Savage Garden's hit "I Knew I Loved You" is the band's second song to reach number one in the big bucks American Billboard chart. So has the success gone to the singer's head? His wallet? Or his trousers?

RS: What has selling 11 million albums taught you about life?
DH: So much, but it's not to do with money and success. I feel like I'm a better person for the experience. If you want to learn about yourself and the people around you, be a pop star. You're constantly faced with the mirror: looking at yourself, seeing images, watching your work, watching people react to you, money and how it changes the people around you...

RS: Should fame have a warning sticker?
DH: No, that would suggest there's something to fear. There should be an instruction booklet or a little information leaflet.

RS: Have you subsequently met any of the people who used to pick on you at high school in Brisbane?
DH: I've seen some of them at concerts, one even stopped me while I was driving. They were in the sweetest awe, but I don't hold any grudges. When I see them at concerts I feel sad that they think I look down on them, because I don't.

RS: Do they try and pretend it was all schoolyard hi-jinks?
DH: Everyone just forgets about it, it's all, "That was just a bit of fun, Hayesy...Wasn't it funny when we kicked the shit out of you?" They didn't understand me and I didn't understand them, but once I'm in a context that makes sense - being on TV, making music - they get it. But in high school, when I thought I was Michael Jackson, they didn't get it.

RS: Is there a better example of the differences between yourself and your musical partner Daniel Jones than him buying a house in Brisbane five minutes from his parents and you moving to New York?
DH: We literally are that different, although we are both very emotional. But if I didn't take on the spotlight, no one would do it; but hey, I'm not rehearsing the band today.

RS: So you literally wrote an album via correspondence?
DH: We'd send each other Zip disks. His would have chords or an instrumental and I'd add vocals and harmonies and send it back, but in the end the best songs were written face to face on trips back to Australia and then while recording in San Fransisco. The old fashioned way still wins out.

RS: Was living in New York a way of finding new stimuli?
DH: I didn't want this to be a record about touring or the media or the therapist's couch. The average person doesn't give a shit about your tax bill. I wanted to experience real things and it was a struggle socially, bureaucratically. It was a struggle for people to understand my sense of humour, to realise I wasn't from Austria.

RS: Which of the 21 life lessons on the title track is the most important to you?
DH: Probably "I believe the sun should never set upon an argument". To this day I can't go to sleep if I know something's not right with someone. I'm the person who has to go, "Come on, we're going to talk about this", or put a letter under their door. I've done that with Daniel and the next morning he'll just look at me and go, "Dickhead!"

RS: "Love is more important than monogamy?"
DH: I'm saying that if you trust someone, then you don't have to worry about what they're doing while you're around. If you're betrayed it's someone else's problem.

RS: Was the end of your marriage a boon for your creativity?
DH: Nothing like pain to inspire a good record. This will sound weird, but it was a really beautiful experience. We're still friends, we still talk every few days. But it's not an album about my marriage and how I'm disillusioned with love, it's an album about relationships.

RS: In "Chained To You" you kiss someone on the dance floor during a Madonna song? Which one?
DH: "Frozen", from 'Ray of Light'. A club, two eyes across the room. Bang. Chemistry, chemistry, chemistry. A completely dysfunctional relationship with a lot of love and chemistry, very little compatibility. It was the same feeling I used to dream which inspired "I Want You".

RS: Was it as good in real life as your dream?
DH: Exactly the same. It was deja vu, we spent an amazing year together. But the minute we met we knew it was over.