Australian pop-rockers who enjoyed massive success with the singles ’I Want You’ and ’Truly Madly Deeply’, Savage Garden are Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones.
Daniel was born in Essex but his family emigrated to Australia. He’d learnt the keyboard and drums and by the age of 10 was playing in hotel bars. Daniel had formed a group with his brothers but couldn’t find a singer. He placed a ’wanted’ advert in the local paper and it was answered by Darren.
Despite having no real singing experience and his voice breaking during the audition, Darren got the job as he was the only person to apply. The Jones family band was called Red Edge and they played covers along the Australian Gold Coast.
However, Darren and Daniel soon realised that playing other people’s songs was not what they wanted to do. They left Red Edge and began writing songs together. Naming themselves Crush, they recorded a five-track demo and sent it to over 150 prominent people in the Australian music industry.
John Woodruff, head of Roadshow, liked what he heard and flew to Brisbane to sign the band. Changing their name to Savage Garden - after a phrase from an Anne Rice novel - they went into the studio to begin work on their debut album. The first result of these sessions was the single ’I Want You’, released in June 1996 in Australia. It reached Number 4.
The follow-up, ’To The Moon And Back’, hit the top of the Aussie charts and now people were starting to take notice elsewhere. Columbia quickly snapped up the band for the rest of the world and released their debut album, ’Savage Garden’, to American audiences in April 1997 (it was issued a month earlier in Australia).
After a slow start, ’I Want You’ picked up momentum in America and became a massive hit. ’To The Moon And Back’ flopped but next single ’Truly Madly Deeply’ followed its chart-topping success in Australia by making it to Number 1 in America.
The album went on to sell over 11 million copies worldwide. At the 1997 ARIA Awards (the Australian equivalent of the Grammys and the Brits), the band scooped no less than 10 awards.
In the UK, ’I Want You’ was a Top 20 hit on its first release in the summer of 1997 but it wasn’t until the release of ’Truly Madly Deeply’ in February 1998 that Savage Garden became a well-known name. A reissue of ’To The Moon And Back’ also hit the Top 10 in August.
After the world tour to promote their debut album, Darren and Daniel went their separate ways - quite literally. Darren moved to New York while Daniel stayed in Brisbane. The writing for their second album was done by phone and computer from their respective homes before they met up in Los Angeles to record.
The first single from the album was ’The Animal Song’, which reached Number 16 over here. The album ’Affirmation’ followed in November 1999 and again racked up massive sales in America and Australia. The single ’I Knew I Loved You’ became the band’s second US Number 1.
2000 saw three further singles lifted from ’Affirmation’ as the band toured the world - ’Crash And Burn’, ’Affirmation’ and ’Hold On’. Meanwhile, the ’Savage Garden’ album was reissued with an extra CD containing various remixes and ’Affirmation’ has also been re-released with a bonus CD of live tracks.
Though they may not be fashionable or constantly in the spotlight, Savage Garden have quietly achieved massive record sales and numerous awards. Despite rumours of an impending split it’s likely they’ll carry on upsetting the chart odds for a while to come.