Although the members of silverchair were only 16 years old when the groups's debut album, Frogstompbecame a modern rock sensation, the band won its fans more with an anthemic, arena-ready sound than with boyish, garage-band charm. So along with its hit album, the group took some serious hits from critics--the scribes accusing the Aussie trio of being grunge pretenders; adolescents aping the amped angst of their elders.

silverchairs's response to the bad press can be found in the first single from the band's sophmore Epic album, Freak Show. Asking for it in more ways than one (the startling similarity in tone and title to Nirvana'a "Rape Me" for instance),"Abuse Me"-- at No.5 on Modern Rock Tracks this week--finds singer/guitarist Daniel Johns vocalizing abstractly about the pain of being panned. More concretely, he defends his band's aesthetic by pointing out that silverchair shares a sonic approach with Seattle's finest because, like those bands, he and his mates share the same influences: classic albums by Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath. "People want to lump us in with the grunge thing, but it's just that we grew up on 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' just like Soundgarden did," Johns says. "We're not the only band that gets it, of course, but a lot of people can't be bothered to think about the music--they just go for the comparisons straight away.

"With 'Abuse Me' I just wanted to get all the feelings off my chest, the feeings I'd had when I read all the negative commentary," Johns continues adding that he steers clear of the bands's reveiws these days. " The song is basically saying, 'Say what you like .We don't give a f--k what you think. We're just playing our music.'"

As to whether this music is original, Johns says,"Every song I've ever heared sounds like another song I've heard. And I'm sure if we called a song 'Cat' there would be someone with a song called 'Dog.'"