Bridging the gap - Installment I - The Music
[I've decided that while I'm waiting for the other Daniel - daniel_paulj - to go inactive (I really hope that's the last of the Daniel doppelgangers lurking in the MBP universe), I'll be doing some small updates in the meantime to bridge the 18 month gap between my Daniel's leaving and returning. It's a big part of time missing especially considering as I'm picking up with the old storyline and running with it, and I'd like to just take the opportunity while I'm waiting to fill in the gaps so when - or if - he comes back in, he can just start from now without having to backtrack later.
How much do I love this role? Too much.]
It's been a year and a half since I've updated this journal. I actually have a handy list of convenient excuses to explain why I haven't maintained it on hand here, but I think everybody is intelligent enough to know they'd all be bullshit excuses. I think it's just clearly apparently, now, that I'm not the best writer in the world and I have something bordering on pure laziness.
But I'm trying to make a comeback. It's the new year, and although I've never been one for making resolutions, I've resolved this time to keep at this; if only just for my own satisfaction of having some place to pour my thoughts into. That is, as an alternative to my music.
I actually went back and read my old journal entries, and I can't believe how much I'd written and shared in the time I'd kept it. So many things I had forgotten or discarded from the hallways of my memory were once again brought into focus, and it gave me a taste of nostalgia. Especially now as so much has changed and evolved in the time between June 2003 and now.
Now where could I possibly start? If I were to cover everything in that 18 month span of time, I would be sitting here for days on end to cover just even 50% of the events that have led up to today. I suppose I'll have to exercise some self restraint and try not to engage in a longwinded recital of events as I'm told I tend to do.
I can tell you right now that's not going to happen.
Musically speaking, things have gone in a completely new direction. As I've said to both Ben and Chris, my decision to create and work on The Dissociatives didn't mean that I no longer wanted to be a part of silverchair, or that I no longer enjoyed my time with them as a band. I know that many other people would take it personal when a band member chooses to branch out and work with someone else on something else - as has been apparent in quite a few bands who have fell apart simply because some changes were made on the mistaken impression that the original band's strength would survive the experience... But I know that both Gillies and Joannou have a good understanding of what it is that compelled me to work with Paul Mac on this new project.
I think it could be easily labelled as the mundane but, sadly, very true "I was needing a change" line.
I need a change
Not to imitate
But to irritate
People who have been working at the same job for something like 12 years as I have, invariably grow too used to the comfortable and repetitive grind. I think it would be felt even more acutely for those who wake up every morning, have coffee with their morning paper and go to work to fulfill their daily requirement of the old 9 to 5 adage only to come home to kiss the wife, pay the bills and go to bed to start it the next day.
Make no mistake, my music and everything it entails wasn't grinding down on me or wearing me away. But just like the hardcore latte drinker decides one day to go for a cappuccino for a change, I've just needed a change from silverchair. I've been doing work with Ben and Chris as silverchair (and before that as The Innocent Criminals) for the amount of time it takes someone to get through school from year 1 to year 12. And I'm only in my 20s now. In a world where music is ruled by a few select sitting high up in billion dollar multinational corporations, musicians who start out as young as we did never get past a few years before disappearing into obscurity... or without at least losing some of their genuine credibility.
To indulge in a prideful moment, we lasted through a decade of changing music styles and tastes, never conforming to the changing trend and always staying true to ourselves, our own style, and to the silverchair name. Considering how kids around the age we were at the time when Frogstomp came out can barely stick to attending school classes regularly, the fact that Chris, Ben and I have been together for so long is something even I marvel at.
I'm still human, though, and so are they. A change of scenery, so to speak, is what has been needed for some time. Not only for myself, either, because I think Chris and Ben have also enjoyed the time off to do their own things. (Away from Daniel "Slave Driver" Johns.) I know Chris has been working on some material of his own, and performing with some other friends, and Ben has been spending lots of time with Hayley and surfing.
I digress, though. silverchair and The Dissociatives are so far removed from one another in style and in taste that I don't think there'd ever be the danger of one being compared to the other. Or for critics to surmise that the latter is now here to replace the former for the fickleness of a deranged and inconstant front man like myself.
