It’s lights out for one of Australia’s most successful bands, Jet, who have sold 6.5 million records worldwide, as the band announce this morning that after ‘many successful years’ they are breaking up.
The message was broken to fans via Facebook with the band writing:
After many successful years of writing, recording and touring we wish to announce our discontinuation as a group. From the many pubs, theatres, stadiums and festivals all across the world it was the fans that made our amazing story possible and we wish to thank them all. Thank you, and goodnight.
Jet are only the latest in a string of high profile local break ups overs the last 12 months including Powderfinger, Silverchair, Grinderman, and The Middle East.
Formed in 2001 in Melbourne, Jet road the wave of the garage revival movement and became one of Australia’s biggest bands both locally and overseas after the smash hit debut album Get Born sold over 3.5 million records worldwide.
Their singles “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” and “Rollover DJ”, both from Get Born, were voted number one and number nineteen respectively on the 2003 Triple J Hottest 100 and helped propel the band onto the international stage that saw then tour the world extensively through out the next few years.
In 2004 they were nominated for seven ARIA Awards including Album of the Year’, Single of the Year, Best Group, Best Rock Album, Breakthrough Artist – Album, Breakthrough Artist – Single, and Highest Selling Album. Jet ended up dominating the ceremony receiving six awards out of the seven nominations.
But it was always going to be a tough act to follow and despite their sophomore effort Shine On selling in excess of 70,000 albums in Australia achieving Platinum status and reaching #3 on the ARIA charts.
But many saw it as a step backward for the band when it failed to reach #1 on the charts and was dwarfed by the 8x Platinum certification of Get Born.
Their third and final studio album, Shaka Rock, also failed to excite the general population eventually peaking at #5 on the charts and achieving Gold status meaning it shipped over 35,000 units domestically.
We hadn’t seen much of the boys since 2010, when Nic Cester and Cameron Muncey went off for a break from the band putting it officially on hiatus, whilst Mark Wilson and Chris Cester formed a new band Damndogs, who released their debut EP “Strange Behaviour” on 9 August 2011 via iTunes.
Relive the song that started it all with the music video for ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ below.
Also relive a less than magic moment in our slideshow below when the band played the AFL Grand Final and the backing track they were forced to use messed up.
