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ON THE COUCH WITH: Jet

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: I believe you guys are in the States at the moment?
Mark: We’re in Minneapolis, we’re in St. Paul actually.

Access All Areas.net.au: How’s touring with Papa Roach?
Mark: We’re doing shows with that band and we’re doing our own shows as well.

Access All Areas.net.au: Cool. Can you take us back to the first time you picked up the bass guitar?
Mark: A long time ago – I guess it was when I was thirteen. It’s one of those classic uh – three of my friends from high school where I grew up. You know it’s well, I’ll play bass and you play guitar you know and that’s how it started. I’ve always been a bass player.

Access All Areas.net.au: It’s been three albums and massive success. How does it feel at this point in your career?
Mark: You know what – I was thinking just today when I was in my bunk, just watching a DVD before soundcheck. I was talking about keyboard with Louis the other day, about when he went around Australia playing with Tim Rogers, the piano duo: “How did you hook that up? How did you come around to doing that? How did you find your whatever.” At that time I kinda still think about things like I did when I was young like how do these bands meet? When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t think back and go oh wow 4 and half million albums or think about it like that, you still kind of think of things in a way that you always have I guess. I don’t think you change that much. Maybe for some people.

Access All Areas.net.au: Yeah so it’s just about writing and performing music…
Mark: Yeah. I think so, I think inside me I got an inherent maybe sort of desire to stay the same I guess. I don’t know, it’s kind of weird to talk about it.

Access All Areas.net.au: How would you describe the chemistry between you guys as a band right now?
Mark: I think in times like this at the moment, it’s not easy for bands. Even like how it was for us when we first came out you know, the first album in 2003. Life was a lot different then for a band. There was no YouTube, there was no MySpace, there was no Facebook, no Twitter. Majority of people were still going to shops to buy records. They weren’t really buying from iTunes or downloading it. So I find that at the moment, we kind of band together a little bit because it is tougher these days you know, that’s on a personal level. You become a little band. You’re always like that when you’re in a band. Musically, live is a – we’ve been on tour for 6 months now. We’ve been around the world. I guess the dynamic now as a live band, you get better and better. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend in the studio, there’s nothing that makes you good at playing other than playing live you know and our shows are still getting better. That’s what keeps it exciting I guess on the road ‘cause you do do pretty much the same thing every night but we change it up every night. We’ve been improving you know and it helps to keep it exciting.

Access All Areas.net.au: Some bands have talked about – and you’ve talked about Facebook and stuff. Some bands have said promotional and marketing duties are a full-time job. Do you guys still feel the same about that as well?
Mark: You know what, we’re probably pretty bad at it (laugh). There are so many bands that do it religiously and we kinda get people telling us you should update. Chris does his Twitter thing…his phone is always online. He’s always doing that but even that, I don’t know, we’re not naturally kinda into doing the whole Twitter/Facebook…Even myself, I leave a voice message to people. It’s not an arrogant thing but I kinda feel awkward talking to that many people you know, you’re not even seeing my face…I don’t know, you kinda hide behind the band on stage in a way, you know what I mean? When you’re sort of talking to me, you know I’ll talk to you when I want, it’s easy. Even doing TV and radio it’s easy, you’re really just talking to one person but when you’re just leaving a message for a bunch of people, it makes you feel awkward. Cam, every now and then kind of does his video blog but he kind of feels self conscious about it. It’s not natural you know. I don’t think we’re the kind of people that if we’re all at a party and you didn’t know anybody, I don’ think we’d be that sort of extroverted people you know, making all the noise and trying to draw all the attention, so…doing this kind of mass communication thing can be a bit unnerving. But we try and do it because people dig it and your fans appreciate it.

Access All Areas.net.au: One of the things that often happens in a band’s career is the moment they do something unexpected. With Shine On, people didn’t warm to the sound as easily as Get Born. Did you think that it was a fair treatment from critics?
Mark: The weird thing was, we’ve got some better reviews on that record. You know what, you’re pretty lucky if you get one record that goes nuts. Maybe it didn’t connect I don’t know, maybe it didn’t connect with people, I don’t know what it is. There’s no point using that as a basis for why you do things and how you judge something. We just kinda do what what we felt like doing you know. You just kinda do it and people either like it or they don’t. To be honest, there’s not much that we can do about it. We’re not making records for critics. We kind of make records for ourselves I guess. Even trying to make records for fans even, what would they want? At the time, I guess it was a big learning curve ‘cause the first one went so well. I think we’re kind of expecting things to go better than they did but you know what – it didn’t go badly, terribly. Compared to us, it didn’t go as well. Compared to other bands, people would be over the moon to do that well. You have to be competitive with yourself, in that sense, you can see it…

Access All Areas.net.au: When it comes to feedback about your music, whose opinion do you trust most?
Mark: I’ve got a circle of friends who are all musicians, whom I know wouldn’t – you know, especially one of my best mates – we’ve known each other for years so they wouldn’t just…well I like people who wouldn’t dress something up to make you feel good…the people you trust to tell you the truth.

