Okay, it all started way back in 1992 when little tweleve year old Daniel Johns 
heard a wicked riff on the radio and said to himself "I'm gonna play that." He
took up guitar but quit after a year because it was boring and he prefered to 
learn on his own. His friend, Ben Gillies was into the same old classic rock,
Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple but more into the drummers then
the guitarists, so Daniel and Ben decided they wanted to start a band for some
fun and something to fill all their spare time. They first started jamming on
some old Elvis tunes, like Hound Dog for example. Ben used to be the back up
vocals for Daniel until his voice cracked. So they played around in the loft
above Ben's garage and actually started to pick up some more rock like songs,
so they decided to ask two friends at school to be in their little band, even
though on of them couldn't play an instrument, turns out they wanted to round 
out their sound. Those two friends were Chris Joannou and Tobin Finnane. Believe
it or not, Chris was the one who couldn't play an instrument, but he picked it
up incrediably fast because it turns out Chris' dad was very good at bass when
he was a teenager.

What happened to Tobin? A common question, actually Tobin had to leave Australia
for a year because of his dad's job. By the time he got back things had already
taken a major twist. Now I'll tell you about that. The principal at Newcastle 
High was very involved with all his students, so he'd heard that these guys had
a band and couldn't get many gigs because they were too young, so he invited
Ben, Chris and Daniel to play some gigs at school during lunch hours and stuff. 
They accepted and began to play to classmates and the older kids, this is when
Daniel kinda shyed off and didn't want to be the vocalist anymore, but he did
it anyway and he swears he would sing to the wall whenever he was up there 
playing to his peers. They would play covers of all their big influences and 
then that was it. They caught the attention of a local newpaper called the
Newcastle Mercury and they did a small little clipping on the band. That was
enough to allow them to have some free studio time on weekends. Nothing big
but it was a start to what became silverchair. This studio they fiddled 
around in happens to be owned by Led Zepplin's old drum technician, pretty 
cool eh? Anyway, so they would come in and piddle around on their instruments
not really having the first clue on what they were doing. Then Daniel started 
to write some of his own songs, and this starts a whole other thing.

Being brand new at this sort of thing, Daniel would go home and watch TV or
something then later if the show really left an imprint on him he would most
likely go try to write a song then some lyrics. Anyway, a neighbour of Daniel's
named Sarah Lawson knew he was in a band with some friends, so one day she saw 
him outside on his driveway with Ben and Chris. She approached them and asked them
if they'd ever heard of the TV show "Nomad." They had and she continued to go on
about a demo contest Triple J radio and Nomad were holding together. She suggested 
they enter and see what place they come in. They of course thanked her for the info
but kinda laughed it off, what would a radio station want with a bunch of 14 year
olds? Turns out they wanted just that. Anyway, the Innocent Criminals went into their
little free studio one weekend and recorded a demo tape for a joke to send out to the 
station. Every band that entered had to write in 25 words or less why they should win,
being the smart asses they are (I'm affectionatly calling them that) they sent in this
along with their tape "We're not rap or hip-hop, we're rock and we love to play." Now
that doesn't sound too much like a smart ass comment right? Well here's why I say smart
ass, they wrote that on a crumpled piece of yellow construction paper with the ugliest
green marker they could find. They didn't even intend to win so they made it look as 
stupid as possible. So they sent off their tape which included a 6 minute long version
of Tomorrow, the startings of Acid Rain and bits and pieces of Blind and Stoned, this
later turned out to be the Tomorrow EP. But of course every track was re-cut and 
re-recorded.

Out of 800 bands, the Innocent Criminals won 1st place, yep, 1st place. A lady 
named Tracee rang Daniel up and told him they'd won the contest and that they'd 
won a day in Triple J's recording studios and they could make a small film clip 
(video) for the song Tomorrow, one problem, it was a bit too long. So this is 
when Daniel, Ben and Chris originally met Nick Launay (producer of Freak Show 
and Neon Ballroom) Nick came down and just worked with the guys for a few hours 
to shorten their song, then he left. So they did a film clip and got their song 
played a few times over Triple J. This was a MAJOR turning point for them. 
Some record company people from Murmur saw the film clip for Tomorrow and liked 
it very much, they got in contact with Nomad, the TV station that had aired the 
film clip to get further information on the band. While that was happening people 
actually began to request Tomorrow even though it was only originally suppose to 
air once. So, as you can see the Innocent Criminals we attracting some attention. 
Murmur Records called up Mrs. Johns and asked if her son and his band would be 
interested in playing a gig for the Record Company. Ben, Daniel and Chris were 
shocked someone actually was asking to see them play so they willingly accepted 
and that was that. They played to about 15 people, John Watson and John O'Donnell 
being 2 of those 15. Watson and John O'Donnell were working for Murmur at that time 
and were totally blowen away by this young group of teenagers. Actually, Watson and 
John were major helps in eventually signing the guys.

