Jet Talks Rocklahoma, Australian Music Roots, and Touring With Bruce Springsteen

0:05 Hi, you're listening to Adventure on W4CY Radio. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventure's Pipe Man W4CY Radio and I'm. Here with Cam and Mark from Jet. Nice, here at Rock, Oklahoma. Yeah, first time in the state of Rock, Oklahoma. Okay, so I want You're from Australia, right? Yeah. So, what does it feel like being in Oklahoma? Man, it's like, I mean, we come to the States, and I know you like this too, getting into the heartland, the rock and roll heartland parts of the States is pretty fun, you know, like, we don't have any, like, this is, this landscape is, like, very particular to the States, you know, these flat, endless flat Right? We've got some endless flat in Australia too, but no one lives there.

1:02 No one lives there. No one would be crazy enough to live there. The place I always wanted to go to, like I want to go to multiple places in Australia because I surf, but... The digouts. I saw it on a TV show once. I forget what part of Australia it is where it's so hot that they do these digout houses underground. Oh, that's Coober Pedy. Pedy, yeah. Coober Pedy, yeah. And they were doing that as well because if you, like, you dig a new room, yeah? You're underground and you dig. You sort of have to dig a new room. Dig a room and then you'll find, like, a seam of opal. Yeah, opal. And then it pays for everything. Wow. Opal, yeah. So that's why they started mining there, and then they started living in the holes.

1:44 It's probably, you know, like 115 every day there, you know? Right? Yeah. So talk about, you know, we always talk about going underground here. There's no surf there, though. I don't think so. Unless you're surfing sand or something, right? Yeah, like an emu or something. Yeah. Exactly. Do you guys surf? No, I actually grew up. Near Torquay, which is sort of where a lot of the big surf brands, like Rip Curl and Quicksilver and Billabong, Bell's Beach is just around there. But I kind of grew up around it. More my mates surf, but I was always playing music. I sort of learned to surf at a later age, but I would. Surf a longboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm an old guy now, not ready to... Whippersnapper. Yeah, not ready to...

2:27 What do we call it? Grommet. Grommet, yeah. In Australia, a young surfer is called a grommet. Really? Yeah. See, a grommet here in the States is when you hang up those banners. Exactly. It's a little metal ring. Right, exactly. Yeah, a little. Grommet is like a 10-year-old who surfs. It's called a grommet. Wow, look at that. See, I like learning new stuff. Yeah, there you go. And so how do you look at the music scene for you guys in Australia compared to the States? Yeah, I mean, look, Australia's our home country, so there's always a certain amount of ownership that the people have over you there. We're part of the fabric. We're in our Australian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that we have.

3:13 Right. But the United States has always been super kind to us, and we have platinum records here, and we've always spent a lot of time in the States and really consider it one of the most important places for us to keep coming back to. I keep finding, too, at the festivals that there's more and more Aussie bands that are playing at these U.S. festivals. We definitely have a... There's a pedigree of rock and roll, and it's a certain type of rock and roll. I was just talking to someone about Amel and the Sniffers before. That's a classic Australian sound, that band. That sound is. He's from, that sound existed in the 70s. You know. King Gizzard, who like making it really big out here. They're from Geelong, actually. Well, some of the boys are from. Which is down that way. But yeah, they have their own festival in Colorado now. And they, you know, 20,000 people come.

4:06 To see them play. Nice. They're an Australian band. In Australia, they're nowhere near as big as they are in the States. I think you can just get a lot of access to a lot of people nowadays. Back when we started, it was the whole A & R, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's different now. It's more straight to the people. It's both harder and easier, too, right? It's both sides of it. You have the benefits of not dealing with the A & R reps, but then you have to deal with the Spotify's that give you nothing. The other thing with the United States is you've got cities that have got more. People than we have in the whole country, you know? Well, that. You know what I mean?

4:46 Like, this place is vast and populated, so it's like there's a lot more people to play to here, you know? Absolutely. So, trip out, where I live, I live on this barrier island in South Florida called Singer Island. Mm-hmm. The reef there is considered the second best reef in the world next to the Great Barrier Reef. So you live on an island. Look at you. You know where it's at. Yeah, so when I go out, I do media coverage at festivals all over North America, UK, Europe. When I get off of tour, that's what I do. What sort of wave have you got there? What are you surfing on? Florida sucks. I go to Costa Rica all the time.

