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Channel [V] presenter Jabba, had the great privilege of getting into the shed at Sydney's Technology Park for the making of silverchair's rather expensive new video for 'Anthem For The Year 2000'. That was 22 January 1999. In between takes he got an interview with Daniel and Chris

Jabba: Well here we are in driving rain at the Australian Technology Park, in Redfern, where the band silverchair are apparently just on a milk break, and I've spotted one of them there, young Daniel Johns, he's lookin' very excited, very resplendent in purple, Chris and Ben making their way along too ... No, they're not! There's only two out of three ... come out of the rain! Ohhh, this is so exclusive!

Daniel: How are ya?

Chris: What are YOU doin' here?

Jabba: Well you know, I heard there was catering action happening. Is there catering madness?

Chris: Yep, peanut butter AND Vegemite sandwiches.

Jabba: That sounds pretty exciting. You're here to do a film clip for your new song, the first single off the new album, 'Neon Ballroom'. What's the song called?

Daniel: The song's called 'Anthem For The Year 2000'.

Jabba: What a timely song.

Daniel: Yeah, perfect.

Jabba: Is it about the kids taking it back?

Daniel: Youth against establishment, pretty much ... just very serious against politicians, it's time for the youth to take over.

Jabba: I like it.

Chris: It's good, isn't it. Intense.

Jabba: It's there, it's now, it's political ... what's happening with the clip? Are you turning into Insurge?

Daniel: What?

Jabba: Is it a big, burning political thing, the clip?

Daniel: What's Insurge?

Jabba: The band, you know, "I hate stupid people!" Don't you know Insurge?

Daniel: Nuh.

Chris: Nuh. We were born in 1979.

Jabba: Oh yeah, fair enough. But recent - 'Political Prisoners'.

Daniel: Oh, I've seen that song, at the carwash or something?

Jabba: Yeah, are you doing that carwash action today?

Daniel: No, we're not Insurge.

Jabba: Oh it's good that we've cleared that up. So exactly who are you?

Chris: Umm.

Jabba: I believe you're the Australian silverchair show.

Chris: Yeah, we're a tribute to silverchair.

Jabba: That was how you billed yourselves at one of your homecoming gigs in Newcastle - did it work? Did anyone turn up?

Chris: Yeah, a few. They all wanted to see the Akka Dakka tribute band.

Jabba: Were you on first?

Chris: Yeah, it was a rockin' gig.

Jabba: Was there a bit of confusion, that it was actually yourselves?

Chris: Oh, I think a few figured it out. But I think there was still a few we tricked.

Jabba: And you've got a big gig at the Peaches & Cream festival - do you like big festivals?

Daniel: Yeah, they're alright for something different. You get more money, so I guess that's a positive aspect of it. But it's better to do your own shows. But you need a bit of variety because it's the spice of life.

Jabba: Are you into the Spice Girls at all? Were they one of your favourite moments of '98?

Daniel: Only Ginger. And now that she's gone ... they don't mean anything.

Chris: They're only 80% ...

Jabba: So your new album, 'Neon Ballroom', are there any songs on there that were particularly hard to write? Was 'Anthem For The Year 2000' hard to write?

Daniel: 'Anthem For The Year 2000' took about 10 minutes to write. That was the quickest song I've ever written.

Jabba: Really?

Daniel: Oh, no 'Lie To Me' off the last album was the quickest, that took like five seconds or something.

Jabba: Five seconds?!

Daniel: No, about 30 seconds. But there was some that took a long time - 'Emotion Sickness' took about three weeks. That's the first track off our new album entitled 'Neon Ballroom'.

Jabba: 'Neon Ballroom', what a concept, whose idea was that?

Chris: I think it kind of sprung about by itself, you know, the whole new/old mixed together; neon being new and ballroom being old.

Jabba: So were there tears over any of the songs you wrote? Cos Hugh, the lighting guy, had the sneak tape, played it to me, charged me ten thousand dollars just for the sneak - I hope you get a cut of that. And there seems to be some very serious moments there. Kind of holding back from non-stop blocks of rock.

Daniel: It's very serious. It's a lot more personal than our other albums. And it confronts some very confronting issues.

Jabba: So was it harder to write?

Daniel: Yep. It was written ... I approached writing it differently ... the last two albums we wrote music and I wrote lyrics over the top. But this time I just wrote 112 poems in three months and wrote music around the poems and then put the poems into a lyrical format and then that was it. They were songs, that was 'Neon Ballroom'.

Jabba: Thrivin'. And where did the idea to bring in guest musicians come from?

Chris: I think it was all part of, not just making it more interesting, but we thought about David Helfgott ... we never really took it seriously til a little later, and then, it just kind of happened, he came in and it really worked.

Jabba: Was he a freaky guy to work with?

Chris: No, he was very good. I must say that. It was quite interesting actually ...

Daniel: Chris is a seasoned piano watcher ...

Chris: I'd only seen snippets of 'Shine', I hadn't really seen much ... everyone was talking about how he was ... is ... and to meet him was quite a thrill.

Jabba: Did you play some keys on the album as well?

Daniel: You mean piano?

Jabba: Yeah, keyboards. You know, industry talk.

Daniel: Yeah, well I'm not quite up to scratch with that.

Jabba: I'm so industry ... (gives a wanky industry thumbs up). So did you just play guitar on the album?

Daniel: Yeah. I had, when I was writing, I had a clear vision of what I wanted every song to sound like. So I had certain instrumentation in my head and just had meetings with people who were arranging the parts and told them exactly what I wanted, the kind of discordant manic piano parts and lush beautiful string sections. And just decided to keep guitar a more subtle instrument on this album rather than a dominant force like it was on the last two albums.

Jabba: Wow. Is it still fun?

Daniel: Yeah. We'll stop as soon as we don't enjoy making music. The music is the most satisfying part ... the only satisfying part of being in a band.

Jabba: And where's Ben? Still having dinner?

Chris: We can't say what he's doing.

Jabba: We have to wrap it up there ... sorry, we'll end it there. Thanks for talking to us, Chris and Daniel from silverchair ...

Daniel: The Australian silverchair show.