The Screaming Jets - Interview

Dave Gleeson & Grant Walmsley

 

Dave Gleeson

 Ready For Take-Off...Again

LEGENDARY AUSTRALIAN BAND, THE SCREAMING JETS HAVE BEEN DOING IT FOR OVER 15 YEARS NOW. THEY’VE SEEN THE UPS AND DOWNS OF IT ALL. WITH SEVERAL HIT ALBUMS ALREADY UNDER THEIR WINGS, THEY’RE SET TO RELEASE THE LONG AWAITED NEW DISC NEXT YEAR. I CAUGHT UP WITH THEM BEFORE A GIG DOWN ON THE COAST.

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October 2006

Sitting out the back of Barwon Heads Pub, on the edge of a loading truck in the warm afternoon sun seemed an unlikely place to be meeting the boys from The Screaming Jets. They were obviously on the same wavelength. “That’s the way it mixes together, mate.” Front man Dave Gleeson explained. “One day you’re supporting KISS in the stadiums, and the next your at…well, Barwon Heads Pub.” So which gig did they prefer to play? “Well, when you’re playing those gigs or like, a day festival or something, you only have an hour onstage, so you can just go out and kick some arse for an hour.” The Jets have been together for over 15 years now and don’t seem to be content on giving up anytime soon. “Hopefully we’ll have the new album out by early next year.” Dave continued. “We’ve been in and out of the studio all year, doing four songs at a time, then we’ll get back on the road.” “Well, we’re sponsoring this thing ourselves, you know.” Added Jets guitarist, Grant Walmsley. “We do a few songs, go out and get some more cash, and get back in to do a few more.” They both laughed. “But we have around 20 songs now, so its just a matter of nutting it out, and seeing where we wanna go.”So will this be a comeback album of sorts for the jets? “We don’t want to revisit the past, we haven’t got a certain style set for the album, and we’re just going to come out with the best songs we have.” Gleeson told me.

Grant Walmsley

“We cover all styles.” Jumped in Walmsley. “We just want to keep on throwing albums out, doing what we do. It’s like this book I’m reading.” Refers to the Bob Dylan biography sitting beside me. “He never had a hit or anything, he just keeps going and putting albums out. Neil Young’s last hit was Harvest!”

Heading towards the state of rock music today, Gleeson still sounded optimistic. “The fortunate thing these days is, there’s little niche markets everywhere. You have MySpace and the whole Internet thing, you just have to find your own little market.” Moving the conversation a little closer to home. “I mean unless you’ve been on Neighbours or something, you can’t get the big deals in Australia anyway.” Perhaps a lead singer from Neighbours is what the band needs? “Yeah, well a 30 year old, getting up on stage and looking like she’s in her 50’s? I think I can pull that off.” “Yeah, that’s where the money is.” They laughed. “Hey.” Gleeson interjected. “Its not a million dollars you need. It’s a million dollar idea.”  Pulling away from the subject a little, I asked them about their family lives. “Yeah, well we’re all married with kids.” The frontman explained. “Yeah.” Walmsley agreed. “One day I’m taking my kid to ballet, then we’re out on tour the next day.” “I just found out I’m going to miss my daughters 2nd birthday.” Gleeson sighed. “I had to tell my old lady I’m going to miss our ten year anniversary as well.” Grant just shrugged when asked if the rigors of the road can become hard. “I love what I do, plain and simple, this is why I do it, I love my job.” “Besides.” Jokes Gleeson. “With computers these days, we can just Photoshop my head into the birthday photos!”

Dave gets into the groove

Changing my focus from the charismatic frontman, complete with rock attitude and mirrored sunglasses, I looked over to guitarist Walmsley. Purveying a more ‘guitarist with mystique’ style, he was actually very down to earth and open, sporting a youthful exuberance, almost as if he was new to the business.

Although he seemed a little more disappointed when I bought up his one time ‘side-project’ Hang Seng, he was still more than willing to explain. “I just had a stack of my own songs I wanted to do.” He clarified. “I’d already been in a band democracy for so long, I wanted to go out and do my own thing for a while, exactly the way I wanted it.”  But unfortunately it didn’t exactly turn out that way. “It just wore me out constantly pulling the other guys in my direction, and what I wanted to do. They wanted to make it more a of a normal band democracy, which is what I already had.” “Man, you need to make like, The Grant Walmsley Band.” Gleeson suggested. “Yeah.” The guitarist nodded, forcing a smile, obviously still dissapointed by the way it all turned out. We talked a little about music and some previous articles I’d written, which Walmsley had apparently been fond of. I said goodbye and told them I’d see them that night at the show.

The Grant Walmsley Band?

Fast forward a few hours and The Jets were dressed and ready to rock as they hit the stage in front of a rowdy, country-town crowd. Things started out bumpy, with apparent sound problems, but soon enough the band got into it’s groove and sweat pored from their bodies.

	The few hundred that were there, were almost un-deserving of such a hard working band. They threw out a mix of new numbers and old classics, showing they’d lost nothing over the years. Gleeson threw out his personal showcase of rock moves and parodies to work the crowd. The patrons got what they wanted with Helping Hand, but the blazing finishing rockers like Blue Sashes and C’Mon is what really sets them apart from the rest.
"C'Mon, Let Me Show Ya' How To Do It!"		The boys get into the groove

The night was just a great slice of what the Australian rock scene could have been if people weren’t so easily sold with corporate garbage. Instead, there’s just a few hard working spearheads like The Jets, wading there way through the desert and soldiering on for the real rock music fans in all of us. 

J.L.

	Me an the Jets

 

* All photography courtesy Rebecca James

(Band photo by Nick Gorman)

THANKS AGAIN TO THE SCREAMING JETS VISIT THEM AT:
http://www.screamingjets.com.au/

 

 

 

 

 

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