Reviews
Kinda Love
Rushes
Incredible
Girl In the Moon
Dive In
The Dive In Tour
Sink or Swim
Kinda Love
Live Twice
The Belfast Newsletter 27/09/02
DARIUS has been laying down the law ahead of next week’s star studded Big Buzz Entertainment Awards.
The star is set to thrill the Waterfront Hall on his first appearance in Ulster during the ceremony by performing his Number One hit Colourblind.
But it looks like he could soon be rivalling P DIDDY and J LO when it comes to bringing your entourage.
Darius is bringing over more than 20 of his friends, family and assistants for the bash next Friday and organisers have been forced to build a bigger table just to house all his guests.
The singer recently exclusively revealed to me that he was half-Irish and his mum grew up in Ballymena and now he wants to turn his home-coming into a major party.
The star is planning to drop in to CHINA CLUB and trendy Bar 7 with his entourage for a boozy after-show bash.
A show insider revealed: “Darius is so excited about coming to Ireland that he’s bringing everyone he knows!
“He’s planning on going out on the town after the bash and having a major knees-up and everyone’s invited.
“Darius regards himself as half-Irish so, for him, this is like the big home-coming gig he has always been dreaming of.”
Glasgow Evening Times September 27 2002
POP IDOL star Darius is in the pink after showing his support for the upcoming Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Cancer Research UK has set aside October to inform people about the killer condition and organised a special Get In The Pink Day next Friday as part of it.
And to help spread the message, the Scots singing sensation has lent his No1 voice to urge people to take part in all the organised fundraising events.
Pictured with the charity's pink ribbon symbol of hope for those affected by the disease, he said: "Breast Cancer Awareness Month gives us the chance to support women - past and present - who have experience of the disease.
"Research is vital to continue to improve recovery rates and your contribution will make a difference."
The organisation has also organised two Stride for Life 10km fun walks in Scotland in order to help raise more funds and awareness.
Open to individuals, families and teams the weekend walks are set to take place at Chatelherault Country Park, Hamilton on October 6 and Culzean Castle and Country Park, Ayrshire, on October 12 and 26.
Anyone interested in taking part in any events should contact 0141 951 2890 or call the event hotline on 0845 602 1940.
The Guardian Saturday September 21, 2002
Today's pop stars, say their critics, aren't half as talented as their predecessors because they have little or nothing to do with writing their songs. But that misses the point, says Peter Paphides. Kylie and Robbie aren't really so very different from Elvis or Frank. In pop, the songwriter has always been the power behind the throne
It should have been a good week. Simon Cowell had just received the latest set of demos from songwriter Andreas Carlsson. Cowell, at the time BMG's chief executive of A&R, listened to them on his way home and decided that there was at least one song that would be a worldwide hit for whichever artist was lucky enough to record it. He booked a flight to Sweden, where Carlsson is based, and persuaded him to put the song aside for BMG boy band 5ive. Fine, said Carlsson, but only if 5ive were able to fly to Stockholm and start recording the following week. Cowell picks up the story. "It's a fairly standard procedure. You go there, you do the song, end of story. So what happened? Next thing I know, there's a phone call from the studio. 5ive decided that they didn't like the demo, and left. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the song in question was Bye Bye Bye, which became a hit all over the world for *Nsync."
That was two years ago. 5ive released one more single, then split. Some Smash Hits readers may have mourned their passing, but the world of music remained largely unchanged. There are plenty of applicants to fill the space left by a boy band who got too big for their boots. As Cowell puts it, "You know, once you've got to that stage with an artist, it's just, 'Fuck off'. What's the point?"
If pop music in the 21st century seems to be carrying on as though the Beatles never happened, there's a good reason for it. The Beatles were never meant to happen. Until they came along and effectively seized the means of production by writing their own songs, the A&R man's job - matching artists to repertoire - ruled pop. Afterwards, his job was reduced to that of talent scout.
It's tempting to wonder what would have happened had George Martin not cast aside the Beatles' proposed first A-side - a flimsy version of Gerry Marsden's How Do You Do It? - in favour of Lennon and McCartney's Love Me Do. Would the Marsden song have been a hit? Would they have been dropped if it hadn't?
Before the Beatles, chart music didn't divide into the "fake" stuff (pop) and the "real" stuff (rock). Singers had no desire to prove themselves by writing their own songs. It simply wouldn't have occurred to them. The structure was already in place. Jobbing songwriters would provide the material for the likes of Billy Fury or Tommy Steele, who would then tour the postwar dancehalls of Britain, six or seven on the same bill, singing their latest hits. To see how much we've returned to that world, look no further than the Pop Idol Big Band Tour that followed the TV show: 10 pretty young things touring the arenas of Britain, singing other people's songs to rapt teenagers. Just like the olden days.
The professional songwriter is back with a vengeance, servicing the constant demand for material needed to fill albums by the likes of Will Young, Gareth Gates, S Club 7, Britney Spears, Blue, Holly Valance, Westlife, Atomic Kitten, Liberty X and *Nsync. Ask Cowell how he feels about the songwriters he works with, and the icy persona familiar to viewers of Pop Idol transforms itself into something approaching obsequiousness: "In one year, maybe five top-drawer, grade-A songs might appear, and my job is to get them for my artists. Everyone else is after those songs, too. So what do I do? Well, I try and keep on good terms with the songwriters."
