Australian rockers Midnight Oil announced Tuesday that drummer and co-founder Rob Hirst is dead at 70.
“After fighting heroically for almost three years, Rob is now free of pain – ‘a glimmer of tiny light in the wilderness,’” Midnight Oil posted on its website. “He died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones.”
Hirst’s bandmates asked that fans interested in honoring Hirst contribute to Australian organizations that battle cancer.
Indie music fans in the U.S. remember Midnight Oil for the politically charged singles “Beds are Burning” and “The Dead Heart,” from their 1987 album “Diesel and Dust,” and “Forgotten Years” and “Blue Sky Mine” off of their 1989 follow-up “Blue Sky Mining.”
The band was nominated for a pair of Grammy Awards, but came up short in 1989 and 1991.
Midnight Oil formed in 1976 when Hirst and guitarist Jim Moginie added singer Peter Garrett to an evolving lineup that played together until 2002. After a couple brief reunions, the band got back together from 2016 to 2022 before wrapping up a final tour in Sydney, where it all began, according to their website. That tour included a stop at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.
Hirst never left the lineup.
He announced in April that he’d undergone “pretty much every treatment known to man” to fight his cancer, according to Rolling Stone. In October, Hirst auctioned a drum set Midnight Oil took on tour from 1979 through 2022 to raise money for Australian musicians trying to make ends meet.
He was remembered by fans and friends including top-selling Australian singer Jimmy Barnes.
“Rob Hirst has had a massive impact on Australian culture,” Barnes posted on Instagram. “He was the engine driving one of the greatest live bands of all time. RIP, 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.”
The 1980s were a memorable decade for Australian bands in the U.S. In addition to Midnight Oil, AC/DC, INXS, Men at Work and Crowded House enjoyed great success in both countries.
