photo credit: Nabil Elderkin
Lollapalooza August, 2007
I was more than excited to make it to Lollapalooza in Chicago last year. It was my second time to attend the festival and my first to attend it in its new home base of Chicago. A long line up of my favorite bands were playing that weekend; Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon, Ben Harper, Silversun Pickups, the list could go on and on. While Silverchair was on this list, they were admittedly on it for all of the wrong reasons. Visions of Tomorrow and I Miss You Love danced through my head, and I couldn’t wait to see what had become of one of the precious bands of my youth. (Now, none of my words should be taken as criticism, as I had been utterly ignorant of what had become of Silverchair since around 1999.) In my mind, Silverchair had retired, moved on to other projects, and were simply feeling a bit nostalgic, were in the right place at the right time, or maybe even couldn’t resist the paycheck, so decided to play a handful of reunion shows, mostly recycling their old content, to the delight of a crowd of washed up fans like myself chanting along. So after a long Friday night of alcohol consumption and otherwise sordid debauchery, I dragged myself to the two o’clock performance and weaseled my way front and center to prepare for a mid-afternoon blast of mid-90’s alternative/grunge at its finest.
At this point it is fairly obvious where this story is going and I assume every reader has gathered that I, in fact, was not met with what I expected, however this is my story and I will choose to move forward with my obvious plot line…
Absolutely not one of my expectations, other than that of a delighted crowd and exceptionally fine music, were met. Within the first five minutes I was won over. Silverchair, as a group, and as individuals, had grown into adults (obviously) and their music progressed and grew at an equal, if not greater pace. Their music was soulful, it was true rock; for me it was truly amazing. The show was truly brilliant and inspiring. I immediately became a fan, not of what Silverchair once were, but of what they had become.
La Zona Rosa November 2007
Obviously, after my newfound admiration for the boys in Silverchair, I was more than stoked to have them arrive in Austin a month and a half later. During their time here, I had the lucky opportunity to sit down and pick the brain of drummer Ben Gillies.
Gillies met up with me backstage at La Zona Rosa a couple hours before their set and told me his thoughts on footwear (he was ready to update his Puma’s), McDonald’s, Boxing Day, and most importantly, music.
As we settled into the interview, exchanging pleasantries and thank you’s, etc, Gillies was polite enough to feel the need to apologize for the absence of bassist, Chris Joannou. While of course we missed getting a chance to talk with him, Joannou had been the lucky nominee to take on the brunt of us journalists for the day and needed a well deserved break.
Quick to the point, as we were working with a limited amount of time, we got straight into talking about the new tour, the new music, and how the fans are responding to the notably new sounds of Silverchair.
Kristin: Let’s talk about how the tour has been going so far.
Ben: Yeah it’s been fantastic. It’s been nice to be back in America doing a tour. The reception over here has been pretty overwhelming as well. Particularly being away for so long and, I don’t know, I think being out of people’s kind of conscience. A lot of people are rediscovering the band and really excited about the band again and it feels like there is a real kind of buzz in this country about Silverchair again.
B: We came over and did a couple showcases earlier in the year. We just went to LA and New York and somewhere in Canada and that was basically just to show us off to record companies. And then we came back now. And before that, geez, I think we did a quick three weeks back in 2003 in support of Diorama.
As previously mentioned, Silverchair has been out of the scene for awhile. Although they never lost their loyal fan base in Australia, American fans are often as fickle as they come and have somehow grown to expect a new record from their favorite bands almost yearly. A yearly release is imaginably a difficult feat for any band, but Silverchair was dealt a series of hands that made it literally impossible to keep their momentum going.
B: In Australia you know, we have never really gone away. We have always kind of been doing something over there but I think the hardest thing in America is that we couldn’t come here because Daniel was sick. First he had anorexia and then he kind of had to deal with that and we couldn’t really tour and then at the end of recording Diorama he got reactive arthritis and so the timing was always when we had to go onto these big tours so um, yeah so it has been a bit of a challenge kind of turning people back onto the band. Particularly in this country bringing people back up to speed. You know, I think with our music because we have kind of evolved and moved so far forward from those early days, each album is you know, like a dot-to-dot and I think you really need every dot to kind of understand why we’ve ended up where we are. The hardest thing in this country is just kind of, you know, making people aware of that and if you miss one it’s kind of hard to catch up unless you go back and rediscover.
Before moving forward, I thought it relevant to delve into how the members of Silverchair spent their time apart, and more importantly for the fans, the events that brought the boys back together.
K: Going back to the break, can you give me a little information on what you guys all were doing during that time? Side projects and what not…
B: Well Dan did The Dissociatives with Paul; Paul Mac [an Australian electronica artist] who is playing keys. I did a side project called Tambalane and Chris did some production work with a band called The Mess Hall. So we all kept busy and kept doing music.
K: So you all kind of knew the whole time that Silverchair was on a hiatus and that it wasn’t broken up?
B: Yeah we hadn’t broken up but I guess in people’s eyes when a band starts doing all this other stuff they just kind of assume that the bands broken up. But yeah, we never broke up, we just kind of said lets go and do something and we’ll see what happens and if it eventually did become a break up that’s fine. We weren’t planning on doing a Silverchair tour, it was just, we did this concert in Australia called Wave Aid which was a benefit concert for tsunami victims. We hadn’t even spoken of Silverchair and it happened on Boxing Day, is that what it is called?
K: Is that a Canadian holiday?
