Today Peter Garrett, sounds remarkably relaxed, chatting down the phone from Mittagong. He recalls the last few years suggesting that their hiatus was the long overdue result of numerous responsibilities that begun to dominate the music. "We had established ourselves in the world in a way that was greater than we anticipated. We had this whole business of finding ourselves accountable to our audience, seeing the routine of making records, promoting and touring become more of a business than we had ever anticipated."

"There was a period I remember when I went to a show in Florida, then had to fly off and do conservation work and then when we got back to Australia I had to go straight to Melbourne. We rehearsed three days later and by the time we finished the Australian tour it was all this mess of what happened over the last year and why. It was at that point where we kind of went well everyone is going to do their own thing."

Bringing back the band together was an inevitable step for Garrett. "I'm kind of genetically disposed towards being in Midnight Oil," he quips. Later he adds more serious reason saying he believes that "this band still has a lot to say musically and we're not tired of playing with one another."

He describes the assembling of the members as a "reconvening" which was followed by a meeting he describes with a chuckle as a "deep therapy session with the doors closed and the phone of the hook. That was when we got right down to it, leaving all the bullshit aside. Do we want to do it? If we do how are we going to do it and are we going to be committed to it? It was very clear straight away that everyone was up for it. Then it was just a case of lets just do it how we feel like it, we've got nothing to prove to anybody."

The result "Breathe", one of the moodiest most quietly textured of all Midnight Oil albums. On top of that, this open attitude to letting the music find its own way out, has created a lyricism reminiscent of the very first surf rock inspired 'Oils' albums and an almost complete absence of political stridency. This album will definitely confuse long time fans.

We discuss the side projects that other band members produced. There is a sense that, even though Garrett is comfortable with those projects now, he may have been disturbed by them initially. I ask him if he feels the side projects have been healthy for Midnight Oil.

"Yeah I think they were. Ther are two ways you can look at it. Bands can be very possessive about people going off and doing other things or they can say that it's just a part of being a musician and give them the room to do it. It destabilises you a bit if someone throws themselves into something really fully, because suddenly you find you have to make appointments to see one another. Leaving that aside I've always been saying to everyone go and do it. We've always had a surplus of material and in some ways it's a pity that we had to let that stuff fall away. It looks like Bones Hillman is going to be a dance-groove king in Spain or something. No end to the irony."

So what about a Peter Garrett solo album.

"I haven't got enough songs," he says then laughs.

Do covers I reply and there's even more laughter. When it subsides he recalls when a cover album had been his intention with Midnight Oil not so long ago. "When we finished 'Blue Sky', I wanted to do a covers record of favourite unknown Australian bands. The Mavises, Nomad, I mean Magic Dirt weren't even known then. You could probably put in an Easybeats song, have a go at "Pleasure and Pain" or whatever, but I couldn't convince anyone to do it.

Some others have suggested that Garrett do a spoken word tour and/or record. He plays with the idea but then finishes with the sentiment that "it's kind of a nasty thought really".

This self deprecation extends even further when we start discussing the 17 year history of the band. Whether or not he likes it, I suggest that Midnight Oil are icons to a whole generation of Australians and ask him how it feels to be an icon.

"We don't think about it in those terms. I think if you do, then someone will erect a cement statue of you outside some town somewhere on the Queensland border. Then you will be covered by Graffiti. It's one of my nightmares to be turned into the entrance of Midnight Oil Land. All these country and western singers have got them in Nashville and it's frightening. All these little fiefdoms where they issue their own notes and exchange. They're all over the place".

From On The Street, by Richard Sendak

(Note: this article has not been approved for reproduction.)