Neon Ballroom is the third studio album by Australian rock band Silverchair, released in March 8, 1999 by record labels Murmur and Epic. The songs Anthem for the Year 2000, Ana’s Song (Open Fire) and Miss You Love were released as singles and a short film was released for the song Emotion Sickness. Neon Ballroom debuted at No. 1 on the Australian albums chart and peaked at No. 50 on the US Billboard 200 chart. It was also their most successful album on the UK Albums Chart, where it peaked at No. 29. The album was nominated for 10 ARIA Awards and was certified Triple Platinum by the ARIA for selling over 210,000 copies in Australia. The album has been described as “heavy rock with orchestral flourishes and synthetic touches with powerfully emotional lyrics” that reflects the personal demons of frontman Daniel Johns, due to the band’s rapid international success.
From May 1998, Silverchair worked on their third studio album, Neon Ballroom, with Nick Launay (Midnight Oil, Models, The Birthday Party) producing again. The band had originally intended to take a 12-month-break after the release of 1997’s Freak Show, but instead chose to devote their time to making new music.
In 1999, Johns announced that he had developed the eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, due to anxiety. Johns noted that the lyrics to “Ana’s Song (Open Fire)” dealt with his disorder (“And Ana wrecks your life/like an anorexia life”), where he would “eat what he needed …to stay awake.”
In June 2004, he revealed that his eating problems developed from the time of Freak Show and when Neon Ballroom was written he “hated music, really everything about it”, but felt that he “couldn’t stop doing it; I felt like a slave to it.” Johns sought therapy and medication but felt “It’s easier for me to express it through music and lyrics”.
Johns said the album was approached differently compared to the band’s previous records:
“The first two albums were written with the music being second to something else – like school, and everything else that teenagers go through. My mind was on many things, and music was just one of them. On this album, music was the only thing I was doing and the only thing that I had to concentrate on. I approached it differently in that all of the songs were written as poetry. In three months I wrote about 112 poems, and I made a collage out of the poems, and turned the words that meant the most to me into songs. Then I wrote the music around words, rather than writing the words around the music.”
In June 1999, drummer Ben Gillies said about the writing process:
“In our year off, (Johns) turned into a hermit, we didn’t see him that much. Me and Chris were keeping normal hours, and surfing and hanging out with mates. I didn’t really think about the writing, I was just thinking about having a good time. I did have a hand in two songs, though “Spawn Again” which was actually for the movie Spawn, and “Trash” which is kind of heavy, a fast, punky one, but it didn’t make the album, I am going to try and be more involved with the writing on the next album. This time I was just lapping up the great atmosphere here in Newcastle.”
Gillies, however, would not end up contributing to the songwriting on the band’s follow-up album, Diorama (2002), with Johns writing all of the songs.
Silverchair added an auxiliary keyboardist, Sam Holloway (ex-Cordrazine), for the Neon Ballroom Tour. The US leg had the group playing with The Offspring and Red Hot Chili Peppers, while Silverchair‘s tour of UK and the rest of Europe had The Living End as the support act. The group appeared at festivals in Reading and Edgefest, amongst others.
Following the tour, the band announced that they would be taking a 12-month-break. Their only live performance in 2000 was at the Falls Festival on New Year’s Eve. On 21 January 2001, the band played to 250,000 people at Rock in Rio, a show they described as the highlight of their career. In October 2010, Neon Ballroom was listed at number 25 in the book 100 Best Australian Albums.
Tracklist:
- Emotion Sickness
- Anthem for the Year 2000
- Ana’s Song (Open Fire)
- Spawn Again
- Miss You Love
- Dearest Helpless
- Do You Feel the Same
- Black Tangled Heart
- Point of View
- Satin Sheets
- Paint Pastel Princess
- Steam Will Rise
Silverchair
Daniel Johns: vocals, guitar
Ben Gillies: drums
Chris Joannou: bass
Additional personnel
David Helfgott: piano (track 1)
Larry Muhoberac: piano arrangement (track 1)
Robert Woolf: piano (track 5)
Chris Abrahams: piano (track 8)
Jane Rosenson: harp (track 8)
Sweep (Johns’ dog): guest vocal (track 12)
Paul Mac: keyboards (tracks 2, 4, 10, 12)
Jim Moginie: keyboards (tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11)
Jane Scarpantoni: cello, string arrangements
John Harding, Fiona Ziegler, Carl Pini, Alexandra d’Elia, Leoni Ziegler, Emma Hayes, Georges Lentz: violin
Leah Jennings: cello
George Torbay: conductor (track 2)
Technical personnel
Nick Launay: production
Kevin Shirley: mixing (tracks 2, 5)
