Believe it or not, way back in the days of our great grandparents there were no color movies, no television 
and heaven forbid, no MTV. For mass culture entertainment, people turned into Amos & Andy on the radio or 
paid a quarter to see a movie. It was a simple existence, kinda like living in the Australian Outback. The 
most exciting time was when the travelling carnival came to town and pitched it's tents amid roaring 
elephants and an electric atmosphere. Everybody was there to see this new and different spectacle - it 
was the place to be. The acrobats, clown and preforming horses were cool, but Americans in particular loved 
the "Freak Show." People paid to see bearded ladies, Siamese twins and two headed calves, anything that was 
peculiar or different drew  their attention.

The members of the band silverchair are freaks in their own right. The album Freak Show is silverchair's 
second attempt at platinum, even though guitarist/vocalist Daniel Johns, drummer Ben Gillies and bassist 
Chris Joannou are not even out of highschool yet. They're too young to be full fledged rock stars, yet 
they've seen too much of the world to be "normal" highschool students in the backwaters of Newcastle, 
Australia. So silverchair exist in a strange twilight zone located somewhere between the stage of the 
teenage wasteland and the "real world"; it's a feeling that sometimes makes them feel like the true members 
of a freak show. Recently, Hit Parader had a chance to talk with Ben and Chris about the power and pleasure 
of being successful at 17.

HP: Do you really feel like life on the road is a Freak Show?

CJ: Our whole life is a Freak Show. We're in our final year of highschool and we've just released our second 
album. We should be touring more, but we're not because we have to be in school. I've asked my really good 
mates, if it's weird when we say "We're going overseas for a week, we'll see you when we get back." They're 
like yeah, that's weird.

BG: When we're on the road, everyone's always trying to get a good look at us. Kids crowd the hotels. It 
totally makes you feel like you're a member of the old travelling Freak Shows with dwarfs and bearded ladies. 
Life on the road is a fully travelling circus. The whole thing about making rock and roll is that a band 
goes from one town into another town and sets up like a circus. As well, there are so many freaks in the 
music industry. So it seemed like an appropriate name for an album.

HP: Your first album Frogstomp, went triple platinum in your native Australia, double platinum in the States 
and Canada, and gold in New Zealand and the Philippines. Did you feel a lot of pressure to continue that 
success when you went into the studio to record your second album?

CJ: Not particularly, anything can change in the music business. One day you're not accepted and the next 
day you can be excepted by the people. Things change, people have different tastes in music. So you can't 
really get your hopes up. You have to go in with the attitude that you don't know what to expect.

HP: Freak Show shows a lot more musical diversity than your debut. Are you influenced by musical trends?

CJ: Not really. You just be yourself, and you can be that. You can't be what people want you to be. The 
playing on the new album is a lot better than the first album, as are the songs. Freak Show is a bit 
better all the way around.

BG: A lot of people think they're not being influenced by the trends, that they're not going to change. 
We're not influenced by the latest fashion, there's a lot of variety on this album. Frogstomp was just 
there, it uncompassed a small box. Freak Show encompasses a much bigger creative space, there's a lot 
more variety on it. Our world has gotten larger. The heavy songs are heavier, the quieter songs are 
quieter, and then we've got these songs in between. There's a punk song, there's a song with indian 
instruments on it, there's a song with strings. It's just better than the first album.

HP: Where did you find your influences for this record?

CJ: There's so much. For this record we went back to the older stuff like Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath, 
and listened to some very new stuff as well, like whole heaps of stuff from tool, koRn, Quicksand and
Rage Against the Machine.

HP: You live in Newcastle, Australia, and you recorded the album in Sydney, so your influences are 
decidedly Australian. What is the local music scene like in your country?

BG: You mean Australian music? We're not really influenced by Australian stuff because there aren't very 
many Australian bands that play the kind of music we're into. Most Australian bands are into American pop 
kind of stuff. We do like some of the bands, but it's not the kind of music we're really into.

HP: What is Newcastle like?

BG: Newcastle is a small, industrial steel area. There's a big steel works there.

CJ: And heaps of beaches, it's right on the coast, it's very beach oriented. It's not very big, only about 
a half a million people there. The music scene is very pub rock, mostly cover bands. When we first started 
silverchair, we didn't play around that much, the odd gig for a few people in a pub. That's about it. We 
only played gigs around Newcastle really, we never played Sydney till we got our first deal.

BG: Fashion wise the look is all paint on jeans, long hair, dark glasses, dark jeans, it's pretty funny. 
Musically, it's all four/four songs, very AC/DC.

HP: Are AC/DC still the most legendary Australian band?

BG: The most legendary hard rock touring band, definitely.

HP: So, if there's not really a whole lot happening musically in Newcastle, how did you get signed?

CJ: We won a demo competition and we got to record a song in a proper studio and make a film clip for it. 
We recorded the song Tomorrow for a radio station, and it actually got played on air. Then, the record 
company saw the film clip and they liked the idea and they came to a gig where there was about 12 other 
people and it just went from there.

HP: How has success changed your life?

BG: It's like we're living two lives now. When you go home you're like every normal 17 year old, going 
to school, going to the beach, parties, hanging out with friends. Then you've got your other life. Where 
you get to travel around the world and meet millions of people. Each night you're playing for thousand's 
of people and staying in nice hotels. It's pretty weird, but you get used to it.

HP: How has touring internationally changed your perspective on things?

CJ: It takes a while for things to sink in, and for you to realize what's happening to you. When we came 
to the States, we realized it was a whole, big adventure.

HP: What have been some of the stand out experiences in your travels?

CJ: It as a big shock to see a city like New York for the first time, I was pretty excited about that. 
Sydney is nothing compared to New York. It was just like straight out of the movies, everything I expected 
it to be, a real Freak Show.

BG: We played the Whiskey, the same place the Doors played, that was great. Then we played the Santa Monica 
Pier, it was just the biggest shocker we've ever had. It was a nightmare because the whole PA went down. We 
were screwed around by the PA people. They didn't even give us proper generators to run the PA - there was 
no power, we were pretty angry. The crowd was pretty socko, so we were pretty happy with that. We've yet to 
play a good show in L.A. We're going to have to do that this tour.