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Artist
Darren Hayman
12+ albums
indie popsinger-songwriterindietweebritish
about
Essex-born Darren Hayman is a singer/songwriter who releases albums as a solo artist, but he is best known as the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the UK indie band Hefner. Hayman formed Hefner in 1992 in Kent along with fellow art-school student Antony Harding (later a.k.a. ANT), who played the drums. Moving to London and joining up with John Morrison (bass) and later Jack Hayter (multi-instrumentalist) they started to perform live from 1995, and from '97 they released four studio albums (plus one b-side collection, a live album and a compilation) before splitting up in 2002. All Hefner albums have lyrically been strongly focused on the pathos of geeky young men having troubles with their (lacking) love life. Musically Hefner had a very lo-fi guitar-based singer/songwriter touch to them, but Haymans characteristic somewhat off-key and slightly nasal vocals strongly enforced the emphasism and the irony of the lyrics. With their last album: Dead Media The band included more analogue synth sounds and drum machines in their music though. Darren has recently reunited with Jack Hayter to tour a series of Hefner only sets, in celebration of the re-release of The Fidelity Wars. The first gig, in Copenhagen, found ANT in the audience. - - - - - Along with Morrison, Hayman released one EP, one album and a single as The French in the years 2003-2004 continuing somewhat in the lyrical and musical uviverse, where Hefner left off including even more electronics. - - - - -
