Daniel Johns and Luke Steele: Silverchair frontman shares how his DREAMS brother Luke Steele helped save him from his demons
SILVERCHAIR has been buried, with frontman Daniel Johns and Empire of the Sun star Luke Steele releasing their first album as DREAMS 16 years after their creative bromance began - a journey that saved Johns from his demons.
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DREAMS may have saved Daniel Johns’ life.
After a 16-year creative bromance with Australian musician Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and Empire of the Sun, he releases the defiantly-titled No One Defeats Us, the debut DREAMS record this month.
The pair completed the album when Johns quit Sydney after months of publicly self-medicating his depression and anxiety to join Steele in Los Angeles.
Now the 39-year-old, who has spent 25 years in the spotlight since forming Silverchair at high school, sounds more centred and energised and positive than he has at any time in his music career.
His relationship with his longtime friend and now partner, interior designer Michelle Leslie, has also no doubt helped to ground the highly-strung artist.
Johns credits Steele’s positive outlook on life and ability to get him focused on work for helping drag him out of “quite a dark place.”
“Luke is literally my brother from another mother,” Johns said.
“We have a really tight bond. He knows when I’m down and knows when we need to get together, to give each other a laugh. I know when I need to call Luke, I know when he’s on fire and I need to get into the studio with him.
“He’s a very, very positive influence, wild but a very positive person and I think that’s helped me.
“It’s no secret I suffer from depression and anxiety and when I moved to LA after not being a very good boy, he got me back to music.
“I needed to get out of here and get focused and since that, I have turned around quite quickly which is another reason I am in love with this record.”
The pair have attempted several different records since bonding when the Sleepy Jackson supported Silverchair on the Diorama tour in 2004.
They shelved all of their previous attempts, including a country record and a psychedelic pop album. Their first bunch of demos are literally buried. In a graveyard near Windsor Castle.
“Depressing as it is, it’s hilarious. Luke wanted them never to be found so I told him ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got you’ and buried them somewhere in a graveyard in Windsor and we can’t remember where they are,” Johns said, laughing.
“We thought about a (treasure hunt) for them but came to the realisation it was disrespectful to those who are buried there so we will let sleeping tapes lie.”
When Johns escaped to Los Angeles, it wasn’t all about getting healthy. There were parties.
But what he craved more was collaboration after the experiment of his solo album Talk which was released in 2015, a record he described as “deleting yourself and starting again.”
Even as he said yes to many requests to write with and for other artists, he wanted to get back into the studio with Steele who knew how Johns liked to work but would also challenge him.
They spent months at the famed Henson Studios in West Hollywood in the shadow of a giant Kermit head.
They made DREAMS scorpion masks and studded jackets.
The pair hung out in studios where Paul McCartney would be recording next door and Jamie Foxx was down the corridor.
One day John Mayer was at the complex and they asked him if he would be in a photo wearing the face-mask, knowing it would freak out fans and critics to see these musicians in an Instagram moment.
They debuted their wildly out-there pop project DREAMS at the Coachella festival in April before playing two shows at the Sydney Opera House for the Vivid festival in May.
While it features guitars and a pop hook here and there, the music is extreme electropunk, more of an art experiment in sonics than songs made for radio or even touring.
They have alter egos for the project — Dr Dreams for Johns and Miracle for Steele — and the costumes, videos and photos are madly flamboyant.
“When we did the country record, we were wearing three-piece suits and called ourselves Hathaway and Palmer. Gradually the characters have morphed into our vision of how we would look in the future, at some psychedelic Berlin techno party and the music started to follow the characters,” he said.
“Both of us have parts of ourselves that we were almost forced to oppress so now we’ve let the dogs off the leash to be who we want to be.”
Johns said they have no plans beyond the release of No One Defeats Us on September 14. He might consider “select shows” but would prefer to stay home.
“Luke is constantly playing with Empire of the Sun, that’s his touring animal,” Johns said.
“I like being holed-up at home working on things. I like the solitude of it.”
And his creative energies are focused on “so many things I want to do” and not the one thing so many of his fans have hoped for since Silverchair announced an “indefinite hiatus” in 2011.
Johns rules out ever reuniting the band. It has nothing to do with Chris Joannou and Ben Gillies. It would cause him pain to perform songs which told the stories of his battles with anorexia and mental illness as a teenager and then young man.
“I know people really, really loved that work and it helped a lot of people and I am really proud of that and conscious of not taking the piss,” he said.
“But it actually hurts to listen to some songs, it’s actually quite painful to do that and I don’t think it’s good for me to go back and revisit the stuff those albums are about.
“It’s always there for the people who want it.”