Christopher James Cester (born 16 September 1981) is an Australian musician, songwriter, producer and founding mainstay drummer and backing vocalist of rock band Jet. As a member of Jet, Cester has won awards as a songwriter from the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), including in 2005 as Songwriter of the Year, and 2011 for "Seventeen", which won "Most Played Australian Work" and "Rock Work of the Year". Early life Christopher James Cester was born in Melbourne, Australia, 16 September 1981. He has one older brother, Nicholas John "Nic" Cester (born 6 July 1979), and two younger brothers. Their parents were both children of immigrants to Australia. Their mother, Helen Isobel née McIvor (born 1957), has Scottish descent; and their father, Giovanni "John" Cester (1957–August 2004), had Italian descent. During their childhood, Chris and Nic listened to music their parents liked, including The Beatles' Abbey Road, Stevie Wonder's Hotter Than July, Led Zeppelin, and The Kinks. As kids, the Cester brothers would play pretend gigs in their living room; Chris was the singer, but he eventually took up drums, pretending to play while Nic sang. The boys attended St Bede's College Mentone, where Chris took one year of drum lessons before teaching himself on a drum kit at home independently. An uncle, Eugene Cester (born 1961), known as Eugene de la Hot-Croix Bun, was a member of the Australian alternative/satire rock band TISM, which initially inspired Chris and Nic to pursue careers in music. Music career 1996–2012 : Jet In 1996, Chris and Nic Cester formed Jet with Nic's schoolmate Cameron Muncey on guitar and vocals; Mark Wilson joined at a later time on bass guitar. The band used a variety of names before settling on Jet in 2002, named after the 1973 song "Jet" by former Beatle Paul McCartney and his band Wings. Chris primarily played the drums, sang, and wrote songs. After finishing secondary school, the band began playing pub gigs around Melbourne; Chris and the band worked out songs they were writing, and they played rock covers. These songs would go on to be the tracks that turned into Jet's 2002 extended play, Dirty Sweet. Jet released the studio albums between 2003 and 2009 before disbanding in March 2012. 2011: DamnDogs By mid-2011, Cester had formed his own electro-rock band, DamnDogs, in Los Angeles with a cousin: Mitch McIvor on guitar; Jet's Mark Wilson on bass guitar; and