Name Chris Cester, Lead Singer of LA-based band Mystic Knights.
Best known for The handsome and often misinterpreted drummer for Aussie Rock Band Jet
Current city Los Angeles, California.
Really want to be in I would move to Kauai in a second, I miss the wild weather and rain, you just see it coming over the water, like that Harry Nilsson song “Everybody’s Talking.” In that song he has this lyric that goes “skipping over the ocean like a storm”…and another lyric in that song, that says “I’m going where the weather suits my clothes.” Fucking genius, so good, I bet ya he wrote that song when he was in Hawaii.
Excited about My band, Mystic Knights. A while ago I got invited to see a trendy band and I took my daughter along, I was watching the band, and yeah they were pretty good, and like a lot of bands these days, they were using all tracks, and they did a decent job playing on top of the tracks. I mean they were talented musicians, but playing within a preprogrammed format. I looked at my daughter, and the crowd…and after each song, there was this dead zone when the track ends and the band has to stop, there is no sound of “on”: there is no buzz, no amp electricity, no chemistry within the band to ad-lib and feed off the crowd. It seemed more like a scripted show. And I thought about it…where is the danger? And I feel like, if I have to see another Tame Impala tribute band, I might rip my face off. So yeah, it made me excited to get back on stage and put on an actual rock show: untamed, untimed, unexpected, even for us.
My current music collection has a lot of In the last few years, I have been really into Joe Walsh’s solo records. He has sort of a meta style of honesty that never veers too far into the earnest or cheese. He has this magical way of being real that invites you to feel what’s real on your own—which I think is the apex of any artist, and, as an Australian, I love an underdog. He was the best songwriter in the Eagles, but not the most famous one. I think “Life of Illusion” is a perfect song, its flawless. Other than that, I don’t really go through phases, I think it’s just a bangers-only record collection. I don’t care if anyone likes the band or artist, I don’t care if the song is three minutes or eight minutes, it’s gotta be a banger.
Preferred format I don’t care if its vinyl, streaming, a song is a song, I am gonna listen to it if it’s good.
5 Albums I Can’t Live Without:
1
Kick, INXS
Being from Australia, it was inspiring to see people from where I grew up achieve such heights, and also it really kind of laid out a very simple formula for me, which was: Don’t be boring. Dream big or at least don’t put limits on yourself as an artist. Keep it simple, and don’t be afraid to show off. And most importantly, don’t forget to write bangers. Most bands would sell their mothers down a stream to write a song as good as “Mystify,” “Devil Inside,” “Guns in the Sky,” or “Never Tear Us Apart.”
2
The White Album, The Beatles
First of all, people who don’t put the Beatles in their Top 5, are lying. There has never been and never will be a more important band than the Beatles. Sure, they got lucky in the era they came up in, no doubt about that, but they juiced the lemon and earned their right in the pantheon of greatness, because they simply weren’t capable of doing shit work, and they made some bold choices too. They are the very best, and everyone else is just maneuvering around them. They are on an untouchable and, in my opinion, unattainable perch that makes them the kings.
It’s almost impossible to pick a favorite album, but I chose The White Album, because it has more songs on it than any of the others. The experimental nature of it, I think, beats Sgt. Pepper’s or Revolver.
3
Powerage, AC/DC
I have listened to this album more than any other album in my entire record collection. In my opinion AC/DC are the epitome of punk rock—and I hate to refer to punk rock as a sound. It isn’t a sound, it’s an attitude and nobody truly nailed that more than AC/DC. It’s in your face, without taking itself too seriously, it’s an immovable object, its brash and wild, it singes your nose hairs, and they make the Foo Fighters look like One Direction. AC/DC is a reminder that simple is best.
Side note: This is harder than it looks, the more I have lived, and now we are in a time where you don’t really listen to a whole album all the way through, you just listen to songs, due to the nature of how we access music, you used to have to take a record out of a sleeve and play it, or put on a CD. You didn’t have playlists, and the option to a la carte tracks like we do today, its evolution, love it or hate it, but again, the best songs, will be the ones we listen to the most, no matter what. I still enjoy listening to an album in its entirety, that’s what I grew up doing, but we have the luxury of a bespoke listening experience.
4
Hi Fi Way, You Am I
This was their second LP, and it came out when I was 14. I was a high school student and working for my dad in his butcher shop. My life was simple back then was involved in only what was orbiting me, which was sneakers, girls, beer (if I could get it) brotherhood and how the fuck do I get out of here? People remembered your name, and they looked you in the eye. It’s so foreign to the life and times of teens these days. Everything in that simple life had a frantic mystery about it, because I wanted so much to get out, so I dreamed about things like how far could this go? What was next? The future was anything but where I was then, and I guess this album became the soundtrack to my scheming teenage mindset. Everything was so slow around me, and yet my mind was always in this turbo overdrive.
5
Definitely Maybe, Oasis
Listen to this, specifically “Live Forever.” Maybe don’t waste your one life listening to me talk about it and go figure it out for yourself.
