I'm not a stage flight person I love to have a go so I did I've served in high office I've been in an amazing band you know I got kissed on the ass by that rainbow no question occasionally I've been booted as well you show no remorse you show no.
Concern once stuff's happened you can't change that there's nothing that I think about the past that's going to change what happened in the past so I really do tend to concentrate on on the moow come and sit in P that they kind of CH your s TR the heights right yeah so if you sit in and just see if you're comfortable and then and we can put more.
Cushions in is it all right I'm absolutely happy all right everyone happy everyone's phone's off and yeah I've put mine away okay okay um Pete I've found out before we are actually in the location where you recorded a fair bit of this new album your producer told me that he had to clean some scuff marks off the floor cuz.
He's got so much physicality when you're recording that um yes you left little traces of Peter Garrett here with every record I've been involved with you know I really do like to just try and get as deep into it as I possibly can and I'm shutting everything else out a little bit and you know if that means that the odd door gets lent on or a mic gets.
Wrangled in the process then I don't really notice that you know I'm so like I get very intense about the business of actually trying to communicate the lyric or the song or the idea into that microphone into that mixing desk and then wherever it goes after that there's an element of obsession in it for us who who do this stuff which says to yourself.
Okay when I get out of here I will go and buy the milk and I'll walk the dog and I'll do those things and life will have that degree of normaly which I treasure but when I'm in this Zone this very special rare place I'm just going to forget all of that and I'm just going to really try and pour my guts into what it is I'm doing and we're talking about.
Rocky Le it's 44 time there's five or six chords you know it's not rocket science in a way but getting it to work well is much more about feel than it is about you know technical prowess so how do you decide when something's going to be a solo project versus a band project well I mean the ORS have always done side projects but but midnight all.
Music came first so now that we've come off the road from touring full-time there's a bit of space uh for a few songs to to get taken up and used is it intimidating to put something out by yourself uh no not really it's fun uh you you get to call the shots I love sharing and collaborating.
With people and working with yours was one of the great big respect moments of my entire working life but it's also lovely and I'm sure the others say the same thing to be in a studio yourself and you're stirring the pot you're deciding what ingredients go in and you're fiddling around with your own thoughts and your own way of approaching.
It as opposed to taking other people into account to be sh you've had a long career now can you remember the first time that you ever held a midnight oil album in your hands.
And thought made an actual album you know it feels like yesterday no really I mean younger people watching this will sort of go oh whatever but but people of my generation will go yeah you're damn right I mean it just goes so fast it doesn't matter how many people say that to you until you experience yourself you're not ready for it you know I.
Googled your age before and I went 70 what no he he can't be 70 well that's what I say every morning but um now look I do remember the joy of it I never thought that I'd get to make a record I wanted to share it with my grand you know who didn't really understand the business at all and said oh that's very nice dear and so how did you join.
Midnight Oil it's answering an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald put in there by Rob and Jim they had a school boy band that was touring up and down the coast I love to sing I I was in choirs at school I was in a church choir technically I probably wasn't much of a singer back in the day but that wasn't the point it was what you brought to it tell us about.
This blog really the first film clip we're looking at isn't it and we're very young and the voice is a little high and there's a bit of hair I think this is the first clip we ever made so different to video clips of today yeah 25 minutes One camera and uh I don't even know where it got showed but um yeah we're.
Very young so how old do you reckon you are there I'm thinking 22 23 maybe most Australians know you with the shaved head what was the origin of that oh look it's an old story that goes back to when uh Andrew and my brother and I were trying to get photos published in a Surfing Magazine at the time we had an underwater camera but we kept on getting.
Frustrated either the photos weren't good enough or there was strands of hair across the you know because you had to print them in the old days you couldn't just Photoshop it out so I got a cut short to to deal with that for being in the water a lot and when I got a cut very short I thought I looked like someone that worked in a bank and I.
Thought that's not right I'm in a band so I got it all taken off and that was what happened we all have these sliding doors moments in our lives do you ever stop and think she's well what if I just hadn't read the paper that day or what if I hadn't got around to ring no exactly and I was working on a building site and for me it was an.
Alternative to lugging bricks do you believe in fate uh no not in the sense that most people do but I I believe in the same way as I believe in luck I think fate plays a role and I think luck plays a role but it only plays a role in dealing with what the individual or the collective have brought to it like you just can't sit in a room by yourself.
Sort of going um and then fate will sort of intervene you need to be out and about you need to be moving forward you need to be active you need to be trying and then maybe occasionally you know you might get a bit of a lift from the universe so are you religious do you believe in God I used to be uh more religious than.
I am now I still believe in the imminence of of of creation if you like and the sense that what our very inarticulate views of what God are are worth having and sharing but I don't believe um and I don't subscribe to Orthodox conventional religions at all and I think you know they they particularly now I think that.