Like any business, the music industry is a hierarchy, and the place of jobbing songwriters within it depends on the goods they have to offer. At the top sits Max Martin. Formerly a singer with Swedish heavy rock band It's Alive, Martin eased into the world of professional songwriting when demos of Baby, One More Time sparked a bidding war between major record companies. Arista boss Clive Davis wanted it for TLC, but with several million album sales behind them TLC felt sufficiently confident to turn it down. Cowell wanted it for 5ive, but Martin gave it to Jive Records' newest signing. "I was scared of him!" remembered the young Britney Spears. "I thought he was someone from [heavy rock band] Mötley Crüe or something." It's amazing how flexible a good song can be. When Martin wrote Baby, One More Time, he'd imagined 1970s rockers Rainbow doing it.
According to the American composers' society, Martin's songs for Britney, Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion have made him the most performed and broadcast writer in the world. High-yielding writing teams, such as Gregg Alexander and Rick Nowels (Ronan Keating, Shaznay Lewis) and the Norwegian production team Stargate (Blue, Holly Valance, Mariah Carey), also enjoy a degree of independence. The further down the hierarchy, however, the greater the competition to have your song considered by a Britney or a Blue. A writing credit on a single that tops charts worldwide will easily add a million to your bank balance and increase demand for your material.
Hanging on to their egos in this world of rejection, knock-backs and occasional breaks is a growing crowd of would-be hitmakers, offering song after song in the hope that it'll take them a few steps up the ladder. If they're lucky, they'll have a chorus accepted or they'll be asked to write new verses for a song submitted by someone else. It's a feeding frenzy, and it explains why songs such as Cher's Believe can end up with half a dozen songwriting credits.
Cathy Dennis used to be part of that frenzy, but since winning three Ivor Novello awards for Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out Of My Head, her phone hasn't stopped ringing: "The requests are pretty shameless, really," says Dennis - not so long ago a successful recording artist herself. "It's mainly, 'Can you write me a hit like that one?' The answer is usually no."
Working his way up the hierarchy is former Danny Wilson frontman Gary Clark. Like many of his peers, Clark was drawn to songwriting out of financial necessity. He found himself on a residential songwriting course with Dennis in the mid-1990s and was "blown away by how talented she is - melodies just flow out of her". Dennis, however, seems ambivalent about her job. "To be honest, I hate the idea of writing songs for loads of different people. I hate being seen as a stepping stone for someone who wants to have a hit."
But surely she's using someone such as Gareth Gates as a stepping stone? It's he who has to travel the world singing a song for which she's going to get most of the money. "I do sympathise, because I've been there. But part of me thinks, 'Well, honey, no one's forcing you.' If pop stars have any complaints about their lot, I'm probably not the best person to whinge to."
The relationship between pop idols and the people who supply their songs is at best an uneasy alliance. For Dennis and former OMD frontman Andy McCluskey - neither of whom chose to stop being pop stars - the ideal situation would be to sing their own songs. For the pop idol charged with the job of doing that for them, the sacrifices are artistic freedom and lucrative songwriting royalties.
"There's little change out of £1m when a new act is launched," says McCluskey. "And most of it is paid for by the artist. Whatever money Gates ends up making for himself will be made after the costs of recording, advertising, packaging, videos and travel expenses are recouped." Often, by the time the band realises whose money they're spending, it's too late. At the peak of Bros's success, singer Matt Goss demanded an extra first-class seat on a flight to New York, to accommodate a huge teddy bear he had bought for his girlfriend - not realising who would be footing the bill.
As with any industry, the key to profitability boils down to control of the assets - in this case, the songs. When it's the singer, this autonomy brings with it a certain degree of volatility. Or, if you like, the artistic clout to make terrible business decisions. "In the 1980s, with bands like OMD, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, we thought of ourselves as artists," says McCluskey.
"We were going to change the world with the songs we were writing. Not only could we make an album called Architecture & Morality and sell four million on the back of hit singles about Joan of Arc. But, because we were 'artists', we felt entitled to follow it up with Dazzle Ships, which had no hit singles and sold about a tenth as much as a result. And that's the situation with us then and bands like Blur now. Bands set out to make records that are critically acclaimed."
Not around Cowell they don't. "If anyone came in to me with that attitude, I'd tell them to fuck off," he says. "Anyone who says they're doing it for any reason other than to be famous is lying."
So how do you make sure your singers are "on message"? "You try and choose the right people."
And Will Young, winner of Pop Idol, who gave Cowell a piece of his mind in the qualifying heats - is he one of "the right people"? "I hope so," says Cowell. "But let's see. There's no point in making predictions, because all too often you end up with egg on your face."
