Full Article Text
For years, the lead singer of the band
wasn't;ust in the closel, he was in
internationa I pop sta r is rerna rried
and staging his musical comebackGarden
w theSavage
0N
ffiral
;tffin
riffierlffi
fidl'
lmost everyone seems to have
known pop star Darren
Hayes was gay before he did.
"It's weird, because I can say
to you that at the age of 11, I
was [thinking], Dear God, please don't
mahe me gay," says Hayes. "But those
words never came out of my mouth. And
if they didn't come out of my rnouth, they
weren't real."
What was real was a lifetime of self-
denial. Hayes left that scared little boy be-
hind, married his best friend, became one
half of the massiveh successfirl Australian
duo Savage Garden, enjoyed hit records
and sold-out shows, and thi:n-and only
then-finally admitted that his lifelong at-
traction to men and intense crushes actual-
lymeant something.
Hayes turns 35 on May 8, celebrates the
first anniversary of his marriage to anima-
tor and director Richard Cullen on June
19, and releases his third solo album, Tftzs
Delicate Thing We'ue Made, in August on
Powdered Sugar, his own independent
record label.
The 25-track double CD set, inspired in
part by Kate Buslfs masterpiece Hounds of
Loue, dives into his childhood, teen years,
struggles with his sexuality, loneliness,and the joys of making a real relationship
work. In other words, lthas dadgy written
all over it.
Despite a relatively mild media profiIe,
Savage Garden was once rnore than legit,
selling over 23 million albums around the
world in the late 1990s, thanks primarily
to two monster hits that Hayes affection-
ately calls 'kedding songs."
"Truly Madly Deeply" and "I Knew I
Loved You" spent a combined 247 weeks
on the adult contemporary charts. "I
Knev/'topped the AC charbs for 17 weeks;
each song set a record for its length oftime
on the charts.
Chuck Taylor, a senior correspondent
for Billboard, and a longtime Hayes sup-
porter, says the time is ripe for a comeback.
"I think his voice is so recognizable, and
those hvo songs. ..for two years they didn't
Ieave the airwaves," says Taylor.
Like Carole I{tngls Tapestry and David
Gta5/s White La.d.tlcr, This Delicate Thing
We'ue Made has the feel of something made
for the sheer love of it, without any consid-
eration for radio play or fitting into formats
or pleasing a major label. And the result is
music thats stirringly universal and joyftl,
even if the memories they stir up for Hayes
are sometimes sad."I remember the first person who called
me gay in Australia," says Hayes, sitting
on a couch in his living room with his dog
Waldo at his feet. "I would have been 11
and these h,rro new boys came to school and
one of them just didn't like me. The other
kid's name was Steven, and I had a mas-
sive crush on him and Steven thought I
was the bee's knees, and the other guy just
thought, Can't you see he's a faggot? Of
course, I had no idea. I thought everyone
wanted to be Wonder Woman."
So even though his family wasn't
religious, Hayes prayed to God that he
wouldn't turn out to be gay and then
locked all those thoughts away.
"First of all, it took me a long time to
even accept that I was gay," says Hayes.
"And then it took me a long time to be
happy that I was gay. There were two
phases-a whole phase of denial, just
thinking, fm sure that euerybody thought
Dirk Benedi.ct was attrartiue.
'tsut that was as a child. I literally filed
that into the back of my mind as something
you don't talk about. And because I'm an
emotional person and because I'm a romal-
tic, I really did fall in love with girls."
One girl in particular-Colby Taylor,
who became Hayes's wife-circled an )
THE ADVOCATE advocate.com April 24, 2OO7 | qt
ad for a band looking for a lead singer.
And that led to Daniel Jones, the other
principal of Savage Garden.
The cover band they initially pedormed
in broke up, leading the two to form their
own duo, named a{ter a passage I}om Anne
Rice's novel The Vampire Lestat. In 1997,
Hayes married Colby, and Savage Gar-
den's first single, "I Want You," hit the
charts, becoming the best-selling single in
Australia that year and a top 5 U.S. hit.
It was then that Leonie Messer-
Hayes's publicist and/or manager for
about a decade and still his best foiend-
asked the question Hayes had refused to
ask himself.
