Silverchair bandmates Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou opened up on Monday about their mental health struggle while recording their fourth studio album in 2001.
Drummer Ben Gillies, 43, revealed in a trailer for the ABC’s Australian Story that he began self-medicating with drugs while recording their Diorama album.
‘When we started to record it, I was having mental health problems. The pressure of another Silverchair record coming out just pushed me over the edge,’ he began.
‘I was smoking a lot of pot and I felt like the drug had a hold of me and I couldn’t stop it. Around that time I was offered an ecstasy pill and I had an acute psychotic break.’
Gillies then revealed he did not seek help as he was scared he would be labelled ‘crazy’.
Silverchair bandmates Ben Gillies (right) and Chris Joannou (left) opened up on Monday about their mental health struggles while recording their fourth studio album in 2001
Bassist Chris Joannou, 43, added he was unaware of what Gillies was going through at the time as he himself was struggling with anxiety.
Gillies and Joannou will tell their story across two episodes of Australian Story, airing on the ABC at 8pm on Monday, September 18 and concluding on September 25.
Chris also revealed the difficulty they had working with frontman Daniel Johns, 43, who bluntly told his bandmates in 1999 that he would be writing most of Silverchair’s songs without their participation.
Drummer Ben Gillies, 43, revealed in a trailer for the ABC’s Australian Story that he began self-medicating with drugs while recording their Diorama album. Pictured: Ben and Chris with Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns
‘Ben probably struggled with it the most. He might have felt that Johns didn’t trust his musical judgement and that creative relationship they had was pretty much gone,’ he said.
The bandmates have since found a cathartic outlet by penning tell-all memoir Love & Pain, about their time in the iconic rock band – without the participation of Johns.
Leaving out any mention of Daniel, early promos of the book Love & Pain have been released on social media with teasers revealing the story will be told solely from the perspective of Gillies and Joannou.
‘When we started to record it, I was having mental health problems. The pressure of another Silverchair record coming out just pushed me over the edge,’ Gillies began
Meanwhile, Johns ripped into the pair during an appearance on The Project in September 2022, where he labelled his estranged friends as ‘bitter, jealous, angry’,
Neither Gillies nor Joannou responded at the time; however, it seems the pair are set to have their say when their tome ‘Love & Pain’ hits shelves on Wednesday, September 27.
‘Love & Pain is the story of two teenagers who grew up in Silverchair,’ reads a blurb posted to Gillies’ Instagram.
The pending memoir is sure to reignite what has been a bitter falling-out among the former bandmates who as 15-year-olds took the world by storm with their debut album Frogstomp.
The bandmates have since found a cathartic outlet by penning tell-all memoir Love & Pain, about their time in the iconic rock band – without the participation of Johns
The pending memoir is sure to reignite what has been a bitter falling-out among the former bandmates who as 15-year-olds took the world by storm with their debut album Frogstomp
