Daniel Jones seems quite lovely

news.com.au has caught up with Daniel Jones, the half of Savage Garden who didn't pursue a solo career. And he seems lovely:

Lucratively and uncommonly, the pair own the rights to their own music, which they haven’t put on streaming sites, and have remastered their albums and released a new singles compilation.

That has got Jones doing his first interview in many years, but he’s politely declined to send updated photos of himself, still happy to live off the radar.

Thankfully, the website resists the temptation to try and do one of those computer-aged photos which police use to try and track down missing people years later, allowing him to enjoy both his anonymity and what being in Savage Garden did for him financially:

I remind myself of the guy in that Hugh Grant movie Music and Lyrics where he inherited royalties from some old songs. Sometimes I feel like that character in that I’m still getting paid for something I did nearly 20 years ago. That in itself is quite amazing. But it’s how the beast works, it’s how residuals and royalties happen. I’m so appreciative of the fact I’m still getting paid today for something I did so long ago. I did it not to get paid, I did it because I loved doing it. It was that innocent. For someone today to still be putting their hands in their pocket and buying our music, I’m so honoured by that.

(About A Boy rather than Music And Lyrics, surely?)

So, what is he up to these days?

I still enjoy [music], I still write and record and play around with it purely for fun, the same way I did 20 years ago with Darren. But I don’t take it as seriously any more as far as the dream I dreamt. Which I realised wasn’t really my ideal dream. The dream I’m dreaming now is another one I’ve dreamt but I’m happy and that is a family.

I'm sorry, I think I stopped following that around the sixth or seventh dream. I think he's saying he's trapped in an Inception-like nightmare. (Actually, he's working in real estate.)

Although bands still working twenty, thirty, even fifty years in to a career is fairly inspiring, I think there's something a lot more impressive about musicians who have gone on to do something away from the glare of publicity and are quite happy about that.