Rocktrospectiva: The Mightly Impressive "Frogstomp" Turns 30

Released on 27 March 1995, "Frogstomp" was the debut studio album by Australian rock band Silverchair. The album features the band's most commercially successful single, "Tomorrow", which was first released on the band's extended play of the same name six months earlier on 16 September 1994. Music videos were made for the album's four singles: "Tomorrow", "Pure Massacre", "Israel's Son", and "Shade".

The recording took only nine days, according to drummer Ben Gillies the album took "even less days to mix." Prior to recording Frogstomp, Silverchair were previously named Innocent Criminals and consisted of drummer Ben Gillies and vocalist and guitarist Daniel Johns, with bassist Chris Joannou joining shortly after the band formed in 1992. Second guitarist Tobin Finnane was also in the band, though he later left.

Demo versions of the songs "Acid Rain", "Cicada", "Pure Massacre", and "Tomorrow" were recorded by the band at Platinum Sound Studios in early 1994. "Tomorrow" and "Acid Rain" were re-recorded at Triple J Studios in Sydney, Australia for the release of Silverchair's four-track EP Tomorrow in September 1994, which also included the songs "Blind" and "Stoned". Three months after the release of the EP, the band began recording their debut album, Frogstomp, during which "Cicada", "Pure Massacre", and "Tomorrow" were re-recorded. The recording sessions for the album began in late December 1994 and ended in mid-January 1995 at Festival Studios in Pyrmont, New South Wales.

The band's sound and influence were mainly grunge music from Seattle, according to Daniel Johns the singer ang guitarist: Yeah, that's the thing that I do really like about that album – it sounds exactly like we sounded. There was no big American producer calling the shots behind the desk and telling us to do this, this and this. It was literally this guy, Kevin Shirley, who was a great producer, just saying, "I want it to sound like you guys, but I want it to sound really fucking loud and I want the guitars really fucking loud." So to me, I was like, fuck yeah! The songwriting might not be genius, but I think sonically, the performances are really good. It's really honest; it's just three Australian kids thrashing it out in the studio and that's exactly how it sounds.

The title comes after a Johns was taking a look at a guy's from their record company CD collection, so he ound this '60s pop collection record and he was just going (laughs), "Why do you have this?" he looked at the back and there was this song that some guy did called Frogstomp and I said, "That's a pretty good name." (laughs). 

Critics were fairly good, noticed the age of the band 15 at the time, their instrumental capabilities are quite impressive, as the guitars and vocals growl with the force of rockers in their early twenties. At the same time, their songwriting abilities aren't as strong, and they are never able to break away from the standard grunge formula. Nevertheless, the record does deliver a collection of songs replicating the thunder of "Tomorrow", the songs on Frogstomp almost all start out like dreary Metallica ballads and build toward gloomy, by-the-numbers grunge". In the end, the album proved to be a thrilling synthesis of rage, confusion and pain, and as a distillation of teen angst, you couldn't get a purer generational timestamp than Frogstomp.

 

Frogstomp Track List:

 

1. Israel's Son 

2. Tomorrow

3. Faultime

4. Pure Massacre

5. Shade

6. Leave Me Out

7. Suicidal Dream

8. Madman

9. Undecided

10. Cicada

11. Findaway