Well, that can I say? Savage Garden in person, courtesy of Sony music. No, I didn’t scream or tear my hair out. I certainly didn’t propel myself at them, hoping to hit gold. First of all, Daniel Jones has come down with flu and as such was unable to attend the tete-a-tete with the press. Secondly, I'm not built for that kinda of propulsion.

The half of Savage Garden that turned up was Darren Hayes. Man, you had to be there to experience this guy. Yup, 'experience' is the only word for him. He's a whole new chapter on experience.

Darren also had the flu, but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t keep up the flow of conversation. I must say he's more captivatingly handsome in person than he is on the Savage Garden album cover.

Then it hits you. This aura around him. He is, without question, an artist. Not just someone that sings and writes songs and plays in a band, but a person who is at one with the rhythm. A true artist's soul.

Its is obvious Darren and Daniel's souls find their expression and their release in the very songs that Savage Garden is so popular for. It is no wonder that they are doing so well.

From what Darren told all of us privileged paparazzi, it is quite apparent that he could not have done anything without Daniel (except the press conference). Darren sorely missed Daniel's presence at the interview, and kept referring to him all the time.

They recorded about 40 songs and had to choose the ones they liked the most. I Want You was an obvious choice from the beginning. "The record company heard it and just went flipside," grins Darren gesturing 'flipside' with his hands. As for Truly Madly Deeply, it’s a love song in a truly Savage Garden style. Darren explained love as, "When you look at the sun, and it feels like rain, that’s what love is to me."

Break Me Shake Me despite being labeled schizophrenic, is actually a reflection of Savage Garden. It shows that there is more than one personality at play, but that does not mean it domes from one source only. It is more of an eclipse of both Darren and Daniel's characters.

Daniel, says Darren, is a whiz at music. He plays the drums and keyboards.

They create the sounds first. Daniel puts together all these fabulous sounds, which they then listen to and improve upon and eventually make a melody out of it. Next comes the lyrics, and before you know it, you have a brand new song before you.

It’s the spontaneity of the songs that are hard to create quips Darren. "It’s either there or not. If it is then we know that this is the right one".

Sometimes they walk around with a tape recorder, singing songs or humming melodies into it. In effect, they both do their own stuff as neither wants to do what the other guy is doing. This helps keep their individuality, and certainly must not be seen as the guys not wanting to be with each other. On the contrary, this individuality is what makes Savage Garden so endearingly unique to listen to.

Darren gleefully tells us of his experience at a Michael Jackson concert, where he’s at the front row and he’s thinking that he’s having a heart attack because the show was so fabulous. He wonders whether Savage Garden will ever be able to produce such an effect on people. Perhaps, given time, muses Darren...

Darren also considers himself to have serious personality defects, the greatest of which is that he is a perfectionist. That singular trait itself will ensure the fans that the next album will be "bigger and better".

As for the group’s goals, all Darren can say is that he considers them very naive and new to this wonderful world of fans and 'pop stardom'. He says, "Ten years from now, I see the group as.... balding", and immediately cracks up with an infectious grin. But on a more serious note, he hopes that Savage Garden will still be in the running like U2 and other such great bands. (U2 is Darren's favorite band).

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