Welcome to the Silverchair biography page! If you want the individual members, click on their picture. For the group, just scroll down!!!

Daniel and Ben had been school friends. They had known each other since they were 4 years old and they grew up together in Newcastle, Australia, which is two hours from Sydney. At first, they would do the normal stuff people do when they are young. They went surfing, since Newcastle has some beautiful beaches, went to parties (if there was any), played pool, and hung out at the arcade. Some of these things, however, became boring to them and so they decided to be in sort of a "band." First, they were called Short Elvis. Since neither Daniel nor Ben could play an instrument, they rapped, just for the fun of it, until one day, Daniel bought a guitar and Ben bought a drum set. Suddenly, there was a chance of actually becoming a band! They invited two of their closest friends, Tobin Finanne and Chris Joannou to join them. Tobin became the rhythm guitarist and Chris learned how to play the bass, for there can't possibly be a band without a bassist (except for school bands and you know that they will never play rock music...sheesh!). They nicknamed themselves The Innocent Criminals.

The Innocent Criminals needed a place to practice, of course, and the Gillies family was kind enough to set aside the loft in their garage as the place where the band could play their "music." Things didn't go exactly as planned. Of course, they hardly had any musical experience. Their first time playing together, Ben was beating up his drums, just hitting them as hard as they could. Tobin was killing his rhythm guitar and Chris playing his bass...just figuring anything since he was still learning the basics of how to play. And Daniel, who knew SOMEONE had to sing, pounded away at his guitar as he took the place as the "singer." Of course, the first time they were together, Daniel was just screaming. You couldn't call the Innocent Criminals stuff "music" just yet.

Sadly, Tobin moved to England for a year and left the Innocent Criminals. Maybe it was for the better. The Innocent Criminals got their first gig shortly after Tobin moved away. It was at a street fair and each of them got $10 each. They did it because they needed the money. The played Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath songs, but got bounced by an older man complaining that they were, "too loud" and if they didn't leave, he'd call the cops.

Daniel's neighbor, Sarah Lawson, informed Daniel that the radio station, Triple J, was having a demo competition. Now, when you're in a band you do EVERYTHING and ANYTHING you can to get noticed. So, for $75, silverchair rented a recording room and recorded the demo for the song, "Tomorrow." Three months later, the band gets a call saying that they WON THE DEMO COMPETITION...out of 800 other demos, "Tomorrow" was picked. They won a recording session to really record "Tomorrow" and radio play of their demo! The demo was played on the radio and suddenly, mass loads of people started requesting the song. Suddenly, the band started to get calls about record contracts, etc.....and finally the band agreed to go on the Murmur label, the Australian division of Sony. John Watson became their somewhat manager, but Daniel, Chris, and Ben's parents acted like the managers, making sure that their success would not get in the way of schooling. When they got their contract, the band was called silverchair instead of the Innocent Criminals. They got the name silverchair while requesting songs on the radio...They wanted to request Sliver by Nirvana and Berlin Chair by You Am I. "And we said, Chris, write, write down sliver and chair, just to abbreviate it and he spelled it silverchair so we were like, ah, good one!"---Daniel Johns.

Frogstomp was recorded in 9 days in Festival Studios- Sydney, Australia. Out of 11 tracks on Frogstomp, 3 of the songs the band didn't like, because they had been playing it since they were 12 or 13. Those songs were not played live very often. They are Shade, Undecided, and Cicada. After the album was recorded they toured with a very well-known band, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, which was definitely an experience and silverchair CERTAINLY got noticed! Frogstomp was the #1 for weeks at a time and Tomorrow was the 4th best selling song in Australia!!!! silverchair went platinum in the United States, after Atlanta, Georgia's 99X came across silverchair's Tomorrow demo.

And that's how silverchair began...

All info found on The silverchair Addiction!!! For the banner to this wonderful site, go to my links page !