Speaker 1: Hi, Welcome to the Christy Cast. I hope you're wearing
Speaker 1: something comfortable or maybe a pointy bra, because I'm about
Speaker 1: to spin the wheel and see who is coming up
Speaker 1: on this episode.
Speaker 2: God, I love it when it lands on music makers.
Speaker 1: They are the best, the dreamers, the best of us all.
Speaker 1: And I'm thrilled to tell you that today's music maker
Speaker 1: has been in our ears.
Speaker 2: And in our hearts and in our minds for twenty
Speaker 2: or thirty years.
Speaker 1: Hailing from the very working class suburb of Logan, he
Speaker 1: has released a book, very very recently.
Speaker 2: It's called Unlovable.
Speaker 1: It is a memoir from the voice of Savage Garden,
Speaker 1: and I'm thrilled to welcome Lave from Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Darren Hayes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I don't know if folks can see, but you have
Speaker 3: a very fancy studio. I mean, I'm in my studio,
Speaker 3: but yours has graphics and all sorts of stuff, so
Speaker 3: I'm quite jealous.
Speaker 2: Well, get on it, Darren Hayes.
Speaker 1: No, right now, that you're a celebrated author as well
Speaker 1: as a life changing musician, how have you been enjoying
Speaker 1: talking over and over about some pretty hard stuff your
Speaker 1: book I'm Lovable is out at the moment I have
Speaker 1: it in front of me. Does it make the agony
Speaker 1: and hard bits of your childhood easier to deal with
Speaker 1: the more you talk about them.
Speaker 3: That's such a great question. I know that writing the
Speaker 3: book was definitely you know, this is a cliche, but
Speaker 3: it was definitely cathartic because you think if you do
Speaker 3: something like that, you know, you get it off your chest,
Speaker 3: you'll set this heavy burden down, all of those things.
Speaker 3: You expect that it will be a low off your mind.
Speaker 3: What I didn't expect was how many people would reach
Speaker 3: out to me and tell me, oh my god, you're
Speaker 3: describing my childhood, You're describing my relationship with my parents.
Speaker 3: And so that level of kind of camaraderie has been
Speaker 3: really beautiful. And I got a lot of that in Australia,
Speaker 3: just at the book signings, just people coming up to me,
Speaker 3: like holding my hands, you know, and just I drove
Speaker 3: to security mad because it took hours, you know, to
Speaker 3: meet everyone, and I was like, I just leave it
Speaker 3: because I understood what people were. They needed to tell me,
Speaker 3: you know, their story, and I got it. You know,
Speaker 3: I forced them to read my story and these what
Speaker 3: were strangers became just for a minute, like kind of
Speaker 3: like family for a minute, because it really made me
Speaker 3: feel in the same way that music has done this
Speaker 3: for me. It made me feel less alone. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: I met so many women who had dads like my dad,
Speaker 3: you know, who'd suffered from the same kind of domestic violence,
Speaker 3: and so many or adults but who had been children
Speaker 3: who had grown up like I had, And so it
Speaker 3: was a really it's actually been really lovely. I know
Speaker 3: that sounds strange in hindsight.
Speaker 1: In hindsight, do you think that if you'd had less
Speaker 1: if you've been raised with less adversity, that it would
Speaker 1: have impacted your creativity and knowledge of yourself in a
Speaker 1: negative way?
Speaker 3: This is such Oh God, you're good at this, do
Speaker 3: you know. I'll tell you something. My sister and I
Speaker 3: had this conversation about her kids. Now I'm not speaking
Speaker 3: out of school when I say this. My sister, I
Speaker 3: think it's now been probably eight or nine years that
Speaker 3: she's been divorced, But before she was divorced, she thought
Speaker 3: she had the perfect family. And we used to sit
Speaker 3: around and say, do you think your kids are going
Speaker 3: to be boring? Because you guys have just got like
Speaker 3: the perfect family, you know, And we used to ask
Speaker 3: that same question because you know, she had this seemingly
Speaker 3: perfect family, two kids, boy, girl, everything was perfect or whatever.
Speaker 3: But then this sort of semi trailer just harpooned them,
Speaker 3: and it was their divorce. And you know, now, my
Speaker 3: niece is an astrophysicist, and you know, my nephew is
Speaker 3: this amazing young kid. And we wonder did that sort
Speaker 3: of tragedy force them, Did that adversity force them to
Speaker 3: have to tread water.
Speaker 2: And draw on their toolbox?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Maybe maybe. I don't know, because I know for me,
Speaker 3: I had two ways that I could have dealt with
Speaker 3: what was happening to me as a child. I could
Speaker 3: have just gone completely inward and kind of just just
Speaker 3: crumpled up like a deflated balloon. Or I could have
Speaker 3: chosen what I call the peacock route, which was just
Speaker 3: I decided that my life was just this magical, colorful,
Speaker 3: glittery movie. It wasn't. It was horrible, but I just
Speaker 3: decided no, I was going to thrive in these conditions.
