Jet set to join ARIA Hall of Fame, twenty years after Are You Gonna Be My Girl

Twenty years after Jet released their debut album Get Born, featuring hits like Are You Gonna Be My Girl and Rollover DJ and which sold more than four million copies worldwide, the Melbourne rock ‘n’ roll band are set to be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

“With Get Born, we were able to capture lightning in a bottle and I don’t know how we did it,” says frontman Nic Cester, whose bandmates are brother Chris on drums, guitarist Cameron Muncey and bassist Mark Wilson. “To be here, 20 years later, feels like a moment of planetary alignment.

Cameron Muncey, Nic Cester and Mark Wilson of Jet.Credit: Martin Philbey

“It’s a real privilege to be considered part of the fabric of Australian music.”

Later this month, the band will embark on a national tour celebrating 20 years of Get Born. The rock revival record was certified nine times platinum in Australia and is one of the top five highest-selling Australian rock albums of all time. At the 2004 ARIA Awards, Jet won six awards, including Album of the Year and Best Group, while Are You Gonna Be My Girl topped the 2003 Triple J Hottest 100 (and was used in a memorable iPod commercial).

After releasing two more records, the Pitchfork-panned Shine On (2006) and Shaka Rock (2009), Jet disbanded in 2012, before reuniting five years later to open for Bruce Springsteen. Their 2023 dates are their first since 2019.

The band is now writing new material, ahead of their tour. “That was the thing that was most exciting to me about coming back here [to Australia] was the idea of offering something new to sit alongside those older songs,” says Cester, who has been living abroad for the last 15 years.

With their induction into the Hall of Fame at this year’s ARIAs in November, Jet become the first of their generation to join a list that also includes INXS, the Easybeats and AC/DC. In doing so, they have beaten out other iconic rockers from the 1990s and 2000s, including Silverchair and You Am I.

ARIA’s induction criteria stipulate artists must have started their careers and ideally achieved prominence at least 20 years before they are inducted.

Cester says: “I don’t see this as a race or a competition and no doubt those deserved will end up there in due course.”

ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd says she’s excited to see Jet lead the charge of younger inductees. “I want this to be the first of many. We have so many artists that are still young and still performing and very active in their careers, but they’ve already achieved so much.

“We don’t want to have to wait until acts are retired, or their audience has moved on.”

Jet are the first artists to be added to the Hall of Fame since 2020, when Archie Roach was inducted. In 2022, the Hall of Fame was replaced at the ARIA Awards by tributes to inductees who had died in the previous 12 months. The year before, a shortened, COVID-safe award ceremony went ahead without an audience or a Hall of Fame induction.

Speaking on a podcast in 2021, Daniel Johns of Silverchair said he wasn’t interested in joining the Hall of Fame “until I’m dead”.

Cester meanwhile is perfectly comfortable gaining this recognition at the age of 44. He jokes, “I always used to think that this is the kind of award that they give to old people. And I certainly don’t feel old, but I guess maybe the other three guys must be old then, you know?”

The ARIA Awards are on November 15 at Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, and will be broadcast on Nine and Stan.

Jet perform Get Born in full on September 22 at Forum Theatre, Melbourne; September 23 at Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide; September 29 at Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane; and September 30 at Enmore Theatre, Sydney.

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