Biography
The members of Savage Garden met in January of 1993 when Daniel Jones placed an ad in 'Time Off' magazine that read:
'SERIOUS LEAD VOCALIST WANTED FOR COMMERCIAL MUSICAL OUTFIT PRESENTLY FINANCED BY MAJOR PUBLISHING COMPANY'
The ad was answered by Darren Hayes and he became the new lead singer of Red Edge (Daniel's Band). Soon Darren and Daniel become tired of only doing cover songs and soon started writing their own music.
Using the name 'Bliss' they spent nearly twelve months in a home studio writing and recording. Then sent out over 150 demos to record companies and publishers. There was not much responce to their first efforts (as with most begining musicains).
It wasn't until veteran artist manager, John Woodruff recieved their tape that their potetial was recoginized. He immediately flew to Brisbane to meet Daniel and Darren. Woodruff was impressed by their song writing and attitudes. The duo were offered a management deal and a record contract from Roadshow/Warner Music.
Daniels says, "We had high aspirations from teh start. We talked about the record deal as if we already had one. We never thought, if this happens. Right from the beginning, it was always, when it does."
Mid 1995, Woodruff set them up in Sydney with noted producer Charles Fisher. The album took almost 8 months to record. Although they suffered setbacks, the self titled album was finally completed.
Somewhere in between the band became named Savage Garden from an Anne Rice book 'Interview with a Vampire'. In the book she describes the world as a savage garden, beautiful on the outside and savage on the inside. Darren thought this fit their sound well since it was 'radio friendly', but also had a more serious background to each song.
The first single 'I Want You' was released on July 1st 1996 and quickly went platinum (selling in excess of 70,000 copies). Peaking at number 4 on the ARIA charts, it was the most added track to radio and the biggest selling Australian single for 1996! It was also ranked No. 12 in the top 1000 selling singles. The next single 'To The Moon & Back' went all teh way to Number One, as did 'Truly Madly Deeply'
Tthree US labels bidded on band, Columbia President (US) Don Lenner and A&R Chief, Mitchelll Cohen, won the bid. They say they were swayed as soon as they heard the first three Australian singles. Columbia signed Savage Garden to a Worldwide deal (excluding Australia and New Zealand). The American interest began when radio consultant Guy Zapolean, orf Houston based Zapoleon Media Strategies, attending a radio conference in Australia, heard the first single and took a copy back to the US where he made copies for radio associates. Before it's label release, 'I Want You' was already getting airpllay on as many as 50 US stations. This scenario allowed Savage GArden to buildairplay long before the product was commercially released; as a result, its USA breakthrough was paricularly dramatic. And as they say, the rest is history...