Cowell swells with proprietorial pride when the subject of Gates comes up, however. It was Gates's career that he pledged to oversee before the final of Pop Idol. That Young got more votes was of no interest to Cowell. He delegated the business of choosing Young's songs to someone else on his label. "Will is a great singer," he says, "but Gareth is a pop idol." (Next week, the singer and the idol will duet on a cover version of The Long And Winding Road.)
Will Gates ever ask awkward questions? "I think he trusts us," says the man who signed Robson & Jerome, Westlife and the Tweenies. "Gareth doesn't question anything you suggest to him. And that makes us trust him. Let's see if, by the third album, he'll trust us - because, if he does, this boy's got a long career."
It's divide and rule - with people such as Cowell doing the dividing. Separate the writer from the performer, and you have a situation where both are trying to please the record company. McCluskey says that, for him, the penny dropped in 1997, following the release of OMD's final single Walking On The Milky Way. "Radio stations refused to play it and shops wouldn't stock it. The writing was on the wall. You suddenly found that you'd be in London doing promotion and you'd be booked into a slightly grottier hotel than the last time you played there. Pretty depressing, really."
When the song managed to climb to No 17 "with its hands tied behind its back", McCluskey decided to play the music industry at its own game. Together with co-writer Stuart Kershaw, he set about forming a girl group; he put together three Liverpool teenagers, called them Atomic Kitten and managed to secure a record deal. "It was just me reliving my youth through a bunch of girls and watching their dreams come true."
The experiment almost ended in failure. After three poorly selling singles, Virgin told him it wouldn't release the group's album. In November 2000, with McCluskey still owed £50,000 for delivery of the album, he struck a deal - he told the label to keep the money in exchange for the album. "They asked me what I planned to do, and like a fool, I told them!" His plan was to independently finance the release of the album's big ballad, Whole Again.
Virgin came to two conclusions. Either McCluskey was a deranged idealist, hellbent on stumping up his own cash on the offchance that Whole Again would be a massive hit; or, much more likely, he had found another label to buy the album. As it turned out, he was a deranged idealist: "So we accidentally bluffed them into re-signing the band and releasing Whole Again, and all because we were stupid enough to dare do it ourselves."
Five weeks at No 1 for Whole Again - way in excess of anything McCluskey had achieved with OMD - increased the duo's stock as songwriters. "We received offers from all sorts of people. Celine Dion wanted to do Whole Again; Britney Spears wanted to put it on her third album. But because Atomic Kitten hadn't released anything in the US, we said no. Why? Because we wanted to give them a chance to have a hit with it there. If we sold it to Britney, that wasn't going to happen. Looking back, I was rather naive. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for."
Then, after McCluskey and Kershaw had started writing Atomic Kitten's second album, they were informed of their new writing collaborators. Like McCluskey, they were from Liverpool and had had a string of hits. They were Atomic Kitten. Laugh? He almost died. "Their manager turned to us and said, 'The girls will be writing 30% of the next album.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'They will be writing 30% of the next album.' And do you know what? They have! We co-wrote one with [group member] Liz McLarnon, but at no point previously did the other girls express to me an interest in songwriting."
Well, I suggest, there's nothing that whets the appetite quite like seeing a huge pie being cut into slices. "Exactly. Maybe they have written 30% of the new album." McCluskey will probably never find out. The group he put together are no longer in touch with him. "Certain things have been done and said in their name and in our name that have effectively soured the relationship. Good luck to them. I just hope that, when it stops, they'll have made enough money to cushion the blow."
If, as McCluskey puts it, "the job of the record company is to keep the artist perpetually in debt", it's not surprising that, sooner or later, the pop star or, more likely, their manager will start to show an interest in the financial possibilities afforded by the songwriting credit. McCluskey says he's heard several testimonies in which songwriters were told that the song they wrote would be co-credited to the singer.
"It may be amoral," he says, "but it's business. I'd heard about this years ago, but hadn't paid it much attention. When we started working with other producers and writers, I started hearing horror stories. I was like, 'What?!! You had to give them how much?!! And they didn't even co-write it?' By and large, songwriters are pretty sanguine about this because the maths is simple. Do you want 50% of an act that will sell two or three million? Or do you want 100% of fuck-all?"
In fact, squeezing the star's name on to writing credits is nothing new. In Nashville, where jobbing songwriters have long found work writing for the thriving country music industry, the practice - usually referred to as "Change a word, get a third" - is commonplace. As a matter of course, Colonel Tom Parker used to insist that Elvis Presley received half of the songwriting revenue from his songs. Don't Be Cruel and All Shook Up were two of six songs that Otis Blackwell submitted to Parker for consideration. Blackwell seemed unbothered by having to share the credit: "People say, 'He took a slice of your life and made millions.' Well, I'm happy someone took it, because I wasn't making anything with it."
Blackwell may have been forgiving, but for Diane Warren, the US's most successful songwriter-for-hire, there's no such thing as benign theft. "It's disgusting," says the woman behind the pneumatic power balladry of If I Could Turn Back Time for Cher and Unbreak My Heart for Toni Braxton: "After Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You, she was approached by Colonel Parker about Elvis doing the song. It broke her heart because she'd always wanted Elvis to sing one of her songs, but in the end she refused. It was good karma for her when Whitney did it."
