After knocking around in high school bands, he co-founded Midnight Oil, originally known as Farm, with his mate Jim Moginie in 1972.<\/p>\n
Hirst was known for his powerful drumming and activism, co-founding the band in 1972. Photo \/ Instagram<\/p>\n
They were soon joined by frontman Peter Garrett and Martin Rotsey, who remained the core of the band for the next five decades.<\/p>\n
Hirst and Moginie began as the band\u2019s songwriting core, before Garrett later joined them in the creative engine room.<\/p>\n
Known for his formidable power behind the drum kit \u2013 and later on the steel water tank that he bashed during the Power and the Passion \u2013 the Oils forged their reputation as an incendiary live band in the brutal pub rock era of the 70s and 80s.<\/p>\n
They quickly distinguished themselves from other Aussie pub rock bands of the era with their musical activism, taking on politicians and corporate giants and becoming passionate advocates for the rights of indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n
While he didn\u2019t rate his singing voice highly, Hirst\u2019s distinctive vocals served as a signature harmony in the Oils repertoire and he also pulled lead singer duty on classics including Kosciuszko.<\/p>\n
Hirst released his final music project in November last year, a deeply personal EP called A Hundred Years or More, with his Oils bandmate Moginie and drummer mate Hamish Stuart.<\/p>\n
At the time, he said he counted himself \u201clucky\u201d to have enjoyed a music career over six decades, relentlessly creating and playing not only with Midnight Oil but myriad side projects including Ghostwriters and the Backsliders.<\/p>\n
Rob Hirst. Photo \/ Instagram<\/p>\n
He had recently attended the 70th birthday of his Ghostwriters bandmate and Hoodoo Gurus member Rick Grossman and recalled how grateful he was for his musical life.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Rick Grossman\u2019s big birthday, Reg Mombassa and members of the Gurus were there, Hamish and Jim were there, and we\u2019re all around talking about how lucky we were that all our bands landed in the late 70s, early 80s, when people were tribally loyal to the bands they loved,\u201d Hirst said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey went out every night and supported us and we could then afford great PAs and light<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was before all the pubs closed down and Spotify and Live Nation and AI and all these terrible things that have become obstacles for new musicians coming up.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod, how lucky were we? So we might be legends, but we\u2019ve been very lucky legends.\u201d<\/p>\n
His greatest love, besides his family and bandmates, was the beauty of the Australian ocean and bush.<\/p>\n
A staunch campaigner for the protection of the environment both in music and action, Hirst loved nothing more than to immerse himself in the ocean every day from the dog beach near his Manly home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell you what, swimming in salt water is just not to be underestimated. It\u2019s the best tonic,\u201d he said in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very lucky here, you know, to be down close to the harbour and it\u2019s just a walk through a bit of bush and then I can throw myself in with all the dogs at the little beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe locals call it Dog Beach, because it\u2019s one of the few places they\u2019re not chased off by a ranger. And yeah, we\u2019re very lucky. We found this place, you know, almost 40 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hirst was proud to have made music with all three daughters. Both Gabriella and Lex lent their voices to the A Hundred Years Or More EP and he released the record The Lost and the Found with Jay O\u2019Shea in 2020.<\/p>\n
Hirst with daughter Jay. Photo \/ Instagram<\/p>\n
That album came a decade after the father and daughter found each other; O\u2019Shea was adopted out by her birth mother after she fell pregnant as a teen.<\/p>\n
Hirst was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer in April 2023, just six months after Midnight Oil played their final gig at Sydney\u2019s Hordern Pavilion in October 2022.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After knocking around in high school bands, he co-founded Midnight Oil, originally known as Farm, with his mate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74,15408,5837,1558,4057,3595,2534,634,13243,32878,156,1437,123177,2454,13630,14733,157,111,139,69,1118,4156,142731,17216,77461,92399,223,71162,102],"class_list":["post-243415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-after","tag-almost","tag-battle","tag-been","tag-behind","tag-by","tag-cancer","tag-death","tag-drummer","tag-engine","tag-entertainment","tag-global","tag-hirst","tag-industry","tag-legendary","tag-midnight","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-oil","tag-pancreatic","tag-powerful","tag-rob","tag-rocked","tag-the","tag-threeyear","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}