Happy Birthday Darren Hayes!

…Darren Hayes who turns 38 today!

The UK-based Australian singer-songwriter debuted in 1996 as the frontman and singer of the pop duo Savage Garden which had the hits I Want You, To the Moon and Back, Truly Madly Deeply, I Knew I Loved You and The Animal Song. Savage Garden sold more than 23 million albums worldwide before parting ways in 2001. Hayes released his first solo album, Spin in 2002 followed by The Tension and the Spark and This Delicate Thing We’ve Made.

Darren entered into a civil partnership with his boyfriend of three years, Richard Cullen, on June 19, 2006 in London and announced it on his official website the next month.

“I think we made a decision in our relationship to humanize it,” Darren told me in our 2008 interview. “We weren’t going to be this hidden couple. I talk about Richard pretty openly. If I attend events, sometimes he’s there. It’s a fine line that we try to walk. Like any relationship, he is a part of me and a part of everything I do.”

“I don’t see myself as a gay artist at all,” he added. “I see myself as a human being. On the surface, I don’t think my marriage or being gay really colors my music. But being out and being in a beautiful relationship has made me feel better about myself. What that has done is made me brave in every area of my life. From launching my own label, making a double album. It’s made me really brave and i think that kind of shows in the music that I’m making.”

As far as the raging debate over same-sex marriage in the U.S., Darren said: “Obviously it’s a divided issue. There’s so many people in the country, so many opinions. The land mass is as big as Europe, I think it’s a miracle that America manages to be so cohesive. England really surprised me, In terms of social reform, medical care and civil partnerships, it is quite forward thinking. I think Australia and America will catch up.”

“What I’m most of proud of is I had nothing to promote and nobody outed me,” he said of his coming out. “I lived in America for seven years and I adore the country. But it can be quite aggressive the way people are outed, people like Lance Bass, who were dragged out of the closet. For me, it was a very conscious decision that I made in a very calm and sort of measured state of mind.”

Still, there was concern over how being an out gay man would affect his music career.

“Even though I never lied about it, there was a concern that some of my female fans would feel that I fooled them or maybe they’d feel like they’d been lied to which wasn’t the case., But as a gay man, there’s always that disappointment a woman in your life feels when you come out, a woman who had a crush on you, I have such a strong connection to my audience, my female audience, I thought, ‘This is going to be interesting.’ I was overwhelmed by the positivity, I think that was due to the fact that I never lied.”