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GAYWIRED.COM DARREN HAYES INTERVIEW |
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Gaywired.com has a fantastic interview with Darren Hayes talking about The Time Machine Tour DVD, artistc freedom, coming out and much more!! Click on read more to check out the interview in full or visit our forum HERE .
http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?Section=67&ID=19695
Big Gay Deal: Darren Hayes
By Duane Wells | Article Date: 7/24/2008 12:30 AM
As half of the multi-platinum duo Savage Garden, Darren Hayes rose to international fame in the late '90s singing the kind of sweet, melodious pop music that Top 40 audiences crave. After recording only two albums in fairly quick succession, Savage Garden had sold over 23 million records. It was a heady helping of success that would become both a blessing and a curse for Hayes, who soon found himself a prisoner of both fame and his own internal struggle to be loved and accepted for who he really was.
Flash forward to a decade later and Darren Hayes is now in a completely different, far more serene place. Not only has he gone solo as an artist, he has also broken with his record label and independently released his latest double CD, This Delicate Thing We’ve Made. Perhaps most important of all, Hayes has come out, come to terms with himself and his past and found a love that he could once scarcely imagine.
His just released DVD captures his elaborate 2007 – 2008 Time Machine Tour as seen by sold out audiences across the UK and Australia. Designed by legendary U2 and Rolling Stones’ designer Willie Williams and featuring a combination of costume designs stitched by a team from the Royal Shakespeare Company and setas constructed by companies that have worked with U2 and George Michael, Hayes Time Machine Tour was hailed by the Manchester Evening News as a "theatrical extravaganza." The Guardian even went so far as to characterize the show as, "a joyous mix of pop, rock and electronica, delivered with verve and enthusiasm."
During a phone chat from his home in London, Darren opened up to GayWired.com about going solo, putting together his daring new DVD, finding love, taking chances and life on the other side of the closet door.
GayWired.com: You experienced a major career benchmark when you played the iconic Sydney Opera House and released a DVD entitled A Big Night In with Darren Hayes in 2006. Now you’re releasing this new DVD, This Delicate Film We’ve Made, from your sold out Time Machine Tour, which you’ve described as ‘your dream come true.’ When did you first dream up the idea for this project and tour?
Darren Hayes: This show is really interesting because it began with an album cover which was a picture of an origami bird. The title and the album cover came before any of the music. It was always called This Delicate Thing We’ve Made.
Initially it was just a metaphor for a relationship… how a relationship is a series of events in a life and [how] if you unfold them all, you can see the scars and the creases and the things that make you who you are. This was an idea that went into the making of the album and during the making of the album it started to become this theatrical concept that this bird was a time machine and I was going to tell a story about myself… about revisiting my childhood, revisiting the pain, making peace with it and that kind of thing.
That intrigued Willie Williams, the show designer. Willie usually works with U2 and The Rolling Stones and does these massive, massive productions but I guess it was one of those great moments where he was looking for something simple and quiet and designed and theatrical. He had a copy of the album for a good six months before it came out. So I guess it was gestating for a long, long time and it was just one of those perfect situations creatively where everybody basically got to do what they were really wanting to do.
GW: Obviously you have a tremendous investment in the joint notions of spectacle and theatricality, which can be seen throughout so much of your work. What inspires that? Where does it come from?
DH: Well I’m 36 now and I was a child of the '80s, as many people were. I love glamour and I love mystery. I like my movie stars to be movie stars and I like to know that there’s a curtain… but I don’t want to see what’s behind it. It’s an old Hollywood sort of approach to performing and a real respect for the stage.
As I’ve gotten older, a few things have come into place. Willie Williams is a mentor to me. He’s someone who has taught me so much. He sees something in me that, for whatever reason, he has decided to encourage and to nurture. So there’s that relationship and then there’s also my marriage.
My partner is an ex-theatre director and a film maker and an animator. So there’s always a lot of talk about spectacle and theater and about theatricality in my life anyway.
GW: Since breaking with your record label a few years back and going it on your own, you seem to be exploding creatively. Tell me about this obvious new sense of freedom you’re experiencing and how it’s affected your artistry.
DH: I think in a lot of ways it is a sense of rebellion because whenever you’re set free of anything, you always want to do the things you haven’t been able to do.
For me, I’m very aware of the fact that Savage Garden was sort of a pop accident… a wonderful accident… a band that somehow managed to find millions and millions of people and an audience at one small window in time. That small window changed my life. It sold millions and millions of records and it gave me an opportunity, but it also made me into a bit of a cash cow. I think I found that depressing.
