Voted Best New Talent
Guitar World

Silverchair guitarist Daniel Johns was voted Best New Talent in Guitar World magazine's Readers' Poll. Johns, who does not consider himself to be a lead guitar player, also received the readers' award for Best Solo of 1995 for his work on Tomorrow.

"We suspected that the teen-aged phenoms of silverchair were popular, but we didn't known they were immensely popular," Guitar World said in its March 1996 issue.

Johns won the Best New Talent award by a landslide margin over Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, Bush and Korn (one of silverchair's favorite bands).

Johns' solo on Tomorrow beat New Jersey Shore guitar wizard Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne's Perry Mason), Dave Navarro (My Friends by the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Eddie Van Halen (Baluchitherium).

silverchair's frogstomp placed second in the Best Alternative Album category behind Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the double CD by Smashing Pumpkins.

frogstomp rated higher than Foo Fighters, One Hot Minute by the Chili Peppers and Washing Machine by Sonic Youth.

Johns cites the Pumpkins as a current influence as well as Helmet, Tool, Soundgarden and the Australian act You Am I. The award for Best Solo in Tomorrow surprised him.

"I don't really rate that as a solo," he said. "It's more of a part, really. When we play the song live now, I usually only play the first part of the solo, and then I start riffing out using 'octave chords' on the A and D strings for the rest of it. I do this because we're a three-piece, and it doesn't sound as full if I stop riffing for too long.

"Basically, we don't really think that solos are worth doing for our music. We want to keep the groove going. I'd much rather play a different riff and keep the song heavy instead of going 'widdly-widdly' and having the bottom fall out. We've written seven new songs while we've been on the road, and none of them have guitar solos."

The March issue of Guitar World also featured an extensive interview with Johns complete with new photos by Neal Preston and comprehensive guitar tablature and chord diagrams.

At the end of the month, Johns appeared on an Australian radio program and revealed details about some of the songs on the band's second album, which at that point was nearly a year away from its release.