Silverchair <!-- DO NOT change this to "was": "were" is correct in Australian English for a band, which are treated as plurals. Past tense is also correct as the 'indefinite hibernation' is the band's euphemism for 'it's over'.-->were an Australian rock band, which formed in 1992 as Innocent Criminals in Newcastle, New South Wales, with Daniel Johns on vocals and guitars, Ben Gillies on drums, and Chris Joannou on bass guitar. The group got their big break in mid-1994 when they won a national demo competition conducted by SBS TV show Nomad and ABC radio station Triple J. The band was signed by Murmur and were successful in Australia and internationally. Silverchair has sold over 10 million albums worldwide.
Silverchair have won more ARIA Music Awards than any other group in history, earning 21 wins from 49 nominations. They also received six APRA Awards, with Johns winning three songwriting awards in 2008. All five of their studio albums debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart: Frogstomp (1995), Freak Show (1997), Neon Ballroom (1999), Diorama (2002), and Young Modern (2007). Three singles reached the number-one slot on the related ARIA Singles Chart: "Tomorrow" (1994), "Freak" (1997), and "Straight Lines" (2007).
Silverchair's alternative rock sound evolved throughout their career, with differing styles on specific albums growing more ambitious over the years, from grunge on their first two albums to later works displaying orchestral and art rock influences. Writers at 106.3 The Buzz consider Silverchair one of the "Big Four" of post-grunge. The songwriting and singing of Johns had evolved steadily while the band had developed an increased element of complexity.
In 2003, following the release of Diorama the previous year, Silverchair went on hiatus. The band reunited at the 2005 Wave Aid concerts released their fifth album, Young Modern, in 2007; and played the Across the Great Divide tour with contemporaries Powderfinger. In May 2011, Silverchair announced an indefinite hiatus.
History
1994–1997: Formation and early grunge releases
Silverchair's founders, Ben Gillies and Daniel Johns, attended the same primary school in the Newcastle suburb of Merewether. At "age 11 or 12", singer-guitarist Johns and drummer Gillies rapped over an electronic keyboard's demo button under their first band name, The Silly Men. As teenagers, they started playing music together more prominently—in one class, they built a stage out of desks and played rap songs for their schoolmates. In 1994, Innocent Criminals entered YouthRock—a national competition for school-based bands—and placed first ahead of older competition. The band recorded demos of "Acid Rain", "Cicada", "Pure Massacre", and "Tomorrow" early in the year at Platinum Sound Studios. It was later revealed they were named for the C. S. Lewis–penned novel The Silver Chair from The Chronicles of Narnia series. Aside from Innocent Criminals, the band has used The George Costanza Trio and Short Elvis as aliases.
Following a bidding war between rival labels, Silverchair signed a three-album recording contract with Sony Music subsidiary Murmur Records. Sony A&R manager John Watson, who was jointly responsible for signing the group, subsequently left the label to become their band manager. In September, their Triple J recording of "Tomorrow" was released as a four-track extended play. From late October, it spent six weeks at number-one on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 1995, a re-recorded version of "Tomorrow" (and a new video) was made for the United States market, becoming the most played song on US modern rock radio that year. At the time of recording, the band members were 15 years old and still attending high school. It reached the Billboard 200 Top 10, making Silverchair the first Australian band to do so since INXS. The album sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. As Frogstomp and "Tomorrow" continued to gain popularity through 1995, the group toured the US, where they supported Red Hot Chili Peppers in June, the Ramones in September, and played on the roof of Radio City Music Hall at the MTV Music Awards. In September 1995, during Silverchair's tour in the United States, Johns was hit with a bottle of alcohol in Santa Monica, California while performing "Israel's Son" and the injury required half a dozen stitches near his left eyebrow. In between touring, they continued their secondary education in Newcastle. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1995, the band won five awards out of nine nominations. To collect their awards on the night, they sent Josh Shirley, the young son of the album's producer. On 9 December 1995, Silverchair played "Pure Massacre" and "Tomorrow" on Saturday Night Live.
In a January 1996 murder case, the defendant counsel for Brian Bassett, 16, and Nicholaus McDonald, 18, of McCleary, Washington, claimed that the pair listened to "Israel's Son", from Frogstomp, which contributed to the 10 August 1995 murders of Bassett's parents and a younger brother. The band's manager, Watson, issued a statement that they did not condone nor intend any such acts of violence.
