Silverchair's Second Wind

So where have you guys been?
[Laughs] After Neon Ballroom, which is the last album we released in America that people kind of knew about, I wrote Diorama. Just as we were finishing that record, I got really sick and couldn't walk. I started seeing an American doctor, who helped me walk again, and then we came out for a handful of shows about two years late for Diorama. Then I started a band back home called the Dissociatives, where I was producing and writing without anyone else really. I was kind of scared of touring and scared of Silverchair, because I thought it just made me sick. But about two and half years ago, I started really wanting to do another Silverchair record and started writing a lot of songs, and here we are.

What can you tell us about the new record?
I think this record is easily our strongest record as a whole. It's the first time in our careers that we've really embraced and accepted every facet of what we know we're good at and what we know we probably shouldn't do. And as a songwriter, this is the first time I haven't sat down and thought, What kind of record am I going to write? I decided to be inspired by everything. When I was writing Diorama, I locked myself in a house for 12 months and went a little bit loony writing music with this one particular thing in mind. With Young Modern, it was more about writing really good songs and really exploring all the things about songwriting that made me curious. I wanted to write a really sprawling, eclectic record.

It obviously sounds much different than your previous work. How would you describe the new sound?
The only way I could really describe it is just to say it's pop music. I don't know. It's kind of psychedelic in parts, kind of heavy in parts, some parts I honestly don't know how to describe. It's just pop music. It's pop music that's better than most pop music.

Do you think this record will appeal to complete newcomers who maybe weren't familiar with you before?
I'm not really selective about our audience. I would like people to listen to the record. I don't mind if it's the same people as before or whether it's new people. It's all irrelevant to me. If someone likes the music and you've made an impact on them, to me, that's the best part.

Do you have any preconceived ideas of what the reaction here will be?
No, not really. I don't really know how people work as a general rule, but I would hope that it would at least get an opportunity. To a lot of American people, we're just the band that had the frog on the cover, so I'm sure there's a large portion of music fans in America that think Frogstomp was our first and last record. I have no idea how people are going to react, but I just want people to hear it.

Every date on the promo tour a few months back sold out in minutes. That's a good sign, right?
We were definitely surprised by that. I don't think anyone around us expected something like that. I was obviously really happy and grateful, but I had no idea that people still cared or anything.

So do you feel like you have a little more to prove this time?
I feel like the prouder you are of something or the better you think something you've done is, the more you've got to prove as a result. It's a really hard thing in America, because it's such a big place and American audiences and radio stations are really fickle. You can never really bank on a career. But I would like to be remembered for more than the band that gave them Frogstomp.

What do you have to say to people who just won't let that album go?
To me, Frogstomp sounds like a high school band, it just happened to sell a lot. I'd say, "Let the dream go." We're never doing anything like Frogstomp again. That's the kind of music I liked when I was literally a kid. I don't think anyone would hold on and try to reproduce what they were doing when they were 14. It'd be depressing.

Is reclaiming your popularity here important to you, or are you OK with the huge success you've had in Australia?
Being hugely popular anywhere is not high on the priority list. It's more about the work for me, and I'm happy when people have the opportunity to hear it. If you're playing shows anywhere and they're selling out, even if they're in small capacity clubs, that to me is still a good result. I guess it's just annoying that so many really bad bands are so big. A lot of people are getting the wrong impression of what music is. Little kids are really being exposed to quite ordinary music. The only point I really have to prove is that I really would like to make interesting music and still have people hear it.

Rumors have flown for years that you guys were finished. Do you have any idea when Silverchair will actually be over?
No. We don't really plan in advance. We generally like to do one record at a time, just because as a writer I feel more comfortable when I can see the end. If I can see the end and I can see the light, then I can continue to keep writing and push myself further. As soon as I'm locked into five albums, then I desist. It's my nature to want to get out.

OUT NOW: Young Modern