Warren echoes McCluskey's assertion that such publishing ransoms are part of professional songwriting. "Some people can be more blatant than others. But I don't let people fuck with me. It's basically stealing."
For a pop star, sharing songwriting credits isn't purely about money. It's about respect. And in the post-Beatles world, we've grown up believing that you earn respect by writing your own songs. Since the release of her debut hit Torn, Natalie Imbruglia has told several interviewers of her plans to "get more involved" with the songwriting process. Last year, she delivered on that promise with an album, White Lilies Island, much of which was co-written by Gary Clark. "Natalie has a lot of good ideas," says Clark. "Unfortunately, there's a perception that solo artists who collaborate with other people are not proper artists."
It's a perception that Imbruglia has been at pains to correct. Despite her tireless promotion of the album's three singles, none has matched the success of Torn. Seemingly unencumbered by the fact that he works for the same label as her, Cowell isn't surprised: "What do I think of Natalie Imbruglia taking her poetry into the studio? My thoughts in one word: goodbye. The idea of Natalie Imbruglia thinking she's a better writer than the guy who wrote that song is unbelievable."
Clark is indignant: "Surely the idea is to sign artists, not puppets." Hmm. Maybe this is the point at which the interests of commerce and expression collide. After all, what serves art best? Imbruglia to convey what she feels, or another hit as big as Torn? "It's the great dichotomy of pop," says Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. "The songs that are written for commercial purposes always last longer than those that seek to transcend fashion and become great art. What do people remember most from the early 1970s? Is it Tarkus by Emerson, Lake & Palmer? Or is it Wig Wam Bam by the Sweet?"
This is why, much as it may flatter him, it's hard to cast Cowell as the black-clad bogeyman of the industry. Even in the ruthless world of disposable pop, some kind of governing aesthetic manages to assert itself. The problem is that pop stars have to wait years for their records to be seen as art - and sometimes that's just too long. "The only comparisons you can make between Kylie and me," Imbruglia said recently, "is that we're both Australian and we were both on Neighbours."
But there is another comparison: she might care to ponder what happened to Minogue in the "low" years between the popular but critically reviled Stock, Aitken & Waterman-penned hits and her resurrection with a song written by Cathy Dennis and Rob Davis. In a bid to appease the critics, she took her poetry into the studio: the resulting album, Kylie Minogue, saw her reinvented as some sort of postmodern dog's dinner, spewing stream-of-consciousness psychobabble about the chasm between people's perceptions of her and her soul. A year later Minogue was label-less.
Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman wrote a string of sublime songs for Sweet, Mud, Smokie - and, lest we forget, Some Girls by the heroically unfashionable Racey. Chapman suggests that when the person whose name is on the record gets Beatles-esque notions that they can write, "it's always a gamble. We'd written something like eight top 10 hits for Sweet when we heard that they'd entered the studio to record their own songs. After that, it was over for them. The bottom line is this - writing songs might be easy to do, but it's incredibly hard to do well."
Which is why people such as Clark (currently working on new albums for Mel C and Backstreet Boy Nick Carter) and Guy Chambers (Robbie Williams' co-writer) are so valuable. Every pop star who aspires to longevity cites George Michael as proof that being in a boy band is a springboard rather than a gangplank. But without someone to help them come up with nice tunes, the only way is down.
Darius Danesh knows the score. As a 21-year-old singer trying to make it in pop without ending up a victim or a puppet, George Michael and Robbie Williams are his Beatles. He's watched their transition from pop idols to respected artists and concluded that songwriting might have had something to do with it. When we meet to talk about his single Colourblind - the result of an ongoing collaboration between him and songwriters Pete Glenister and Deni Lew - he refers to Michael and Williams 17 times in a 45-minute conversation. Despite having appeared on Popstars and Pop Idol, he disdains either tag.
"I've taken a different route," he says. "When I look at the people who I respect and look to in order to encourage my songwriting, it's artists like David Gray, Nelly Furtado, Alicia Keys and Dido [all of whom write their own material]. And when my new single is released, I hope to call them my peers."
But is it so bad to be a pop idol? "I think the quality of the product has been compromised for the glitz of the packaging. There's been a decline of CD sales in recent years, and you could argue it's because the songwriting isn't as organic." He pauses, struggling to describe the difference between being a puppet and an artist: "Perhaps the idea of a production line - the artist who can sing, but purely as a singer, and is put through the mill, which involves teaming them up with the right songs written by other people, which involves putting them through the styling, by sheening them with a pop facade that is sellable through the teen market - it could be argued that there's only so much life in that before the next tin of beans is on the shelf. That's why, when Simon Cowell offered me a five-album deal, I said no."
Cowell has a slightly different recollection: "He played me three of his songs and I didn't think any of them were good enough."
"Did he say that?" smiles Darius. "I've got a lot of respect for Simon. But the fact is he wanted me to sing other people's songs. And that's not what I'm about." What are you about? "Well, the fact that I'm working with [producer] Steve Lillywhite, the man behind U2 and Travis, speaks for itself."
