With a new album called Neon Ballroom, The Australian trio silverchair couldn't really hide the fact that lead singer/song writer Daniel Johns now looks radically different from the way he did when he was a teenager just a few years back. Swamped by his group's sucess apparantly John's phyched into a deep depression and developed a eatting disorder that reduced him into a sickly shade of his former self. Which as it turns out as the general subject of the band's new single Ana's Song as in anorexia. Here's the story. -Kurt Loder

"Ana just uses a metaphoric kind of used as a name for a composite of people, just hiding behind a eating disorder."-Daniel Johns

Catapulted into the rockn'roll fastlane before he could even drive, life certainly hasn't been what you call normal in sometime for silverchair's Daniel Johns.

But the pain evidence in the very personal lyrics Daniel wrote for Ana's Song and indeed much of Neon Ballroom. Reaches beyond cliches troubles of overnight sucess and clutches right at the heart of the emotional problem he's been grappeling for the past few years.

"When it comes to just being a person and living a normal life and actually having a laugh, I didn't for a year."

Daniels depression and paranoia really began to surface as the band was touring in support of their Freak Show album in 1997. Back at home once the tour ended, on advice of a therapist Daniel moved out of his parents home and into a rented house. But things took a turn for the worst when he isolated himself to the point where he saw virtually no-one and did nothing, but wrote poetry for the first six months of 1998.

"I didn't want to go in public, cause I felt I had alot of trouble with anxiety and I had to take medication because everytime I left the house, I'd think people were, had conspiracies and people were after me and everytime I left the house, I was going to get beaten up."

And while living alone away from the watchful eyes of his family and friends, Daniel's eatting disorder intensified.

John Norris: Well how little was it that you were eatting?
Daniel Johns: It got to a stage where it was pretty little, when I was, when I wrote Ana's Song, when I wrote the actual poem I was eatting like I don't know two or three peices of fruit a day.

Norris: Just fruit? That was it?
Johns: Just, yeah but not, not very much.

Norris: Wow!

Unlike many people who suffer from eatting disorders, most of whom are women. With Daniel it had nothing to do with having a negative body image.

"It was never about my body because I was, I was always embarrassed. Embarrassed about being skinny, I didn't.

Norris: Feel quite the opposite from thinking you are too fat.
Johns: Yeah, everytime I guess I felt that my life was out of control and it was kind of out of my hands, I couldn't do anything about it. I guess I took control of food intake, cause it was the only thing that no-one could really take charge of.

Does it seem strange to you that most people assume it's possible for a man to have an eatting disorder
Johns: Yeah, cause I think the biggest myth about eatting disorders is that it's all to do with fashion and it's all to do with, all to do with feeding a certain stereotype. It's not about losing weight to alot of people. It's more about how to control and...

Norris: How much did you lose? Do you know how much you weigh?
Johns: No I don't, but the lightest that I was, was like fifty kilograms. I don't know what that is in pounds or anything.

Norris: Sure, yeah.
Johns: When that happened, that was when I saw a docter and was told to change or things would get dramatically worse.

Fortunately things took a turn for the better. The combination of the cathoric affect of writing poetry, the helpful impact of anti-depressant medications, and the positive response of his bandmates to the music he had written all helped draw Daniel out of his seclusion and into the studio. Where silverchair began work on their new album. And now out on the road with Neon Ballroom Daniel is able to call the shots in his career more than ever, and is keeping things from spiriling out of control.

Cynics might suggest that Daniel's newly confessional side served a promotional purpose as well, but he's got little time for such charges.

"I don't care what people think when you get let's say that you've, you've helped me admit to anorexia and you've helped me get-I was going to kill myself before I heard this album. It makes people say that you're exploiting your problems just seem like such a little speck in the dirt. You just don't worry about it."

Norris: Would you say that you're cured now? That you will be cured, in time?
Johns: I don't think that I'm 100% cured. That would be neive to think that, but I'm definitely on the road to being cured. I'm definitely alot better than I have been in the last, two. See my state of mind at the moment is better than it's been in the last two or three years.

Norris: It's happier!
Johns: Yep!