The return of Darren Hayes to music more than a decade since his last album and concerts and 25 years since his first hit with Savage Garden came down to the classic invitation taught to all wannabe improv performers: “Yes, and… ?”
The star turn at this weekend’s Mardi Gras party, Hayes, the biggest pop star Australia has produced since Kylie Minogue, on Tuesday will announce a 2023 national tour, with the prospect of an album to follow the second of his new songs, Do You Remember? And he’s doing it with all the enthusiasm of the 13-year-old Brisbane boy who screamed “I love you, Michael Jackson”, at his first concert, and also the self-love of the 49-year-old who belatedly is comfortable in his own skin.
Darren Hayes has announced a new tour after a lay-off of more than a decade.Credit:Dean Sewell
But it nearly didn’t happen.
“Ten years ago I never thought it would be here. Ten years ago I was done. I had left the stage, on the Secret Codes And Battleships tour in Brighton, and I knew I was leaving [for good],” says Hayes, finding relief from Sydney’s biblical deluge in the upstairs bar of a refurbished downtown hotel.
“I just thought the music industry has changed, that I was sort of a dinosaur. I was someone who made rare, handcrafted wooden goods and everyone was buying electronic … let’s call them NFTs.”
Hayes decided to fade into the background: initially in London and then returning to his former long-term base, Los Angeles, after his husband, theatre director and screenwriter Richard Cullen, sought work there.
Loading
The couple, who had married in the UK in 2005, arrived just as same-sex marriages were legalised in America, so they renewed their vows and set up home. “But I was deeply depressed. I had plans to open up a comic book store, thought that’s what I was going to do,” Hayes smiles. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Cullen suggested he get out of the house, take some improv classes – this was LA after all – which is how he ended up at The Groundlings theatre school, training ground for comic actors like Melissa McCarthy and Paul Reubens, and many stars of Saturday Night Live.
Ten years after quitting, Darren Hayes is back
Source: Philippines Alive
