Midnight Oil

Veteran politically driven Aussie rockers return with a new album and promise there’s more to come.

If you’ve seen Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett perform, his six-foot-four frame, bald head and eye-catchingly unorthodox dance style will have made you remember him. The band were in their prime when their 1987 album Diesel And Dust and hit single Beds Are Burning drew the world’s attention to its primary theme: the neglect and oppression of Aboriginal people in their native Australia. Now, 18 years after they split, with Garrett having pursued a political career as an Australian cabinet minister in the meantime, they’re back with a new album, The Makaratta Project, which focuses on similar issues. The difference is that this time many of the singers and players are guests, drawn from the Indigenous and First Nations communities whose struggles their songs seek to address.

Midnight Oil re-formed to tour in 2017. What made you decide to make a new record? It’s really basic. We got together, and you can either find the fire and the blood and the storm and the uplift… or you can be a nostalgia act. So let’s just see whether we still are what we are. We found that the audience was there, and in some cases had even grown. So the question becomes: can we make some new music together? And we thought why not, let’s just see what we can do.

The 2017 Uluru Statement Of The Heart (demanding a change to the Australian constitution, to empower First Nations Australians and recognise their history) is read out in full on the new album. Was it part of the inspiration to make new music? No, it’s just always been an abiding theme for us. Through touring in the early eighties we were lucky enough to make friends with First Nations and Aboriginal people and musicians. So the fact we had songs around those themes was really a continuation of those relationships.

In the past one criticism of the band was that you were white men telling indigenous peoples’ stories. Was it important that they actually played and sang on your new record? Yeah, I think we had to share the singing experience and have Aboriginal performers connect with the songs themselves and make them into something special, which is exactly what happened. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard other people singing Midnight Oil songs, and it’s amazing!

“You can either find the fire, or you can be a nostalgia act.”

In many ways, upbeat rockers like Gadigal Land sound like you’re channelling the old sound you had when you started out. Well, it’s either going to fuse your synapses and make your legs turn to jelly or it isn’t. If it doesn’t work at that physical level it’s not going to work otherwise. You’re right, that’s a classic Oils rocker –put some brass on, get the chants going, get the Acca Dacca guitars out, see you at the end!

Is there more Oil music to come? Yeah. We actually recorded about twenty songs – some of those have gone on to Makaratta with other performers, and we’ve got a bunch of stuff of our own. We’re just sorting mixes at the moment, most of it’s done. It’ll probably emerge at some point, when covid retreats a little bit. But there’s definitely more to come. JS

The Makaratta Project is out now via Sony Music Entertainment.