DJ#1: Savage Garden (Truly Madly Deeply playing in the back ground) Was that you Darren? Was that you singing?

Darren: That's me, yep (laughs)

DJ#1: Boy that's good. How ya do'in?

Darren: I'm really good actually

DJ#1: Thanks for being on the program here in Dallas Texas, nice to have you.

Darren: Thanks for having me.

DJ#1: So your in early for the awards?

Darren: Yeah, actually um....

DJ#1: Oh you live there now?

Darren: Uh, it's a long story. I was here for a year. But I actually just bought a home in Sausalito, in San Francisco. Which it's really beautiful. Um.. I actually just came home from Australia, I was just there with Daniel and our band just rehearsing.

DJ#1: Were you back in Brisbane or where were you?

Darren: I was everywhere! Yeah, I went and saw my folks and um..my sister has a new baby, so I went to the baby and stuff and it was great!

DJ#2: Do you remember that you actually came in and performed live for us?

Darren: I remember!

DJ#2: *sings* Chica cherry cola!*

DJ#1: We were the first stop you have ever done, at least that's what your manager told us.

DJ#2: Oh he tells that to all of them!

Darren: No your probably right! Seriously, cos I remember, I remember coming to show and I remember doing just terrific things in Dallas and stuff

DJ#1: It was cool. I remember making the comment then and I'll make it again that you can kinda see if a group's got chops by how they do that sort of thing, when it's just acoustic like that and it was clear that there was some major chemistry happening there. I mean between the three of you, you know?

Darren: (laughs) We um.. love music, we love writing songs, It's great. I think first and fore most we consider ourselves song writers and a lot of the sort of photo shot stuff and making videos and stuff, that was always, we kind of learnt that in front of you. It's kinda weird to have to do that because I was just a kid who used to sing in the bathroom but ah... it's been a couple of years since then. It's ah, we're still having fun.

DJ#1: Is there a let down after you have a couple number one singles?

Darren: NOOO, it's funny, I know it makes a really good story. I think a lot of people, I think look, you know, we have had one album and that album sold far better than we ever thought it would. I think it's up to something like 10 or 11 million by now.

DJ's: Oh wow, my gosh!

Darren: You know the average person in the street probably still doesn't know what I look like.

DJ#2: Are ya rich?

Darren: Um.. Well you know, I guess so.

DJ#2: Cos how many album does, cos you hear of all these artist like um.. when you watch VH1 "Behind the Music" We sold seventy-billion records and we are bankrupted.

Darren: Yeah, you know what it is? For starters I think when you write your own music, you make a lot of money. I make most of my money because I completely write everything with Daniel. Everything we do is written by Daniel and I.

DJ#1: So you get all that ASCAP money and BMI money

Darren: Well I guess and also, look I'm a kid from a really working class family. I never expected to make money from music. I seriously, everyone kills me for saying this but I would do it for free. I'm not gonna do it for free now *laughs* I would.

DJ#1: Now they set the price there's no need to.

Darren: You know I love it and I um..think musicians are completely over paid for what they do. I think it's, we have an amazing life.

DJ#1: That's refreshing to hear you say that, you think your over paid.

Darren: Well listen, I mean come on, I seriously, I was doing this thing in my bathroom, hell if you come over to my house I still do it in the shower. I still sing in the shower.

DJ#2: *Dings bell* I don't want to know what you do in the shower honey!

(lot's of laughs)

Darren: Look I have a lot of fun it's great! I still can't believe I get paid to do it.

DJ#1: most people have this perception that when bands come together it's friends that have known each other for along time in music then um.. Decide to put something together but not the case with you two. I think this is more typical the way you two got together. There was an ad in the paper right?

Darren: Man I audition for Daniel and it's funny we're great friends now. I have known him for um.. coming up to eight years. But he was my boss at first. He was in a band that needed a singer then I came along and audition very badly and I ended up singing with the band for about a year and a half before he and I ever thought about doing our own music and writing and.....

