Australia's SILVERCHAIR have confirmed rumours that they are currently making music together in regional New South Wales. The band has also announced that they plan to record a new album and do at least a few gigs during 2006.

The trio has sold more than six million albums during the last ten years. Their most recent CD — 2002's "Diorama" — was their most acclaimed and their highest seller in Australia to date.

Following their sold-out "Across The Night Tour" in 2003, SILVERCHAIR took an extended break and worked on other projects before coming together again early this year for the Waveaid tsunami benefit concert in Sydney.

"Waveaid was an amazing experience and it was really the catalyst that made us all want to start making music together again," says SILVERCHAIR frontman Daniel Johns. "We're totally enjoying playing together at the moment. We're looking forward to eventually doing some gigs to try out the new songs and to then hopefully making a new album."

The group is currently working up lots of new material which has been written over the last two years. They plan to take a short break over Christmas and then do more rehearsals through early 2006. Following this they will "road-test" some of the new music by doing a few Australian shows. The first of these to be announced is a special appearance in Adelaide on Friday, March 24 during the Clipsal 500 event. More information about another show or two will be released over coming months.

Providing all goes well with these very select dates the band will then start recording their new album around next May. It will probably be released in late 2006 or early 2007 and more extensive touring is penciled thereafter.

Since 2003, SILVERCHAIR have denied several inaccurate media reports which claimed that the band had split up.