MAKING THE ALBUM VOLUME 8.
..Originally written on Monday, 07 September 2009 for member's of 'Delicacy' Darren's official fan club at www.darrenhayes.com



I just got back from seeing ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ at the cinema. Comparisons to my own interest in time travel aside, it resonated deeply in me the importance of living in the moment. For those who haven’t seen it I won’t spoil it for you – but what I will say is that it reminded me of a subject matter that I’m exploring on my new album : for want of a better phrase ‘the stuff that really matters’.

My new record is about love.

More specifically it’s about the stuff within love. The bits before, between, after, at the feet of, in the service of, in awe of, in resentment of, in the way of, at the risk of, in exchange for, in receipt of, because of. Love.

I walked out of the cinema and I cried a bit. Mostly because I’m half way around the world from my family (Richard and our dog Wally) and the film reminded me of a nagging fear I always have; that I’m often exchanging time with my loved ones for music. And I always have to evaluate whether or not it’s important enough, whether it’s worth it. Of course, the answer is often ‘YES!’ – but it’s a nagging question.

I’m at a point in my life where I don’t have to keep up any P.R nonsense. The truth is the music industry is tough. It’s always been tough. But especially so in these times. I was with Walter Afanasieff (more on him in a moment) and I was asking where the hell I buy my DVD’s and CD’s now that the Virgin store in Hollywood that I always used to go to has closed. He laughed and said ‘This is America. There are no record stores.’. The point is, obviously there’s virtually no money in making music unless you’re number one. For a long time ;). But money isn’t why I do it. It’s in the pursuit of excellence.

So here I am, in the pursuit of excellence, in L.A, exchanging my precious moments.

I’m holed up in a hotel, and I’ve been making the sweltering journey to and from Studio City every day to work with Walter A.

A man I haven’t worked with since ‘Spin’. Prior to that album, many of you know he produced the album ‘Affirmation’ for Savage Garden.

I talk about this a bit in the video blog I’m working on at the moment, so I won’t double up, but it has been such a great reunion. We haven’t worked together for so long and the reasons are simply that I needed to grow and change. And then after a while various other excuses pop up - but being face to face we both realized we’ve got such a wonderful history together and a wonderful rapport. You might have seen my tweets when we were writing, but it was like diving into a pool of platinum excellence. He cried a few little happy tears when he was recording me and said honestly that my voice has gotten even better over the years.

I can’t tell you how happy that made me feel. I was incredibly nervous singing in front of Walter again. And how happy I was that he noticed all the hard work I’ve put in over the last 8 years!

The song we wrote was absolutely about the stuff that matters. In fact, it probably sounds like the opening few paragraphs of this blog entry. Like everything I’m recording, no 100% guarantee it will end up on the final album track listing but it is indeed a worthy sequel to anything we’ve done together in the past. The song, by the way, has the first letter of ‘L’.

Tomorrow I get back in the studio with Brian West (Track and Field) for a few days.

I’ll be sure to tweet from there and let you know what’s going on. In the meantime here’s a picture of one of Walter’s Grammys.

Love, in all it’s variations

D