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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Barbed Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm here down Under with the legendary Peter Garrett. Peter Hi, Bob. Well,

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Speaker 1: let me ask you a question. If people call you Pete,

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Speaker 1: is that fine? Are you definitely a Peter? No? No,

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Speaker 1: I take I take either. I'm an assie. So we're

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Speaker 1: pretty easy about those things. Well, you know, I'm Robert.

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Speaker 1: I was never called Robert. I've been bobbed from like

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Speaker 1: day one. Okay, So what are we going to do

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Speaker 1: about climate change? Well, a bunch of different things. The

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Speaker 1: first one would be to make sure that we have

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Speaker 1: an economic instrument in every economy. The best way we

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Speaker 1: can fix it quickly is to put a penalty on

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Speaker 1: carbon pollution. So that's like a carbon tax. Use the

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Speaker 1: money that you get from the carbon tax to essentially

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Speaker 1: recycled dollars into zero emissions technologies, renewables, energy efficiency, the

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Speaker 1: new stuff, the hydrogened cells and the like that are

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Speaker 1: going to make the world continue to go without putting

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Speaker 1: more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Do it in a

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Speaker 1: way which essentially encourages first mover companies and innovators to

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Speaker 1: do their job well. And those who are going to

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Speaker 1: dig their heels in and don't want to change, and

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Speaker 1: are essentially writing a suicide note for for subsequent generations

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Speaker 1: pay the price. Okay, let's be very specific. The day

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Speaker 1: we're recording this, Trump says he's pulling out of the

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Speaker 1: Paris Accords. Those that plan sounds great, But in the

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Speaker 1: world we live in, can we enact that plan? Well?

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Speaker 1: I think we can, and I think the fact that

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Speaker 1: Trump's pulling out is in some ways not unexpected, but

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Speaker 1: it is not fatal to the Paris Accords essentially being

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Speaker 1: the next big stepping stone to the world community reducing emissions.

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Speaker 1: There's a couple of technical and political issues in the

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Speaker 1: Paris Accord which are challenging. One is that up to now,

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Speaker 1: countries are simply pledging. They're not promising to enact their

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Speaker 1: reductions in legislation or by a mandate or a feared

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Speaker 1: or a regulation or whatever that has to happen. And

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Speaker 1: a second thing is that, from what the science is

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Speaker 1: telling us, even if those countries who have already made commitments, say,

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Speaker 1: for example, to reduce their emissions down to a certain

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Speaker 1: figure in the next twenty or thirty years, unless they

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Speaker 1: all do it, unless we all do it, then the

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Speaker 1: chances of us holding warming to a level that makes

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Speaker 1: the planet habitable become less. So I think what's going

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Speaker 1: to happen is that when they next go the country's

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Speaker 1: next go to the Conference of the Parties as it's called,

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Speaker 1: America will still probably be an observer, even if they're

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Speaker 1: talking about pulling out. Those countries that have committed to

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Speaker 1: do it, mainly the European countries, China, India in particular,

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Speaker 1: and the South American block, will have more information in

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Speaker 1: front of them saying, you know what, we need to

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Speaker 1: accelerate reductions. So we can't go in with the business

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Speaker 1: as usual, let's play around at the edges approach. We

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Speaker 1: will have to do more. Some countries will then make

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Speaker 1: specific additional commitments. As they do that, the pressure then

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Speaker 1: comes on bad neighbors to to follow suit. And of

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Speaker 1: course the outliers are countries, particularly like Saudi Arabia and Russia,

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Speaker 1: who aren't playing ball at this point in time. Okay,

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Speaker 1: what will be the incentive to the people to become

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Speaker 1: more aggressive? I think there are two. One is that

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Speaker 1: the cost of inaction on dealing with climate change is

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Speaker 1: rising exponentially, whether it's insurance costs, infrastructure destruction, population movements,

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Speaker 1: effects on agriculture. I mean, look at your home state

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Speaker 1: now as we speak, can California I mean like seriously

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Speaker 1: becoming an extremely difficult place to even because of wildfire, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And that, whilst maybe not necessarily each time caused by

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Speaker 1: climate change, certainly global warming intensifies wildfires as it does

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other things. So that's the first

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Speaker 1: incentive is economies aren't going to be able to pay easily,

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Speaker 1: particularly economies that are in debt, which many world economies are,

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Speaker 1: for all of the infrastructure repair, emergency services and the like.

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Speaker 1: So that's the first incentive. The second incentive is that

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Speaker 1: if we're serious about a future for our kids, then

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Speaker 1: we have to be able to envisage a future where

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Speaker 1: there's they've still got jobs, have still got opportunities, and

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Speaker 1: of course all of those are in the new technologies,

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Speaker 1: in the new areas of low emissions, solar, wind, energy efficiency,

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Speaker 1: electric cars. I mean, you name it. There's there's a

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Speaker 1: whole world of zero economy out there for us, but

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Speaker 1: we need to get going on it. So you're optimistic, Yes,

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Speaker 1: I'm optimistic, although I've been in this issue on and

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Speaker 1: off for many, many years, Bob, and I think the

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Speaker 1: current political developments, particularly in your country, but in others

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Speaker 1: where you have rogue right wing governments who either don't

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Speaker 1: believe in it or don't want to do anything about it,

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Speaker 1: makes it more difficult. And additionally, I think in many cases, industry,

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Speaker 1: particularly the fossil fuel industries, the oil and gas companies

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Speaker 1: and others, have really played hardball with this issue and

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Speaker 1: are deeply culpable for knowing, as the tobacco companies did

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Speaker 1: thirty or forty or fifty years ago, that what they

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Speaker 1: were doing was imperiling the planet, but not being prepared

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Speaker 1: to scale back their activity. So I see the most

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Speaker 1: recent amount of citizens activities in different countries, including ours,

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Speaker 1: and more so in Europe perhaps than yours, but also

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Speaker 1: in yours extinction rebellion, this grassroots movement that's starting to build.

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Speaker 1: I see that as part of a new response two

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Speaker 1: people being absolutely frustrated that we're not getting enough done,

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Speaker 1: and on the other side, the potential for social democrat

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Speaker 1: parties eventually to reclaim some ground and enact things like

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Speaker 1: a green New Deal type thing, which you've seen in

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Speaker 1: your country well It's interesting because Greta Thunberg has been

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Speaker 1: put down by all the right wing. It shows the

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Speaker 1: power of one individual. Oh amazing, It's just you know,

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Speaker 1: people are playing in the background, just like one one

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Speaker 1: rock performer, one band can make such a difference. So

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Speaker 1: how do you become so politicized? To begin with? Oh? Gee,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. That's the way I am as a person. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. You and I are

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Speaker 1: the same age. I'm trying to think whether I'm here

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Speaker 1: with an area nite man with actually you and me?

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Speaker 1: But in any event, uh, okay, you you grew up where? So?

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a suburb of Sydney, which is

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Speaker 1: the biggest city in Australia on the East Coast, and

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Speaker 1: I grew up basically in a middle class a little

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Speaker 1: bit slower. How many generations has your family been in Australia.

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Speaker 1: So on my mom's side, uh, four and on my

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Speaker 1: dad yeah, four, and on my dad's side, I think

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Speaker 1: three or four have Do you have any idea where

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Speaker 1: they came from and what their incentive was? Yes, I

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Speaker 1: do so. On my mom's side they come from the

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Speaker 1: United Kingdom, from England, excuse me. And on my dad's

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Speaker 1: side they come from Belgium and the United Kingdom. You

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Speaker 1: have any idea why they came, Yes, we know that

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Speaker 1: they came looking for a better life, as most immigrants do,

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Speaker 1: and that when they arrived. On my dad's side, they

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Speaker 1: were very involved in politics actually as it turned out,

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Speaker 1: and business and sport and all of those things. Unfortunately

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Speaker 1: on the wrong side, on the right wing side. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so so I'm not from convict stock in Australia and

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Speaker 1: obviously our Aboriginal on island of people are the first Australians.

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Speaker 1: But I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a iterational Australian

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Speaker 1: in Okay, So you grew up in a suburb, your

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Speaker 1: parents work outside the home. Yes, so my my dad

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Speaker 1: is a business manager in English. That's like sort of

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Speaker 1: a like a managing director of a company, but a

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Speaker 1: small but a big German company. But the Sydney office

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Speaker 1: was the company they used to make tapes b a

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Speaker 1: SF really okay yea, so maybe the first chrome teams

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Speaker 1: you remember, I know, cause that's love to talk about them. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And my mom was who was a big influence onthing,

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Speaker 1: actually was one of the first generations of women here

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Speaker 1: in Australia to graduate from university. It was at the

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Speaker 1: end of World War Two. Of course, many men had

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Speaker 1: lost their lives, women had gone into the workforce. They

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Speaker 1: were working from America were completely uneducated. What was Australia's

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Speaker 1: rule in World War two? So in World War two

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Speaker 1: we were um basically followed the English into the war,

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Speaker 1: and in the middle of the war, after Pearl Harbor

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Speaker 1: was bombed by the Japanese, we of course we're on

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Speaker 1: the same side as you were, the Americans. And it

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Speaker 1: was during that time, in early nine in forties that

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Speaker 1: as a colony, which is previously what the country had

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Speaker 1: been a British colony, we pivoted to use an Obama term,

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Speaker 1: and our Prime Minister at the time said, up to

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Speaker 1: this point in time, we've been an English colony, and

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Speaker 1: we love the Queen and all of that, but we

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Speaker 1: are now going to become close friends with America and Americans,

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Speaker 1: and we need to because our survival depends on it.

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Speaker 1: And we fought with the Americans against the Japanese as

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Speaker 1: they proceeded to get closer and closer to Australia, I

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Speaker 1: mean Japanese actually bombed not only Pearl Harbor, but Darwin,

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Speaker 1: a city to the north of Australia, and sent submarines

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Speaker 1: down this side. The country was never physically invaded. And

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Speaker 1: was your father in the war? No, my father was,

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Speaker 1: and actually he was very unwell. In fact, he was

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Speaker 1: unfortunately suffered ill health for most of his life. But

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Speaker 1: my mother was. So she served in the Women's Air

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Speaker 1: Force Regiment and along with many other young women, when

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Speaker 1: they were discharged or demobilized at the end of the war,

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Speaker 1: they went to university. And so she became a social worker.

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Speaker 1: And before you get there, her family, Yes, did her appearance.

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Speaker 1: Did her father go to university? Her father was a dentist, Okay,

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Speaker 1: so he was a professional. Yeah, he was a professional,

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Speaker 1: and he would probably feel positive about her going to university. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I imagine so, although I think in those days they

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Speaker 1: were still pushing the boat out a little bit to

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Speaker 1: do those things. First generation. Really do you think about

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Speaker 1: him nine in forty seven? Probably your mother is a

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Speaker 1: social worker, correct, and working with who so working with

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Speaker 1: poor people, the underclass paid by the government. Correct. She

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Speaker 1: actually was the first social worker to be employed here

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Speaker 1: in Sydney, the city that we're in the one with

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Speaker 1: the harbor Bridge and the Opera House. And to establish

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Speaker 1: what was essentially a community center in a working class

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Speaker 1: area down by the docks, which had many retired seamen

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Speaker 1: merchant seamen who had been at sea and who had

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Speaker 1: done this, that and the other, and then who had retired.

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Speaker 1: And they built community centers of which there are now

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Speaker 1: many in Australia, and it's really an opportunity for older

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Speaker 1: people just to come. They play cards that have sing alongs.

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Speaker 1: On Friday. I'd come down from my school and and sing,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a long way to Tipperary or all

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Speaker 1: those old songs to these people. And she did that

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Speaker 1: for a while and then she moved further up the

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Speaker 1: food chain, so she became a senior social worker in

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Speaker 1: a big mental hospital here and basically working in the

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Speaker 1: areas of health and aged care. So how did your

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Speaker 1: parents meet. They met on the North Shore, Sydney, which

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Speaker 1: is the area that we come from, where mutual friends

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Speaker 1: gathered at a boarding house. In those days, young people

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Speaker 1: when they left home didn't go off and you know,

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Speaker 1: share flats or houses or things like that. That they

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Speaker 1: would go to a boarding house which was run by

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Speaker 1: you know, somebody and an old couple or whatever. There

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Speaker 1: were a couple of spinster aunts that ran a board

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Speaker 1: run a really nice old fashioned boarding house out in

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Speaker 1: the suburbs. And of course the men could visit the

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Speaker 1: girls that were in the boarding house, or the boys

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Speaker 1: could visit the girls, but only you know, for between

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Speaker 1: six and eight, and they'd have to sip tea while

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Speaker 1: they were watched over by some martinette. But that's anyway

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Speaker 1: they met up there. So they just bumped into each

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Speaker 1: other and someone set them up. Look, I don't know

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Speaker 1: the full story. Yeah, so your mother didn't used to

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Speaker 1: talk about the good old days? Not really, Okay, So

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Speaker 1: how many kids in your family? So on their side

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Speaker 1: or on my side? So I'm I'm the oldest of

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Speaker 1: three boys, and the other two were how much younger?

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Speaker 1: So five years to my next brother who is in Brisbane,

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Speaker 1: and then another three years to the youngest brother. Okay,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of times the oldest kid has a

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Speaker 1: lot of pressure on them, but it's also the favorite

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Speaker 1: of what was it like being the oldest boy? Look,

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Speaker 1: I think I conform, you know, pretty much to the

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Speaker 1: letter to the responsible eldest child. Look, I actually had

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Speaker 1: a very happy childhood. My mom and dad passed away

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Speaker 1: in my late teens, but up to that point in time,

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Speaker 1: I never felt I never had that into sort of

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Speaker 1: parent to kid tension that quite often arrives. I think

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Speaker 1: I enjoyed taking on extra responsibilities as a kid and

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Speaker 1: looking after my younger brothers, which I did, and both

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Speaker 1: my parents worked so they were quite often away a lot. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you didn't test the limits or your parents were

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Speaker 1: very you know, lenient, and I think there was so

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Speaker 1: much lenient. I think, no, I didn't test the limits,

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Speaker 1: wasn't interested in it. It seemed to me to be

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Speaker 1: completely unnecessary. I loved being kid, and from my perspective

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid is that I didn't want

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Speaker 1: to grow up. I could see the responsibilities that had

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Speaker 1: olds had, and I thought that there's plenty of time

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Speaker 1: for that to happen later on. And I still feel

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Speaker 1: this even more strongly now today, that we deny children

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Speaker 1: and young people the opportunity just to have those wonderful, open,

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Speaker 1: almost aimless periods of in their life where they're not

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Speaker 1: under social appression, they're not trying to meet somebody, they're

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Speaker 1: not trying to start their career. You know, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of weird because now if someone says they're board, you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what world they're living and not so

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Speaker 1: much input. But certainly in america's a result of incommittee quality.

