STACK #208 Feb 2022

MUSIC FEATURE

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Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst talks Murray-Darling River madness, his musical kinship with the late Bones Hillman, anger as energy, and the magic behind the follow-up to 2020's celebrated The Makarrata Project : the new album of rallying gems for our ever-thirsty ears, Resist. Words Zoë Radas OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS

T he very first lyrics you hear as the curtains open on Midnight Oil‘s new album describe what‘s at stake in the crusade of climate change: “Every child, put down your toys/ And come inside to sleep/ We have you look you in the eye/ And say we sold you cheap.“ That there‘s a creeping trauma settling into younger Australians who feel powerless to affect change is something Rob Hirst feels deeply – and understands personally. “It must be incredibly frustrating for people who are younger,“ the drummer says. “They‘ve got big dreams and high ideals, and they see – both in the state and at a federal level – opportunistic politicians on a short electoral cycle, looking after their own insignificant little careers over the fate of this country. It‘s the same frustration, I should add, that bands like ourselves and people of our generation felt coming up when we were in our teens and ‘20s, as well.“ He cites the Oils‘ lauded 1982 album 10, 9, 8, 7 , 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – recorded in England with venerated producer Nick Launay – as the point when he and his bandmates were “at the peak“ of their incredulity: “Political opportunism, destruction of the environment, the rich getting richer and the poor getting

swept under the carpet,“ he nods. Same sh-t, different era. Over the course of the ensuing decades, we have of course seen major changes in the landscapes of Australia and the band itself. For the country, we can point to the mid-2000s mining boom (“People have been hoodwinked by mining companies that spent a few million dollars on a propaganda campaign to convince

Australians of their indispensability, and that has meant billions of dollars pouring into their coffers, most of which is then spirited off overseas to the headquarters where these companies actually are,“ says Hirst), and the blue-green algae outbreak in the Darling River in 1991 (which, after a series of federally-decreed protections and then the dismantling of those protections, resulted in 2019‘s horrifying fish kill in the Menindee Lakes). As for the band, amongst fervent activism for the environment and Indigenous causes, one of their own made waves in an official political capacity: in 2007, vocalist Peter Garrett was appointed Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts for the Gillard government. He would eventually leave politics altogether in 2013, after the leadership spill and three months before Tony Abbott became Prime Minister. On bewitching album stand-out The Barka-Darling River , Garrett in fact sings directly about his experience in the cabinet, the rallying cry of his voice as lithe and sinewy as ever: “I took my place at the Murray-Darling chamber/ I saw no friendly face, I was a stranger/ There was a secret plan, a plan to hasten slowly/ There was a show of hands, I was on my only.“ The song was written by Hirst and guitarist

People have been hoodwinked by mining companies that spent a fewmillion dollars on a propaganda compaign to convince Australians of their indispensability

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