Chris Joannou is Young Modern
We sent a few questions out to Silverchair bassplayer, Chris Joannou: I saw your recent concert in New York, which was a veritable ‘Best of’ minus anything off Frogstomp. Does that album still exist in your minds or is it just too far back? ‘Yeah that album still exists in our minds. How can it not? But we feel that we have moved on a lot from where that record came from. We have a lot to thank Frogstomp for as it gave us a lot of success — and we have just started playing Israel’s Son live again on The Across The Great Divide Tour — but our main focus at the moment is the new stuff’.
Daniel Johns’ compositions are getting increasingly poppier. Are you still as excited by playing the new songs live as you were back in the day when it was all four to the floor and riffs aplenty? ‘I’m more excited about playing the later stuff as it is more challenging as a bass player. We still bust out Freak and The Door live which is always great fun’.
I guess, given the long convoluted history of the band and the early age you all got moving, that you guys have grown apart a little over the years. How does everyone get on these days? ‘We all get on great these days, probably better now than we ever have — not that we have ever been a band that argues . When you spend more than half of your life with the same two other people, you get to know each other really well. I think the time that we had off between Diorama and Young Modern gave us time to reflect a bit on what we had done as a band over past years. We really appreciate more what we have as a band now and are just having a great time’.
Last I heard you were living up the East Coast of New South Wales. Are you still around there and are you ever tempted to shift base to one of the big international cities? ‘I actually split my time between Sydney and the Central Coast, it allows me to have the best of both worlds. I have thought about moving overseas to live for a short time but I don’t think it would be to a huge city. I think I would go more for a cultural experience in a place like Italy or somewhere like that’.
Listen to the Silverchair song, Young Modern Station.
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