Darren Hayes talks gay shame, his days in Savage Garden, and his new solo album ‘Homosexual’
It’s been over a decade since Darren Hayes released a new album. After his last tour promoting 2011’s Secret Codes and Battleships, the former Savage Garden singer says he was exhausted by the perpetual cycle of recording and touring.“I had planned to kinda retire,” he tells Queerty.Hayes and his husband, the British animator, designer, director, and screenwriter Richard Cullen moved back to the U.S., and Hayes spent the past 10 years studying improv at L.A.’s The Groundlings Theatre.
He wrote a musical and studied engineering and programming. He even helped raise a friend’s child.“Things I never would have done if I’d stayed on the treadmill of putting records out,” he explains.But ultimately, he found his way back to music.
Now, he’s back with a new album, Homosexual, and while Hayes has been out publicly since 2005, it may be his most unapologetically queer work to date.The songs on the album are about ridding himself of the shame he says he grew up with around his sexuality, as well as his family’s history of depression and suicide.
It’s heavy stuff, but Hayes’s new tunes channel the joy of overcoming trauma and reaching for the light of self-acceptance.As he prepares to head out on his Do You Remember?
