Jet are currently undertaking one of their biggest US tours to date and Nic Cester was sounding a little battle weary.
“The tour is going well,” Nic thought. “It’s been long and I think this is the longest run we’ve ever done in one country so it has been pretty challenging. Fortunately, we really love what we do.”
Having toured the globe many times over I wonder what the differences between Jet fans are and how similar we all maybe. “There’s certainly subtle differences,” Nic agreed between countries. “In America they seem to get more involved and want to be part of the show whereas in England it tends to be more like a sing-a-long like they do at the football.”
Another Australian tour is just around the corner and it sounds like the boys are looking forward to returning home. “Absolutely, we can’t wait to get home,” Nic said. “We don’t get the chance to play in Australia as much as what we’d like to because of commitments in the States and the UK. We’ve been looking forward to it for a while.”
Adelaide must be one of the highlights for Jet on this tour? “We have fond memories from the last time we played in Adelaide,” Nic pointed out. “I think playing with Eskimo Joe and Little Birdy will be really good.”
Adelaide? “Um hmm,” Nic yawned. “The last show we played there was the biggest crowd we played in front of at that time in Australia. It was a great playing with the likes of Spiderbait, Dallas Crane and The Pictures.”
Attention turned back to The Carnival Come To Town. “We’re really happy to be playing shows like this,” Nic said. “It’s someone else’s job to pull it all together and get us all there.”
Having three top shelf bands on the bill must stir up some rivalry but Nic didn’t agree. “I wouldn’t say rivalry,” Nic disagreed. “Absolutely zero rivalry, just respect.”
Shine On verses Get Born? “For the most part this year the set list has been pretty well balanced between the two albums,” Nic suggested. It also depends on what we happen to be enjoying playing at the time. So, I’d say it would be a bit of both.”
For those who have witnessed the Jet live show it is intense and full of energy making one wonder how they bounce back night after night. “I’m completely and utterly exhausted at the moment,” Nic stated. “It is tough but we’re pretty passionate about what we do. Playing is never a chore but sitting around waiting and the gaps between the shows is tiresome.”
Shine On is a top follow up to Get Born but criticism doesn’t seem to phase the band one iota. “It doesn’t worry us to be honest,” Nic believed. “It is inevitable that whatever we do there will be good and bad press and I stopped paying attention along time ago. The general rule is that I only concern myself with the people I respect.”
Nic did mention that the process of making Shine On was different this time round. “It was completely different,” Nic replied. “For starters, when we wrote songs for the first album we didn’t really expect anything to happen. We wrote songs because we wanted to and never really thought we’d get an opportunity to put an album together. All those songs were written over a period of six years so come time to write songs for a second album with a limited amount of time and huge amount of expectation and pressure largely placed on us by ourselves everything had to be different.”
With huge expectations I asked Nic whether there were any moments where the band got stuck for ideas or whether there were times where things weren’t going to plan.
“There were moments of lacking direction,” Nic recalled. “I think we suffocated ourselves because we had enormous expectations of what we wanted to achieve and that was the pressure we put on ourselves. Eventually, we got past that.”
Jet has had some massive experiences and I asked whether that contributed to shaping the songs on Shine On. “I think it’s augmented by a lot of broad and varied experiences as well as the things we’ve been through over the last three years,” Nic highlighted. “In the last three years we’ve experienced some pretty amazing things whether that has been incredibly positive or extremely negative. We crammed about eight years of living in to three years so I think we had a lot to say this time. I think we’ve grown up really quickly in a short amount of time and I think that will come out in the songs.”
The Carnival Comes to Town on Saturday June 9 from 5:30-11pm at the Adelaide Entertianment Centre. Featuring Jet, Eskimo Joe, Little Birdy with local supports to be announced in the near future.