Speaker 3: And if anyone has had a chance to read the
Speaker 3: book My Memories of my Childhood, even though I had
Speaker 3: really horrible things happened to me. I kind of chose
Speaker 3: to remember them as these kind of almost like baz
Speaker 3: Lumen like movie sequences because that's how my brain chose
Speaker 3: to survive. It was, and it's an amazing thing. I
Speaker 3: think that the human brain.
Speaker 2: What a great brain. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, but I.
Speaker 3: Think we all have that capacity in us. You know,
Speaker 3: we're all survivors. And it's a very dangerous.
Speaker 1: Game because, let's face it, Logan in the eighties, YEP
Speaker 1: was fucking depressing.
Speaker 3: Yep, very tough, it was, you know most of us. Well,
Speaker 3: I didn't know I was poor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was poor.
Speaker 3: I didn't know it. I thought I was a prince.
Speaker 3: I would walk around with my I got teased for
Speaker 3: being a snob, you know, I was. Kids at school
Speaker 3: would call me a snob.
Speaker 2: Because you had a lunchbox with a lid.
Speaker 3: No, just because I walked around like I walked on
Speaker 3: goal like I just I just chose that. I decided
Speaker 3: that the circumstances that I was born into, I was
Speaker 3: that was not it for me. You know, I was
Speaker 3: just so I probably walked around with my nose in
Speaker 3: the air, you know. And I you know, we rented
Speaker 3: the the absolute pinnacle of our Like, uh, I guess
Speaker 3: like when we were really rolling in, you know, like.
Speaker 2: Well you were living in the lack of luxury what
Speaker 2: to have?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the luxury we had was the rented VCR. We
Speaker 3: had the video record from radio rentals. Rich. We were
Speaker 3: up to our eyeballs in debt, you know, and we
Speaker 3: had this rented VCR and I just thought we were
Speaker 3: so much and.
Speaker 1: Then you would have got even more in debt with
Speaker 1: the you know, five videos for a week from Blockbuster
Speaker 1: that you never returned and then you get taken to
Speaker 1: court over it.
Speaker 3: Of course. Oh and that just the car that you know,
Speaker 3: my dad was just terrible with money. So like, you know,
Speaker 3: we had a we just had so many debt collectors.
Speaker 3: I learned to, you know, lie to the debt collectors
Speaker 3: and all the police. You know, when the police would
Speaker 3: come to the front door, they would they would come
Speaker 3: to ask.
Speaker 2: For my dad.
Speaker 3: And I remember being very young, and I only told
Speaker 3: the truth once because I got in trouble for it
Speaker 3: because the police came to the front door and said,
Speaker 3: you know, is your father here, And I went he
Speaker 3: just ran out the back and jumped over the fence.
Speaker 3: So I got learned, you know, I got that lesson.
Speaker 2: Very big, little Darren.
Speaker 1: Do not say that, Just say that I'm out, Say
Speaker 1: that I'm at the video store getting five waklies.
Speaker 3: Exactly did the debt collectors come? And it's like mom
Speaker 3: and dad are not home, I'm not home. You know
Speaker 3: that's what it was.
Speaker 2: Can you lie now? Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you a good liar? Or do you avoid that?
Speaker 1: Because it's all yeah, me too.
Speaker 3: Terrible, just terrible, and it's a guilt thing that comes up.
Speaker 3: There's there's a section in my book where I talk
Speaker 3: about there was this kid who was, hilariously call him
Speaker 3: like a bad influence, Like how do you name a
Speaker 3: kid a bad influence at the age of like eight
Speaker 3: or nine? But he was. He was like a bad influence.
Speaker 1: But he will there's totally bad influences, of course at
Speaker 1: any day.
Speaker 3: Fair enough, Okay, So he was. He was a bad boy.
Speaker 3: And I remember mom sent us. This is the seventies, Okay,
Speaker 3: so we get sent to the local shops to buy
Speaker 3: essentials milk, bread, and cigarette.
Speaker 1: Can you remember your order for your for your parents?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It was, oh, I forget the name.
Speaker 2: I could remember mine.
Speaker 1: It was the first order I ever make hello? Can
Speaker 1: I please have a paget of Benson and Hedges Extra
Speaker 1: Mile please?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, mom had the same thing, Benson and
Speaker 3: Hedges Extra Mile. What was extra Mile?
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 3: Was it just less necotine? No?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think it was just a
Speaker 2: fancy gold pack.
Speaker 1: And you know, my mum was pretty fancy, and obviously yours,
Speaker 1: what's too fancy?
Speaker 3: See the other ones? What were the really and there
Speaker 3: was no difference, but the real cheap ones.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 3: We looked down upon Long Beach.
Speaker 1: I remember when Long Beach came out, because they came
Speaker 1: in like a tissue box. They were so there was
Speaker 1: so many. I think it was the first one that
Speaker 1: were fifty or.
Speaker 3: Holidays anything menthol seemed to be a bit like low
Speaker 3: class to me.