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Speaker 1: The elite, so to speak, are so busy scheduling their children,

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Speaker 1: trying to get them in a better educational system that

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Speaker 1: they have. No, they don't even fear for themselves. The

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Speaker 1: other thing, of course, is the fear. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: would come home from school, I change into my play clothes,

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Speaker 1: I go off on my bike, and that would be

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Speaker 1: yet exactly same, no concept of a play date. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so how old were you? Well, how did your parents

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Speaker 1: pass away? So my dad add basically had a big

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Speaker 1: asthma attack. He was he worked pretty hard, and when

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Speaker 1: I was seventeen, and then four years later our family

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Speaker 1: home burnt down and my mom was in the family

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Speaker 1: home at the time and she perished. Yeah, it's hard

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Speaker 1: to have a response to that. So your father dies

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Speaker 1: at seventeen, doesn't that mess with the family's economics? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a little bit. I mean we a he It's an

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Speaker 1: interesting story, Bob, because I think, like most parents, he

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Speaker 1: wanted the best for his kids. One of one of

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Speaker 1: the things he wanted to do was to send us

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Speaker 1: to a good school and inverted commas. So he worked

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Speaker 1: extra hard to enable us to do that. But in

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Speaker 1: so doing, I think he put his already not too

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Speaker 1: good health at jeopardy. We were, but my mom was

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Speaker 1: a successful professional by that stage, so you know, even

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Speaker 1: once he died, she was able to support us. And

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Speaker 1: by that stage I had left home and gone to university,

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Speaker 1: so my two brothers were still at home. And then

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Speaker 1: your mother dies tragically, yes, and you're an orphan. So

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Speaker 1: what's that like. Well, I mean, at the time, it was,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was traumatic and an extremely difficult period

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Speaker 1: for us, and it took all of us quite some

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Speaker 1: time to recover from it. And I think, I mean,

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Speaker 1: but they were slack, you know, they didn't have an

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Speaker 1: insurance or anything like that. That was it. But on

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Speaker 1: reflection now and I look back on it, I think,

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Speaker 1: even even though of course I terribly missed my mom

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Speaker 1: and we were close, but it made us in some

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Speaker 1: ways in other ways because we went back literally to nothing,

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Speaker 1: and we looked after one another. And of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: I started even though I was at Uni, doing law

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Speaker 1: and I'm a lawyer by professional training, but I'm really

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Speaker 1: a musician and an activist, and music had started to

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Speaker 1: come into my life. And so I think when I

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Speaker 1: got onto stage and some one of my closest, oldest

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Speaker 1: friends sort of said to me, who knew the family before,

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Speaker 1: when you got on stage, you you definitely it seemed

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Speaker 1: like you definitely had to expunge some of the heart

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Speaker 1: smashes that you had. But for me, it was a

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Speaker 1: case of making every minute. I just knew how precious

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Speaker 1: life was by that stage because I lost my mom. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you were twenty three, you say when your mother died. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think, but in anything, your your brothers were much younger,

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Speaker 1: that's right. How did they manage? Well? We all we

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Speaker 1: all we all camped together. I was back in Sydney

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Speaker 1: and we just got a little flat somewhere and we started.

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Speaker 1: My brother and I got a contract cleaning out um

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Speaker 1: taxis that did the midnight shift on taxis here in

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Speaker 1: Sydney from twelve in the morning till five am. And

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Speaker 1: that's what we did to survive. How long did you

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Speaker 1: do that for? Oh, a year or two? Yeah, with

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Speaker 1: other jobs as well, thrown in whilst music was starting. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so let's go back to school. Were you a popular

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Speaker 1: kid at school? Um? Yeah, Look, I wouldn't have been unliked.

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Speaker 1: I think reasonably popular, but I wasn't sort of head

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Speaker 1: of the gang or anything like that. Do you have friends? Yeah? Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I had some friends. Okay. Now, you're obviously a tall gentleman.

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Speaker 1: How how tall are you? Six four and a half

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Speaker 1: in socks? Yeah? So what is it like were you

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Speaker 1: tall as a young kid? Yeah? I was tall and gorky,

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Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So how does that affect your personality? Well?

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Speaker 1: I think it probably means that you're a little aware

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Speaker 1: of social settings. Look, I'm I'm quiet and polite in

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Speaker 1: one way. This is just the character that I have.

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Speaker 1: But in another way, I'm not insecure about myself at all,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think I really ever have been, even

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Speaker 1: as a teenager. And I put that down to my

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Speaker 1: parenting inasmuch as, um, I had parents who encouraged us.

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Speaker 1: They weren't indulging us and saying, oh aren't you fantastic

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Speaker 1: little Pete? You know you can see you know you're

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Speaker 1: going to be a pop star. There's none of that.

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Speaker 1: They just treat you with respect. But say, you've got

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Speaker 1: if you want to do something, you've got the potential

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Speaker 1: to do. Whatever it is you choose to do, you

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Speaker 1: can do, and you get a good hearing here. And

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Speaker 1: we don't judge people, we don't label people. We don't

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Speaker 1: spend our time comparing ourselves against others. I never heard

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Speaker 1: my parents talk about the people next door and wishing

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Speaker 1: I had more or less money than that. Listen, my

336
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:17,320
Speaker 1: parents were the exact opposite. My mother. My older sisters

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Speaker 1: still traumatized by, you know, my father and mother talking

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Speaker 1: about a girl in the neighborhood and enough great she was, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And my mother would you know if I called her

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Speaker 1: up and I was gonna do something, you know, as

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Speaker 1: she would say, you know, essentially, why you I'm still

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Speaker 1: dealing with that, so so certainly. And then I grew

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Speaker 1: up on the eastern coast of the United States, and

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Speaker 1: the transistor came along, and we were listening to the sports, baseball,

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Speaker 1: the Yankees, and then I had certain singles. Then of

346
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Speaker 1: course the Beatles hit and all hell broke loose. What

347
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Speaker 1: was it like for you being here? Well, so, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can count my equanimity, I said, because I think

349
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:57,040
Speaker 1: I was pretty decent parenting, uh and my mom my

350
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Speaker 1: parents loved the Beatles. So the parents loved the Beatle.

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Speaker 1: So let's go back to the beginning. In my house,

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Speaker 1: my parents were avid music lovers, but they played the

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Speaker 1: show tunes, right, how about your parents same? So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I grew up on a diet of show tunes Crosby, Sinatra, Elvis.

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Speaker 1: But they kept going and they enjoyed parties. And so

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Speaker 1: the Beatles came and that sort of first British pop

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Speaker 1: invasion so rolled through the suburbs of Sydney and came

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Speaker 1: into our living room. But by that stage as well,

359
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Speaker 1: I had years for music too. I did a stand

360
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Speaker 1: a boarding school. You talk about transis, I did a

361
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Speaker 1: boarding school. I distinctly remember having my little transistor under

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Speaker 1: the pillow at night, listening to the Kinks, you know,

363
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Speaker 1: listening to the Who, listening to whatever. Doors. So, if

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Speaker 1: your parents are Beatles fans, that doesn't square with the

365
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Speaker 1: generational revolution that we experienced, and people talk about where

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Speaker 1: people are finding against their parents. Your parents were they hipsters?

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Speaker 1: Were most other people's parents like that? I wouldn't say

368
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Speaker 1: they were hipsters. I just think they were relatively broad minded.

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Speaker 1: And open, and I think they just enjoyed music, and

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Speaker 1: I think they were civil sort of people, so they

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Speaker 1: weren't trying to impose their strictures and their views on

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Speaker 1: their kids. They taught us good manners and you know,

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Speaker 1: how to treat other people. But it was pretty basic stuff. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So you have three kids yourself, that's what I have

375
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Speaker 1: three daughters. And how old are they? Thirty three, thirty two,

376
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Speaker 1: and thirty Okay? Well there, they've been out of the

377
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Speaker 1: house for a while and they never leave anymore. No,

378
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Speaker 1: I'm noticing. Yeah, I love that. Okay, So how do

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Speaker 1: you feel about their music? Well, I think it's incredible

380
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Speaker 1: for them, because it's incredible for them. How do you

381
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Speaker 1: feel your parents were Beatles fans? Are you a hip

382
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Speaker 1: hop fan? Yeah? I don't mind a little bit bits

383
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Speaker 1: of hip hop? Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm selective, I think,

384
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Speaker 1: am I listening? The reason I said incredible though, is

385
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 1: that their palettes so much wider than mine. Of course,

386
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 1: it's just massively wider. And if you listen to their playlists,

387
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Speaker 1: you know what they curate. It's crazy. I mean, I'm

388
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Speaker 1: hearing stuff I never knew. But I'm also hearing things

389
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Speaker 1: that I loved, but I thought they would never actually

390
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Speaker 1: ever listen to. Okay, so you're in boarding school. What

391
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Speaker 1: age do you got a boarding school? I only did

392
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Speaker 1: a brief stinting boarding school, but I was in boarding

393
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Speaker 1: school when I was fifteen and a half. So what happened?

394
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Speaker 1: Why was a brief? My parents went away and they

395
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,200
Speaker 1: just stuck us in there, you know, for a period

396
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Speaker 1: of time. Where did they go? So my dad had

397
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Speaker 1: to go to work in Germany because and my mom

398
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:39,359
Speaker 1: had relatives in actually North America and Canada, so she

399
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:42,159
Speaker 1: took off as well. So that you parked you in

400
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:44,919
Speaker 1: boarding school? Thanks mom and dad. So how long was that?

401
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: Not very long? Okay? So are you a record collector

402
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 1: when you're before you go to university? Look, I think

403
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:55,919
Speaker 1: I fall into the category of someone who loves their

404
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 1: music a lot and who is a bit of a

405
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:01,840
Speaker 1: bou bird. But I'm not an avid collector. I'm not

406
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: one of these fans. I'm not a musician who can

407
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,359
Speaker 1: tell you every B side that their favorite band forgetting

408
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: the music. Yeah, when you're in in the mid sixty

409
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 1: six four to seventy or so, when you graduate from

410
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Speaker 1: high school, are you listening to the radio, going to shows,

411
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:19,679
Speaker 1: doing all that stuff. No, not really going to shows,

412
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 1: listening to the radio and pop radio and just starting

413
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Speaker 1: to get a little bit of interest. I mean I went,

414
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Speaker 1: I went to a show, but I couldn't afford to

415
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Speaker 1: go in, so I stood outside with my ear up

416
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Speaker 1: against the brick wall to hear what was going on inside.

417
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Speaker 1: You remember what show that was? Yeah, it was. It

418
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:40,960
Speaker 1: was a band called um Tamim Shudd who were actually

419
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:45,120
Speaker 1: almost a sixty psychedelics band, surf band, and but they

420
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:49,120
Speaker 1: were a big band in our area. And uh, yeah, amazed.

421
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Speaker 1: Were you the type of guy who would dance when

422
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 1: the music played at shows? No, I'm standing back and

423
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: listening and trying to figure out what's going on, you know, Okay,

424
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 1: and you someone who has girlfriends in that era, yes,

425
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: but more so at university. So for me it really came.

426
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Speaker 1: So I left home in seventy and instead of going

427
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 1: to university in my hometown in the city of Sydney,

428
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 1: I essentially went to the Quill of Washington. I went

429
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 1: to Canberra and we have a national university there and

430
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: I was on the college there and it was there

431
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: that and but people came from all over Australia and

432
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: actually from other parts of the world as well. It's

433
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 1: interestingly mainly Africa. And there was a lot of music,

434
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 1: A lot of new music was pouring through. People were

435
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: reading the New Music Express, Rolling Stone. We were seeing

436
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 1: that explosion of music which washed through sixty six to

437
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: seventy in the States, in particular San Francisco at All

438
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 1: washes into Australia. Really, yeah, what acts do you remember

439
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: from that era? Well, I guess to begin with on

440
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: the on the English side, all of the big classic

441
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 1: acts that you and I both know. And then additionally,

442
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 1: what more widely people like UM Fairport Convention, Robert Wyatt's

443
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:12,120
Speaker 1: Soft Machine at All. On the American side, um again

444
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: the classic bands of that era, but the Birds would

445
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 1: be the one that really sort of hits me quite hard,

446
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: and I liked a lot. And then you go to

447
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: the doors. You've got the Mummers and the Pappas, You've

448
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 1: got the explosion of San Francisco bands, Moby Grape and

449
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 1: so on and solf. Okay, so was this your number

450
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: one interest once you're in university or I've always surfed

451
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 1: and always yeah yeah, So I mean, you know, I'm

452
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: an American. I don't know the the geography of Australia,

453
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: but camera is not by no, it's not not correct.

454
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: But but I grew up here, and yeah, I mean

455
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 1: I think it's something like of Australians live within fifty

456
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: kilometers of the coast. When did you start surfing? We

457
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: all start young here, Yeah, like four or five. You

458
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 1: still surf now, unfortunately not as much as I do,

459
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: but I get in the water. But the point being,

460
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: I still love to serve. But I was listening to

461
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: music I was interested in. I sang in the choir

462
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: at school, and I sang in a few little folky things.

463
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: And when I got to the university, the roys bands playing,

464
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: you know, in the colleges on the weekends, and I

465
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: fell in with a bunch of people who liked music.

466
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: And I got a job actually as a volunteer on

467
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 1: the university radio station because they didn't have anyone to

468
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 1: to sort of do the night shifts. And I always

469
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: been a nighttime person, so I started playing music on

470
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 1: the radio at night, and then I started playing music

471
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 1: at night in bands. Okay, when you were on the radio,

472
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: how many days a week we are on the radio,

473
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: I think two or three nights a week. Okay, what

474
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:45,159
Speaker 1: would you play well, the whole side of you know,

475
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: Adam Hart mother by people. You know, I've like that.

476
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 1: I never really got into it, but whatever. Okay, So

477
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: at what point do you say, shoul I could be

478
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: a performer. Well to two points really. The first is

479
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: that there was you know, SI had some mates and

480
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: they had a band and they were writing songs or

481
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: trying to and they were running around and I went

482
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 1: to see them because I had a truck driving license

483
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 1: and I was driving trucks as well. Let's start for

484
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 1: a second. Let's go back here. You say you're trained

485
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: in law. You know, every country is different. That means

486
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: if you and me, if I, you know, smashed the

487
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 1: window here, could you defend me in court? Uh? Well

488
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: I could? Yeah, I mean I are you licensed to

489
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: do that? No, not at this point in time, and

490
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: I've let that pass over. Okay, But but at one

491
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: time you were licensed at one At one time I

492
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: had gone and past my barrister's admission, So I could

493
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: have appeared for you in a quarter. Okay. What was

494
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:50,119
Speaker 1: your drive to be an attorney? I think partly that

495
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:51,920
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of anything else. I could do, or

496
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,120
Speaker 1: I could talk. You know that this is a talking job,

497
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: and I'm not mathematically or technically minded. And as I

498
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: got a little older, I realized is that the legal

499
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 1: system was pretty important. I studied air and space law

500
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: and pennology penology, which is the law of prisons and criminals.

