Picture the scene. A comprehensive school in the tough industrial town of Newcastle, Australia. A 
classroom full of surf kids and hard nuts. Enter a scrawny blond lad, a bit on the feminine side, 
pretending he's Mr. T, hulking, mo-hawked black dude from "The-A-Team". Like his hero, the blond 
kid has a mass of gold chains around his neck. He makes an awkward and ill-advised attempt to 
breackdance. He promptley has the shit kicked out of him. 

This is a scene from the childhood of Daniel Johns, silverchair's troubled and precociously gifted 
singer, songwriter and guitarist. It's always the kids who stand out in a crowd that get picked on, 
and from an early age, young Johns stood out in Newcastle with his mis-guided notion of style.

"I was really young when I tried to dress like Mr. T," recalls Daniel with a smile. "I used to be 
quite good at breakdancing, and I had all these chains on and everything. I tried to be like Mr. T 
with the exception of the mohawk and the dark skin. Being white, I can't really achieve the full 
Mr. T look, but my mum wouldn't even let me get the mohawk. It would have been so cool if I'd done 
it," he adds with a rueful shake of his head. "I'd love it if there were pictures of me with a mohawk, 
I'd be so proud."

When silverchair shot to fame on the back of their mega-selling first album "Frogstomp" Daniel 
dressed like a young Kurt Cobain, a likeness amplified by his straggly blond hair and grunge-icon 
status. Johns still wears Cobain approved silk shirts over fading T-shirts, but there's a lot of gear 
he's bought recently, baggy trousers and the like, are from dance music stores.
"A lot of people think I'm a raver because I wear a lot of dance clothes," he explains, "but the stuff 
I wear is  stuff that's just comfortable, with the exception of all the things around my neck. I wouldn't 
exactly say these chains are uncomfortable, but they're not exactly comfortable either," he chuckles. 
"They're something different to wear."

A millionaire at an age when most people are scraping together pocket money by delievering papers, Daniel 
could buy tons of swanky designer-label gear if he wanted, but it's just not his style. Or rather he just 
doesn't see the point of spending a huge wad of cash on a simple shirt.
"I'm not impressed by that kind of stuff at all, although," he concludes, "you can tell they're good clothes. 
If I got designer things for free I'd wear them, but I wouldn't buy them, because it's just giving money to 
people who've already got too much!"

What would you wear to a wedding then?

"I've got a couple of old 70's suits that I got second-hand," he says. "A black one and a dark grey one. 
They've got flares and big lapels. They're not designer suits. They're very cheap, but I really like them. 
As long as it looks cool it doesn't matter how cheap something is."

As if to back up this last statement, Daniel picks out an old T-shirt as his very favorite thing 
to wear. It's just a cheap black shirt which has shrunk a little over the years to fit his skinny 
frame. The picture on the front features a decidedly harmless-looking cartoon alligator.
"I bought this shirt from a second hand store when I was 13," Daniel says. "It's been my favorite 
thing for seven years. I liked it because it had an alligator on it and I was fascinated by them 
at the time."

Who needs posh gear? Not this Mr. T fan, that's for sure!