Silverchair (Daniel Johns)

Part 1

0:00Ben Gillies, formerly a silver chair, got a new band out called Tambalene. How's it going? Very well, thank you. Actually, I'm still currently a of silver chair. What's the whole deal with that? I was going to ask you that in a bit, but you want to bring it up, sure? Yeah, well, it's funny how people have been saying four interviews. The guys are talking about doing it. We start kind of, it could be anywhere.

1:12So, mix things up a little bit. Tom will tell. Cool. Well, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about a whole bunch of stuff in a bit. I figured let's start the show off with the new single from you guys, Free. I got the people running me. I love the tune. And let's play it. What do you think of when you hear it? I don't know. I actually was the lead singer in myself. I mean, we still care.

2:12This one day I was living in Clavella. It was a nice sunny day and we walked down to the local beach and just had a couple of acoustic guitars. It was actually started off as a tri-belief song

2:59when we first acoustic and managed to join. And he was like, that's kind of a and made it a band. You're about to hear it. This is a brand new single from Tambolene. It's called Free. I just found out. But also the band Tambolene. And you mentioned Wes Lee Carr, the lead singer in the band.

7:02You're playing drums. When did you pick up an acoustic for the first time? Let's start writing. Well, I've actually been playing acoustic since I was a bear, old guitar. I actually don't know how people would think that I would write on early silver chest stuff if I didn't know how to play. Oh, and in the last few years I've kind of been just tinkering on piano as well. So he'd usually be on the acoustic and I'd jump on a piano.

7:48There's a lot of musicians in the world, especially when they get to a start with other instruments. If you do it for long enough, you eventually start getting a knack of it. I think, yeah, lots of guys that I know can usually play a few different instruments. Boy, it's got your main one that you bet. Who's the next one for you? What's that? My main instrument.

8:40The only frustrating thing with drums is you don't really be melodic with it. If you get a crazy... maybe then you could pop on that. What's that? Would you ever do that? No, I don't think so. I mean, I don't really know the band drum. I would just imagine that they would have a band of like a major.

9:35We actually finished two nights ago. I still think I'm recovering from that. So good. What's the plans for that? Do you plan on coming up here in North America at all? We'd love to. I mean, we'd love to go overseas and go overseas, but we didn't do it through a regular company. So we've been so busy here in Australia. I guess that hasn't really been on my mind.

10:34But yeah, it's kind of natural progression way to do its musical outlet and from kind of beast. It's like any international one. I love it. Is it just the one record that you guys are going to do? You think you might do it?

11:22I don't know. I don't know. I've got in the band as much as I'm sure.

12:15They probably think they can be, that they can't. And vice versa, it's a jazz guy's. I think there's a lot of rock guys that probably couldn't do that either. Yeah, but it was really hard to find a band. But musical knowledge as well. It's been really good. That's cool. Let's play another tune, Little Miss Lyre, first single off the record.

13:04We've been spinning it here all summer. Fantastic. Yeah, we had a good song and it's a good CD. Oh, brilliant. So I played the whole player.

15:35I played also a silver chair. You just heard Little Miss Lyre. Now you can download that song for free on the website. I thought that was pretty cool. Why did you guys decide to do that? I guess it was because we have been independent, are independent. We get our music out there rather than trying to sell stacks. You know, the internet is a pretty good tool. We use to get to lots of people. We just thought we'd put it on the website and people. It's cool. How do you feel about the downloading just overall? I mean, obviously for silver chair records have been sold worldwide and now you can just grab them for free.

16:21Do you mind that for a band like that? I know Tambalain you're saying it's just for fun. But what about for silver chair? It's going to go that way anyway. But a lot more music and they don't have to like, you know, tape a CD to a cassette tape off of a friend. And after quality is really bad. The only downside I can really think of it is like not getting the money for the CD itself

17:09and not being able to put that money back into it, or whatever it is. But it's going to be stopped to live with it. Definitely. Do you think it's going to get rid of the album concept at all and people will just be making just one off singles? I don't think so. I think I enjoy going out to records and I was talking to this the other day. And rather than just about one song it was about all and playing it started kind of either right, the musical

18:14and do the playlists a particular way. So they all flow into each other and that's kind of a musical journey. So I think people will miss that. And I hope in generations to come that they don't kind of lee all mighty beatals shining through and will never lose. Are you a big Beatles fan then? Yeah, I just think they're, I mean, I'm a big fan of lots of different bands. I always tend to go back to the late 60s and 70s kind of stuff. I don't know why I just think something really magical happened back in that time.

