John Norris: Tell me about "Neon Ballroom." Did you all along envisionthe orchestral direction of this record or did you just know that you wanted todo something different?

Daniel Johns: When I was writing "Cemetary" [from Silverchair's 1997album "Freak Show"] I wrote the song and then added strings to it later, andthat¹s the only song we really devoted to strings before this album. This newalbum was written for strings. So it wasn't written as a song and then stringswere added later.

John: Butwhen you first thought about doing this record, you've said that the lyrics camefirst. You started writing poetry [first]. Is that different? I mean, do younormally come up with music first and then lyrics?

Daniel: Yeah, with the previous two albums the music was written firstand then I just went home and wrote lyrics and I didn't ever want to get toopoetic with the lyrics in the past, because lyrically I've been very influencedby old school punk bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag and Youth of Today andthings like that. So I wanted the lyrics to be very direct. With this album Iwanted it to be a little more obscure and really kind of focus on what I wasfeeling at the time.

John: What do you think that comes from? As you get older do you get morecomfortable writing in a less direct way?

Daniel: Yeah, with the previous two albums the lyrics were very focused atanger. I was feeling towards certain groups and subcultures of people and withthis album, as I said, musically and lyrically I wanted to do something thatpeople didn't expect. So I really just focused on things I was feeling aboutmyself and psychological issues and lyrically it's a lot deeper and it means alot more to me.

John: At the same time, they're not traditional relationship songs. Itstill seems to me that you're talking about things that have a little bit moregoing on.

Daniel: Yeah, it's definitely not about things that are regularly writtenabout. It's very honest. It's about exactly what I was feeling in that period. It started as lyrics. It was never intended to be lyrics for Silverchair songs,it was just basically a form of expression and I liked the words so much that Ichanged it to a more lyrical format and put music around it.

John: Like the lyric for "Miss You Love," I mean, that's pretty vulnerable tothe point that I wouldn't think when "Frogstomp" came out you would have beenpretty comfortable putting out a song like that, right?

Daniel: No definitely because with the first two albums it was very [much]just about anger. I didn't want to do anything too soft. The softest lyricalsong was "Cemetary" and that still didn't focus on love because it wasn'tmasculine or whatever and when your at that age, you know, [it's a] prettyinsecure time so...

John: You don't want to do anything that looks even slightly weak orwhatever?

Daniel: Yeah exactly. But with this album I basically came to my sensesand realized I'm never going to be tough anyway so I might as well just focus ondealing with the issues that I feel.

John: So from a songwriting point of view, do you see yourself moving in amore political or socially aware direction?

Daniel: I don't really want to be the band to speak on behalf of largegroups of people. But really political lyrics have always interested me. I'vealways been interested in the Dead Kennedys and '80s hardcore bands that focus onvery political social issues. But I find it a lot more creatively satisfying tokind of express myself the way that I feel inside my head or inside my heart orwhatever rather than focus on things that, you know, that are more political. Because I don't know much about political issues, I just know what I feelstrongly about, something that's good to write about it.