Darren Hayes tells Peter Yap about Truly Madly Complete, the best of Savage Garden album, and his future plans as a musician

With sales of over 23 million albums, Savage Garden is one of the most successful duos of all time. Four years after parting company to pursue their own music careers, T ruly Madly Completely The Best of Savage Garden celebrates the time the two members spent together and features their hit songs.

With unforgettable lyrics and killer choruses, Savage Garden wrote-produced and performed a string of hits, re-inventing the pop world with its authentic style and talent.

Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones released their debut album in 1997 and within just a few months, had taken the world by storm. It spawned three global hits: I Want You, To the Moon and Back and the record-breaking Truly Madly Deeply, which topped the US Billboard charts for an incredible nine weeks.

Their sophomore album Affirmation matched this success. It produced Savage Garden's second US Billboard No. 1 with I Knew I Loved You and the massive hits The Animal Song, Affirmation and Crash and Burn.

Truly Madly Completely is a collection of all the band's chart-topping hits featured alongside two brand new songs So Beautiful and California from singer-songwriter Darren Hayes, who was in Bangkok recently to promote the album.

Why did it take so long for this com- pilation album?

I wouldn't agree to it for the longest time. Well, I feel very protective of the band. I think that the best of records can seem like a very heartless marketing ploy to get money out of people who have already paid money for records. I'll tell you my criteria. I wanted there to be a B-side as well as singles. I wanted it all to be remastered, which was something I was heavily involved in. I wanted there to be new music and it took a while for everyone to agree with me. This is the real anthology. The timing of it is perfect. Next year marks 10 years of my involvement in the music business.

What kind of feelings do you get when you listen back to songs by Savage Garden?

I think about happiness. Who was that little boy? I just think of how lucky I am actually. Really how naive I was to the pitfalls. I just barged ahead. I didn't think I would fail. I was just very naive in a really good way. The music reminds me of being very ambitious and very excitable back then.

How come Daniel Jones is not with you for this promo tour?

I'm a continuing artiste. Even when we were a band, I did most of the press (interviews). Look at the video for Hold Me and it was just me. I was saying to a friend recently that not much has changed. I'm out promoting Savage Garden. And I am doing it alone. That's the reason we are not together. The reason we are not a band is because he never liked this part (of the business).

Do you still keep in touch?

Vaguely. We are really not in each other's lives. We are not the best of friends. But we are not enemies.

Any chance of you two working together in the future?

No ... not unless it would cure cancer.

Can you tell me a little about your new single, So Beautiful?

The truth is that the song was written as part of a body of work for my third album. I haven't finished that record and the release date was looming. The record company had heard a copy of the song and really loved it. I thought it wouldn't be a bad thing for me to experiment with a producer to put a song there. It's a love song. I've been famous for writing lots of love songs but I like to think this one is from experience. It's a love song about understanding. A good fit is when someone loves you for all the things that aren't perfect for you.

Where do you get inspiration to compose songs?

The blessing and the curse is that it comes from first hand experience. I really can't sing a song unless it's about me, which sounds really egoistical but I think in a lot of ways, it's what you want from an artiste. And my songwriting is always about my experiences.

What can fans expect in your third album?

Lately from the songs I have written, they are just classic songs. There's not a lot of trickery going on in production. It's very classic, simple songs about how it feels to be 33. What it feels like to live in this world where there are tsunamis, earthquakes, wars in Iraq and terrorism. There is an understanding that you have to live in the moment and that life is precious. The older you get, you realise that every moment is irreplaceable. I guess the songs in the new album are all about the beautiful fragility of what's it like to live in the world of today.