"She sat me down in her office and she
said, 'Are you gay?' I was like, 'Are you
gay? I'r:-r marriedl'She said, 'Are you gay?'
I said, 'OK, first of all, I'm offended by that
accusation. But what makes you say that?'
"She said, 'Because every time [a certain
employeel walks into the room, you blush.'
And I had the most massive crush on this
man. It was extreme It was so Sybil in
that I had literally compartmentalized, my
sexuality, all right? My secret feelings for
men were in this drawer in my head. And I
never shared them with anybody. Includ-
ing myself. I'd never touched a boy. I'd
never kissed a boy. I d nevet satd. arrything.
I'rn 23,24 years of age. We're successful,
number l's in America, and I'm now travel-
ing around the world, and these crushes on
men are getting more and more intense,"
says Hayes.
Daniel Jones-"one of the straightest
guys you'll ever meet," Hayes says-cven
opened the door. "I remember Daniel giv-
ing me that wonderfirl permission conver-
sation. You know, 'If you were gay, that
would be OIi"'
So Hayes told his wife and family he
was struggling with this, and they went to
a Christian counselor (sessions were free
and anon5,'rnous) for a year. Keep in mind,
this is the same time Savage Garden is in
the midst of becoming one of the most suc-
cessfi;l bands in the world Finallv. Haves
took a different step.
'We agreed to separate," he says. "The
idea was 'Go to New York and see if you
can be gay.' [Colby'sl reasoning at the
time was 'I don't think you are, but I love
you, and you need to do this.' So it was
awful. It's like that moment in a bad rela-
tionship mowie where they take a break,
and you know breaks always mean the
end. But I think both of us hoped,
thought, we'll be together. I was justabout to come home when I met someone
and I had a relationship. I remember call-
ing her up and saying, 'I think I'm gay.'
And that was the end."
Or, rather, the beginning. Hayes's first
bo5.friend was sweet and beautifirl. 'tsut it
was never going to work," Hayes says. "I
was ruming away llom Australia, fame, a
marriage, all that stuff. But it was beauti
fi.rl. It was such a caring, sweet, and great
way to be gay. I sort of had a crash course
in it, really."
He came out to Jones in 1997 and his
other bandmates in 1998. "When I came
out, I came out to everybody I knew. I re-
member running down [the aisle ofl a
Boeing 747 telling the whole band, 'Guess
what? I'm gay. I'm gay! I'm gay!"'
Hayes never worried about being recog-
nized when hitting the bars or going out on
dates. He never got burned publicly, even
though he was dating men in New York
and later in San Francisco.
"I was throwing myself at the wrong
men," he says. "I dated a succession of
men who were my father. I just dated
these emotionally abusive, overpowering.
gruff rnen who took care of me from a
parental sense, in a stern kind of sense,
but were not emotional. were never
demonstrative."
For reasons they rarely discuss, Savage
Garden broke up a-fter two albums. Hayes's
marriage was over, his love life was lack-
luster, and his frrst solo album-2002's
Spln-made little impression.
In 2004 he dove into darker waters with
The Tension and the Spark, a quiet, sad
record that obliquely tackled his stmggles
with being gay as well as a childhood over-
shadowed by his fathels physical abuse of
his mother. Hayes's brother, Peter, like his
father, is still hurt that the singer went
public with these revelations.
Hayes insists that by this poirt every-
one at his record label, Columbia, knew he
was gay and it was never a problem.
'You hear these horror stories, but they
were actually really beautiful to me," he
says. 'TVhen I came out, Donny lthen-label
head Don Iennerl just changed ilom shak-
ing my hand to kissing me on the cheek
when he met me."
At the time, Hayes wasn't completely
comfortable with being gay, and he was
also coming out about his painful child-
hood. "I believe Darren had a lot of
demons at work," says Billboard's Taylor,
"from his childhood all the way through
the time he became a public figure. I thinkcoming out was the least of his concerns.
He had to make peace with a lot of issues
inside himseif."
Yet dealing with his sexuality wasn't
about to take a backseat.