5:28 I went to Bali. And then I was going to go over to Australia. I found out it ain't so easy to just hop over. I was like... Three hours away, I'm like. No, no. No? Nothing's close to Australia. Bali's got some gnarly waves, though. Like, that's like. I got beat up pretty bad in Bali. You get coral in your leg, yeah. You have to get a boat out to the breaks. Like, this time of year, Florida, where I live, South Florida, it's like a lake. Yeah. Most of the time. We hope for hurricanes. Yeah, it's a getting swell, right? Like, we pray for hurricanes. Like, because then we get, like, a 15-foot swell. Yeah. You know? But other than that, it's like. You couldn't even get a ripple, but we have lots of sharks like you guys.

6:09 Yeah, perfect. We have a lot of similarities. All the poisonous shit. We got banana spiders that hang up in the trees that are as big as my hand. The thing with the spiders in Australia, it's the little ones you got to look out for. The big ones, they're fine. Same in Florida. We got the brown recluse and the black widows. Black widows, like. We've got a redback spider. It's like a black widow spider. Yeah. See them in your. Backyard every day. If you lift up a pot plant, there'll be 10 of them under there. Wow. Messy little webs that just sort of... But I always say this. Everyone's like, oh, what about all the crazy, dangerous, poisonous animals you've got in Australia? And I'm like... Give me them over a bear any day.

6:50 We don't have mammals that eat you. It's all what you're used to. Crocodiles, though. I mean, but that's in the north, but yeah. If you get eaten by a crocodile, you're fine. Crocs, they're at the top of the food chain. So, it is funny because this place, when I go to Costa Rica, there's this one place in Costa Rica it's known for, like, It's a river and it's just infested with crocodiles. Yeah. That's awesome. Alligators, crocs. Crocs. And I don't know if you know this, but they're the only animal on the planet that will purposely hunt humans. Yeah. Nasty. The alligators, I walk by them and they don't even move. I don't want to see a crocodile, though. And I did. Like, I did a wet dock somewhere and I had a water to walk onto shore and I walked right past a crocodile. I'm like, I'm out of here.

7:36 No, thanks. But, yeah, it's like, it's infested. We live in Melbourne, which is, you know, down south. They're all up north, which is, north is kind of like the Florida end, you know. Right. Australia upside down and, you know, because of the southern hemisphere. So, yeah, they're all up the top of Australia, the crocodiles. Oh, okay. See, that's good to know. We got the Great Whites, which is, because we got seals. You guys have been having a lot of issues. Then you have the Great White Shark. The lady in Sydney was just in knee, waist deep water and got attacked by a, you know, six, no, it was a Great White, six meter Great White, so like 16 feet or something, Great White. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, and like, I don't even want to know what's in the water. Like, I live in a high rise and we have migration season where there's like thousands of sharks.

8:23 I'm like, I really don't want to know that. Yeah. Like, cause when you're down there, you don't know. One time I got dressed up like a seal in your wet suit. Exactly. You know, like one time I was out on my paddle board and like, like I'll go home and I'll just go way out on the horizon. Like just chill out, get away from the world. And I was sitting there, I looked down and five bull sharks swam right under me. I'm like, I'm out of here. They're idiots. They're dumb and they live in murky water and they just bite anything. And they'll go anywhere too. I've watched videos of them going after hippos in the rivers. Yeah. They don't give a shit. Do you know that American movie Jaws? Of course. That American movie Jaws. Well, because you never know what people know elsewhere. But I'm from New Jersey. That actually happened for real in New Jersey. Yeah. In a river, and it was a bull shark, not a great white.

9:15 Yeah, bull sharks live in the murky waters. The man, like, get everyone, get back in the water. I know, right? But at least we don't have koalas with chlamydia. Like, I heard that 95% koalas have chlamydia. Koalas, yeah. How the hell does. It's like, they have this chlamydia, yeah. How does that happen, okay? I don't know. They're promiscuous. People think they're cute, but if you ever hear one in the wild, they make some awful sounds. Yeah, I think people should subscribe to their OnlyFans. Yeah. So what are you going to do after Rock, Oklahoma that's going to blow us away?

10:00 So I think after this we're in St. Louis, and then we're in Kansas City. We've got a few days off in Kansas City, so I'm pretty excited because we haven't spent a lot of time there, and I hear it's a pretty cool town. It is a cool town, and that's the Show Me State. That's the Show Me State. What's that mean? That's their slogan. The Show Me State. Don't talk, show me. Yeah, like, show me the proof. Yeah. You know, but like when I was younger, I remember going there. I was in my early 20s and I'd walk up to girls. I'm like, show me. Yeah. How'd that work out? Yeah. Not too good. No. I think you probably get similar results these days. That's why I don't do it anymore.

