Biography
Darren Hayes first entered the music industry as one half of the multi-platinum pop duo Savage Garden. On his own, the vocalist and composer harnessed an agile, soaring range to deliver platinum-level solo results across earnest pop ballads, effervescent dance-pop, synth pop, and occasional darker textures. His opening solo project, 2002’s Spin, which merged R&B, dance grooves, and soft-rock textures, ascended the upper album charts in the U.K. and his native Australia. Later Top Ten releases included the synth-forward The Tension & the Spark in 2004 and the wide-ranging Secret Codes & Battleships of 2011. A decade-long recording absence that encompassed stand-up comedy ensued before Hayes resurfaced in 2022 with the gleaming, dance-pop-focused Homosexual, an album in which the songwriter revisited his teenage years through the lens of his 50-year-old perspective.
Born in Brisbane, Darren Stanley Hayes staged childhood performances at home backed by his mother. At age 15 he witnessed a local Michael Jackson concert, an event he cites as the catalyst for his entertainment ambitions. In 1993 he answered a local music-magazine advertisement seeking a lead singer and met musician Daniel Jones. Their initial covers group disbanded after one year, yet the pair formed the duo Crush, later retitled Bliss to sidestep another band’s name, and finally Savage Garden, a phrase drawn from Anne Rice’s novel The Vampire Lestat. With producer Charles Fisher (Hoodoo Gurus, the Divinyls) they tracked their self-titled debut beginning in 1995. Its opening single, the sleek, yearning, uptempo “I Want You,” ranked as 1996’s best-selling Australian-country single. Follow-ups “To the Moon and Back” and “Truly Madly Deeply” both reached number one in Australia, the latter also claiming the top spot on the U.S. and Canadian singles charts. Seven singles emerged in total, among them the fourth Australian Top Ten entry “Break Me Shake Me.”
Savage Garden returned to the national Top Five with “The Animal Song” and “I Knew I Loved You,” drawn from the more ballad-centric 1999 album Affirmation, produced by Walter Afanasieff (Mariah Carey, Céline Dion). “I Knew I Loved You” became their second U.S. Hot 100 number one and third Canadian chart-topper. The set yielded four Australian Top 20 hits overall, including the title track performed by the duo at the 2000 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony. Affirmation itself hit number one in Australia, Canada, and Sweden while reaching the Top Ten in the U.K., New Zealand, and the United States.
After a world tour, Savage Garden disbanded in late 2001; Jones launched Meridien Musik while Hayes, now based in the United States, cut a solo album in San Francisco with Afanasieff. The January 2001 lead single, the falsetto ballad “Insatiable,” peaked at number three in Australia, eight in Britain, and number one in New Zealand. The Columbia album arrived in March, climbing to Top Three positions in the U.K. and Australia and number 35 on the Billboard 200. This inaugurated a string of Australian Top 40 solo singles for Hayes, including the July 2004 Top Three hit “Popular,” the first release from his synthesizer-heavy second album The Tension & the Spark, issued three months later. Although overseas chart impact proved modest, the LP reached the Australian Top Ten and number 13 in the U.K. The concert video A Big Night in with Darren Hayes documented his Sydney Opera House performance on the ensuing tour.
After departing Columbia, Hayes joined Powdered Sugar for the August 2007 double album This Delicate Thing We’ve Made, a theatrical, less radio-oriented project tracked with Justin Shave (the Shapeshifters, Superchumbo). It still entered the Top 20 in Australia and the U.K. Prior to further solo material, he recorded a pop album with producer/songwriter/singer Robert Conley under the name We Are Smug, released May 2009. He also supplied a cover of Tim Finn’s “Not Even Close” to the Top Five 2010 tribute album He Will Have His Way: The Songs of Tim & Neil Finn. His eclectic yet pop-centric fourth solo album, Secret Codes & Battleships, emerged in October 2011 on Mercury Records in Australia and EMI in the U.K., reflecting work with more than half a dozen producers. It again performed strongly in Australia and the U.K., peaking at number ten and number 29 respectively.
Despite that success, Hayes stepped away from music to pursue stand-up comedy. Over subsequent years he trained at the renowned L.A. improv school The Groundlings and occasionally shared vocal performances with fans via social media. No new recordings appeared until his featured turn on Cub Sport’s “I Never Cried So Much in My Whole Life” in late 2019.
Hayes’ first solo single in ten years, the buoyant, self-produced dance-pop track “Let’s Try Being in Love,” surfaced in January 2022 and appeared on the full-length Homosexual, a personal collection dominated by buoyant dance-pop that examined his adolescent experiences and accumulated insights. Still reflective in his fifties, he devoted an early 2023 world tour to the 25th anniversary of Savage Garden’s debut album, blending its songs with solo material and renditions of select influences.