DJ#1: Now where did the blond girl go?

Darren: Oh, you know what it's so funny cos everyone loves our backing singers, me included. We've had a few. I think you might have met Jenny. Then we had a girl called Nicole.

DJ#2: They are just replaceable chicks kid.

Darren: You know what it is? Their so damn good they end up sorta getting their own deal. You know I love that, we have, at the moment we have like an eight piece band um... we got another backing singer and a different keyboard player this time. And um.. so a lot of the band is back again, which I love. I love hanging out with them. But you know they come along and they play these song that we've written with us and they become apart of our lives and if their smart they will always look out for their own careers and um.. so that's what they've done.

DJ#1: You know Darren I love the diversity that you guys showed in your first two singles because the first one is called "I Want You?"

Darren: Yeah

DJ#1: It was kind of a novelty type you know you've got the kids trying to memorize the fast talking and all that and then you come back with this beautiful love song, ballad that's gonna be around forever and ever. I mean, was there concern over which one to release first?

Darren: Um, no I think sometimes the concern with us that I could probably hum you three or four songs and you would be like, oh do you do that song as well? Oh that's your song as well? Yeah, I think we get bored with music. We have set our sets up that on our record that every song is different. We never wanted to have an album that was like ten watered down versions of whatever the hit was. Um... the only problem with that is sometimes people are, they find it difficult to link you up as the same band but I think that has become our thing now and the new album is exactly that. There's ballads, pop hits, and guitar stuff and songs with just a piano and my voice so you know, it's quite diverse.

DJ#1: There's nothing wrong with that, you know, the Bare Naked Ladies did that on their album, you know, where again they have a novelty song and then they have a song that's a very beautiful song, that's really important to show the audience that your just not one thing.

Darren: I think it's just important to just be sincere, to be honest. I think that we just always do, we make the kind of records we just want to hear, so.

DJ#1: So did you haul up in New York to write this album?

Darren: You know I did. I... it was so funny, I look back now and I realize I probably went there to write this record. At the time um...I spent a year there. You have to understand that um.. even though we have been a little bit in America, we've been a bit(?) all over the world. That kept us really busy. We were touring this record, we promoted it for two years, which would have been about the time you saw us. Then we toured it for about eight months. And um.. we were exhausted so we stopped for two or three months and then um... I was just slowly writing songs actually across the ocean with Daniel. I would send him um.. idea's on tape and he would send them back and forth and we did a lot of stuff on the Internet actually before I eventually went to Australia. So yeah I spent a year there. A lot of the record is basically like a snap shot of that life, that period in my life.

DJ#1: Is it hard being away from your partner? Having that ocean between you guys when your trying to calibrate?

Darren: Yeah, in the end I had to go home and some of the best songs on this record were written when it was just the two of us at a piano in the studio in San Francisco. But um.. it was good, I think we needed the space apart because um.. it needs to spark when he and I walk into a room together there needs to be some energy and I think that we spent two and a half years in each others faces everyday. We really needed that.

DJ#2: Yeah, it gets old after a while doesn't it?

(laughs)

DJ#1: Now when your on the road, and this is going to be a general rock star kind of question so forgive it please in advance. But when your on the road and you play a concert and there is a backstage area and they bring those girls back. I mean do you tell them which girls to get or Um.. (laughing) I mean do you pick then out while your out there singing?

DJ#2: Oh Kidd, that was Motley Crew.

DJ#1: Do you guys have a Van Halen ass-grid system?

(Laughing)

Darren: Anybody over the age of about 35 in our band thinks that completely acceptable, I don't do it but ...

DJ#2: Well your married right?

Darren: anyone that's really rock and roll does that. I find my tour manager last time, there used to be a theme to the kind of women that would be back stage and I realized that he was the evil conspirator.

DJ#1: What was the theme?

Darren: -um.. it had something to do with breast size and hair color.

