Silverchair: Австралиялық рок тобының тарихы

Australian rock band

Silverchair are an Australian rock band, which formed in 1992 as Innocent Criminals in Newcastle, New South Wales, with Daniel Johns on vocals and guitars, Ben Gillies on drums, and Chris Joannou on bass guitar. The group got their big break in mid 1994 when they won a national demo competition conducted by SBS TV show Nomad and ABC radio station Triple J. The band was signed by Murmur and were successful in Australia and internationally. Silverchair has sold over 10 million albums worldwide. Silverchair have won more ARIA Music Awards than any other artist in history, earning 21 wins from 49 nominations. They also received six APRA Awards, with Johns winning three songwriting awards in 2008. All five of their studio albums debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart: Frogstomp (1995), Freak Show (1997), Neon Ballroom (1999), Diorama (2002), and Young Modern (2007). Three singles reached the number one slot on the related ARIA Singles Chart: "Tomorrow" (1994), "Freak" (1997), and "Straight Lines" (2007). Silverchair's alternative rock sound evolved throughout their career, with differing styles on specific albums growing more ambitious over the years, from grunge on their first two albums to later works displaying orchestral and art rock influences. The songwriting and singing of Johns had evolved steadily while the band had developed an increased element of complexity. In 2003, following the release of Diorama, the band announced a hiatus, during which time members recorded with side projects the Dissociatives, the Mess Hall, and Tambalane. Silverchair reunited at the 2005 Wave Aid concerts. In 2007, they released their fifth album, Young Modern, and played the Across the Great Divide tour with contemporaries Powderfinger. In May 2011, Silverchair announced an indefinite hiatus.

Silverchair's founders, Ben Gillies and Daniel Johns, attended the same primary school in the Newcastle suburb of Merewether. At "age 11 or 12", singer guitarist Johns and drummer Gillies rapped over an electronic keyboard's demo button under their first band name, The Silly Men. As teenagers, they started playing music together more prominently—in one class, they built a stage out of desks and played rap songs for their schoolmates. In 1994, Innocent Criminals entered YouthRock—a national competition for school based bands—and placed first ahead of older competition. The band recorded demos of "Acid Rain", "Cicada", "Pure Massacre", and "Tomorrow" early in the year at Platinum Sound Studios. It was later revealed they were named for the C. S. Lewis–penned novel The Silver Chair from The Chronicles of Narnia series. Johns later said of the fake story in a July 2007 interview: "We can't just say it's the name of a book and [that] we were looking for name of a book and thought that sounded good, so we thought we'd come up with a story " Aside from Innocent Criminals, the band has used The George Costanza Trio and Short Elvis as aliases. Following a bidding war between rival labels, Silverchair signed a three album recording contract with Sony Music subsidiary Murmur Records. Sony A&R manager John Watson, who was jointly responsible for signing the group, subsequently left the label to become their band manager. In September, their Triple J recording of "Tomorrow" was released as a four track extended play. From late October, it spent six weeks at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 1995, a re recorded version of "Tomorrow" (and a new video) was made for the United States market, becoming the most played song on US modern rock radio that year. At the time of recording, the band members were 15 years old and still attending high school. It reached the Billboard 200 Top 10, making Silverchair the first Australian band to do so since INXS. The album sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. As Frogstomp and "Tomorrow" continued to gain popularity through 1995, the group toured the US, where they supported Red Hot Chili Peppers in June, the Ramones in September, and played on the roof of Radio City Music Hall at the MTV Music Awards. In between touring, they continued their secondary education in Newcastle. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1995, the band won five awards out of nine nominations. To collect their awards on the night, they sent Josh Shirley, the young son of the album's producer. On 9 December 1995, Silverchair played two songs, "Tomorrow" and "Pure Massacre" on Saturday Night Live. In a January 1996 murder case, the defendant counsel for Brian Bassett, 16, and Nicholaus McDonald, 18, of McCleary, Washington, claimed that the pair listened to "Israel's Son", from Frogstomp, which contributed to the 10 August 1995 murders of Bassett's parents and a younger brother. The band's manager, Watson, issued a statement that they did not condone nor intend any such acts of violence. Silverchair began recording their second studio album, Freak Show, in May 1996 while experiencing the success of Frogstomp in Australia and the US. Produced by Nick Launay (Birthday Party, Models, Midnight Oil) and released in February 1997, Freak Show was certified gold in the US, 2× platinum in Australia, and global sales eventually exceeded 1.5 million copies.