Bay Windows (USA)
New England's Largest GLBT Newspaper
Garden of delights
by Scott Kearnan
Thursday, December 6, 2007

Darren Hayes of Savage Garden brings his solo sound to New England

Throughout the late 90s, the Australian drawl of singer Darren Hayes was a familiar voice to music fans. As one half of the multiplatinum pop duo Savage Garden, Hayes delivered the kind of adult contemporary hits (including number one songs like "Truly Madly Deeply," and "I Knew I Loved You") that still caress radio waves and wedding playlists today. But as he prepares for an upcoming Boston-area performance, Darren from Down Under has a confession to make about our own local accent: "I love the Boston accent!" he says. "It's sexy!"

Easy, boys. While Hayes is openly gay, he's also newly married. So it's best to keep your mind on the music while Hayes is in town to promote his new solo album, This Delicate Thing We've Made, during a Borders Bookstore performance at the Burlington Mall.

Fresh off the UK and Australian legs of his consistently sold-out Time Machine Tour, Hayes promises a different take on the music for the intimate, acoustic outings on his Borders stop. "It's a broken down, and some might say superior version of what we do live," he says. "It's so raw ... I like to do some older songs, some new music, I'm very chatty ... they [fans] can expect anything!"

Among those expectations, fans can count on hearing some of the critically acclaimed tracks from This Delicate Thing ... Hayes's third solo record and the first released on Powdered Sugar, his own independent record label. A moody, electronic trip through confessional, personal and political territory, Hayes says the double-disc album was inspired by the concept albums of his 80s youth: Prince's 1999 and the early work of Kate Bush, in particular. "I would never go back and change anything," says Hayes of the time travel concept that pervades the musical narrative of This Delicate Thing We've Made. "Those are the things that made me who I am today."

For example, Hayes cites the song "Casey" as a reflection on his "teen angst." "It's about my sister," he elaborates. "I was younger, and I knew she was going to grow up and move away. I was going to be stuck in our town, feeling awkward." Hayes certainly didn't wind up "stuck" anywhere, but the album nonetheless allows the artist to "make peace" with a number of issues, including an alcoholic father and the "11-year-old me" who struggled with sexuality.

Now in his thirties and married (under UK Civil Partnership laws) to partner Richard Cullen, Hayes no longer struggles with being gay. In fact, he says, "Civil Partnerships in the UK completed the last piece of the puzzle for me." Eager to return to New England, an area he loves for its charm and history, Hayes echoes the feelings of many locals in the only American region where every state offers some measure of protection to same-sex unions.

"It made me feel legitimate," he says of marrying. "The biggest impact it had has been on my self esteem ... I've been gay since I came into this world; it just took me 20 years or so to work it out. Getting married was such a proud day for me, not a shameful thing. It [marriage] sends a very clear message to society, and that message affects how people view themselves."

That said, don't expect Hayes to view himself as exclusive to any one demographic. "I don't consider my music to be 'gay' or 'straight,'" he explains. Too often, he believes, perceptions of an artist's sexuality are limiting to their work. "One of the reasons it took me a while to come out was that I didn't necessarily want to be seen as any one color," he adds. "I want to paint with a full palette."

By releasing his music independently, Hayes is free to color outside any restrictive lines. Though Columbia Records released Hayes's work with Savage Garden, as well as his first two solo albums, they parted ways amidst creative differences. In particular, Hayes's progression into "quirky" electronic music - though arguably his stronger artistic suit - wasn't providing the same mainstream, formulaic radio fodder as his early pop hits. Though most artists might downplay any fall from commercial grace, Hayes says that the peaks and valleys of his career were a huge influence on This Delicate Thing We've Made.

"I'm much more comfortable in my own skin," he says. "Some of that comes from coming out, some of it from growing up and getting older, and some of it comes from having failed! I was someone who sold a lot of records, and then went through a period where I couldn't get arrested."

That perspective, says Hayes, has made a profound impact on his work. "These days, I do what I do for no other fact than it's my passion and my love," he says. In addition, Hayes is now more comfortable connecting personally with his fans, via online networks like MySpace and YouTube. "It's been a revolution," he says of the new media. "Record labels are disintegrating, radio is so regulated ... places like MySpace are offering choices by giving fans the opportunity to seek out music, or have connections with artists, that mainstream outlets don't allow."

Sometimes, of course, those connections can have unanticipated results. "Sometimes people scrap with them," says Hayes of his more finicky fans. "People might write in and say that something I did sucked," he laughs. "I'll just write back, "You're rude!'"

Cyber-bullies aside, Hayes is excited to continue forging a stronger relationship with his American fans. "The curse of having a history in the UK and Australia is that I've never really gone away [to those fans]," he says. "What's really sweet is that in American, a lot of people have wondered what happened to me, and they're very grateful that I'm back!"

In fact, Hayes has been so overwhelmed by the positive reaction he's received from American fans that he promises to sign every autograph during his Borders stop.

"In this past, I used to truss myself up a little bit," admits. "But being myself seems to be the thing that people wanted all along, and I never really knew that."

Welcome back, Mr. Hayes. It's good to meet you, all over again.

Darren Hayes performs Fri., Dec. 7 at 1 p.m.; Borders Book Store at the Burlington Mall, 6 Wayside Rd., Burlington. Call 781.221.2188 or visit www.bordersstores.com.

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