19:01I don't know why I know. But you know, they basically, their music is amazing. Like I've been years off really and kind of tried to think about it in the context of the time as well. I changed everything and oh Jesus, everything's just one after the other. It's amazing. I totally agree with you. What's your favorite record?

19:47I say heavy like that. One song that's like... Fair enough. I thought I'd ask. Yeah, it's like asking you to pick if someone would be like... Have you heard Paul McCartney's new record? No, I haven't. Have you heard of it? I bought it the other day. It's kind of like the white album. I mean, obviously not even close to it was good. But you know, if I'm going to compare it to any Beatles stuff, it's going to be the white album.

20:33It's beautiful. I mean, there's not much drums on it. I like when he rocks out and he's not rocking out on the record, which is too bad. Yeah, I actually really... I really like when it's dead. When Paul McCartney, when he sings and it sounds like he's kind of... Not straying, but he's really at that kind of edge where his voice is kind of breaking up. Like an I'm drink owner. What's that? Like in a song I'm down or I've got a feeling, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just really like when I get... Yeah, it's fantastic. Exactly. Well, I was playing another song. Your choice, anything off Frogs Donk. What do you want to hear? I don't know if this song is on that record, but is there something I'm disordered on there?

21:24I'm disordered. I know that song. I think it is off Frogs Donk. Yeah, find out on that. I haven't heard that news and I'll probably want to hear it for many more years. Cool, here it is. Decided off the record Frogs Donk. I mean, you guys started when you were, what, 14 with that record?

26:08I mean, obviously you started a band when you were 14. You got all this international success. You're in a new band called Tambalyn now. Wasn't like starting up a band at this age. There must be a huge difference. Yeah, it's a massive difference. But I guess my perspective is a little bit different to most guys. It's like most 25 year old guys in bands as well. But I don't know, like I was saying before, the whole Tambalyn experience is just for a musical outlet. And just having a bit of fun. It's not really like, I guess, I don't know what, I guess, I mean, I'm talking personally as well.

27:06Where's my feel differently and the other guys might feel differently. It's just a whole lot of fun. And I get, you know, especially too. That's obviously my main priority. Actually, a lot of the shows that we did on the tour about the stage that we missed out on with Silver Chair. So it was kind of, I guess, a big fun and seeing another side of the industry anyway.

28:00Well, that's cool. I've enjoyed it. It's good. Was it like, you know, going from a drummer, like you said earlier, in the kind of, you know, the back of the band, now you're basically, I mean, with your name on this band, you know, I don't want to say that Wesley's not important. But, you know, Ben Gillies in a band, people are going to check it out because you're Ben Gillies basically. What's it like, you know, to go from the back now to almost a frontman, you know, doing the interviews and all that stuff? Yeah, I get it. Do you prefer it? Yeah, I don't really, I don't really mind, hey, like, I guess definitely go to, it's advantages, but you get the advantages of being in it. But you also get the advantage of being out.

28:49I don't know. I guess I haven't really thought about it. I mean, I mean, it didn't feel alien to me or anything like that. So, you know, I'm doing what any person would do in any band. So, it's just part of the, part of the job really, getting up there and being the, I don't know, doing interviews and being the face of this band or whatever it is, it's just part of the job. Fair enough. You think you'll ever write together with Daniel again like you did back in the day?

29:36I don't know. I don't know. I think, and if Daniel comes in and we start rehearsing and he's got like a body, again, if I was a betting man, I just think, I think we're going to do this record probably a little differently to always like to kind of pre-productions a bit more open.

30:27And the opportunity is there. I'll definitely put my two bobs worth in. I guess. Don't get me wrong when I say this because I mean, I listen to Diorama probably at least once a week. But have you ever been skeptical on playing some of Daniel's songs like when he showed you tune in the brine or across the night? Are you unsure of how, like, is this the direction we should be going in? Not really. I don't know when I first, some of the stuff. To be honest with you, I was pretty excited. I was looking forward to taking a pretty large musical step. And songs that I particularly like.

