Everyone talks about rock these days, the problem is, they forget about the roll. How Keith Richards- who made this comment about post 90's rock music- must love Jet. They rock like there's no tomorrow yet they also roll like the greats of yesterday. As their debut album 'Get Born' proves, this Melbourne four piece, Nic Cester (guitar/vocals), Chris Cester (drums/vocals), Cameron Muncey (guitar/vocals), Mark Wilson (bass), stand for everything that is raw, primitive, direct and loose about rock music. Like all the best bands they trace their influences to the source. I think we were always interested in tracing the roots of this music, explains Chris. We wanted to look beyond the sixties and the seventies and find out where that music came from. That's why we do a cover of Elvis' 'That's Alright Mamma' at the shows. It's just a natural exploration for us.
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Jet are steeped in rock folklore. Like The Kinks, AC/DC and Oasis before them- all major influences- they feature two photogenic brothers (Nic and Chris Cester). Their name is on loan from Paul McCartney's frazzled post-Beatles peak from 1973, whilst their debut E.P. 'Dirty Sweet' (Rubber Records) took it's name from T-Rex, and in acoustic highlight 'Move On' had the song The Faces were too hungover to write. But then that's what happens if the first album you ever heard was 'Abbey Road.' My parents had some bad records, explains Chris. But that one always stood out as great. I'd sit there banging on these cushions with a pair of chopsticks playing 'Mean Mr. Mustard.' We formed an entire imaginary band, where we'd play guitars on tennis rackets and do gigs. We were called The Boys, I think?
Such fantasy infuses Jet. Just as Liam Gallagher remarked that BRMC deserved their early Oasis support slots because they 'dared to look like a rock'n'roll band' so Jet see rock music with a clarity only available to those who grew up five thousand miles away in Australia. Where US and British bands subconsciously obey the whims of a media for whom rock's central texts (Beatles, Stones) are somehow seen as passé, Jet bring with them a lucidity and freshness that comes from both youth and sheer Oz-centric bloody-mindedness. Jet don't know the rules, and even if they did, they'd break them.