Jet's Fresh Start Inspired By Zulu Warrior

You may ask yourself, what ever happened to Jet?

They were on fire back in 2003 when their hit single "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" was featured on one of the first iPod commercials. Their debut album Get Born sold 3.5 million copies worldwide and pounded out hit after hit.

The fame was fast and unexpected for the Melbourne, Australia band and they were propelled into stardom and a world of hard liquor and even harder drugs.

But then founding members and brothers vocalist Nic and drummer Chris Cester fell hard. Right when their careers were exploding, their whole world came crashing down with the death of their father.

What transpired was a severely misunderstood sophomore album Shine On, where the edgy, heavy rock riffs were replaced with heavy overtones of tragedy. While they continued to tour, eventually they needed a break.

Nic Cester moved to a small town in Italy to get away from drugs, while Chris Cester broke up with his fiancee of three years, actress Alexi Wasser, and moved to Morocco. Bassist Mark Wilson and guitarist Cameron Muncey stayed in Australia to figure themselves out.

"I guess after five years of doing this you can lose your footing a bit and you have to bring it all back to the reasons why you started," Nic Cester says.

The "spiritual housecleaning" gave them a profound sense of clarity. Inspired by the Tom Petty documentary Runnin' Down A Dream, Jet fired their entire team, including their record label and management. It was time for them to regain control of their careers as organically as possible.

They used the break as inspiration to return to the gritty rock roots that made them famous and they've now just finished recording their third studio album, Shaka Rock.

"Everything is fresh," Chris Cester said while sitting on the rooftop deck of the penthouse suite of Toronto's Soho Met hotel, a testament to Jet's reckless ability to redefine themselves.

"We produced the album ourselves with a friend of ours instead of going through the big machine of the Hollywood music business. Sometimes when you get a lot of success, everyone tries to control you and it, and then before you know it you're just surrounded by a bunch of assholes you don't really know that well.

"They all have an opinion. We wrote Get Born, we wrote all the fuckin' songs that were big on that record and the ones that were big on Shine On, and where the fuck do you guys get off trying to tell us what to do? So we just fired everybody," he says.

They've recruited keyboardist Louis Macklin of 67 Special to spice tracks up on Shaka Rock, an album that takes its name from the famous African warlord Shaka Zulu.

Shaka Zulu initially faced a world of great turbulence and ridicule. "Shaka" literally means bastard, a tremendous historical insult. Despite this, he defied odds and kept the name where he proceeded to become one of the Zulu people's most influential leaders.

"Throughout your life there's always people trying to put you down and tell you what you should and shouldn't be doing. That sort of a message we identified with. It's up to you to tell people otherwise," Nic Cester says.

"There's another African saying actually that it makes me think of. They say in Africa 'be kind to the small cub because he might become a vicious tiger.' I think that applies to [Zulu's] life directly," Chris Cester adds.

Perhaps that's just a badass version of the ugly duckling story, or maybe it is Jet's way of saying they're back with a vengeance. Their new single "She's A Genius" oozes intense guitar solos, catchy choruses and dirty rock 'n' roll in the vein of Get Born.

"We just took a long time. We really needed to go and sit out in the sun for a minute and find that natural fire and enthusiasm for this band again," Chris Cester says.

With the darkness behind them, Shaka Rock is Jet's chance to get reborn and press forward no matter what happens.

"We're just fuckin' happy to be here again," he says.