Savage Garden are in the middle of their first ever major venue Brisbane performance. It's May 1997 and we're in Australia the country Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones don't yet realise they'll be away from for 300 out of the 365 days that are currently flashing by. This is their hometown, and this is a special night for them. Family and friends are in the audience and it has to be something spectacular. For the most part, they have been professional, but it's obvious that they're tip-toeing and feeling their way through the 'live..musical..performance..experience' and the usually hysterical crowd reaction that accompanies 

'Really? A fight broke out?', ponders the concerned singer, backstage after the gig. 'I had no idea'. Ironically this happened during one of the more slow tempo, passive tracks on the entire album -- a track that most of the world who owns the self-titled platinum debut album won't even get to hear. "Mine" was released in Australia, but not on the Sony/Columbia version of the album elsewhere because of the religious content. 'Yeah, we were told
it was "lyrically overblown,

'It's about all the love I kind of have. I'm a very devoted person and a very faithful person. It's funny. I guess I realise in the face of all that, I'm a selfish person because I want everything I can't have. I fall in love every day and I'm attracted to all sorts of people. ["Mine"] is about feelings I've had for a couple of people and they will never know. They'll never have any idea and that's what the lyric is about. "You don't have to die to leave my world, just stand still and you've departed". It's actually inspired by the film "The Age Of Innocence". Imagine the one thing or the one love

'That's where most of the songs on the album come from, a place in Hayes' history. Usually moments in time that have moved him or changed his life. '"Truly [Madly, Deeply]" was actually written for my girl.' Hayes' girl being, of course, his wife of two years Colby Taylor. There's a lyric in the "Night Radio" mix of the track which gives away the personal sentiment of the song. 'The mix on the album was done in Melbourne and for some reason they just they didn't include that lyric ["I love you"]. I didn't really care at the time; I think 

It's obvious that Savage Garden are in show business for the love of the music and the thrill of the industry. They're big fans of subtle nuances in their work, ranging from panning vocals in "A Thousand Words" to playing different characters 

'I am a huge fan of stuff like that, stuff that only fans would pick up. Really subtle stuff. It's just little things that you know if someone doesn't like your music, then screw them and they don't deserve to hear it. They're not things that make or break the song but interesting things that really top it off. I really enjoy panning vocals, like in "Break Me Shake Me" there's stuff like that which are actually panned out so far that on some stereos you can't hear them. If you're listening to it in a very mono situation you wouldn't hear it at all.'

Jones seems to prefer staying in the background, doing the blue collar work which is the instrumentation and everything electronic.

'It's a song that unfortunately Savage Garden shouldn't have recorded or performed, but it's definitely a song where Darren and I actually looked at each other and learned a lot about our song writing together,' muses Jones. He ponders some more and offers further explanation. 'It was a bit of a change for us, it was one of the early songs we had written together and we looked at each other and thought, "this isn't quite us" because we were still finding ourselves. And I think

'There were certain elements within that song that changed in the recording of this record that were in the demo. In the recording process our producer came on board and heard that reggae feel and said "let's make it a reggae song, a little more so". It was the odd one out at the end; it was the one track that wasn't ours, even though we wrote it. As a demo it was probably more ours, but we started to see what shape this band was taking and it just didn't fit it.' Hayes adds, '"Fire" is my least favourite song and we'll never ever do it live. Actually you'll never see that song again, it's been deleted. It's just a bit too cute and we want to stop

'It's just that I'm a big Prince fan and I love the way he arranged a lot of his vocals. I have to admit I got everyone I know into Prince. I like to
say that because, I remember when I just got "Purple Rain" and that changed my life. When I was in grade eight I got a walkman and listened to that all the time and that's probably the reason why I make music today. I've never really gotten 

Hayes ponders for a few more seconds as if reaching into the recesses of his mind for further information about something he's obviously enthused about. So I ask him about the Prince influences on the record. '"In Carry On Dancing", there's a line about the dawn in there -- "You're never safe 'til you see the dawn" -- and I was thinking that it sounds very much like Prince.' I wait for his reaction which takes a few seconds in coming. 'It's weird. I never even picked that up

I ask him if he's ever heard the Prince track, "She's Always in My Hair", trying to allude to the fact that the opening lyrics are almost identical to those of "Fire Inside The Man".

Present day. At rehearsals for the new tour, attractively titled 'The Future Of Earthly Delites', the excitement and anticipation can be felt in the air. Some of the best people in the Australian music industry are working on this show and it's obvious. The lighting is amazing. The backdrop is a cityscape almost directly taken from a raw cut of "Bladerunner", another inspiration for Hayes. The disco balls hanging from the ceiling, the Japanese dragons to each side of the main stage and the 20 foot catwalk into the crowd are all due to personal input from Hayes and Jones. The influence in set

Backtrack even earlier than before, to the end of March 1997. Savage Garden have just finished a stripped down acoustic set at Brisbane's Carindale Shopping Centre, their first live performance in the city they grew up in, three days after their debut album release on 24 March. The mini-concert was quite impressive, giving fans of the first three singles a taste of what else the album had in store.

At dinner later that night, Hayes proves he's a true vegan by ordering a Caesar Salad without the bacon or anchovies.

But this was before all the fame and the world-wide commotion that "I Want You" and "Truly, Madly, Deeply" have caused. After holding steady for two weeks in the number one spot in the States,

No more tip-toeing. Savage Garden have embraced the rock 'n' roll scene and are ready to unleash their futuristic brainchild in sell-out venues all over Australia. Then they move onto Europe and America, displaying what they have to offer to almost anyone who will listen. And listen they will, as record sales and the victory of eleven ARIA awards have definitely proven. This is what they've worked for, this is the passion that drives them. Their dream has finally been realised and the scary thing is that it's still just the tip of the iceberg.