Hayes was promoting The Tension and
the Spark on a TV show in the United
Kingdom called Popworld, known for
bringing on celebrities and treating them
rudely. "It's like Perez Hilton on TV,"
Hayes explains.
"So this guy on camera says, 'So you're
obviously gay; why didn't you ever come
out?"'Hayes says. "The cameras are
rolling. I just went, 'Oh, you want to talk
about my sex life? I'm really happy to talk
about my sex life. I'm more of a top. And I
really, really like the missionary position.
In fact, would you like rne to show you how
I fuck?' I was so aggressive. I was like
Madonna on Dauid Letterman when she
was swearing. The producers were like,
'Cutl Cut! Cutl' I just sat there really defi-
antly. Everyone said, TVe're really, really
sorry.' I was icy; I was just icy.
'When the interwiew [was over] I just
said to the journalist, who was an openly
gay man [cohost Simon Amstell], 'That was
really uncool Everybody who knows me
knows that I'm gay If,s no secret that I'm
gay. I just don't promote it in my work.
And that was really fucking uncool.'
"And I got up and I left. I got into the
[car] and I slumped down into my seat and
I just.. .broke down. That was the moment
where I just thorghL, OK, this is a problem
now. This has become a problem. And I felt
so powerless. And I thought, I haue noth-
ing to be ashamed of, It was at that point
that I went, I'm going to come out. I need
to come out."
And Hayes did fually come out officially
Iast July, quietly, modestly, on his Web
site, telling his fans that he had married
his boStrriend oftwo years alter entering a
civil partnership, the marriage-like union
for gay couples in the United Kingdom.
'We got married in this back garden,"
says Hayes. "It was a constmction site at
the time. We were in a circle holding
hands and I was holding Richard's hand
and my mom was there and my sister was
there and it was so lovely. I can't stress
how important it is to my view of liking
myself to be able to be legitimized. You
can say it's just a bit of paper, but its so
much more than that. To be able to stand
up in Ilont of your community, the people
that you respect and love, and become
valid in society's eyes, it is like this safety
I April 24,2007 aov0cate.c0m THE ADVOCATE
net in your relationship. Thank God I fell
in love with a Brit and I'm in a country
where I can be respected "
Now his music is poised to receive more
respect than ever before too One song on
This Delicate Thing We'ue Mad.e has aI-
ready been released to clubs under a pseu-
donym Hayes has been performing tiny,
intimate club dates around the world to
reach out to his fan base and sow excite-
ment for the new album. Cullen and oth-
ers are working on a dozen or so animated
shorts that will serwe as music videos and
be spread via the Web. Hayes will license
the music to films and TV and even
ads-any way to get the music out.
He's proud he waited to come out when
he was happy about it and not in the midst
ofpromoting a book or CD or other project.
"In a lot of ways, there was a feeling
that I didn't feel authentic," says Hayes.
'"There was this adoration that I received,
but there was always this trapdoor under-
neath it where I would think, Would. these
people loue me euen, evet if I was gay?
Which is a really horrible thing to think
about yourself-to feel that you're fraudu-
Ient. Even though I never lied about it.
And I'm so, so glad that I didn't."
Going pubiic with his sexuality when he
was "unsuccessful in gay relationships"
was admittedly unappealing, says Hayes:
"Hey, watch me fail at love! Please docu-
ment thisl" Now he's ready to document
the happiest stage of his life.
'You know what I'm really proud ofl
There's not just sadness lon this album].
There's joy, like the song 'Casey,' for exam-
ple. It's about my sister. There's a line
where I say, 'She's coming to get me, she's
coming to rescue me.' That was the rela-
tionship that I had with her."
As for the track "How to Build a Time
Machine," Hayes says, "It's just a tool for
me to say, if I could go back, I would bring
some joy forward. I lost a bit of that for a
while there in my life. I think Richard
helped me frnd that again. The idea of
waking up and being excited about your
day? I haven't felt that for so long
"It s as simple as having one part of my
life solid. If this record doesn't work, I will
surwive. I have a life and it's OI( Talking
about your childhood and being gay, it s re-
ally hard to do ifthe only person you have
to console yourselfis yourself." I
Giltz is a regular contributor to seueral
periodicals, including the New Yorh
Dailv News
April 24,2OO7 | qZ
wasn't;ust in the closel, he was in
internationa I pop sta r is rerna rried
and staging his musical comebackGarden
w theSavage
0N
ffiral
;tffin
riffierlffi
fidl'
lmost everyone seems to have
known pop star Darren
Hayes was gay before he did.