B: It’s an Australian one too, must be a Commonwealth thing. Something to do with the UK, I don’t know. Yeah, so the tsunami, so we did that concert. We got a call and we hadn’t played together in like two years and we got a call from our manager and he was like, “do you guys want to do it?” We were all sooo nervous because we hadn’t really spoken, we weren’t fighting or anything, we were just off doing our things and hadn’t really spoken much in two years and hadn’t played together for two years. Then we literally did two rehearsals that were like an hour each, and considering the amount of time, the rehearsals actually sounded pretty tight considering we hadn’t played together for that long. We did a gig and it was just an amazing show and we came off stage and were like, “we are so stupid, what are we doing?” It just felt great so why would we let it go. So, I don’t quite know how I got to that bit, haha.
After the show sparked the flame to record again, Silverchair, older, wiser, and free from any ties to a record company, left their home of Australia to record their new record their way, with their own money, and on their own timeline.
B: It was quite a long process for the album. We started rehearsing in Christmas 2005, rented a house in South Wales. It was really fun; we had fires every night because we were totally in the styx, really really isolated. We just wanted to do it that way so if at two o’clock in the morning we felt inspired, or if we were out around the fire eating or drinking or talking, because we spoke about our music a lot and really kind of lived this album. You know, we all got away from home and got away from our comfort zones. It was just great, at three o’clock in the morning if you had a couple pints or a few wines and you were feeling good and you were talking about a particular song or something and felt like this would be good here or something, you can just be like, fuck it, lets go jam or whatever. And then in 2006 we did some more pre-production and then went to LA and recorded in LA.
K: Who produced the record?
B: Nick Launay. He um, who has he done since? Well he did two of our previous albums; he did Freakshow and Neon Ballroom. And um, he’s based in LA now, and I can’t think of who else he’s done, he’s done Midnight Oil from Australia, he does a lot of Nick Cave stuff, he’s really cool, he works really well with us because he comes in and we get really precious about songs and particular parts and he’ll come in and turn it all upside down. You get stuck in your little bubble and once you’re in your own little world you’re kind of stuck in that world and its nice to have someone come in with fresh ears and just go, “you know what, that sucks” or, “I like that but it needs changing,” or “that sounds really good.” We feel comfortable with it. Yeah so, it’s always nice to work with him.
K: Has it been a pretty different process doing this album as opposed to older albums now that you all are older and have a little bit more control or say?
B: Yeah, this album we probably made a lot different than any of the other ones we have done. We actually paid for this one ourselves, just so we could cut out any record company and musical influence. Just the theme of getting away from Australia and away from our homes just so we had no distractions and could really live and breathe the music. I guess that is something we really wanted to do this time around. So that’s why we did the rehearsal away from everyone. We always usually rehearse and record in Sydney for all the other albums so that’s why we went to South Wales to rehearse and went to LA to record it.
K: How long was that whole process?
B: I think the whole recording took maybe four months. It was a lot broken up, a little practice here and there. We had to do the strings in Prague so it was quite an international record; we went all over the place. But just all the logistics, and getting people where you want them and also getting the music how you want it to be, getting it right, it’s a pretty long process.
It’s no secret that the music industry here in America is in somewhat of a crisis these days. Everyone has their own opinions about the causes, symptoms, and cures to this problem and I was curious to uncover the thoughts of an outsider trying to play the music business game in both the American industry and the likely very different, Australian industry.
K: Speaking of record companies, I’m curious to hear the differences, or what you being from Australia perceive as differences in the American music industry and the Australian industry.
B: Yeah, I don’t know, I guess the hip hop or the whole urban kind of music scene over here is really popular at the moment. And I mean I like some of it. To me, the music industry in Australia is really healthy and there are so many really good acts in Australia really being adventurous and coming out with really good new stuff. I don’t know, the more time we spend here the more it feels like its turning into McDonald’s music. It’s not only too commercial, it is like fast food, you kind of here it twice and you’re over it. It’s catchy and it might sell a lot but it hasn’t really got any substance. It’s really shallow. That’s really vague, but that’s what it feels like. It doesn’t turn us on anyway.
B: I think considering kind of where we’re at at the moment, in America. I guess America is, it’s not the Holy Grail, but it’s one of the hardest markets to crack for the music industry in the whole world so we’ve always taken that as a bit of a challenge. It’s always been really frustrating for us because we feel like we’re on the cutting edge of really pushing ourselves musically, there’s not many bands doing that and it just frustrates us that we always seem to be like really battling you know.
K: Well we are McDonald’s…
B: Ha, yeah we’re not like a McDonald’s hamburger, we’re more like a mixed plate of sashimi. So America’s always been a bit of a challenge for us that we want to conquer, and considering the buzz and the vibe that we’ve had here at the moment and how people have seemed willing to rediscover the band and how excited a lot of people seem to be I don’t think we’ll wait as long to release anything new. Hopefully I think we’ll come back here next year to do a tour as well. I don’t think the life of this record is over just yet.
So there you have it, I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Consumers of main stream American music have likely heard Silverchair playing on their local radio stations. Maybe the opportunity to indulge in the finer things in life such as a nice mixed plate of sashimi will finally clear that deadened palate out and make room for something other than that artery clogging McDonald’s Big Mac they have been tricked into liking for far too long.
It looks as though Silverchair are currently wrapping up their tour in Australia. Let’s hope Ben’s predictions are correct and that we will be seeing the boys back in here later in the year.
MP3> Straight Lines
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 3:34 pm and is filed under general music news, interview, mp3's.
