The Superjesus To Celebrate Twenty Five Years Of ‘Jet Age’

Alt-rock legends The Superjesus are set to bring their seminal sophomore album Jet Age across the country for a special twenty five year anniversary tour in June, playing the record in full as well as a selection of their greatest hits. The band have been busy over the last year, releasing their self titled fourth studio album in March 2025 to widespread acclaim – finding themselves at #10 on the ARIA Australian Chart more than 20 years after the release of their third LP Rock Music (2002).

With the band in full-flight once again, they’ll be primed and ready to take their classic album Jet Age on the road – hitting stages in Brisbane, Gold Coast, St Kilda, Castlemaine, Margaret River, Fremantle, Adelaide, Central Coast and Marrickville.

Jet Age came at a pivotal moment for the band in 2000; following the release of their breakthrough debut album Sumo in 1998, the band were shot into spotlight – playing packed out crowds at the Big Day Out, touring relentlessly at home and overseas, and even picking up a few ARIAs along the way. All the strain and pressure put on the band eventually led to some internal turmoil, with founding guitarist Chris Tennent leaving the band and Tim Henwood taking his place. Stuart Rudd aka Ruddy talks to Hi Fi Way about this anniversary tour.

Great to be talking to you. It’s hard to believe twenty five years of Jet Age. That’s staggering when you think about that sort of milestone.
Yeah, absolutely. We feel the same. Sarah and I were only talking about it the other night, just sort of went, can you believe it’s twenty five years? That’s crazy because we’re still playing a lot of those songs, too. It’s been a good journey. We feel exactly the same. We look back on it and go, man, have we survived it, to be honest.

Do you feel like you’ve learnt so much about yourself and each other through the ups and downs of that period?
Yeah, for sure. That album came out and was written at the end of the 90s. It was all that incorporated, band members, losing a band member, a main songwriter and moving forward. We look at it now and go, my God. I think growing older has calmed the waters a lot for us as individuals, which is good.

With tours like this, do you start getting nostalgic, particularly when you go back and look at all the old videos and photos and bits and pieces from the journey?
One hundred percent, it’s hard not to, because when I’m looking at a video or listening to a tune, I’m looking at or listening to the work that went into it, or what happened the day before, or what was good or bad about the whole situation. It evokes a lot of memories for myself and Sarah.

When you look back on it, what does the milestone mean to you? Do you reflect more on the good times, and take away the learnings from the things that didn’t go quite so well?
Yeah, that’s exactly right. We keep moving forward, and it’s nice to touch base and think about the good things that were and the milestone — Jet Age was a milestone for us. Our second album, losing the main songwriter, moving forward, putting a foot into the 2000s, and then coming out with Gravity. There’s a lot of good, positive stuff on that album for us.

What were some of the moments that still stand out for you from when Jet Age came out?
I think playing Gravity, the impact that that song had. We’d been on the road for nearly two years for Sumo, the album prior. So coming out with Gravity and the impact it had was fantastic and just getting an album out, the band was running on empty at that point, but we dug in. We all moved to Melbourne and lived together. Not that touring for two years in a van wasn’t enough, we decided to move in together. There were a lot of tiny triumphs and milestones all over that album, and getting it out was huge for us and still continues to be.

Living together under one roof, how trying was that?
Oh, brother! For those who don’t understand, you’re with somebody practically twenty four hours a day. The time you get away is when you go to your bedroom. So when you move in together, it’s excessive. We had just come off the road in America, we did something like seventy two thousand miles in under six months. To go from that to living together in a house… well, you start to understand people’s cooking habits, you start to understand there’s a whole new world that opens up. But had we not done that and made the move, we all got out of Adelaide and moved to Melbourne, we wouldn’t be talking about twenty five years later on this album.