Speaker 1: Except Saint Maurtz. My friend's mum smoked Saint Maritz. And
Speaker 1: they were to get packs of twenty and they were
Speaker 1: a little divided into tens.
Speaker 3: And would they were they thinner?
Speaker 1: Were their thins a longer cigarette? Yes, and slightly thinn
Speaker 1: on that in diameter?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, but yes I would get yes, I
Speaker 3: would get those and U but mum essentially sent us
Speaker 3: to the shops really as a favorite because we were
Speaker 3: just bored and you know, gave us like fifty cents
Speaker 3: so that we could buy you know, like a drink
Speaker 3: pack of mixed lollies. Yeah, that was enough to get
Speaker 3: like a can of coke and some mixed lollies back then.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I missed about mixed lollies A
Speaker 1: the extraordinary value? And also you actually got to choose
Speaker 1: your selection. Someone you would go, I'll have three, I'll
Speaker 1: have two musks sticks, No, one musk stick and a snake.
Speaker 2: And now you just get a bag. It's not the same.
Speaker 2: Do you know what?
Speaker 3: I think you probably lived in a more let's just
Speaker 3: say affluent. Didn't you get to two neighborhood?
Speaker 2: Because no, I just got ripped off hayze away.
Speaker 3: There's only no, there's only one place you could choose,
Speaker 3: and that was a local pool. And they did have
Speaker 3: the jars that had you know, one cent, two cent
Speaker 3: or half a cent or whatever. That was pretty cool,
Speaker 3: but that that was really posh and the pool was
Speaker 3: expensive to go to the pool really Yeah, so no,
Speaker 3: but at the local shops there'd be one for like
Speaker 3: twenty cents and it was mixed bag of lollies and
Speaker 3: you just got.
Speaker 2: What you got, okay, all right, But the kid.
Speaker 3: Whispered in my ear and he was like, oh, we
Speaker 3: should get one of those, you know, you put the
Speaker 3: twenty cents in and you get the furry ball, like
Speaker 3: the ferret on the ball. Oh yeah, yeah or whatever,
Speaker 3: and me like, not even realizing I was gay clutching
Speaker 3: imaginary pearls, going oh, I can't do that, that's stealing,
Speaker 3: and my friend going she'll never know. But literally the
Speaker 3: second we got home, full confession, Mum, Mom, Mom, we
Speaker 3: put twenty cents in the machine and I got a
Speaker 3: ferret and I'm so sorry, and like did the whole confession.
Speaker 2: Like what a sweetie?
Speaker 1: What was it like, Darren to suddenly have a shit
Speaker 1: ton of money?
Speaker 3: Oh well, I always say this because I think most
Speaker 3: people are good and kind, right, I think I did
Speaker 3: what most people would do when they win, if they
Speaker 3: win the lottery. I was just discharging guilt. So I immediately
Speaker 3: paid off the home loans of all of my family,
Speaker 3: so my brother, my sister, mum and dad just immediately,
Speaker 3: like when you're in a position where you can just
Speaker 3: suddenly just buy any house you want. I grew up
Speaker 3: where no one in my lineage could ever pay off
Speaker 3: a home loan ever, that was never.
Speaker 1: Going to happen, and then all let alone, you know,
Speaker 1: get one, you know, but back then you had to
Speaker 1: really go through totally.
Speaker 3: And so all of a sudden, you know, after maybe
Speaker 3: a year after say the Arias, when Savage Garden won
Speaker 3: all those awards, that first paycheck, I remember just looking
Speaker 3: at it going this can't be real, this is real, Like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. So I think there was a lot
Speaker 3: of sort of deferred Catholic guilt about money. I wasn't
Speaker 3: raised Catholic, but mum was, and there was that natural
Speaker 3: Australian thing that we still have, I think, where we
Speaker 3: don't really maybe it's changed a little bit, but you know,
Speaker 3: we aren't like the Americans, where we're sort of like,
Speaker 3: you know, we get up to the podium and we're like,
Speaker 3: thank God, or do I want to thank myself first?
Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure, you know, Like we're.
Speaker 2: Not like that.
Speaker 3: We're very culturally sort of embarrassed about success.
Speaker 2: Well I feel like we don't.
Speaker 1: We it's sort of in built in our you know,
Speaker 1: hard wiring that we don't deserve anything, right, isn't that strange.
Speaker 3: I wonder, you know, I would love a sociologist because
Speaker 3: you know, now we're starting to discover that there are
Speaker 3: memories that are passed down in DNA, right, yeah, and
Speaker 3: this is just basic survival. And it makes sense really
Speaker 3: if you think about when we were just you know,
Speaker 3: cave creatures, and we learned certain behaviors just not to
Speaker 3: get eaten in the night. It would make sense that.
Speaker 3: I wonder if because so many of us and I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking about colonizers here, I'll just talk about the colonizers.