When news got out that I was going to work with Paul on The Dissociatives, the inevitable question popped up everywhere I turned: "What about silverchair?!" My collaboration with Paul Mac isn't the threat or the end of silverchair, and it's taken me months of repetitive interviews to assure everybody it's not the end.
I don't think I could ever fully give up what silverchair means, and the bonds I have with the others. Trying to avoid sentimentality here and not damage my overblown sense of male machismo, I've worked too many years and too closely with silverchair to ever really put it to rest forever. Music has always been my life and my love (to an extent, which will be discussed in the next update), and silverchair has always been at the centre of that. The others would agree, I'm sure. We've each put a little part of our hearts and souls into the band that none of us could stop being who we are.
We haven't broken up, and the chair will be back again. Even now, Ben, Chris and I get together frequently to perform, hang out, and just relax. I don't think there's been a month gone by in the last year that we don't talk or see each other. There is even talk about working on a new album together, and I'm really looking forward to it. I have some ideas and even some scrap demos thrown together for the next album for the chair.
I admire Paul and he's a good friend of mine, and the work we do together is something I enjoy a lot. He's amazingly talented and his drive pushes me to exceed as a musician and a producer. And although we've both said that it's a different project that we're planning on giving our full attention to, it's not changing the fact that Paul will still be working solo projects and producing for other artists, and that my number one commitment musically is silverchair.
But for the time being, my attention is focused on The Dissociatives. We've experienced a modicum of success, and I've enjoyed performing with Paul. A lot of reviews have been positive (though some have admitted they find it hard to accept it's a big change from either Paul or silverchair's style), and the sales of our album have been pretty good. I think we've also reached a different spectrum of listeners and that's always interesting to see.
We were nominated for a few ARIAs including Album of the Year, Best Group and Producer of the Year- which we didn't win, but our cover art guru James Hackett won the ARIAs for Best Cover Art and Best Video for Somewhere Down the Barrel. Which also, incidentally, has been nominated in the first annual Australian MTV Music Video Awards. We've released a DVD, and we did a national tour with Little Birdy which went well apart from a few cancelled gigs because of my seasonal flu affecting my throat.
Not a bad way to find a change of scene.
Now, I think I've written more than enough. It's been 6 hours of slow going (chicken pecking is what Natalie calls my style of typing) and numerous distractions. Time to get off and leave the rest for another time.
Next installment coming soon.
Cheers.
How much do I love this role? Too much.]
It's been a year and a half since I've updated this journal. I actually have a handy list of convenient excuses to explain why I haven't maintained it on hand here, but I think everybody is intelligent enough to know they'd all be bullshit excuses. I think it's just clearly apparently, now, that I'm not the best writer in the world and I have something bordering on pure laziness.
But I'm trying to make a comeback. It's the new year, and although I've never been one for making resolutions, I've resolved this time to keep at this; if only just for my own satisfaction of having some place to pour my thoughts into. That is, as an alternative to my music.
I actually went back and read my old journal entries, and I can't believe how much I'd written and shared in the time I'd kept it. So many things I had forgotten or discarded from the hallways of my memory were once again brought into focus, and it gave me a taste of nostalgia. Especially now as so much has changed and evolved in the time between June 2003 and now.
Now where could I possibly start? If I were to cover everything in that 18 month span of time, I would be sitting here for days on end to cover just even 50% of the events that have led up to today. I suppose I'll have to exercise some self restraint and try not to engage in a longwinded recital of events as I'm told I tend to do.
I can tell you right now that's not going to happen.
Musically speaking, things have gone in a completely new direction. As I've said to both Ben and Chris, my decision to create and work on The Dissociatives didn't mean that I no longer wanted to be a part of silverchair, or that I no longer enjoyed my time with them as a band. I know that many other people would take it personal when a band member chooses to branch out and work with someone else on something else - as has been apparent in quite a few bands who have fell apart simply because some changes were made on the mistaken impression that the original band's strength would survive the experience... But I know that both Gillies and Joannou have a good understanding of what it is that compelled me to work with Paul Mac on this new project.
I think it could be easily labelled as the mundane but, sadly, very true "I was needing a change" line.
