Christopher Andrew Joannou (born 10 November 1979) is an Australian musician best known as the bassist for the Newcastle-based
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
band
Silverchair
Silverchair were an Australian Rock music, rock band, which formed in 1992 as Innocent Criminals in Newcastle, New South Wales, with Ben Gillies on drums, Daniel Johns on vocals and guitars, and Chris Joannou on bass guitar. The group got thei ...
. He is a twin to sister Louise Kipa. He was the first of the three band members to cut his long hair short. Joannou was nicknamed 'Lumberjack' by Silverchair fans for his love of trees, and plaid shirts. His bandmate
Ben Gillies
Benjamin David Gillies (born 24 October 1979) is an Australian musician, best known as the drummer of Australian rock band Silverchair from 1992 until the band went on hiatus in 2011. In 2003, Gillies formed Tambalane with Wes Carr, initiall ...
taught him how to play bass guitar.
As well as being a well known
bassist
A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...
, Joannou was the assistant
producer for
The Mess Hall
The Mess Hall were a two-piece drums and guitar combo based in Sydney, Australia, specialising in "raw, edgy bluesy rock." The band consisted of Jed Kurzel (lead vocals/guitar) and Cec Condon (drums/backing vocals) for most of its tenure. The b ...
albums ''
Feeling Sideways'' and the
ARIA
In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...
award-winning ''
Notes From A Ceiling
''Notes from a Ceiling'' is the second album from the Australian two-piece rock band The Mess Hall, which was issued on 20 June 2005. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Hitseekers Albums Chart.
It won an ARIA Music Award for Engineer of the Y ...
''.
He has used mainly
G&L and
Fender Precision Bass
The Fender Precision Bass (often shortened to "P-Bass") is a model of electric bass guitar manufactured by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. In its standard, post-1957 configuration, the Precision Bass is a solid body, four-stringed instrum ...
es, and almost exclusively uses
Ampeg B-15 Portaflex combos. As reported to gearwire.com, Joannou uses an Ampeg SVT-2 into an Ampeg 810 cabinet and a new Ampeg B-15 combo in his live set-up.
In 2006, Joannou spoke at the launch of a mental health scholarship set up to honour his cousin, Nathan Trepezanov, who had committed suicide at the age of 21 in January of that year. Joannou is of Macedonian heritage.
Business ventures
Joannou is a co-founder and co-owner of the Lovells Lager beer company. He is also one of four businessmen who opened a bar and small entertainment venue on Parry Street in the West End of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, which opened in December 2013.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joannou, Chris
1979 births
Living people
People from Newcastle, New South Wales
Silverchair members
Australian twins
Australian people of Macedonian descent
Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia
Australian rock bass guitarists
Male bass guitarists
Alternative rock bass guitarists
21st-century bass guitarists
Australian male guitarists