They're not contributing to the the healing and the Goodwill in the world what are you memories of the early gigs with the band when you first started pulling decent sized audiences you know Rob is without any question probably the finest visual drama and physical drama that the country has ever produced maybe the world you know as well as being a.
Great great singer and songwriter and to have Martin and Jim on either side doing what they do with their guitars they they're producing a textural interplay which is completely underrated and I'll be going wow listen to this I mean for me that's the thing I wasn't looking at the audience and.
Thinking how can I impress you I was listening to the band and thinking wow they're impressing me and that gave me the fuel um okay how about this one it's the Capital Theater and it's the band yeah really playing seriously as though it life depends on it which it actually did because we come back with.
Place without a postcard we were broke the record company overseas had dropped us I think we were just ferociously determined to prove to ourselves that what we were doing had some worth and some value and that it was okay to sing about politics which is part of life and if the record company didn't like it.
Well too bad here we were greetings New York this is midnight we decided to play some songs in the street for you today Peter Garrett and midnight oil have won International Acclaim for their music One American critic describes them as simply the best rock band in the world but the medium also carries a.
Message we chose a special location the front of the Exon building I Le you to work out wide all right have a look at this one Goat Island unquestionably I mean it was amazing that we actually got the permission to do the show there we do this amazing broadcast and yeah it's one of those.
Ones where every single thing that could go right actually did go right including the big ship that came across just as we were finishing US forces sming like to be some else no to the hostility now they want to be somewhere you're a very distinctive.
Person both in looks and talent how does that sit with you uh I don't really analyze myself much Lee I'm not very introverted or I don't spend a lot of time hopefully gazing at my Naval I just I don't think about it too much I just go off and do just move through the world pretty much when you first started out did you actually kind of think about.
Well this is what I'm going to be like on stage this is how I'm going to make my voice sound no not at all and I mean I had Rob behind me which was incredible for that entire career I was just responding to the music you do get an energy from your audience yeah you know exactly and adrenaline.
Now where is I think this is the one I'm looking for actually that's doing the film clip dead heart and here a kids from mulu Community dancing such a special and important thing for us to do as a band often remarked on but I think the legacy is incredible it left an indelible imprint on us it changed us made us.
Better people you made us understand that white Australia did have a black history and we made some friends there for Life how about those kids kids are great they're just and they inherent kind of musicality just getting it you know abely yeah yeah no no it was always the case when you play to those remote communities a lot of people would sit.
Back and and we were loud um probably too loud sometimes but the kids would just be straight up and in your face dancing their heads off one of the most iconic moments in Australian music uh and activism was Midnight Oil taking the stage at the 2000 Sydney Olympic closing cerem dressed in black with the words sorry.
And blazed on you a reaction to the then prime minister John Howard's refusal to apologize to the stolen Generations what do you remember about the lead up to that performance and taking the stage so we knew that when we were asked to do it we would do something we had a lot of toing and frowing and discussion very Midnight Oil and in some ways that was.
Just pretty consistent with how we were doing things previously we'd done actions of all kinds sometimes to only a handful of people it just happened to be a much bigger audience this time I mean I realized it was going to work when suddenly I could just see this huge wave of athletes from all countries running towards us you know waving their hands.
In the air and then you saw the crowd go up in the stands with the exception of Mr and Mrs Howard and I just felt that it was a summation of what we've done over the years to be in that spot at that time and to pull it off without falling flat on our faces the song you sang was beds burning I'd say the first three chords of that.
Song are possibly the most recognizable and iconic opening in Australian music history I reckon 95% of people over the age of 40 could identify that song from the opening two seconds can you recall how those Stark chords came to be there no sorry Lee get him out get Rob Hurst in we were mucking around that um I mean.
It was written before we went out into the desert uh in its initial phase I mean Rob had this great chorus you know so we thought oh that's such a strong chorus the words were fantastic and it's just the case of how would the band make a song from that and we were fiddling around with things over time and I think that either Jim or.
Robin Jim or Martin they were playing and they just came up with this is how we're going to sort of get in there keep it as simple and as truncated in a way as possible before you pick up on that beat broke I mean look everybody brings whatever they can to a song like that and we just were able on this occasion.
At least to bring something to it which lifted it up to where it needed to be and this idea of the time has come I always thought that we needed to recognize the urgency of the time that we were in and just have a way of just you know almost barking that out but you come back into the.
choruses M cuz you always did something about politics you could have ended up being a niche band because maybe half the audience would be alienated from the lyrics but the exact opposite thing happened you've extreme mainstream popularity how do you explain that well.
I think it's partly down to the music um and the songwriting in as much as there's plenty there for people to get into even if they don't want to listen to the word straight away but also we're not really saying this is what you've got to think we're saying this is what we think tonight speculation over Peter.
