Oregon Music News

In 2003 Australian garage rockers JET broke out internationally with their hit album Get Born and the ubiquitous single “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.” Since then these four Aussies–Nic Cester (guitars, vocals), Chris Cester (drums, vocals), Cam Muncey (guitars, vocals), and Mark Wilson (bass, vocals)–have sold more than four million records, charted seven top 20 hits in the US, UK and their homeland, and have had music featured in countless shows and commercials.

JET returned with their third full-length album, Shaka Rock, in the second half of 2009. The album, recorded in multiple locations in the States and Australia, is JET’s first credited effort at co-producing, working side by side with Austin’s Chris “Frenchie” Smith. Singles “She’s a Genius” and “Black Hearts (On Fire)” have received wide radio play, and their somewhat disturbing video for “K.I.A” is spreading around the internet. Shaka Rock is a continuation of their finely honed, AC/DC-infused, classic rock bombast.

JET comes to Portland’s Roseland Theater on March 24th with piano-driven L.A. rockers the Crash Kings. On tour last week in Boston, Cam Muncey spoke about the band co-producing Shaka Rock, breaking with Atlantic after their second release Shine On, and how “being Australian, we generally work better when we’re more laid-back.”

This is your first time through Portland since the release of  Shaka Rock, and you got married last year… how has all that been with touring?

It’s been good. We started down in California, we did something at the Olympics… which is different. We’ve been up in the Northeast now for a while. Which is cool, you know? It’s good to be back on the road again. We’re touring with a band called the Crash Kings, it’s good times.

As far as the writing and recording of Shaka Rock, did any one person write most of it or did you all do it together?

It depends… some of it is written by mostly one person. And other times, it’s just playing. Sort of set up and play the song through, and let everyone play it how they feel like they want to play, and see if that leads anywhere. It’s sort of different for every song. If you look at the credits, as to who wrote the tunes, you’ll see that a lot of people had different contributions as songwriters. We try and keep it as low-key as possible. And if anyone has an idea, [we] play it out, out of respect for each other’s abilities.

You guys recorded and wrote in a lot of different locations for this album. How did that happen?

Because we live everywhere, all over the world, we have to take our opportunities when we find them. So when we all know we’re going to be in the same place, we’ll work there. We found ourselves in Miami after working with Iggy Pop. We worked there and felt that everything was going quite well, so we thought we’d move to New York and do some demoing there. After that Nic had the idea to work with our friend “Frenchie” Smith in Austin, so we ended up in Texas. [Laughs] We just sort of play it by ear, and it keeps it interesting. We love to travel, [and] love to see, live in different places. So we’ve seen a lot of the States… through that sort of thing. It keeps things fresh.

So, where do you live these days, when you’re not on tour anyways?

I live in the UK.

So you guys are really all over the map then.

Really, we are. It’s crazy… it takes a bit of planning sometimes to work it. We’re pretty good at it now, it’s been a few years doing it. The only thing is, you tend to spend a lot of time away, because [we're] not all based in the same spot. I can’t just call up Nic and say, “Hey I’ve got this idea for a song.” He’ll be one of two places. He’ll either be in Italy or Melbourne or something [laughs] so it takes a bit of planning.

I’m sure file-sharing on the internet has to help a lot, because you couldn’t have done this 10 years ago.

Well, I have sent files before. Songs and things. But I really think for us, it hasn’t come to much as of yet… it’s definitely something I’ll continue to try. But that sort of one-on-one… it’s all about communication, writing songs. It becomes a very different prospect when you’re not sitting in front of someone [and] can’t communicate your ideas properly.

What do you think you were trying to accomplish on this record versus Shine On or Get Born.