Silverchair began recording their second studio album, Freak Show, in May 1996 while experiencing the success of Frogstomp in Australia and the US. Produced by Nick Launay (Birthday Party, Models, Midnight Oil) and released in February 1997, Freak Show was certified gold in the US, 2× platinum in Australia, and global sales eventually exceeded 1.5 million copies.
1997–2003: Artistic experimentation, critical and commercial success
By late 1997, the trio had completed their secondary education, and, from May 1998, they worked on their third album, Neon Ballroom, with Launay producing again. Neon Ballroom provided three Australian top-20 singles: "Anthem for the Year 2000", "Ana's Song (Open Fire)" and "Miss You Love"; a fourth single, "Paint Pastel Princess", did not reach the top 50. Both reached the top 40 on the United Kingdom Albums Chart. "Abuse Me" reached No. 4 on Billboards Hot Modern Rock Tracks and Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks charts. "Ana's Song (Open Fire)" peaked at No. 12 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks. Johns noted that the lyrics to "Ana's Song (Open Fire)" dealt with his disorder, where he would "eat what he needed ... to stay awake." 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 he 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".
Silverchair added an auxiliary keyboardist, Sam Holloway (ex-Cordrazine), for the Neon Ballroom Tour. In Europe and South America it became the group's most successful album to date. 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. 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 until that point.
After the release of Neon Ballroom, Silverchair's three-album contract with Sony Music had ended. The group eventually signed with Atlantic Records for North and South America, and they formed their own label with Watson, Eleven: A Music Company (distributed by EMI), for Australia and Asia. In November 2000, after the group had left the label, Sony issued The Best Of: Volume 1 without the band's involvement. The album name means "a world within a world". Most tracks came from Johns' new-found method of writing material on a piano, a technique he developed during the band's break after Neon Ballroom.
In order to complete the vision for Diorama, several other musicians contributed to the album, including Van Dyke Parks, who provided orchestral arrangements to "Tuna in the Brine", "Luv Your Life", and "Across the Night". Paul Mac (from Itch-E and Scratch-E) and Jim Moginie (from Midnight Oil) both on piano also collaborated with the band. While recording Diorama, Johns referred to himself as an artist, rather than simply being in a "rock band". Upon its release, critics commented that the album was more artistic than previous works.
Early in December, the first single, "The Greatest View", was released to Australian radio networks. Its physical release in January 2002 coincided with the band's appearance on the Big Day Out tour. Early in 2002, Johns was diagnosed with reactive arthritis, which made it difficult for him to play the guitar, and subsequent performances supporting the album's release were cancelled. In March 2002, Diorama was issued and topped the ARIA Albums Chart; it became their fourth number-one album and spent 50 weeks in the top 50.
Four singles were released from the album: "The Greatest View", "Without You", "Luv Your Life" and "Across the Night"; "The Greatest View" charted highest, reaching No. 3. Two singles (and a related video) were nominated for further ARIA Awards in 2003. From March to June 2003, Silverchair undertook the Across the Night Tour to perform Diorama. Their hometown performance on 19 April was recorded as Live from Faraway Stables for a 2-CD and 2-DVD release in November. The duo provided the theme music for the popular ABC-TV music quiz show Spicks and Specks by reworking a 1966 Bee Gees hit of the same name. Johns also collaborated with then-wife Natalie Imbruglia on her Counting Down the Days album, released in April 2005.
Joannou worked with blues rock group The Mess Hall; he co-produced—with Matt Lovell—their six-track extended play Feeling Sideways, which was released in May 2003. The album was nominated for the ARIA Award for 'Best Independent Release' in 2003. Joannou and Lovell co-produced The Mess Hall's studio album Notes from a Ceiling, which was issued in June 2005. Joannou and Lovell received a nomination at the ARIA Music Awards of 2005 for 'Producer of the Year'. In 2003, Gillies formed Tambalane with Wes Carr, initially as a song-writing project, and they released a self-titled album in 2005 and toured Australia.
The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami resulted in the WaveAid fundraising concert held in January 2005; Silverchair performed to help raise funds for aid organisations working in disaster-affected areas. As a result of WaveAid, the band decided to resume working together. Gillies explained the band's reunion as due to a special "chemistry" between band members, telling the Sydney Morning Herald, "It only took us 15 years, but recently we've realised, 'We've really got something special and we should just go for it.'"
