The Silverchair book shocks from their forgotten fourth member to how they really got their name

The fractured friendship between Daniel Johns and his Silverchair bandmates isn’t the only tea spilt in the Love & Pain memoir.

The sad dissolution of the band and their friendship with frontman Daniel Johns is just part of the story of Love & Pain, the joint memoir from Silverchair drummer Ben Gillies and bassist Chris Joannou.

After Johns shared his version of events via his podcast (Who Is Daniel Johns?) and web series (Inside The Mind of Daniel Johns), Gillies and Joannou have shared their wild ride and the hurt and sadness since the band’s split in 2011 via their book and the two-part Australian Story documentary A Silver Lining.

Silverchair have won the most ARIAs in the awards’ history. Picture: Supplied

The book also shares the hilarious behind-the-scenes antics of three teenagers from working class Newcastle who took over the world stage and dispel some long-held myths about Silverchair.

THERE WAS A FOURTH MEMBER

Tobin Finnane (rear) and (front, from left) Chris Joannou, Ben Gillies and Daniel Johns when members of the rock band Innocent Criminals. Picture: NCA

Whatever happened to Tobin Finnane, the second guitarist who was a member of the band before they changed their name from the Innocent Criminals?

The fourth member of Innocent Criminals was forced to leave the band when his parents relocated to the UK for work for a year in 1994.

When he returned to Australia, the band had already won the Nomad competition, run by SBS to unearth new talent, with their incendiary debut single Tomorrow.

When Finnane returned to Australia, the band now known as Silverchair, decided to continue as a trio.

“We tried to handle it as best we could at the time but the conversation with Tobin was pretty awkward,” Joannou writes.

“The worst of it fell to me; I had to help Tobin move all of his stuff out of my room. Talk about uncomfortable.”

THE BAND NAME

Urban myth had it the Silverchair name was inspired by two of the teens’ favourite songs – You Am I’s Berlin Chair and Nirvana’s Silver.

Another version of the origin story is it was inspired by the C.S. Lewis book The Silver Chair.

In Love & Pain, Gillies and Joannou said it was simply one option from more than a dozen written on a whiteboard in the Triple J studios as they recorded their debut EP. They made up the other stories to mess with the press.

The other options on the whiteboard included Symmetry, Driving Solo, Mind Riot, Pod, Braze, Glass Garland and Warm Fish Milkshake.

ARIAS DISASTER

Silverchair hold the record for the most ARIA Awards nominations for a group, with 49, and the most wins by any artist, with 21.

They were victorious at their first appearance at the 1995 awards, winning five trophies from nine nominations.

But the celebrations were marred by a couple of attempted pranks which didn’t land.

The first mishap happened at the end of their performance of Radio birdman’s A New Race – a nod to the band being at the vanguard of the new alternative rock waves sweeping Australia.

Gillies planned to dive headfirst into the front skin of his bass drum.

“But the roadie hadn’t nicked the drum skin. He forgot. When Ben dives into the bass drum, he bounces straight back,” they write in the book.

The next screw-up came with the acceptance of their awards. The band decided it would be a cool joke to send the young son of their producer Kevin Shirley to the podium. The presenter, Meat Loaf, was supposed to explain the joke but didn’t and the band were smashed in the media the next day for being “smug”.

THE FAME GAME

Johns and Gillies at their Rio de Janeiro hotel. Picture: Supplied

The three Australian musicians travelled in rock star circles, meeting heroes from James Brown to Janet Jackson.

But the most ridiculous lifestyles of the rich and famous moment the teen rockers witnessed involved Britney Spears when the Toxic pop star and Silverchair were staying in the same hotel in Rio de Janeiro.

“She decided she wanted to go for a swim, so when she jumped in, her bodyguard followed her,” they write in Love & Pain.

“He walked into the pool fully clothed, like he physically couldn’t leave her side. It was ridiculous but we didn’t flinch.”

THE COMMUNICATION BLUES

While they created rock magic when they played together, Silverchair fractured because they couldn’t talk together. Picture: Supplied

The inability of the three Silverchair members to sit in a room and discuss the band’s future at several critical junctures in their career is one of the overarching themes of the book.

The pair write about an uncomfortable meeting at Johns’ home ahead of the recording of their fourth album Diorama, where the frontman outlined his desire for creative control of the songwriting and musical direction of the band.

“The four of us sat in Dan’s living room: Watto (John Watson) reading, Chris and me listening, and Dan remaining silent. Dan didn’t say a single word, but he'd written plenty of them for Watto to say out loud.”

Love & Pain, published by Hachette, is out now

Originally published as The Silverchair book shocks from their forgotten fourth member to how they really got their name