Speaker 3: I wonder if so many of us because we were
Speaker 3: thieves and just like low lives, that we just put
Speaker 3: on ships, you know, for stealing stuff. I wonder if
Speaker 3: there is that sort of in built class classes.
Speaker 2: That's very interesting. We spent our whole lives waiting to
Speaker 2: be found out, yes, and.
Speaker 3: Also being told that we were not of the ruling class.
Speaker 3: You know, we were just that, yeah, you know, we
Speaker 3: were just the ones that were put on the ships
Speaker 3: and you know, meant to sort of just feel inferior.
Speaker 3: I wonder how much of that's just in the lingering DNA.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's a naussy thing. It's definitely a white
Speaker 3: Ozzy thing to.
Speaker 2: I want to ask, what did your family?
Speaker 1: What words came out of their mouth when you said, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: I've just paid off your mortgage, And was there a
Speaker 1: feeling of like, I don't know, some people get mad
Speaker 1: when you do them with a financial favor.
Speaker 3: Well, look my relationship. I mean, I don't have a
Speaker 3: relationship with my father anymore. And his reaction was always entitlement,
Speaker 3: Like he went from being having zero interest in me
Speaker 3: at all all my life to suddenly, you know, swarming
Speaker 3: around town like he was the father of Savage Garden.
Speaker 2: Like it was Ah, that would have felt really gross.
Speaker 3: Did feel gross. But I think at the time, you know,
Speaker 3: we're talking thirty years ago, I was so desperate for
Speaker 3: father's love that I think I was purchasing it and
Speaker 3: it felt like, yeah, but I really was doing it
Speaker 3: for my mum, you know. But I got to say
Speaker 3: my brother, my sister, my mother. It was tears. It
Speaker 3: was just.
Speaker 1: Absolute just so you gave them the gift of peace
Speaker 1: of mind, yeah.
Speaker 3: And gratitude and just And the truth is, Christy, I
Speaker 3: don't think I could have lived with myself. There's no way.
Speaker 3: Like I was living in San Francisco, I was living
Speaker 3: in this palatial palace looking over the ocean, and how
Speaker 3: do you reconcile that with like half of my family
Speaker 3: were still, you know, living in suburbs of Logan. You know,
Speaker 3: there I was Elton John's calling me up and Kylie
Speaker 3: has my phone number and very very strange things. So
Speaker 3: it had to happen for me to sort of feel
Speaker 3: okay with my life. But their reaction was just so beautiful.
Speaker 3: And I got to say, apart from my father, you know,
Speaker 3: my family to this day are so down to earth
Speaker 3: and grateful, and my mum blessed her. She wouldn't have
Speaker 3: cared what I did for a living, like to this day,
Speaker 3: she's you know, I could have been a plumber or
Speaker 3: a teacher and she would have been just as proud
Speaker 3: of me.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh god, I would have I would kill
Speaker 1: to see Darren Hayes plumbing services.
Speaker 3: Well, there would have been a butt crack for sure,
Speaker 3: a nicer one. Although actually there's a lot of trade's
Speaker 3: that are really hot now. So my memories of trade's
Speaker 3: in the seventies where they were kind of you know,
Speaker 3: not in the best shape, but they're pretty hot now
Speaker 3: I got to.
Speaker 2: Say, yes, they are really hot.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about You've just mentioned that,
Speaker 1: you know, Elton and Kylie were calling you and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you were, you know, in the very
Speaker 1: upper echelon of music, and I'm guessing that but wh'ere
Speaker 1: of a similar age, similar vintage, And I think music
Speaker 1: meant I'm not musical, but music meant so much to me.
Speaker 1: Australia in the seventies and eighties was so far away
Speaker 1: from the world. The Internet has obviously changed that, but
Speaker 1: music gave me like a glittering idea of what life
Speaker 1: could be like. And I feel like that's what it
Speaker 1: gave you. Who is the person that you've been having
Speaker 1: a conversation with and in the back of your mind, you've.
Speaker 2: Gone, holy shit, I am talking to blank.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh. You know. The one person I never got
Speaker 3: to have that with was Michael Jackson, because Michael was
Speaker 3: the reason I got into this, but in a really
Speaker 3: bizarre way when I saw him in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 3: he came to Australia for the first time and you
Speaker 3: got to imagine, like, what was that too?
Speaker 2: U was that bad? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But you know, Thriller had happened, biggest album in the world.
Speaker 2: What was your favorite song of thriller?
Speaker 3: Just by the way, Oh human nature.
Speaker 2: Human nature me too. Just beautiful, Ah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just so beautiful. But you know you got to
Speaker 3: think about it, like he never he only toured America,
Speaker 3: that's it, and it was his first ever world tour
Speaker 3: and whatever. I'll cut the story short. But I saw
Speaker 3: him in concert freak of Nature that I got a
Speaker 3: ticket to the front row because I wasn't supposed to happen,
Speaker 3: so I got to see him up close. And all
Speaker 3: of my life was just misery. But just seeing this
Speaker 3: glittery pop star like you described him, was just like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. So that changed my life. But it
Speaker 3: was Madonna. Madonna was that person where I ended up
Speaker 3: at a dinner party of hers. And I've had been
Speaker 3: a fan obviously for years. I mean I remember.