501
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 1: And I thought I'd go to the bar potentially, or

502
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: I'd work in the international field in the area of

503
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: space law and international agreements and things like that. Now,

504
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: in America, you've got a college for four years, then

505
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: you got to law school for three years. How does

506
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: it work in Australia. Yeah, so we don't have a

507
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 1: college system here. You go straight to university essentially when

508
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 1: you finished high school, and the law degree will take

509
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: you four years if you do it by your by itself.

510
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: I actually did an arts degree in politics as well,

511
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: so double degree. So that's by the time you've done

512
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: it six years, okay, and then you have an exam

513
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 1: but you know, for a law but you never practiced law.

514
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: I practiced very briefly, and so I just like me. Yeah, no, no,

515
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: we're quite similar. How briefly did yous? Six months? And

516
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: what kind of law did you practice? I was providing

517
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: advice to companies a out the different laws in different states.

518
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: Australia is a federation, so we know nothing. The federation

519
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: means what, Yeah, a bit like Canada. So when Australia

520
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: was first occupied by the British, they occupied at state

521
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: by state and they constituted laws in each of those states,

522
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: and the country didn't come together as a whole nation

523
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: until nineteen one, even though you know, the English had

524
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,479
Speaker 1: been here since the mid seventies, seventies and early eight hundreds.

525
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: So the states had to agree to become a federated

526
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: nation and they've all got different laws. The states do

527
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: their own things still to this day. So it was

528
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: very dry, very boring stuff, and I quickly left. Okay,

529
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: but were you working for yourself? How are you getting

530
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: working for myself? How did you get to work? I

531
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 1: think you know. A solicitor who had been at law

532
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: school with me said, I'll look, these companies need to

533
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 1: know what they can do with their labeling. Do you

534
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: want to have a go at it? And I said, yeah, okay.

535
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 1: Did you quit because music was becoming successful or because

536
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: you just could stand doing it? No? I did it

537
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: and I didn't do it for very long. I didn't

538
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: mind it. But by that stage I had met Rob

539
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: Hurst and Jim mcgeanie from who had started a band

540
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: at school really and it started writing songs, and we

541
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: had become Midnight or by that point, and we agreed

542
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: that if we were going to do anything with it,

543
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: then we would stop what we were doing otherwise and

544
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: just throw ourselves out all time. Let's go back to

545
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: the earlier story. You were a truck driver. Yeah, looks

546
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: so I drove trucks in my dad's company when I

547
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: was when I was last year of school, Like how

548
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: big a truck but not not a massive semi trailers,

549
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: but the next one is now. And I kept that

550
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: license and when I was at at university in the

551
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: National University, pay my way through and of course by

552
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: this stage my dad's passed away and then then so

553
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to not be a drain on

554
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: my mom, so I used to work on the weekends

555
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: driving trucks. And then I actually took a year off

556
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 1: where I had worked for a big trucking company just

557
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: to pay off debts and you know, sort out money.

558
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: And I started because I had the truck driving license.

559
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: Of course I was the guy that could be the

560
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: roadie exactly, and you know, big and strong in those days.

561
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 1: So I was loading the boxes in and out and

562
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: helping these people just so I know. Usually I would

563
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: think of a trucking company. You drive there, you drop

564
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: off your car, you drive, you leave the truck back.

565
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: How did you have the truck to work for? Used

566
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: to let the used to let us have the truck,

567
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: which was quite novel in those stuff. I'm sure it

568
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen to that, especially if they knew what was

569
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: happening to it. But I heard the band and I

570
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: liked it, and I was listening to lots of music

571
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: and playing music at night in the college station. But

572
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: the singer wasn't really that good, and I said something like,

573
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: you know, look, and they said, how are we going?

574
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: You know? I said, wow, I'm not too bad, but

575
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: the singers maybe well classic Australian response, I suppose you

576
00:31:51,840 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: could do better and I said yeah, I'm sure. Okay.

577
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: Wait two things, Um, how long you slept in the

578
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: gear before this conversation? Not very long, okay? And did

579
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: you say the singer was bad because in your horror

580
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: you knew you wanted the gig no, I didn't actually

581
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: think I'd end up singing with them at all. They

582
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: just asked me the question. I just answered it honestly. Okay,

583
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: Then what happened? Then they said, well, do you want

584
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: to come along and sing? I said, yeah, sure, I'll

585
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: do that, which I did. So we were we were

586
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: a university band made up mainly of students, and we

587
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: were not very good. We were playing covers, we were

588
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: playing a lot of rock and roll. We were playing

589
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: you know, roadhouse blues, little Stone songs and so on.

590
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: But eventually we also had a fellow that came to

591
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: join us who was someone who got onto synthesizes very

592
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: early on, who was a huge fan of enos as

593
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: it turned out, and he built for himself a little

594
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: primitive noise generator. So we used to play rock and

595
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: roll with since the size this going on in the background,

596
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: and we just toured relentlessly in and around Canberra, but

597
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: only on the weekends. Okay, you have a unique vocal style.

598
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: Were you singing in that style when you were doing covers?

599
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: Probably probably not very very well, but yeah, okay, same style. Okay,

600
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: just but what is the Australian personality? Because you're self deprecating.

601
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: Is that because of your success or is that Australians.

602
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: I think it's partly Australians. We tend not to blow

603
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: our own trumpet to that's changing a little bit. You

604
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: do get people that blow their trumpets a bit louder now,

605
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: But I think it's part of our our national culture

606
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: to some extent. But it's probably also part of my nature.

607
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't know what what it is, but

608
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: I tend not to want to shout too loudly about

609
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. I mean, I'm proud of what I do,

610
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, I think it's just the way we are. Okay,

611
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: So you're playing with this band, you're you're talking about

612
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,959
Speaker 1: it in a very negative way, even though you ultimately

613
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 1: had great success. You're playing on the weekends. What kind

614
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,959
Speaker 1: of gigs, what kind of money you make? And not

615
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: much so? And it's not midnight oil. And this comes

616
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 1: in a in a second or two time. So I'm

617
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: in Canberra where students and we we are reliable because

618
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: we had a van that we won't and a p

619
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: A and we're heading off to say a hotel like

620
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: a pub in a country town, maybe an hour's drive

621
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 1: from Canberra and we're playing on a Friday night to

622
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 1: maybe one or two hundred people, and we're getting a

623
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: couple hundred bucks to do that. We're playing at Unis

624
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: balls and dances. We could we would actually play anything,

625
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 1: you know, play anywhere, and we played out in paddocks

626
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 1: for farmers and you know who would always be shouting,

627
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:48,320
Speaker 1: you know, play a C D C, you know, and

628
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: we have to play some more. Okay. So what was

629
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: the thought at the time just having a lark or

630
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 1: was it, well, maybe this will turn into something for me.

631
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of both. Actually, such a

632
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: good question, because I intended to finish my my law,

633
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: but I actually found I knew I would like performing

634
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,359
Speaker 1: and I love singing, and even though we weren't that good,

635
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: it was still good fun and we were meeting girls

636
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: and carrying on and doing whatever. And I thought at

637
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:18,760
Speaker 1: the time I loved this and I understand how it works,

638
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 1: but I don't know that it can go that far

639
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: with these people, even though they were good friends. And

640
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: actually what ends up happening is I go back to

641
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: see my mom before she passes away, and I'm up

642
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 1: in Sydney in holidays. I'm looking for a job, and

643
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: normally I would work as a labor or a truck driver.

644
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,319
Speaker 1: And there's an ad in the paper singer wanted for

645
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,879
Speaker 1: tour on the coast. And I answered the ad and

646
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: showed up and there were these younger guys in a

647
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: room but they could really play. And that was midnight

648
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 1: Oil or the beginning of midnight Oil. And so I

649
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: auditioned as it were no one else auditions, so I

650
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 1: was it, and off we went. Well, let's go back

651
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: a little bit. You see the ad, Yeah, you might

652
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: have been looking for something. Yeah, yeah, well I had

653
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: to work over the summer period, you know. Well, I

654
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: mean in Los Angeles there's a famous rag called the Recycler. Okay,

655
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: so in Australia was it? Were there commonly ads for

656
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: bands in this paper? No, it's complete. It was. It

657
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 1: was one of those really strange that this is like

658
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: an ad in the l A Times. Yeah, underneath you know,

659
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: car washing and but also, okay, if you're looking for

660
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: a job for money, one doesn't necessarily think they can

661
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: make the kind of money in a band, correct then

662
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 1: as opposed to a straight gig. No, that's right. But

663
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: it looked like fun and uh, I thought, Leah, I

664
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: should do it. Okay, So how far away is the

665
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 1: band from where you're living? Well, they all roughly the

666
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: north shore areas, okay, so they're they're close. You get there,

667
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: you get the gig. And they had a tour book. Yeah,

668
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: they had a tour book. How many dates which they

669
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: worked out themselves, so they were quite enterprising. I think

670
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: probably about fifteen or six really, yeah, So you go

671
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 1: on the road with them, yes, how long after the

672
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,720
Speaker 1: ad about three or four weeks? It was a rehearsal, Yeah,

673
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: lots of rehearsal okay, and you go out on the road.

674
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 1: What was it like, yes, so it was it was

675
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,800
Speaker 1: a tour during summer, in our summer season where everybody

676
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: is on the coast, So it was a tour of

677
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: the coast. So we're playing in surf clubs, in hotels

678
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 1: on the beach, in little halls on the beach, we're

679
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:29,479
Speaker 1: sleeping on the beach, and it was It was great fun.

680
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: Um a little wild and willie at times, but really

681
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: good fun. But for me, I was older than they

682
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 1: were two years maybe when that makes a difference, it

683
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: does at that age, and I thought that was fun,

684
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: And they said yeah, look, it's been great to have you.

685
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 1: But I was going back to Canberra, back to the university,

686
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,839
Speaker 1: finished my lawd degree and they were doing their own thing.

687
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: They were students as well, but younger than me, and

688
00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 1: you know, I think they didn't really necessarily think I

689
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,719
Speaker 1: was going to hang round, and so they went off

690
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:03,399
Speaker 1: to look for another singer in Sydney and I went

691
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,280
Speaker 1: back to Canberra, okay, just to stop for a second.

692
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: So if they booked the Twit themselves, somebody in the

693
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: band was very enterprise. Yeah, so that would have been

694
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: Rob Hurst, the drummer. It's always the drummer. The drummer

695
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:22,240
Speaker 1: is always a business guy. Just say Metallica. Okay, okay,

696
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: really so, but I could admit it's always the business guy.

697
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: So the drummer. So you go back to Canberra. Then

698
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: what happens. I do another year studying and you don't

699
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 1: have any contact with at all, very little And are

700
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 1: you playing with your other band? Yeah? Okay, and it

701
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 1: starts to fall apart. Yeah, And actually when I get

702
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 1: back to play with them, I think it's not as

703
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: good as it could be. And I've been with a

704
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 1: band that was how can you keep him down on

705
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: the farm. Yeah, no, exactly. So at the end of

706
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: that year, of course, I'm going to come back up

707
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: to city again to visit my mom and see my

708
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 1: friends and so on, and so we're in touch. And

709
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: they said, well, look, actually we haven't found another singer.

710
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 1: Do you want to come and just you know, do

711
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 1: some shows and we we we we want to keep playing.

712
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,880
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, sure, I'll do that, and eventually that

713
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 1: became the genesis of Midnight. All okay, you play for

714
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:13,359
Speaker 1: the summer. Don't you have to go back to school again. Yeah. Well,

715
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,359
Speaker 1: by that stage I thought, you know what this is.

716
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: This band really is a worthwhile. You know, I really

717
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 1: loved what I heard, and I thought we could do something.

718
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 1: I wasn't quite sure what it would be, so I

719
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: transferred to finish my lawd degree up here, which is

720
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:32,760
Speaker 1: what I did. Okay, and what happens with the band.

721
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: We rehearse at night, we start playing on the weekends.

722
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: I finished my LAWD degree, I said to them, I

723
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 1: want to finish it and get it done. I've gone

724
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: this far. I did just sit more throw and they

725
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: some of them had degrees as well, but they were

726
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:49,800
Speaker 1: not long as mine. So we most of us finished

727
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 1: our unithing as we were rehearsing and writing songs and

728
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: just trying to get ourselves sorted out. Now, when you

729
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: were playing the Beach the first summer, you weren't doing

730
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,399
Speaker 1: original material very little. So did the original material come

731
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 1: to be? Rob Hearst and Jim mcgeannie, who was the

732
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,240
Speaker 1: guitarist keyboard player, had met at school and they started

733
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: to write songs and had fiddle around writing songs and

734
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,439
Speaker 1: discarding songs and writing songs, and they started to bring

735
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 1: songs in it. We started to play them, And what

736
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: was your involvement to begin with? I'd say, yeah, let's

737
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: see if we can sing it. And then after a

738
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 1: while I started throwing in ideas. And then eventually where

739
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: Martin Rossi joins the band and we start writing together.

740
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 1: But they're still bringing most of the ideas, the melodic

741
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 1: ideas and the musical structures and things like. Okay, so

742
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: let's jump ahead. You practice law for six months, if that,

743
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: if that, and then you say okay. The band says

744
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 1: we're either going to throw in seriously or whatever. But

745
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: no one has any money, right correct, So what do

746
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: you do for money? Well, we we just decided to

747
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,720
Speaker 1: play you know, we we thought, I mean, it's actually

748
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: it's actually me saying. You know, at this point in life,

749
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: if you're going to do anything, you've got to really

750
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: throw yourself out it. You can't pretend. We can't be

751
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: mucking around on the weekends. We are going to play

752
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: no matter what, anywhere, anytime anyone will give us a

753
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,839
Speaker 1: dollar to play, We'll go and play, which is what

754
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: we did. So we and we started creating our own shows.

755
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: They had done some of that themselves, and I'd done

756
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 1: that when I was at at university. Right, well, why

757
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: don't we plan that room over there? They don't have bands.

758
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: Go and talk to the guy that runs it. It's

759
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 1: his bar. Yeah, all right, whatever, you know, I'm not

760
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:28,799
Speaker 1: going to give you any money, but if we make,

761
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,240
Speaker 1: you know, fifty bucks on the bar, you get five bucks,

762
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. You just go and do it. Okay?

763
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 1: How will we all? Were you at this point? So

764
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: I'm twenty yeah, two and a half, twenty three at

765
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: this okay? And what are you living on while this

766
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:48,360
Speaker 1: is going on? Burgers? Okay? And so at what point

767
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: what's the big brick so to speak? Even though there's

768
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 1: a lot of little bricks but what what is the

769
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: turning point? Well, look, I think you know, in a

770
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 1: career this long, Bob, there's obviously quite a few of those.

