EXCLUSIVE: True Brothers in Arms

HISTORY shows that Brothers in Bands are often initially a recipe for success and then can quickly become a saga of fights and falling out.

The Everly Brothers, the Gallaghers in Oasis, the Knopflers in Dire Straits and many more bear witness to this reality.

There is one band however that completely bucks the trend and although not everyone will have heard of them, The Jets have been playing together since 1978 and are constantly in demand.

There are three brothers, Bob, Ray and Tony Cotton and whilst there music is most easily explained as Rockabilly, oldest brother Bob doesn’t quite agree.

Speaking exclusively to Euro Weekly News following two triumphant gigs in Benidorm, Bob said “We understand that everyone likes to buttonhole music but we are really more than Rockabilly as we play a blend of 1950s Rock and Roll.

“Funnily enough we are coming back to Spain for the Psychobilly Meeting which takes place in Pineda de Mar (Barcelona) between July 4 and 11 as one of the headline bands.”

Bob said “We really enjoying playing in Spain and normally visit two or three times a year with our next visit to the Costa del Sol in the Autumn in Torremolinos where we find a very mixed audience of British, Spanish and other Europeans who love their music.

Back in 1974, Bob and Ray were members of the Boy’s Brigade in their hometown of Northampton and they decided to form a band with two friends to entertain at one of that organisation’s concerts.

Bob explained that “I got hold of a KTEL album of rock and roll’s greatest hits and had seen Showaddywaddy on Top of the Pops so that was us, we learnt all of the numbers and seemed to go down pretty well.”

They kept going and youngest brother Tony who started off with them before he was in double figures was too young to play officially but was there with tambourine and percussion in the background until he became old enough to join the band full time.

So, the Jets released the first of 16 albums in 1978 and had a couple of hit singles in the 1980s with Yes tonight Josephine and Love makes the world go round which saw them playing in a host of TV programmes like Tiswas and Crackerjack and they have just kept going.

To show how close the brothers are, two of them suffer from an inherited kidney complaint so Bob donated one of his kidneys to brother Roy and then happily Tony was able to obtain a transplant from a general donor.

During lockdown, they recorded two albums at home and according to singer and double bass player Bob, “it was quite an experience as we are so used to recording together in the studio that for myself, Ray on guitar and drummer Tony it was quite a challenge to adapt to doing everything at out home studios independently but it worked!”

Visit https://www.thejets.co.uk/ to find out more about The Jets, the brothers that play together and stay together.