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, you realize how much you've changed.
I think our music really shows that change. The first two albums were basicly just explosions of youth.
They were very angry, energetic albums filled with a lot of somewhat simplistic, somewhat derivitive
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 Led 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 prestented in the past
was somewhat generic. That's why a song like Emotion Sickness means so much to me. That song is the
high light 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 possibly unlike anything
anyone else has ever done. That's exciting for me.
HP: You mentioned 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 done 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 thought. 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 to 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 the 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 must also be nice not to tour with your parents in tow.
DJ: That was never that big a problem. It was a legal thing until we were 18,
we had to have our parents along when we went 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
that we're all 19, an age where a lot 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 this 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 this 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.
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