Gay & Night Magazine (Netherlands)
August 2007 Issue
Off the Record... Darren Hayes

Thanks to Michael and Maaike for the scans and for typing up the text

DARREN HAYES:
'IF THERE HAD BEEN OPENLY GAY PEOPLE WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE COME OUT EARLIER.'

With their hits To The Moon And Back and Truly Madly Deeply, the Australian duo Savage Garden conquered the music scene in the late 90's. The lead singer, Darren Hayes, went on to become a succesful solo artist who wasn't afraid of giving the audience insight into his personal life through his music. However, for years he was very ambiguous about his sexual preference and would not confirm or deny the many rumors about him being gay. But in the summer of last year, he finally came out to the world and married his boyfriend. This month, his excellent third solo album This Delicate Thing We’ve Made will be released, and for the first time Darren is in full control of his own carreer.

You were with quite a large record company until last year, what made you decide to leave?
Gosh… Creative freedom – full stop. I began my carreer in a very commercial way, and thankfully sold a lot of records. But as I started to grow up as a person and as an artist, my music started to change and I felt more and more restricted by Sony. For an artist like me, who made them a lot of money in the past, it was a very hurtful experience to realize that executives and men in a boardroom had the ability to shut my carreer down, just because they didn’t understand it or didn’t like it.

So now you’ve started your own label - what is it like to be in charge of everything?
It's exhausting! I’m very hands-on, it's not just a vanity label. I have 20 people around the world that work for Powdered Sugar. I'm involved in everything from making the records, choosing the singles, artistic decisions and directions, to booking advertisements and deciding what the sticker on the cover of the record looks like. It's been a major undertaking, but it's been enormously rewarding.

Being a Kate Bush fan, has her album Hounds Of Love had anything to do with you releasing a double album?
I’m a huge fan. Hounds Of Love was very conceptual, and I love the idea that my album could be like a play, with a first and second act. I bought the same synthesizer (a Fairlight) on eBay that Kate used for her album.

Side A of Hounds Of Love is filled with commercial tracks, and side B is more like an abstract story… Is that what you’ve set out to do with your album as well?
No, it’s more like a story that develops from beginning to end. It starts with a song called A Fear Of Falling Under, and it’s all about plunging into water, and the water being a metaphore for your subconscious mind. I’m finding all these discarded objects in dark corners, and throughout the record I examine them. One of the first things I find is a time machine. I go back in time and I visit myself as a child and I visit the people who bullied me, I deal with my relationship to my father… The last song is me coming home to my house in London and flying through the bedroom window on a chair that’s in the sky and I come back to reality a fixed person, a more informed and forgiving version of myself.

So I guess it’s as personal as your last album?
More so, I think. It continues on a theme, it’s almost a sequel to that record. There’s a song called How To Build A Time Machine, which is about my father. How, if I could, I would go back and tell him I missed him. The record has a much more colorful and more optimistic tone than The Tenstion And The Spark, but it’s still very analytical.

You’ve always been secretive about your lovelife, yet the lyrics on your previous album are very personal. Was that your way of trying to come out to the world?
Umm, yeah, I’m sure on some level it was my way of being honest. I’ve always written songs about who I am. That album was really a diary of depression, the end result of two years of therapy. I knew, with some of the lyrics, it was essentially me coming out. I knew people would realize I was singing about a man. At the time I tried to have a bit more dignity, than to just hold a press conference and tell the whole world I was gay. Clearly, I had no problem that people assumed I was gay, but it wasn't until I met my boyfriend and got married to him, that I felt strong enough in my personal life that I wanted my audience to know who I am. Also because I knew that he is a permanent part of my life now. So that became a subject of my writing.

I think there are a lot of young gay guys out there who are really yearning for normal gay rolemodels, when right now all they’re getting is... you know, Jack on Will & Grace. Did that move you in any way to finally make the announcement about your partnership?
If there had been people like me, openly gay, when I was growing up, I probably would have come out earlier, because I would have had a role model. But you know, I think I don’t look hideous, I’m mildly attractive, and I think I do represent somebody who can still inspire young people and still be someone to look up to. It’s not like I waited until I was Cliff Richard’s age. But first I had to accept myself as being gay, before I could tell you that I am.

