Reported by AAA - Wednesday, November 9 2005
Together, they were one of the most successful Australian artists ever selling over 23 million albums, 15 million singles, and have number one hits in 51 countries... we're talking about Savage Garden!
In an article posted in this week's Music Network, manager John Woodruff spilled the beans - the entire TRUE story of the duo's split which, by media reports, was a lot more dramatic than it really was.
On the eve of the band's world-wide Greatest Hits album, 'Truly, Madly, Completely: The Best of Savage Garden', Woodruff explains why in fact two new Darren Hayes tracks features on the album rather than two Savage Garden tracks.
Before we get in to the explanation, we should point out that Savage Garden are still very much in demand with their Greatest Hits album already close to shipping platinum status (70,000 copies) in Australia and over 750,000 throughout the rest of the world!
In the article, Woodruff reveals:
"At the conclusion of the recording of Savage Garden's second album, 'Affirmation', Daniel, having considered everything carefully, which he has always done, started saying to both myself and Darren that he was really having problems with some parts of the actual business of being a star."
"He found a lot of the attitudes around the music business on the whole false. More than that he didn't feel quite right about the adulation afforded to him by some of the fan base, having never actually met most of them in person. At the same time he pointed out that the business had been more than kind to him, as had the fans, and further that he loved writing and producing the music, but being on the road was becoming a pain in the ar*e. In particular Daniel made it clear that he was not at all comfortable doing press and TV interviews. In short he was considering calling it a day and simply writing, recording and producing music."
On the other hand Darren who was, quite rightly, enormously excited by the way the album had turned out, felt that the two of them had much further to go, and asked him to stay, at least until they had finished the tour on "Affirmation". In fact Darren even offered to do most of the press on his own, whilst for obvious reasons Daniel would have to keep performing live and on TV. This should not be interpreted as laying blame or otherwise at any one individual's feet, it was simply both guys being, as they had always been, completely honest with each other about how they felt.
"After almost a year of trying to explain to the media where the other half of the duo was, etc., the explanation of illness or incapacity became a little thin. The label was starting to wonder if all was well and Darren was starting to push, although at that stage rather nervously, towards his own post-Savage Garden solo career. For contractual reasons all three of us agreed, perhaps for three different reasons, that we would not announce that Savage Garden had actually gone their seperate ways until it was a "given"."
"When Darren finished his first solo album, he was enormously excited about the result, as were we both. In his haste to play it to a 'friend' in the media, and convince him that he was serious about his own solo career, Darren confided that in fact he and Daniel had 'broken up'. I hasten to point out that it was and still is typical of Darren's attractive personality that he was naive enough to believe that you could ever confide in a 'friend from the media'. Naturally the individual involved couldn't wait to get out of the studio in San Francisco and get it on the wire back to Australia. Equally naturally, when confronted by a TV crew at his front door at 7am that morning and having been given no warning whatsoever about the 'confidential' discussion, Daniel, as agreed, denied all knowledge of the break-up. The media took up the chase and it seems it is still on."
"Sony have for some years been pushing to release a Greatest Hits album. Bearing in mind the amazing success of the two albums and associated singles you can hardly blame them! It has always been a fact that a new song on a compilation such as this makes a tremendous difference to the marketing and consequent sales. I therefore pushed both the guys to get back togeteher to write and perform new tracks for the album. For a while both of them could see the logic in doing this. Darren invited Daniel to his studio in London but given Daniel's workload and his imminent marriage he found that impossible to put together."
"As it turned out, Darren had a short opportunity to come to Australia and there was a limited chance for them to collaborate in Daniel's studio on the old home town. After considering this idea for a while, Daniel decided not to go ahead on this basis as he felt the time allocated was too short and that in order to get the best out of the two of them together they would need to write enough songs for another album - based on the logic that that is what it took in the past to come up with the one or two gems. One more time his reasoning was difficult to fault."
"As Darren was writing frantically for his new solo album at the time, and several of the new songs were some what similar to the style of Savage Garden, plus the decision by the US arm of SonyBMGG that they were going ahead with the release with or without new tracks, it was decided that the new tracks on the compilation record were to be Darren tracks. Initially it was though that they may be titled as Savage Garden featuring Darren Hayes, but again both guys insisted on 'going back to the truth'."
"Truly, Madly, Completely: The Best Of Savage Garden" is instores on November 20.
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