Interview
Interview
Jet’s Nic Cester on the story behind ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’
Spider infestations, boozing with Oasis and the iconic iPod ad: how Jet’s garage-rock revival anthem exploded
In 2003 the garage-rock revival was at its zenith, and had all-but entirely reshaped what “rock music” meant. The Strokes and The White Stripes channelled their New York and Detroit forebears from the 60s and 70s, revolting against the nu-metal, post-grunge, and rap rock that dominated the airwaves and, in turn, informed a new generation of guitar bands on both sides of the Atlantic.
One band that benefitted from garage rock’s surge were watching closely from the other side of the world.
Australia’s Jet were champing at the bit to release their debut single, ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’. There was already an industry buzz before they recorded it, with a glut of major labels predicting Jet were going to be big. Released on 18th August 2003, a month ahead of their debut album Get Born, it was – with the likes of NME declaring Jet one of the “must-see” breakthrough successes of the year.
But little did they know that their retro-indebted hip-shaker of a song would go to help change how everyone even listened to music. When Apple needed a song to launch their now-iconic iPod global marketing campaign – in which silhouetted figures dance against bold and brightly coloured backdrops in contrast to the white iPod and its dangling headphone wires – they plumped for ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, which safely turned the booze-swilling young bucks from Down Under’s world upside down.
“There was very much a ‘before and after’ that song when I talk about my life,” says Jet’s singer and frontman Nic Cester beneath the sweaty sun from his Milan home. “There was a lot of expectation around Jet before the album came out. All the nonsense being hyped by publications like NME as the ‘best new band’ and all that shit. There was a real frenzy around Jet.”
“We went up to Sydney and had representatives for all major labels fighting to sign us. We scored the biggest record deal in Australian history at the time, it was massive. So the expectation was huge. The album came out, things went really well. It was all poised to explode. The cherry on the cake was when Apple launched the iPod and used the song. It was what pushed everything over the edge. From that moment, sincerely, life was never the same again.”
‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ was seemingly ubiquitous from then onwards. Whether you were in a dingy dive bar, indie music club night, shopping for new Chelsea Boots, or watching television in your underpants – it was also used on a Vodafone advert – you’d hear Cester’s gravelly wail. He knew “pretty much straight away” that the band had captured lightning in the bottle with the song.
“I remember performing the song at very early Jet shows, without even writing lyrics. I learned quickly that if you mumble with enough conviction, people will just assume the words as the PA’s were so shit, right. But ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ is just a fun song. It’s a simple rock ‘n’ roll song. It affects you straight away. It’s so contagious.”
The furore wasn’t lost on Jet, who were swept along on a conveyor belt of television guest spots, awards ceremonies, and festival appearances – the sheer size of the crowd at the Isle Of Wight Festival in 2004 nearly undid them early doors. “It was the biggest show we’d done at the time. I remember walking on stage and the band had started, but I could not for the life of me remember the lyrics to the first song,” Nic cringed over Zoom. “Everyone was looking at me like ‘dude, what are you doing?’ whilst I stared blankly at the crowd. I looked down at the setlist, and thank God, the first line of the song happens to be the name of the song.”
Thanks to Apple and the iPod, ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ got a second wind in the UK where it was released for a second time, peaking at number 16 in the charts. British audiences connected to Jet swiftly in the first place, likely because of the band’s drawing from the country’s musical heritage.
“The whole premise of Jet was to write straight-up rock ‘n’ roll,” Nic affirms. “We grew up listening to our parent’s rock ‘n’ roll records. So what was interesting to us was rock ‘n’ roll that had swagger and was sexy, and you could dance to. We concentrated on that aspect of rock ‘n’ roll, which also has a lot of soul to it. So those rhythms you hear on [The Supremes’] ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ and [The Jam’s] ‘A Town Called Malice’, even The Strokes‘ ‘Last Nite’ had come out and had that vibe as well. I loved The Who’s ‘My Generation’, that call-and-response. You sing a line, the band plays, you sing a line, the band plays. That push and pull. Those songs were the platform.”
Whilst the size of the audiences swelled, some critics weren’t as keen on Jet’s heavily retro-inspired sound. Particularly some that felt they’d straight-up ripped off Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust For Life’ for the song’s sauntering riff. Iggy joined up with Jet to record a frantic cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s ‘The Wild One’ several years later which alleviated any anxieties they had about Pop thinking they’d done him the dirty. Iggy knew the genesis of both riffs was Motown and soul. But at the time Jet couldn’t shake the accusation, and still haven’t.