I need a change
Not to imitate
But to irritate
People who have been working at the same job for something like 12 years as I have, invariably grow too used to the comfortable and repetitive grind. I think it would be felt even more acutely for those who wake up every morning, have coffee with their morning paper and go to work to fulfill their daily requirement of the old 9 to 5 adage only to come home to kiss the wife, pay the bills and go to bed to start it the next day.
Make no mistake, my music and everything it entails wasn't grinding down on me or wearing me away. But just like the hardcore latte drinker decides one day to go for a cappuccino for a change, I've just needed a change from silverchair. I've been doing work with Ben and Chris as silverchair (and before that as The Innocent Criminals) for the amount of time it takes someone to get through school from year 1 to year 12. And I'm only in my 20s now. In a world where music is ruled by a few select sitting high up in billion dollar multinational corporations, musicians who start out as young as we did never get past a few years before disappearing into obscurity... or without at least losing some of their genuine credibility.
To indulge in a prideful moment, we lasted through a decade of changing music styles and tastes, never conforming to the changing trend and always staying true to ourselves, our own style, and to the silverchair name. Considering how kids around the age we were at the time when Frogstomp came out can barely stick to attending school classes regularly, the fact that Chris, Ben and I have been together for so long is something even I marvel at.
I'm still human, though, and so are they. A change of scenery, so to speak, is what has been needed for some time. Not only for myself, either, because I think Chris and Ben have also enjoyed the time off to do their own things. (Away from Daniel "Slave Driver" Johns.) I know Chris has been working on some material of his own, and performing with some other friends, and Ben has been spending lots of time with Hayley and surfing.
I digress, though. silverchair and The Dissociatives are so far removed from one another in style and in taste that I don't think there'd ever be the danger of one being compared to the other. Or for critics to surmise that the latter is now here to replace the former for the fickleness of a deranged and inconstant front man like myself.
When news got out that I was going to work with Paul on The Dissociatives, the inevitable question popped up everywhere I turned: "What about silverchair?!" My collaboration with Paul Mac isn't the threat or the end of silverchair, and it's taken me months of repetitive interviews to assure everybody it's not the end.
I don't think I could ever fully give up what silverchair means, and the bonds I have with the others. Trying to avoid sentimentality here and not damage my overblown sense of male machismo, I've worked too many years and too closely with silverchair to ever really put it to rest forever. Music has always been my life and my love (to an extent, which will be discussed in the next update), and silverchair has always been at the centre of that. The others would agree, I'm sure. We've each put a little part of our hearts and souls into the band that none of us could stop being who we are.
We haven't broken up, and the chair will be back again. Even now, Ben, Chris and I get together frequently to perform, hang out, and just relax. I don't think there's been a month gone by in the last year that we don't talk or see each other. There is even talk about working on a new album together, and I'm really looking forward to it. I have some ideas and even some scrap demos thrown together for the next album for the chair.
I admire Paul and he's a good friend of mine, and the work we do together is something I enjoy a lot. He's amazingly talented and his drive pushes me to exceed as a musician and a producer. And although we've both said that it's a different project that we're planning on giving our full attention to, it's not changing the fact that Paul will still be working solo projects and producing for other artists, and that my number one commitment musically is silverchair.
But for the time being, my attention is focused on The Dissociatives. We've experienced a modicum of success, and I've enjoyed performing with Paul. A lot of reviews have been positive (though some have admitted they find it hard to accept it's a big change from either Paul or silverchair's style), and the sales of our album have been pretty good. I think we've also reached a different spectrum of listeners and that's always interesting to see.
We were nominated for a few ARIAs including Album of the Year, Best Group and Producer of the Year- which we didn't win, but our cover art guru James Hackett won the ARIAs for Best Cover Art and Best Video for Somewhere Down the Barrel. Which also, incidentally, has been nominated in the first annual Australian MTV Music Video Awards. We've released a DVD, and we did a national tour with Little Birdy which went well apart from a few cancelled gigs because of my seasonal flu affecting my throat.
Not a bad way to find a change of scene.
Now, I think I've written more than enough. It's been 6 hours of slow going (chicken pecking is what Natalie calls my style of typing) and numerous distractions. Time to get off and leave the rest for another time.
Next installment coming soon.
Cheers.