Press
01-02-1997
Silverchair: Life at 18
By Bryan Harper (Hit Parader)
Silverchair's Daniel Johns is convinced things are going to be
different for his band the second time around. After their sophomore
album is released, these Australian teen aces hope they won't be
incessantly compared to Pearl Jam and Nirvana, as they were following
the appearance of their chart-topping debut, frogstomp. They hope that
they won't again be continually bombarded by media queries about their
tender age. And they hope they won't have to tour with their mothers in
tow.
Of course, there are plenty of other things that Johns and his
bandmates Chris Joannou and Ben Gillies hope are exactly the same the
second time around. They want their new album to sell just as well as
their triple-platinum first disc. They want MTV to love them just as
much in 1997 as they did in 1995 when such songs as Israel's Son and
Pure Massacre were network staples. And they want thousands of girls
from Sydney to Syracuse to keep thinking they're just the cutest thing
on God's green earth.
"We've grown up a little...I think," Johns said. "When we wrote and
recorded the first album we had just turned 16. Now, we're all close to
being 18 -- we're not a bunch of high school boys any more. That's very
important to us; we've been able to devote even more time and effort to
the music on this album. I think you can hear that we've matured quite
a bit over the last two years. If we didn't grow up a bit I think
there'd be something really wrong. We still like the music we made on
the last album, but we've all moved on a bit as well."
To many, the incredible, across-the-board success of silverchair's
debut album was one of the most surprising developments in rock
history. After all, here was a band from Newcastle, Australia that had
emerged literally from nowhere to sweep into the collective
consciousness of the music world. All it took was one local radio
contest, and one inexpensively produced demo tape, and silverchair were
on their way to international fame and fortune. One would be hard
pressed to think of a similarly surprising and spectacular event
occurring in the long, historic annals of rock and roll. In fact, it
seems safe to say there's never before as young and as successful a
hard rock band as silverchair. But rather than being the metallic
equivalent of Menudo (that Mexican pre-teen pop phenomenon of the 80's,
for those of you with short-term memory loss), these boys have shown
they not only have the talent needed to succeed, they also have the
drive required to ensure a long-term stint at the top of the rock pile.
"I'd like everyone to forget about our age," Joannou said. "I'd like
that at least for a little while. Every interview we did last time
talked about our age. It really got kind of boring. What can we say?
Yes, we were 16! There's really nothing more to it than that. We all
can understand why the subject came up - it almost had to. But we
really did get tired of it. Is the music good? Or is it just good for a
bunch of 16 year-olds? I think we know the answer to that. It's good
rock and roll, and that's the important thing."
Indeed there isn't a "16 and under" category in the always competitive
universe of rock and roll. From the moment frogstomp was released,
silverchair were figuratively cast to the wolves. Despite their tender
years, they soon learned they had only two options -- either quickly
learn the methods of survival needed to make it in the high-pressure
music biz, or be gobbled up by a corporate machinery that's geared for
survival of few and the demise of many. The odds were against
silverchair in almost every imaginable way, but somewhat amazingly,
these boys never even seemed to be aware that they faced an uphill
battle of almost epic proportions. All they knew was that they had gone
from creating a demo tape to landing a major record deal in a matter of
months. Then they were off to see the world on somebody else's credit
card -- and on top of everything else, they got to miss school in the
process! It occasionally seemed the fact that their record was such a
success was almost an after-thought to Johns and his buds.
"I think that they were so caught up in the excitement of what was
going on, the fact frogstomp was selling millions of copies was kind of
lost on them," a label confidant explained. "They were so innocent when
they first came over to America. Everything was so new, so different.
But part of the fun was watching them grow up. After a few months you
could see the difference in their attitude and approach, and by tour's
end they were really no different from most hard rock bands that had
been on the road for the better part of a year -- except they still had
their mothers hanging around to make sure they stayed in line."
It seems rather unlikely that their moms will be interjecting their
presence on silverchair's 1997 world tour. With their second album
ready to go, it appears as if silverchair will undertake a massive road
outing by spring... and not get off the road until they're damn ready
to do so. To heck with school, and to heck with all the teen
restrictions placed upon them the last time out. This time these
18-year-old "men" are ready to act like Rock Gods in every sense of the
word. Maybe they'll drink more than Pepsi, maybe they'll eat more than
burgers, maybe they'll do more than talk to their female admirers. But
Johns admits, silverchair aren't about to go crazy now that they're old
enough to make some of their own decisions. This is one band that knows
full well that their music comes first.
"We've heard that it's tough to be as successful the second time,"
Johns said. "But we really haven't given that too much thought. When
people ask us about it -- which they do all the time -- it's kind of
hard not to dwell on, at least for a little while. But we know that we
have no control over the success we'll have in the future. All we can
do is make the best albums we can and hope that our fans who liked us
the first time out will stick by us now. If they do, we'll do whatever
we can to make sure that their confidence in us is rewarded."