771
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: So one of them is that we actually got a

772
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: manager who shared the vision. Was the manager experienced or

773
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: not at all? So how did you find the manager?

774
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: He found us. Yeah, he came and we played in

775
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,479
Speaker 1: surf pubs. We started just occupying a hotel. We'd play

776
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: in the corner and we just set up on a

777
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 1: Friday or Saturday night and to be booked the Publican

778
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: was happy because people would come in and by beer,

779
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: and eventually the numbers just grew and grew and grew,

780
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 1: and then eventually started charging people more and more and

781
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:29,800
Speaker 1: we'd have lines out around the block. And he was

782
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 1: one of those people who started to come. He was

783
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: a real estate agent, he was a surfer, and he said,

784
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,720
Speaker 1: you need a manager, which of course we did because

785
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: Rob and I were doing it at that stage, and

786
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: you know, we had other things that we wanted to

787
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 1: do and he had. He was crazy and wild, but

788
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: he also had a great spirit of let's let's do

789
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: something really in a very different way. In some ways,

790
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: we're a very conventional band, you know, we play, we rehearse,

791
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 1: we write songs, We used bespoke instruments. If you come

792
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:03,759
Speaker 1: and see us play live, you're going to see a

793
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:06,760
Speaker 1: performing band. But in other ways we're completely the opposite

794
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 1: of that. We're very different and we essentially no one

795
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 1: wanted to know about us. No one wanted to you know,

796
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: Columbia when they first heard us passed on us. You

797
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 1: know they said no, not with that guy singing, no way.

798
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: Uh So, having having a manager that did that was

799
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,479
Speaker 1: I think that's our first break and our second break

800
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 1: really is here in Australia. We have a public broadcasting network.

801
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like National Public Radio, but it's

802
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:35,360
Speaker 1: much bigger, and it's run by the supported by the government,

803
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: and they established a youth station just fortuitously at the

804
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,720
Speaker 1: same time as ourselves and other bands like In Excess

805
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: and Men at Work and so on and so forth.

806
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 1: We're just starting to emerge and we got played on

807
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 1: the radio, which we never were getting played on commercial

808
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: radio or FM radio. There's just no way. So we

809
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: got played, So give them what happened. Crowds got bigger. Okay,

810
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: just to be clear, once you say we're going pro

811
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 1: I'm giving our practicing law, and you're playing what percentage

812
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: of the materials original? What percentages covers it? By that

813
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:15,879
Speaker 1: stage is original? Yeah, and so, and we're going out

814
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: to places, you know, let's just call them, like a

815
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: redneck tavern or something like that on a Tuesday night

816
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: and we're just setting up, you know, and we're playing too.

817
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:27,879
Speaker 1: You know, fifty people a hundred people are two hundred

818
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: people all original material and political material too. Sometimes that

819
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: starts to creep in. And to begin with, audiences here

820
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: in Australia didn't you know, they like the fact that

821
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 1: we were there and I would talk a lot on stage.

822
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: I'm talking to people and you're talking about what's going

823
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: on in the world and politics and culture and what

824
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: have you. But they didn't necessarily like the music to

825
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: begin with. But but we threw ourselves into it. You know,

826
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: we were sort of half punks as well. So we

827
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,760
Speaker 1: were tearing out the stage at nine and playing loud

828
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:58,280
Speaker 1: and fast and furious, and the energy of the band

829
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 1: draw drew people back, and then eventually more and more

830
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: people kept on coming. I mean, it's literally the classic

831
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: thing and that you know, many stories like this. Okay,

832
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: so what's the dream at that point, can we make

833
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: a record? Can we actually survive off being musicians? So

834
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 1: you get on the youth radio station audience to get bigger,

835
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,360
Speaker 1: and then what happens, Well, we we eventually we do

836
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: make a record. So we couldn't find a major that

837
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: we could agree with. So okay, so you had offers,

838
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 1: but the deals were not good or they yeah, they

839
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,319
Speaker 1: wanted to change what we were doing whatever, and they

840
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: just weren't talking our language. So we formed our own label,

841
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:41,760
Speaker 1: but it was put out by actually a television company

842
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: here that actually happened to have a pressing plant. They

843
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: just had acquired a pressing plant and they were pressing

844
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 1: country music and um sort of gimmick records. So we

845
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: formed a label which we had control over. What you're

846
00:45:56,200 --> 00:46:02,800
Speaker 1: in n seventy six Yeah, okay, where was the money

847
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 1: to make the record? They advanced us a bit of

848
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 1: money to make it, and we had we had a

849
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: loan from the bank and we we we found a

850
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: bank manager. Surprisingly, and this fellow is very important minight

851
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 1: Olds history, as it would be for any band who

852
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: didn't tell his superior officers that he was loaning money

853
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: over drafting a band. It took us about seven years

854
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: from when we first went professional to get out of debt.

855
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 1: How much did you borrow? Not a lot, maybe a

856
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: hundred grand, but those days exactly. Okay, So when you

857
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: would go back to the big manity would continue to

858
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: give your money. Yeah, just honored us. What was the pitch.

859
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 1: He'd been to see us, and he could see the

860
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: people there, you know, and he didn't really understand anything

861
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 1: about it, but he just knew there was something going on.

862
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: And see importantly here, unlike modern era, we've got no

863
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 1: social media. We're not in the city darlings, were not

864
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: the culture darlings, and we're playing in the suburbs too

865
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: as well. And we're hardheaded and doing it our own way.

866
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: But we're not talking about it. We're not trumpeting it

867
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: to anybody, we're not self proseitize it. So it was

868
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:14,799
Speaker 1: just happening. Okay. Who owns the record today? We do

869
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 1: with them? Okay. And so how many currents through which

870
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: we license back into Sonny? Okay? So how many copies

871
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:29,399
Speaker 1: do you press? I think five thousand? Yes, so I'm

872
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: at the Gigger in stores through stores, yeah, distributed in stores.

873
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,240
Speaker 1: So if you press five thousan in yourself five thousand

874
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: M feel pretty good about yourself, absolutely, And you know,

875
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: and I heard the song on the radio. I heard

876
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 1: one of it. We didn't get anything on the charts,

877
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: but of course that station we got played. And I

878
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 1: drove home and my grandmother was still alive, and I

879
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 1: was taking it down. You know, used to take her

880
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: out on a Sunday just to have a little lunch

881
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:51,959
Speaker 1: thing and then take her back to where she was living.

882
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: And I heard this, heard our song, you know, for

883
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: the first time, first time I ever heard my verse

884
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: on the radio. As far as I was concerned, I

885
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 1: had a record my gran and could see that I

886
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: you know, I was I was an artist who was

887
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: making a living out of it. Out of it. That

888
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 1: was it. We'd made it. Anything since then has been green. Okay.

889
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: And how long did the original manager last? A decent time?

890
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: You know, he was with us for probably fifteen to

891
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 1: twenty years. Okay, So you put out the record independently

892
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: than what happens, I've just kept on going more touring. Okay.

893
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:29,239
Speaker 1: How many deeds can someone play in Australia. It's a

894
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: big country, but there aren't that many people know. But

895
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't want to be nostalgic about

896
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:37,399
Speaker 1: the Australian music scene at that time, because I think

897
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: it's probably a little bit the same in other countries,

898
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: certainly in the States, which has got a very healthy

899
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: scene in different ways. But at this point in time,

900
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:47,359
Speaker 1: for a variety of different reasons, there were a lot

901
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: of places to play if you wanted to, or you

902
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 1: created your own places to play and then essentially invited

903
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: people to come and share the space with you. So

904
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 1: we would play a hundred and fifty to two hundred

905
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,399
Speaker 1: gigs a year, and all over the country. All over

906
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: the country, so in the big cities, driving up and

907
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:11,399
Speaker 1: down the coast, country towns, pubs, working men's clubs, university halls,

908
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: sometimes surf clubs, and just relentlessly play and play and play. Okay,

909
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,839
Speaker 1: at this point some Australian bands, not that this even

910
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 1: happened the sixties, but certainly in the mid seventies they're

911
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,839
Speaker 1: starting to make it on a worldwide basis. Do you

912
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: see that as an avenue from midnight Oil? We always

913
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: had our eye on going further than Australia, only because

914
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: we realized that there's a limited number of times that

915
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 1: you can run around the country and we were students

916
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: of music. We've all got different tastes, but you know,

917
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: whatever we were listening to, was it was the Clash,

918
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,399
Speaker 1: was it Red Hot Chili Peppers, was it lou Reed?

919
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: It didn't matter. We were just listening to everybody and

920
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:54,399
Speaker 1: we knew there was a bigger world out there. How

921
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 1: that would happen and how we would make that work.

922
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: I don't think we had any idea. So what's the

923
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:03,399
Speaker 1: next step? After the independent record? Another one, and then

924
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: another one, and then Glenn John's comes to Australia who

925
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: formally produced The Who and the Stones, and various people

926
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:15,719
Speaker 1: leverage legend. Again, he gets asked out here by the

927
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: record companies. I think it's a music conference of some kind,

928
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 1: and sees the band playing live in one of these

929
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:25,839
Speaker 1: big surf pubs with sweat pouring off me and a

930
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: bunch of wild At what point do you shave your head?

931
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: That's happened long ago? What was the That wasn't really

932
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:35,320
Speaker 1: a show of this thing, particularly because I'm still surfing

933
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: at the time and it was just getting in the way. Also,

934
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: my brother and I used to love taking going out

935
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 1: in the water and taking in the water photography of

936
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 1: big waves, big surf here and the professional surface. So

937
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 1: we used to love going out. You know, you sometimes

938
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: see them there's the people with the flippers stucking under

939
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: in the way, so that's what we were doing. But

940
00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:56,920
Speaker 1: you pop up to take the photo and I had

941
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:58,760
Speaker 1: long hair at the time and would be this wisp

942
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 1: of hairt yeah, literally said in my way, I'm cutting

943
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:06,280
Speaker 1: it off? Correct And did you ever grow it after that? No? Okay,

944
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: but that was when no one that's right, no one

945
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 1: at all. But you're you're that kind of a kind

946
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 1: of classic guy says if everybody's going one way, I'm

947
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: going a different way. Probably didn't even enter my mind

948
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: to be okay. So Glenn John sees you, he sees us,

949
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: and he convinces A and M that that we're worth it.

950
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 1: Uh and says, look, come to England and record. You've

951
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: got a couple of records under your belt, but I

952
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: think we can do better than that. And A and

953
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: M were interested in and had seen us, and we

954
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: actually I think we may have traveled once, just briefly,

955
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 1: and done a few shows in London, then came back

956
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: with our tae between our legs. In any event, we

957
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:46,760
Speaker 1: record with glint A and m pass on the album

958
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:48,799
Speaker 1: all together. They decided they don't want to put it out,

959
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 1: but they paid for it, correct. Yeah, he goes across

960
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 1: the l A and New York to try and shop it,

961
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: and you know he's proud of it, to his great credit,

962
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:02,799
Speaker 1: but no one's interested. So we come back to Australia

963
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: and yeah, your ego must have been pretty crushed. Well. No, actually,

964
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: the judgment of record company people on the value of

965
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 1: our music has never meant much for me, you know.

966
00:52:15,040 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: I mean I don't disrespect them, and I've got some

967
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 1: great friends in the business now, but they're always looking

968
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:21,840
Speaker 1: and hearing it through a certain prison. Okay, So you

969
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,360
Speaker 1: always had confidence always, Okay. So you come back to Australia.

970
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 1: What ultimately happens with that record? That record is released

971
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 1: here in Australia and it does well well eventually on Columbia.

972
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 1: So here in Australia. Columbia then become interested and they

973
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:43,839
Speaker 1: essentially pick up that record. So CBS picks it up.

974
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of negotiation because we want to

975
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: maintain control over everything pretty much as we can. So

976
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 1: they pick it up here and they get the opportunity

977
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: to license it in other territories. We continue touring, we

978
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: continue playing, but we start making little for as we

979
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: save up in that money. So we too here, you know, work, work, work,

980
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:08,760
Speaker 1: and then head across to San Francisco or l A

981
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: on your own money, no label money, correct, all on

982
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: our own money. Okay. So the drummer basically finds places

983
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:17,640
Speaker 1: to play there. No, he's not doing all the business now.

984
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 1: So Gary Morris, who manages us at that stage, our manager,

985
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 1: and we get an agent and we we invite people

986
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: to see us, and if they like the band and

987
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 1: they want to support the band, they become part of

988
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: the Midnight or family and we enjoy working with people

989
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: like that. And so yeah, they find places for us

990
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 1: to play. Okay. So it was their idea to go

991
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 1: to these places. Now we wanted to go, but we

992
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 1: wanted to help us. Okay. So you you go. You

993
00:53:43,560 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 1: have this one album? Is it even out in another territories?

994
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 1: It's got limited release in other territories. Okay, So you've

995
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 1: got to San Francisco to what happens. We played under

996
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: fifty people in a club and you're building an audience

997
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: and they say, hey, though that's nice. Yeah, we're building

998
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:05,320
Speaker 1: an audience. It's intermittent, but we're building it. We're meeting

999
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: people in the business. We met David Frick from Rolling

1000
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:10,240
Speaker 1: Stone comes to see us, and people who are watching

1001
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 1: what's going on. We play colleges, start to play a

1002
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 1: few colleges, get played a bit on college radio, but

1003
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: essentially still come back again. And then we realize that

1004
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:22,399
Speaker 1: we're at that junction point, you know, we need to

1005
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 1: really figure out what the next step for us can be.

1006
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,319
Speaker 1: So we go back to London with a bunch of

1007
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:31,600
Speaker 1: songs under our belt. We meet a young producer, a

1008
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: guy called Nick Laurna who has produced Public Image and

1009
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 1: Gang of Youth and now produces Nick Cave and various

1010
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 1: other people. And we go to the Townhouse Studios in

1011
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:46,240
Speaker 1: Shepherd's Bush where lots of different people have recorded, including

1012
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:48,800
Speaker 1: Phil Collins's famous big drum sound in the Air Tonight,

1013
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: and we really work hard to create a record which

1014
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:58,080
Speaker 1: is three to one record tender one um a record

1015
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:00,960
Speaker 1: which was our door di you know, we've we've reached

1016
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 1: that point. Who pays for it? I can't remember the details,

1017
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 1: but I think we may have got some advance for it,

1018
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 1: and we may have coughed up a bit ourselves and

1019
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: we came back. That record then goes onto the Australian charts.

