Darren Hayes is an Australian singer-songwriter known for being the frontman of the pop duo Savage Garden. His musical talent and contributions to pop music have made him a recognized figure in the world of Australian and international music.
I think of all emotions as just energy. If you see yourself separate from your thoughts, you can choose which ones you give meaning to.
I don't want to be a gay or a straight artist. I don't make gay records - I make records.
Savage Garden was a roller coaster experience. By the second album I was living in New York, my whole life had changed. I was probably depressed.
I can tell you first hand - being able to marry the person I love and to live in countries where my marriage is recognized - probably saved my life.
I started singing in my first band in 1992 so I'm coming up to 20 years in this business. That's a long time.
When you hit someone back with understanding or love it stops the cycle of friction. Its not always easy to do, but when youre aware in the moment you have a choice to respond with love or hate. Its not rocket science.
I'd love my degree from university, because I'm one subject away from having a Bachelor of Arts, which I know I can't use, but it annoys me.
I try to balance out my private life with my public job - I have learned to draw a very clear line in the sand and save up hugs and kisses and special moments with friends and family when I can because the job involves a lot of travel away from the people you love.
Like a lot of my experience in seeing 'Star Wars' movies multiple times is really just to relive that feeling of being a kid.
The thing with a band is it really is a marriage.
One of the biggest Savage Garden fans is one of my best friends of my life. She lives in Wales and her name is Mags. She started off as a fan, and shed always be at the front of Top Of The Pops. Then she met my sister who ran my fan club, they became friends.
I think anyone who creates anything, whether it's yourself as a writer, anyone - when you finish something, it's gone from being just your thing and it's out there, it's a great release.
For me as a kid growing up, I was gay and I didn't even realise it, let alone accept it. I was told I was gay before I could even imagine it. I was incredibly bullied - ferociously bullied - as a child.
Im a night owl so I tend to do a lot of my disconnecting past midnight. I love the feeling when the whole world has shut down for the day Im left to think and unwind without any interruptions.
There are reasons why musical relationships are magical and those same reasons are sometimes why they cant last.
Everyone advised me not to pursue a career in music and expected me to go into law. My dad told me I would end up living in the gutter if I pursued music, so I ended up at uni studying a teaching degree just to please him.
So after an album and tour are over I take 6 months to a year to do other things. Once I went to University and studied screen writing. Another time I learned to dance.
If the audience wants to hear them, then I'm going to play them. I'll mess around with them a bit to keep it interesting, because it's frustrating when you see artists refusing to play their biggest hits.
I was living in San Francisco so I got back into yoga, bought myself a mountain bike and a puppy, and started living my life. And incidentally, I started making a record without realising it.
I learned to accept who I was in spite of living in a world that did not feel accepting to me.
I don't want to feel like I have to be a poster child for anything other than being a great artist. I don't take that on board as being my responsibility as a gay man, because I think it's really limiting.
I wanted to life the energy of a room when I walked into it and I wanted to take people away from the sadness of life and into a dream world.
I love the music video for 'Crash and Burn.' I was very excited to work with the director to make something stylistic and graphic.
I'd really love to go and do a chef's apprenticeship. I really would, I love cooking.
I look at this world we live in now where someone like Lil Nas X can push forward his true self, full of pride and self-love and have the chance to be loved for who he truly is. I was realising with great sadness that I didnt get that experience.
I'm out, I'm married, I'm a 'celebrity' and I still feel unsafe holding hands in many public situations. That's a reality.
Im sure most artists say this, but my favorite songs are not the hits.
I struggled tremendously with anxiety and depression related in part to my sexuality and growing up in a time when to be gay felt to me like a death sentence.
I love night time, it's the time I feel the world stops and my depression subsides.
My obsession with 'Star Wars' was an obsession with Ralph McQuarrie, as well. I loved the designs of the universe of 'Star Wars'.