Silverchair Big in the USA

Rip It Up, Issue 217, 1 September 1995, Page 23

Silverchair Big in the USA

Australia s young export Silverchair have repeated their massive Australian success in the USA. Their album Frogstomp has been certified “Gold”, which means they have official industry recognised sales of over 500,000 copies in the USA. This has been achieved before the release of a single. The album is selling at about 100,000 per week. Their record label Sony says sales are already over 700,000 units. Silverchair will soon be the first Australian act since INXS to top the “Platinum” million sales mark in the United States. After a USA A&R man David Massey saw the band at Australia’s Big Day Out earlier this year, an elaborate marketing plan was put in place for the American release of Frogstomp on the Epic label, but the whole process was jumpstarted early, when in April, key USA modern rock radio stations started playing import copies of ‘Tomorrow’. In Australia the band had been managed by their mothers but with success snowballing, Silverchair started looking for a manager. By mid-year with the USA success, the need for a full-time manager became paramount and John Watson from Sony Australia took the job. Watson had been Sony’s Director of International Marketing and had watched his plans go out the window. He told Billboard, “We had a great strategy mapped out. Now that’s been shot to pieces but in a most pleasant way.” As RipltUp goes to press Frogstomp is N 0.17 on the Billboard magazine Top 200 Albums Chart. The previous week the song ‘Tomorrow’ was N 0.32 on the Top 100 Airplay Chart. John Watson is confident that the success of Silverchair is not linked to their “teen” appeal or the novelty of their being

so young. “[USA] radio and public have responded purely to the song and the performance on the record. They did not know what the band looked like or their history.” Only in Australia have quips like “Nirvana in pajamas” or “kinder(Sound)garden” been attached to Silverchair. In Australia there have also been chauvinistjokes aimed at the band’,s mothers’ roles as managers. One Australian record executive claims a mother was asked, ‘what was London like?’ ‘The shopping was great’, was the alleged reply. In the USA the band’s record label are aiming for a young alternative audience in the USA and hope to have Silverchair on 1996’s Lollapalooza tour. The label also sent 10,000 music samplers and 25,000 Silverchair hang tags to surf shops around the USA. Silverchair have a busy August school holidays, starting in Cologne Germany, August 19, at the Popkomm music industry convention, followed by several summer festival appearances including Lowlands in Holland, Pukklepop in Belgium and the legendary Reading Festival in England. From there it’s off to North America for gigs in Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Washington, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles and finally, the home of grunge, Seattle on September 15. Around the world, music press find it quite difficult talking to three guys who have very little to say. When NME asked Daniel Johns if he had a final message for English fans, he replied. “Yeah. Listen to more Helmet.”

MURRAY CAMMICK