Jet frontman Nic Cester shares untold stories with Triple M’s Matty O

Triple M’s Homegrown with Matty O has caught up with Jet, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the iconic Aussie band’s #1 album Get Born.

In a wide-ranging chat, Jet revealed some some amazing career highlights, including when frontman Nic Cester was asked to join AC/DC, being hand picked to support The Rolling Stones across Europe and partying with Jay-Z, Beyonce and Usher.

Of being asked to join AC/DC’s 2016 tour, Cester says “I auditioned for Axl Rose’s job (fill-in front man).”

“I spent two days as their singer, unofficially. I had been living overseas for a long time and I’d come back to visit my family and staying with my in-laws. I got up in the morning and read the paper, and it said the singer (Bryan Johnson) was not in the band anymore. I remember saying to my father-in-law, ‘Holy shit, you would not want to step into those shoes,’ and literally 20 minutes later my phone rang and they’re saying, ‘Would you be interested to going to Atlanta, Georgia to audition to potentially fill in for this next round of dates they’ve got?’”

“I was just like, ‘Oh my God … I think I’ll say yes for the life experience,’ but I wasn’t expecting to get the gig, to be honest.”

Matty O: “What was it like when you got there?”

Nic: “It was pretty weird, because they’d just stopped. The tour had stopped. It happened to be in Atlanta, Georgia – which was actually The Black Crows rehearsal space. It was a tiny space but they were set up with their enormous backline. I remember watching AC/DC thinking, there’s no way all those amps are on… let me tell you, they were all fucking on.”

“It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. He (Angus Young) put me through my paces, everything was a test to see how I would handle it… the volume. He was like, ‘okay, let’s do this song, let’s do this song’ … and I didn’t know every song so he would just go, ‘go over there and learn it.’ It was pretty scary.”

Get Born is one of the highest-selling Australian rock albums of all time – and catapulted Jet to international stardom with hits such as Are You Gonna Be My Girl? and Look What You’ve Done.