What is the best guitar riff of all time?
I find joy in simplicity. If you have the capacity to boil something down to essential ingredients, I think that is often more powerful and clever than something complicated. So my answer is potentially banal – but I think it’s the riff from James Bond. Everyone on the planet knows that. Not everyone knows Led Zeppelin, but everybody knows Bond.
Which book, film or album do you always return to, and why?
I was reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho on a flight. The flight attendant was really nice and said to me, “All my friends have said that I should read that.” It was the second time I had read it – the first time I read it was when life was spinning wildly out of control, during the Jet years. There was something very calming about it when there was a lot of confusion in my life. It helped me feel a little anchored while I was living in this very surreal world of superficial bullshit and yes men. It reminded me to just focus on the things that really matter and look for the simple truths in life.
I was on the last page, so I told the flight attendant, “Well, this book has a funny way of seemingly arriving in my lap at the right moments.” I finished it and gave it to her. She was really pleased. And then a few months later, it arrived in my letterbox – she’d somehow found me and sent it back. That doesn’t really answer your question, but it’s a nice story.
All the members of Jet were so young when Get Born came out in 2003. Have you been looking back?
I am and, actually, I’m seeing it a lot clearer than I ever have. Well and truly, the dust has settled. And yeah, holy shit, we were young. The songs were obviously written before we got famous, so the songs on that album were the first songs that I ever wrote. I picked up a guitar in my bungalow in the back yard of my parents’ house. The only seat in there was the toilet, so I sat on it and, from the ages of 17, 18, 19, wrote the majority of what ended up on that album.
Pitchfork’s 0.0 review of Shine On was just a video of a monkey peeing in its own mouth. It’s remarkable how vicious some critics were to you.
I’ve always been a pretty shy, introverted person, so weathering the storm was tough. Life experiences and my passion has forced me to be bit more robust but back then it was a lot to deal with. In some ways I’m completely moronic but in some ways I am quite savvy, and I’m glad that I had the awareness at the time to remove myself from the extremes of what was being written about us – the absolute adoration and the really nasty stuff. In the beginning, it was an absurd amount of celebration around what we were doing. And then it dipped and there were these nasty attacks, all sorts of awful things. It’s like a rollercoaster – everyone loves you, everyone hates you. You just try to stay normal throughout it.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
My dad was always a believer that, if you want to do anything well, you need to lead by example. If you want people’s respect or trust, you’ve got to show them why you deserve it. And my dad would say: “You can’t push spaghetti in a straight line. You’ve got to pull it from the front.”
Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean or out in space?
In space, for sure. Everyone knows that all the ugliest fish are down at the bottom. I don’t want to be amongst that lot.
What is the weirdest thing you have done for love?
I took one of my first girlfriends to see a musical. I was about 16 and I thought I was being very mature. She just laughed at me. We were far too young to appreciate it. It was a disaster. Neither of us had a good time.
What song do you want played at your funeral?
When You’re Smiling by Dean Martin. I am a huge Dean Martin fan, which may surprise people. I think of music in the same way I think of wine – there’s the right wine for every occasion, every meal, every dish, every part of the world where you’re in. I see music in a similar way – there is the right song for the right occasion, the right mood, the right time of year. When I’m cooking, I listen to crooners.
Dean Martin is someone my dad listened to so I took that on. I used to sing it to my daughter when she was smaller – a lot of people might say it’s cheesy but I take joy in simplicity. Charlie Chaplin wrote that song, which makes me love it even more.
If you had a sandwich named after you, what would be in it?
Fried salami on white bread. It can’t be anything healthy. I mean, you’re frying salami. You’re not interested in its health benefits.
Who would you like to play you in the biopic about your life?
My younger brother [Chris Cester]. He probably knows me better than anyone else, and he’s a more handsome version of me. It is the role he was born to play.
Jet are heading on an anniversary tour of Europe, the UK and US, then Australia, see here for dates. They are performing a one-off show with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Sidney Myer Music Bowl on 8 November
