Jet‘s Nic Cester has revealed that he had auditioned to be in AC/DC before they hired Guns N’ Roses‘ Axl Rose.
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The Jet frontman – known for their hits such as ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ and ‘Cold Hard Bitch’ – opened up about the opportunity to possibly take on frontman duties for the legendary Australian rock band.
While appearing as a guest on Australian radio station Triple J, Cester shared that he received a call to audition for AC/DC after singer 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,” Cester told Triple J.
He continued: “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?’”
The singer went on to add that he was thinking of saying yes “just for the life experience,” explaining that he wasn’t really expecting to get the gig anyway but thought: “‘How could I turn this opportunity down?’”
Cester is no stranger to performing AC/DC tracks. Back in 2010, he joined Muse for a cover of “Back In Black” at a few of their gigs.“I called [Muse frontman] Matt Bellamy and said, ‘Hey, thanks for that!’,” he told the radio station.
Speaking about the audition process, the singer revealed that “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.
“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 shared that he did well with the Bon Scott songs, but struggled with the Brian Johnson tunes, adding: “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.”
In other news, Jet recently revealed that they are back in the studio working on there first new album since 2009’s ‘Shaka Rock’. Taking to their official social media accounts, the Aussie rockers wrote: “We’re so excited to tell you that after 15 years, we’ve started work on a new album due for release in 2025!”
They are also celebrating the 20th anniversary of their 2003 debut album, ‘Get Born’, with a spring Australian tour and a handful of US shows in October. Visit here for Australian tickets and here for US tickets and check out a full list of dates below.
Jet 2024 tour dates are:
MAY
10 – Torquay, AU, Torquay Hotel
11 – Hobart, AU, Uni Bar
17 – Fremantle, Metropolis
18 – Darwin, AU, Bass in the Grass
12 – Brunswick Heads, AU, Hotel Brunswick
25 – Sunshine Coast, AU, The Station
31 – Central Coast, AU, Sunken Monkey Hotel
JUNE
6 – Kiama, AU, The Pavilion
7 – Canberra, AU, UC Refectory
8 – Newcastle, AU, Bar on the Hill
OCTOBER
14 – New York, NY, Bowery Ballroom
17 – Nashville, TN, Basement East
20 – Los Angeles, CA, Troubadour
21 – Los Angeles, CA, Troubadour
Elsewhere, Wolfgang Van Halen recently joined Slash and Myles Kennedy for a cover of AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ in Paris.
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