Jet’s Mark Wilson
The Australian band's bassist on keeping warm at the Winter Olympics, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and constant touring ...

Wilson and friends.

A look at the band’s grueling tour schedule may confirm multi-platinum Australian quartet Jet’s status as the hardest-working band in rock music. Just look at the past few months—the United States, Australia, Japan and New Zealand in late 2009 and January 2010, followed by a short “break” during which Jet flew up to Whistler, British Columbia, for a frigid Feb. 24 performance before 5,000 fans at the Winter Olympics and did a taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in Los Angeles two days later. Oh, and another North American tour starts March 5 in Toronto. Six weeks, this time.

Whew.

But that’s what life is like when you’re one of Australia’s top musical exports. Formed in Melbourne in 2001, Jet consists of brothers Nic and Chris Cester (vocals/guitar and drums, respectively), guitarist Cameron Muncey and bassist Mark Wilson. The band scored huge with 2003 debut album Get Born, propelled by a handful of irresistibly infectious singles led by larynx-shredding, ass-shaking monster hit “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.” Counting 2006 follow-up Shine On and the band’s most recent album, 2009’s Shaka Rock, Jet has racked up stratospheric sales of more than 4 million of those little silver discs.

Given the band’s somewhat insane work ethic, Fender News was delighted to get a March 1 phone call in which longtime Precision Bass® guitar devotee Wilson updated us on the latest from the Jet stream …

FN: Could Jet be any busier?
MW: We’re always really busy. I guess when you’re from Australia—it’s funny, you just don’t run home for a couple of weeks. So you tend to keep busy. You get home when you can, you know, but it’s 24 hours of hell to get there. Most bands will just go home quickly—even bands from Europe—but we tend to stay out on the road for a bit longer, and then have a break at the end.


FN: You guys tour hard.
MW: Yeah, that’s what we do. I think this one goes through mid-April, and then we break for a bit, and then I guess we go to Europe for some summer festivals; then Japan and back in Australia. I reckon we’ll be touring all this year.


FN: How was the Winter Olympics gig?
MW: It was awesome. Yeah, it was cool—it’s always cool to do weird shows; things that aren’t what you’re normally used to. And it was definitely weird to do a show where it was below freezing.

Jet (from left): Muncey, Chris Cester, Nic Cester and Wilson. Photos by Beatrice Neumann

FN: How did you and your gear hold up for such a sub-arctic show?
MW: Oh, it was hard. I had to go buy some gloves and cut the fingers off, because at the sound check my hands were so cold, and the bass was so cold as well. That was the hardest bit—not only are your hands cold, but my bass strings and the neck on the bass was so cold that it was making my hands even colder. My hands were freezing up. Nothing went out of tune or anything—I think it’s more when the temperature’s changing that it goes out of tune or whatever, but everything stayed in tune.

And it was raining as well. It was raining on my pedalboard, and I was scared to touch it and get electrocuted. But I came out alive, so that’s good.


FN: And then it was straight to L.A. for the Kimmel show, right? How’d that go?
MW: It was cool. That’s a good show, because they give you a real stage to play on; it’s not like a “TV stage.” A real stage with monitors, and you play three songs as well. And at the Jimmy Kimmel show, there’s an audience there, so it just feels like you’re doing a weird gig.


FN: What songs did you play for that taping?
MW: We did “Black Hearts (On Fire)”; we did “Cold Hard Bitch” because Jimmy asked for it—which we probably wouldn’t normally have done because it’s such an old tune—and then we did “Seventeen” off the new album as well.


FN: Where do you find time to write new material? Do you write while on the road?
MW: Um, we always say we’re going to do it next time, but it’s really hard to do. You’re so busy when you’re on the road, you know—it’s not just doing sound checks and doing gigs; there’s loads of interviews and radio station visits. You can’t just spend all day on the stage sound checking, because there are other bands and curfews and noise restrictions, and the crew needs to have a break. We do write, but not as much as we want to.


FN: You’ve been a devoted Precision Bass guy pretty much from the start. What’s the appeal?
MW: I just like the sound of the P-bass. I’m thinking of getting a Jazz Bass® for fun, but I’ve got about seven P-basses now.


FN: And your amp rig is treating you well?
MW: I like it—it’s two 15s and six 10s. It’s great because you can modify it for different rooms, so that if you’re doing a smaller room or a club show, you can just take half of it. Or if the stage is a little smaller, we’ll use just the six (6x10), and that’s cool. And the other guys in the band use combos now, too. Everyone used to use two big stacks—I’d have two bass amps just to make it look good, but now it’s much better like this.

When we were in Japan, we only had certain gear there. We didn’t have the 15s, so we made this thing called “Everest,” which was the 8x10 with the 6x10 on top—that was pretty mega. There were a lot of speakers. It sounded good, and it looked funny, too, because the little one was on top, and we called it Everest (laughs).



See Jet perform on ABC TV’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday, March 3. Check local listings for air times.