31:15Five that I'm just kind of like, yeah, whatever. We've done in the past and the more recent stuff. And yeah, I'm really proud of it. I wouldn't have told you I was for anything that we've done. And yeah, I really like what Daniel does. And yeah, I wasn't freaked out at all. I was, yeah, I was excited. Cool. Let's play something off Diorama. What do you want to hear? Well, to point your shoulders. Cool. Definitely one of my faves. Kurt, do you like it?

36:32Yeah, I've heard a couple of times. I haven't been. But I like some creative. Yeah. I just wanted to know if you liked them. No, that's all. Yeah, no, I do. I like it. Cool. What's Chris up to now? Is he working on anything musically? Yeah, Chris has been doing some of his probably, you. Produced a band in Sydney called The Mess Hall.

37:29And really heard much of his stuff. They're kind of really heavy rock. He got nominated actually for Australian Musical World. He's just been getting in that side of things. And apart from that, he's just kind of been crewed. He's riding his bike. We do this thing on the show every week. We've got five questions. It's just five quick questions. One word answers. Yeah. iPod or CD? Oh, that's that.

38:15Landon or McCartney? Yeah, but I have to say that if there was some kind of meter, we'd just been getting into more land. He's pretty darn good. But having said that, as the combination, the two of them, unbeatable. Definitely. Definitely agreed. Next one is Alcohol or Marijuana?

39:00Oh, Alcohol. Song you've written your most proud of. Because that's a head. Free, just because of... Heard tambling. First thing that pops in your head. Well, right in second, I would have to say tiring.

39:46Thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. No, thank you for having me. Why don't you pick any song off of Silver Chair Record, up the tambling EP. I don't really have the record in front of me. But, you know, what do you want to hear? Close us out. Just to have it if I play fat like, yeah, she's got a sexy voice. Maria. Well, Ben, thanks so much for stopping. I really appreciate it. Cool. Thanks for having me.

Part 2

0:16I'm looking for Mr. Hathaway in room 1213 please. Just one moment. Thank you. Hey, is Daniel around please? Yep, this is him. Hey, this is Matt Schichter, man. I have an interview with you. Alright, cool. You got a couple of minutes? Yep. Awesome. Mr. Hathaway, eh? That's the one. You always go under that? No, I'm not always. A lot, though. Yeah, is there a significance behind it? It's like not at all. Just a random name sounds classy though. Yeah, it does sound classy. What time is it there for you? I had 25th, 10 in the morning. Good God. You're awake early. Are you just... I feel for you. I feel bad that I'm calling you in the morning. It's like 6.30 at night for me. You get a good time slot. So how are you, man? Things going well?

1:01Yeah, pretty good. We're out in the middle of a tour at the moment, so... Is this the big powder finger tour? Yeah, so I've been on the road, so I've been on the road for about four months or something. But this tour is where I think we're out of that show, 30 or 28. Now the song's getting better as the tour goes on. Are you figuring out ways to maybe jam out more, change the riffs up a little bit? Yeah, I mean, they're each night you figure out new things that you can... Anything that you can play in live now, maybe you figure out a riff on a song that you maybe had wished you had put on one of the records? Yeah, the happens with every record that we do, though. After a while, you kind of could have done that.

1:46But I guess when you make your record, it's really too late to get the essence of the song and just then from then on that the whole live experience takes on the life of its own. You need to come back to Canada. We miss you. Yeah, we've come with it, we have heaps of fun. Let's talk about this new record. I've got to be honest with you. I was scared to put it on. Diorama, it is a perfect record. Thank you, man. I think, yeah, with young Muslims and do kind of diorama part two, you know, so... I've approached music into this record to be a different direction, to focus more on more

2:36psychedelic pop rock to be a lot more funky and a lot more. Yeah, well, you mentioned funky. I was just listening to waiting all day. You got the little honky-tonk piano line going on in the middle of the breakdown there. Yeah, my brother told me something like you were listening to Spice Girls to try and get a feel for this record.

3:21Is that true? Yeah, it's kind of been taken out of context. I was listening to a lot of stuff about doing anything from, you know, craft work through the... You mentioned Beach Boys, and it obviously makes me think of Van Dyke. Does he work on this record too? Yeah, we even knew it was a show. No way, that's cool. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Prague, random place to go recording. Yeah, we funded this record ourselves, so we kind of...

