Silverchair consists of Ben Gillies (drums), Chris Joannou (bass guitar), Daniel Johns (singer, guitar).
For the C. S. Lewis novel, see The Silver Chair.
Silverchair is one of Australia’s most successful contemporary rock bands. The group has had more top twenty hits during the last decade than any other local artist and they have sold over six million albums worldwide.
Daniel Johns (vocals, guitar) Chris Joannou (bass) Ben Gillies (drums) Cain Doherty (dradle)
The members of Silverchair were all born in 1979 and grew up in the Newcastle surf suburb of Merewether. Singer/guitarist Daniel Johns and drummer Ben Gillies started making music together at primary school and schoolmate Chris Joannou later joined on bass. In the group’s early days they were called Innocent Criminals and their repertoire consisted mainly of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath songs they had learned from their dads' old record collections.
The trio played many shows around the Hunter Valley region in their early teens. They got their big break in mid-1994 when they won a national demo competition called “ Pick Me” (conducted by the SBS TV show “ Nomad” and alternative radio station Triple J) with a song called "Tomorrow". Triple J recorded the song, while SBS filmed the video clip.
At this stage the band called themselves "Death Rides a Sandwich". The song came to the attention of Michael Tunn who hosted a request show called the "Request Fest". It was the most requested song in the shows history, even though the Band had no distribution deal. The popularity quickly landed them a recording contract with Sony Music after an intense bidding war between all of the major record companies in Australia. A rushed release of the Triple J demo version was in stores within days of the signing of the deal.