Born in Brisbane, Darren Stanley Hayes staged childhood performances at home backed by his mother. At age 15 he witnessed a local Michael Jackson concert, an event he cites as the catalyst for his entertainment ambitions. In 1993 he answered a local music-magazine advertisement seeking a lead singer and met musician Daniel Jones. Their initial covers group disbanded after one year, yet the pair formed the duo Crush, later retitled Bliss to sidestep another band’s name, and finally Savage Garden, a phrase drawn from Anne Rice’s novel The Vampire Lestat. With producer Charles Fisher (Hoodoo Gurus, the Divinyls) they tracked their self-titled debut beginning in 1995. Its opening single, the sleek, yearning, uptempo “I Want You,” ranked as 1996’s best-selling Australian-country single. Follow-ups “To the Moon and Back” and “Truly Madly Deeply” both reached number one in Australia, the latter also claiming the top spot on the U.S. and Canadian singles charts. Seven singles emerged in total, among them the fourth Australian Top Ten entry “Break Me Shake Me.”
Savage Garden returned to the national Top Five with “The Animal Song” and “I Knew I Loved You,” drawn from the more ballad-centric 1999 album Affirmation, produced by Walter Afanasieff (Mariah Carey, Céline Dion). “I Knew I Loved You” became their second U.S. Hot 100 number one and third Canadian chart-topper. The set yielded four Australian Top 20 hits overall, including the title track performed by the duo at the 2000 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony. Affirmation itself hit number one in Australia, Canada, and Sweden while reaching the Top Ten in the U.K., New Zealand, and the United States.
After a world tour, Savage Garden disbanded in late 2001; Jones launched Meridien Musik while Hayes, now based in the United States, cut a solo album in San Francisco with Afanasieff. The January 2001 lead single, the falsetto ballad “Insatiable,” peaked at number three in Australia, eight in Britain, and number one in New Zealand. The Columbia album arrived in March, climbing to Top Three positions in the U.K. and Australia and number 35 on the Billboard 200. This inaugurated a string of Australian Top 40 solo singles for Hayes, including the July 2004 Top Three hit “Popular,” the first release from his synthesizer-heavy second album The Tension & the Spark, issued three months later. Although overseas chart impact proved modest, the LP reached the Australian Top Ten and number 13 in the U.K. The concert video A Big Night in with Darren Hayes documented his Sydney Opera House performance on the ensuing tour.
After departing Columbia, Hayes joined Powdered Sugar for the August 2007 double album This Delicate Thing We’ve Made, a theatrical, less radio-oriented project tracked with Justin Shave (the Shapeshifters, Superchumbo). It still entered the Top 20 in Australia and the U.K. Prior to further solo material, he recorded a pop album with producer/songwriter/singer Robert Conley under the name We Are Smug, released May 2009. He also supplied a cover of Tim Finn’s “Not Even Close” to the Top Five 2010 tribute album He Will Have His Way: The Songs of Tim & Neil Finn. His eclectic yet pop-centric fourth solo album, Secret Codes & Battleships, emerged in October 2011 on Mercury Records in Australia and EMI in the U.K., reflecting work with more than half a dozen producers. It again performed strongly in Australia and the U.K., peaking at number ten and number 29 respectively.
Despite that success, Hayes stepped away from music to pursue stand-up comedy. Over subsequent years he trained at the renowned L.A. improv school The Groundlings and occasionally shared vocal performances with fans via social media. No new recordings appeared until his featured turn on Cub Sport’s “I Never Cried So Much in My Whole Life” in late 2019.
Hayes’ first solo single in ten years, the buoyant, self-produced dance-pop track “Let’s Try Being in Love,” surfaced in January 2022 and appeared on the full-length Homosexual, a personal collection dominated by buoyant dance-pop that examined his adolescent experiences and accumulated insights. Still reflective in his fifties, he devoted an early 2023 world tour to the 25th anniversary of Savage Garden’s debut album, blending its songs with solo material and renditions of select influences.
Albums
All You Pretty Things
2022
Homosexual
2022
Poison Blood
2022
Do You Remember?
2022
Let's Try Being In Love
2022
Secret Codes and Battleships
2011
Black Out the Sun
2011
Talk Talk Talk
2011
Wrecking Ball
2011
Bloodstained Heart
2010
Me Myself And (i)
2007
This Delicate Thing We've Made (Deluxe)
2007
This Delicate Thing We've Made
2007
On the Verge of Something Wonderful
2007
The Tension And The Spark
2004
Spin
2002
Singles