Access All Areas.net.au: You guys live apart in different countries. How does that help the chemistry between all of you as a band?
Mark: We just kind of go on holiday in different countries but everyone’s got a house all over the place. We spend so much time together that you know, during our breaks it’s not like we go and hang out, you wouldn’t hang out anyway – I go off and you go off with your girlfriend or wife you know, you wouldn’t just normally hang out together. By the end of the day, when the tour finishes, we just kind of go separate ways and we see each other in a couple of weeks you know. It’s not a big deal. When you travel as much as we do, flying to UK is not a big deal, I’ve done it four times in the last four months. Travelling is like flying to Sydney for us.

Access All Areas.net.au: Cool. Do you believe that you guys have gained confidence in songwriting?
Mark: I think so. We’ve always been pretty confident. I think you gotta be. I think we’ve become a band that you can you know, get away from influences. On our first record, you can hear the influences and everything ‘cause we were just excited about making music. We were young, not that we’re old now, just excited and spat this thing out and people latch onto and excite people. Now we’re confident enough to try new things.

Access All Areas.net.au: What does success mean to you now?
Mark: Yeah it’s funny…that’s an interesting question. I don’t know, I guess it’s just being happy with…I know it sounds cliché but I guess being happy is getting good news all the time. In the band world, I guess success is being happy with what you see, you know what you work for is something that you’re proud of and happy of, I think we are. It’s hard to define what you consider it to be. If it’s financial, you’d be feeling like empty. If it was…I don’t know, I don’t know the answer.

Access All Areas.net.au: Yeah it probably just depends on how you guys go…
Mark: Yeap

Access All Areas.net.au: You guys will be touring Australia again. What can fans expect from your shows this time?
Mark: I don’t know, we don’t really choreograph our shows. A lot of bands will get in there and go you guys do this, and you guys do that. We just kind of do it and it’s good now because we’ve got so many songs to choose from that every show could be different. I think that’s cool. We’re trying to make every show different.

Access All Areas.net.au: We hope to see you guys soon then. Thanks so much for having us today.
Mark: No worries, Thank you.
Access All Areas.net.au: Take care

Interview by Sandy Tan

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Jet’s third album ‘Shaka Rock’ has spent three weeks in the Top 15 of the Australian charts since its release.

With a #5 debut in Australia for ‘Shaka Rock’, the first single ‘She’s A Genius’ is currently the #2 most played song at Australian radio. You can check out Jet’s Letterman performance of ‘She’s A Genius’ here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=otv4xVT8iSs – they nailed it!

The second single 'Black Hearts (On Fire)' will go to radio September 28 and the digital multi-track will be released October 30.

After four million albums sold worldwide, a #1 and 9x platinum selling album in Australia with ‘Get Born’, four Top Ten Modern Rock and Rock hits in the US (including the #1 “Cold Hard Bitch”), Jet have returned to form with an album that parallels their smash, ‘Get Born’, which produced hits like “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” and “Cold Hard Bitch.”

www.jettheband.com

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

Children Collide
I was very young - very very young – and I tried something for the first time and it was at Big Day Out and Sound Garden were playing and it was meant to be the last Big Day Out ever and I was lying down on the grass watching Sound Garden and feeling [ahh] pretty good. laughs

Ideal Lineup?
Wow this could take me days to go through – The Birthday Party, Scientists, The Drones, The Stabs who are a Melbourne band, Hungary Ghosts… I could go on for ever!

Fave artist you've seen at a Music Festival?
Oh, when I was really really young, too young to be at a festival I got snuck in to Summersault Festival and saw Sonic You play… that was amazing!

Tips for attending a Music Festival?
Stay out of the sun definitely! I’m a very very white man and at Big Day Out I got burnt just walking from our band tent to the stage… 30 seconds in the sun – so definitely slip slop slap!