Garrett joins the labor ranks saying he's ready for the canra challenge okay this is a political montage petert G do swear that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia well yeah I mean come coming into politics and uh all the media attention that you'd expect were you ready for that cuz you had a profile oh.
Look it it comes with the turf I suppose even the combative side of it when you're getting criticized maybe unfairly uh by people on the other side it's all a part of it the time has come to say Fair's fear what there was a bit of mockery cuz you had the high profile with Peter Costello with the the silly Dancing Yeah in.
Politics you have to compromise and be accountable in a way that you just don't have to when you're an activist or an advocate what did being on the inside teach you well it taught me how important government is I mean I already knew that before I went in it's partly why I did but it taught me how important it is and.
How if Government gets it right it can make big changes that that improve the lives of of of people in a country uh it also was a reflection of this idea that never you never really want to see how a sausage is made before you before you Chomp on it with your tomato sauce because it is a long interminable sometimes um conflicted process but.
That's the nature of the Beast and I think that we hold uh our politics up quite rightly to the light of inquiry and criticism but I think we need to do it in a realistic way to recognize that we haven't worked through the the best way to be Democratic it's a work in progress I think you wrote something in your book.
Uh like from the day you get there till the day you leave it's an exercising losing skin yeah well that goes without saying I mean it's partly the adversarial nature of politics I mean there were people on the other side of the house that wanted to say anything they could about people on that ourside uh and look I was a high-profile um.
Entrance to politics and most of those people uh have found that situation pretty difficult and prob not lasted at all um I was the only non-facial IED member of the cabinet I was in the cabinet for two terms it's a tremendous honor and you're doing things which hopefully make a difference politics is a bit like life in that you never can be.
Quite sure you know what's going to come along who's going to be up who's going to be down was Anthony albanesi someone that you envisaged becoming PM one day not really no and then I mean when I was in the parliament um Anthony was the manager of government business in the house as well as a senior cabinet minister so his capacity was pretty.
Clear but uh no I didn't really think that necessarily that's where he was going to end up but I'm glad he has do you follow it closely now not as closely as I probably did when I first got out but I close enough what's your earliest memory my earliest memory is uh believe it or not under a Hills host.
Clos line looking at a blue sky there you go wow yeah born in Australia very sadly you lost your dad as a teenager when he died of an asthma attack and then tragically your mom perished in a house fire when you were in your early 20s and you were the only other person in the house that you tried to rescue her but that it was impossible.
I'm so sorry that that happened to you well um thank you for reflecting that Back le I've got a fair distance between that event and today and the only abiding memory I have apart from the affection that you have from your mom and the sense that there was something about that that was quite difficult is to know what she was like.
As a person and if I find bits and pieces of that in my life or in others then I can really celebrate it and so that's really honoring the life that she lived and look you don't have to look far or wide to see people going through unimaginable stuff every day you know this is this is what life's like I mean if you're in a war zone you're.
Experiencing grief and suffering and stuff tenfold hundredfold a thousandfold beyond what I experienced so I just try and honor her memory um but I also didn't let myself get uh defined by it because I think I was lucky enough or perhaps just had an Insight that I needed to keep moving again and and I thought about this before I came into.
Chat with you because I thought I'm a bit surprised that I'm making a record now I'm a bit surprised that songs have been dropping out of the sky I'm a bit surprised that I've still got this real appetite to do it and this real energy to do it and I don't know whether that's just DNA got a bit lucky with you know DNA or whether it's a mental thing of.
Mental disciplines maybe it's a combination of all but I do know that part of it is having this sense that you're a sitting dark if you just sit there complaining and doing nothing whatever you're doing wherever you are in this world particularly in Oz keep moving what do you think was the effect on you of losing both your parents quite.
Early in your life uh probably made me a bit more independent independently minded um I mean I'm I'm the oldest of of I've got two other brothers and so you tend to be a little bit responsible and you know want to sort of take charge and do all of that there's no surprises with me that that's what I'm like as a.
Person I think it also just taught me that you know life's incredibly precious and it I mean I lived on the NorthShore of Sydney you know I mean apart from you know a bunch of sort of high rollers in monacco you know it doesn't get any better and uh and then suddenly they're gone so it's it's it's a very quick lesson in how precious life is and that.
Absolute cliche but deep truth make the most of every day what would you say to people right now who who are going through something and they feel like this it's too much it's irrecoverable uh well it will pass or it can pass that's the first thing I'd say say the second thing is that I think most of us are stronger than we actually.
Think uh and that when our backs are right up against the wall you can dig in and find a strength or a resilience but you need to share with somebody you need to have someone that you can talk to and to find that person family member friend or even a professional person to help you to discover the strength that we all have and if we don't have enough.
