Silverchair were an alternative rock band from Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, who released their first album, Frogstomp when they were only 15 years old. Originally named Innocent Criminals, they changed their name to one influenced by C.S. Lewis' novel, The Silver Chair.

Childhood friends who went to the same school, Silverchair came to public prominence after winning an Australian national TV competition, to which they submitted the demo of “Tomorrow”. The prize? A professionally recorded song and music video for “Tomorrow”.

The record companies lapped it up and a bidding war began; Murmur Records, a subsidiary of Sony, signed Silverchair to a three album deal. It was a clever move: “Tomorrow” stayed at number 1 on the Australian ARIA singles chart for 6 straight weeks , while the album that followed Frogstomp debuted at number 1 on the Australian charts, remaining there for 3 weeks. The album eventually went 9x Platinum in Australia, 6x Platinum in New Zealand, and triple Platinum in both the USA and Canada. Frogstomp was also a critical success, winning five awards at the ARIA awards in 1995. This is even more incredible when one takes into consideration that the album was recorded in 9 days. The band followed this all up with tours supporting the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The Ramones.

While their follow ups to Frogstomp did not achieve its impressive sales, they were also major commercial successes:
Freak Show debuted at number 1 on the ARIA charts, and both it and Neon Ballroom achieved 5x platinum status in Australia, double platinum in New Zealand and platinum in both Canada and the USA. Fourth album, Diorama also won 5 awards at the ARIA, whilst their fifth and final album Young Modern won 6 ARIA awards. Young Modern was their 5th consecutive album to enter the charts at number 1, making them the first artist to accomplish this.

The band went into indefinite hibernation in 2011. After 20 years of playing together, they were one of Australia’s most successful music exports and one of the few bands outside of Seattle to effectively emulate and continue the success of the grunge/post-grunge sound.

List of band members:

Daniel Johns (guitar, lead vocals) 1992 – 2011
Chris Joannou (bass guitar) 1992 – 2011
Ben Gillies (drums) 1992 – 2011