1020
00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: We have a number of big radio songs here. We've

1021
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:21,239
Speaker 1: had a little bit of radio we play before. It

1022
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 1: stays on the charts in our own country for over

1023
00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: two years and it breaks us essentially into as a

1024
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,839
Speaker 1: mainstream artist. We've become a mainstream artist essentially, even though

1025
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: lots of people knew about us, but it was always

1026
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 1: a cult. It was an underground you know. And then

1027
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:37,440
Speaker 1: that some of those songs gets picked up mainly by

1028
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: college radio and some alternate Columbia in the state. Correct.

1029
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 1: It's a big record for us, but it makes no

1030
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:50,680
Speaker 1: indent really in other parts of the world. We then

1031
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:53,879
Speaker 1: continue to make records, we keep doing what we're doing.

1032
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 1: I'm now getting increasingly drawn into political activism as well,

1033
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:02,919
Speaker 1: so our careers get a little stretched because I am

1034
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: now in a situation where I stand for public office here. Yeah,

1035
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 1: where's uh beds are burning? It's coming so okay, So

1036
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,320
Speaker 1: what's your motivation to go sideways and become running for

1037
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 1: political office? Well, it was the nuclear disarmed issue, and

1038
00:56:20,719 --> 00:56:23,040
Speaker 1: we we'd actually recorded an album after tender one. We

1039
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 1: went and record in Japan, and after we finished recording,

1040
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:28,319
Speaker 1: a bunch of us said, well, look, we're here, why

1041
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 1: don't we go and have a bit of a look

1042
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 1: at the country. I went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I

1043
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 1: saw what happened when the atomic bomb was dropped, and

1044
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: I thought, it's crazy that we've got, you know, thirty

1045
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 1: thousand of these things sitting in each of the warheads

1046
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:47,600
Speaker 1: America and Russia. We can't use them. That's got a change.

1047
00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: And there was a party that sprung up here in

1048
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 1: Australia and I ran for the Senate. I nearly, I

1049
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:56,440
Speaker 1: nearly became a senator. Okay, well yeah, theoretically if you've

1050
00:56:56,440 --> 00:56:59,240
Speaker 1: got elected, that will put it in the being correct absolutely,

1051
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: So what the rest of the be a member of

1052
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 1: saying well, you know, I think it's something about midnight

1053
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:04,680
Speaker 1: or you know, we we've always given one another enough

1054
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:09,319
Speaker 1: space and respect to what they knew. I wanted to

1055
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:11,239
Speaker 1: do it, you know, to go where we want to go.

1056
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 1: And was the band going to fall apart? Well, no,

1057
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they'd go off and do stuff themselves.

1058
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:18,360
Speaker 1: Maybe I could join them on the weekends. We didn't okay,

1059
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:20,439
Speaker 1: just a little bit slow. What was the process of

1060
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:22,440
Speaker 1: saying of throwing your hat in the ring? At what

1061
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:25,240
Speaker 1: point did you say, you know what caused that? There's

1062
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: a party, etcetera. Yeah, look at a small grassroots party

1063
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:32,000
Speaker 1: that forms and they're looking for candidates. They had different candidates.

1064
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 1: They had a possible candidate here, but a bunch of

1065
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 1: people came to me and said, look, what don't you

1066
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 1: be our candidate? You know, tender one was a really

1067
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: strong record at the time, anti nuclear record, I'd spoken

1068
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:46,520
Speaker 1: out about those things already. You're very well known. Sort

1069
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:48,880
Speaker 1: of have a go and I said, yeah, look, I'm

1070
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 1: more than happy to do that. Okay, so you run,

1071
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:53,360
Speaker 1: you go door to door. Do you really push it? Yep?

1072
00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 1: We run up. Well, it's for the Senate here, so

1073
00:57:56,240 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 1: you're not campaigning as you were, say, in a district

1074
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 1: or something like that, like a congressman or woman. We're

1075
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:09,080
Speaker 1: written off by the media and the major parties as

1076
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: a novelty act and belittled and criticized. But what but

1077
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:18,600
Speaker 1: many young people, particularly respond and our we start to

1078
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: become more and more popular. What happens next is a

1079
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 1: technical issue, but essentially in our system party's preference other

1080
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,480
Speaker 1: candidates when they use up their existing number of votes,

1081
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:34,840
Speaker 1: and here the major parties decided not to preference me

1082
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: at all. So essentially, even though I got a lot

1083
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 1: of primary votes, many many, many primary votes, I just

1084
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:43,959
Speaker 1: missed out on getting into the Senate on primary votes

1085
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:50,000
Speaker 1: alone and received So look, I think the shorthand of it, Bob,

1086
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:52,240
Speaker 1: is that it was an incredible experience and we we

1087
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,440
Speaker 1: created something quite special here. We had artists and writers

1088
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,360
Speaker 1: and filmmakers and other musicians all involved. It was it

1089
00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 1: was it was small people's movement, and we shifted the

1090
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 1: foreign policy of the country a little bit, not as much,

1091
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 1: perhaps as we would have liked, but more than we

1092
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:08,440
Speaker 1: would have if we hadn't done anything. I ran a campaign,

1093
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: but I didn't get in, and that was a blessing

1094
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: for Midnight Oil and for our audience because we could

1095
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:17,040
Speaker 1: resume the career. Okay, so how do we get to

1096
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 1: their hit? So by that stage I have been approached

1097
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 1: to become the president of one of the big national

1098
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:31,080
Speaker 1: environment organizations here in Australia, it's called the Australian Conservation Foundation.

1099
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:33,680
Speaker 1: Who We've done a little bit of benefit concerts and

1100
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 1: things for in the past, and I could see through

1101
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:41,000
Speaker 1: my lawyer eyes that they needed, uh, you know, the

1102
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 1: possibility of someone to work with them. And the fellow

1103
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:47,640
Speaker 1: who became their executive director, who was also a lawyer

1104
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:50,960
Speaker 1: like me, had been working with Aboriginal people in the

1105
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 1: middle of this country near the Big Red Rock or

1106
00:59:54,160 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: who are about to get their land back given back

1107
00:59:57,480 --> 00:59:59,800
Speaker 1: to them, has been stolen essentially by the British, and

1108
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:03,000
Speaker 1: they wanted to make a little film. And he said,

1109
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:05,800
Speaker 1: he called me up and called Gary up, and he said, look,

1110
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 1: do you think they oars would write a couple of

1111
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,480
Speaker 1: songs for this film? That the traditional elders, the older

1112
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 1: people in the tribes would like them to write a

1113
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: song on some songs. And we said, yeah, of course,

1114
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 1: we'd love to do that. And so Dead Heart and

1115
01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:23,440
Speaker 1: Beds are Burning in their initial phases, songs that Rob

1116
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 1: Herst brought to us in difference um finished in different ways.

1117
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 1: Why don't we use these songs. So we recorded Dead

1118
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:34,560
Speaker 1: Heart long before we made Diesel and Dust long before

1119
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 1: Beds are Burning. And we said, and we send it

1120
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 1: to them and said do you like it, you know,

1121
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:40,360
Speaker 1: would you like to use this fear film? Yes, they

1122
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:43,400
Speaker 1: would and Beds was another song that we had which

1123
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:46,360
Speaker 1: we were mucking around with. We then thought like it's

1124
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:48,640
Speaker 1: time to make an album. We went into the studio.

1125
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:52,680
Speaker 1: It was Beds about what it was about? Then, correct,

1126
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,040
Speaker 1: it's not the same subject absolutely, yeah, And and and

1127
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:58,160
Speaker 1: potentially a song to be used for this film a

1128
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 1: little film, right, I got it. It's like American Indian

1129
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: people from Flagstaff as putting together like a mini film

1130
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: which two people are going to see. So we went

1131
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:20,720
Speaker 1: into the studio. So Warre Livesey who had produced an

1132
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 1: English artist called the Matt Johnson Yeah, an epic had

1133
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 1: come over to produce, and we had the songs. We

1134
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 1: had most of the songs written, and we went into

1135
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 1: Albert studio. The c d C guys had a little

1136
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: that their publishing house had a small studio in Sydney

1137
01:01:39,720 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 1: and the Northern Beaches and we started to record the songs,

1138
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: including Beds of Burning, which once we'd finished with it,

1139
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:48,520
Speaker 1: we knew it was hummable and all of that, and

1140
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 1: it was a strong song, but we had no idea

1141
01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 1: that it would eventually become that sort of breakthrough song

1142
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 1: for us. How does it become the breakthrough song in

1143
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 1: part because at the same time you had MTV is

1144
01:02:01,120 --> 01:02:04,880
Speaker 1: starting to show videos, and we made some videos a

1145
01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:07,920
Speaker 1: little bit slower. So you have a deal, you have

1146
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:11,000
Speaker 1: a deal with CBS, which at some point becomes Sony,

1147
01:02:11,040 --> 01:02:14,600
Speaker 1: but this is before that, and you make Diesel and Dust.

1148
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:17,280
Speaker 1: Is it put out simultaneously in the US as it

1149
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:20,080
Speaker 1: is in Australia. Yes, Now that the company is ready

1150
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 1: for who decides to make the video? We do, okay,

1151
01:02:25,480 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 1: And so you know, the video ultimately gets airplay all

1152
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 1: over the world whatever. But how much money is spent

1153
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:36,240
Speaker 1: on that video? Well, Sony paid paid. Of course, you

1154
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 1: ultimately paid for it exactly. But they answer the money, Yeah,

1155
01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: So I think it was jointly agreed. You know. I

1156
01:02:43,400 --> 01:02:47,320
Speaker 1: think that we've always done our made our own videos

1157
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 1: and done our own artwork and all that stuff. The

1158
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 1: record company will will will come to the party and

1159
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 1: lend us, as you say, some money, perhaps depending on

1160
01:02:53,160 --> 01:02:55,880
Speaker 1: what the budget are. But we decided what we wanted

1161
01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 1: to do and we shot some of it here in

1162
01:02:57,360 --> 01:03:00,440
Speaker 1: Sydney and some of it out in the bush. And

1163
01:03:02,080 --> 01:03:04,600
Speaker 1: people have heard the record by that stage. And you know,

1164
01:03:04,600 --> 01:03:07,000
Speaker 1: obviously the A and R people and others were excited

1165
01:03:07,040 --> 01:03:08,600
Speaker 1: about it and thought, wow, you know, we've got some

1166
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 1: songs here that that might get onto radio that's important

1167
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:13,720
Speaker 1: for them at the time in the States. As I

1168
01:03:13,800 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 1: understand it, you probably know more about this than I.

1169
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:19,960
Speaker 1: So this is what we gleaned. The payola thing was

1170
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:23,040
Speaker 1: was starting to be had risen up its head again,

1171
01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:28,240
Speaker 1: certainly on radio on radio, and it seemed like there

1172
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:30,400
Speaker 1: was a little bit more openness for people just to

1173
01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 1: play other music. And we started to get played on

1174
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: radio and some there were some big stations that started

1175
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:39,439
Speaker 1: to run the song, and so the radio play came

1176
01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 1: before the video play. I think, so yeah, but you know,

1177
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:44,720
Speaker 1: to be honest, it's a bit of a blur to me.

1178
01:03:44,800 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming it did, but I'm not. But at

1179
01:03:48,520 --> 01:03:51,000
Speaker 1: what point do you realize you're on the ricord ship here?

1180
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 1: I think when we go back to play and we've

1181
01:03:57,320 --> 01:04:02,480
Speaker 1: been playing big clubs and college is and then our

1182
01:04:02,520 --> 01:04:05,919
Speaker 1: agent says to us, actually, we're playing amphitheaters and they've

1183
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:08,680
Speaker 1: sold out, so we might even play some bigger places.

1184
01:04:09,840 --> 01:04:11,920
Speaker 1: But I look, here's the thing for us. You know,

1185
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 1: for most many musicians, they literally do have a kind

1186
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:18,040
Speaker 1: of overnight success and they're scratching themselves a bit, and

1187
01:04:18,080 --> 01:04:20,080
Speaker 1: then you know they can hang onto it or they

1188
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:22,880
Speaker 1: build on it or whatever. From what I've been telling you,

1189
01:04:22,880 --> 01:04:24,600
Speaker 1: you know, we've been plugging away in a country on

1190
01:04:24,640 --> 01:04:26,960
Speaker 1: the other side of the world forever, right exactly. Well

1191
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:31,640
Speaker 1: that's you know, the old But okay, you make the video.

1192
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:34,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm on the other side of the ocean.

1193
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 1: But it starts to really blow up. So at one

1194
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:39,480
Speaker 1: point to Sony and New York say, or CBS New

1195
01:04:39,560 --> 01:04:41,520
Speaker 1: York say, you've gotta come here. We're gonna do this,

1196
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:44,920
Speaker 1: you know, they well they're saying it pretty quickly and

1197
01:04:45,040 --> 01:04:47,560
Speaker 1: fairly readily, and so away we go. So what was

1198
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:51,440
Speaker 1: it like, Well, you know, it's one of those funny things.

1199
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: Everything starts to move that much more quickly when that

1200
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 1: happens in your career, and you will have talked to

1201
01:04:55,240 --> 01:04:57,960
Speaker 1: other artists like this. You know, they'll say, I actually

1202
01:04:57,960 --> 01:05:02,240
Speaker 1: can't remember what happened between, you know, because you know

1203
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:04,680
Speaker 1: we were going fast and furious. I mean, it's not

1204
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 1: I can't not remember it because we were we were

1205
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:10,280
Speaker 1: lying on our backs in some nightclubs somewhere. It's just

1206
01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 1: that we never based ourselves overseas we always based ourselves

1207
01:05:13,720 --> 01:05:17,160
Speaker 1: in Australia and we've always marched the beat of our

1208
01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:21,440
Speaker 1: own drum. Plus we're not that fast about popular culture

1209
01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:23,240
Speaker 1: and whether we're in or out or who's who in

1210
01:05:23,240 --> 01:05:25,640
Speaker 1: the zoo, So for us it was more a case

1211
01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:30,560
Speaker 1: of what can we get done whilst insane and remaining

1212
01:05:30,600 --> 01:05:33,440
Speaker 1: connected to home. You go on the road to partake

1213
01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 1: of the rock star lifestyle. Not really, I mean we're

1214
01:05:37,160 --> 01:05:41,080
Speaker 1: we're no, you are me. I don't know which part.

1215
01:05:41,440 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 1: But let's start with the alcohol and the drugs. No,

1216
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 1: that's not. I mean we enjoy our having a beer

1217
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:48,640
Speaker 1: and a glass of wine and all of those things.