Speaker 2: Jog years forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I remember jogging because I'd seen in bed
Speaker 3: with Madonna and how fit she was. Right. So, when
Speaker 3: I was like fifteen or sixteen, jogging around my parents,
Speaker 3: you know they lived on eight Regional, jogging around this
Speaker 3: hideous block of land that we lived on. We literally
Speaker 3: lived in a tin shed while my parents tried to
Speaker 3: build a house. It was just misery, but I was
Speaker 3: imagining that I was getting ready to play Wembley Stadium,
Speaker 3: and I had hordes of photographers and paparazzi following me around,
Speaker 3: and I was jogging because Madonna jogged, right. So, all
Speaker 3: these years later, I got invited to a dinner party
Speaker 3: for fifteen people in London by my mutual friend, a
Speaker 3: guy called David Collins, who was a famous interior designer.
Speaker 3: And I met him just randomly at some event, didn't
Speaker 3: know who he was, and I was at a table
Speaker 3: full of posh assholes. To be completely honest, everyone was
Speaker 3: so stuck up. I'm not going to name their names
Speaker 3: because it'll seem like I'm really really cruel. But there
Speaker 3: were some really famous people who did not and could
Speaker 3: not give a shit about me. And I remember feeling
Speaker 3: really lonely and just really out of place, and this
Speaker 3: sweet man, David was just so nice to me. And
Speaker 3: it turned out he was one of Madonna's best friends.
Speaker 3: So he's this interior designer who designs hotels and whatever
Speaker 3: and just happened to be her home interior designer. And
Speaker 3: he kept in touch with me, and one day he
Speaker 3: just calls me. I'd been out with him a couple
Speaker 3: of times, been to his place and whatever. When I
Speaker 3: was living in London and he phones me and he says, Darren,
Speaker 3: would you come to a dinner party? And I hate
Speaker 3: stuff like that, Chrissy like, I hate famous people, and
Speaker 3: I'm just like, so no or whatever. And I went, oh, god.
Speaker 2: David, why do you hate famous people? Do you feel
Speaker 2: like it's that thing you're so normal observing.
Speaker 3: It's that thing of feeling I don't deserve. I just
Speaker 3: don't belong in that room, you know. And I was like,
Speaker 3: oh God, who's going? And he says, well, I mean
Speaker 3: I don't think Chris are going.
Speaker 1: To be there?
Speaker 3: And I just went who all right? Exactly Gwyneth Paltrow
Speaker 3: and Chris Martin and I just go.
Speaker 2: What are they like?
Speaker 1: I love that they've had an amicable split and they,
Speaker 1: you know, seem to be so grown up about it.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: So sweet. They're lovely. I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow, the first
Speaker 3: time I met her, I dismissed myself. I met her
Speaker 3: and she wanted to meet me, and she was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, Like she held my hands like this,
Speaker 3: and she's like giving me all the compliments and I
Speaker 3: was going, has really nice to miss you bye, and
Speaker 3: amtual friend just went, what did you just do? And
Speaker 3: I went, I just said thanks, And he's like that
Speaker 3: looks so rude. You were so rude to.
Speaker 2: GWe ha ha ha.
Speaker 3: But I just had to get out of there. But anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I say to David, I'm like, David, I can't, like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm terrible with famous films, like just come, please,
Speaker 3: just come. Like it's just going to be a small dinner, Penny,
Speaker 3: It's going to be fun. I'm going to give you
Speaker 3: this boiler alert. He wasn't telling me it was a
Speaker 3: birthday party for Madonna because he knew I wouldn't come.
Speaker 3: What Darren, Yes, so she this is back then. Do
Speaker 3: you remember hung Up You? Remember?
Speaker 2: Of course I remember everything she's ever done with her.
Speaker 3: Hung up on You, her disco phase, her corn rows. Okay,
Speaker 3: this is Madonna. Yeah, six months beforehand, she'd fallen off
Speaker 3: a freaking horse okay, broken every bone and a body.
Speaker 3: So on her birthday she had to postponent. So her
Speaker 3: lovely friend David postponed this dinner party. There's like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, Chris Martin, someone who owns. I don't know Tiffany's.
Speaker 3: I think there's so many famous people there. I think
Speaker 3: that the lead singer of Texas God stroked me down
Speaker 3: in hell.
Speaker 2: But I don't remember her name, but just Sharon someone
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 3: That'll do. No one was my name. I'm Darryl Haynes.
Speaker 2: But the point is, haha, did Texas do? I want
Speaker 2: to love it? Charlette, That's it. I knew it was
Speaker 2: a little bogan name.
Speaker 3: I think Sting might have even been there. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It was just, oh, Rudy Styler was there. It was
Speaker 3: just that kind of thing, right, And I am dying.