"It's weird, because I can say
to you that at the age of 11, I
was [thinking], Dear God, please don't
mahe me gay," says Hayes. "But those
words never came out of my mouth. And
if they didn't come out of my rnouth, they
weren't real."
What was real was a lifetime of self-
denial. Hayes left that scared little boy be-
hind, married his best friend, became one
half of the massiveh successfirl Australian
duo Savage Garden, enjoyed hit records
and sold-out shows, and thi:n-and only
then-finally admitted that his lifelong at-
traction to men and intense crushes actual-
lymeant something.
Hayes turns 35 on May 8, celebrates the
first anniversary of his marriage to anima-
tor and director Richard Cullen on June
19, and releases his third solo album, Tftzs
Delicate Thing We'ue Made, in August on
Powdered Sugar, his own independent
record label.
The 25-track double CD set, inspired in
part by Kate Buslfs masterpiece Hounds of
Loue, dives into his childhood, teen years,
struggles with his sexuality, loneliness,and the joys of making a real relationship
work. In other words, lthas dadgy written
all over it.
Despite a relatively mild media profiIe,
Savage Garden was once rnore than legit,
selling over 23 million albums around the
world in the late 1990s, thanks primarily
to two monster hits that Hayes affection-
ately calls 'kedding songs."
"Truly Madly Deeply" and "I Knew I
Loved You" spent a combined 247 weeks
on the adult contemporary charts. "I
Knev/'topped the AC charbs for 17 weeks;
each song set a record for its length oftime
on the charts.
Chuck Taylor, a senior correspondent
for Billboard, and a longtime Hayes sup-
porter, says the time is ripe for a comeback.
"I think his voice is so recognizable, and
those hvo songs. ..for two years they didn't
Ieave the airwaves," says Taylor.
Like Carole I{tngls Tapestry and David
Gta5/s White La.d.tlcr, This Delicate Thing
We'ue Made has the feel of something made
for the sheer love of it, without any consid-
eration for radio play or fitting into formats
or pleasing a major label. And the result is
music thats stirringly universal and joyftl,
even if the memories they stir up for Hayes
are sometimes sad."I remember the first person who called
me gay in Australia," says Hayes, sitting
on a couch in his living room with his dog
Waldo at his feet. "I would have been 11
and these h,rro new boys came to school and
one of them just didn't like me. The other
kid's name was Steven, and I had a mas-
sive crush on him and Steven thought I
was the bee's knees, and the other guy just
thought, Can't you see he's a faggot? Of
course, I had no idea. I thought everyone
wanted to be Wonder Woman."
So even though his family wasn't
religious, Hayes prayed to God that he
wouldn't turn out to be gay and then
locked all those thoughts away.
"First of all, it took me a long time to
even accept that I was gay," says Hayes.
"And then it took me a long time to be
happy that I was gay. There were two
phases-a whole phase of denial, just
thinking, fm sure that euerybody thought
Dirk Benedi.ct was attrartiue.
'tsut that was as a child. I literally filed
that into the back of my mind as something
you don't talk about. And because I'm an
emotional person and because I'm a romal-
tic, I really did fall in love with girls."
One girl in particular-Colby Taylor,
who became Hayes's wife-circled an )
THE ADVOCATE advocate.com April 24, 2OO7 | qt
ad for a band looking for a lead singer.
And that led to Daniel Jones, the other
principal of Savage Garden.
The cover band they initially pedormed
in broke up, leading the two to form their
own duo, named a{ter a passage I}om Anne
Rice's novel The Vampire Lestat. In 1997,
Hayes married Colby, and Savage Gar-
den's first single, "I Want You," hit the
charts, becoming the best-selling single in
Australia that year and a top 5 U.S. hit.
It was then that Leonie Messer-
Hayes's publicist and/or manager for
about a decade and still his best foiend-
asked the question Hayes had refused to
ask himself.