I’d imagine Sarah would be a live wire any time of the day, harnessing that sort of energy must have been difficult?
That’s true, Sarah and I are kind of a bit of an opposite vibe. She’s got such an electric, go‑get‑’em attitude, whereas I’m sort of like a pensive, think about it, maybe tomorrow we should look at it, let’s sleep on it type. She’s like, no, no, no, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Understanding each other and finding the right place, I think Sarah has what I don’t, and I think I can give Sarah what perhaps she doesn’t have.

That partnership, you balance each other out really well.
Yeah, totally and we’ve learned to wrap our arms around that as the band’s gone on. Through everything we’ve been through, we’re still looking at each other going, well, we’re still here, and we’re still pushing the cart. So yeah, you learn to lean on your close people.

Even going back to the studio experience at that time, did you know then that this was a special collection of songs that just seemed to work really, really well?
We were relieved, because the song writing that was going on in the house at the time was in different rooms. I’d be trying to write something in the kitchen, and Sarah would be set up in her room. So yeah, you could feel it was a creative space, and it was a creative vibe. Yeah, it was good.

Even now, are you able to listen to it and appreciate it as a fan would?
Yeah, I did, man. I listened to it the other night, and I was like, wow, there’s some cool stuff. We captured where we were at the time. It was a real photo of where things were at with the band.

When you look at releasing an album back at that time, does it feel now like it was the last of the golden age, where people bought CDs, bought records, and now it’s a very different landscape?
That’s right, like I was saying earlier, it was the closing of the 90s and obviously things were about to shift and change, and they did from that point forward. But I think for us, we felt it went in the right direction. We were listening to a lot of Radiohead at the time, things like that. We did feel the closure of the 90s, and then different bands coming in, Korn, and that sort of influence happening around the time. We still got some rockers in there on this album, so yeah, it was just a good vibe all around.

Does the whole touring side of things feel easier now, or more enjoyable now than back then when you were clocking up the miles in a van?
It does. It’s the first time we feel we can actually enjoy it. Not that we didn’t enjoy it, but our head was down, we were working so hard. Whereas at this point, you can celebrate the twenty five‑year album anniversary. When it first came out, we worked and worked and worked. We were back out on the road for the next nine or ten months each year, single, album release, single, it just kept rolling. We enjoy it now, and we enjoy seeing the people singing along and getting into that album.

How do you think you’ll go playing the album start to end? Is that the plan, or will you mix it up?
No, no, we’re going to play it start to end. We’re talking about playing it in the actual album order, then we touched on doing some extra songs and what we’re going to do. I’d like to do some deeper tracks from other albums as well, but we’re still working on that. I think it will transfer really well, because this time around I’ve been talking to a keyboardist to come in and play some songs with us, so we can replicate that album.

Have there been any songs where you think, “God, how do I remember how to play that?” Even some of the deeper cuts that don’t normally get a look‑in?
Yeah, totally, because I don’t cruise around listening to my own album. So I have to revisit it. I’ve just started, I’ve got about three or four songs on my computer, going through it, starting to think what sort of gear I’m going to use, what sort of sounds I want. It’s a good trip to go back. You’d be surprised at the muscle memory on some of those songs because we rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed so much that twenty five years later, it’s just… there it is.

Are there plans for a special vinyl release or re‑release on CD to coincide with the tour?
We are talking about it right now. In fact, we’re looking at a silver vinyl. A double‑album silver vinyl.

Beyond the tour is the plan to keep writing new music? The last album was great.
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. We had about forty to forty five songs for that album. I’ve still got about twenty sitting in my demo folder on my computer at home, which I just started listening to again. I went, you know what? That doesn’t sound too bad. Maybe we should re‑look at that. At some point, when we take a breath, that whole cycle for the self‑titled album went for nearly two years, releasing singles and then the album tour. We had three or four singles on that album. So yeah, it was a good album to make. I’m all for digging into some writing, and I’ve been starting to put some ideas down again and see where it goes. I think we’ve got enough to really re‑look at them, rework them a little bit. But we’ll just keep going and see how we feel about it all, and take it from there, I guess.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch The Superjesus on the following dates, tickets HERE…