Iggy Pop found countless ways to mutilate himself onstage. Nic Cester, frontman for Australian garage punks Jet, does him one better: He injures himself simply by singing. "When he's singing, his eyes pop out of his fucking head," says Chris Cester, Jet's drummer and Nic's younger brother. The worst mishap came when the frontman passed out at a show while screaming the group's single "Cold Hard Bitch." "He lost his footing and had a blackout," Chris says.

Reckless passion like this is on par with Jet's ferocious sound: old-fashioned, Stones-y garage punk, complete with tuneful songs about booze and easy women. As with their countrymen the Vines, this sound has hit big in the U.K. -- Jet's debut album, Get Born, went Top Twenty on the English charts, and they landed a gig opening for the Rolling Stones thanks to Keith Richards, who liked their record.

Jet have become notorious for their disses of non-rock artists, especially after Chris lit into Moby and 50 Cent during a debauched interview with an English music paper. "I could say to you right now, 'Moby can suck my cock,' " Chris says. "We were just saying we think techno is overrated." On the subject of hip-hop, he says, "I actually really like OutKast and Missy Elliott. But I think there's a difference between that and gangsta rap. It's like, 'Who cares how many fucking cars you have?' The reason you're an artist isn't to brag to people about how good you are."

Jet's rise to fame was a long time coming. Nic knew he wanted to be in a band when he was five, after falling in love with a Beatle Barkers record -- that would be doglike voices barking out Beatles classics. But it took the brothers until high school to form a group, and another five years of toiling in obscurity. "We would rehearse at the factory where we worked," says Chris. "I worked three days a week, and smoked pot and drank on the other four. But we took the band very seriously."

Jet don't plan on conquering America too quickly. "It's a different game if you're not an ass-kisser," Chris says. "We're not going to be like Sum 41, who get up on a stage and say, 'We want to thank KROQ! You've made us what we are!' That's not something we'd ever contemplate doing. It's just going to take a bit longer for people to get it."

CHRISTIAN HOARD
(October 22, 2003)