Darren Hayes developed his singing skills by listening to his mother.
The musician and former frontman of Savage Garden during a take 5 With Zan Rowe interview had the following to say about his mom…
“She had the most beautiful, melodic voice and I would mimic her,”
“A lot of my singing education came from mimicking people, but she was the first person I ripped off.”
Judy, Darren’s mother, would have never acknowledged the impact she had.
“She wouldn’t think that she taught me how to sing because she had such a low self-esteem,”
Darren was raised in a household plagued by domestic violence, describing his father as “an extremely violent man”.
“But my mother was an angel, and she was the very inception, the seed, the beginning of music for me.”
And he says it was music that saved his life.
“I know that’s a cliché and everyone says this, but I was a very, very lost kid.”
‘I’m not a freak … I’m famous’
Darren felt like he could never fit in growing up in Logan, Queensland.
“It was a very hypermasculine community. I remember being afraid of that. Everyone smoked, everyone played football,” he says.
“And I was just this delicate kid that was recreating scenes from Star Wars by making the toys kiss.”
From a young age, he faced bullying for being gay, long before he even understood what that meant.
“My father was the first person to call me the F word, and it’s not the one that rhymes with truck.”
Darren’s way of coping with the bigotry and abuse was through deep denial.
“I just decided, ‘Oh no, I’m not a freak, I’m not all these terms they call me.’ From a very early age, I decided that I was just famous.”
Amidst everything, he felt a deep responsibility to shield his mother from harm, especially when his father had been drinking. This could mean taking the car to whisk her away from the house in the dead of night, or even using his sister’s hockey sticks to defend her.
Imagining himself as a star, long before he truly became one, provided him with a glimpse of a brighter future.
“I knew [I’d be famous], but not for the arrogant reasons you might think, I knew because it was either be famous and magical and special, or die.”
“I lived in a family where my job was to keep my mum alive. But I thought if I could just be famous, I could save her, us, me, everything.”
Success and Secrets
Although Darren always believed in his own fame, it was during high school that he discovered his singing talent.
His music teacher encouraged him to participate in the school choir, and it turned out to be a life-changing experience.
“I felt the molecules in the room change, as they always do when people sing. That’s what music does, But I could feel it and that was it.”
In 1996, Darren was just in his early 20s when he and his friend Daniel Jones, formed the pop duo Savage Garden, which released its first hit single, I Want You.
Following that, the rise of Savage Garden was nothing short of astonishing. Their self-titled debut album garnered an unprecedented 10 ARIA Awards in 1997.
However, being in the spotlight also exposed the young Darren to significant vulnerability.
“I was so grateful to have it … in the beginning, But there were secrets. Gay: secret. Depression: secret. Don’t tell anyone.”
Darren reveals that the American record labels took extensive measures to keep his sexuality (the fact that he was a gay man) a secret from the public. This included altering his hairstyle, advising him to limit his movements in music videos, and conducting audience surveys to determine which images were perceived as the ‘most masculine’.
“So it became hell, but I learned how to keep it in, I mean, you never know, it could end tomorrow.”
However, the story didn’t conclude when Savage Garden disbanded in 2001. Darren has since embarked on a thriving solo career, producing five studio albums. In 2019, he was honored with an Order of Australia for his contributions to the music industry.
And when he came out publicly that he was gay, he could finally be the artist he’d always wanted to be.
With a laugh stemming from relief, Darren had the following to say…
“Oh my God, to be able to use the pronoun that I want to use,”
“My biggest success to me is my least commercially successful record. It’s called Homosexual. How fun was that, to make an album basically called Super Gay?”
Darren shares that the most significant personal impact for him was witnessing queer individuals attending his shows.
“I felt so seen and understood, It was like having lived in solitary confinement without a window all your life and suddenly the first dapple of sunlight hits your face.”
‘Fly on, ride through’
For Darren, emerging from Logan and being able to live authentically as a proud gay man feels like hitting the jackpot.
“I’m really happy that I think maybe I got to break the cycle of toxic abuse.”
As for his mother, Darren says she “couldn’t have given a shit” if he was famous or not; she just wanted him to be happy and that happiness came through music.
“I remember laying in Mum’s lap and her just letting me cry and letting me know that I’m going to be OK,”
“Do you know what music was for me? It was that I was able to pay cash for a house for my mum so she could finally leave him.”
Darren continues to find it difficult to talk about his mother in the past tense, as she passed away in early 2025 due to complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Although Darren was aware of her terminal illness, he had hoped for “a decade or more with her.” Unfortunately, she passed away unexpectedly while he was away.
“The thing that makes me sad about Mum is she was so afraid to die because she loved being alive,”
“She used to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to die because I’m going to miss you all so much.'”
The pain of grief remains fresh and intense for Darren, yet music serves as a source of comfort for him. In selecting a song for her memorial, he chose ‘O’ by Coldplay.
“There’s this line where he says, ‘Fly on, ride through/Maybe one day I’ll fly next to you,’ and that’s how I feel about my mum.
“I remember trying to hold onto her, because all of our lives there was an invisible string connecting us, there was a tether,”
But at her wake he realized he had to cut the string, “like a beautiful balloon”.
“I had to let her go,” Darren said with tears forming in his eyes.
“I think that’s a theme of my entire life.”
Source: Savage Garden’s Darren Hayes didn’t think he’d survive his childhood
Kristin’s thoughts: Hearing Darren talk about losing his mom and how deeply that loss affected him honestly brought tears to my eyes. I hate that he ever had to experience that kind of pain. Having lost my own mom, there’s a part of me that understands that grief on a very personal level, and hearing him speak about it touched something in me that’s difficult to put into words.
I wish I could take away even a little of the pain he’s had to carry. More than anything, I hope he has many, many beautiful years ahead of him, surrounded by love, happiness, and peace. He deserves that. May he live long and prosper.