Silverchair

01-10-1996

Transcript, Interview with Silverchair While the Band were in New York Mixing "Freak Show"

By Interview excerpts from Daniel Johns: (MTV News)

"The album's probably gonna be called Freak Show. Just I dunno if it's gonna change, but probably just Freak Show because it's like similar to being in a band, kind of. Like the old freak shows in the '40s and just traveling around and doing your show and going to the next town and doing it again. We saw there was a similarity there and thought it would be a good theme for an album, kind of."

"The new album has some heavier kind of harder stuff on it. We've got two songs that've got strings and one, one of the songs is got Indian-like music on it. And just cause there's these people in Sydney who one of the guys who used to play with Ravi Shankar, who did some of the Beatles' stuff, he has, like, a little group who he does stuff with and we've got some of that on the song and it sounds pretty weird."

"You do get excited, but not really ecstatic when you hear the finished product cause you've not played it so many times in the studio and you've already heard it so you know what it's kind of gonna sound like. But when we were first recording we were really kind of vibed on it 'cause we had like all the sounds happening and we knew what we wanted and it was sounding how we wanted it to sound. Now it's kind of grown on us and we're used to it so it's not as exciting. But we're really happy with it."

"On this album we thought we'd take more time recording and try some different instrumentation and just experiment with some stuff. We've kind of got our live show down now. We know how we play live and we think the live show should be a bit different to the record. Otherwise you can just listen to the record. We wanted it to be a bit different and the live show's a bit more raw."

"The new album's changed from the first album but it wasn't a conscious effort to change, to just to change for the sake of it. It just happened the way it happened. We just started writing and the songs started because we started listening to harder music. The songs are darker and heavier than on the first album. And the mellower songs are quieter than the quiet songs on the first album, but not as they're not as kind of radio-friendly. Like Tomorrow is really kinda radio track and there are songs that can be played on the radio on this album but not as kind of happy, which isn't bad, I don't think."

"We're not less happy. It's just that's how they turned out. When we're in, like, a good mood or something, we're usually on the beach and walking the dog and doing that kind of stuff, [so] we don't want to write songs. It's just when we're, when we're bored and tired and got nothing to do and we're not in a good mood and pissed off that we decide to write songs cause there's nothing else to do. So it's just how the songs turn out."

"I think any success can last as long as you're consistent, but not so consistent that you never develop or change. Just gotta' keep producing good music. It doesn't bother us whether we're successful or not as long as we're like enjoying still playing and keep producing music and don't run out of ideas. As soon as we don't like it any more and it's starting to annoy us and we can't write any more songs then we'll just stop and go back to the beach."

"When we were recording this album our parents were just left at home. We didn't want any interruptions from anyone. There were really no visitors in the studio at all apart from our manager. He came every day to check up. That's about it. No one else really came."

Interview excerpts from Ben Gillies:

"We're just doing like a few overdubs and we're like mixing and just doing some B-side stuff and getting it all prepared for when it all comes out. Andy Wallace is mixing the album so instead of him coming all the way to Australia, because he was so busy, we came here instead."

"We actually tried to see how many cartons of orange juice we could drink on the way over here (during their 20+ hour flight from Australia). Our aim was 15 but like we fell asleep and we kind of lost track. But we got up to like eight or nine or something."

"To do this album, it's taken us about three, four weeks, five weeks - about a month or so. Yeah, it's a lot longer compared to the first album which took, like, nine days. But, like, we just wanted to make everything sound a lot better and spend a bit more time on the songs so we got 'em how we wanted 'em to sound."

"On the first album, because we rushed it... Looking back on it now it's like we'd change a lot of things. But it's all right, the first album. We don't care. It was fun. We care a lot more about this album probably because I guess it's more important than the first album. There's quite a bit of pressure. Like supposedly, y'know, it has to be better than the first one, supposedly. But we don't really feel there's that much pressure, but, y'know, we don't care. It turns out how it turns out."

"I think the second album's always the worst one because it's the one that says if you're a one-hit wonder or if you're a band that's gonna be here for a long time. I think anyone that buys it should be looking forward to the variety on it. There's a lot of different songs like there's a lot of harder songs on there than the first album. And the quieter songs are a lot quieter than the quieter songs on the first album. And then we've got like a few in between. We've got like a punk song and a lot of variety."

"We actually used like a lot of different instruments like a sitar, like these tabla drums that this Indian dude had to come in and play, we've had a few string arrangements on there, there's been some timpani, yeah quite a few different instruments on there."

"One of the songs on the album, it's called Petrol & Chlorine, it's actually, when you hear it, you can tell it's a very Zeppelin influence. That's the one with all the Indian instruments in it like the sitar and the tabla drums."

"I'm looking forward to the next tour we go on. We haven't toured in quite a while. We actually just did a little, like a small Australian tour. But that wasn't really anything that big, it was like five shows or six shows or something."

Interview exerpts from Chris Joannou:

"We're just finishing up a bit of recording for the album -- the new album -- and just listening to mixes and giving our opinion and seeing what we think needs changing and fixing up and stuff like that."

"I think it's more us now. And I think maybe we've kinda found our own sort of style and it's sort of I think it's a lot stronger than Frogstomp and in the way of song writing and stuff like that. Especially in playing-wise as well that we've come a long way in being able to play much tighter and stuff like that in the studio and stuff like that."