The 21-time ARIA winning rock group went on an "indefinite hiatus" in 2011 but previously hinted at a comeback.
Johns revealed he asked drummer Ben Gillies and bassist Chris Joannou to play on his FutureNever album but they declined.
"I asked them because I wanted to make it clear that I don't have an issue with them as people - I just didn't want to play under the banner of Silverchair," he said in a statement.
"I asked them to come again and then when they didn't want to, I didn't care. It was like, 'I asked you, it's cool, I'll play the drums with spatulas."
Johns made the revelation in the first episode of online documentary series 'Inside The Mind Of Daniel Johns'.
It coincides with the opening of a new interactive exhibition about his career at Melbourne's Rialto Tower.
The 'Past, Present & FutureNever' experience includes a recreation of his adolescent bedroom in Newcastle, memorabilia from the '90s grunge scene and a custom-made art installation involving a DeLorean car.
This is the first time the 43-year-old has been actively promoting FutureNever since crashing his car in the Hunter region while three times over the legal alcohol limit, just before the album was released.
Johns avoided jail time over the collision and a court heard the release triggered mental health issues he had been living with since his early twenties.
"For probably the first time in my life, I've sacrificed the art for both my physical and mental health. I had a nervous breakdown, I really f*cked up — I've been processing pain and guilt," he said.
"It's literally a lifetime of work that has gone into [the exhibition] and I'm prouder of it than anything I've ever done."
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