Savage Garden Splits Up After Two Successful Albums

SYDNEY, AU (Reuters) - Australian pop duo Savage Garden has decided two successful albums and four hit singles were more than enough and has disbanded on the brink of its singer's debut solo album.

Singer Darren Hayes broke the news to Australian journalists before his partner, Daniel Jones, had even heard about the split himself although there is reportedly no animosity between the duo.

"We've both had a lot of success together," Jones told the Sydney Morning Herald in its Saturday (Oct. 6) edition (Sydney is 15 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time). "We'll probably have a lot of success independently in the future. I didn't want to be travelling the world as intensely as we were. [Darren] loved it. He loved the attention and the limelight and went really hard for it. I have a lot of respect for Darren and we have a good relationship. We achieved something so great in a short period of time that we had to look for something else."

Columbia Records released Savage Garden's self-titled debut album, which spawned the hits "Truly Madly Deeply," "I Want You," and "To the Moon and Back," in 1997. The album went on to sell 12 million copies worldwide and win a record setting 10 Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) awards that same year. The duo followed its debut up with 1999's Affirmation, featuring the hit "I Knew I Loved You," which has sold eight million copies worldwide and counting.

As for the future, Hayes is readying his debut solo album, Spin , while Jones has started a small production label, Meridenmusik, which scored an top 30 hit in Australia with Aneki's "Pleased to Meet You, co-written by Jones.