4:11As soon as we realized we were doing the strings in Prague, we had to go and play a couple of shows to play. Hey, well, it's working out now. It seems to be like, is it the biggest album of your career? I think I heard that somewhere. I don't know. I used to tell you the truth. I'd... You'd have to ask, I don't really pay attention. Yeah, no, I figured. Nonetheless, a great record and a lot of piano. More every record you're playing piano more and more. When did you pick up the piano for the first time? Well, this record actually, I don't play the piano on this record. That's Paul Mackey. Paul Mackey. It was in the first stage with me, but I think it's... I mean, a lot of the stuff was written on piano and key. I think our band sounds a lot better, lately, as a four-piece. Having someone on key as well, because we don't have...

5:10Here's your musical soul mate. Yeah. I want to remember. Yeah. I don't know. We also call him Billy Preston. That's awesome. I've been in Chris, really enjoyed playing with him, and I really enjoyed playing in the band. If that's the case, do you think you'd do another dissociative's record, or is it just writing with Paul now for Silverchair? Oh, no way. So that might be the next record we hear from you then. Yeah.

6:01Yeah, there are parts of the new record that it very well could be a film soundtrack. There's some really cool film-ish melodies, I guess you could call them in there. Yeah, well, I mean, it's, I think, yeah, modern and I'm a- I'm a- I'm a- I'm a- I said, less featured than under our, our, our hours very much about the, you know- Mmm. A lot of the music since, since probably 2001 has been heavily influenced by cinematic. You ever thought about playing a live show with a full orchestra? Have you?

6:46We've never actually done it. We've been offered and we've contemplated it a lot of times, but we commit so we've got a lot of material. Oh yeah, that'd be good. Good call. I heard you wanted to do a movie with Van Dyke Park. What's going on with that? Is that actually coming to fruition or was it just kind of an idea that you threw out there once? at the moment actually we can't talk about details or anything but we're actually would you act in it or would you just write music for it that's a good way to put it without without going to too much detail yeah the artwork for young modern based on the distill movements songs off diorama very surreal influenced by dolly brett witley and all your big fan of his surrealism or any

7:32particular art influence young modern i mean the song young modern station even the one was like the third line i think on the record itself is dead dolly days behind us yeah i was my music is um is influenced by black we're talking about before a lot of my music is influenced by a lot more colors a little more 3d than yeah i think of these yeah i read a while ago after all these years completely

8:27influenced by dolly's phantom cart yeah any songs off young modern rat in the same way kind of oh you have a place in england too that's cool i didn't know him yeah that's my wife was so i was sitting out on that sitting out on the back parrot with a guitar and that song was written complete or something weird and i just sat out with my guitar and some gloves how did you mix that up then with strange behavior why did you decide to put the two together um what's actually written as one song it's all a tool one song that was only a last minute decision to split it up with oh okay i was trying to keep the iPod generation at peace i heard you wrote the first six tunes to join up lyrically and then just

9:15said fuck it blues for the rest of the record yeah i think the idea i was getting dropped from atlantic in america so because my manager called me up and just said look just put a bunch of stuff together so we can send it to them and they're not gonna like it because they didn't like what i was doing that so i was so worried and then i came up with eight on the interaction center to them and i did it all in like three or four days and they dropped us in eight of those tracks and worked on them and finished North lyrically and stuff and then be imprantly broad in terms of what stuff like mind reader just sounds like

10:15the B-partness stuff like birds and strange behavior to almost sounds like it mother nature son kind of yeah i think it was just about exploring different genres and and yeah trying to have fun with music tell people about street lines it was written feeling is not that's not a murtown song by any means but that was definitely influenced by that by that feeling of you know listening to Marvin Gaye or I was reading or something i wanted to make something

11:01that felt really really positive and felt like i knew it was gonna be the first single so lyrically i wanted it to feel like there'd been a a transient a transition and and where we looking at for the next single up here do you know reflections losing sleep yeah we actually did a really interesting yeah yeah the film close for those two are a lot they feel more like the record in the straight lines video yeah we just really wanted to do like a straight I actually really

11:52like the videos straight lines i think it's a really good performance clip but if we have been that was that turn to kind of go a little bit crazy and enjoy it a bit more you wrote some new tunes over the summer is that true we're not lonely barberella hide under your tongue or were those just be sized from the sessions i know it's new interesting stuff on it and it be some I don't want to mention the arthritis thing too much because i'm sure if i had some sort of disease or ailment or whatever you want to call it i wouldn't want the whole

