Speaker 1: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The
Speaker 1: front I'm Claire Harvey. When I think of a rock drummer,
Speaker 1: he's smashing the snares and swilling the beer. But Midnight
Speaker 1: Oil's drummer Robert Hurst, a famously energetic player, defies the cliches.
Speaker 1: Hurst is a thoughtful and talented songwriter, a drinker of
Speaker 1: Camomile t and he helped write the band's era defining songs.
Speaker 1: He's also been battling pancreatic cancer for two years, a
Speaker 1: secret he's revealed today in the Weekend Australian magazine to
Speaker 1: our music writer Andrew McMillan. This is Rob Hurst and
Speaker 1: creating these musical works of art. Hurst was one of
Speaker 1: the writers of these famous Midnight All songs, and although
Speaker 1: the band's most famous member was charismatic frontman Peter Garrett,
Speaker 1: it was Hearst shaping this unforgettable sound. Rob Hurst is
Speaker 1: a legend by any metrics.
Speaker 2: He's one of the greatest drummers in Australian music history,
Speaker 2: not just through the popularity of Minna Oil, but the
Speaker 2: innovation and power of his playing.
Speaker 1: This is Andrew McMillan, The Australian's music writer.
Speaker 2: Early on in the band's career, the stage crew took
Speaker 2: to nailing his drum kit to the floor, otherwise the
Speaker 2: instruments would fly off the stage. He just hit with
Speaker 2: ferocity and gusto. That was almost unmatch I dare say
Speaker 2: in Australian rock and roll. But besides being the drummer,
Speaker 2: he is one of the key songwriters in Minna Oil,
Speaker 2: alongside Jim Ojeini, the guitarist.
Speaker 1: We often assume it's the lead singer writing all the hits,
Speaker 1: but for Midnight or Will just like in Excess and
Speaker 1: Cold Chisel, That's not necessarily the case. In the Oil's case,
Speaker 1: some of the band's biggest hits came from the back
Speaker 1: of the stage. Here's Rob Hurst in conversation with Andrew.
Speaker 3: I do feel very happy amongst that group of Australian songwriters.
Speaker 3: I've always admired it just quietly chip away songs and
Speaker 3: try to get them as good as possible. That's great
Speaker 3: after all these years to have something where you can't
Speaker 3: just dust it off and go okay, job done. Master that. No,
Speaker 3: you never do, in fact quite the country. You try
Speaker 3: to always write something better than the last thing or
Speaker 3: the thing before.
Speaker 1: The magic of Midnight Oil was to take ideas that
Speaker 1: back in the eighties were pretty radical and make them
Speaker 1: into pub rock bangers. Indigenous rise, reconciliation, environmentalism, corporate greed, politics.
Speaker 3: Everyone in the band expressed the activism, the politics, the
Speaker 3: urgency of certain issues they wanted to get off their
Speaker 3: chest in a different way, and with Jim and I,
Speaker 3: Ed was always trying to write really strong songs that
Speaker 3: meant something. Songwriting is one hundred percent more potent if
Speaker 3: what you're writing about something is clearly something that the
Speaker 3: author or composer was passionate about, but not in a
Speaker 3: didactic way or a proselytizing way. How can I do
Speaker 3: it where you actually get people thinking and bring people
Speaker 3: with you. We realized early on that if it didn't
Speaker 3: have a killer hook, melody, big chorus grade beat and
Speaker 3: then delivered, you know, through these massive speakers texts, it
Speaker 3: was not never going to be absorbed.
Speaker 1: Rob Hurst got the real politic partly from his dad, Peter.
Speaker 1: He also had a hugely influential lecturer, Barbara Tucker, while
Speaker 1: studying law at Sydney UNI. But Hurst's art was shaped,
Speaker 1: perhaps most powerfully by his mum, Robin, My mother.
Speaker 3: Was an avowed socialist, and she'd regularly get to trouble,
Speaker 3: she said, by talking her mind, but she stood aground
Speaker 3: underneath it. She was tough, but pretty big, hard was so.
