Ex-Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns has explained the history behind Diorama‘s B-sides in a lengthy social media post today, in celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary.
The band’s fourth studio album, Diorama was released March 31st, 2002. It reached No. 1 in the ARIA Albums Chart and went triple platinum.
It also won ARIA Awards for Best Rock Album and Best Group, despite receiving a lukewarm reception from music critics and the band’s label – particularly in the US.
“I’ve been getting a few messages about the Diorama B-Sides and the history behind these songs so I thought I’d pull together this little montage with a brief description to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the album,” Johns began on the post.
‘Ramble’ was penned in direct response to Atlantic Records’ request for a lead single after the album was presented to them Johns revealed.
“Lyrically it’s about struggle I was having with the label,” he wrote.
“I literally wrote the best album I was humanly capable of and I got the classic ‘You got anything else Danny?’.”
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Delving further, Johns revealed the line, ‘I’ll give you something real, something I can feel…’ is “about me refusing to make a fake ‘radio banger’ just to please them”.
“’Because the truth feels like the movies…’ this line is about me not needing to make anything up because life at that point was so wild. ‘All you do is ramble’ is pretty self explanatory,” he added.
“They said they loved the song when I played it to them and high fived me and then changed their minds and decided they hated ‘The Greatest View’ less.”
Fan favourite ‘Asylum’ was left off the album “because it reminded the label of ‘After All These Years,” according to Johns. It’s a move he regrets.
“It’s actually nothing like it,” he wrote.
“It’s about finding safety in something, whether that’s a place, a time, a person or a pet.”
The track ‘Pins and Needles’ was supposed to be the bridge between Neon Ballroom and Diorama, Johns revealed, as ‘Untitled’ was the bridge between Freakshow and Neon Ballroom.
“It has some ‘Emotion Sickness’ type vibes with a big epic prog-rock chorus,” Johns said.
“I hadn’t listened to this in so long and I was pleasantly surprised.”
Final track ‘Hollywood’ was one of the songs from the album Johns deleted: “It’s a festival rock song with a stomping riff and some great one liners for a big dumb song.”
Johns’ new solo album FutureNever will be released on April 22nd, and he has been spending plenty of time reminiscing with fans over recent weeks.
He is also giving fans plenty of opportunities to get their hands on one-of-a-kind merch, including one of 300 copies of FutureNever with hand-written Diorama lyrics across the silver foil cover.
