Press
01-07-1999
Silverchair Older & Wiser
By Derrick Clempson (Hit Parader)
Daniel Johns has grown up under the occasionally harsh glare of public
scrutiny. From the time he was all of 15 years old. silverchair's
guitarist/vocalist/ songwriter has been hailed in various quarters of
the rock world as everything from a budding musical genius to nothing
more than a regurgitator of time-tested ideas. Today, however, with the
arrival of silverchair's third album, Neon Ballroom, is now-19-year-old
Johns is finally being fully recognized for his gifts as a song
craftsman and lyrical master. Along with bandmates Ben Gillies and
Chris Joannou, Johns has proven that this Australian power trio is
clearly much more than just some flash-in-the-pan rock "gimmick." While
the band has already sold a combined total of more than four million
copies of their two earlier discs, Frogstomp and Freak Show, with the
release of their latest effort Johns realizes his unit is at a critical
stage of their still-budding career. Recently we caught up with the
blond-haired frontman to discuss the band's new disc as well as many
other silverchair-related matters.
Hit Parader: How do you feel that silverchair has changed over the last four years?
Daniel Johns: We've grown up a lot. You don't really notice things like
that on a day-to-day basis, but when you look back at where you were
four years ago, your realize how much you've changed. I think our music
really shows that change. The first two albums were basically just
explosions of youth. They were very angry, energetic albums filled with
a lot of somewhat simplistic, somewhat derivative rock styles. This one
is totally different. This time we're doing things that no one else is
doing; we're now a much more mature band that's ready to prove what we
can do.
HP: You seem particularly focused on the fact that this album isn't
derivative. Is that because of past criticism that compared silverchair
to everyone from Nirvana to Zeppelin?
DJ: To some extent it is. Those claims that we sounded similar to those
bands were annoying to some extent--not the comparisons themselves,
which were rather complimentary, but rather because people didn't take
us that seriously. But I do agree that the music we presented in the
past was somewhat generic. That's why a song like Emotion Sickness
means so much to me. That song is the highlight of my musical life so
far because the elements that comprise it are really unique and
special. The lyrics come from one of my poems--as all of my lyrics
do--and the music is unlike anything else we've done, and quite
possible unlike anything anyone else has ever done. That's exciting for
me.
HP: You mention that your lyrics come from poetry. When do you write your poems?
DJ: Just about anywhere and everywhere. I particularly like to do it
when I'm by myself in a very quiet spot. I'm very inspired by nature.
Most of the poems that I wrote for this album were written over a three
month time period after we finished touring last year. Then it was the
process of going through 112 poems I had written and figuring out which
ones could be used as part of songs. That took two more months. But all
of that extra work is what made this album so special. A record like
Frogstomp we did in a matter of weeks. This one took months.
HP: Would you ever consider releasing an album of your poetry?
DJ: I don't know. My poems are really done for me...and to be used to
some extent for song lyrics. Maybe it would be fun one day to do
something like that, but it's certainly not something I'm planning on
doing.
HP: Are you also inspired by music while you're writing your lyrics and poetry?
DJ: Actually, as much as I love music, I tried not to listen to any
music during the six months that I was writing the songs for this
album. I wanted the motivations to come from the world around me and
from my own experiences and thoughts. Even if you're very aware of it,
when you're listening to a lot of music it does begin to influence you.
I wanted to avoid that this time.
HP:Did the fact that you're all finally out of school help you focus this time?
DJ: It made a huge difference. When you're in school, whatever else you
do is nothing more than a part-time thing. You write, record and tour
around school responsibilities. But once we finished with that, we were
free to concentrate fully on our music, and that's made a big
difference to all of us.
HP: It mst be nice not to tour with your parents in tow.
DJ: That was never that big a problem. It was a legal thing that until
we were 18, we had to have our parents along when we were on tour. But
since we all turned 18 last year, we've been on our own. But our
parents were always very good about things, they were all very
understanding. They didn't really try to restrict us-- they knew we
were fairly responsible.
HP: At the ripe-old age of 19, have you started to get more of an
appreciation of what silverchair accomplished when you were all just 15?
DJ: Yeah, I think I am. Sometimes I go back and listen to what we were
doing and I realize that it was pretty good...for people 15 years old.
But the best thing is that now we're all 19, an age when alot of bands
are just starting out, we've already recorded three albums and toured
the world. That's a big advantage for us.
HP: Is there a story behind the title of the album, Neon Ballroom?
DJ: We were looking for something that reflected both the old and the
new, and we felt that Neon Ballroom did that. There are some older
elements on the album, as well as some very new things, so that title
works very well. In addition, it's a very visual title; you hear it and
an image comes to mind. We all know that is a very important album for
us, so we wanted to do everything we could to make every aspect of it
special-- the music, the lyrics, even the album title.