21 Facts About Darren Hayman

Darren Hayman is best known as the writer, lead singer, and guitarist in Hefner.

Since Hefner disbanded in 2002, Hayman has embarked on a prolific solo career releasing twelve albums under his own name and appearing on albums by Papernut Cambridge, Rotifer and The Great Electric.

Darren Hayman has regularly worked with The Wave Pictures, producing an album for them, directing three of their music videos and briefly employing them as his backing band.

In January 2011 Darren Hayman recorded and released a song every day in the month of January, working with many collaborators.

Darren Hayman first made a name for himself as the lead singer and main songwriter in UK indie rock band Hefner, who were big favourites of the late John Peel.

Darren Hayman stated afterwards that he "spunked his career up the wall spectacularly" by following Hefner with the electronic The French.

Also in 2008, Darren Hayman released the compilation Great British Holiday EPs, which collects the EPs Caravan Songs, Ukulele Songs from the North Devon Coast, Eastbourne Lights and Minehead which were recorded in the EPs' titular locations by Darren Hayman during holidays.

In 2009, Darren Hayman released the first part of his "Essex Trilogy", Pram Town, named after Harlow, in Essex, which was given the Pram Town name by the Daily Mirror in the 1950s.

The exhibition was "for people who love rockets and animals" according to Darren Hayman and featured songs and paintings by Darren Hayman, Paul Rains, Duncan Barrett, Robert Rotifer and Sarah Lippet about animals and humans that have travelled to space, including soviet space dogs, Alexei Leonov, Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev.

Darren Hayman then released The Green and the Grey, an album featuring additional tracks from the Essex Arms sessions and produced the album Beer in the Breakers for The Wave Pictures.

Darren Hayman told Clash that the piano is the first instrument he owned that was older than he was and that the title song is about an imagined history of the piano's former owners.

The record was written while Darren Hayman was recovering from a head injury "which rendered him extra sensitive to sound".

In December 2011 The Hosting Couple by Rotifer was released, with whom Darren Hayman was the bass player at the time, alongside frontman Robert Rotifer and former Thrashing Dove Ian Button.

In January 2012, one year after recording a song a day, Darren Hayman released an album of all the tracks called January Songs, each individual CD coming with its own hand-drawn cover art.

In October 2012 Darren Hayman completed his "Essex Trilogy" with the release of The Violence, a double album mostly concerned with the 17th century Essex Witch Trials conducted by Matthew Hopkins.

Darren Hayman states that he found parallels with those eras and modern times, stating: "I make some sort of connection between how in times of hardship or war we tend to distrust the outsider, how there is a fear and mistrust in a community".

Darren Hayman directed two more videos for The Wave Pictures in October 2013; "Lisbon", which stars the fathers of the band members in place of their sons, and "Red Cloud Road".

In November 2013, for the Independent Label Market, Darren Hayman released the Blue House EP.

Darren Hayman plays the synthesizer for The Great Electric, alongside band members Malcolm Doherty, Rob Hyde, Duncan Hemphill and Pete Gofton.

In February 2015 Darren Hayman released his next album Chants for Socialists, setting the poetry of William Morris to music.

Darren Hayman asked Emma Kupa to sing on his 2013 single Boy, Look At What You Can't Have Now.