Given his passion for original material, Darius's involvement in the Pop Idol Big Band tour must have been frustrating - performing covers to arenas full of screaming teenagers. "I had the time of my life, actually. Doing all that big band stuff and getting to sing in a style we haven't heard much of recently - well, except that Robbie did his album, which I thought was great. I felt I was lucky to be allowed a glimpse of stuff which, potentially, I might cover in future."
But I thought he was focusing on his own songwriting. "Well, yes. What I mean is, I don't really like doing covers. But when I look to artists I respect, like Robbie or George Michael - they're serious artists who emerged from boy bands to release their own material. That gave them the freedom to cover other people's songs." Four days later, Darius enters the charts at No 1. Goodbye, Pop Idol Darius. Hello, "organic" singer-songwriter Darius. "I'm over the moon that I've got creative control," he says. But would he use that control to make a record that sounds, say, like Radiohead's last album? "Um, if it's a great song and Steve gives it the thumbs up, then sure."
In his memoir, Black Vinyl, White Powder, Wham!'s manager Simon Napier-Bell recalls seeing Wham! on television for the first time: "Top Of The Pops was a programme on which the director never directed the artist" he wrote. "He left them to perform as they wished. When Wham! came on to do Young Guns, they completely changed the way the programme looked. It was as if they'd rehearsed with the TV crew for days."
A star such as George Michael, who appears fully formed with a game plan and a batch of ace songs, comes along maybe once every 20 years. But this hasn't stopped the music industry becoming obsessed by the idea of "the new George Michael" ever since Michael launched his solo career. Career-minded teen stars love the idea that Michael earned the respect of a new demograph with his mature songs.
The music industry love that idea, too, because it makes their profits last longer. So what is the difference between "the idea" of George Michael and the real George Michael? The real George Michael is currently holding Polydor to a one-single-at-a-time "trial" period before deciding whether or not to sign to the label. The real George Michael attracted widespread condemnation from the industry when he took Sony to court in a bid to terminate his contract.
That's why you won't be seeing Cowell on the judging panel of a programme called Singer-Songwriter. In the divide-and-rule world of new pop, where singers and songs are joined by the person who stands to benefit the most from them, what kind of music does that result in?
According to McCluskey, "You're less likely to get a group singing a truly strange piece of maverick, out-there pop merely because they had enough control to do so - but you're also going to get a lot less duds, because record companies get to pick the songs. And the best way to make money is to pick songs that people like. I still think that once in a while a classic comes through, like some of Britney's and Kylie's hits. That won't change. It just reduces pop's capacity for spontaneous acts of magic."
Cowell's next project is rumoured to be another cross-promotional TV/music tie-in: a new version of the Monkees. Of course, the thing about the last Monkees was that they tired of being told what to sing and started writing their own songs - some of them pretty fantastic. If the new Monkees do the same, what's Cowell going to do then?
The Belfast Newsletter 27 September 2002
Few stars have had such a shaky start to their career as 21-year-old Darius, who has become such a household name that he doesn’t even need to bother using his surname Danesh.
Darius, of course, came to our attention as the long-haired, goatee-sporting contestant in the hit series Popstars.
Without even making it into the last 10 finalists, Darius was better-known than anyone else on the programme thanks to an appalling rendition of the Britney Spears song Baby, One More Time, and hilariously telling his potential bandmates to “feel the love in the room”.
Such moves made the young wannabe a laughing stock in the eye of the public and media. One can only admire his bravery and determination, therefore, when, having escaped the ultimate doom of Popstars winners Hear’Say, he turned up at the Pop Idol auditions clean-shaven and hair nicley cropped to give it another go.
And, amazingly, he redeemed himself. Foregoing any cringe-worthy adaptations of pop songs and being seemingly down-to-earth, Darius made it to the final three contestants, only to be ultimately pipped to the post by Will Young and Gareth Gates.
But while Darius failed to win the competition, he had two things on his side; he was already a famous name and he had managed to change the public’s opinion of him.
Last month, he released his first solo record, Colourblind, which shot to number one and stayed there for two weeks. Unlike his fellow Pop Idol graduates, Darius resisted all offers of releasing cover versions and went for a song he had written himself and it paid off. So, credit where credit is due, Darius has succeeded against the odds, writes his own songs and it’s time, finally, to cut him some well-deserved slack. On October 4, Darius will arrive in Belfast to perform at the Big Buzz Irish Entertainment Awards. The show will be special for him as he is the headlining act and he promises to give the audience an exclusive performance of some unreleased tracks.
“I hope to do as many songs as time permits. But it’ll probably be three different songs from the album, one of which will be an exclusive performance of the new single called Rushes. So I’m really excited about that, because if people where pleasantly surprised by the first single, then I think the second single packs quite a punch and is going to be one that people listen to then step back and think ‘Wow, I wasn’t expecting that’.”
Another thing that will make the Big Buzz appearance special for Darius is that he has roots in Northern Ireland, with his mother and grandparents hailing from Ballymena. While the singer is too busy at the moment to investigate his roots further, he hopes to rectify this in the near future.
