Biography

the story behind Short Elvis, the Innocent Criminals, Grunt Truck

and... silverchair

It all started back in 1992, when Daniel heard this riff on the radio and really wanted to play it. Daniel was really into bands like Led Zepplin and so was his friend Ben Gillies. But Daniel was into the guitarists and Ben into the drummers...and so they decided they wanted to start a band. They first started doing Elvis songs and came up with the name Short Elvis, Ben was doing the backing vocals at that time but his voice cracked. To make it all sound better they asked two friends from school to join the band, Chris Joannou and Tobin Finnane, but one of them couldn't play an instrument. Turns out Chris (!) couldn't play an instrument but he was a quick learner cause his dad used to play bass.

If you're not into silverchair, you don't know Tobin. So what happened to him? Tobin had to leave Australia for a year because of his father's job, when he came back silverchair already signed a record deal without him. And what happened in the mean while? Stay tuned... The principal of Newcastle High is a nice guy cause he heard of this band that couldn't get gigs cause they were too young. The principal made them play on school in front of their classmates and older kids...and now Daniel didn't want to sing anymore! But gradually he did and he ended up singing to the wall cause he was too shy! They caught the attention with these little gigs of a local newspaper, the Newcastle Mercury, and they did a small clipping on the band. Thanx to the newspaper the guys were allowed to have some free studio time during the weekends.

The studio just mentioned happens to be owned by Led Zepplin's old drum technician (cool eh!!) Daniel started to write some stuff for their own thing. He usually got his lyrics by watching TV, and if the show left an imprint on him he would try to write a song about it (Pure Massacre was written after he saw something about the war in Bosnia). Sarah Lawson (Daniel's neighbour) knew that Daniel was in this band and she approached Daniel when she heard about this contest 'Triple J' and 'Nomad' were holding together. She suggested they'd enter the contest. (Damn I LOVE that woman!!!!!)

Daniel, Ben & Chris didn't really believe that they could win, but when they were in their studio during the weekends, they recorded a demo tape just for fun. Every band had to write a short message why he/she thought that they deserved to win. The Innocent Criminals came up with the brilliant: 'We're not rap or hiphop, we're rock and we love to play'. They didn't intent to win so that's why it sounds so stupid, they sended the message and the tape which included a 7 minute long version of Tomorrow, the startings of Acid Rain and little pieces of Blind and Stoned. This later turned out to become the Tomorrow EP.

Out of 800 (!) entries, the Innocent Criminals won…ofcourse! They won a day in Triple J’s recording studios and they could make a video for Tomorrow, one problem…Tomorrow was too long. This is when the Innocent Criminals met Nick Launay (producer of Freak Show and Neon Ballroom). They worked a couple of hours to shorten Tomorrow, and Nick left. They made their video and Tomorrow was played a few times on Triple J. Some people from Murmur saw the Tomorrow video and they liked it. They got in contact with Nomad, Nomad had aired Tomorrow a few times, to get some info on the band. People started requesting Tomorrow even though it was supposed to air just once. The Innocent Criminals were getting some attention.

Murmur Records called Dan’s mom and asked if her son and his band wanted to play a gig for the record company. They were shocked that someone really wanted to see them but they accepted. They played to some record company people and John Watson and John O’Donnell were two of them. Watson and O’Donnell loved it and they were major helps in eventually signing the guys. Someone in Atlanta got hold on Tomorrow before the guys were signed and so a bidding war began between record companies. They eventually signed up to Murmur, a link to Sony and Epic.

One problem, the bands name…it sounded too suspicious to adults (yeah sure!!!) The Innocent Criminals didn’t really like their name either so they started making up names like Warm Fish Milkshake and Grunt Truck, they even considered to go back to their very first name: Short Elvis (to be honest, thank god they didn’t!)

As you all know, none of them made it. They got to silverchair like this: the guys decided to call Triple J to request some songs. They requested ‘Sliver’ by Nirvana (not like they liked Nirvana but a friend of them wanted to hear it, they actually had never heard of Nirvana before!) and ‘Berlin Chair’ by You Am I. Chris had to write sliverchair down so they wouldn’t sound like nerds who forgot which songs they wanted to request. But Chris misspelled it to silverchair. They used that name and released the Tomorrow EP including: Tomorrow, Acid Rain, Blind and Stoned. Tomorrow went straight to the top of the charts in its first week in Australia. It sold quite well in the states and Canada. They later recorded Frogstomp in 9 days at Festival Studios. Frogstomp went to no. 1 immediately in its first week in Australia and stayed their for 6 weeks. It went three times platinum in Australia and double platinum in Canada and the US.

When you come up with an album, you have to tour and there silverchair goes to places they’ve never dreamt of going to.

Downfall…the media were blaming Daniel for being another Kurt Cobain (Daniel’s blonde but that’s it I guess) and blaming Israel’s Son on a triple murder. Daniel couldn’t handle it anymore and he went into e severe 6 months depression where he had to move out of his house just to escape the media. Daniel moved in with John Watson (their manager) so he could start writing stuff for the next album. That’s why the lyrics on Freak Show are so angry towards media and ‘fans’. Freak Show was recorded within three weeks at Festival Studios. Freak Show’s success never came close to that of Frogstomp (don’t know why though). Freak Show did went platinum a few times in Australia and North America too. They did 104 live shows across the globe within one year, ending their tour in Australia.

You know Daniel had problems before, but during the writing process for Neon Ballroom it progressed into an eating disorder, paranoia, anxiety and again…depression. Daniel left home again to live alone for 6 months, only with his dog Sweep with him. He barely ate anything, he ate just to survive. If his doctor wouldn’t have told him about his problems, Daniel would be dead by now. In this period Daniel wrote more than a 100 poems, which became Neon Ballroom. In June 1998, silverchair got back into the studio. This time for more than two months! This album is by far the most personal of the first three albums, it dealt with all of Daniel’s problems during those 6 months. The reactions on Neon Ballroom are diverse, some hate it, some like it and some love it. I think it’s their best so far. Neon Ballroom has gone platinum in Australia and Canada and gold in Brazil.

silverchair took a break after their Neon Ballroom tour and they had to look for a new record company. A new bidding war started and eventually Eleven won. Eleven is a link to EMI, and the President is…John Watson! Murmur has brought out a Best Of album after their split with silverchair. This album has turned gold in Australia in its first week, it entered the charts at 16#. silverchair will return into the studios in 2001 and they are gonna do their biggest concert so far: Rock In Rio with 250.000 people in the crowd! Rock In Rio will take place on the 21^st of January and I can’t wait to hear new material from silverchair!! They will also be doing a show at Falls festival on New Years Eve, their first show in more then a year!