After a slew of internationally successful albums, Midnight Oil were on top of the world in the late ’80s. But for founding member Jim Moginie, it was time to take a break – something he writes about in his memoir, The Silver River, which deals with his experience as part of the Australian rock band.
“[The success] was great in terms of being in a nice hotel and there’s a big crowd and someone carries your amp for you,” says the songwriter, guitarist and keyboard player.
“But for me, it just brought on this feeling of emptiness. I hadn’t really dealt with things that had happened in my childhood. Then it became this quest to find my birth family.”
The journey to global success had been gradual for Midnight Oil, with an early version of the band, then called Farm, forming in 1972. Frontman Peter Garrett was recruited the year after.
“When Pete joined, we didn’t really have any other choice [of singer] – it was sort of him or nothing,” Jim, 67, remembers. “There was something interesting about him – we couldn’t quite figure out what it was. There was a night in Cronulla Workers Club in about 1979 when I realised, ‘This is such a powerful sound.’ The audience was with us and we were with them.
“It was a slow build to get to that point. We weren’t allowed any access to the system – we couldn’t get gigs or anything on the radio, but we weren’t going to compromise or start making pop songs. We had to do it our own way – and it was hard work.”
Not fitting the mould would ultimately prove crucial, as would tackling issues like Aboriginal land rights and the Stolen Generation in their songs.
“I am really proud,” Jim says of the band’s decision to write about what mattered to them. “It came out of the real contact we had with Aboriginal people and seeing their plight first-hand.”
As it would turn out, uniquely Australian songs like The Dead Heart and Beds Are Burning provided the band with their success overseas.
“Beds Are Burning was unapologetically Australian,” says Jim. “It’s the sound of those songs that got them across the parapet – the beat and melodic side of it. That’s the Trojan horse for the message. You could really think that Beds Are Burning was about sex. Some people did in America.”
While other bands might have kept charging ahead, Jim says taking some time out from “the pressure that we went through” was crucial, especially for him.
“My reaction to things was different to the other guys,” he explains. “I found a lot of it pretty full-on and stressful. The amount of work we were doing to keep this thing afloat was absurd. There were times when I really became lost.”
A more measured approach followed as the ’90s unfolded, culminating in a performance at the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony that Jim describes as “the peak of our career”.
In the past couple of decades, he has also been able to connect with his birth family.
Although now disbanded, Jim says there’s always the possibility Midnight Oil could reunite.
“If there was a cause or reason – even a small, community thing,” he considers.
“If there’s something we all believed in as people that we could get behind, we’d do it for all the right reasons.”
The Silver River is available from Booktopia for $25.75. Buy it here.
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