Silverchair’s Ben Gillies and his wife met in school. They married 15 years later

Ben Gillies is a musician best known as the drummer for Silverchair. The 43-year-old talks about Silverchair’s mum fan club, meeting his teenage crush Pamela Anderson and the privilege of parenting with his wife, Jackie.

Ben Gillies: “Jackie is an incredible mother. Seeing her in action every day is awesome.” Credit: Maclay Heriot

My paternal grandmother, Beulah, lived until she was 99. As she neared 100, all she talked about was getting a letter from the Queen. She was a simple lady who seemed to enjoy her own company and was happy just pottering around and taking a walk to her local shops in Newcastle.

Grandparents seem to know what grandkids like, and Nan knew I loved tomatoes with salt. I’d sit in her lounge room watching TV; she’d hand me a tomato and the salt container and I’d eat it like an apple.

My mother, Annette, was a straight shooter. She had this cotton smock that bore the word “Grumpy”. She was a smoker, too, so she had this aesthetic of the Grumpy smock nightie when she was cruising around with a cigarette, not taking any bullshit.

I was 15 when Silverchair took off. Our mothers ran our fan club and our parents also took turns to come on tour with us. When Mum first met our guitar tech, she said: “Do you drink alcohol? Do you do drugs?” She didn’t muck around.

Mum was very protective of my older sister, Kristy, and me. As I got older, she struggled to let go a bit and we had a few years that were wobbly.

When Mum was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019, I hadn’t seen her in a while. But the day I visited, I realised she was really sick. In that moment, what we had been bickering about just melted away. I gave her a hug and told her I loved her. She said the same thing. She died in 2020. It makes me teary just thinking about it.

In the 1990s, every teenage boy probably had a crush on Pamela Anderson. She was seeing surfer Kelly Slater for a while. He’d come to Silverchair gigs and we struck up a friendship.

We were in LA and Kelly Slater’s band, The Surfers, were playing. We went to the gig and Pamela was there. We got to say g’day, but it was a brief encounter. I haven’t seen her in years, but I’m sure she’s still attractive.

I met my wife, [The Real Housewives of Melbourne star] Jackie, during high school in Newcastle. To give back to our local music scene, Silverchair’s record label paid for a TAFE program in the music industry. Jackie was accepted and I thought she was cute.

Jackie was similar to Mum: no-nonsense. She thought I was a ratbag as I sat in her class with Daniel [Johns, his Silverchair bandmate], acting like an idiot.

We didn’t meet again for 15 years. I was living in Bondi and a mutual friend invited me to a party. I was there five minutes and, in the vein of a Monty Python skit, I recognised Jackie by her walk. I tried to get her number, but she refused. She’d exited an abusive relationship and didn’t want anything meaningless. She didn’t want to date – she wanted to get married.

We enjoyed each other’s company and spent time together as friends. We went for a five-night break down the coast and on that trip we kissed for the first time, got engaged, and two months later we were married.

Since having our two-year-old twins, Bonham and Rocco, Jackie has tapped into a maternal instinct that maybe she wasn’t confident was there. When she’d seen other kids, she thought motherhood looked like hard work. She also feared she’d lose a part of herself, which is probably why she didn’t have our sons until she was 40.

Jackie is an incredible mother. Seeing her in action every day is awesome. Some nights we lie in bed and go: “How lucky are we to have these two gorgeous boys who are full of love and joy?” Parenthood is such a privilege.

Love & Pain (Hachette) by Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou is out now.

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