Speaker 3: I turn up in I'm like this, jeans, denim whatever.
Speaker 2: They're all good on you.
Speaker 1: For going, because I would have stayed at home with
Speaker 1: a cup of tea wearing an uddie.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know. And so I turned up and
Speaker 3: I walk in the room and she's there dressed as Madonna,
Speaker 3: because she's Madonna.
Speaker 2: And there is only one Darren No.
Speaker 3: But she says to me, I know you brain explodes,
Speaker 3: and she did. She came to a show early on
Speaker 3: in the Savage Garden sort of history in New York,
Speaker 3: and she came to see us, and because I had
Speaker 3: performed Ray of Light in our show and want a song,
Speaker 3: but she she had remembered, and she said tell everybody,
Speaker 3: and she was in a really cheeky mood and she
Speaker 3: said tell her on the story, and I so I
Speaker 3: was cheeky too, because she'd made a joke about what
Speaker 3: she said, did you know you were coming to a
Speaker 3: dinner party about my outfit? And I was like whoa
Speaker 3: And I was like, no, I didn't. And so I
Speaker 3: told the story. I said, yeah, you came to my show,
Speaker 3: you were late, and as soon as I was saying
Speaker 3: your song, you got up and you left. And I
Speaker 3: never knew if you liked it. And she said, oh
Speaker 3: my god, I loved it. I thought it was great
Speaker 3: and it was just the perfect like you know, you
Speaker 3: meet your idol and they're just spunky and sexy.
Speaker 1: And she's really the most extraordinary artist of our time.
Speaker 3: I think I think you interviewed her, didn't you.
Speaker 1: Well. In a weird twist, my Madonna story is my
Speaker 1: sister worked for a concert promotion company in Tokyo and
Speaker 1: Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour, which is stop around.
Speaker 3: The time ever ever ever been held, and I never
Speaker 3: got to see it, but anyway.
Speaker 2: I knew I saw it many many times. I know
Speaker 2: it never came to Australia.
Speaker 1: So it's around the time of Vogue, and I remember
Speaker 1: I was at Yokohama Stadium when I first heard the
Speaker 1: song Vogue because it hadn't been released, but she ended
Speaker 1: the show with it.
Speaker 2: I was like, what is this in my ears? What
Speaker 2: is happening now?
Speaker 1: Hang on?
Speaker 3: I got to ask you, was this during the rainy
Speaker 3: season or was this when she came back and redid
Speaker 3: the shows the year later? I'm a stand I know everything.
Speaker 2: It was the first too, It was in Tokyo.
Speaker 3: Was it raining the night you saw it? No? Okay, No,
Speaker 3: I have that tour. I have the original tour jacket,
Speaker 3: the eye on the.
Speaker 2: Back, the velvety one. Yep. I wanted that so bad.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I was like sixteen or seventeen at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was visiting my sister in my very first
Speaker 1: overseas trip. And because you know, probably you know she
Speaker 1: should have had a babysitter, she would just take me
Speaker 1: to work with her. And work happened to be the
Speaker 1: Blonde Ambition tour. And to get going, I know, to
Speaker 1: get home. I would catch the two of us with
Speaker 1: the dancers, with Carlton and Luis and Slam and all
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 3: And for those listening, we call that the splitter Van.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it. You got in the splitter van.
Speaker 3: So the splitter van has called that because it splits
Speaker 3: the gig.
Speaker 2: You split, you.
Speaker 3: Leave as soon as the show ends. You all get
Speaker 3: into the split of van. And you were with the
Speaker 3: most incredible dancers in the world.
Speaker 2: Go on, the most incredible And she would catch that
Speaker 2: bus too. Yeah, in her I.
Speaker 3: Remember in a white terry taleing dress, dressing gown.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can we talk for a moment about the film
Speaker 1: Truth or Dare and how if we could have like
Speaker 1: put it in our veins?
Speaker 3: We do something else? Do my eyebrows? Just somebody sat
Speaker 3: some fat man in the front row who was giving
Speaker 3: me dirty looks all night. I swear to God and
Speaker 3: Freddy get over here, because Freddy demand, Yes, it was
Speaker 3: in charge of the sound of my show. Somebody give
Speaker 3: Keith a new asshole because my headset kept cutting out
Speaker 3: during Where's the Party? And don't tell me you didn't notice?
Speaker 3: And there was nothing but industry in the first three rows.
Speaker 3: Freddy everyone looked like a goddamn William Morris agent.
Speaker 2: Guys. Well, she goes, I hope I'm somewhere safe when
Speaker 2: it happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she goes. You know, at the end of a tour,
Speaker 3: you know, everybody gets emotional, they get upset, but it's like,
Speaker 3: I've done this before. When people die, it's like I
Speaker 3: make my peace with it so that when it happens,
Speaker 3: I don't feel anything.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you don't even know.
