the silverchair story

ben, chris, and daniel are from newcastle, australia, a small town north of sydney. they formed in 1992 because there was nothing else to do but be in a band and were known as the innocent criminals, a name they disliked about 3 weeks after choosing it. (they were also known as short elvis before that). it started with daniel and ben writing rap songs...then they took up their instruments and decided a bass player was needed. they convinced chris to learn bass, who was at that time learning acoustic guitar. they played covers of deep purple, jimi hendrix...even elvis's "hangdog."

they entered a national demo competition conducted by nomad called pick me in june, 1994. sarah lawson, daniel's neighbor, informed them about it. they entered "tomorrow," which was six and a half minutes long and a bad recording. the song ended up winning out of 800 entries and they won a day at triple j studios to make a film clip and re-record the song. as it so happens, tobin finnane, the fourth member who also played guitar, moved to england for a year just as things started happening. they were signed to murmur, run separately from sony, and were the second band signed to the label. triple j started to play "tomorrow" and the song got a huge reaction. it was released as a single in september 1994 and is expected to have sold around 200,000 copies and is one of the top five australian songs of all time. their second single, "pure massacre," was also received well when it was released in january 1995. they recorded frogstomp in nine days and it was released in australia in march 95, debuting at number one. it has since gone triple platinum in australia and gold in america, where it was released june 1995. silverchair's first show ever in america was at the 99x freeloader concert in atlanta on 6/21/95. john watson took over managing the band from their parents in august 1995.

some facts about silverchair

• the first song they ever wrote was called "i felt like it"
• they came up with the name silverchair by combining two song names, one of them being "berlin chair" by you am i and the other being "sliver" by nirvana. they had said in school one day they didn't like nirvana too much and a friend suggested listening to "sliver." daniel and chris went over to ben's house that afternoon and they were calling the request line to triple j and couldn't get through. it was suggested to write down "sliverchair" for fun. chris misspelled it and they all went, "ohhhh, silverchair!"
• they came up with frogstomp while at john watson's house. daniel was looking at his record collection and came across frogstomp on the back of an old 60's pop collection record. they found the picture of the frog on the side of a truck, so it worked well.
• the llamas on the inside of the album are just a thing-they don't have an affinity for them, they're just animals that look dumb!
• chris and ben have known each other since they were very extremely young. they met daniel in third grade or so through school.
• the band was influenced by seattle bands like pearl jam and soundgarden when they were first starting out. daniel tried to be like eddie vedder a looong time ago. they claim a stronger influence by led zeppelin, deep purple, and black sabbath. people who still compare them to pearl jam and nirvana really need to get over it!
• bands they like now are helmet, led zeppelin, shellac, rollins band, slint, tool, korn, minor threat, black flag, black sabbath, magic dirt, spiderbait, you am i, regurgitator, midget, the prodigy, quicksand...the list goes on and on.
• they have graduated high school and have no plans for college
• their least favorite thing to do is give interviews. their favorite is playing live
• being managed by their parents was ok... it was free.
• "silverchair" is spelled with a small s. they think it looks stupid spelled with a big one.
• their first gig was at school and daniel was forced to sing cause there was no one else. he sang facing the wall because he was too embarrassed
• their first concert was in the summer of 94, when they opened for the screaming jets
• their official fanclub is called the llama appreciation society and is run by the mothers. it's very simple, just look in the cd cover of either their cds and you will find the information.
• their parents are very supportive of their career
• they came up with freak show because they saw similarities between a band and a freak show. "people think you're different, but you're not."
• their sound guy is brit peter ward (wardie)
• their lighting guy is hugh taranto

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