2005–2011: Return from hiatus
thumb|alt=Photo from right side of stage shows Gillies behind the drum kit. Johns in right profile, singing into a microphone and playing a guitar. Joannou is playing his bass guitar with knees partly bent and looking at his left hand on the fret board. Equipment obscure the front of the stage.|Silverchair performing on the [[Across the Great Divide Tour in September 2007.]]
After performing at WaveAid, Silverchair reunited, and by late 2005 began preparations for their next studio album, Young Modern. Johns had written about 50 songs during the hiatus for a possible solo album or other project but decided to use them for Silverchair. Parks again arranged orchestral tracks for the band—they travelled to Prague to record with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Silverchair self-funded the album's production to ease the pressures they faced when working with a record label. During the performance, Johns spray-painted "PG 4 PM" (Peter Garrett for Prime Minister) on a stage wall, paying tribute to that band's frontman, who was at that time a Federal Member of Parliament and Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts.
Young Modern was released in March 2007, as was the first single, "Straight Lines". Three more singles—"Reflections of a Sound", "If You Keep Losing Sleep", and "Mind Reader"—were released later. Young Modern became the fifth Silverchair album to top the ARIA Albums chart; they became the first artists to have five number-one albums on the ARIA Albums chart. "Straight Lines" also became the band's third number-one single in Australia. Support acts on the tour were John Butler, Missy Higgins, Kev Carmody, Troy Cassar-Daley, Clare Bowditch and Deborah Conway. The group also won three APRA Awards for their song "Straight Lines", including Songwriter of the Year, which Johns was awarded for a record third time.
thumb|alt=Johns holds his plectrum away from the guitar. He is bearded and shown in right profile. Gillies is partly obscured by his drum kit. Joannou is not in view.|Silverchair performing in Bendigo May 2010
According to Silverchair's website, as of June 2009, the group had begun work on the follow-up to Young Modern; they had spent three weeks recording in Australia with future sessions earmarked for later that year. No release date was set, but the band uploaded in-studio videos of them working on several tracks to their official website. In December, Johns called in to Triple J's breakfast show, Robbie, Marieke and The Doctor, and discussed the band's new album which they were working on in Newcastle. He told them, "the main difference is there's a lot of experimentation with instruments and synths... I think there's only guitar on four songs out of fifty so far," but added the new material is "surprisingly rocky given there's no guitar." In April 2010, via the band's website, Joannou announced they would perform two new songs called "16" and "Machina Collecta" at May's Groovin' the Moo festival. He said work was progressing well and confirmed there was, as yet, no title for the proposed album and that they were simply referring to it as Album No. 6. The final concert of the festival was at Bunbury on 15 May, By year's end, work on the album had stopped because each member had pursued other interests.
Sydney Morning Heralds music writer, Bernard Zuel, said the band's use of "indefinite hibernation" was a way to soften the blow of the group's break-up for fans; he expected future reunions and performances for worthy causes. By June, Gillies was in the final stages of about 12 months of working on his solo album, and he said that it was not a continuation of his earlier work with Tambalane. In October, Johns was working on the soundtrack for My Mind's Own Melody—a short film. In May 2012, Johns recorded the new anthem for Qantas, titled "Atlas". It is the first piece of commercial music Johns has composed. A remastered version of Frogstomp, which included bonus content, was released on 27 March 2015.
The members of Silverchair have occasionally stated that they have not ruled out a reunion. Gillies has said that there are plans to release a new Silverchair album, which was almost finished before the hiatus.
On 17 November 2017, the Silverchair tribute compilation album Spawn (Again): A Tribute to Silverchair was released by UNFD, with Johns saying he came to "appreciate" the experience. The album is composed of cover songs by Australian bands signed onto UNFD as a tribute to Silverchair, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album Freak Show.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph in 2018, Daniel Johns expressed his love for the band—and appreciation of what the band had produced—but said he had no desire to reform the band. In May 2020, a picture of Johns playing electric guitar appeared online, leading to the Newcastle Herald speculating that a reunion was possible. However, in October 2021, when Johns was interviewed by Carrie Bickmore on the Australian news-current affairs and talk show The Project, he once again affirmed that the band will not reunite, while also stating that he still plans to work on new music but has no intentions to perform live again. In a separate interview with Carrie Bickmore, Johns elaborated further, stating that during his time with Silverchair, he had been the victim of sustained verbal abuse from the public because of his association with the band, which greatly impacted his mental health. Johns was open to musical collaboration with his former bandmates but not as a continuation of Silverchair as a band.
On 5 February 2021, it was announced that Silverchair's music would be distributed by Sony Music Entertainment Australia.