When you sell 25 million records, you become everybody’s bonus at the record company and they expect you to always be the same. I think that’s what you’re noticing now… that I’m allowed to do what I want to do. It’s a reaction to that freedom and also to the depression in the music industry.
I think at the moment, everybody is so doom and gloom about how records don’t sell. The reality is that we love music more than we ever have and I didn’t want to take that out on my audience. So I thought if I can’t afford to do this, then there’s something wrong. I’ve gotten so much out of the music business and this is something that I wanted to do before I left the planet, so I did it.
GW: Is that why you put so much of your own money into this project against the advice of the people you refer to as ‘the suits’?
DH: Precisely. At the end of the day, I never came from money. We were poor [growing up]. I never expected to earn the money that I earned in my career and I’m really proud that I feel like a bit of a patron. I have moments where I feel that I employ a lot of extremely talented people.
I may not always do this [Laughs], but this particular project for me was a privilege. I had the resources to make something like this and I don’t need to do this again. I can tell you right now that the next thing I do will be very quiet and simple and organic because I move in movements. I have different reactions to the world and what’s happening in pop culture and politics. For me, this [DVD] was what I needed to do at that point in time and, because I could afford to, I did it.
GW: So is this DVD part of the mark you hope to leave on music when all is said and done? Is it the piece of your musical legacy that best expresses who you are as an artist?
DH: Well, I always think that I’m not good enough and I will always think that I’m trying to make more things because I’m trying to be better. I would never be so arrogant as to think that what I do is immortal, but I am trying to be behind something that is relevant, for sure.
I would love to think that at the end of my life there might be one song that was perfect. And knowing that in 50 years time someone could look back on my life and say, ‘Wow, that song was perfect.’ That’s why I push.
I think a lot of this album was about nostalgia. For me, it was about looking back at my family and my childhood and instead of criticizing the way that I grew up, or the sadness, or the violence or any of those things, I was trying to find these little glimmers of good and put them in a time capsule.
GW: Speaking of time capsules, when you began your career, you weren’t out. Now you are. Do you think being out has affected what’s happened with your career?
DH: Definitely. Positively and negatively. The positives are obvious. I’m more comfortable in my skin. I’m uninhibited. I’m sure on a deep subconscious level I also feel validated now… I feel authentic.
I think the negatives are the negatives that anybody who is categorized feels. I think your sexuality becomes a precursor to your name. Someone said to me in an interview once that I made gay music and I was just thinking, ‘What is that?’
I don’t think of myself as a gay musician or a straight musician or a white musician… I just think of myself as a songwriter and recording artist. I want to make music that everyone can relate to. I think the fact that I’m gay is important in so much as it’s shaped my journey in life and there’s certainly been a lot of pain in my life associated with coming to terms with who I was and really accepting who I was.
When you come out in the mainstream, it’s a little patronizing. But all worth it. At the end of the day, I love that I’m finally in a great place in my life where I accept myself and I can be loving and I can be in a loving relationship. And I’m proud that my success, my happiness, my marriage—that these are things that are examples of how you can be gay and happy. When I was growing up, this wasn’t even an option. I couldn’t imagine being in a relationship with a man because I didn’t see any. So in that respect I’m proud to be a positive example of that.
GW: So I take it from that answer that if you had to do it all over again, you’d still choose to come out?
DH: I came out per se, when I was comfortable with myself. It was never a career decision for me. I never wanted to use my story or my sexuality to sell records. And I certainly never wanted to be openly gay and miserable, which I was for most of the '90s. I was a fumbling, bumbling, terrible gay dater. I had no idea what I was doing. I was like a teenage girl… constantly getting my heart broken. I was like a bunny thrown to the wolves, to be the honest.
I would have hated for that to have been reported in the newspapers. I was so lucky that I was never outed and I was never blackmailed and that I never experienced any of that kind of ignorance that comes along with sexuality. But since I’ve come out, I’m just a much happier person. I would never change a thing.
GW: Now that you’ve struck out on your own, found love, put out your double CD, done this dream DVD and tour and so many other things, what hurdle or dream are you looking forward to tackling next?
DH: I’d love to be a dad, to be perfectly honest. The older I get, the more I understand that life is about family. Even if that means we just might get another puppy instead of child some day, I love the idea of family [Laughs].
I love my marriage. I love us sticking together through thick and thin. It’s just three of us at the moment – me, Richard and our dog. It’s such a cool little unit that sometimes I think it would be amazing to be dad. Whether that happen for me or not I’m not sure, but that’s something that I think about a lot.
For more on Darren Hayes, go to DarrenHayes.com
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