Last month IESB and Audio Frequency had the pleasure of sitting down with Chris Joannou of Silverchair right before their show at the House of Blues in Anaheim.

We got a chance to chat a bit about the bands recent success at the Aria?s, their new album ?Young Modern? as well as some random Silverchair exploits.

Silverchair after sweeping this years Australian Grammy?s are now one of the most acclaimed and successful bands in Australian music history.

After being on Hiatus and out of the public for quite some time, Silverchair bursts back onto the scene with the critically acclaimed album ?Young Modern.?  The group rekindled their love for making music together after playing a benefit show in Australia. In 2005, and soon after started playing around with the idea of a new album.
 
The group did a few big Australian shows in March/April '06 to roadtest some new songs and to help build a war chest to fund the venture. Then they headed to another house in LA where tracking commenced in a backyard studio called Seedy Underbelly. The album that eventuated - Young Modern - melds elements from each of the band's previous works while somehow seeming more cohesive than anything they've done since their debut.

This time around Daniel shared the producer role with Nick Launay who had helmed earlier 'chair albums Freak Show and Neon Ballroom. Diorama producer, David Bottrill was brought in as mixer on Young Modern. Paul Mac was again on hand for keyboard duties as he was with the group's two previous albums and legendary Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks reprised his Diorama role penning orchestrations for three songs. In keeping with the free spirited nature of the process his sections were recorded in Prague... as you do when you're seeking 80 piece orchestras.

Silverchair's intent is clear from the brash guitar wail and the pounding drums and bass that give lift-off to the album's opening track, "Young Modern Station". "The band is back together" exclaims an exuberant Daniel Johns a few seconds into the song and it's impossible to argue the point. Then it's straight into the slow burning epic "Straight Lines" - the first single to be lifted from the album - and on through an album full of melody, invention and exuberance.

Of course Young Modern has big shoes to fill. Even though the members of Silverchair are still only 27 years old the trio has already had four consecutive number 1 albums in their homeland. They've received 39 ARIA Award nominations over the last 12 years and they've sold over 6 million albums around the world.

To top it all just a few months back they were the only artist other than U2, Radiohead and The Beatles to have three of their albums make the top 100 most popular Australian CD's of all time in a big ABC TV poll (Diorama came in just behind Midnight Oil's classic 10...1 as the most popular Aussie album on the list).

But the challenge of living up to this amazing history is not one that Daniel Johns finds daunting.

"It took me a long time to realize that the sound Ben, Chris and I make when we play my songs is something special", says the Silverchair frontman. "I've been thinking a lot since we finished the album about were this fits into the other stuff we've done. The way I see it the first album was naivety, the second one was anger, the third one was depression and the last one was escapism. Young Modern is all about acceptance. It's about embracing who we are as band and just really enjoying ourselves because that's all that really matters. Hopefully listening to this album will make other people feel what we feel when we play these songs together because I've finally figured out that that's a very special feeling."

Click here to check out our exclusive Interview with Bass player Chris Joannou

And make sure to head over to www.chairpage.com for all your Silverchair updates!

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