Rolling Stone: New Sound of White

HenryLee · Wysłany: Pon Mar 05, 2007 12:15 Temat postu: Rolling Stone: New Sound of White

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New Sound of White

After a five-year wait, Silverchair's comeback album Young Modern takes Diorama's musical ambition to the dancefloor.
BY KAREN BLISS

SILVERCHAIR FRONTMAN Daniel Johns didn't come prepared for the below-freezing temperatures in Toronto, where he has been holed up at Metalworks Studios since early January, as Canadian David Bottrill mixes Silverchair's new album, Young Modern. "All my winter apparel is in London and I was in Australia," says Johns. Dave gave me one of his jackets when I got here, one of those big windbreaker things. I do like snow though. I got excited when it snowed, but no, I haven't been tobogganing or skiing or anything." So, while Johns has been in town about _ weeks, he hasn't ventured anywhere outside his hotel and studio, which is in the middle nowhere, a half-hour's drive from downtown Toronto. It's reflective of his modus operandi on this 'comeback' album for a band that famously took an extended break in 2003, after the "Across the Night Tour" for the Diorama album (they never broke up, as management constantly reminds). Considering it is a comeback, Johns has been suitably pressured. Case in point is new song "If You Keep Losing Sleep". With curious lyrics like "You're a tombstone in the mud / Playing Twister in a bubble," and a sound that Johns can only liken to a "manic primary school marching band", it's reflective of John's mental state for at least part of the album's conception. "That song's kind of about social phobia, kind of about going into a manic state," Johns explains, his elongated sentences catching the mood. "I was trying to write this record and I was feeling really stressed and I just really wanted to make this record and I was getting really hyped up and paranoid and wouldn't leave the house and I was writing and writing and writing and that song came out." (laughs)
The majority of Young Modern was tracked live in a sunnier climate, Los Angeles, with Nick Launay (who worked on 1997's Freak Show and 1999's Neon Ballroom), then in Prague with legendary arranger Van Dyke Parks and an 80-piece orchestra, before Johns took the files home to Newcastle for a final assessment.
"I felt I needed to take the record back and take the reins and make it exactly how I wanted it to be," says the singer, guitarist and songwriter. "I got Paul (Mac) to come and help with Pro Tools, just wanted to rearrange some stuff, and get it perfect before we came over here to mix."
"Bottrill, known for his mixing work on Diorama and Tool's Salival and Lateralus, is "the only reason" Johns would come to Canada in mid-winter. "I really wanted him to mix it. We tried to get him to come to Australia because it's warm, but he really wanted to work here, so I was willing to do whatever," says Johns.
Killing time at Metalworks, he often plays pool, waiting for Bottrill to emerge from Studio 6 with a mix. The singer's other pastime adorns the walls - "fold" drawings; a dozen wacky characters, including a punk rocker, a hockey player, and a man in a kilt. Johns explains the childhood game he folded on paper, where one person sketches the head, another the torso and someone else the legs. "We can't draw arms," he points out. They either have none, or stubs.
Band mates Chris Joannou (bass), Ben Gillies (drums) and touring keyboardist Mac (John's partner in his side project, the Dissociatives), arrive soon. They'll start rehearsals for shows in New York, Toronto, L.A. then back to Australia, where the album drops on March 31st.
"That's one of the reasons I wanted to make this kind of record, one that's fun to play live, that has a lot of energy and still has all the ambition of Diorama," explains Johns, excited about the prospects of a major tour once Young Modern is released worldwide.
Johns previews a few tracks, starting with "Mind Reader", a song he describes as a cross between Captain Beefheart and AC/DC. "We mixed this yesterday and I want to hear it again. It's got a good guitar sound," he says. It's hard pop, riffy, kooky, with boogie piano bits, some do-do-doos, and Peter Garrett-style vocals. "I don't think I've ever sung like I did on that song," notes Johns, admitting he was "a bit drunk," when he laid down the vocal and was "doing my best Iggy Pop. I really wanted a song on the record that was like a party.
"I was trying to make lot of the songs as danceable as possible without it being a dance record, but fun and upbeat. Nick was really great at helping to do that as well because he's really into Bowie and T-Rex."
"Reflections", which Johns says is possibly the second single, is fairly straightforward with its lifting vocals and angelic chorus, but "If You Keep Losing Sleep" is completely leftfield with a rhythmic vocal and avant-garde orchestra, courtesy of Parks. "He always interprets my songs really well and accurately," says Johns.
Johns also explains the inspiration behind the most ambitious song on the album. "Those Thieving Birds" contains more conventional use of orchestra, but the seven-minute track is an unpredictable four-part epic. "That was written in a garden in Windsor in England," begins Johns. "I was sitting with my guitar, just writing lyrics, and there were birds around, and it got into my consciousness and before I knew it the song was called "Those Thieving Birds".
"It is a metaphor, but it's not about someone stealing from me. It's about things going missing in your life - feelings or emotions or people and things like that. It's kind of a vague metaphor for loss, I guess."
Musically, it veers from pretty, big and rich-sounding to pumping, orchestral pop, even to rocky moments, then straight-up quirky pop-rock, suddenly sweeping and hulking(?). "This wasn't even deliberate," Johns explains. "I was writing a song and I got to a certain point: 'OK I'm bored now, something needs to happen.' 'OK, I'm bored now, something else needs to happen'." (laughs)
"I didn't feel like the musical or lyrical sentiment had been resolved, otherwise where it changes first, if the song ended there, it would be a throwaway idea, whereas I wanted to make it a complete piece of work."
Likewise, Young Modern is dense and textured and complex - a magnum opus. "I wanted this album to be like a single White Album," says Johns. "All over the place, genre-wise, a lot of genre-hopping, crazy epic songs, mellow acoustic songs, pop songs, and rock & roll songs."
Johns doesn't like talking about his lyrics because "it kind of cheapens it for me." But later when talking about the sequence for Young Modern, he casually says the first six songs have a lyrical thread - one he won't discuss.
So what's the thread? "It's just the cacophony of emotions," he teases.
They all have the word 'And'?
"Yes, they all have the word 'And'," Johns laughs. "It's a concept album. It's really called 'And'."