“Well, I last went (to Ballymena) when I was quite wee, so it’s been a while since I’ve been over. Since my life has taken a turn, it’s been quite fortunate that it’s taken me over to where my roots are – where my grandmother was brought up.
“I think it would be nice to go with the family at a time when maybe I wasn’t just doing a gig, being able to take time off to see where my gran lived and where my mum’s from. I hope to that sometime in the new year,” he says.
For the time being, however, Darius has been busy working on his debut solo album, which he has now written and is in the process of recording.
On the album, which is due for release in November, Darius is working with some top names, including Travis and U2 producer Steve Lillywhite, as well as British producers the Misfits and American team The Matrix, who are responsible for Avril Lavenge, currently one of the biggest selling female artists in the States.
“It’s great to be in such great hands,” says Darius. “As for Steve, it’s really exciting to be working with my idol and I never thought I’d be working with him at the age of 21.
“I couldn’t imagine living a more creatively exciting dream. I feel like I’m working on air. I’m looking forward to sharing it at the Buzz Awards,” he says.
Darius says that he is keen to be involved in the whole process of making his first album, not content to sit in the background while his record company dictate what direction his career should take.
“When I turned up to the first Pop Idol audition in Glasgow, I had my guitar and I wanted to sing them a song that I’d written – and it was called Colourblind. They didn’t let me play it, they wanted me to do a cover, so I put the guitar down and sang a cover.
“I realised at that audition that I would always try to stay true to me, which meant at the end of Pop Idol, even though I was offered a record deal by Simon Cowell, I looked at the artists I respect like Nelly Furtado, Craig David and Alicia Keys and they all had their own individual style and yet they all bring original music to the front edge of pop.
“I feel when I listen to these artists they are very believable. Words and melodies which are sung by the tongue they’re written by comes as being more true.
“These artists don’t fit into any mould that has been put on them, and that’s something I believe is for me. I won’t fit into anyone else’s expectations, standards or commercial ideas of what I should be.”
And the singer says that he doesn’t take any of his success for granted.
“I feel very privileged to be in the position I’m in, to be working with one of the top producers in the world who is actually encouraging the creation of original music and to have the recognition from the public – for them to turn around and say, ‘Yeah, we think you’re all right, we like your music’.”
But while everything is going well for the singer, there comes a backlash in every star’s career when the Press and public are not so kind. And while one would imagine Darius to have developed a thick skin due to the criticism he received even before he released a single, he says this is not the case.
“I don’t think you can ever be fully prepared for anything anyone says about you. Although I’d love to say that I no longer care what people think about me, that would be far from the truth.
“Unfortunately, I care a lot. But you can’t please everybody all the time and if people choose to twist the truth or misrepresent me then there’s nothing I can do about that. I can only get on with what I’m doing and enjoy it. Life is too short to worry about it too much.”
Darius plays the Big Buzz Awards on October 4, at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast.
The New Zealand Herald 20.09.2002
By ELEANOR BLACK
Darius Danesh is running this interview like a confessional. He offers so many apologies, you'd think he was wearing a hairshirt. His spindly ponytail and shaggy goatee are gone, removed in a cleansing ceremony initiated by his horrified 5-year-old brother. I can't see his new look through the phone, but he assures me I'm talking to a new man.
If you can't place the name, Darius is the tall, greasy Scotsman who made a boob of himself on international television with his tortured rendition of a Britney Spears hit, an effort which resulted in him being kicked off the first British series of Popstars.
Since then the repentant 21-year-old has thrown himself in front of reality TV cameras again, for Pop Idol, a programme yet to air here, and stunned everyone by getting a No 1 single out of it. Colourblind, a mellow love song he co-wrote, is the first cut from his debut album, to be released in November.
Darius is overwhelmed with his newfound popularity but admits, hardly taking breath as he recounts his many mistakes in a soothing Glaswegian lilt, he has a long way to go. No one who followed Popstars can forget their discomfort as they watched the obviously talented singer writhe across the screen as he begged, Hit Me Baby One More Time. It was nauseating. When he started blatting on about how much he loved his co-stars - the people who became Hear'Say - and wrote a song about them, shudders travelled from Edinburgh to Invercargill. And when he was dropped from the programme, vowing he'd bounce back with a No 1 single and triple platinum album before he was 35, the British press fell on him like hungry dogs.
Funny thing is, he has fulfilled the first part of his promise, and having signed a five-record deal with Mercury, one of industry giant Universal's labels, has a shot at the second. He has a good voice, although Colourblind does little to showcase his range, and in an industry spilling over with Britneys and Ronans, he offers a point of difference.
And he is really, truly, ever so sorry about his performance on Popstars.
"I don't blame anyone for thinking I was a bit odd because I didn't even come across as being me," he says, with a laugh. "I was going through an insecure period in my life. I think I was hiding behind this goatee and this ponytail - it was ridiculous. I looked like a cross between a Greek waiter and a Spanish tour operator."
