Daniel Johns, Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou have just taken a couple of 
months off to study for the Higher School Certificates. To celebrate the 
end of their school days silverchair is undertaking their biggest 
Australian tour ever. While the band was recording a video for a track 
from Freak Show earlier this year Marcel Anders spent some time with Ben 
Gillies in Los Angeles. Among other things he explained there have been 
40-year-olds sneaking into their gigs! 

WOULD YOU AGREE THAT YOUR AUDIENCE IS PRETTY YOUNG? IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE 
HAPPY WITH, SCREAMING TEENAGERS, OR ARE YOU LONGING FOR MORE ADULT 
AUDIENCES NOWADAYS?

Honestly, I think we've got the weirdest crowds in the whole world, 
because if you come to one of our shows some times you can have like, 
you know, 80% males, 20% females at shows and it sort of totally nuts. 
It's like really suck and really violent and sometimes it gets really 
dangerous as well; but other times you've got 80% females and 20% guys 
and its kind of like it's really weird, and sometimes you have like all 
these different kinds of people. You have teenage girls, older girls, 
young guys and older guys and all the people in between. And sometimes 
you have even 40-year-olds. It's weird. 

SO IT DOES NOT BOTHER YOU THAT YOUR AUDIENCES ON THE FROGSTOMP TOUR 
SEEMED TO CONSIST OF SCREAMING TEENAGE GIRLS WHO WENT INTO ECSTASY SONG 
AFTER SONG? I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT, I MEAN YOU ARE NOT A GROUP LIKE TAKE 
THAT ARE YOU?

We don't really care, like, it is good. When you go to a show and there 
are a lot of guys with skinheads, they're real sucker. When you do a 
show and there are a lot of girls you don't really care because they 
enjoy the music and they buy our albums, you know. It doesn't matter at 
all. I don't care who listens to our music, could be 5-year-olds or 
85-year-olds. I couldn't care less. 

SINCE 1994 YOU HAVE RELEASED 2 ALBUMS, PLAYED COUNTLESS GIGS AROUND THE 
GLOBE, HAD HIT SINGLES, AND FOUND YOURSELVES ON THE COVER OF ALMOST 
EVERY MAGAZINE. NOT TOO BAD FOR A BAND WHO'S BEEN AROUND FOR LESS THAN 5 
YEARS REALLY. DOES SUCH A FAST CAREER NOT SCARE YOU - AT LEAST A BIT?

Not really! It's been, I think it's just the way it worked out. Because 
I think if we didn't get a first hit with "Tomorrow", if it didn't hit 
just like that, like real quick, I think we wouldn't be here. Cause I 
don't think if we didn't win that competition just like that, we 
wouldn't. We would be playing in a garage or we would be playing little 
pubs around Newcastle. 

SO WOULD YOU HAVE DONE THE TYPICAL INDIE-THING INSTEAD - LIKE RELEASING 
AN ALBUM FIRST, THEN TOURING AROUND AND FINALLY GETTING A MAJOR DEAL? I 
don't know. We were 14 and we got this deal and playing in a band and 
making money from it. I wasn't thinking about it, it wasn't even a 
possibility. It was like going to school, trying to get good grades, 
getting a job like a carpenter or plumber or anything like that. It sort 
of happened out of the blue. 

HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY MANAGE ALL THIS SCHOOL WORK IN BETWEEN TOURING, 
RECORDING, DOING PROMO WORK ETC?

We can do schoolwork on a plane. Actually when we get home we usually 
catch up what we can. However, some of the teachers are real bastards. 
But we got some really cool teachers too. They just say : "yeah, we know 
what you do after school, so don't worry about it". They know about the 
band and they are really into it. 

DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT AN AFTERLIFE TO THE THING YOU ARE DOING NOW? A 
ROCK N ROLL CARRER COULD BE FUN BUT IT COULD BE OVER ANY MINUTE....

We thought about all that stuff and we actually think that when in the 
year 2000 or some time in the next 10 years that our music will be out 
of fashion or uncool because that always happens, like the 80s now are 
uncool. But I wouldn't care. We return to the garage and do what we 
want! That's what we are doing now. We just play what we like! We enjoy 
what we are doing. And we are still having fun when we are doing it in 
the garage, so we don't care. [Laughs] 

ON FREAK SHOW YOUR LED ZEPPELIN REFERENCES ARE FAIRLY OBVIOUS. HAVE THE 
BAND BEEN TRAVELLING BACKWARDS IN ROCK HISTORY?

