Part one: The Music (Original article online here) I recently had the pleasure of speaking to one of Australia's most successful and politically active musicians: Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett. In part one of this two part interview, I ask Peter about the consequences of melding music and politics, what we can expect from Midnight Oil's two new albums and his secret for holding his band together for over two decades. Next week, Peter talks about Pauline Hanson's ability to "rip the scab off the festering sore of old time racism", Native Title, and the "faustian pact" known as Uranium mining. Debbie - Have you ever considered subduing your lyrics for a wider, more mainstream audience! D - Do you think you've lost record sales because of that! D - Given the current popular musical climate, it's great that you're still doing so well. D - You've written for Yothu Yindi. What lines from Treaty did you give them a hand with! D - John Williamson's Rip Rip Woodchip is rumoured to have alienated the Tamworth country music festival organisers, and also some of the rural population who were fans of his. Has Midnight Oil ever been publically attacked by large organisations! D - How did you manage to block that street off! D - So they knew what you were up to! D -You played right across the road from Exxon's office, didn't you! D - Is music a good medium for you in which to express these views! D - Have all your songs had a political theme even when you were in Farm! D - Is there a lot of creative conflict between yourself and the other band members! D - You've been around for over 20 years now, you definitely have a formula that works. D - What would you call it! D - You're recording at the moment. When can we expect Midnight Oil's next album! D - How do you feel about this new album! From Blitz Magazine, by Debbie (Note: this article has not been approved for reproduction.)
Peter Garrett - Nope.
PG - It's impossible to judge what does and doesn't sell records.
PG - It's a staggering and quite weird sort of subculture following that Midnight Oil is lucky enough to have. It's people relating to music for a whole suite of reasons which include the primal reasons of dance and movement but also the words and the thrust of what the band sings about and has been on about for a very long time.
PG - Paul Kelly and I met with Mandawuy when they were in Sydney and they basically had most of it all in place so I can't remember the lines themselves. When the vocals were being recorded I went into the studio with Mandawuy and sang it through a few times with him just to, ease him into a groove that might work for him. But when they offered me a formal authorship 1 knocked it back because 1 didn't think it was anything other than just helping out some other people. It was a pretty small role.
PG - We were denounced by Exxon when we played in the street in New York. They closed off the streets in New York and we played the Exxon protest gig. We've been castigated by some of the bigger companies in the past including Western Mining Company, from memory, for presuming to write about the effects mining had on miners or the environment. I think there's a section of the population who simply find what we're saying completely unpalatable even though we think it's solid.
PG - We pretended we were doing a film clip and just started playing. Exxon had also spilt tens of thousands of litres of oil in New York's river systems only a few weeks earlier so the city officials and the police weren't too impressed with them and decided to give us free reign.
PG - When it dawned on them what was happening, they were very slow to stop us.
PG - Yep. Right across from their office.
PG - The primary purpose of Midnight Oil isn't to set up a political agenda. That's not what we're doing. We are grasping out for songs and words that quiver and have sharp edges. We're doing that as a band, as songwriters in performance. Whether or not it finds some kind of mark outside of the rehearsal room is something which we never really know or even think that much there in the public domain, then it can have other uses and applications both by=B7 the band and by other people, but that's not the primary motivation tor writing them.
PG - No, and I don't think they all have a political theme now. I think the remarkable thing about what Midnight Oil does is that it's not that remarkable. We are surrounded by so much that is banal and superficial that it tends to, stand our. But there are a number other acts in this country, I'm thinking of people like: Paul Kelly, Weddings Parties Anything, even Powderfinger who, in their own way, are on about the same kinds of things.
PG - There's enough to keep it interesting. To hold it together without it becoming stereotyped or boring after more than one or two albums there has to be a certain amount of conflict, I think, to keep you interested.
PG - I wouldn't call it a formula.
PG - I'd call it spinning the bottle to see what happens.
PG - We've got a greatest hits collection coming out before the end of the year that's called 20,000 Watt RSL and the new album that we've just about finished will be coming out close to the new year.
PG - I'm amazed that we've been able to go back into the studio and find songs that have worked for us. We've done one of our characteristic left-right turns. We've used a lot of samples. We've just got something which works very well in a rhythmic sense and we just laid the songs down very simply, but it's, in part I guess, a reaction to what's going on around us in the country: Hansonism, Howardism and all the comfortably numb diseases that it's quite a firey record.