Speaker 2: Lucky throughout her life. At various points, she suffered from depression,
Speaker 2: as Rob describes as the black dog howls through his family,
Speaker 2: and Rob himself suffered through depression as well at various points.
Speaker 2: But Robin towards the end of her life, when she
Speaker 2: was eighty five, she got to such a dark place
Speaker 2: where she no longer wanted to be here with her husband,
Speaker 2: with her family, And as Rob describes it, in her
Speaker 2: final year, she drank three different poisons in an attempt
Speaker 2: to end her life, and the third one succeeded. And
Speaker 2: Rob told me that one of the last things that
Speaker 2: she said to him on her deathbed was don't grieve
Speaker 2: for me. She had just come to the end of
Speaker 2: her tether and Rob saw the extreme pain, emotional pain
Speaker 2: that she was in towards the end. And that's a
Speaker 2: pretty sad memory for him, but one that he has
Speaker 2: the willingness to speak about now, not just in terms
Speaker 2: of honoring her memory, but also thinking of the alternative where,
Speaker 2: perhaps an a strange canon chew sort of way, Robbers become
Speaker 2: a proponent of voluntary assistant dying for those who are
Speaker 2: tonally unwell, where rather than hang around as long as
Speaker 2: possible in extreme pain in some cases, he's a proponent
Speaker 2: of taking up that option of the VAD laws to
Speaker 2: enable him to have a peaceful, loving end of life
Speaker 2: surrounded by those closest to him, rather than what his
Speaker 2: mum say that he went through.
Speaker 1: Coming up how this soulful man is facing death. In
Speaker 1: late twenty twenty two, Midnight Oil drew the curtain on
Speaker 1: a forty six year career. Six months after the band's
Speaker 1: final show at sixty seven years of age, rob Hurst's
Speaker 1: post Oil's life took a dramatic turn.
Speaker 3: I've been having some kind of vague discomfort, not pain,
Speaker 3: in the abdomen and some kind of weird gurgling sounds.
Speaker 3: So I went down to the doctor here at the
Speaker 3: biomedical center, and a fellow said it's probably lactose intolerance,
Speaker 3: you know, take a couple of panadole, and didn't even
Speaker 3: send me for a blood test. So a couple of
Speaker 3: days later, still thought a bit weird, went to the
Speaker 3: GP in Sydney and a few days later and by
Speaker 3: the way, should never get a phone call from your
Speaker 3: GP on a Sunday afternoon, she said, go straight to
Speaker 3: Northern Beaches Hospital. Your liver markers are through the roof.
Speaker 3: I think it might be pancreatitis. Went up there, had
Speaker 3: a scan, pancreas cancer out of the blue. So quite
Speaker 3: a shock to say the least.
Speaker 1: Andrew, how did you find out Robhurst was unwell?
Speaker 2: Luck and circumstance. Basically, I was at Cold Chisel's final
Speaker 2: show in Sydney in December last year at Kutos Bank
Speaker 2: Arena and just by chance, I was sat behind Peter
Speaker 2: Garrett and his bandmate Rob Hurst, who were both there
Speaker 2: with their wives, and at various points throughout the show,
Speaker 2: Peter was ducking across this next to Rob when they
Speaker 2: were an intense conversation, and it kind of happened a
Speaker 2: few times throughout the two hours, and I thought, what's
Speaker 2: Rob up to? I've no idea since minnight Oil ended,
Speaker 2: he'd been silent publicly, so I just wondered what he
Speaker 2: was up to, put that request into his manager and
Speaker 2: learned that things had not been going so well for Rob.
Speaker 1: Hurst decided it should be Andrew and by extension, The
Speaker 1: Australian to help Spreadharst's new message as far as possible,
Speaker 1: a message of health awareness, and also of his late
Speaker 1: friend Mark Moffatt, an esteemed producer, guitarist and composer who
Speaker 1: passed away from pancreatic cancer last year age seventy four.
Speaker 3: So one of the reasons I wanted to talk about
Speaker 3: pancreas cancer is tourn a Mark. There hasn't been any
Speaker 3: memorial and there are so many people whose lives affected.
