Daniel Johns

At the age of 12, Johns and school friends Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou formed a band, originally named "The Innocent Criminals", and practised daily after school for periods of four hours or more.[5][8]

The band's career began when the three members were 15 years old when a demo recording of their song "Tomorrow" won a competition that was run by the SBS TV programme Nomad.[5] The group, now named Silverchair, subsequently accepted a three-album deal from Sony Music in 1994, and the label hurriedly released their first album Frogstomp in 1995 after "Tomorrow" remained in the No. 1 position on the Australian singles chart for six weeks.[9]

The band released Freak Show in 1997,[10] followed by Neon Ballroom in 1999,[11] and then Diorama in 2002.[12] Following Diorama, Silverchair embarked on a lengthy hiatus before the release of the next album.[9]

In late 2005, Johns and Silverchair reunited and announced the production of a new album entitled Young Modern, whose title comes from a nickname given to Johns by composer Van Dyke Parks.[13] The new album was released on 31 March 2007 and was followed by the Across the Great Divide tour with fellow Australian band Powderfinger.

In May 2011, Silverchair announced on their website that the band was going into "indefinite hibernation" and explained that "it's become increasingly clear that the spark simply isn't there between the three of us at the moment".[14][15] Later that month, Johns and filmmaker Josh Wakely presented a talk at TEDx Sydney in which they discussed a film that they were working on that was tentatively titled My Mind's Own Melody. A video of the talk was uploaded to YouTube in June 2011,[16] and a trailer for the completed film was released in mid-2012.[17]

During the post-Diorama hiatus, Johns worked on several side projects, the most notable being The Dissociatives with dance musician/producer Paul Mac. Johns and Mac worked together since Mac's 1997 remix of "Freak" and his contribution to Neon Ballroom. In 2000, they recorded a five-track EP I Can't Believe It's Not Rock. Their debut album The Dissociatives (2004) was initially recorded in London, United Kingdom, and a few months later, the two regrouped in Sydney and Newcastle to finish off the project. The Dissociatives toured with musicians Kim Moyes on drums, Julian Hamilton on keys, and James Haselwood on bass.

On 13 June 2008, it was reported on Silverchair's website that Johns was working on a new side project with Luke Steele (The Sleepy Jackson, Empire of the Sun), but a release date was not confirmed for the collaboration. In 2008, the name of the project was "Hathaway and Palmer," according to a radio interview that Steele conducted, but this has not been confirmed since.[18]

In December 2008, Johns was named as the producer of The Scare's album.[19]

In 2012, Johns collaborated with the Australian Chamber Orchestra to create the soundtrack Atlas for a Qantas Airlines commercial that began airing a week before the 2012 Olympics.[20] Johns explained:

When Qantas first approached me, I agreed to the project as I was really into the idea of creating a piece of music that represented Australia. I wanted it to sound big, something special. It was a conscious effort to create a good piece of music and not just a jingle. I've also wanted to work with the Australian Chamber Orchestra for a long time now, so it was great to finally be able to do that.[20]

In May 2012, Johns wrote and recorded music with pop duo The Veronicas for the latter's third album. The writing process began in November 2011, and the twin sisters stated that working with Johns "was one of our greatest experiences."[21]

As of January 2013, Johns was scheduled to appear in a live performance with Van Dyke Parks as part of Australia's Adelaide Festival on 8 March 2013 and was also rumoured to be working on a debut solo album.[22] In May 2013, Steele revealed that he and Johns were completing the project that they had started in 2008.[23]

In January 2014, Johns co-wrote the song "Impossible" by Australian rapper 360. Johns also sang on the song's chorus. Johns met 360 through his brother Heath, who is also 360's publisher.[24]

In 2016, Johns was a musical director and arranged and produced the music for the Netflix animated children's series Beat Bugs.[25][26] He was also the singing voice for the characters Walter,[27] and Mr. Mudwasp.[28] He stated, "It's a dream job to go into the studio and dissect all of The Beatles' music".[25] Johns said that Eddie Vedder liked his version with the guide vocals for "Magical Mystery Tour" so much that he kept Johns's backing vocals in the finished song.[26]

In May 2016 Johns collaborated with Perth duo Slumberjack on their track "Open Fire",[29] which is the first single from their forthcoming EP, to be released late 2016. Johns also featured in the music video.[30]

Johns has also worked with artists such as ZHU in the track "Modern Conversation" in 2017 and fellow Australian artist What So Not in the album Not All The Beautiful Things, released in 2018, where he contributed to a good portion of the music.

In November 2013, it was reported by various media outlets that Johns was in the process of working on a solo album due for release sometime in 2014. His manager John Watson was quoted as saying: "it’s looking extremely likely that it’ll be out next year."[31]

For the 40th birthday of the triple j radio station, Beat the Drum, held at Sydney, Australia's Domain on 16 January 2015, Johns performed a piano version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".[32]

Johns debuted a new song as a solo artist on 29 January 2015 on the Triple J radio station. Titled "Aerial Love", the song is taken from a four-track EP that was released on 13 March 2015. Peter Vincent, National Music Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, described the song as "sexy" and "soulful". "Aerial Love" debuted at No. 50 on the Australian Singles Chart, later peaking at No. 21.[33] Johns released his fifteen-track debut album as a solo artist on 22 May 2015, entitled Talk. The record features multilayered arrangements of R&B, soul, synthpop, and electronic melodies. Talk peaked at No. 2 on the ARIA Albums Chart in Australia within the first two weeks of its release.[34] The album also achieved some unexpected success in other parts of the world, coming in at No. 1 on the Slovakian iTunes albums chart shortly after release.

Johns teamed up with Luke Steele from Empire of the Sun to form DREAMS, releasing the single “No One Defeats Us” in March 2018.[35] DREAMS' debut album, No One Defeats Us, was released in September 2018 through EMI.[36]