Now that the world knows you’re gay and married, has that changed anything for you?
I was never afraid of how it would impact sales, I was never afraid of my carreer. I was afraid of my own feelings. I knew that coming out in an ideal world could be liberating. But in the world we live there are still small minded people and people who have prejudices. I was definitely afraid of being marginalized. But you know what? On the whole, it has probably been the most positive thing I've ever done for my career. Because I have absolutely opened up my audience and I’ve kept all these incredible loyal amazing fans that I already had. I might have lost some, but I don't want them anyway. I don’t want someone to come to my show if they object to who I am as a person. The people that I’ve gained really embraced me. The gay community has been so encouraging and kind and grateful. If there’s any downside, it’s just that sometimes my love life will come up in an interview when there's no place for it. I did a radio interview for a mainsteam pop station this week, and the first question the journalist asked me was: 'so, how did you tell your ex-wife that you were gay?' I laughed it off and dealt with it. But internally I was thinking how sad it really was that this person talked to me as if I was the first gay person he ever met. I mean, gay people are everywhere, and I just accept that I’m part of a generation that is making this thing normal. I know that in 20 years from now this won’t be a big deal anymore.

In Holland we’re working on laws that allow gay couples to adopt children. Would you like to have children at some point?
Of course! I definitely would. And I will. I think that’s part of the blessing of not having a traditional life. I won’t be able to conceive a child within my relationship, but I’ve been given the opportunity to have a carreer where I’ve made some money. I’ve got a good home to offer to a child that doesn’t have one. With an education and a loving family. I think that in many ways it is a more sincere desire to be a parent, because I don’t want to be a parent just to see the reflection of my genes. I want to be a parent because I have a lot of love to give. And when I can concentrate on doing it full-time for a few years, I would try to fi nd a younger child, not a baby, that is able to understand the family that he comes into.

When you were touring for your last album, you took ‘audience interaction’ to the next level and arranged a date for two of your audience members during your show. Have you received any marriage invitations since?
No, but there is one couple that we introduced to one another and they are still together. So it worked once. Not bad huh?

That must have been a pretty weird first date for those people!
Well, if I was a fan of an artist I wouldn’t want to do it, because they didn’t really get to see the show. They got bad food and a view of my rear.

And what was the weirdest first date you’ve ever had?
It was with a really tall man. He was so tall that nobody paid attention to me. In fact, neither did he. It was actually a set up date at the Gay Pride. He was about 8 foot tall, really tall. Essentially, I spend the whole night standing next to him while people talked to him and had their pictures taken with him. It was like going out with Michael Jackson, in terms of celebrity. It was a very, very strange experience. He was a nice guy, though. Just too tall.

How tall are you?
5 foot 10.

So just a little bit shorter then.
Just a little.

When this album is out, what can the audience expect from you? Will you be touring, will you finally be coming to Holland?
Yeah, there are definitely plans to go to Holland and Paris. Maybe not with the full production that I have, because obviously I haven’t sold that many records in Holland. It’s planned for either later this year or just before spring. There’s a really great promoter in Holland who has been chasing us, which we love. And you know, I really like Holland. I love the free thinking, the sense of humour and how politically progressive you are. I think it’s something the rest of the world can really take notice of.

Do you think you’ll be visiting Amsterdam this year for the Gay Pride?
No, because unfortunately I’ll be in Australia. My record comes out there and in America on the 20th of August, so it’s the busiest month of my life. But I will be there in spirit. I’m kind of new to the pride thing, I was ashamed for too long. I’m only just getting my head around the festivities. I performed at the London pride this year, which was a blast. I also performed at the Stockholm and the Sydney pride, so I think it’s about time to perform at Amsterdam pride as well!

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