Originally called Innocent Criminals, Australian rock band Silverchair was formed in 1994. Prior to that, Ben Gillies and Daniel Johns set out to form a group of masterful rock musicians that could make a statement to the world as to the talent that was present in their homeland. The pair had been playing music together throughout their youth. In high school, bass player Chris Joannou joined their group. Together, with random additions to the band, they played cover songs from the likes of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple under the name Innocent Criminals.
Under this name, they had found recognition in local areas around their hometown. They quickly became locally popular as a great post-grunge band, which was the goal as their influences included Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. Gilles and Johns noted that it was their time playing covers of the “great classic rock bands” that taught them their skills in, both, playing their instruments and songwriting, which had brought them all the success they had found over the years.
In 1994, they won a contest called ‘YouthRock’, which got Australia’s attention.
After recording some demos, the group used the demo version of their song “Tomorrow” to win a competition which lead to a record with Triple J and a video from Australian Broadcasting Company. It was this broadcast for which they had changed their name to Silverchair. The name, although various ideas were speculated, was eventually confirmed as having been derived from famous author C.S. Lewis. His book ‘The Silver Chair’ was the second in his acclaimed ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ series.
Gilles, Johns, and Joannou had found the mainstream media with this broadcast, and landed a three-album contract with Sony Music, after some fair amount of battling between various labels. The first of album of the contract was realized through Kevin Shirley. The Silverchair members were only fifteen when this album was recorded, showing their true natural abilities in music. Rolling Stone rated this album four and a half out of five stars.
Q: What album was it?
A: Frogstomp
The recording contract was fulfilled with the completion and releases of Freak Show and Neon Ballroom. All of which had found the band great success and many accolades. In 2000, the band members decided to take a hiatus. They each went off to participate in various side projects ranging from blues projects to TV theme music. It wasn’t until ‘WaveAid’, a fundraising concert, that the hiatus ended, and Silverchair began playing together again.
If you have not heard of Silverchair, you are either quite young, or simply not looking for the best music out there. Even if you are not a rock fan or grunge fan, anyone and everyone can find something they like about this epic 90’s band. Frogstomp is definitely the album you need to buy if you are going to listen to Silverchair for the first time. With their list of great songs, it is no wonder they have so many awards, to include VMA awards, Triple J Awards, ARIA awards, and APRA awards. If that’s not enough convincing, Silverchair has also sold over six million albums worldwide, and all five of their official studio albums have reached #1 here in the U.S.
Hell… they are probably better than whatever is currently playing on your iPod right now!
Written by Aaron Bayne
Edited by Jason Henry Evans
MAN-GAZINE™ 