On the first album when we started writing it was kinda starting to get 
away from the old stuff and getting into Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains, 
the big Seattle thing. On this new album we are actually starting 
getting back into the older stuff. We're listening to Led Zeppelin a 
lot, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and all those bands a lot. And we are 
also getting into a lot of hardcore, hard edge kind of music like Tool, 
Helmet, Korn or anything hard. We are just listening to a lot of 
Sepultura. I think that's why the album sounds like it does. 

MOST RECENTLY YOU STARTED COVERING MINOR THREAT, WHICH IS LIKE GOING 
BACK TO THE ROOTS OF HARDCORE?

I never really liked Minor Threat. Actually I kind of thought they 
sucked. And then Daniel came into practice one day and said, "Oh, let's 
play a song, it's called Minor Threat." And i just thought: "I don't 
want to play that fucking song!." And then I said: "Yeah, I will do it." 
And then we were playing it. And it's like great and I ended loving this 
song and started listening to some more of their stuff. It's just, I 
love them and they are great. [Ed: "Minor Threat" has even been released 
by silverchair as one of the tracks on the The Door single. It's a live 
version with guest vocals from Handsome's Jeremy Chatelain which was 
recorded in Chicago in April 1997.] 

ON FREAK SHOW THERE IS AT LEAST ONE REAL PUNK-TUNE: LIE TO ME, WHICH IN 
FACT THE PUNKIEST SONG YOU'VE PROBABLY DONE SO FAR..

That was exactly influenced by Minor Threat! There's nothing really much 
to say about it. It goes for 1 minute and 20, it's fast and loud and 
that's it! [Laughs.] I think all this going back and listening to the 
older stuff made this album a lot better than the first one. 

ARE YOU IN SEARCH OF AN ORIGINAL SOUND?

Yes, I think we are! I think this album is pretty close. I think the 3rd 
album will be real silverchair sound. You will be able to hear one of 
the songs and go "Yeah, that's silverchair!" On this album you can tell 
it's Daniel singing. Like on the last one he kind of sounded like 
Seattle and it wasn't that original but now we started to get his own 
sound as well when he is singing - although we thought about playing 
together to get our own original kind of stuff going. 

YOUR DEVELOP AS A BAND BY PLAYING LIVE. SO WHAT LED YOU TO USE STRING 
ARRANGEMENTS ON THIS ALBUM? WAS IT JUST TO CREATE A LARGER SPECTRUM OF 
MUSIC?

Yeah, i think so. It's just because we write our songs on acoustic 
guitar and you listen to them back and you think we can't have drums on 
this one cause it won't suit it. And we thought: "Well, we'd really want 
to have something to it to make it bigger and more interesting" and 
strings was it! And although it was kind of the same with Petrol & 
Chlorine with the Indian instruments and all that. That was the same 
kind of thing. We just thought it just needs something else to add to 
the song. That was actually influenced by Led Zeppelin. We thought it 
would be cool. 



IS PETROL & CHLORINE YOUR VERSION OF KASHMIR?

Yes, exactly! 

HOW COME, AT THE AGE OF 17, YOU HAVE ALREADY DEVELOPED SUCH A CYNICAL 
VIEW ON THE WHOLE MUSIC INDUSTRY? WHY DO YOU COMPARE IT TO A FREAK SHOW 
OR TRAVELLING CIRCUS?

We reckon the music industry is kind of travelling freak shows. Coz you 
know, travelling around from town to town, unpacking and packing up and 
you meet all these freaks along the way. You meet good people as well 
but you do meet a lot of idiots. I'm not mentioning any names. [Laughs.] 


DANIELS' LYRICS HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED AS BEING NOT VERY POSITIVE. MAYBE 
EVEN A LITTLE WEIRD?

I really don't know. His lyrics are pretty out there. Daniel's lyrics 
are pretty personal. They are mostly personal things and I don't really 
know what they are all about. All of us are a band and I still don't 
have a clue what the hell it's on about. But I don't care. I like his 
lyrics and I think they are really good. I don't think it's the happiest 
stuff in the world. It's like in some of the songs it's got dark music 
as well as dark lyrics. 

YOUR LYRICS ACTUALLY CREATE THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU MUST LIVE SOME 
PRETTY MISERABLE LIVES - 3 INNOCENT BOYS CAUGHT UP IN THE DANGEROUS 
MUSIC INDUSTRY. ARE YOU REALLY THAT DEPRESSED?

Daniel did go thru a stage where he was depressed for a while and a lot 
of his lyrics were written around then. It wasn't the kind of depression 
when he'd go out and kill himself. He didn't go out. He stayed at home 
all day, didn't do anything. But, that's it really. 