12:38world knowing about it so i'm sure you don't feel too comfortable talking about even though everyone asks you but the reason i want to bring it up is because i heard you have to change around some riffs in the greatest few and the way you played the guitar and i'm wondering if if because of that your guitar playing style has changed at all yeah around the end of darama but i really good i had to actually didn't i wasn't allowed to play guitar and i couldn't move my hand so how hard was that for you i hated it i really liked it i started getting better yeah and i started playing again i had to tell new ways playing guitar which actually enjoyed more so a lot more um brief wide anymore because everything

13:29was stuck together i mean over time now i can play to play everything again but how's Natalie doing you mentioned her earlier she got a new album coming up this winter yeah okay cool your schedules are kind of a part most of the time yeah it's been pretty yeah you playing on her new record though um a little bit i hope i hope to write a couple of songs and choose this from england who's done i went in and i just wanted to see how he works and they asked me to play some

14:20guitar and i worked i worked on a couple of tracks it was really fun seems like he'd work quick working with the future heads i feel like everything was recorded really quick with them yeah would you ever want to do that again i know frog stomp recording what nine days something like that would you ever want to do that again just quick three-piece rock maybe yeah i never rule anything out but at the moment i'm getting free you're in a band so i try and prolong it there you go i hear you speaking of frog stump i hear you're not a fan of the first two records freak show and frog stump you feel like it was your crappy high school band no i don't i just i'm not embarrassed by them i'm gonna go out of my

15:14way to appreciate you know people that like it and occasionally play a couple of songs from the first two records for ourselves as well but with oh yeah for sure and that makes sense and i think that's what most people want to hear anyway that's incredibly really good people are here for the for the future yeah must be nice yeah explain to people here about this peter garret bono smoking a joint

16:02situation that happened in australia i guess he's the class or something maybe very kind of politand in the peter gout who is the singer is that is a minster for the labor party and politics over here now the labor party there is different though than here liberal in australia is our conservative and labor is our liberal yeah that makes sense okay yeah do one time and i was talking about a time we me and peter gout were at half in cydney with bono yeah i started getting

17:01smoking a joint and so i got in a lot of travel and i actually didn't care he knew it was a joke but everyone else i guess when you're in politics people have sniped me out and they're just waiting for one small mistake so they can cheat you down oh yeah especially that's right it's like almost the john leonon jesus common it feels it seems like there was a lot of press for something that wasn't really all that important yeah it's it's funny now but i won't be rushing out to do it again yeah i ask every band five questions i actually asked then five questions the same ones when he was doing the tambling

17:47thing i pod or cds um i pod leon and her macerny oh but what i would like to say i pod but as long as you get the entire album i don't just pick a single good co did you write for people to listen that way yeah it's definitely a record that's the one week link in the modern music chain i think is the fact that now people don't make albums anymore it really makes me angry well look at what radiohead did you have to buy the record there was it's the only way to do it this yeah i'm excited to hear this record i haven't heard it yet i have yet to download it but it's on its way yeah i want to hear it too um the second question leon and her macartony leon alcohol or marijuana no

18:37song you've written you're most proud of in one word silver chair time i'm checking so chair first thing that comes to your mind i don't know i think it first thing that comes to my mind is young mother but that's two words it works it works for me i like it all right young woman with a high and maybe yeah there you go exactly i heard that's actually that's your nickname van dyke calls you that or something like that yeah that's where we get the title from because he just added a blue one day started calling me young modern i couldn't i don't i just added i rather than a song on young modern station and then i just first record that we're down where we

19:23i got even shown them the song do you write lyrics last i read that somewhere yeah i didn't really know what i was mostly insomnia yeah well it's almost political on all across the world yeah i mean that that's more music and stuff out just constantly looping on itself and doing the same thing and building and i guess very nice daniel jon's thank you so much man respect

20:17brother appreciate it you know you don't know me we've never met but i'm very proud of you thanks a lot you made some good records man and and uh you always keep me thinking and it's a love-hate relationship because every time i write a song i just think it died around i'm like well i can't be this good it's not gonna happen thanks it's like listening to beetles it's like there's no point there's no point in trying anymore yeah everyone should just give up yeah no keep making music everyone should make music