Darren Hayes To Release Memoir In Late 2024

Savage Garden vocalist and solo artist, the legendary Darren Hayes, will release his first-ever book next year, announcing a memoir to come in late 2024.

In a press release issued to Penguin Books, Hayes said in a statement, “I’ve been secretly telling stories about my life, through my music, since the very first Savage Garden single. Back then, my innermost thoughts were shrouded in lyrical metaphor and deeply embedded within the visuals and stage costumes of a fantastical pop career.

“The reality of my life was much more complicated than the constraints of a 3-minute radio song would allow. Almost 30 years later, I feel free for the first time in my life and so grateful to partner with Penguin to truly tell my authentic story.”

Penguin Books’ Non-Fiction Publisher, Alison Urquhart, added, “I am thrilled to bits that we’ll be working together on this wonderful book. Darren and I have a mutual love of 80s pop music and gothic, twisted tales, and he is a remarkable and natural storyteller. I know that he will create something so special and a reflection of who he is both as an extraordinarily gifted artist and a remarkable human being.”

While there’s no pre-order link live yet, we’ll update this story when it comes.

Darren Hayes has led a fascinating and inspiring life in the spotlight, releasing two classic albums with Savage Garden: 1997’s brilliant self-titled LP and the forthcoming smash-hit, 1999’s Affirmation.

Easily one of the country's most decorated artists of all time, since the world first uttered 'chicka cherry cola', Savage Garden and Hayes have clocked up 30 million albums sold globally, 2x chart-topping singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, 14x ARIA Awards, 10x APRA songwriting awards, 5x Top 10 albums and 9x Top 10 singles. 

Aside from Savage Garden, Hayes has released five solo albums, each growing more ambitious than before. Starting with 2002’s Spin, Hayes went on to unveil The Tension And The Spark (2004), This Delicate Thing We’ve Made (2007), Secret Codes And Battleships (2011), and his first album in over a decade, 2022’s Homosexual.

Earlier in the year, Hayes talked openly with The Music about his earlier struggle with accepting his homosexuality when he was younger and how his journey is reflected in Homosexual.

Speaking on the new album, he said, “I think I'd started to see myself the way the media saw me, which was that it's almost like I was this, you know, lovely, harmless uncle Darren. I think we do that to gay people sometimes. We desexualise them because we can't bear the thought of what they look like between the sheets, and I was raging against that."

Read the full interview here.