Strength to find people that can help us through that moment uh this is from your book it's a montage of you and Doris and the kids it's just lots of different shots I'll get emotional that our wedding and how many years ago is that now uh 38 years maybe which is incredible uh my sweetheart and our.
First on the beach where we used to spend quite a bit of time a beautiful woman yeah look we how lucky am I I can't say much more super super lucky super super lucky and the kids are all growing up now ex little kids aren't there anymore they're big kids yeah no no there they are as as uh as younger.
Ones if anybody gets an opportunity to have family um it's the rarest most special but most common of all things and my Challenge and I try and say this to myself every day is not to take it for granted here I am with my girls and couldn't be happier really dressed up a bit but do you get to say them a lot do everyone uh we're close yeah we are a.
Close family and we value the relationship ships greatly and we see one another as much as we can without The Old Man and the old woman getting in their way how important is your wife Doris being in enabling you to live large and make bold decisions uh more important than anyone could know I mean she's chosen to we've.
Chosen for her to have a private life and she's had a private professional life but she is without any question the the absolute Rock and uh yeah more than words can express Lee you're right in your Memoir big blue sky that in the early 90s when you joined the board of Green Peace you should have paused as I'd intended to give more time to Doris.
And our marriage but I failed to appreciate how necessary is this was at the time she was the light of my life but I wasn't around enough to Kindle the flame how did you for lack of a better word wake up to yourself well it took me a while so I was pretty slow and a bit selfish on that uh and I think that I partly woke.
Up to myself because you I was flying back from wherever and just thinking I've been away for too long partly because of the conversations that Doris and I were able to have and she'd been remarkably forgiving and staunch but even for someone as strong as her there was a point where she had to say to me hey you know look at what's.
Happening here and I think I needed to realize that to Value the relationship and the marriage and to and to keep the marriage strong and going well I needed to try and make some changes as you said at the start too you know your first album you took it around to show you Grand you can be Peter Garrett you can be the lead singer or.
The biggest rock band in the world but if you don't have anyone to share that with and talk to about it then what is it no absolutely and you know I look at a lot of my contempories and the history of you know modern rock is littered with people who you know get to the dizzying Heights and within a second you know they're down in.
The gutter and they they're desol or they're dead uh and often lonely so yeah now I think I mean I think that Midnight Oil itself didn't have this all consuming desire to be you know the the at the top to scale of charts to get bigger and bigger to earn more and more money um and we all in different times said that we can't live anywhere else to.
This we need to be able to come back home we need to be able to reconnect with our families with our loved ones it gives us that sense of who we are we would have been a drift on the sea if we had to ended up in LA or New York for too long I don't know what would have happened but I suspect it wouldn't have been pretty there was one photo left.
Sorry that I forgot to show you all right who who's this dude and what's he doing uh this is taken in Byron Bay before it got uh overtaken by real estate developers and influencers this is a much better Barron period waiting for a w no doubt this was the golden surfing era probably that is the golden surfing era yeah no question.
So do you still surf no I don't uh well I've just developed a really weird um allergy thing to cold water unfortunately which is just it's like a a medical thing which keeps me out of cold water so if it's warm I'll go in but otherwise I can't was that a big loss yeah it was yeah it was a big loss uh it's it's a weird thing that that.
Came about actually just when I went into politics and it was meant to go away after five or six years actually it's funny because when I thought when I walked out of the parliament I thought I'll bet you know my weird condition that stops me surfing will go away but it stayed so oh with this new album True North the themes are consistent with the.
Themes that have preoccupied you your whole adult life the environment indigenous rights and so on there's lots of different things people can care about why do you think for you those two things are the things that have really weighed on you on the environment um someone said look we've got a first world economy and a third world approach.
To thinking about nature which I happen to agree with um and if we talk about indigenous rights the modern Australian state in many ways is a great success story except that we've got one big thing which we need to get right which is how the country came into being and the fact that there actually were Australian indigenous people here first.
And it was taken from them and I've always felt that if we we got that right if we settled that first disposition that first original sin if you like then the prospects of the country are great so because you're not carrying around this stuff that's inside of you making you feel a bit uncomfortable you don't really want to look or think about it so.
You're 70 now you've just done this new album what what are your plans from here how would you like the rest of your your life to look uh so I don't look that much ahead I really do try and take it dayto day I firmly believe in it's the moment you know it's carpa DM isn't it SE the day you know and I'm I'm a great adherent to that idea and I just really.
Value the extraordinary circumstance of still being here at this time talking to you with these songs and with this energy I'll keep doing what I'm doing until um at some point I get lowered into the ground or scattered into the sea and then you'll probably hear this faint Echo from a distance I've got more to.
Say you say time are T we got the best of all world things are right we got the best of world here times are top we got the best of e
