With twenty-five songs on a double CD to launch his own record label, Darren Hayes is not one afraid to take risks. As lead singer of Savage Garden, hits like "Truly Madly Deeply," "I Knew I Loved You," and "I Want You" topped charts around the world. After two successful solo albums, Darren broke away from the major label system and is set to release "This Delicate Thing We Made" on his own Powdered Sugar records. With the 80s staple Fairlight CMI synthesizer as his muse, Darren's new music has caused major waves on Myspace with over 60,000 listens in the first 72 hours, and around the world with the video for "On The Verge Of Something Wonderful" most requested on The Box in the UK and "Step Into the Light" climbing the club charts.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: What inspired "This Delicate Thing We've Made" to be a double CD?
Darren Hayes: Probably Kate Bush. I made this record with a
definite knowledge towards the things that made me happy as a kid in
the 80s, and one of them was a record by Prince called Sign "O" The
Times, a double record, and the other was this love of this thing
called a Fairlight, which was a synthesizer that was on a lot of
albums. The most famous one was Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. So that
was kind of this initial muse of 'wouldn't it be amazing to make my
own somewhat conceptual record where there's two acts, there's an act
one and an act two,' and that's what I set out to achieve.
RS: I read that you found the Fairlight on eBay. What about the
Fairlight attracted you so much?
Darren Hayes: Well it was this mystery thing, that I'd read about in
credits on records and I never knew what it was. In some ways it
almost like a relic, or a muse or a time machine, to me. I felt that
of I go back and get this thing that was so much a part of my
happiness and my dreams as a child, what stories can I tell with it.
It might sound cheesy, but I did look at it like that, as this magical
little object, and in some ways I felt like I was getting inside the
head of the people who had used it, like a little bit of their magic
was maybe still inside the circuitry. It became a good tool as a
storyteller to have this object to focus on.
RS: You're a keyboard player already, so how difficult was it to
learn how to play the Fairlight?
Darren Hayes: You know, I'm a really, really average musician and
I'm much more a singer first and foremost. The great thing about
working with Justin Shave, the producer, was that he was really open to
me being hands-on and the Fairlight ended up being the thing that I
did. Every morning I'd go in there and it would take sometimes an
hour to warm the machine up, it would splutter and whirr, and some
days it wouldn't accept the ten-inch disks, it would just spit them
out. Then when it finally did accept them, just loading up one sound
could take half a day. The Fairlight was such a rudimentary sampler
and I sat there with this hundred-and-twenty page book of instructions
printed out off what must have been an IBM computer from the 80s. I
just had to work it out step-by-step, how to make it speak and how to
make it sing.
RS: So what's your songwriting process like, do you start with
the melody, do you start with the track? How do you write songs?
Darren Hayes: I very rarely write songs starting with the lyrics.
Usually it's a melody, either I'm signing it or I've sat down at a
keyboard and I'm just playing a really simple riff. When I co-write
it is usually a reaction to beat - someone comes up with a loop or
some kind of beat or drum sound and it's all about adding textures.
I'll hear that, and suddenly I'll start saying that I think it needs a
synth part or I'll hum melodies or guitar parts and it sort of builds
up from there. Especially on this record, it was all about sound
design and so it was about building up an atmosphere, almost visually,
and then it would tell me what the song was about, then I would write
the lyrics.
RS: Who's your favorite songwriter of all time?
Darren Hayes: Favorite songwriter of all time, it's probably Rod Temperton.
RS: You've mentioned Prince and Kate Bush so far, which 80s
artist would be your dream to work with?
Darren Hayes: Oh gosh, Annie Lennox or Kate Bush probably, those
female voices are so iconic. I think Annie is such an extraordinary
creature really, her voice is so emotive. There are very few
contemporary artists that I really adore at the moment actually,
Imogen Heap is one that I love, but they're few and far between
actually, the people that I adore.
RS: Would Robyn be one of them?
Darren Hayes: Yes, I was just about to mention her but I wasn't sure
if you guys would be aware of her. She's done a collaboration with
the Swiss DJ Kleerup on this song called "With Every Heartbeat," and
I'm obsessed with that song.
RS: In the US, some of the clubs have jumped on the other track
"Konichiwa Bitches." You and Robyn have the label thing in common as
well.
Darren Hayes: Yes. She's amazing because she's done what I'm doing
- she formed her own label, which I think is so cool. She went out
there and made the record all on her own and it's very inspiring. Her
and Imogen definitely inspired me to go out on my own and do this.
