Holy shit... (article) -- chairheads unite

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Date Posted: 18:57:56 06/09/03 Mon
Author: Jenna
Subject: Holy shit... (article)

I want to find out what publication wrote this - it was on some Natalie website. I warn you, it's definate Kleenex material.

'I hated being so helpless' > 09.06.03

Pop star Daniel Johns tells Bryony Gordon how he planned to commit suicide because the pain of arthritis had become unbearable.

Daniel Johns has been told he is going to die as many times as he has won the Songwriter of the Year award at the ARIAs, the Australian equivalent of the Brits - twice.

"The first time," says the lead singer with multi-million-selling rock band Silverchair, "I was OK with it. I thought I was a little immortal. But the second time, I was like, fuck! I have to change something or I'm really going to hurt my mum." He laughs, just as he does when he tells me that he once seriously considered committing suicide.

To say that Johns's life has been something of a rollercoaster would be an understatement. The 24-year-old Australian was given his first recording contract when he was just 14 (after he and his friends Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou - now his Silverchair band mates - won a demo competition) and was touring America with the Red Hot Chili Peppers by the age of 16.

But by 19, things had started to turn sour, and Johns was in the grip of anorexia. This was the first time he was told by doctors that he might die.

The second time was last year, when he was diagnosed with reactive arthritis, a bacterial form of the disease that causes pain, redness, stiffness or swelling in joints.

"It was awful," he says, in a tiny voice, as he fiddles with the bangles on his thin wrists. "I was in excruciating pain. I had to move back to my parents' house because there were too many stairs in mine, and then I had to sleep in my sister's room because it was on the ground floor. I couldn't take a shower. All I could do was lie on the sofa, but nobody could join me on it, because when they sat down even the movements of the cushions hurt too much.''

He first realised that something was seriously wrong in November 2001, while working on Silverchair's latest album, Diorama. He developed pain in his knees that soon spread to his shoulders, back, feet, wrists and pelvis.

"I think that one of the worst things about the arthritis was that I was unable to do my music." He says that, before he developed arthritis, he could at least use songwriting and singing as an outlet for whatever he was feeling - as he did on the band's 1999 album Neon Ballroom; especially when he wrote Ana's Song, a dark account of living with anorexia. But with the arthritis, he was physically incapable of it. "There was no way I could play a guitar. And I couldn't sing because it hurt to take deep breaths." Since John was unable to move, the band's tour to promote the album was cancelled.

Johns became so depressed that he made a suicide pact with his brother, who was feeling low because he was unemployed. "We had set a date, and if things hadn't got any better by then, we agreed we would kill ourselves. But then, when the day arrived, I had got healthier and he had got a job. But it was about the lowest I have ever been. I hated being so helpless.''

Johns's path to recovery was a difficult one. "Everyone was doing everything they could to help, but nothing was working." He became so ill that he was hospitalised for four days. "There was a point when I was on so many drugs that I can't even remember three whole months. Once, they even tried to get me to take the sort of pain-killing medication that they usually only give to leukaemia patients. I felt like I was poisoning myself with it all.''

So the freakishly handsome singer - his huge eyes are framed by some endearingly badly applied eyeliner - began to look into alternative approaches. He started to see a holistic doctor in Los Angeles, who put him on a six-month programme that involved taking 80 homoeopathic pills a day, as well as several hours of physio-therapy and intensive massage.

He also bought an oxygen tent because it helped his blood to absorb the medication more quickly. "I hated it, but it worked. I went from a state where nobody knew when I might get better to becoming 90 per cent healthy.''

Although there is no scientific proof that anorexia causes reactive arthritis - it is usually the result of a virus - Johns is convinced that his two-year struggle to overcome the eating disorder had something to do with it, even if it was just his body's way of paying him back for what he says was essentially "years of taking Valium and eating no food. For a while, I thought I'd got away with it scot-free, but I didn't. I believe the eating disorder made me more susceptible to illness.''

He says that his anorexia was caused by the pressure of being thrust into the spotlight at such a young age. "It had nothing to do with vanity, it was about protection, and then control. I was beaten up by this group of young men once and afterwards I thought, `If I get really skinny, they'll stop picking on me; the press will stop picking on me.' So I lost a heap of weight in a short space of time and it totally worked - they left me alone. After that, it became a really serious eating disorder that I couldn't get out of.''

Because he was a man, nobody ever thought his weight loss was due to anorexia ("There was one rumour that I had Aids, and then of course everyone thought I was a heroin addict"), but that suited him fine. Like most people with an eating disorder, he didn't want anyone to know about his illness.

It was falling in love with Natalie Imbruglia, a fellow Australian pop star, that brought Johns back from the brink. He says that their relationship made him realise that he no longer had the right to be so selfish. The couple are now engaged, although a date for the wedding has not been set.

"I knew I wanted to marry her when I was ill with the arthritis because she was strong about it all. She was the one who found the holistic doctor for me, and she was always pushing me around in a wheelchair. We've been through a lot together and we appreciate each other more because of it.''

Johns is now working on a new album - "stuff that has mostly been inspired by being in love" - and he is back on tour. "It felt like someone was testing me for a while there," he says, with a giggle. "But I've come through it and I'm really happy now."

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Replies:

Re: Holy shit... (article) -- silvia, 17:21:49 06/10/03 Tue
- Re: Holy shit... (article) -- rockin chair, 10:17:50 06/11/03 Wed