Amazingly enough, someone from Atlanta ended up getting a hold of Tomorrow 
and began playing it overseas, it got a huge response and the Innocent 
Criminals weren't even signed to a label yet, so a bidding war began between 
Record Companies. They ended up signing of course to Murmur a link to Sony 
and Epic. The record company had a bit of a problem with the band's name though, 
they didn't like it because it sounded kinda suspicous to adults, you know the 
teenage stero-type of how we're all on drugs and we all steal and blah blah blah.... 
Anyway, Daniel, Ben and Chris didn't particulary like their name either so they 
started considering other names like Warm Fish Milkshake and Grunt Truck, and 
they also considered going back to the original name way back when they covered 
Elvis tunes which was Short Elvis. Anyway, none of those stuck because one day 
they decided to ring up Triple J after school and request some songs, one of them 
being "Sliver" by Nirvana (not because they liked Nirvana, because a friend of 
theirs wanted them to hear this song because they'd NEVER heard Nirvana before) 
and the other one being "The Berlin Chair" by the Australian band, You Am I. 
So Chris being the great speller he is wrote down on a sheet of paper "sliverchair" 
so they would remember the songs, but he miss spelt it to say "silverchair" so 
that's how they came up with that name. They used that and then released an EP 
for Murmur including 4 songs, Tomorrow, Acid Rain, Blind and Stoned.

That EP went straight to the top of the charts the week of it's release in 
Australia. Then became the 5th fastest selling single ever in Australia. It 
sold quite well over in Canada and the States as well. That year ('95) was 
one of the biggest years of their lives, they later recorded Frogstomp in 9 
days at Festival Studios. That album was produced and mixed by Kevin Shirley. 
That 11 song album went Platinum 3 times in Australia and doulbe Platinum in 
Canada and the US, so silverchair waas doing quite well for a bunch of kids not 
even out of grade 10 yet. But of course when you release an album you've got to 
tour around to support that album, so off silverchair goes, leaving school behind 
for weeks on end and doing heaps of North American, European and Australian tours, 
with such bands as the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Everclear. Their summer vacations 
were devoted to touring and they really didn't have much time to themselves, then 
there came a downfall. The fucking media, I hate them. The media was EXTREMLY cruel 
to silverchair at first, blaming Daniel for wanting to be another Kurt Cobain, and 
blaming Israel's Son on a triple murder.... this was too much for Daniel to handle 
at that age and he went into a severe 6 month depression where he had to move out 
of his house just to escape the media, and those fuck wits still didn't stop there, 
they printed stories about Daniel being on the verge of a "Cobain influenced" suicide, 
like CAN'T THEY JUST FUCK OFF! Anyway, with Daniel living up in Sydney with Watson 
it gave him some space you might say, away from everything where he could start writing 
for the next album. That is why there are so many angry lyrics towards media and 
uncaring fans on Freak Show.

Anyway, Freak Show was recoreded over the course of three weeks again at Festival
Studios. It was released globally on February 4th, 1997. This album didn't do so
well, I mean it did good, but nothing close to the success of Frogstomp. Personally,
I think Freak Show is brilliant, they took a major step up, I just think all the 
boppers who used to swear they were 'in love' with silverchair turned around and 
saw the Backstreet Boys or N'Sync and said "wow look at them, screw silverchair." 
That's just what I think though, I could be wrong. Anyway Freak Show went Platinum
a few times in Australia and North America. silverchair then toured for a year and 
did 104 live shows across the globe, ending the tour off in their homeland of
Australia, the Freak Show World Tour was the highlight of silverchair's career so
far. 

Now, as mentioned earlier Daniel had already suffered from a serious depression 
during the writing process for Freak Show. Who would have thought that when he
went to work on Neon Ballroom things would have progressed so far as to Daniel
developing an eating disorder, anxiety, paranoia and depression. Daniel spent 6
months living alone, and seeing virtually no-one. He ate enough to be able to
move and that was it. He had become so obsessed with having control over part
of his life that he could have died if he had not come out of this isolation
when he did. He wrote over 112 poems during this "down-time" and those poems are
what became Neon Ballroom. Daniel is recovering from this depression and he still
takes anti-depressant tablets to level out how he feels. In June, 1998 silverchair
headed back to Festival Studios to record Neon Ballroom. This time it took them
close to 3 months! This was a hell of a long time for a silverchair record, which
just goes to show you how good it is. This album was by far the most personal of
all 3 albums, it dealt with all problems experienced by Daniel during that 6 month
hell period. Neon Ballroom was finally released in Australia on March 8th, 1999, 
and to the rest of the world on March 16th. There were definalty mixed reactions,
some fans liked it, some fans loved it, some used-to-be-fans hated it. But any
idiot can tell this is their best. Neon Ballroom draws you into a different frame
of mind, the instrumentation on some of the songs is so beautiful. And, as I said
before, when you release an album, off you go on a world tour.

So, in January, 1999 silverchair were off again for another year of touring, passing
through many of the major cities around the world. They've done a heap of festivals
including Edgefest, Reading/Leeds, Rockfest where they played to 100, 000 people! 
Their biggest crowd ever! silverchair came back and took us yet again by storm! They
have gone platinum in Canada, and Australia so far and I'm sure they'll be up for
a shit-load of ARIA's again this year, because they totally deserve it. If you do
not yet have Neon Ballroom get your butt out to a store right now and pick it up,
you won't regret it. silverchair will be forever remembered in my mind as the 
greatest rock band of all time.