Daniel Johns says he wouldn't reform Silverchair for "$1 million with a gun to my head"

A decade after their break-up the Newcastle three-piece remain one of Australia's most popular acts, boasting 2.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify and their 21 ARIA Awards is a record for any one act.

However, Johns has no intention of reliving past glories.

"Silverchair had some very strange emotional veins to it," Johns says in episode one of the five-part Who Is Daniel Johns? podcast series, when discussing the absence of Silverchair memorabilia at his Merewether home.

"It's not that I'm not proud of it. But for some reason, Silverchair, I don't want it around. I think everyone has had enough.

"I wouldn't get Silverchair back together for $1 million with a gun to my head."

In an interview on The Project on Wednesday night Johns elaborated further, telling host Carrie Bickmore that "I was firm that Silverchair were not getting back together and one of the other members kept saying, 'No, we're just on a break and we'll be back'.

"And I was like, 'This is really starting to really affect my mental health because I'm saying that's it. And every time I tried to tell the truth, someone told a lie'."

Never once in episode one of Who Is Daniel Johns? or The Project interview were Silverchair's Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou named.

All three members still live in Newcastle. Joannou has become a successful businessman, owning The Edwards, Carrington's Criterion Hotel and Flotilla, while Gillies recently released his solo EP The Relative Relatives and earlier this week he and wife Jackie, of Real Housewives Of Melbourne, welcomed the birth of twins.

Gillies has publicly been the most open to a reunion, telling the Newcastle Herald in 2017 that: "To me where the band was left, it was like there was no bookend. Kind of like, I felt we were midway through chapter eight of a 12-chapter book and then we stopped writing.

"It was a hard one for me. When we went into indefinite hiatus, it was a fancy way of saying, 'we'll play some more music if we like it'."

Johns' refusal to entertain a Silverchair reunion - despite the obvious financial benefit - isn't difficult to understand given the emotional toll living in the public eye has had on the 42-year-old.

Episode one of Who Is Daniel Johns? details Silverchair's meteoric rise from three teenagers called The Innocent Criminals playing to four people in the Jewells Tavern bistro to a year later supporting The Red Hot Chili Peppers at Madison Square Garden.

The 1995 album Frogstomp and its singles Tomorrow and Pure Massacre made Silverchair global stars. The blonde-haired Johns soon became the focus obsessive fans.

"It was like being in a constant state of shock, I think that's why my memory is vague from around that time," Johns says.

"You know how you block trauma out, not that it was traumatic, but I think I blacked it out because it was so overwhelming."

Silverchair manager John Watson in the podcast tells of receiving a phone call from a fan threatening to shoot themselves if Johns wasn't put on to speak within 10 seconds.

"I still don't know if that person killed themself or if they just wanted to speak to Daniel," Watson says.

Another middle-aged female fan stole Johns' mother's wallet from a train in Europe and used her driver's license to get backstage at the Reading Festival in the UK.

Close friend and collaborator Paul Mac also tells of Johns being abused by people yelling out "Silverchair sucks" and "faggot" from passing cars while eating at a cafe.

Since Silverchair's final album Young Modern in 2007, Johns' musical output has been limited.

There's been brief collaborations with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and The Veronicas and a solo album, Talk, in 2015.

Johns' last release was 2018's No One Defeats Us - a electronic collaboration with Empire Of The Sun's Luke Steele, under the moniker DREAMS. After a handful of poorly received shows, DREAMS faded away.

Instead it's been Johns' private life that's attracted more attention. He's been photographed intoxicated in the street and in 2019 the Daily Telegraph published a story falsely accusing him of frequenting a Sydney brothel.

Last year Johns won a defamation case with the News Corp publication, forcing them to publicly apologise and pay almost $500,000 in a legal settlement.

The notoriously private Johns describes fame like a "sea urchin".

"Once you get a taste of something and you don't like it, you don't want to eat it again," he says.

So why open yourself to a podcast?

"Above all things, I just want to release art and I'd really love for people to hear it and the only way to get people to hear it is through vessels like this because I don't want to perform on stage," he says.

The Who Is Daniel Johns? podcast in available now on Spotify.