Jet Singer Nic Cester Auditioned for AC/DC Before Axl Rose Got the Job
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The post Jet Singer Nic Cester Auditioned for AC/DC Before Axl Rose Got the Job appeared first on Consequence.
Jet frontman Nic Cester revealed in a recent interview that he auditioned to be the singer of AC/DC in 2016. The job eventually went to Axl Rose, but Cester has quite a story to tell his grandkids one day.
Twenty years ago, Jet were the hottest rock export out of Australia, with hits like “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” and “Cold Hard Bitch” featuring a sound that melded the power of fellow Aussies AC/DC with the garage-rock stylings of The White Stripes.
As Cester told Australian radio station Triple J, he got the call to audition for the vacant AC/DC singer slot when Brian Johnson had to step away from the band due to hearing issues.
“I was staying with my in-laws and I got up in the morning and read the paper and it said that Brian Johnson was not in the band anymore,” began Cester. “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 in going to Atlanta, Georgia to audition and potentially fill in for this next round of dates that we’ve got?'”
He continued, “I was like, ‘I think I’ll say yes just for the life experience.’ I wasn’t really expecting to get the gig to be honest but I thought, ‘How could I turn this opportunity down?’”
Cester, who had performed “Back in Black” with Muse at a few shows in 2010, added, “I called [Muse frontman] Matt Bellamy and said, ‘Hey, thanks for that!’”
As for the audition, Cester divulged, “They were in the Black Crowes’ rehearsal studio and it was a tiny place but they were set up there with the enormous backline and I remember watching AC/DC and thinking, ‘There’s no way all of those amps are on.’ Let me tell you, they were all fucking on! It was the loudest thing I’d ever heard in my entire life.”
He went on, “Angus [Young] put me through my paces. Everything was a test to see how I’d handle it – the volume and him going, ‘OK, let’s do this song’, and I didn’t know [some of them] off the top of my head so he’d just go, ‘Go over there and learn it’ and the whole band would be waiting there for ten minutes and I’m just going, ‘Oh fuck’. It was pretty intense, but I realize now Angus was a super professional guy and he wanted to push me to my absolute limit to see how I would react.”
Cester said he did a good job with the Bon Scott songs, but had a little trouble with the Brian Johnson tunes, remarking, “It’s a very unusual way of singing, and someone told me, ‘You’re making the mistake of thinking [Johnson is] pushing out an enormous amount of volume, which is how I sing. But he’s not, he’s whispering directly into a microphone with this enormous volume behind him so it sounds like the loudest thing in the world but it’s not at all, he’s barely pushing out.”
Jet, who went on hiatus a couple times over the past decade or so, recently revealed that they are working on their first album since 2009, announcing on socials, “We’re so excited to tell you that after 15 years, we’ve started work on a new album due for release in 2025!”
The band is also continuing to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their smash debut album, Get Born, with a spring Australian tour and a handful of US shows in October (tickets available here).
AC/DC, meanwhile, have since welcomed Brian Johnson back to the band, and will embark on their first tour in eight years later this month.
Watch Nic Cester discussing his audition for AC/DC and see a list of the band’s 2024 tour dates below.
Jet 2024 Tour Dates:
05/10 – Torquay, AU @ Torquay Hotel
05/11 – Hobart, AU @ Uni Bar
05/17 – Fremantle @ Metropolis
05/18 – Darwin, AU @ Bass in the Grass
05/12 – Brunswick Heads, AU @ Hotel Brunswick
05/25 – Sunshine Coast, AU @ The Station
05/31 – Central Coast, AU @ Sunken Monkey Hotel
06/06 – Kiama, AU @ The Pavilion
06/07 – Canberra, AU @ UC Refectory
06/08 – Newcastle, AU @ Bar on the Hill
10/14 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
10/17 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East
10/20 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
10/21 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
Jet Singer Nic Cester Auditioned for AC/DC Before Axl Rose Got the Job
Spencer Kaufman
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