Midnight Oil
by David A. Kulczyk
July 2002
Midnight Oil has been playing their own kind of music for twenty-seven years now with only two changes in personnel. They actually started in 1971 as The Farm. That says a lot when you think about it and think is what Midnight Oil does. Throughout their thirteen releases Midnight Oil has never let up on their causes of social awareness, inequalities and environmental justice. They have also never let up on their hard rocking and sing-along passionate music.
Fronted by the seven foot tall, shaven head singer, Peter Garrett, Midnight Oil is loud and energetic in their live performances. They have been known to play guerrilla shows on flatbed trucks, once even in front of Exxon’s New York City headquarters, midday during the week. Garrett, who has a law degree, ran for the Australian Senate on a Nuclear Disarmament ticket, losing by only a small margin. The defeat only strengthened his objective of speaking out on political matters as his conscience saw fit. You can’t really argue with a seven-foot tall bald man, can you?
Selling millions of records all over the world, Midnight Oil broke onto the American scene with 1987’s “Diesel and Dust,” a monumental album with unforgettable songs like “Beds Are Burning,” “Sell My Soul,” “Sometimes” and “Put Down That Weapon.” The follow up, 1990’s “Blue Sky Mining” was just as great with the anti-war song “Forgotten Years” and “Shakers and Movers” being as good as anything recorded in that decade.
Midnight Oil’s new CD is “Capricornia” and they are touring the world in support of it. I interviewed Peter Garrett, via e-mail as he was at his home in Sydney Australia.
