TRACK LISTING:
Emotion Sickness
Anthem for the year 2000 (* First single*)
Ana's Song (open fire) (*second single*)
Spawn Again
Miss You Love (*thrid single*)
Dearest Helpless
Do You Feel The Same?
Black Tangled Heart
Point Of View
Satin Sheets
Paint Pastel Princess
Steam Will Rise
(in that order)


Neon Ballroom is the title of silverchair's third album, due for release on March 8 in Australia and March 16 in North America. The album will be released in other countries around the same time.

"We did the first album, it was teenaged explosion, it was just... angry, and the second album we wanted to kind of establish ourselves," said silverchair's Daniel Johns. "With this album I really wanted to just do something that no one
else was doing."

The 12 songs on Neon Ballroom include Anthem For The Year 2000, an updated version of Spawn called Spawn Again and a six-minute track called Emotion Sickness, featuring classical pianist David Helfgott. Helfgott's life inspired the Academy Award winning film Shine.

"David was great," Johns said. "It was the first time he'd ever played on a song that wasn't really classical so it was an interesting experience for all of us. We're really happy with how it came out."

"It was probably the most amazing day of our lives," said Neon Ballroom producer Nick Launay of the recording session with Helfgott. "He has no inner dialogue at all. Whatever he's thinking, he says it. He never stops talking." Launay said the title of Emotion Sickness was inspired by Johns' state of mind during the writing process for the new album. "Daniel wrote for three months and [the songs] are very, very heartfelt," Launay said.

Of the songs on Neon Ballroom, seven have similarities to the orchestral Cemetery from last year's Freak Show, according to Launay. "More sort of slower songs in some respects,but then they go really heavy in sections." Emotion Sickness also features a string arrangement by Jane Scarpantoni, who worked on Cemetery.

A Led Zeppelin-esque song on the album is "really heavy and goes into really weird time signatures" on the part of silverchair's rhythm section, bassist Chris Joannou and drummer Ben Gillies, according to the producer. It includes strings as well as keyboards by Jim Moginie, guitarist for fellow Australians Midnight Oil. The band has engaged a keyboard player to tour with them in support of the new album. Sam Holloway of the Melbourne band Cordrazine.

Neon Ballroom was recorded over the course of two months in the band's usual Festival Studios in Sydney, Australia. The album title, according to Launay, was a natural for the "very big" feel the music conveys and the "later-70s sort of sounds that conjure up the image of neon lights." Another twist on the album is the band's new spin on Spawn, a song originally recorded with British hardcore electronica act Vitro for last summer's Spawn - The Album film soundtrack.
The band re-cut a heavier version of the song with new lyrics and sound samples courtesy of remixer Paul Mac.

Overall, Launay says the album has a very mature sound "as if they were all 40 years old."
"It's a little bit more extreme," Johns said of the new album, "there's a lot more different things going on. I'm
guessing that people who liked the last album should like it. But if they don't, sorry, we can't help it, we're just trying to do our best."

courtesy of CHAIRPAGE

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE SELLING OUT TO YOU JON DAVIS???
What does integrity mean to silverchair?
daniel: well, just bein gtrue to yourself and not selling yourself out. Not saying, "OK i've got this song and we'll sell 10 million albums, but we don't like the sound." Anyone who will do that is just copping out, and I just don't have time for it.I'm just not going to be like that. Unless i like it myself, i'm not just going to present it to the public.
The last album didn't sell as well as Frogstomp. Did that worry you ? That's got to be a little intimidating heading into this release.
daniel: No, it doesn't worry me at all, I realy could care less if it's successful or nt. Of course, i'm going to do a certain amount of press and the buisness side of it, because i want it to do well, because i want it to do well, but if it doesn't, i'm not going to be devastated or anything. I could have written an album full of "Tomorrow" gotten the biggest producer in america to do it, and had songs that would get played on the radio so i could sell 10 million records, but i didn't because i wanted a record that was honest!
SONG MEANINGS:

Emotion Sickness: A song which is the esecense of the album, a song daniel is very proud of out of all the songs he's written. Delibrately put as first track " people will expect the first song to be some big techno remix hard core thing and they hear this manic orchestral piece.It's a capitivating song about emotional disorders and problem's in someone's head. 6min.

Anthem for the year 2000: written after a vivid dream about a stadium rock song, so daniel wrote one at 3 in the morning in 5minutes. lyrically it's about politicians looking at youth and treatin gthem like dirt,like they don't exist, like their never going to mean anything , like they 're obsessedwith drugsand sex. It's about politicians and their facism. The chorus is very sarcastic, and not supposed to be taken seriously. 4:07 min.

Ana's song (open fire): written according to how daniel was feeling, which is easily mistaking lyrically. Ana is a compsite of people, a group of people with eating disoders. About a period in '98 when daniel was diagnosedwithaformof anorexia. 3:42 min.

Spawn Again: ANTI ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION! Another version of the remixed version on the spawn soundtrack. 3:31 min.

Miss you Love : "origianlly written to be misinterpreted, it was a delibrate thing" It is not a love song, but it is actually about not having love ( MISS YOU, love) It is really an anti love song written to appeal to people how they want to hear it. 4:00 min.

Dearest Helpless: Really hard and heavy, but yet different from heavy stuff they have done. 3:34 min.

Do you feel The same: 'chair's first guitar solo, dedicated the daniel 's dad,greg . 4:18 min.

Black tangled heart: lyrically the same idea as "miss you love", About feeling like everything is collapsing on you because you have no one to love. Manic explosions and distorted noise. Pretty parts and ugly parts. 4:33 min.

Point of view: about being in a vulnerable state and then someone taking advanteage of you. one of the strangest rock songs on the album. "I really like that song cause it's so simple- it's just a riff and these big sounds". It's got a good groove. 3:35 min.

Satin sheets: most energetic song they have recorded, they wanted to make it sound really messy and live and angry.It has a straight forward punk feel to it .About the corporate world looking down on people, "if i walk into a resturant , there's this whole yuppie mentality of people who think i shouldn't be there because i didn't brush my hair. But i've probably got more money than them". About people who think if you don't look rich,your not. 2:24min.

Paint Pastel princess: alot of strings, alot of crazy explotions. There are alot of time changes and different accents and strange beats that happen on that song, refering to anti depressants and how they leave the patient feeling like a zombie, no longer feeling highs or lows. 4:33 min.

Steam will rise: "the rhythmtrack is very 80's, not 80's mainstream though". It has those really big reverbrated drum sounds. It has quiet melodies over it with huge drum crashs. It's about being contained through violence, being scared to be yourself."it's the perfect song to end an album, it 's very cryptic, it's very repetitive and boring, but it's written to be boringIt's supposed to get you in that state of mind. 5:17 min