(lots of awhhh's and laughs)

DJ#1: Blond and big boobs.

Darren: probably.

DJ#2: It's never the red heads.

DJ#1: Your a single guy?

Darren: You know, I am at the moment.

DJ#2: Yeah, you were married then.

Darren: I was married, I'm tragically single. I'm happy though.

DJ#2: That's good.

Darren: Yeah.

DJ#1: Do you think that what happened with your record...

Darren: ...no

DJ#1: that how much you blew up had something to do with the relationship?

Darren: No. A lot of people ask that question actually, not at all, actually her name is Colby and she's still my best friend in the whole world.

DJ's: AWH!!! How sweet.

Darren: Every second day, actually she, (radio breaks away) We have a joke about the band, I call it the bubble. I always tell her when life gets too tough she can just come inside the bubble for a while. You know, we were childhood sweethearts to be honest, we kind of grew up together. And she definitely came through this whole thing with me um...it's just as much hers as it is mine, being in this band and um...

DJ#2 (female): I want to be in your bubble!

DJ#1: Don't let the lawyers find out that it's as much hers

Darren: Oh yeah, it doesn't matter, I would seriously

DJ#3: She would take half of that bubble.

(DJ's laugh)

Darren: Right...Seriously...

DJ#3: (in silly voice) I want half of that bubble.

Darren: She entitled to it.

DJ#1: Did you guys have kids together?

Darren: No,actually I love kids. I was um ... actually a preschool teacher before I did this.

All DJ's: Come on.....REALLY?

DJ#1: You have a temperament where I can see that Darren.

Darren: Yeah, I mean I love kids. We meet at teachers collage, Colby and I and I ended up ahhh....we got a record deal and we made this album and it wasn't released for like a year and I taught for that period. I taught preschool for a year.

DJ#3: That's very cool!

DJ#1: Preschool teacher?

DJ#3: You do have a nice temperament about ya, you know?

DJ#1: He's got a very calming voice. A very calming effect on people I think.

Darren: I was actually the JarJar Binks of preschool teachers. I was all comedy.

DJ#1: I bet you were the best singing preschool teacher in all of Australia!

Darren: Well you know what, it so funny, um...yeah I used to teach them Ren 'n Stimpy songs. Happy Happy Joy Joy.

DJ#2: Did you get in trouble for that?

DJ#3: Break us off one, break us off one...

Darren: (starts to sing) Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy, whew!

DJ#2: Oh that's annoying.

(everyone laughs and claps)

DJ#1: That's a song you never get out of your head do ya? Did you ever teach this one? This is the song that never ends.....

Darren: Oh please lets not go there.

(laughs)

DJ#1: Okay in your bio it says, that Savage Garden is at the fore front of a musical movement that currently surging away from guitar and annexed driven alturna-rock, into a world that is unashamedly pop.

Darren: Oh who writes this stuff?

DJ#1: I don't know but I'm hearing about this album that it's a break up album. That there is a lot of annexed on this album.

Darren: Well you know what? That's funny because about seventy percent of it...

DJ#1: It's about Colby isn't it?

Darren: Yeah, of course it is, yeah look, I think a lot of people don't realize that about us. That they are starting to get it but generally when you think about pop music, you think it's contrived or it's not sincere.

DJ#1: Some of it is.

Darren: You know, or it's written by a team of Jam (?) and dance specialist some where. And um.. we have pop music and it's completely sincere and um... I can't sing it unless I've lived it to be honest. So if you want to know me...listen to my records and pretty much a lot of the record is that. It's not sad though it's kinda beautifully sad. It a record about accepting that life happens. You know, stuff happens to you.... you know, your a millionaire ... you sell a 11 million records and guess what? Your not married anymore. It's those kind of things and how you deal with it and it's excepting that it's all good. um...there's a lot of happy stuff on there. I think the first single is called I Knew I Loved You and geez it's one of the happiest things your gone hear ever.

