Natalie: Was that in 1996?

Darren: It would have been 1997. Yeah, just in 1997.

Natalie: I think I was 11 then. Is it something you do overseas though?

Darren: No it's not and the decision to do it here was, it was really actually to do something that people wouldn't expect me to do and to do something that was really casual and to do something at an independent record store rather than a big retailer. In a lot of ways it was kind of in keeping in with the fact that I'm an independent artist this is a pop record on an independent label and let me find an independent retailer and it sort of, following on I think with these tiny little club shows that I've been doing, so it's very much a grass roots thing and you write something that normally you wouldn't do unless you were just begining but I liked it, it was really fun .

Natalie: Oh it was great. As a fan I've never had that sort of access to you to get you to sign some stuff - that was pretty cool.

Darren: Oh cool well I'm glad you liked it. I found the whole experience really touching ad I met so many people actually, so many women like yourself who must have been probably 11, 12, or 15 you know when Savage Garden started and that means the most to me when someone is, they're 25 and they say `Oh my God I was in love with you when I was a little kid' or `Your records meant the world to me' and the fact that these people are still listening to my music and still following me after all of the changes that my life has gone through that means the world, that's really, that's a big compliment.

Natalie: And are you finding a whole heap of new fans because your music is changing from what it was like in Savage Garden your lyrics are still deep and personal but the sound of the music is slightly different.

Darren: Yeah I mean I think, I'm sure it's fair to say I've lost a lot of fans but I've, the ones I've kept I adore and there is a whole slew of new fans partly because the music has changed, partly because the things that I speak about, some of the political opinions I have aren't necessarily, they don't necessarily go down with very conservative people that well, so anyone who's slightly political thinks `Oh he's interesting' and then certainly coming out has definitely opened up, I think, an acceptance from minority groups and from a gay audience for sure.

Natalie: You're doing a lot with that other audiece, the gay community, doing London Pride and the Mardi Gras a couple of years ago, are you going to continue to do that?

Darren: Do you know it hasn't been a decision to just cater for a gay audience at all, in fact I did, I performed at Mardi Gras here in Sydney actually before I was publically homosexual it was a few years ago. I don't know, I kind of try not to, I actually try not to be condescending to a gay audience or to market to gay people or to consider my record to be a gay record because at the end of the day I'm a human being and I think I make music and you just met Richard so that's pretty much all there is to know about that part of my life, you know, the person I adore happens to be a man.

Natalie: You said yourself that your songs have never been directed to one particular audience.

Darren: No not at all and I would hate that actually I think it's really limiting and one of the things I think we all love about music is that you know you can pour yourself into the song, you can find your own experiences from the songwriter and the music becomes this postcard from a memory in your own life where certain songs, if you play then to me they remind me of growing up or being in high school or the first time I had my heart broken or the first time I went overseas. I think that's really importatnt to maintain that and to let people pour themselves into songs because that's what I do with other people's music, definitely.

Natalie: What are you hoping to achieve with the release of This Delicate Thing We've Made and the tour coming up, because you've done so much. You've achieved the highest level of success that you could've achieved and you've experienced different levels of success.

What is your hope for the tour?

Darren: You know, my hope was just that it got released and it is and it's a very good feeling to hold the final CD finished with the artwork in my hands and know, God I did this. This isn't a huge corporation, I don't have to bribe someone to get it played on the radio.

This record is something that I adore and I fought so hard to make it and it cost, not finally, but emotionally it's cost me a lot to really make the choices that I've made, so just to see it in the record store really anything other than that is a bonus.

Natalie: How has being with a big company changed in terms of getting your music out there? I know you're very into MySpace, which is great, but how has that process changed of letting people know what your doing?

Darren: Well I think that record companies are dying to be perfectly honest. I mean it's sad and all of the people who worked on my records in the past, most of them, have been fired or have gone on to other things. Record labels are shrinking. Someone just told me - is it true that one of the big retail stores here about to close or is that not public? HMV when you hear these stories it's kind of like, it's very terrifying and there's all this fear I think from labels about declining record sales and as a result what they do is that they clamp down on the artistry and I found that really suffocating. I mean I actually said no to EMI. This record could have came out on a label in the UK called Angel, which is a pop label on EMI, but I decided to do my own label because of that very fear of me giving them the

record and then them saying `Well you know this particular radio station didn't want to play this single and it didn't chart very well so unfortunately we can't spend any more money promoting your record and oh you can't have it back either because we own it because you signed this contract so sorry'. These are the sorts of things that can happen, you know, with a major label.

Natalie: And is that what happened with the Tension and The Spark?

Darren: Totally.

Natalie: I think it's brilliant. It was so different from what you'd done previously.

Darren: Yeah it was. Look, I think if you look at my career in retrospect one day, I'm sure that record will stand up as being considered to be one of the better ones. It's by far the fan favourite of all my stuff. I adore it but yes that's what happened - the record company just didn't promote it and my hands were completetly tied. And so things like doing the Sydney Opera House shows that I did last year, I had to do all these things to keep my career afloat because Sony really had a stranglehold on me. And yeah, I think of it positively because at the end of the day I got out, I'm free. This record is here but it very almost it could have been a different reality had I been stuck there.

For more on my interview with Darren Hayes, come back next week to read about what he likes to look for when seeing a concert, his thoughts on his fans and his hopes for the future with This Delicate Thing We've Made.