Almanac Obituary: Farewell to ‘Australia’s conscience’ Rob Hirst.
Being the youngest of three brothers by some seven years meant their musical tastes were always going to eventually trickle down to me. From The Hooters ‘All you Zombies’ to early B52s and V Spy V Spy many came and went through my head like grey nomads passing through a sleepy country town in the Northern Winter. Midnight Oil though, they stayed and settled. They put down roots in my mental town.
First memories of the Oils for me were being around 9 and seeing the cover art of ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’ at K-Mart Rockingham in a time when K-Mart sold records and not Anko plastic landfill. The artwork was a Tsunehisa Kimura piece showing Sydney under nuclear attack at a time when we were being told at school that the naval base next to where we were taught would be the first thing to go in WA if there ever was an attack. No duck and cover training needed in Mr Anderson’s Year 5 class it seemed and the imagery stuck.
Then there was one of the older brothers losing his faculties in delight at some concert highlights of the band at the visceral zenith in the mid-80s on ABC’s ‘Rock Arena’. With the ‘Species Deceseas’ EP recently out, tracks like ‘Hercules’ and ‘Pictures’ being done live in a small venue captured on video stuck out Peter Garrett’s almost mosaic way of dancing, Peter Gifford’s bass, the twin guitars of Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey and, last but not least, Robert George Hirst’s drumming and vocals.
‘Diesel and Dust’ then came along and I had my first Oils record where they sung about the plight of our First Nations people. I now realised at this young age they were not as blessed as many of us in the lucky country. While many fans didn’t like the subject matter they gained even more fans because of it. Many at least had a spark from the Oils that made them enlightened in some way big or small that lead them on to having a thought of doing the right thing by the people and lands in this country and beyond.
In early high school ‘Blue Sky Mining’ was released and hit home. The album was about Wittenoom, an asbestos mining town nestled near the breathtaking Karajini National Park in the Pilbara. My mother had spent some of her childhood there that has resulted in her now having to take monthly tests for asbestosis to this day. We had visited as a family when travelling through in the old mustard Land Rover on a few occasions with us kids thinking it was a quaint country town rather than a place that had resulted in death. One lyric from the single ‘Blue Sky Mine’ could have be converted in to Latin and put on the West Australian coat of arms as our motto, such is the state’s reliance on the resources sector: ‘And nothing as precious as a hole in the ground’. A lyric written by Rob.
As I got older The Oils broke through the bullshit to me in an uncertain world. They weren’t about girls, cars and being bad to the bone. It probably got me at too young an age asking why and then why not. Like most of us, they were not perfect and full of contradictions but the Oils were different. They were all individuals yet in a gang against the world. They were angry but made intelligent points to the brink of smugness and, above everything else, they were very uniquely Australian, especially Rob.
I was transfixed with Rob. Who sang like that behind the kit? Who could bash like that apart from Keith Moon? I wanted to be in their gang. No doubt Rob inspired many people to get behind a kit but could any of them ever manage to do what he could do?
While ‘Blue Sky Mining’ was a decent (albeit slick and commercial) album, I dived into their back catalogue in high school. There was ’10 to 1′, their 1982 paranoid opus about the cold war we were just emerging from in the early 90s with tracks that still make valid points in 2026. I discovered the famous 1985 Goat Island concert on ‘Rage’ late one night with Rob doing his drum solo for ‘Power and the Passion’ before a an exhausted little smile, a twirling of the sticks, then back in to the beat. Then there was ‘Kosciusko’, the crowd involvement in ‘Read About it’, and so much more. The Goat Island show was the perfect capture of a band at their peak. The Who’s ‘Live at Leeds’ comes close along with some others of capturing a band on stage perfectly but the Oils in 1985 were pure lightning in a bottle.
Then there was their so-so live album in 1991 called ‘Scream in Blue’ that had me like a preaching bible salesman at school trying to preach the word of the Oils while drowning in a sea of fellow students with Chilli Peppers and Guns’n’ Roses t-shirts. Around that time Rob went out on his own with Richard from the Hoodoo Gurus to form ‘The Ghostwriters’ and continue his stance on the way of the world. A worthy side project.
The Peter Gifford era was my jam but Bones wasn’t the end of the world coming in to replace him on bass in the late 80s. Post-Grunge and other more challenging music meant they seemed to have a wiff of dad rock about them as the 90s stretched on but it was the messaging for me that still kept the mind ignited. The Oils’ reaction to John Howard’s election win was ‘Redneck Wonderland’ and a return to some of their earlier work. Their appearances on ‘Recovery’ around the same among all the younger alternative three piece bands gave the kids in the audience a nice little reminder what came beforehand and that they could still spit fire.
By the time that Garrett was seduced by the ALP and went in to politics I wasn’t sad to see the band go on hold. It almost happened in the 80s when he campaigned for the Nuclear Disarmament Party but I knew one day they would be back. Rob and Jim , the original Oils in ‘Farm’, had their side hustle ‘The Break’ among other things going on. In between one-off reformations for benefit events, they were back in 2016 after Garrett’s time in Parliament. There were some decent albums and the odd tour. The Oils coming to Perth got everyone out as an event. The older generations taking their kids to show what they were angry about at their age whilst the whole performance didn’t fall back in to being a nostalgia-fest.
During Covid the sudden and shocking news of Bones passing away in the US meant it could have possibly been the end but the band played on with Perth’s Adam Ventoura roped in to play on bass to do a final lap. Fitting that on the 40thanniversary of ‘10-1’ being released they decided enough was enough as far as major tours went. The Oils upping stumps was always going to happen one day but considering their work rate over the decades you knew they would be around in some capacity recording and playing at the odd time when it felt something needed be shouted into the void. Rob especially looked like he would be indestructible looking at him on the final tour, rattling that water tank during ‘Power and the Passion’.
When Rob was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer it did seem like it actually was the end of it all. Whilst I hope he would pull through it seemed as though it was only a matter of time. The interviews he was giving seemed to have a tone of inevitability about them. Then there was his precious drum kit being sold online which was another sign that all things must pass.
The sobering news this time last week that he was gone closed the door on the life and times of one of Australia’s most important bands and musicians. Whilst sad knowing a massive era in their life is done, many are grateful and wonder where they would be without seeing the Oils and, more to the point, Rob on those drums. I found seeing Rob and the Oils live for the first time on television and live akin to that first big win of your footy team you were there to witness, that first time you saw the ‘Young Ones’ on the telly or Dave Allen tell a joke. It’s formative and sticks with you, shapes you, defines you.
Last week Australia didn’t just lose some drummer, they lost a part of its conscience and he will never be forgotten. Cheers Rob.
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Dennis, there’s a fair bit of ‘power and passion’ in your words to match Hirst’s energy.
Well said Dennis.
I also passed through ‘All you Zombies’ on the way to ‘Species Deceases’.
I was drawn to Hirst’s playing on ‘Hercules’.
I first saw them in late 1990 on the Blue Sky Mining tour and have enduring memories of the fierceness and intensity that Garrett brought to his performance, and the power of Hirst.
‘Hercules’ ended with Hirst bouncing drumsticks off his toms and sending them spinning into the crowd.
Thanks for this retrospective on Rob Hurst. The Almanac recently posted an article I wrote that included a clip of Rob with The Backsliders as they did Dylan’s ‘Hollis Brown’ live at Narooma in 2009. His energy behind the kit was amazing. I think this sense of loss I feel will longer for some time to come.