Regrets, this Scot's got a few

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.