Speaker 3: I became really close to Alex Kashishian.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: I became friends with him. He's the director of that
Speaker 3: film because I did that impersonation I was just doing
Speaker 3: for you at a party for Matt Damon.
Speaker 2: Hah. That's a sentence I was not expecting to hear today.
Speaker 3: And I'm standing around doing that impersonation and this person
Speaker 3: taps me on the shoulder and it's Alec and I go,
Speaker 3: it's Alek Kashishian and he goes, you know, how to
Speaker 3: pronounce my name? And I go, of course I do,
Speaker 3: You're Alek Kashishian and he could not. He was just
Speaker 3: obsessed that I knew all the lines from that film.
Speaker 3: And that's how we became sort of friends.
Speaker 2: It's really hard to fight.
Speaker 1: I work with a young guy, Jack, who's like twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and sadly Madonna has not made the leap into that
Speaker 1: kind of generation, and she needs to because it's very important. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I have prescribed to him to watch that documentary because
Speaker 1: I know that he will love it. But it's very
Speaker 1: hard to find and we can't wear googling it try
Speaker 1: and find where to see it because now I need
Speaker 1: to see it again.
Speaker 2: So great.
Speaker 3: That's this amazing scene where she goes, Lauren, get over here,
Speaker 3: you pussy man. She's talking about Warren baby and she's
Speaker 3: cheeky with him much eating her salad, and she's going,
Speaker 3: I tell Warren I wouldn't have his babies unless it
Speaker 3: becomes a vegetarian. And it's like, and he won't be
Speaker 3: on camera and he's and then that scene where he goes,
Speaker 3: has no one talked to you about the insanity of this,
Speaker 3: of what the insanity of filming all of this, Like
Speaker 3: all of this that you're through this is a serious matter.
Speaker 2: She says something like, if it's not on camera, it
Speaker 2: didn't happen.
Speaker 3: It was the point of filming it. It doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: If it's not on camera, right, the first reality star.
Speaker 3: It was incredible.
Speaker 2: She was the first of everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could wax lyrical about Madonna, and I
Speaker 1: feel like we will eventually before the day we die.
Speaker 2: I want to spin the wheel before I let you go.
Speaker 2: I'm so enjoyed. I mean I knew that, you know,
Speaker 2: we would connect.
Speaker 1: I've just ever since I first saw you on you know,
Speaker 1: video Hits or count Dad or whatever. I was like,
Speaker 1: he's one of mine, and it's just taken a few
Speaker 1: decades to get in front of each other. We're going
Speaker 1: to spin the wheel and see what we're going to
Speaker 1: finish with a right, Darren Hayes.
Speaker 2: Great, Oh it's turned up on. Tell me more.
Speaker 1: This is a first Errand what is the one great
Speaker 1: story or thing about you that always surprises or delights people? Oh?
Speaker 3: I mean it sounds a little. Oh, it's a little
Speaker 3: feel good. So let's get our cozy blankets, let's start crocheting,
Speaker 3: Let's let's get our crystals out and stuff. Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: fifty two. I still would desperately love to be a dad.
Speaker 3: I was married to a man for seventeen years and
Speaker 3: we tried every night to have a baby, but it
Speaker 3: just didn't happen. I don't know, I don't know. Why,
Speaker 3: what do you do?
Speaker 2: You're doing something wrong?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe I was. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 3: I was putting have.
Speaker 1: To get out your world book and look up and
Speaker 1: just look up who puts what we're But anyway, I
Speaker 1: still would love to be a dad.
Speaker 3: But this was a really beautiful thing that happened when
Speaker 3: I moved to La. So I moved to La in
Speaker 3: a very dramatic period of my career from twenty and twelve.
Speaker 3: I didn't really tell the world, but I decided I
Speaker 3: was retiring. It was very dramatic. I just didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 3: I was like, she's done's.
Speaker 2: Leaving, Vivian Lean gone with the wind.
Speaker 3: No more like I'm so tad, I'm so tad.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I was probably more like Nathan Lane in the Birdcage.
Speaker 2: I want nothing great performs. How do you think I
Speaker 2: feel devastated? Heartbroken? I love that, you know that.
Speaker 3: But I got coerced in to auditioning to prefer go
Speaker 3: to the groundlings in prop school.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, world famous.
Speaker 3: And I was there for these two stories meld into another.
Speaker 3: But I was there full time for five years. What, Yes,
Speaker 3: that's what I did. That's why I disappeared for ages.
Speaker 3: I just disappeared. No one knew who I was. I
Speaker 3: was surrounded by twenty five year olds, right, had no
Speaker 3: idea who I was. And I made it through the
Speaker 3: whole program. I almost got into the Sunday Company, and
Speaker 3: in fact, one of my well, she doesn't take my
Speaker 3: call anymore, but it's hilarious. But one of my fellow
Speaker 3: students all the way through is Chloe Fineman, who's on SNL.
Speaker 3: She's one of their. She does the best Nicole Kidman impersonations.
