Daniel Johns opens up in emotional interview with Carrie Bickmore on The Project

Daniel Johns has walked through his heart-wrenching decision to end Silverchair, revealing some cold truths about the iconic band.

Former Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns has explained why he will never perform with his bandmates again.

In an emotional interview with The Project’s Carrie Bickmore, Johns said he had a rough relationship with his old mates, admitting they were at times condescending of his personal struggles.

He said one even accused him of using his mental health issues “to sell records”, revealing he felt some former members remain bitter about his decision to continue as a solo artist.

“Bitterness, jealousy, anger, like anything. I don‘t have any bad feelings, but I know - I know bitterness and I know jealousy,” Johns said.

“When I see it because I have seen it my whole life. That‘s what it is. One of the guys in particular has taken a real shining to kicking me while I was down and while I was in rehab and stuff. Saying I was exploiting mental health to sell records or something along those lines.

“If this is exposing mental health to sell records then it is the most genius marketing plan ever because I have been doing it since I was 17.”

Johns said he felt drummer Ben Gillies was particularly jealous of his success beyond the band.

“They‘ve not shown me any respect. (But) me and Chris have a very passive relationship,” he said.

“Ben, for some reason has a real issue with me being successful without him. That‘s sad. Because I wish him all the best honestly, but unfortunately he doesn‘t want me to branch out.”

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Daniel Johns became emotional during the interview

Johns became overwhelmed with emotion when Bickmore asked him a difficult question during their interview.

Talk turned to Johns’ horror car crash in the Hunter Region in March, which saw him plead guilty to high-range drink-driving before admitting himself to rehab.

Bickmore, 41, asked Johns what he remembered from the crash, to which he responded: “Everything. Everything. I remember every detail.”

The 43-year-old rock star said he “thought he was going to die" in the crash, but was glad no one was hurt.

“I remember being lost. I remember being petrified. I remember being in the dark. I remember the colours. I remember - I even remember thinking, ‘This is how I’m going to die’,” he said.

Johns paused before asking, “Is it cool if I take a break for just one sec?” as he walked out of the room.

Daniel Johns asked for ‘a break’ during his interview on The Project.

In the lead up to that, Johns described what led him to get behind the wheel that night, which led to his grey SUV moving to the wrong side of the road and crashing into an oncoming van. Thankfully, there were no casualties.

Johns said he had a “full-on nervous breakdown” earlier in the year and was “barely even aware of what I was trying to do”.

“I was trying to escape, like it was the equivalent of running into the forest,” he said of getting in the car.

“Everything was too much. I was in a really quiet environment, a really peaceful environment, and I didn’t realise that all the noise was in my head. So there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.”

Johns avoided jail for the incident at his sentencing in June after pleading guilty, but was ordered to complete 10 months of an intensive corrections community sentence and was banned from driving for seven months.

Describing his head space, Johns said he was “entrenched” in creating FutureNever – his second studio album which shot to number one on the ARIA chart in April – to a point where it became “self-destructive”.

“With FutureNever, I was looking at it as if it was my swan song. So, if it was the last thing people were ever going to hear, it needed to be a masterpiece in my head. And I’m not sure a masterpiece exists,” he began.

“And it’s not by design, but a lot of my favourite artists have in some way or another been self-destructive. And I’m not trying to mimic that, I’m not trying to mirror that. I want to be the antithesis of that. I want to be productive.

“It’s hard for me to find how to be creative without being self-destructive. It’s hard for me to find that.”

Johns at Raymond Terrace Court for his sentencing in June. Picture: Peter Lorimer

The rocker, who founded Silverchair when he was just 12, has long been open about his personal struggles, which began in the ’90s when he revealed he suffered from anorexia and anxiety.

In a social media post after his car crash, Johns wrote he had been “self-medicating with alcohol” to deal with his mental health.

“My drinking had become a bigger problem than I even realised, and how I have used it to help numb a range of deeper psychological issues that I’ve been living with since childhood,” he wrote on Instagram.

“Some of those issues you know, and a lot cut much deeper. Alcohol is not medicine. I should have never treated it like it was. I feel like a complete f**k up and I’m sorry.

“I take full responsibility for my actions on the evening of March 23rd, I am deeply remorseful and I am working every day to make amends.”

Originally published as Daniel Johns opens up in emotional interview with Carrie Bickmore on The Project