Benjamin David Gillies was born on 24 October 1979 in Merewether, a suburb of Newcastle. He started as a quad drummer in the band The Marching Koalas, before forming a grunge group, Innocent Criminals, at the age of 12 with friends Daniel Johns and Chris Joannou. Playing originally at school and other venues in the Newcastle area, they came to attention after a weekend music workshop at the Tanilba Bay Progress Hall funded through the Arts Council of New South Wales in March 1994. By October 1994, under their new name Silverchair, their first EP Tomorrow had reached No. 1 on the ARIA Singles Chart. Silverchair went on to release five No. 1 albums, Frogstomp (1995), Freak Show (1997), Neon Ballroom (1999), Diorama (2002) and Young Modern (2007).

Gillies formed the band Tambalane in 2002 while Silverchair was in hiatus following Johns’ illness, releasing a self-titled album featuring the singles Little Miss Liar and Free before the band folded in 2005. He then returned to work with Silverchair.

In June 2010, Gillies married Jakica Ivancevic. In May 2011, Silverchair announced an “indefinite hibernation” and that they were not likely to work together “in the foreseeable future”. By June, Gillies was in the final stages of working on his solo album, he had been working on it for about 12 months and said that it was not a continuation of his earlier work with Tambalane.

In February 2018, Gillies was charged with mid-range drink driving.