"She sat me down in her office and she
said, 'Are you gay?' I was like, 'Are you
gay? I'r:-r marriedl'She said, 'Are you gay?'
I said, 'OK, first of all, I'm offended by that
accusation. But what makes you say that?'
"She said, 'Because every time [a certain
employeel walks into the room, you blush.'
And I had the most massive crush on this
man. It was extreme It was so Sybil in
that I had literally compartmentalized, my
sexuality, all right? My secret feelings for
men were in this drawer in my head. And I
never shared them with anybody. Includ-
ing myself. I'd never touched a boy. I'd
never kissed a boy. I d nevet satd. arrything.
I'rn 23,24 years of age. We're successful,
number l's in America, and I'm now travel-
ing around the world, and these crushes on
men are getting more and more intense,"
says Hayes.
Daniel Jones-"one of the straightest
guys you'll ever meet," Hayes says-cven
opened the door. "I remember Daniel giv-
ing me that wonderfirl permission conver-
sation. You know, 'If you were gay, that
would be OIi"'
So Hayes told his wife and family he
was struggling with this, and they went to
a Christian counselor (sessions were free
and anon5,'rnous) for a year. Keep in mind,
this is the same time Savage Garden is in
the midst of becoming one of the most suc-
cessfi;l bands in the world Finallv. Haves
took a different step.
'We agreed to separate," he says. "The
idea was 'Go to New York and see if you
can be gay.' [Colby'sl reasoning at the
time was 'I don't think you are, but I love
you, and you need to do this.' So it was
awful. It's like that moment in a bad rela-
tionship mowie where they take a break,
and you know breaks always mean the
end. But I think both of us hoped,
thought, we'll be together. I was justabout to come home when I met someone
and I had a relationship. I remember call-
ing her up and saying, 'I think I'm gay.'
And that was the end."
Or, rather, the beginning. Hayes's first
bo5.friend was sweet and beautifirl. 'tsut it
was never going to work," Hayes says. "I
was ruming away llom Australia, fame, a
marriage, all that stuff. But it was beauti
fi.rl. It was such a caring, sweet, and great
way to be gay. I sort of had a crash course
in it, really."
He came out to Jones in 1997 and his
other bandmates in 1998. "When I came
out, I came out to everybody I knew. I re-
member running down [the aisle ofl a
Boeing 747 telling the whole band, 'Guess
what? I'm gay. I'm gay! I'm gay!"'
Hayes never worried about being recog-
nized when hitting the bars or going out on
dates. He never got burned publicly, even
though he was dating men in New York
and later in San Francisco.
"I was throwing myself at the wrong
men," he says. "I dated a succession of
men who were my father. I just dated
these emotionally abusive, overpowering.
gruff rnen who took care of me from a
parental sense, in a stern kind of sense,
but were not emotional. were never
demonstrative."
For reasons they rarely discuss, Savage
Garden broke up a-fter two albums. Hayes's
marriage was over, his love life was lack-
luster, and his frrst solo album-2002's
Spln-made little impression.
In 2004 he dove into darker waters with
The Tension and the Spark, a quiet, sad
record that obliquely tackled his stmggles
with being gay as well as a childhood over-
shadowed by his fathels physical abuse of
his mother. Hayes's brother, Peter, like his
father, is still hurt that the singer went
public with these revelations.
Hayes insists that by this poirt every-
one at his record label, Columbia, knew he
was gay and it was never a problem.
'You hear these horror stories, but they
were actually really beautiful to me," he
says. 'TVhen I came out, Donny lthen-label
head Don Iennerl just changed ilom shak-
ing my hand to kissing me on the cheek
when he met me."
At the time, Hayes wasn't completely
comfortable with being gay, and he was
also coming out about his painful child-
hood. "I believe Darren had a lot of
demons at work," says Billboard's Taylor,
"from his childhood all the way through
the time he became a public figure. I thinkcoming out was the least of his concerns.
He had to make peace with a lot of issues
inside himseif."
Yet dealing with his sexuality wasn't
about to take a backseat.
Hayes was promoting The Tension and
the Spark on a TV show in the United
Kingdom called Popworld, known for
bringing on celebrities and treating them
rudely. "It's like Perez Hilton on TV,"
Hayes explains.