Speaker 3: She's yeah, yeah, she's amazing. But Chloe was one of
Speaker 3: my I came up with Chloe Finneman. But I also
Speaker 3: met one of my best friends there, Johnny. And Johnny
Speaker 3: did almost get into Sunday Company, and he almost turned
Speaker 3: it down because he and his why I've got pregnant now.
Speaker 3: I have a teaching degree in early childhood, right. I
Speaker 3: had to get it because my father wouldn't let me
Speaker 3: be a musician unless I got a teaching degree, and.
Speaker 2: So I have something to fall back on, son.
Speaker 3: Right, which is so stupid. But I just said to Johnny,
Speaker 3: I'm not really doing anything why don't I mind her
Speaker 3: like one or two days a week while you guys
Speaker 3: just you continue studying and whatever. And that turned into
Speaker 3: like six years of me minding this baby. I'm talking
Speaker 3: like her mum would because his wife is a movie producer.
Speaker 3: She was working full time, so she worked full time.
Speaker 3: She would express milk. They would give the baby to
Speaker 3: me from six weeks of age, and I got basically
Speaker 3: co parent he until she went to first grade.
Speaker 2: And it was amazing, Like god, that's an amazing experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So me and Johnny, like we were these two dads,
Speaker 3: you know, like where he would be going to school
Speaker 3: part time, but then I would get to have her,
Speaker 3: you know, half the time, and you know, i'd pick
Speaker 3: her up in the morning and it was like full
Speaker 3: time daycare. But like I did all the fun.
Speaker 2: How old is she now?
Speaker 3: She's turning seven, and I mean, we have to break it.
Speaker 3: So she calls me her best friend, and I have
Speaker 3: to sort of let her know that, like you're gonna
Speaker 3: need to get like a real like child best friend.
Speaker 1: No, stop, you don't need to clarify. She is your
Speaker 1: best friend, and we know that that's true because she
Speaker 1: said it.
Speaker 3: I just adore her, and we adore each other and
Speaker 3: we just we connect on this level. That's just like
Speaker 3: I've never had to be anything other than I don't know,
Speaker 3: like an adult that gets to love her in the
Speaker 3: way that I never got to be loved as a
Speaker 3: child myself. I remember the first time she worke up
Speaker 3: from a nightmare and you know, the baby monitor went off,
Speaker 3: you know, and anyone who's been a parent, I haven't technically,
Speaker 3: but I sort of have now, Like you know, that
Speaker 3: fear I went through, all that fear of like, God,
Speaker 3: is she breathing, is she going to die? What if
Speaker 3: she dies on my watch? All that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: One day, playing with her with like a laser pointer
Speaker 3: because she's so into Peter Pan, and I was pretending
Speaker 3: that was tink, you know, and I accidentally pointed into
Speaker 3: her eyes and for about a year I lied to
Speaker 3: her parents and didn't tell her because that afternoon she
Speaker 3: was like, I can't really see out of my eye,
Speaker 3: and I was just thinking, not going to tell her
Speaker 3: parents in case it's permanent eye damage. But now we
Speaker 3: laugh about it, but stuff like that, like we've just
Speaker 3: been through everything together, and yeah, she's just this extraordinary young.
Speaker 1: Woman, and how lucky, how lucky she is to have you,
Speaker 1: because it's really it's really important and fortunate for kids
Speaker 1: to have somebody that is parent level but isn't a parent,
Speaker 1: so you are.
Speaker 2: You are an extraordinary gift to her, and she is
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: And yeah, when I tell people that story there you're
Speaker 3: like what. It was only recently that her mum said
Speaker 3: to me, go on, tell me the two. Did you
Speaker 3: taste the Express milk? And I was like, oh no,
Speaker 3: I never tasted the tasted the Express milk. And her
Speaker 3: dad was like, well I did. I'm like, yeah, you
Speaker 3: sleep with like the mother. I'm like, no, taste the
Speaker 3: Express milk. You guys are widows. But that's how close
Speaker 3: we all are, Like we're that clothes where they would
Speaker 3: have been like, oh, we wouldn't have minded if you did.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, no, I'll be.
Speaker 2: Fine with that. I'm try that in it.
Speaker 1: Darren Hayes, your book is available now. It is called Unlovable.
Speaker 1: You are so lovable. The title is a wonderful irony.
Speaker 1: It's a great book, of course, lots of pictures which jador.
Speaker 2: Get your copy from all good bookstores and online. Can
Speaker 2: we catch up? And just talk specifically Madonna later.
Speaker 3: Listen, I'll do anything next time in Australia. I'm just
Speaker 3: going to talk your ear off about the Blonde Ambition tour.
Speaker 3: I still need to know what happened in the van
Speaker 3: and if Madonna was nice to you. But let's not
Speaker 3: reveal this on the show. You have to tell me
Speaker 3: in secret, Okay.
Speaker 2: I will, I will, even though we're not very good
Speaker 2: at secrets.
Speaker 3: I've loved talking to you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: You are the best. Thanks for coming on.