DJ#1: It's called I knew I Loved you?

Darren: Yeah! And it's a really pure love song um...it's a light moment intentionally because the record does take you to some pretty serious places but it's funny, there's a line in one of the songs on the record where I say, there's always hope in the darkness and you know your gonna make it and I think that's the over all theme of the record. You know, in the end life teaches you these things.

DJ#1: And you pull out of it

DJ#2: Our Music director has already heard it so you can already pretty much expected it to be played here.

DJ#1: You met Dave Marales yesterday, the guy with all the earrings all over?

Darren: Oh dude, I was always wondering if he was apart of that, you know, the Marales dance remix dance person.

DJ#2: Yes, he is.

Darren: Really?

DJ#2: Oh no, I don't know!

DJ#1: He the Big Marales stud that you've heard about.

DJ#2: No, but he loves this song, and I know it will be added as soon as it released.

Darren: Oh great! You know, I mean it's, it's one of those things, we love the record just for selfish reasons. We recorded this album in San Francisco for four and a half months. And um...you know, just had the best time. That's probably why I live there. I just had the best time. Made some great friends with Walter the producer, he's an amazing person and so you know I think you can hear that in the end, it's not entirely sad you can actually hear we had...

DJ#1: Oh I love sad albums any way. I love them. I love music that just gets emotional. I love that!

Darren: Well, it should be, you know, I just think, I didn't want to make this record that was like, you know...

DJ#2: A drag

Darren: You know... how difficult it is to have a high tax bill. Who cares?

(Laughing)

Darren: I wanted this to be a snap shot of my life and I wanted people to be able to listen to this and apply it to their life.

DJ#1: Yeah I think a hit single called, I'm so bloody rich, probably wouldn't um.. sit real well.

DJ#1: Now um... in Australia growing up ...

Darren: Yeah

DJ#1: Were you a Little River Band fan?

Darren: Actually...

DJ#1: Please say yes!

Darren: You know what, I always feel like I'm a traitor here because I've never really been into what you would consider famous Australian music. Of course I loved Inxs. um.. but no not really, I liked the harmonies of the little river band, but I think if I were going to be into harmonies I would have been in to something like the Beach Boys or... I'm not trying to sell out

DJ#1: no, not at all

Darren: You know what I mean, a lot of these Australian bands I was into were probably more collage bands, or people you might not have heard of probably.

DJ#1: Hootagooroos?

Darren: Yeah, I like the Hootagooroos actually and I really, there's a band at the moment in Australia called um...their called, Regurgitaters.

(laughs)

DJ#2: Are ya a big fan of the BackStreet Boys?

(laughs)

Darren: You know what, I don't have a problem with them at all. I think a lot of people, it's like it very cool to sort of dis (?) that kind of music. You know what, if your honest, I'm fine with it...

DJ#2(female): I dig that Howie D!!!

Darren: Yeah?

DJ#2: I dig Backstreet!

DJ#1: I don't think Darren cares to terribly much about that.

(laughs)

DJ#1: Just telling everyone Kell? Is that the deal?

DJ#2: Yeah, you know just random Backstreet Boys love!

DJ#1: Darren, the next things is, you just bought a house is my next question. The next thing is you bought a house in Sausilito and I know people who have done that and have lived there...

Darren: yeap

DJ#1: They say it's the type of place you absolutely never want to leave and I have heard the same thing about Australia that there's something...When we talked to Rick Springfield he said there was something that just keeps drawing him home.

Darren: Well you know what? It's so funny that you should say that because I... you know, New York makes such a great E-mail, doesn't it? It's like, I live in MANHATTAN! EAT THAT, WOO HOO!! And it was one of the toughest years of my life. I'm here at the moment for the MTV awards and I love this city but I was here for a year and everyday was a struggle and I didn't realize when I went to San Francisco, I think I'm probably there because it reminds me of home... so much. It's easiest for me to be in America at the moment but it does. I remember when I bought the house.....

