Daniel Johns has a secret he's only now telling -- and anyone's free to hear it. The Silverchair frontman has used his music, rather than the Ricki Lake show, to reveal his on-going battle with anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder that primarily affects women.| "Ana's Song (Open Fire)," the new single from the trio's Neon Ballroom, is a frank assessment of Johns' life with the disease, an addiction to starvation that, he says, made him "eat what he needed...to stay awake."

"I've been told that it's when you feel like you've lost control of your life and you start really controlling anything you can control," says Johns, "and it just so happens to be the one thing no one can tell you what to do."

The lyrics to "Ana's Song" can't be misinterpreted: "And you're my obsession/I love you to the bones/And Ana wrecks your life/Like an anorexia life." Johns explains, "I wasn't eating and it went on for about six months to a year."

Today, Johns still appears quite thin and confesses, "I don't think you can ever be totally cured from something like that until you go and get professional help, but it's definitely better than it was before." Johns says he'll seek more diligent treatment once this tour is out of the way.

"I'll do it once we've done all this album stuff, when I've got more time to focus on myself and not just the music."

BLAIR R. FISCHER(June 10, 1999)