Speaker 3: One of the great musicians, had worked with everyone, and
Speaker 3: I wanted to get the story of pancreas cancer out
Speaker 3: there because it's one of those cancers that most people
Speaker 3: don't really register them, hasn't really attracted the attention, for example,
Speaker 3: of skin cancers or breast cancers or others, but it's
Speaker 3: really on the rise. Also, the lesson for me, and
Speaker 3: maybe why I've lasted this long, is because you know,
Speaker 3: if you do have any symptoms, just don't get a
Speaker 3: simple blood test and it could be life changing and
Speaker 3: life extending.
Speaker 1: Pancreatic cancer is particularly aggressive. It's more deadly than skin
Speaker 1: cancer or breast cancer per diagnosis, due to the difficulty
Speaker 1: in early detection. For most patients, a diagnosis calls a
Speaker 1: death sentence. It's just too late to do anything.
Speaker 3: I just don't think Anglo Celtic people do death very
Speaker 3: well compared to most other cultures. We either don't talk
Speaker 3: about it or we're terrified of it. Most other civilizations
Speaker 3: in Asia, South America, particularly Southern Europe, they accept death
Speaker 3: as a natural part of life and they celebrate for years.
Speaker 3: I used to joke, you know, when I go I
Speaker 3: organize a Viking funeral, because I got a lovely old
Speaker 3: wooden fishing boat, and I thought, you know, maybe with
Speaker 3: a carton of grange only seventy two, you know, just
Speaker 3: motor off about five kilometers off the coast of New
Speaker 3: South Wales, drink the grange and arrange my own Viking funeral.
Speaker 3: I thought, that's not fair. It's a really nice wooden boat.
Speaker 3: I would have enjoyed that. But you know, I don't
Speaker 3: think the length of your life is nearly as important
Speaker 3: or crucial is the quality and opportunity of the life
Speaker 3: that you've had. And in my case, it's been absolutely
Speaker 3: better than anything anyone could ever ask for. And so
Speaker 3: if my life is attenuated by this tiny little tumor
Speaker 3: that threatens to do me in. Then I will still
Speaker 3: consider myself incredibly fortunate, a fortunate life. As ab fac
Speaker 3: he wrote those years ago, I tear up thinking about
Speaker 3: how kind people have been, bringing food and clothes and
Speaker 3: books and checking with me all the time. It's just
Speaker 3: been it's been a real sorry, it's been really life
Speaker 3: affirming and lovely.
Speaker 2: You're clearly loved, Rob.
Speaker 3: You don't realize until this kind of catastrophe hits from
Speaker 3: the side. That's been the joyful aspect of this whole Tralamini.
Speaker 1: As the sun set in Byron and Andrew's interview with
Speaker 1: Rob Hurst drew to a close. Hurst told Andrew the
Speaker 1: metric he'd like people to use when measuring his life
Speaker 1: and work.
Speaker 3: From a musical point of view, I would like to
Speaker 3: be remembered as someone useful to have around a band.
Speaker 3: Deborah Osl would write a book called useful, which I
Speaker 3: commend to you. But I really love that term because
Speaker 3: you know, in a way it kind of encapsulates what
Speaker 3: we should be doing with our tiny, little microscopic time
Speaker 3: on the planet, which is just in the greatest scheme
Speaker 3: of things, is so minuscule and so transient, is you know?
Speaker 3: Are we in any way useful for the planner, for people,
Speaker 3: for friends, for loved ones? What I like that idea.
Speaker 1: Andrew McMillan is The Australian's music writer and you can
Speaker 1: read his feature on Robert Hurst inside the magazine in
Speaker 1: the Weekend Australian wherever you get your paper, or of
Speaker 1: course you can read it online right now at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Front this week. This episode was edited and produced by
Speaker 1: Jasper Leek, who also composed our music. Our team includes
Speaker 1: producer Christen Amiot, Leat, Samaglue, Tiffany Dimac, Joshua Burton, Stephanie
Speaker 1: Coombs and me Claire Harvey.