DJ#1: Now are you from Queensland then?

Darren: I'm from Queensland

DJ#1: Okay no wonder.

Darren: When I walk down the street, this is going to sound really tacky, get your tissues out here...But I can imagine (radio brakes away) I could imagine having a kid in that development.

DJ#1: That's not corny at all. Just call Colby, say your sorry get her back, come on...

Darren: No we're fine, it's all good don't worry, I'm fine.

(laughs)

DJ#2: Awh, leave him alone. They are in their bubble, their fine.

DJ#1: I'm very concerned about you and Colby.

Darren: Listen you should come over cos we miss you guys.

DJ#1: If she's a nice as you, I mean my gosh....

Darren: She's the best! She's better than me.

DJ#1: Hey Darren this is great!

DJ#2: Your genuinely a nice person

(radio breaks away)

DJ#1: I would want to buy your album even if it sucked.

DJ#2: Cos your just too nice!

Darren: Actually we need to develop a dark edge here, we'll do that in the commercial break.

DJ#1: Yeah, you need to do that. You need to have some skeleton in the closet somewhere.

Darren: That's why that Howie D's got the market... the main man!

(laughs)

DJ#2: That's right.

DJ#1: Hey Darren your so nice to take the time, are you now, for give my ignorance but are you performing, or nominated or both?

Darren: No I'm here for just a bit of fun. This is, our new single comes out next week, um.. the album's out Nov. 9 it's early days for us. We literally just finished the record and this is the start of it all. We're just sort of back saying hello we exist and we've got a new album if you want to listen to it and I'm just sort of having a little bit of fun.

DJ#1: Oh I lied about that being the last question. Who do you want to meet to night?

Darren: Oh look, I'm obsessed with Natalie Portman and she never wants to meet me. So there's no one else really.

DJ#1: So that's it huh?

Darren: Yeah.

DJ#2: You mean you have actually requested and Natalie said no?

Darren: No I'm just kidding you sweetheart. We just did a video and we had Kirsten Dunst in the video, she just amazing. She plays the love interest in the video but...

DJ#2: She's 12?!?!?

DJ#1: She is not twelve.

DJ#2: Leave her alone.

Darren: She's SEVENTEEN!

(laughing)

DJ#2: She's seventeen! He justifying it!

(laughing)

DJ#3: in some states, no she's nineteen!

Darren: .....older than this girl, and boy did I feel old. And she such a good actor. That the songs called I Knew I Loved You, and we kind of, what happens is we met on a train and we touch and for an instant there's a flash of the future that could be and then when we get off the train it's like it never happened.

DJ#2: That's the Levi commercial!

Darren: here's the deal actually....you know, it is!

(Laughs)

DJ#1: That's David Cassidy in the elevator (starts to sing) I think I love you...

Darren: She's looking at me and I'm like...(whispers) I think she's falling in love with me.

DJ#1: Oh you mean in real life your thinking that?

DJ#2: Because she's such a good actress?

Darren: Yeah, I just realized that at the end of the day when she just left...What no kiss? I need a hug.

DJ#1: Well she's got two years of acting experience of course she's good.

Darren: She's amazing.

DJ#1: She's been acting since she was sixteen.

(laughs)

DJ#1: Don't you touch her, you leave her alone. You just think about Colby.

Darren: Hey, It's acting and I'm a professional (radio breaks away)

(everyone claps)

DJ#1: Wow, that was cool.

DJ#2 (female): Nicest interview ever. I love him.

DJ#1: Cool guy. What charisma and sincerity.

DJ#2: Just honest.

DJ#3: Just a cool nice guy. I just want to sit down and have a beer with him.

DJ#2: (Sighs) Ohhh

DJ#3: What's his last name?

DJ#2: I don't know, Darren Garden?

(Laughs)

DJ#1: Darren Hayes

DJ#3: Let's call him back!

DJ#1: Love that guy!

(end of interview)

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