The newly shorn Darius claims clever editing helped to turn viewers against him, but counts the whole episode as "the greatest lesson I've ever learned".
"In the grand scheme of things, even all the criticism that was levelled on me, and the fact that I took a great knock in the beginning, was essential in the development of me as a person and as a performer."
The son of two doctors, Darius had a privileged upbringing in one of Glasgow's "best" suburbs and attended a top secondary school, where he wrote this prophetic goal in his yearbook: "Take lessons in How To Appear Not To Be Arrogant and have a No 1 hit with my first song."
He began singing at age 4 and taught himself guitar at 13. He was so set on stardom that he tried out for a gig as a weatherman before making his way to the 2000 Popstars auditions.
In February last year, a month after Popstars started screening in Britain, Darius was offered a recording contract. He chose to finish the third year of his English literature degree at Edinburgh University instead. By June, when he was ready to start making music, no one wanted to work with "Darius the arius".
"The tabloids ripped me apart," he explains. "They tore off my legs before I was ready to stand."
Darius is nothing if not persistent. He soon turned up on television again, this time pitting his voice against other wannabe solo artists. In one week 1.5 million people voted for him to win Pop Idol, and the arius placed third.
Public support gave him the confidence to reject a second record deal which, he says, did not offer him enough creative control. Darius gets emotional when describing meeting Simon Lillywhite, the new managing director for Mercury, who heard his demo tape one morning in March and offered him a contract that night over dinner at a Turkish restaurant.
"I swallowed my tongue and dropped my kebab. I remember going to the bathroom and pinching myself."
With a deal in hand, the real work began. Darius knew that for his third outing in the public eye, he needed the press on side. The extrovert learned to pause before opening his mouth. He worked on his relationship with journalists, charming them with humility, and they started to write more flattering stories about him.
He tries the charm offensive on me, gushing with enthusiasm over this, his second ever international interview. He wants to know if I like his single and what I think of his new look.
His puppy-dog, eager-to-please approach is unexpected - and unwelcome. I'm starting to squirm and all I can think of is that song.
Belfast Evening Telegraph 18 September 2002
Pop heart-throb Darius has revealed a kinky secret - he gets a "rush" from ladies throwing their undies at him!
The gorgeous Glaswegian, who plays Belfast next month, said his biggest thrill is watching the reaction of his female fans when he's performing on stage.
Speaking to Extra last night the 21 year old Pop Idol finlalist said he hoped his Ulster fans would go wild for his music.
Darius, who headlines the Big Buzz Awards bash at the Waterfront Hall on October 4th, said: "My second single, which is due out in November, is called Rushes.
"I wrote it when I was 16 for a girl who lived near me. It was like "wow" when I saw her and I got that feeling of butterflies in my stomach that words can't really describe. I've rewritten the song to make it more specific. It's about the huge adrenalin rush I get when I'm performing on stage."
"There is no feeling like it when I see all those girls react to my song, when they sing the lyrics back to me, when they throw their underwear at me. It's such a buzz.
"I can't wait to play Belfast. The people are so warm and friendly and I hope they really like the show."
Although Darius penned the single for a girl he fancied, he said he had since lost touch with her.
"She moved abroad, to Europe or somewhere and that was around 5 years ago," he said.
"She didn't break my heart or anything like that. She was just someone who gave me butterflies, you know, that type of feeling when you see someone who takes your breath away.
"If you could bottle that feeling it would be a best-seller."
The Sun, Monday 16 September
Music guru ... Waterman
IF THERE is one thing Pete Waterman loves, it is untapped talent. Fresh from the auditions for Popstars: The Rivals, he can hardly contain his excitement.
“There’s one girl who has gone through to the last ten,” he almost trips over himself to tell me.
“She’d never been to an audition before, she thought she’d missed the date. She couldn’t find out where this audition was and then just happened to see it was in Manchester.
“She got her dad to drive her down to the open audition, queued for nine hours and walked it.
“This kid has never done anything like this before. When you see the footage it is quite amazing.
“If you don’t believe in destiny, you look at this kid. It is just frightening.”
Popstars: The Rivals, which started this month on ITV1, aims to create girl and boy bands to release singles to compete for the Christmas No1.
The girls will be managed by fellow judge and Westlife mastermind Louis Walsh, while Pete will oversee the boys.
Pete, Louis and the third judge Geri Halliwell have now reduced the 12,000 hopefuls who auditioned to just ten girls and ten boys who will be put in a Big Brother-style house.
In the later stages of the TV show, viewers will vote off one contestant each week until five are left in each band.
Louis, says Pete, is looking for a band of good-looking lads. He, on the other hand, couldn’t care less what they look like.
But Pete, 55, who started his career as a DJ in Coventry, is determined not to produce yet another boy band.
He says: “Music needs a shot in the arm at the moment. It needs a kick. It’s a bit too slow, too sugary, too sweet. I’m crying out for something else. I’m bored. Play another Swedish boy band record and I’ll throw up.
"Don’t play me another one of these Gareth Gates songs, please. Much as I love him, this is not where I want to go. Gareth has got that market. We don’t need any more of it.
