Former Savage Garden frontman Darren Hayes had much to celebrate in 2002 - as he finally put the troubles of his old band behind him and became a worldwide smash, spending nine weeks in th UK Top 40, topping the chart in his native Australia and was one of the most played tracks on American radio soon after its release.

Then his album Spin had similar succsess, establishing him alongside the likes of Enrique Iglesias and Robbie Williams as one of the world's most popular male singers. But Hayes doesn't see it like that. Instead of getting caught up in the hype that surrounds him, he sees himself as a singer just starting out, someone who still has a lot to prove.

"It's something that is slowly developing," he says. "I'm still trying to work out what my voice is, what kind of music I make as myself. I think that's why anyone keeps making records and writing songs, you keep chasing this dream. I still don't feel like I've made the best record I can make."

While his record company felt that Spin was a sure thing, since Hayes had already fronted a band that was popular around the world, the singer - who also reached the milestone of turning 30 last year - felt he was starting from scratch again. As such, Spin's success felt like even more of an achievement.

"Any time my song was on the radio or a minor hit anywhere I was celebrating it like it was the first time," he remember. "I'm happy that it's starting from a ground roots level and these are my triumphs at the moment, even if in the grand scheme of things they're average."

Hayes's way of viewing his career seems to be an attempt to start a new chapter in his life after the tensions between him and Savage Garden's reclusive other member, Daniel Jones, caused the band's split in 2001.

It was a personality clash, and Jones's unhappiness with being famous, that caused the split, and the pair didn't speak for a long time. But Hayes is now back in contact with Jones after the musisian came to see his former vocalist in concert.

"It was a nice way to put an end of one era of our lives together," says Hayes happily." And it was nice to have that kind of approval. "It wasn't a matter of buryinging the hatchet, I don't know if there was a hatchet. I just know that him coming to the show was a really healing thing to do. To just accept that we're both different people and that we both have different priorities in life was good."

Hayes has his own issues with celebrity, however. While Jones didn't like any of the attention that Savage Garden brought him, Hayes is an enthusiastic performer and revels in the attention that singing to a sea of faces brings him.

But he's not so enamoured with the inevitable media attention. He shies away from attending showbiz parties and film premieres and prefers to spend his time at his home in San Francisco with his friends and his dog.

"I think I make a terrible celebrity," he chuckles. "The truth is I find most of those parties boring, and I find most of the people to be empty and fake. So it's pretty hard for me to hang out on that scene and work it. "I've never worked it. There's never been a hand I've had to shake or a butt that I've had to kiss to get where I am. I just write songs and sing them. "I understand that sometimes you need to walk down a red carpet so that people know you have a record coming out, and I appreciate that. But I want to write songs, not have a fabulous quote in the back of a glossy mag."

So lets concentrate on the music. His new single Crush (1980 Me) is the fourth and last from Spin but probably the best. It's a shameless slice of pop that pays tribute to everything that Hayes loved about the 80s, in particular 1983 when he was 11.

He says: "I'm a fan of the 80s for many reasons. As a child, 1983 was the year I really turned on to visuals and music and I knew that I wanted to be an entertainer. "It's interesting today listening to the electroclash movement and French disco and bands like Ladytron and Miss Kittin. These kids think they're making this fresh brand new music but to me it just sounds like early Depeche Mode records. "I love it and I'm happy that at the moment we're rediscovering the simplicity of that era.

The 80's went bland and became something quite hideous but in the begining I thought it was a really interesting, colourful time."

But Hayes is not stuck in the past. Indeed he is very much looking to the future and is about to embark on a six month sabbatical, in which he plans to take up some new hobbies.

"I want to take a couple of classes at university. I might study film production or writing. "I'll do some some songwriting as well but only very casually. I want to look into my guitar, sit down and actually learn more than 5 chords," he laughs. "I want to do things that are a little bit outside myself. I'm just trying to find real life for the next year so that when I come back to music I've got stories that people want to hear. "I don't want to make albums about dealing with celebrity or the pressures of money. I want to write about things that we all feel."