Toronto Star: Mixing it Up With Silverchair

HenryLee

Kolejny artykuł dotyczący Silverchair. Całkiem interesujący, można się z niego dowiedzieć kilku ciekawych rzeczy Smile

Mixing it Up With Silverchair
From the Toronto Star
By Karen Bliss, Feb 16, 2007

Silverchair front man 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 the Australian band’s new album, Young Modern, due out this summer in North America.

"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."

His bandmates, Chris Joannou (bass) and Ben Gillies (drums), arrived in Toronto last week for rehearsals. They left to perform a pair of shows in New York this week and returned last night - joined onstage by touring keyboardist Paul Mac, Johns' partner in the side project the Dissociatives - to headline the sold-out Australian tourism event G'Day Toronto at Yonge-Dundas Square. They are scheduled for another sold-out show at the Kool Haus tonight. It's the first time in six years Silverchair has visited Toronto.

"We'll do about five or six new songs", says Johns. "It's not going to be all new, but we're going to play a good slab of new stuff."

After making some cappuccinos, Metalworks assistant manager Giancarlo Gallo begins playback of the first single, "Straight Lines", but mistakenly puts it on half-speed."It's us on Valium, our new direction", jokes Johns before the proper version plays, a spirited, elevating pop song with soft-to-falsetto vocal.

"I like the mix. Good", Johns concludes.

The 27-year-old singer-guitarist, who has been writing songs for Silverchair since 1994 (yes, about half his life), continually pushes the boundaries of rock, creating pieces of music sprouting with ideas that are both intriguing yet palatable, but he displays no ego, just self-assuredness and a clear vision of what he produces.

He asks to hear "Mind Reader". "We mixed this yesterday, and I want to hear it again. It's fun. It's got a good guitar sound", he says by way of introduction.

It's a piece of hard pop, riffy, kooky, with some boogie piano bits, even some do-do-doos and Peter Garrett-style vocals in spots. "I don&'t think I've ever sung like I did on that song", notes Johns, admitting that he was "a little bit drunk" when he laid down that vocal and was "doing my best Iggy Pop".

"I just really wanted to have a song on the record that was like a party", Johns says.

The majority of the album was tracked live in a sunnier climate, Los Angeles, with Nick Launay, producer of Silverchair's 1997 album, Freak Show, and 1999's Neon Ballroom.

Bottrill is "literally the only reason" Johns would come to Canada in the middle of winter. "I really wanted him to mix it. We tried to get him to come out to Australia because it's warm there, but he really wanted to work here, so I was willing to do whatever", says Johns.

A native of Dundas, Ont., Bottrill, who produced Grammy-winning recordings for alternative metal band Tool, left Canada 20 years ago to work with Peter Gabriel in Bath, England, and returned in 2005 when he got married. He co-produced Silverchair's last album, 2001's Diorama, with Johns and when he received Young Modern to mix, "I knew what to expect because I know how good he is".

"I listened to it and I was actually surprised at how simple some of the things were", says Bottrill. "There are tracks that are quite Bowie-esque, like old Bowie, moments of that, but I was just as surprised to hear as much cut down, although from what I gather from Daniel is there was so much recorded on it that they actually had to cut quite a lot before it even got to me".

"Reflections", which Johns says is "possibly" the second single, is fairly straightforward with its lilting vocal and sweet angelic chorus, but then "If You Keep Losing Sleep" is completely left- field with a rhythmic vocal and avant-garde orchestra courtesy of legendary arranger Van Dyke Parks. The most ambitious song on the album is a four-part epic called "Those Thieving Birds" that runs seven minutes and 45 seconds.

"I wanted this album to be like similar to a single White Album", says Johns, "all over the place, genre-wise, a lot of genre- hopping, really crazy epic songs and mellow acoustic songs and pop songs and rock'n'roll songs".

Mission accomplished.

soleil

kurcze, szczerze to nie chciałabym, aby "Reflections.." byla drugim singlem. Co oni takie delikatne piosenki wybieraja na single.. Trzba pokazać trochę charakterku! Najlepszy jest "Mind Reader" Very Happy