It's The Chair's Bare Bunch
Rave Magazine (free mag) - Aug 11 '99
Alex Wheaton
It's The Chair's Bare Bunch
For silverchair, a lot of the joy of live performance nowadays comes from the inclusion of fourth touring member Sam Holloway in the lineup. Formally with Cordrazine, Holloway's keyboard prowess allows the band to pull together the songs from Neon Ballroom without compromising their sound overmuch.
"He's great, a good person to have on tour, and it's great to make fun of him," enthuses bassist Chris Joannou, currently mid-tour in Canada. "He's really filled it out and just made it possible to get the album sound coming through. I find it great actually, reproducing the string sounds and things like that; having them come back at you," It's all done with samples from Holloway's keyboards array. "We've got it all down pat now," Joannou declares, full of confidence.
It's a couple of years since we've spoken, and I'm immediately struck by how level-headed and talkative he is.
It's bizarre to think that some years since we first spoke (six or so), Pure Massacre is as relevant now as it was when a wide-eyed Daniel Johns watched images from the siege of Sarajevo on his TV screen and penned the song.
"It's a funny situation," begins Joannou, meaning peculiar rather than humorous. "All those armies protecting those people. It's all got to come to an end one day, but I'm all confused about it all."
No more than anyone else, mate, and that includes NATO generals and a plethora of diplomats. "Everyone's looking for the quick solution."
Actually he'd rightly surmised I was probing the look-how-far-they've-come question, and he wasn't playing. Silverchair were having a day off in Toronto, currently mid-tour on the Edgefest gig, which sees them lining up third on the bill behind Hole. Also appearing: The Moffets, Wide Mouth Mason and Moist.
"It's about two and a half weeks across Canada - it's pretty good," he says of Edgefest. "You get days off, so it's not too bad. You get time to get out places and wander around. Not very strenuous, but then again, we've been busy earlier in the year."
In the United States, Neon Ballroom has begun to pick up momentum after a slow start.
"By the time the second single rolled around it started to pick up, get played on a lot more radio stations and the video clip's getting played on MTV, so it's not shaping up too bad."
In fact, the response to silverchair's success has taken form, not as a backlash, but in the band being judged on the merits of their music. In some ways, it's not a bad thing. Joannou hears that one word.
"Backlash?" he queries. He knows what I'm asking, but attempts to deflect the question.
"We haven't been in the country that much lately so it's been kinda hard to get a vibe on what's going on down there," he says gamely, and points out, "Canada's always been good for us; every show we've ever done up here has been good."
They're also, it turns out, good mates with The Tea Party - not that the two bands have ever seen each other play, as Joannou explains. "Every time we're in Toronto it seems they're staying at the same hotel and we catch up. I've never seen them live, but I've heard all their records and they're great guys."
As a touring band, they're often the last to see other bands, since often enough, they're onstage at the same time. Breaking up the schedule into manageable blocks helps.
"I don't think we're the kind of band who could do that," he admits, before adding, "I think it would just drive us nuts", when I ask about them going off on an extended world tour, and how they seem to limit themselves to a few weeks at a time, with plenty of time off in between. We discuss those occasions when a band is obviously totally exhausted and when you see them live they're just going through the motions. We discover we both saw Live in just such circumstances.
"We just did a stack of radio shows in the States and a few of them were with Live," he tells me. "They've got a new record out, and we also played a few Euro Festivals with them at the end of their tour for the last album - two years ago, I think - and they were just a totally different band."
"It's tough out there! It's all good. I mean, everyone would want that kind of lifestyle. You make the most of what's in front of you and take it from there."
He's being glib, of course, but he knows they've got nothing much to complain about, so they don't. After shows in Europe the band head home for a little time off before the Australian leg of the tour.
"I'm sure we're gonna have a great time on this one. I mean, I really enjoyed the last Aussie tour we did, the Summer Freakshow Tour - hopefully this one can top that."
Okay, so this time we can expect the Neon Ballroom show ("bringing across some of the aspects of the album artwork and so on", says Joannou, not wanting to give too much away) and which, I noted from photographs of the band onstage, included Daniel Johns wearing a silver glitter shirt as his concession.
"Yeah, I think that one's been dropped actually - it fell to bits on him. But he's got a couple of shirts."
As befits young men with an interest in games and technology, they're thinking ahead to the end of the year.
"We'll definitely be in the country and I'm sure, attending some kind of partei," he says with a high society inflection. "We'll be around: it's just once you get home it's good to just sit there in a daze for the first couple of days, at least. Just laying about. But we'll be around on New Year's Eve. The whole build-up's very exciting," he thinks of the dawning of a new millenium, "but I can't see it being too different, there'll be an even bigger party and there's gonna be a few problems with electronic stuff for at least a week or so."
His voice brightens at the possibilities.
"It's gonna be very interesting: I'm just intrigued by how many problems they haven't figured out already. It'll be something crazy, for sure. I can't understand why they can't wind the computers back to the day before or something and just trick 'em. They actually did a test on Fiji's phone system," he rushes to tell me.
"They wound them forward to test them and it all crashed. Nothing worked."
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