1218
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 1: And people will have you know, had whatever interaction with

1219
01:05:51,920 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 1: recreational drugs as young person, teenagers and young adults. But

1220
01:05:55,680 --> 01:05:59,200
Speaker 1: Midnight Idol has got a very strong work ethic and

1221
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:02,680
Speaker 1: we enjoy ourselves, I mean our idea of partaking the

1222
01:06:02,760 --> 01:06:04,560
Speaker 1: rock and roll. So we couldn't actually believe that when

1223
01:06:04,600 --> 01:06:07,720
Speaker 1: we played a show there was a bottle of wine

1224
01:06:07,760 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: there in the green, there was a writer. Wow. When

1225
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:14,080
Speaker 1: we finished, someone would drive us into a car to

1226
01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:16,280
Speaker 1: a club where we could hear another band, and we

1227
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:18,760
Speaker 1: would sit around having a beer and talking to other musicians.

1228
01:06:18,800 --> 01:06:20,480
Speaker 1: I mean that was heaven on a stick. And what

1229
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:25,760
Speaker 1: about sex? Most of us are settled with our permanent

1230
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:30,040
Speaker 1: girlfriends wives, so by time it hit, yeah, you already

1231
01:06:30,040 --> 01:06:33,320
Speaker 1: had your girlfriend, We already had kids, were more. Really

1232
01:06:33,600 --> 01:06:36,360
Speaker 1: most of us are married men, okay with children before

1233
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:40,080
Speaker 1: the success? And what's paying for that lifestyle? Correct? Yeah?

1234
01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:42,520
Speaker 1: I mean the music is enough money to make this

1235
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 1: all work? Yeah? Well, we worked hard, you know, and

1236
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:47,560
Speaker 1: and we did our own deals, and we had a

1237
01:06:47,600 --> 01:06:49,880
Speaker 1: manager and an agents that people that shared our vision.

1238
01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:52,200
Speaker 1: I mean, we were the ultimate do it yourself outfit.

1239
01:06:52,240 --> 01:06:56,120
Speaker 1: In some ways, we didn't have you know, safety pins

1240
01:06:56,280 --> 01:06:59,760
Speaker 1: in our genes, but we had that attitude. But also

1241
01:07:00,800 --> 01:07:04,120
Speaker 1: we weren't ripped off by people. You know, we we

1242
01:07:04,120 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 1: were thoughtful about Okay, everybody is married. Are they still

1243
01:07:07,160 --> 01:07:10,480
Speaker 1: married to those people? Uh? Three of us are. Yeah.

1244
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:13,040
Speaker 1: Well that's pretty good for rock and roll. Okay, so

1245
01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:15,120
Speaker 1: you have this big success, to what degree do you

1246
01:07:15,160 --> 01:07:18,080
Speaker 1: feel pressure you gotta follow it up? Well, the precious

1247
01:07:18,160 --> 01:07:21,840
Speaker 1: inevitably going to come, uh, simply because you're you're aware

1248
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:24,120
Speaker 1: of it. And the Blue Sky Mining is the next record,

1249
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 1: and there are a couple of songs on there, that

1250
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:29,959
Speaker 1: that also with Shart songs, but those were successful songs.

1251
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:32,720
Speaker 1: But when you're sitting there in the studio and you

1252
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:34,680
Speaker 1: know you've had a hit album, to what degree you say,

1253
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:37,160
Speaker 1: I've got to write something, I'm worried about whether it's

1254
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:39,960
Speaker 1: going to be a good video good not at all. No,

1255
01:07:40,280 --> 01:07:43,000
Speaker 1: it's not in our dialogue. We don't. We don't think

1256
01:07:43,040 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 1: like that. Okay, and if okay, so then you continue

1257
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:49,520
Speaker 1: to have success. At what point do you get back

1258
01:07:49,560 --> 01:07:53,040
Speaker 1: into the politics. I should qualify my last answer to you,

1259
01:07:53,120 --> 01:07:55,240
Speaker 1: Bob when I said we don't think like that. Of course,

1260
01:07:55,280 --> 01:07:58,000
Speaker 1: when people are writing songs, they'll think about whether this

1261
01:07:58,080 --> 01:07:59,800
Speaker 1: is the kind of song that might get played on radio,

1262
01:07:59,800 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 1: because we're students of music and we're musicians, but it's

1263
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:07,160
Speaker 1: not our predominant sort of thought. Our thinking space is

1264
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:10,160
Speaker 1: always around what works for us. What is midnight Oil?

1265
01:08:10,400 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 1: Is it going to fly or not? We don't really know.

1266
01:08:12,520 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 1: This one sounds like it, maybe it won't. It doesn't

1267
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:19,360
Speaker 1: matter here it is. So that's how that works. Blue

1268
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:22,240
Speaker 1: sky Mine. Well, we then have the career that sort

1269
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:25,639
Speaker 1: of settles and then stagnates a bit, you know, big

1270
01:08:25,720 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: in anybody, Yeah, doing doing okay, not heaps of and

1271
01:08:30,400 --> 01:08:31,840
Speaker 1: we give a fair bit away. You know, we've got

1272
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:35,599
Speaker 1: our own sharable things happening, and I mean we're not saints.

1273
01:08:36,040 --> 01:08:39,200
Speaker 1: We look after ourselves, but we also like to support people.

1274
01:08:39,720 --> 01:08:42,320
Speaker 1: So how do you get into the politics thing ultimately

1275
01:08:42,360 --> 01:08:47,840
Speaker 1: full time? Well, by the early naughties, I think, from

1276
01:08:47,840 --> 01:08:49,920
Speaker 1: my perspective, at least, we reached the point where if

1277
01:08:49,920 --> 01:08:55,840
Speaker 1: we don't relocate and re transform what we're doing, we're

1278
01:08:55,920 --> 01:08:58,000
Speaker 1: really going around in a kind of a circle, which

1279
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:01,719
Speaker 1: for midnight all is not healthy. And at that stage,

1280
01:09:01,760 --> 01:09:03,920
Speaker 1: I've done two terms as the a c F President,

1281
01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:07,280
Speaker 1: I've spent quite a bit of time in the National Parliament.

1282
01:09:07,280 --> 01:09:11,280
Speaker 1: I've been negotiating political deals and legislations and all those

1283
01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:16,080
Speaker 1: sorts of things. And I wasn't sure what I would do,

1284
01:09:16,160 --> 01:09:18,880
Speaker 1: but I thought, I want to do more politics, whether

1285
01:09:18,920 --> 01:09:21,080
Speaker 1: it's in an energeo capacity or whether it's in a

1286
01:09:21,120 --> 01:09:24,400
Speaker 1: formal capacity. And as it turned out, it became a

1287
01:09:24,439 --> 01:09:27,719
Speaker 1: formal capacity. So I get invited to join the Labor Party,

1288
01:09:27,760 --> 01:09:31,240
Speaker 1: which is the equivalent of the Democrats here, and by

1289
01:09:31,280 --> 01:09:34,360
Speaker 1: a confluence of events, there's a seat which I can

1290
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:38,439
Speaker 1: win if if I stand for it. And so I

1291
01:09:38,479 --> 01:09:41,439
Speaker 1: say to the oils at that point, when when I

1292
01:09:41,439 --> 01:09:43,200
Speaker 1: finished with the oils at that stage, to them too.

1293
01:09:43,479 --> 01:09:46,320
Speaker 1: I hadn't decided on politics, although everyone thought it would happen,

1294
01:09:46,920 --> 01:09:49,240
Speaker 1: but I didn't know what would happen anyway. Eventually it

1295
01:09:49,280 --> 01:09:52,560
Speaker 1: does happen and I become a member of parliament. I

1296
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:54,640
Speaker 1: get elected here to a seat here in Sydney, a

1297
01:09:54,680 --> 01:09:56,479
Speaker 1: place where we played a lot, where I went to UNI,

1298
01:09:56,560 --> 01:09:59,479
Speaker 1: had good close connections with the community, and my life

1299
01:09:59,560 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 1: changes completely for ten years. What does the band say

1300
01:10:03,240 --> 01:10:07,760
Speaker 1: about all this? Look mixed feelings. I think some would

1301
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:11,040
Speaker 1: have liked kept on doing what we were doing, maybe

1302
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:14,599
Speaker 1: with people doing solo albums and we regroup occasionally. Others

1303
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:17,160
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, that's that makes sense, that's you've always

1304
01:10:17,439 --> 01:10:19,640
Speaker 1: been that kind of person. So well, you're doing the

1305
01:10:19,680 --> 01:10:22,400
Speaker 1: political thing for ten years. What are they living on?

1306
01:10:22,479 --> 01:10:25,000
Speaker 1: What are they doing? They just do different things, you know.

1307
01:10:25,280 --> 01:10:28,080
Speaker 1: They well, it's funny. They thought they'd get another singer

1308
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:31,880
Speaker 1: for a while. That proved a little bit right, so

1309
01:10:31,960 --> 01:10:34,240
Speaker 1: they form about It ends up being an instrumental band

1310
01:10:34,960 --> 01:10:40,599
Speaker 1: called The Break and they play arts festivals and around

1311
01:10:40,600 --> 01:10:44,120
Speaker 1: and about a bit. They do their own solo albums.

1312
01:10:44,160 --> 01:10:46,920
Speaker 1: Both Jim and Rob prolific writers, so there's lots of

1313
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:50,960
Speaker 1: music coming out. Jim produces people and they play with

1314
01:10:50,960 --> 01:10:53,479
Speaker 1: other people, so they live the life of working musicians,

1315
01:10:53,520 --> 01:10:56,840
Speaker 1: and they're going to be pissed at you. Yes and no,

1316
01:10:57,040 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 1: I think that. I don't know. I mean, we've talked

1317
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:05,560
Speaker 1: about it a bit. The attitude seems to be, Hey,

1318
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:09,800
Speaker 1: you know you've got to We're not We're not the

1319
01:11:09,840 --> 01:11:12,800
Speaker 1: kind of person we can hold back. Okay, what about

1320
01:11:12,880 --> 01:11:15,800
Speaker 1: your mind? You're leaving the circus. Are you cool with that? Yes,

1321
01:11:15,920 --> 01:11:19,200
Speaker 1: very much so, Okay, you go into politics now at

1322
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:22,439
Speaker 1: the end of it, Okay, what do you think about

1323
01:11:22,439 --> 01:11:27,280
Speaker 1: it of having been in politics? Did not regret it

1324
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:30,439
Speaker 1: for a second. Well, you have an experience, But to

1325
01:11:30,520 --> 01:11:35,800
Speaker 1: what degree we're your goals fulfilled? Some goals were fulfilled

1326
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:39,439
Speaker 1: to the extent that I hoped for, and others fell short.

1327
01:11:40,920 --> 01:11:43,439
Speaker 1: My major feeling about it, Bob, is that I probably

1328
01:11:43,439 --> 01:11:46,040
Speaker 1: should have done it earlier. What would have happened if

1329
01:11:46,040 --> 01:11:48,240
Speaker 1: you've done it earlier. I think if I had done

1330
01:11:48,280 --> 01:11:52,240
Speaker 1: it earlier, I may have had a longer career, and

1331
01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:54,960
Speaker 1: maybe even a more senior career. Even though I was

1332
01:11:55,000 --> 01:11:57,000
Speaker 1: a cabinet minister. I was very senior by the end.

1333
01:11:58,040 --> 01:12:02,160
Speaker 1: So I, for example, I'm very interested in foreign airs. Um,

1334
01:12:02,200 --> 01:12:04,599
Speaker 1: so perhaps you know that that I might have ended

1335
01:12:04,640 --> 01:12:06,280
Speaker 1: up as a Minister for Foreign Affairs if I had

1336
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:10,120
Speaker 1: a start earlier. So I herded is, how does it end? Well,

1337
01:12:10,160 --> 01:12:13,000
Speaker 1: we have a leader at the time, he's the Prime Minister.

1338
01:12:13,240 --> 01:12:16,759
Speaker 1: I'm the Environment Minister under him, but he's a difficult

1339
01:12:16,800 --> 01:12:19,559
Speaker 1: person to be let I only ever had one boss.

1340
01:12:19,560 --> 01:12:24,000
Speaker 1: One was enough. But he's then replaced by a woman

1341
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:28,919
Speaker 1: leader who becomes Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

1342
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 1: When that changeover happened, she gives me all of her portfolios,

1343
01:12:33,280 --> 01:12:35,479
Speaker 1: or most of them. So I become the Education Minister,

1344
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:38,960
Speaker 1: and I work as the Education Minister and the Youth Minister,

1345
01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:45,240
Speaker 1: and we pass laws to improve education. But the party

1346
01:12:45,280 --> 01:12:47,720
Speaker 1: is not traveling well in the polls, and he, the

1347
01:12:47,760 --> 01:12:52,560
Speaker 1: first Prime Minister, stages that come back and I privately

1348
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:55,400
Speaker 1: decide if he comes back, I'm not staying. So he

1349
01:12:55,479 --> 01:12:58,559
Speaker 1: comes back and I say to my colleagues, Okay, that's it.

1350
01:12:58,640 --> 01:13:01,240
Speaker 1: They want me to stay and stay in that role,

1351
01:13:01,720 --> 01:13:03,960
Speaker 1: but I resigned from that role. And then when the

1352
01:13:04,040 --> 01:13:08,240
Speaker 1: next election comes, I don't stand again. What was the thought?

1353
01:13:08,360 --> 01:13:10,360
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, what were you planning to do

1354
01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:13,240
Speaker 1: if you were no longer having that career? Well, I

1355
01:13:13,280 --> 01:13:15,240
Speaker 1: could do anything, you know. I could spend some time

1356
01:13:15,280 --> 01:13:18,840
Speaker 1: with my my dearly beloved wife, you know, and she's

1357
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:21,599
Speaker 1: been hanging in for me for a long time. Because

1358
01:13:21,640 --> 01:13:23,600
Speaker 1: I've obviously been working really hard and long hours and

1359
01:13:23,600 --> 01:13:26,960
Speaker 1: all of those things. I understand how the country works.

1360
01:13:27,720 --> 01:13:29,840
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of experience, you know, big levels

1361
01:13:29,840 --> 01:13:32,400
Speaker 1: of government. I've been an activist. Now I can add

1362
01:13:32,439 --> 01:13:35,120
Speaker 1: value to someone. Okay, So once you don't stand for

1363
01:13:35,200 --> 01:13:37,360
Speaker 1: a re election, at what point do you say, fuck,

1364
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:40,240
Speaker 1: we'll get the band together. Well that's the good question,

1365
01:13:40,320 --> 01:13:43,200
Speaker 1: isn't it. So I thought I'd be working essentially as

1366
01:13:43,200 --> 01:13:47,240
Speaker 1: a lawyer, come activists with community groups. That's what I thought.