"So this guy on camera says, 'So you're
obviously gay; why didn't you ever come
out?"'Hayes says. "The cameras are
rolling. I just went, 'Oh, you want to talk
about my sex life? I'm really happy to talk
about my sex life. I'm more of a top. And I
really, really like the missionary position.
In fact, would you like rne to show you how
I fuck?' I was so aggressive. I was like
Madonna on Dauid Letterman when she
was swearing. The producers were like,
'Cutl Cut! Cutl' I just sat there really defi-
antly. Everyone said, TVe're really, really
sorry.' I was icy; I was just icy.
'When the interwiew [was over] I just
said to the journalist, who was an openly
gay man [cohost Simon Amstell], 'That was
really uncool Everybody who knows me
knows that I'm gay If,s no secret that I'm
gay. I just don't promote it in my work.
And that was really fucking uncool.'
"And I got up and I left. I got into the
[car] and I slumped down into my seat and
I just.. .broke down. That was the moment
where I just thorghL, OK, this is a problem
now. This has become a problem. And I felt
so powerless. And I thought, I haue noth-
ing to be ashamed of, It was at that point
that I went, I'm going to come out. I need
to come out."
And Hayes did fually come out officially
Iast July, quietly, modestly, on his Web
site, telling his fans that he had married
his boStrriend oftwo years alter entering a
civil partnership, the marriage-like union
for gay couples in the United Kingdom.
'We got married in this back garden,"
says Hayes. "It was a constmction site at
the time. We were in a circle holding
hands and I was holding Richard's hand
and my mom was there and my sister was
there and it was so lovely. I can't stress
how important it is to my view of liking
myself to be able to be legitimized. You
can say it's just a bit of paper, but its so
much more than that. To be able to stand
up in Ilont of your community, the people
that you respect and love, and become
valid in society's eyes, it is like this safety
I April 24,2007 aov0cate.c0m THE ADVOCATE
net in your relationship. Thank God I fell
in love with a Brit and I'm in a country
where I can be respected "
Now his music is poised to receive more
respect than ever before too One song on
This Delicate Thing We'ue Mad.e has aI-
ready been released to clubs under a pseu-
donym Hayes has been performing tiny,
intimate club dates around the world to
reach out to his fan base and sow excite-
ment for the new album. Cullen and oth-
ers are working on a dozen or so animated
shorts that will serwe as music videos and
be spread via the Web. Hayes will license
the music to films and TV and even
ads-any way to get the music out.
He's proud he waited to come out when
he was happy about it and not in the midst
ofpromoting a book or CD or other project.
"In a lot of ways, there was a feeling
that I didn't feel authentic," says Hayes.
'"There was this adoration that I received,
but there was always this trapdoor under-
neath it where I would think, Would. these
people loue me euen, evet if I was gay?
Which is a really horrible thing to think
about yourself-to feel that you're fraudu-
Ient. Even though I never lied about it.
And I'm so, so glad that I didn't."
Going pubiic with his sexuality when he
was "unsuccessful in gay relationships"
was admittedly unappealing, says Hayes:
"Hey, watch me fail at love! Please docu-
ment thisl" Now he's ready to document
the happiest stage of his life.
'You know what I'm really proud ofl
There's not just sadness lon this album].
There's joy, like the song 'Casey,' for exam-
ple. It's about my sister. There's a line
where I say, 'She's coming to get me, she's
coming to rescue me.' That was the rela-
tionship that I had with her."
As for the track "How to Build a Time
Machine," Hayes says, "It's just a tool for
me to say, if I could go back, I would bring
some joy forward. I lost a bit of that for a
while there in my life. I think Richard
helped me frnd that again. The idea of
waking up and being excited about your
day? I haven't felt that for so long
"It s as simple as having one part of my
life solid. If this record doesn't work, I will
surwive. I have a life and it's OI( Talking
about your childhood and being gay, it s re-
ally hard to do ifthe only person you have
to console yourselfis yourself." I
Giltz is a regular contributor to seueral
periodicals, including the New Yorh
Dailv News
April 24,2OO7 | qZ