Silverchair: the rise and fall of the band behind 1995 album Frogstomp and the hit single 'Tomorrow.'

0:00 - Early Days
3:10 - 'Tomorrow' Single
4:00 - Silverchair Blows Up
7:04 - Freakshow Era
8:15 - Daniel John's Struggles
11:00 - Final Years/Breakup

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Silverchair was one of biggest bands to come out of Australia. The rock trio would make a mark a few years after grunge had taken over.. In fact, they had their big break not even a year after Kurt Cobain died. This put Silverchair in the unique category of post-Nirvana alt-rock acts that included the likes of Foo Fighters, Puddle of Mudd, Bush, and Local H. By the way guys I’ve done a whole video on whatever happened to Local H, link is down below.

Silverchair would also end Australia’s musical draught by being the first band to have a debut album chart in the top 10 in America since 1982’s Men At Work’s record and the first Australian band in 5 years to have an album chart in the top 10. The last band before them was INXS.

Vocalist and guitarist Daniel Johns grew up in a musical home with his parents frequently blasting Black Sabbath and Deep Purple records. Johns and his schoolmate, a drummer nme Ben Gillies (GILL EEES) started jamming together as teenagers in 1992 in Newcastle, Australia,a blue collar working town north of Sydney, The pair wanted to get serious about music and enlisted bassist Chris Joannou (Joe-Knew) and called themselves Innocent Criminals. They soon started jamming on Pearl Jam songs before writing their own.

By the spring of 1994, a neighbour of Johns told the young musician about a demo tape contest called Pick Me that was being broadcast on the TV show NOMAD and being sponsored by local radio station Triple J FM. John’s was a little skeptical telling Rolling Stone “We’d been in competitions before and didn’t do shit. But we sent in our tape.”

Silverchair would be one of more than 800 entires into the contest and thought their tape would be lost in the shuffle. Their tape they submitted was credited to their old monicker Innocent Criminals. One of the show’s judges heard the almost 7 minute long demo of Tomorrow and was blown away It was no surprise the band’s demo stood out considering how awful some of the submissions were. one band did a song about tuna fish while another artist submitted a song that heavily sampled movies include the fugitive and star trek. That judge who discovered Silverchair would be a video director named Robert Hambling who told rolling Stone in 1996
“It stood out even stronger because I’d just listened to about 80 or 100 demos back-to-back,” From my point of view, in a competition to find new talent, you couldn’t find a more perfect example than three young lads in their bedrooms in Newcastle with a song that, I believed, could be a No. 1 megaworldwide smash hit.”

The other judges concurred and awarded Silverchair the show’s grandprize, which included a full day recording session to spruce up Tomorrow, a video shoot for the single at an old prison. By June of 1994 the video for Tomorrow aired on the TV Show Nomad and Triple JJJ FM added it to their rotation .

Within a week of the band getting radio airplay record labels were chomping at the ability to sign the band. John’s mother who managed the group at the time was being contacted by Australian labels including Murmur who was owned by Sony. The reps for Murmur went to a local gig the band played at in Newcastle. What’s funny is that the reps went to a local newcastle pub called the Jewels Taverns but because hte boys were underage they weren’t allowed to play there, so they had to play in the restaurant next door to the bar.The band signed withMurmur records who released Tomorrow as a single under their new band name Silverchair. The name originated from combining the Nirvana song Sliver, which one of the members thought was spelled silver and the track Berlin Chair by You Am I. A month after it’s release Tomorrow topped the charts in Australia selling 175,000 copies. It was estimated that approximately 1 percent of australia’s population purchased the single.