1367
01:13:47,280 --> 01:13:48,840
Speaker 1: I'd been doing, and playing a bit of music on

1368
01:13:48,880 --> 01:13:51,920
Speaker 1: the side, you know. I thought, well, we'll play a

1369
01:13:51,960 --> 01:13:53,439
Speaker 1: club and we'll raise a bit of money, you know,

1370
01:13:53,560 --> 01:13:58,600
Speaker 1: for for for whatever, and have some fun. But I

1371
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:02,479
Speaker 1: finish and then as I wrote my autobiography, and as

1372
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:04,840
Speaker 1: I'm writing my biography, there's a guitar sitting in the

1373
01:14:04,880 --> 01:14:08,759
Speaker 1: corner of my study, and I'm I'm an average guitarist,

1374
01:14:08,800 --> 01:14:10,439
Speaker 1: but I can play the guitar and I'm a musician,

1375
01:14:10,439 --> 01:14:13,320
Speaker 1: so I know, with the chords and this guitar, as

1376
01:14:13,680 --> 01:14:16,400
Speaker 1: you know, it's starting to move and it's quite weird,

1377
01:14:16,439 --> 01:14:19,679
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, am I seeing things? It's not really moving,

1378
01:14:19,760 --> 01:14:22,800
Speaker 1: but it's calling me. Pick me up, you know, So

1379
01:14:22,840 --> 01:14:24,360
Speaker 1: I start picking the guitar up. At the end of

1380
01:14:24,360 --> 01:14:26,760
Speaker 1: each day, i'd try and write eight hundred words, you

1381
01:14:26,800 --> 01:14:29,200
Speaker 1: know what it's like, And then I pick up the

1382
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:31,519
Speaker 1: guitar and I'm just playing some simple chords and I

1383
01:14:31,640 --> 01:14:33,880
Speaker 1: end up with a dozen or so what I call

1384
01:14:33,960 --> 01:14:37,840
Speaker 1: folk songs. So I played these folks songs just like

1385
01:14:37,880 --> 01:14:40,040
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old. You know. I've got a few

1386
01:14:40,040 --> 01:14:41,760
Speaker 1: folks because I've always been in a band with people

1387
01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:43,960
Speaker 1: who are great songwriters, and they're always writing songs and

1388
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:47,479
Speaker 1: playing guitar. You should record the songs have some fun.

1389
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:50,479
Speaker 1: So inevitably I do go and record those songs with

1390
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:52,760
Speaker 1: Martin Rozzi from Midnight or but with other people as well.

1391
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:55,960
Speaker 1: We turn them into electric folks songs. And I loved it,

1392
01:14:56,000 --> 01:14:58,439
Speaker 1: you know, I really I just re encountered that part

1393
01:14:58,479 --> 01:15:01,160
Speaker 1: of my life, which makes me feel good. And in

1394
01:15:01,280 --> 01:15:05,080
Speaker 1: doing that, Martin and I were chatting, and of course

1395
01:15:05,120 --> 01:15:06,800
Speaker 1: we said it would be interesting to see what happened

1396
01:15:06,800 --> 01:15:09,080
Speaker 1: if we got in a room together. Shall we do it?

1397
01:15:09,120 --> 01:15:10,400
Speaker 1: And I said to the oils, do you want to

1398
01:15:10,400 --> 01:15:12,800
Speaker 1: get in a room together? Because I've loved making music

1399
01:15:12,880 --> 01:15:15,160
Speaker 1: by myself A little different when you're back with your

1400
01:15:15,160 --> 01:15:18,559
Speaker 1: colleagues again, with the promise that we made to one another,

1401
01:15:18,960 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: which we weren't going to break, get in the room

1402
01:15:21,320 --> 01:15:25,919
Speaker 1: and if everybody doesn't feel, literally, as an older musician

1403
01:15:25,960 --> 01:15:28,960
Speaker 1: who's been around the block ninety times, that we're blowing

1404
01:15:28,960 --> 01:15:30,960
Speaker 1: one another's heads off, then you've got to walk out

1405
01:15:31,000 --> 01:15:35,120
Speaker 1: the door. But as it turned out, it sounded alarmingly

1406
01:15:35,240 --> 01:15:38,400
Speaker 1: better than I remembered, and we thought, well, let's play

1407
01:15:38,400 --> 01:15:40,920
Speaker 1: some shows. And it was literally little steps like that

1408
01:15:41,280 --> 01:15:44,240
Speaker 1: ended up to today. Okay, So what what year do

1409
01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:55,120
Speaker 1: you stop running for re election? Two thousand and twelve? Okay?

1410
01:15:55,200 --> 01:15:57,840
Speaker 1: And at what point do you start running your autobiography

1411
01:15:58,160 --> 01:16:00,880
Speaker 1: straight away? Okay? So you really we never did all

1412
01:16:00,920 --> 01:16:03,600
Speaker 1: these other things working through whatever. You went straight to

1413
01:16:03,640 --> 01:16:07,719
Speaker 1: the bio autobiography. Okay, So then you're in the room together,

1414
01:16:07,840 --> 01:16:10,840
Speaker 1: you play the small shows. At what point do you say, funk,

1415
01:16:10,840 --> 01:16:14,479
Speaker 1: We're going to give it a run. Pretty much straight away? Yeah,

1416
01:16:14,600 --> 01:16:18,320
Speaker 1: pretty much straight away. I think there's no point in

1417
01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:21,680
Speaker 1: doing it halfheartedly, and there's only one way of testing it,

1418
01:16:21,760 --> 01:16:25,400
Speaker 1: you know, to see if people are there. And I

1419
01:16:25,439 --> 01:16:28,120
Speaker 1: think that challenge, of course, is the one that you

1420
01:16:28,160 --> 01:16:30,599
Speaker 1: don't want to be a nostalgia act. You don't want

1421
01:16:30,640 --> 01:16:33,479
Speaker 1: to be past your best physically or obviously not as

1422
01:16:33,560 --> 01:16:36,519
Speaker 1: as young as you were. So what is it that

1423
01:16:36,560 --> 01:16:39,439
Speaker 1: makes it work well? For us? It's always been about

1424
01:16:39,439 --> 01:16:41,600
Speaker 1: the sound that we're creating on the stage. Is that

1425
01:16:41,680 --> 01:16:45,559
Speaker 1: still going to happen. We've got new management who shared

1426
01:16:45,600 --> 01:16:49,479
Speaker 1: the vision. We played here a little bit and people

1427
01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:53,439
Speaker 1: went beyond bananas. It was a little bit well okay,

1428
01:16:54,640 --> 01:17:01,439
Speaker 1: and so you could feel that the lightning, but really, well,

1429
01:17:01,520 --> 01:17:02,800
Speaker 1: let's go and play in the world and see if

1430
01:17:02,800 --> 01:17:07,200
Speaker 1: there's anyone there. But this was a really big deal, okay,

1431
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:10,759
Speaker 1: because I would hear from people literally from Canada literally

1432
01:17:10,840 --> 01:17:13,479
Speaker 1: the you gotta go, you gotta go, and I you know,

1433
01:17:13,880 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 1: this was such a big deal okay, And and we

1434
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:21,400
Speaker 1: views were great. Whatever you come back from that tour,

1435
01:17:21,600 --> 01:17:26,639
Speaker 1: now what well, we gotta make some music. So yeah,

1436
01:17:26,680 --> 01:17:30,439
Speaker 1: we've started writing and recording and we'll do that. And

1437
01:17:30,479 --> 01:17:33,240
Speaker 1: so if you went back on the road, where can

1438
01:17:33,280 --> 01:17:37,080
Speaker 1: you play? Where? Where does midnight oil mean something? Pretty

1439
01:17:37,160 --> 01:17:41,000
Speaker 1: much everywhere? Just Australia, United States, Canada. Now we could

1440
01:17:41,000 --> 01:17:48,439
Speaker 1: play uh so South America, Brazil, Europe, um scandinaving countries

1441
01:17:48,720 --> 01:17:50,879
Speaker 1: and on this last toury to go to all those places.

1442
01:17:51,000 --> 01:17:53,639
Speaker 1: Yes we did, we play most of them. It wasn't

1443
01:17:53,680 --> 01:17:57,800
Speaker 1: lucrative in some ways in some places that were certainly

1444
01:17:57,840 --> 01:18:01,320
Speaker 1: paid for itself and better. Okay, Yeah, let's go back

1445
01:18:01,360 --> 01:18:07,120
Speaker 1: to the political thing. Okay, what did you learn about

1446
01:18:07,160 --> 01:18:11,519
Speaker 1: the process? It's a little bit like making sausages. You

1447
01:18:11,560 --> 01:18:13,080
Speaker 1: don't want to get too close to it, you know,

1448
01:18:13,160 --> 01:18:15,519
Speaker 1: if you've got high ideals about it. But on the

1449
01:18:15,560 --> 01:18:20,160
Speaker 1: other hand, it's the most important game in town. Okay,

1450
01:18:20,200 --> 01:18:24,120
Speaker 1: but to what degree by making the sausage does it

1451
01:18:24,240 --> 01:18:26,559
Speaker 1: teamp the individual? To what do we do you have

1452
01:18:26,600 --> 01:18:32,000
Speaker 1: to compromise? Well that the definition of politics is compromised.

1453
01:18:32,040 --> 01:18:35,760
Speaker 1: There is nothing happens politically, even the big steps in

1454
01:18:35,760 --> 01:18:39,400
Speaker 1: this world, without someone somewhere compromising to some extent. The

1455
01:18:39,520 --> 01:18:43,000
Speaker 1: question around that is always are you compromising the very

1456
01:18:43,000 --> 01:18:46,280
Speaker 1: thing that you're standing for. Are are you ultimately advancing it?

1457
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:50,360
Speaker 1: And I think nine times out of ten my viewers

1458
01:18:50,400 --> 01:18:54,280
Speaker 1: that within the party we were always advancing it if

1459
01:18:54,280 --> 01:18:56,839
Speaker 1: there were things that you didn't agree with, which essentially

1460
01:18:56,920 --> 01:18:59,840
Speaker 1: is a compromise for you. That is part of the

1461
01:19:00,000 --> 01:19:02,639
Speaker 1: process of being a team player in a political party.

1462
01:19:02,680 --> 01:19:06,639
Speaker 1: In the Westminster system. One of the things that holds

1463
01:19:06,840 --> 01:19:12,439
Speaker 1: us back politically as a species people's egos and people's

1464
01:19:12,600 --> 01:19:14,799
Speaker 1: lust for power and the fact that they'll do anything

1465
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:17,360
Speaker 1: for it, and the fact that they don't support their

1466
01:19:17,360 --> 01:19:20,320
Speaker 1: colleagues for the greater good. And one of the things

1467
01:19:20,360 --> 01:19:22,240
Speaker 1: that I did when I went into politics was I

1468
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:25,240
Speaker 1: essued the fact that I was really a very well

1469
01:19:25,280 --> 01:19:28,519
Speaker 1: known national person in Australia, celebrity if you like, not

1470
01:19:28,600 --> 01:19:32,400
Speaker 1: my my word, but probably definitely the most famous person

1471
01:19:32,439 --> 01:19:35,160
Speaker 1: ever to walk into the Parliament just like that. And

1472
01:19:35,320 --> 01:19:38,360
Speaker 1: anyone who's tried that before, whether it's been a football

1473
01:19:38,439 --> 01:19:41,719
Speaker 1: player or a sports star or someone has got smashed

1474
01:19:41,720 --> 01:19:45,639
Speaker 1: out of the park. And I wasn't going to show

1475
01:19:45,720 --> 01:19:48,479
Speaker 1: up on the weekend shows and crack jokes about midnight oil.

1476
01:19:48,520 --> 01:19:50,320
Speaker 1: And you know, we've played a big set, and now

1477
01:19:50,360 --> 01:19:53,400
Speaker 1: the legislation is star. I did it as a serious politician,

1478
01:19:54,000 --> 01:19:56,240
Speaker 1: and a lot of people here didn't quite figure that

1479
01:19:56,240 --> 01:19:58,800
Speaker 1: out to begin with, that, including my peers, couldn't quite

1480
01:19:58,840 --> 01:20:01,880
Speaker 1: understand that. But I felt that the Midnight Oha was

1481
01:20:01,920 --> 01:20:05,400
Speaker 1: too important for me to demean them in any way

1482
01:20:05,479 --> 01:20:08,280
Speaker 1: by using them. And I also felt the politics as

1483
01:20:08,320 --> 01:20:12,479
Speaker 1: too serious as a vocation to try and utilize show

1484
01:20:12,520 --> 01:20:15,920
Speaker 1: business to advance it. So I was a classic policy wonk.

1485
01:20:16,120 --> 01:20:19,360
Speaker 1: I'm the boring guy that reads everything you know and

1486
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:22,439
Speaker 1: wants to get it done. Okay, So what was it

1487
01:20:22,520 --> 01:20:25,760
Speaker 1: like when people thought you compromised him? That angry at you?

1488
01:20:25,840 --> 01:20:31,040
Speaker 1: I'm talking about constituents, Uh, mostly predictable all part of

1489
01:20:31,120 --> 01:20:34,000
Speaker 1: the course. And what could you cope with it? Oh? Yeah, no,

1490
01:20:34,200 --> 01:20:38,160
Speaker 1: of course, yeah okay? And then well what you know,

1491
01:20:38,200 --> 01:20:41,559
Speaker 1: you were a minister of education and you've in a

1492
01:20:41,640 --> 01:20:45,080
Speaker 1: perfect world. What would you like the educational system to

1493
01:20:45,160 --> 01:20:48,080
Speaker 1: be well as it should be in your country? You know?

1494
01:20:48,120 --> 01:20:49,559
Speaker 1: And I went to I went to your country. I

1495
01:20:49,600 --> 01:20:52,839
Speaker 1: spent time with the education secretary there, Obama's education secretary,

1496
01:20:52,880 --> 01:20:55,360
Speaker 1: and we just can't remember the guy's name, but you know,

1497
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:58,000
Speaker 1: trying to do good stuff So here's here's the here's

1498
01:20:58,000 --> 01:21:04,680
Speaker 1: the deal as eventually, unless we have well rounded citizens

1499
01:21:04,720 --> 01:21:09,440
Speaker 1: emerging in our countries who have got the capacity to innovate,

1500
01:21:10,240 --> 01:21:15,160
Speaker 1: to empathize, to be creative, who've got a decent knowledge base,

1501
01:21:16,280 --> 01:21:18,960
Speaker 1: and who understand a bit about history, the world to

1502
01:21:19,040 --> 01:21:22,160
Speaker 1: be messy. In order to do that, you have to

1503
01:21:22,240 --> 01:21:26,280
Speaker 1: maximize the opportunity for any young boy or girl, whether

1504
01:21:26,320 --> 01:21:29,320
Speaker 1: they're living in the suburbs of Connecticut or they're out

1505
01:21:29,320 --> 01:21:32,120
Speaker 1: in the middle of wherever, and no matter how much

1506
01:21:32,160 --> 01:21:34,920
Speaker 1: money their parents or carera zone, to be the best

1507
01:21:34,920 --> 01:21:37,639
Speaker 1: student they can be. So we've got a Bell curve

1508
01:21:37,720 --> 01:21:40,240
Speaker 1: in our populations in America, and I've got a Bell

1509
01:21:40,280 --> 01:21:42,960
Speaker 1: curve in Australia. You want to make sure everybody gets

1510
01:21:43,000 --> 01:21:45,680
Speaker 1: the best opportunity, but you're bell curve. Kids are the

1511
01:21:45,720 --> 01:21:48,880
Speaker 1: ones who become the scientists, the designers, the leaders of

1512
01:21:48,920 --> 01:21:52,160
Speaker 1: the future. To do that, you have to make sure

1513
01:21:52,200 --> 01:21:55,400
Speaker 1: that every school is adequately resourced to do that job.