I think we wanted to, first and foremost, change the process and then see what happened. We always realized that, for the stuff we’re going to do and write, it’s always going to sound like us. But [we wanted] to go back, do it ourselves, and trust our own skills in the studio. We’ve spent a lot of time in the studio at this point, so we thought, “We don’t need the crutch of a quote-unquote big-name producer.” We felt like, “Let’s go in there and do it ourselves.” We obviously had our friend Chris “Frenchie” Smith, and not subtracting from what he did at all. He’s a great producer, and a great creative guy, and that really helps. But we wanted to take more of the responsibility, and change-up the process, and not be in L.A. We’ve done the last two records in L.A. A change of scene and a change of attitude. Texas provided that really well, it’s a laid-back sort of place.  And being Australian, we generally work better when we’re more laid-back [laughs]. It worked for us, and we’re really happy with [that]… It sort of opened a lot of doors for us, thinking about what we’ll do next time and in the future, because you learn even more when you do it by yourself.

This was the first time you guys produced your own material or even co-produced with a producer, right?

Yeah. We feel like we did on the last two records, [but] it wasn’t there on the sleeve, and we wanted to make sure this time that we started out the process and everybody knew that “This was the deal… this is how it’s gonna go down.” And the band was gonna have complete and ultimate control. We didn’t have to discuss something with someone when we wanted to do it, [like we did] before. The four of us in the band shouldn’t have to explain to anyone why we want to do anything. It’s our record, it’s going to have our name on it in the end. We felt like everything should revert back to us.

What happened with your label between Shine On and Shaka Rock?

We felt like [Atlantic] didn’t really get the band. We felt like ultimately we didn’t trust them, so “Let’s get out of this deal.” It took us a while to get out. We had to delay the release of the record, but we felt like it was worth it working with people who we could completely trust [to] see eye-to-eye with. As opposed to starting out with someone you’re not sure [of] and then it goes tits up. You can die a very slow death if your label isn’t on par.

Labels can basically hold you for five records and put out compilations until you die.

Exactly. “Soft release” is another word. We weren’t sure that that’s what they were going to do, we just didn’t quite trust them. They could do that…

Looking through your new material, two names came up: Real Horrorshow Records and the imprint Five Seven Music. Are those your labels where you’ll be releasing material in the future? Are you guys thinking about releasing records from any new bands through those?

Well that’s always an option. We’ve definitely got other projects that we would love to work on on that imprint. It being ours, I think that the other guys in the band, and me also… to have a vehicle to do that sort of thing in the future would be great.

Who’s inspiring you musically right now?

I got the Charlotte Gainsbourg record, I really like that. There’s a Melbourne band called the Drones I really like to listen to. Very intense, very heavy sort of music. Off the top of my head… [laughs] I don’t remember. I’ve been meaning to go down to the record store actually.

It must have been great to perform at the Olympics. Did you guys have a chance to actually spend some time in B.C.?

Really, we were sort of in and out. We didn’t really see much, so no unfortunately [laughs].

I got a chance to see the video from the Olympics for “Seventeen.” Is that going to be something you guys release as a single, or is that just new material you’re showing right now?

Yes it is, there will be a new single actually. That will be towards the next thing we release, I would think. I think it’s already out in Australia, and it’s doing quite well.

Do you know when the US release is going to be?

I couldn’t tell you actually… stay on the website, it should be closer there. When it is, we’re gonna release more videos first on the internet, sort of a viral thing. I’m not sure. But it’s moving in that direction.

What would you want to be doing right now if you weren’t on tour? What do you miss most being on the road all the time?

Well, home I guess. I’m looking forward to writing some music. Getting home and setting up my home studio again, and doing the other side of a band which is writing actual music. I’ve got a lot of ideas, and we just got on the road. I don’t really write on the road, so it will be good to get back to that.

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EMI Australia’s blog reported the release of Shaka Rock’s third single ”Seventeen” for Australian radio, but there’s little info about a US release. Below, you can watch a live version of “Seventeen” performed at the Olympics.  JET plays the Roseland Theater on March 24th at 8 PM and tickets are still available.  OMN will also be giving tickets, so check our Facebook page for details.