{"id":254837,"date":"2026-01-20T20:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T20:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/254837\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T20:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T20:11:08","slug":"midnight-oil-drummer-rob-hirst-dead-at-70","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/254837\/","title":{"rendered":"Midnight Oil Drummer Rob Hirst Dead at 70"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMidnight Oil<\/a> drummer Rob Hirst has passed away after a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe legendary Australian musician\u2019s death was confirmed in a statement<\/a> by the band on Tuesday, Jan. 20.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAfter fighting heroically for almost three years, Rob is now free of pain \u2013 \u2018a glimmer of tiny light in the wilderness,\u2019\u201d the post reads.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. The family asks that anyone wanting to honour Rob donate to Pankind, Pancreatic Cancer Australia<\/a> or Support Act<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHirst first revealed the news in April 2025 after being diagnosed in 2023, saying at the time: \u201cI\u2019ve had pretty much every treatment known to man \u2013 every scan, ultrasound, MRI. I\u2019ve kind of had \u2018the works.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFellow Australian music icon Jimmy Barnes paid tribute to Hirst\u2019s passing in a social media statement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was the engine driving one of the greatest live bands of all time,\u201d Barnes wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRIP, dear Rob. You are irreplaceable, one of a kind, and myself, my family, and all the rest of this great country will miss you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHoodoo Gurus also paid tribute<\/a> to Hirst, noting his close friendship with bassist Rick Grossman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou left this world a far better place than the way you found it,\u201d the band said in a post. \u201cYour creativity, passion and joy has left its mark on all of us, and the strength of your spirit will be an inspiration forever. A life well lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHirst formed the Oils in 1976 and, with Peter Garrett, then a young law student, taking frontman duties, the politically charged group would take on the world. By the time the Oils called it a day in 2022, the group had logged six ARIA No. 1 albums, including Resist, their first full-length studio album in two decades, and apparently their last as a unit.<\/p>\n

\n\tPer The Guardian<\/a>, bandmate Jim Mognie called Hirst the \u201cengine room, onstage and off\u201d for Midnight Oil. \u201cRob was brash, funny and super intelligent, contrary to the clich\u00e9d view of drummers,\u201d Moginie wrote in his 2024 memoir, The Silver River.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Oils also went to the top with\u00a0Red Sails in the Sunset\u00a0(November 1984),\u00a0Diesel and Dust\u00a0(August 1987),\u00a0Blue Sky Mining\u00a0(March 1990) and\u00a020,000 Watt RSL \u2013 The Midnight Oil Collection\u00a0(October 1997).<\/p>\n

\n\tHirst has played, sung and written songs in The Ghostwriters, Backsliders, Hirst & Greene, The Angry Tradesmen and The Break. The latter instrumental lineup featured two of his fellow members of Midnight Oil (Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey) as well as bass player Brian Ritchie from the Violent Femmes.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the finest drummers produced by this country, Hirst also provided the dynamite intro for the early \u201880s ABC weekly youth program Beatbox<\/a>. In 2020, Hirst and his daughter Jay O\u2019Shea released a collaborative album<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tThis article originally appeared in Rolling Stone Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst has passed away after a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer. The legendary Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60,127110,3208],"class_list":{"0":"post-254837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-midnight-oil","13":"tag-obituary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}