These three guys, come from Australia. They quickly rose into stardom in 1995, with their debut album Frogstomp. At this time, they were only 15 years old! Originally called the Innocent Criminals. Silverchair was formed in 1992 in Newcastle, Australia by three schoolmates - Guitarist/vocalist Daniel Johns, bassist Chris Joannou and drummer Ben Gillies. The band also had a fourth member named Tobin Finnane, rhythm guitarist - sadly though he dropped out of the band, because his parents moved to England. The band continued without him. At this time the band had not changed name to Silverchair yet, so they were still calling themselves "The Innocent Criminals" - mostly just playing covers of old Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple songs. At this stage they did not have a singer, but wanted to find one - this never happened, so Daniel was forced to sing. One day a neighbor told them about the Nomad's "Pick Me" competition - an Australian talent contest conducted by the television show Nomad and the radio station 2JJJ-FM. The band recorded the song Tomorrow, which was written by Daniel when he was only 12 years old! The band sent in the song and weeks later, their tape was chocen as the winner out of 800 entries. Included in the prize was a day in the radio recording studio, as well as a video for their winning song "Tomorrow".

2JJJ-FM and Nomad began playing the video, before the Innocent Criminals had signed a record contract, which helped the band earn a group of fans. It also started a bidding war between the record labels. By the end of the year they had a deal with Murmur, a subsidiary of Sony. Before the realese of their debut single "Tomorrow" in September 1994, the group changed their name to Silverchair; the name was derived from Nirvanas "Sliver"( which was accidentally mispelled as "Silver") and You am is "Berlin Chair". "Tomorrow became a major hit in Australia, reaching number one; it would eventually become the countrys fourth biggest-selling single ever. In January 1995, Silverchair realesed a second single, "Pure Massacre", which also hit number one. That same month, the band  recorded their debut album, "Frogstomp", in just over a week. Upon its realese, Frogstomp became the first album to enter the Australian charts at number one and it went platinum within a week; It would soon go double platinium and spend six week in a row at number one. Silverchairs succes in the United States was nearly as quick. Realesed in America in the summer of 1995, Frogstomp began climbing at the US charts quickly, thanks to heavy MTV exposure and modern rock airplay for "Tomorrow". Soon the album went platinum in America as well, and by the end of 1995, "Pure Massacre" had become a radio/MTV hit in the US. Silverchair toured throughout the first half of 1996, and recorded their second album in the last half of 96. In the early 97, the band realesed the second album, with the title "Freak Show". The record received better reviews, and sold pretty good, but could still not sell as lot as "Frogstomp"did. All people thougt that they could`nt take the pressure any more, but with many concerts in the bag, they two years later, 1999, realesed their third album with the title "Neon Ballroom", which now has becomed a huge hit in many countries. The album sold about 700.000 copies in one week!! After the realese, a huge world tour followed, which also became a big succes. The tour closed up in December, with a gig at the Homebake festival in Australia. After this rollercoaster ride, Silvechair took a long deserved break from music, because of the hard program the members had been through for a long time. The band did not make anything in the year 2000, but played at new years eve, at the Homebake festival. After this they announced, that they also would play a gig, at the world famous Rock in Rio festival - the biggest music festival in the world. So on the january 21, Silverchair played a really good gig at Rio in front of 250.000 people. Shortly after Rock in Rio, the band went on with rehearsing and in august 2001, the band went into the studio to record their new album "Diorama", at their new label "Eleven Music". This record shut turn out to be the most experimental and bold record ever. Thus the record aclaimed the best reviews ever around the world, it never succeeded in matching the sales of the band's earlier albums. Right after the release of Diorama, Daniel Johns was struck with a very rare decease, which infected allmost every part of Daniel's body. This made it very difficult for the band to tour, and they only made a couple of "Big Day Out" shows, before they had to cancel the forthcomming Diorama-tour in 2002. In 2003, Daniel was finally able to tour again - more than a year after the release of Diorama.

Back