Released: 14 November 2005
ASIN: B000BK8FVK
Catalogue Number: 82876739412

Truly, Madly, Completely - The Greatest Hits is available online now. Also, why not check buy his latest album The Tension And The Spark.