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, I don’t care if I’m honest,” Nic replies, clearly still irked by the suggested plagiarism. “It’s just lazy journalism. Just drawing an obvious comparison that’s right in front of their eyes. If they dug a little deeper, there’s plenty of songs that share that DNA. ‘Lust For Life’ is one of them, ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ is one of them. There’s a bunch. That’s where we were aiming. We were young, you know. Our knowledge of music was fairly primitive. We were listening to ‘obvious stuff’. I mean, obvious now, but it was all new to us.”
Before having a hit single, Cester was like most other horny teenage rock ‘n’ roll wannabees, chasing girls around Melbourne’s nightlife scene. Unsuccessfully, he adds, which rubbed off on his songwriting… “The original lyrics were actually quite negative. I remember presenting it to the guys and they were like ‘f*cking hell mate’. Instead of ‘are you gonna be my girl’, it was something like ‘she’s just like every other girl’, lamenting my unsuccessful romancing around the bars and clubs of Melbourne.”
Nineteen years old and still living at his folks’ house, he was in need of a change if this band business was going to get off the ground. So he relocated to a bungalow in his parent’s backyard. “It was shit,” Cester concedes with a slight chuckle. “But I’d write songs in there. I had privacy, I could sing out loud. I’d start writing what would make up Get Born. At one point I kept waking up with all these red dots on my arms and legs. They kept coming, more and more. I thought ‘maybe it’s time I gave this room a clean?’ I pulled the bed away and gently lifted the bed sheet, revealing a nest of spiders. There were like fifty baby spiders and a mama spider. I ran out of that room and never went back. Luckily I got all the songs written before that.”
Fellow Aussies The Vines had become a considerable success overseas the year before the release of ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, scoring high-profile slots performing at the MTV Video Music Awards and Late Show With David Lettermanas well as selling 1.5 million copies of their debut album Highly Evolved. Capitol Records knew there was definite potential for Australian bands to snatch a share of the garage-rock revival glory, and won the scramble for Jet’s signature having already signed The Vines. The label sent Jet to Los Angeles to record their debut, Get Born. Even still, Nic sounds bewildered by the experience.
“LA is made for this stuff. You make a call and it’s there. Saying that, we had one idea for a keyboard part for the song and Sardy goes ‘what sort of vibe you thinking?’ and I said ‘something like Billy Preston’. He calls Billy-f*cking-Preston and the next day he’s there. It was full of moments like that. It was a blast. We were super young, super cocky, everything just fell into place. Best years of our lives.”
From drafting in an honorary Beatle in Billy Preston, Jet’s first bonafide tour was as the main support for The Rolling Stones. The “series of mind-blowing events” kept coming, like “hanging out with Keith on a rooftop in Barcelona where he was telling us about f*cking falling out of a coconut tree. Just insane stuff.”
The rock ‘n’ roll circus kept rumbling on thanks to the re-release of ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ in the UK, turning the heads of messrs Liam and Noel Gallagher who invited the mischievous Aussies to support them on Oasis’ Don’t Believe The Truth Tour. Traversing Europe, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, some parts of Asia, South America and Mexico, the Britpop behemoths, Jet, and fellow newcomers Kasabian did their utmost to tear it up with as little tantrums as possible – as documented in Oasis’ 2007 rockumentary Lord Don’t Slow Me Down.
“Jet is a party band, and in those days particularly we were pushing it,” Cester brags. But could they keep up with seasoned mess-heads in the Gallagher brothers? “I mean, we’re Australian so it’s not too difficult for us,” he adds. “It was all fresh, new and exciting for us, so we didn’t have an off-switch. We could go for days, and we did. Liam’s pretty solid,” he shrugs in agreement about their booze-fuelled endurance. “It would’ve been me and Tom [Meighan] usually…”
“That was a particularly fun tour,” Cester adds swiftly. “Zak [Starkey] was playing drums for Oasis then, Jay from Kula Shaker was on keys. It was a great group of people.”
Jet reunited last year in celebration to tour the 20th anniversary of debut album Get Born – including a run of dates in the UK and Ireland which concludes at the O2 Forum Kentish Town in London on 12th October – and have been basking in the response they still get from ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’. “I’ve never put that song on in my house, I never will! But I’ll never get sick of the reaction it gets. We’ve been playing the whole of Get Born from start to finish recently. So ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ is early in the set, and once we drop it, the whole crowd is with us. We can ride that energy for the rest of the show.”
Naturally, people want to hear the band’s biggest hit. But Cester was coy on whether or not the song’s explosion overshadowed the rest of their output. “When we play it definitely gets the biggest response. Live, I never find it an issue. It’s more during interviews…” Fair point, given it’s the literal reason for this very chat…
As Nic matter-of-factly states, there were years when he “f*cking hated” ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, but these days it couldn’t be more different. “I just think it’s a f*cking great song.” You can’t put it any more succinctly than that.
Jet start their UK and Ireland tour in October. Find Jet tickets here