“What’s different about the band which will come out of Rivals is that they will not be a boy band. They could all be one-eyed sailors in this group if they could sing like cherubs.“
I think when the public see my choices there will be some eyebrows raised. One thing no one can accuse me of is being predictable.
“There will be no room to say that I’ve got a formula worked out. They are very diverse people.”
Pete makes no apologies for his bluntness. He says: “Geri beat me up twice because I was so horrible.
“But I stand by what I say. If you can’t take criticism don’t do the job.
“But if you are going to give criticism make sure it’s right.
“If people are crap, tell them and let them get on with the rest of their life.”
He believes the real winner from Pop Idol is Darius Danesh — the loser who was laughed off the original Popstars.
Pete says: “He came from there to No1. Gareth didn’t do that and neither did Will, so if you look at where Darius came from he is the outright superstar from that show.
“Darius is star quality. He is going to win the race.”
However Pete is dismissive of Pop Idol loser Rik Waller. He says: “Rik has done exactly what I said he’d do — go nowhere.
The reason for the huge popularity of talent shows is simple, Pete reckons — they are pure entertainment.
He says: “They are good old fashioned Saturday night shows, just like New Faces was years ago. I just don’t know why the record industry doesn’t get it.
“I think the industry look at the public very naively. It’s black and white to me. If the public like a record it will sell millions, if they don’t it won’t.”
Pete thinks Hear’Say have gone wrong in recent months because the formula which created them was fatally flawed.
He says: “They were put together by television executives with music industry input.
“That is not how you get longevity.
“They have all made money, they have all had their minute of fame and they are not bitter about it. Probably 99.9 per cent of all kids you ask would have loved that but they are never going to get it.”
One person Pete does have time for is Geri Halliwell.
He says: "She is a delight to work with — a complete fruitcake at times, drives me completely barmy, but the public will love her.
“You just have to accept she is a pop star and she is not thinking about anyone else but herself. Judges to dread ... Louis, Geri and Pete
“Pay people millions of pounds and they think the world revolves around them. That’s just how it is.
“I think the public will see that they don’t know this kid. She is very misunderstood.
“She’s fairly used to getting her own way but then so am I. There’s still a big gulf between us but I think she’s fantastic.”
Pete is famed for his on-air spats with fellow judges.
He and Simon Cowell would famously fall out over the Pop Idol finalists and now he is doing the same with Louis Walsh on the new show.
But Pete insists their relationship is very different from the one he had with Simon.
He says: “I do miss Simon. Because we know each other so well, I do miss the spark slightly.
“I have known him a long time and although we do fight, I have a lot of respect for him and I know he has a lot of respect for me.
“The arguments with Louis have been a bit more lightweight. We have been arguing because he doesn’t see the full picture.
“He’s never worked with me for long before, so I am looking at something differently from the way he is.”
Although Simon is basking in the glory of American Pop Idol, Pete says he could not wait to see the new programme.
Pete says: “I speak to Simon every day. He flew back on Saturday night just to see the show. He’s gutted he’s not involved.
“And he’s competitive, which is one of the things I like about him. He knows he is not going to get the Christmas No1.”
Daily Record, Monday 16 September
NOW friends I know you all wake up on a Monday morning and the first thought that enters your head is "I can't wait to read Steve McKenna's column".
I honestly can't blame you for that, but today I must urge you to consider reading another publication.
Right From The Start is Gareth Gates' autobiography which is out today and must be read. I know what you're thinking - that he's an 18-year-old kid that no one had heard of four months ago and has since become a record company puppet.
I can't argue with any of those points. They are all true and valid, but I still think it would be worth a look.
I'm not suggesting you buy it, just nip into the book store and read it from cover to cover when you have a spare 30 seconds.
It shouldn't take that long, as I'd imagine there's only going to be four chapters to cover all the major events in his brief life so far: 1) Birth, 2) School, 3) Pubes, 4) Fame.
It's got to be one of the shortest books of the year alongside Planning a House Party by Michael Barrymore.
I understand fans' desire to find out everything about their idol, but why charge them a fortune for the life story of an 18-year-old? How interesting is a book on acne?
It would be simple to make all this info available for free on the internet, but then I suppose that would mean the record company wouldn't have the fun of yet again ripping off the fans.
I haven't much time for either Gareth or Will, but I've even less time for the so-called experts who sit on shows such as Popstars. These "experts" picked Hear'Say instead of the members of Liberty X - a very big mistake as yesterday's Top 40 proved.
These "experts" got rid of Darius - an even bigger mistake as, hopefully, the next few years will prove.
The pop music industry is becoming stale as TV specials turn out one forgettable clone after another and the only hope of saving the ears of future generations is the parents.
I'm not suggesting that parents ban music, rather I think they should embrace it. Will and Gareth won't be half as cool when mum and dad have their posters up in the bedroom and wear the T-shirts 24-7.
Mums I know it will be hard having pictures of Myleene and Suzanne in the bedroom and dads I know you won't enjoy lying on a Gareth pillow, but it's for the kids.