Jet reunite for Jimmy Barnes tour and set course for new album to keep the band together
Jet frontman Nic Cester has revealed the Aussie band have to have a crack at making new music if their reunion is going to last.
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It’s “crunch time” for Jet.
The rockers at the vanguard of the Australian rock invasion of the early 2000s alongside The Vines and then Wolfmother unexpectedly reunited two years ago to open for Bruce Springsteen on his tour here.
They kept the band together for the 15th anniversary of their global chart-slaying debut record Get Born last year and then rolled into 2019 with shows at big sporting events including the Australian Open.
The four far-flung members — Nic Cester, Chris Cester, Mark Wilson and Cameron Muncey — are about to reconvene again for shows on Jimmy Barnes’ Shutting Down Your Town tour.
And this time, frontman Cester says they must find a way of making new music to avoid “milking the reunion”.
“It’s crunch time. Getting back together has been great but we either seriously write some new stuff and start again or we stop,” Cester says.
“One of the reasons of doing this tour with Jimmy is that it gives us the opportunity to be together in Australia again for a big chunk of time to explore writing new material and everyone is committed to trying to do that.”
That in itself is an achievement for a band renowned for their blow-ups, like the majority of rock acts with sibling members.
You can sense there has been some eggshell treading and tightrope walking on occasions over the past couple of years as they valiantly tried not to repeat destructive patterns of the past.
Cester admits they let the good times roll a little bit too much when they regrouped earlier this year.
“We’ve never been a band that needed an excuse,” he says, with a wry chuckle.
“The culture of this band is every night is Saturday night. That’s cool when you are in your 20s but not in your 40s.
“The culture of the band need an update because you can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”
Cester is confident that can happen. He feels they have reconnected as friends during their sporadic touring reunions and distance has helped resolve residual issues. He lives in Italy with his wife Pia and their daughter while his brother Chris is based in Los Angeles, Wilson in Melbourne and Muncey in London.
And, more importantly, he feels it is worth it to try. Get Born sold more than four million copies worldwide and while 2006’s Shine On and 2009’s Shaka Rock didn’t match those numbers they still racked up platinum sales in Australia, confirming a solid and loyal fanbase for the rock quartet.
Cester’s debut solo record Sugar Rush, released in 2017, was given a good reception by critics and fans.
As a songwriter, he is intrigued as to “what would Jet sound like now” as a result of the individual members’ disparate musical explorations during the years of their separation.
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“For me, I know what is capable when all the emotions are aligned with these guys,” he says.
“We have written great songs in the past and there’s potential to do that again. To me, that’s a big thing.
“To be honest, it’s f … ing hard to be in a band and bring it to the level Jet had but the band has a platform where we can write songs and they can be played to a lot of people when there are so many bands out there now stepping over each other to be heard.”
As Jet re-enters the fray, the conversation around the mental health pressures of a life lived in the pursuit of musical dreams is open and ongoing.
Cester has been honest about how he dealt with the pressures of his band becoming a big business thanks to their stratospheric success and self-medicating his way through that minefield.
He dismisses the myth that alcohol or drugs enhance creativity as “utter bull …” but acknowledges those with musical gifts can struggle to find balance.
“Most of my friends are musicians and by now I have had a lot of conversations about how confidence and insecurity co-exist in a strange way,” he said.
“Once you put an enormous amount of pressure on someone who is built that way, the balance can tip very easily into a negative place, obviously with drugs and alcohol and it has been glamorised our whole lives,” he says.
“If you really want to continue and challenge yourselves to still be of value as a songwriter and an artist, I think you have to square up to yourself and be very honest and open and confront your own issues.
“It’s challenging and it can be frightening to be yourself in that vulnerable position but I’m looking forward to that.”
Jet join Jimmy Barnes on the Shutting Down Your Town tour at the WIN Entertainment Centre on October 3, Caloundra Music Festival on October 4, Hordern Pavilion, Sydney on October 5, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne on October 12, Adelaide Entertainment Centre on October 13, Riverstage, Brisbane on October 19, HOTA, Gold Coast on October 20 and Park Beach Reserve, Coffs Harbour on October 26.