10:41 Should we try that? I don't know. Yeah, you could get away with it with the accent, though. Like American women, they love accents. I reckon there's been a few guys, a few drivers I've had in the States who probably understood maybe 10% of what I'm saying today. I think they're just smiling and nodding a lot. Of the time. Well, it depends on where you are in the States. Because, like, I'm from New York and New Jersey. We can understand you because we speak fast. It's the Southerners that speak like this that you're speaking too fast for them to understand. We're going to Jersey. We're placing Jersey. Pony, man. It's famous.

11:22 It's where the boss used to play. That is the infamous place. I used to live like five minutes from there. Okay. I love those old rock venues, man. That one, the boss still would get up, he would get up there even after he was massive and play like shows. Oh yeah, he still does. Like jump up on stage with the house band. I don't, I heard this recording of him, just, you know, they were playing it, and when he said, he was talking about the Jersey Shore, and. The whole crowd were going, yeah! Oh, yeah. They're real proud of him. We're totally proud of it, man. Man, you know, we toured with him in 2017. I knew that. Yeah. He got the band back together. I got some great... Brilliant. And that is the reason. Big Bruce fans. That is the reason. Right? Yeah, that's true. So tell us a story about that. How was Bruce the one that got you guys back together?

12:09 They were doing a tour of Australia and New Zealand, and we hadn't played in eight years. We just got this call one day. It was like, Bruce Springsteen's asked you to support him. And we're like, what? And I think I texted Cam because we were big Bruce fans. I was like, surely we can get the band back together for this one. Let's see what the other boys think. And then we did. And it was great. And we've been playing ever since. And he played everything you'd ever want to hear. You know what I mean? He does the whole album. Nice. You think three-hour show, you're like, oh, man, that's long. But never did I once get bored of a three-hour show. If you're the right performer, you don't get bored. No, no, no. There's a few other bands I've seen.

12:50 And you can tell why he basically had to be carried off stage every night. You know, like, he just... Ed Hoboloff. Hoboloff. He is the nicest guy, as you probably found out, too. We didn't see a lot of him because it was the end of a world tour. It was the last two weeks of a world tour. Oh. So he was pretty beat up. Like, every day you'd see, like, teams of physios, massage tables, you know, just people to get him through. I think his arm was a bit... Because he's got that... Yeah. I think he's got a bit of RSI and he was sort of... But, you know, the rest of the band were sweet, you know. We actually had met Stevie many times because he used to come watch us play. Stevie would watch us, like, soundcheck in his, like, silk pyjamas. He looked like a boss. He's brilliant. And we'd go out to dinner with Stevie and we'd get him to do Silvio impersonations from the... you know from Sopranos Max we met when we did Conan a bunch so we'd chat to him and all that you know it's the thing when the boss and I say the boss is in the boss is a nice guy or a nice person it filters down and the whole crew are kind you know and they were super kind to us because we kind of went in there expecting to be treated like shit because that's kind of sometimes you are by these big acts they just don't care about you you're in the way but we were treated like family, you know? And that's not always the case.

14:07 I love hearing that. I used to live near him in Jersey. My friends that were girls used to sneak up on his property to watch him walk around in his underwear in his house. Like, that's a Jersey girl. That's a Jersey girl for you. Bruce in his undies. Right, right, right. So now he lives near me in Florida now. He lived right across the street from my studio and His daughter, she's a hunter-jumper. And the town where my studio is, is a huge equestrian polo area. That's right, she is too, yeah, yeah. So he'll hang out in town anywhere. And he's so approachable.

14:50 I've watched where other people approach him and he doesn't get upset. He's like so down-earth. If everyone knows that, then they'll more likely just leave him alone, you know? Exactly. Exactly. And that's all, as an artist like that, you just want to be, you know, treated like a normal human being sometimes. Act like one. If you're cool to them, then maybe they do it to you. Yeah. Tell everybody how they can reach out to you guys on socials, check out your music. Yeah, we have a Jet Instagram page. I don't know what it's called. Is it Jet the Band? I don't use it, so yeah. But it's pretty easy to find. Jettheband.com. Yeah. It has all of our... shows and all of our socials on.

15:31 There yeah nice and so what do you think of rocklahoma so. Far man we haven't seen much of it just this right stage area with the trucks and the dust but um man i'm looking forward to playing um. I got a shower in you know uh i haven't eaten but you know that's festival life right you guys we're here. Till 1am i think we're leaving and the two of us going to st louis tonight. And That's the life. That's the life. But you obviously love it. I can tell you do. Thank you. And I'm glad you're here at Rock, Oklahoma. And thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on W4CY radio.