1514
01:21:56,040 --> 01:21:59,120
Speaker 1: The teachers are well trained and well remunerated, and that

1515
01:21:59,200 --> 01:22:02,839
Speaker 1: the leaders in this schools principles or head masters or mistresses,

1516
01:22:02,880 --> 01:22:04,960
Speaker 1: whatever you call them in your country, have got the

1517
01:22:05,040 --> 01:22:09,040
Speaker 1: capacity to lead and in our country. That means that

1518
01:22:09,200 --> 01:22:13,200
Speaker 1: everyone should get supported in education funding from the big

1519
01:22:13,200 --> 01:22:17,880
Speaker 1: budget according to need, not the loudest voices, not the

1520
01:22:17,960 --> 01:22:21,960
Speaker 1: richest schools according to need. And these other principles apply.

1521
01:22:22,680 --> 01:22:24,479
Speaker 1: If you think about when you and I went to school,

1522
01:22:25,040 --> 01:22:27,559
Speaker 1: and some people listening to this compared to my kids

1523
01:22:27,720 --> 01:22:31,000
Speaker 1: and then their kids. You don't need to be a

1524
01:22:31,080 --> 01:22:34,080
Speaker 1: brain in mass to be able to add up. You've

1525
01:22:34,080 --> 01:22:37,439
Speaker 1: got a pocket calculator. Nowadays you've got a computer. You

1526
01:22:37,479 --> 01:22:41,400
Speaker 1: don't need to be told how the world actually fits

1527
01:22:41,400 --> 01:22:44,599
Speaker 1: together in terms of geography, because you can ask Madam

1528
01:22:44,640 --> 01:22:48,240
Speaker 1: Google and Madam Google and enlighten you. But how do

1529
01:22:48,280 --> 01:22:50,599
Speaker 1: you become a well rounded citizen? How do become someone

1530
01:22:50,640 --> 01:22:54,400
Speaker 1: who learns to listen, who understands problem solving, who realizes

1531
01:22:54,520 --> 01:22:56,519
Speaker 1: the gaps in their own knowledge, and then goes off

1532
01:22:56,800 --> 01:22:59,000
Speaker 1: and make sure that they fill those gaps to do

1533
01:22:59,080 --> 01:23:01,639
Speaker 1: something with them, is imbued with a sense of concern

1534
01:23:02,439 --> 01:23:05,439
Speaker 1: for their fellow people. You can only do that by

1535
01:23:05,479 --> 01:23:08,080
Speaker 1: good education system in the primary level. And if you

1536
01:23:08,080 --> 01:23:10,120
Speaker 1: look at a country that does it well, Finland is

1537
01:23:10,479 --> 01:23:13,320
Speaker 1: of course as example, but there are others that's what

1538
01:23:13,360 --> 01:23:16,519
Speaker 1: they do and they don't do it they don't work harder,

1539
01:23:16,560 --> 01:23:18,479
Speaker 1: the kids aren't in class longer than they are in

1540
01:23:18,600 --> 01:23:23,240
Speaker 1: Australia or the States. They're not being coached at home

1541
01:23:23,520 --> 01:23:27,040
Speaker 1: by tutors more than other people are. At all. Their

1542
01:23:27,080 --> 01:23:33,000
Speaker 1: teachers are well remunerated effectively, their masters of education, and

1543
01:23:33,040 --> 01:23:35,639
Speaker 1: the schools are well supported. That's what you got. Okay,

1544
01:23:35,680 --> 01:23:38,840
Speaker 1: But in the United States, first reaction to what you're

1545
01:23:38,840 --> 01:23:40,880
Speaker 1: saying is who's going to pay for all this? Yeah,

1546
01:23:40,920 --> 01:23:44,919
Speaker 1: well guess what. Everybody should pay, including the wealthy. Everybody

1547
01:23:44,920 --> 01:23:47,800
Speaker 1: should play, including the big companies. Know you're preaching in

1548
01:23:47,840 --> 01:23:51,320
Speaker 1: the converted here, but just you know, looking at the thing.

1549
01:23:51,360 --> 01:23:54,640
Speaker 1: I mean in America, tax is a dirty word. You

1550
01:23:54,720 --> 01:24:00,120
Speaker 1: can't even mention it. It's a third real topic. So

1551
01:24:00,120 --> 01:24:03,200
Speaker 1: so what is the hope for the world. Well, I

1552
01:24:03,800 --> 01:24:05,320
Speaker 1: can't talk about the hope of the world. The hope

1553
01:24:05,320 --> 01:24:07,720
Speaker 1: for America is it's got to get over its allergy

1554
01:24:07,800 --> 01:24:09,920
Speaker 1: to tax. You know, it's gotta there's gotta be a

1555
01:24:09,920 --> 01:24:12,639
Speaker 1: reconfiguration of language to enable that to happen. Okay, let's

1556
01:24:12,680 --> 01:24:14,439
Speaker 1: as I say, well, let me let me be more

1557
01:24:14,520 --> 01:24:18,080
Speaker 1: specific and broad. At the same time, we have all

1558
01:24:18,200 --> 01:24:23,439
Speaker 1: these nationalistic people around the world primarily a reaction to

1559
01:24:23,520 --> 01:24:27,520
Speaker 1: income inequality and globalization. You and me know the globalization

1560
01:24:27,600 --> 01:24:29,720
Speaker 1: is inevitable. You know, you don't want to make a

1561
01:24:29,800 --> 01:24:32,679
Speaker 1: flat screen. You don't want to be three thousand dollars

1562
01:24:32,720 --> 01:24:35,800
Speaker 1: for a flat screen. But we can also say that

1563
01:24:35,960 --> 01:24:40,920
Speaker 1: the people were left behind globalization didn't get any help. Correct. Okay,

1564
01:24:40,960 --> 01:24:45,000
Speaker 1: but is the world going to move more towards Rexit,

1565
01:24:45,080 --> 01:24:47,080
Speaker 1: ward towards Trump or is there going to be an

1566
01:24:47,080 --> 01:24:50,479
Speaker 1: event that flips us back to what ones was in

1567
01:24:50,600 --> 01:24:56,080
Speaker 1: terms of globalization? What do you think? Okay? Uh, big question.

1568
01:24:56,120 --> 01:25:00,360
Speaker 1: But I think essentially that one component of nationalism Trump

1569
01:25:00,439 --> 01:25:04,720
Speaker 1: and Brexit, which if you like, a previous social democratic

1570
01:25:04,720 --> 01:25:09,840
Speaker 1: and progressive forces haven't fully understood, is the tribal nature

1571
01:25:10,200 --> 01:25:15,160
Speaker 1: of communities and nations, and that unless we are clear

1572
01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:21,960
Speaker 1: about how we essentially mediate globalism locally as opposed to, hey,

1573
01:25:22,080 --> 01:25:24,559
Speaker 1: just let it happen, people are going to be then

1574
01:25:24,600 --> 01:25:27,439
Speaker 1: it's going to be a very contested space politically. Having

1575
01:25:27,479 --> 01:25:32,200
Speaker 1: said that, I think that the most important awareness that

1576
01:25:32,240 --> 01:25:34,439
Speaker 1: we can have is the awareness that we got when

1577
01:25:34,560 --> 01:25:37,320
Speaker 1: NASA for NASA for sent people to the moon, you know,

1578
01:25:37,520 --> 01:25:40,360
Speaker 1: and we first saw the photos and so it's simple

1579
01:25:40,600 --> 01:25:42,400
Speaker 1: sounds like a very simplistic thing to say, but the

1580
01:25:42,400 --> 01:25:44,439
Speaker 1: truth of it is that, you know, it's eight and

1581
01:25:44,439 --> 01:25:47,080
Speaker 1: a half billion people and numbers growing, although eventually it

1582
01:25:47,120 --> 01:25:50,960
Speaker 1: will stabilize off and a world that where the ecology

1583
01:25:50,960 --> 01:25:52,920
Speaker 1: and the environment of the world is pretty much getting

1584
01:25:52,960 --> 01:25:56,479
Speaker 1: stretched to map to breaking point. We have to work

1585
01:25:56,479 --> 01:26:00,839
Speaker 1: out the cooperative mechanisms for allowing us to have national

1586
01:26:00,960 --> 01:26:05,080
Speaker 1: and international responses to these issues which are coherent and

1587
01:26:05,160 --> 01:26:09,120
Speaker 1: can work hand in hand. And that is essentially the

1588
01:26:09,240 --> 01:26:11,559
Speaker 1: vision that they had after World War Two when they

1589
01:26:11,560 --> 01:26:13,640
Speaker 1: set up the United Nations, and that vision was we

1590
01:26:13,680 --> 01:26:17,080
Speaker 1: cannot have a global war. Now the vision must be

1591
01:26:17,320 --> 01:26:22,840
Speaker 1: we must have absolute global cooperation whilst maintaining the sanctity

1592
01:26:22,880 --> 01:26:27,479
Speaker 1: of communities, local communities, regional communities and nation states to

1593
01:26:27,640 --> 01:26:31,520
Speaker 1: chart their own course within these much more broadly agreed parameters.

1594
01:26:31,720 --> 01:26:34,040
Speaker 1: And the obvious one around here, Bob, is climate change,

1595
01:26:34,360 --> 01:26:38,160
Speaker 1: because it's the ultimate economic issue, but it's also the

1596
01:26:38,200 --> 01:26:40,800
Speaker 1: ultimate global issue, and it's the ultimate environment issue. It

1597
01:26:40,840 --> 01:26:44,719
Speaker 1: affects us all and no rich person you know living

1598
01:26:44,760 --> 01:26:46,840
Speaker 1: in your state or this city who thinks they can

1599
01:26:46,960 --> 01:26:49,160
Speaker 1: escape it by having a better air conditioning system. And

1600
01:26:49,200 --> 01:26:51,439
Speaker 1: a world of state is going to escape. It's not

1601
01:26:51,439 --> 01:26:54,920
Speaker 1: going to happen. Okay, we're does music fit in with

1602
01:26:54,960 --> 01:26:57,800
Speaker 1: all this? Well, music is our soundtrack, you know. Music

1603
01:26:57,880 --> 01:27:00,479
Speaker 1: is the soundtrack about time of the zychi that whatever

1604
01:27:00,560 --> 01:27:02,960
Speaker 1: is happening at the moment, it's not necessarily going to

1605
01:27:03,040 --> 01:27:06,479
Speaker 1: lead the charge. Music doesn't change the world by itself.

1606
01:27:06,479 --> 01:27:09,559
Speaker 1: It can't. People do it. It's people that change the world.

1607
01:27:09,720 --> 01:27:12,320
Speaker 1: But they need their songs. I've got to have their songs,

1608
01:27:12,320 --> 01:27:15,320
Speaker 1: They've got to have their soundtracks. So I think that

1609
01:27:15,439 --> 01:27:18,000
Speaker 1: music has not even a role to play. I think

1610
01:27:18,040 --> 01:27:22,200
Speaker 1: it it does its thing in a most magical way.

1611
01:27:22,280 --> 01:27:25,720
Speaker 1: It crosses, if you like, the mind to the heart

1612
01:27:25,840 --> 01:27:28,639
Speaker 1: barriers very quickly. It goes straight to both and then

1613
01:27:28,640 --> 01:27:30,559
Speaker 1: it goes to your feet as well. What could be better?

1614
01:27:31,760 --> 01:27:34,240
Speaker 1: That's what you need? Okay, So you've achieved so much,

1615
01:27:34,280 --> 01:27:37,760
Speaker 1: You've had an internationally successful group that didn't sell out,

1616
01:27:37,800 --> 01:27:43,080
Speaker 1: you had a political career. What is the next dream? Well,

1617
01:27:43,720 --> 01:27:46,960
Speaker 1: I I just hope to be able to do each day. Well,

1618
01:27:47,000 --> 01:27:49,360
Speaker 1: you know, and I think this is honestly, and I'm

1619
01:27:49,400 --> 01:27:51,360
Speaker 1: not trying to be falsely modest, but I really do

1620
01:27:51,439 --> 01:27:55,160
Speaker 1: think that one of the mistakes that is easily made,

1621
01:27:55,280 --> 01:27:58,880
Speaker 1: particularly in this profession, is to believe that you have

1622
01:27:59,000 --> 01:28:01,599
Speaker 1: the answers that you're the hero. You know. I don't

1623
01:28:01,640 --> 01:28:03,400
Speaker 1: buy the hero myth, you know. I think it's been

1624
01:28:03,439 --> 01:28:06,559
Speaker 1: a really dangerous myth for Western civilization. I buy the

1625
01:28:06,600 --> 01:28:10,960
Speaker 1: collective myth. Together working together, using our different skills and capacities,

1626
01:28:10,960 --> 01:28:13,360
Speaker 1: A believe we can get good stuff done. So I'll

1627
01:28:13,400 --> 01:28:15,400
Speaker 1: just continue to do that with my music friends and

1628
01:28:15,400 --> 01:28:17,519
Speaker 1: with anyone else who wants to do. Okay, did you

1629
01:28:17,560 --> 01:28:21,000
Speaker 1: have that same viewpoint before you got involved in politics

1630
01:28:21,040 --> 01:28:22,880
Speaker 1: or did you learn it as a results. I had

1631
01:28:22,880 --> 01:28:25,240
Speaker 1: the same view before I got involved in politics. My

1632
01:28:25,600 --> 01:28:29,760
Speaker 1: views haven't changed much over the last thirty years. Okay,

1633
01:28:30,040 --> 01:28:36,680
Speaker 1: so much food for thought. Peter Garrett certainly politician, lead, singer, charismatic.

1634
01:28:37,040 --> 01:28:39,120
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for doing this well, Bob, has been

1635
01:28:39,160 --> 01:28:42,160
Speaker 1: a pleasure to talk to your mate. Okay, great, I

1636
01:28:42,160 --> 01:28:44,200
Speaker 1: have so much more to learn until next time. This

1637
01:28:44,280 --> 01:28:45,080
Speaker 1: is Bob left SA