MOST OF THE SONGS ON FREAK SHOW MUST HAVE BEEN WRITTEN ON TOUR AS THERE 
WASN'T MUCH TIME LEFT TO RECORD LAST YEAR?

Actually, they were all written at home. We don't really write on tour. 
We concentrate on playing our shows and doing our own thing. When we get 
home we usually try to write as much as we can. 

BUT IS THERE MUCH TIME LEFT FOR FRIENDS OR SOCIALIZING AT HOME?

Yes, definitely! There's heaps of time. Whenever we are at home we hang 
around with our friends and we go to parties, we've gone surfing or 
shooting pool. Anything like that. 

WHAT'S IT LIKE FOR TEENAGERS BEING ON THE ROAD IN A BAND?

It's pretty funny when we go to countries where the drinking age is like 
14 and we all go to bars and we order and drink some stuff and our 
parents go "Hey" and we go : "we are legal to drink here!" And it's so 
good! It's funny! AMERICA IS PROBABLY THE MOST DIFFICULT PLACE FOR A 
DRINK?

Oh yeah, it sucks! I actually think in France is the best! Coz you can 
drink so young and once people get 18 or 21 they don't care. They don't 
go out and get pissed. They might go out and have a social drink. Not 
like Australia or USA. When they turn 18 and they go out and go apeshit! 
Actually in South America where we toured with the Sex Pistols and Bad 
Religion the price of alcohol was amazing! A two litre bottle of Bacardi 
rum was 10 bucks! $ 10! It was so cheap! And we were just going: "This 
is amazing!" It was really fun. And there's a lot of nice females in 
South America! 

GOING THRU ALL THE ARTICLES PUBLISHED ON YOU OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS, IT 
SEEMS TO ME THAT MAYBE YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THE PRESS - AT 
LEAST YOU ARE NOT VERY TALKATIVE AND OPEN TO QUESTIONS....

I think when we were younger and we first started we were like 14 or 15, 
we hadn't ever done interviews and we didn't know what to expect so we 
were just going: "yeah, Yeah." We were just sitting there and didn't 
have a clue. But i think now we are getting a bit better and we start 
answering the questions. Longer answers. But it all comes thru age and 
experience. 

SO IT WILL BE ALL LONG MONOLOGUES WHEN YOU BECOME 18?

Of we are still together when we are 25, I reckon the interviewer will 
have to ask 2 questions and he will have 5 pages articles just like 
that! 

IT TOOK YOU 9 DAYS TO RECORD FROGSTOMP AND 3 WEEKS TO FINISH FREAK SHOW. 
FOR YOU STANDARDS THATS ALMOST AN EPIC?

Yeah, that is like a fucking epic. That is pretty funny. But I think the 
reason we recorded the first one in 9 days is because we actually did 
quite a bit recording in our home town and when you are 12 or 13 years 
old you haven't got a big budget so you are going there and say: "We 
have this much!" You have like 6 hours to record and 6 songs and that's 
really fast. So you bang out every song as fast as you could. So when we 
went in to record Frogstomp we were kind of in that mood. We could have 
taken as long as we wanted but it was more comfortable for us to record 
it quickly. i also think it got, it made it have a more live sound. Like 
it didn't really polished. But on Freak Show it wasn't rushed and it was 
still done pretty quickly. I mean, 3 weeks, compared to other bands it 
would take months! But I think we wanted to take a little more time to 
get things, parts a bit better than they were on the first one. Also it 
took quite a bit of time for the strings and the Indian instruments to 
be done as well. 

YOU ALSO COVER BLACK SABBATH'S PARANOID. IS IT TRUE THAT YOU WERE 
PLAYING MOST COVERS IN YOUR EARLY DAYS?

Yes, we used to. What we always used to play was covers. So we've got 
stacks of stuff we could play. 

DID YOU EVER THINK ABOUT DOING A PURE COVER ALBUM?

Not really, cause we'd put covers on like b-sides of the singles and 
stuff like that. Bthat. But we'd never put out a single as a 

PLAYING IN A ROCK N ROLL BAND, BEING PART OF THIS "FREAK" BUSINESS WITH 
ALL THAT PRESSURE, HIGH EXPECTATIONS, ALTERNATION, JEALOUSY AND BETRAYAL 
- IT'S A NIGHTMARE BUT IT'S STILL ENJOYABLE AFTER ALL?

Yeah, it's very enjoyable! Like you have your bad days and you are 
really pissed off and you are tired and you just don't want to talk to 
anyone but then, you know, the next day you have a gig. You will be in a 
high spirits and you just don't care! And you get all then travelling 
and seeing the world and it's not something you usually get to do when 
you are 17 years old!