Peter Garrett: Midnight Oil, the Royal Antler and Beds Are Burning | Ultimate Aussie Pub Rock Reunion

Why fans still care

PETER GARRETT sang about real places and real arguments, and he did it at full height with his arms going like windmills. Louder describes his convulsive stage presence from the start. The songs he sang with Midnight Oil were about land rights, uranium and the bush, and they still fill rooms.

Early life

Peter Garrett was born in 1953 in Wahroonga, on Sydney’s North Shore, as his Parliament of Australia biography records. He studied politics and law, taking a BA at the Australian National University and a law degree at the University of New South Wales, as Parliament records, and the National Portrait Gallery notes he joined the band after those studies.

He told Rolling Stone Australia that Greg Macainsh and Red Symons of Skyhooks, the band Shirley, Who’s Who number 26, fronted, were “about the only people who ever encouraged me” when he was still in a student band in Canberra.

Career chapters

1. 1972Jim Moginie and Rob Hirst start the band as Farm
2. mid-1970sGarrett joins after answering their ad
3. 198210, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
4. 1987Diesel and Dust
5. 1989President of the Australian Conservation Foundation
6. 1990Blue Sky Mining; the Exxon protest gig in New York
7. 1994Ellis Park, Johannesburg
8. 2000the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony
9. 2002leaves the band to go into politics
10. 2003Member of the Order of Australia
11. 2004elected Member for Kingsford Smith
12. 2006ARIA Hall of Fame with Midnight Oil
13. 2007Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts
14. 2016A Version of Now, his first solo album
15. 2020The Makarrata Project goes to number 1
16. 2022Resist goes to number 1
17. 2024The True North
18. 2026Chair of Landcare Australia

The ad and the audition mid-1970s

Jim Moginie told Louder the band had put an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald, “and Pete was the only one who turned up.” He sang Jethro Tull’s Locomotive Breath and then a blues in an unusual high falsetto, Louder says, and they asked him in almost at once. Garrett’s own version is shorter: “I was older, bossier, bigger and a surfer.”

Pub years at the Royal Antler late 1970s to early 1980s

The Royal Antler Hotel at Narrabeen, on Sydney’s northern beaches, became home. Louder says the band played it nearly 1,000 times in the early years, and the band’s own history describes a crowd that grew to a thousand in a room meant for half that. They started their own label and turned down Countdown, which both Louder and the band record. “It was five of us against the world,” Garrett told Louder.

Diesel and Dust and Blue Sky Mining 1982 to 1990

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 came out in 1982 with Power and the Passion on it, and the band says it stayed on the Australian charts for more than 200 weeks. Diesel and Dust followed in 1987, with Beds Are Burning and The Dead Heart. In 1990, touring Blue Sky Mining, they set up on a flatbed truck outside Exxon’s New York headquarters and played in protest at the Alaskan oil spill, as Louder and the band’s history both tell it.

Big stages 1994 to 2002

In 1994 they played Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium after Nelson Mandela’s inauguration, as Louder reports. At the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics they played Beds Are Burning in outfits with the word “sorry” on them, as the National Portrait Gallery and Louder both describe. In December 2002 Garrett left to go into politics full time, which the band’s history and the National Portrait Gallery both date to that month.

Parliament 2004 to 2013

He won Kingsford Smith for Labor in 2004 and sat in Parliament until 2013. After the 2007 election he became Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, and later Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, the Parliament of Australia records. Before Parliament he had been President of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1989 to 1993 and again from 1999 to 2004, according to Parliament.

Back on stage 2016 onward

His first solo album, A Version of Now, came out in 2016. Midnight Oil came back together, and The Makarrata Project went to number 1 in November 2020, as ARIA and the band both report. Resist went to number 1 in 2022, according to ARIA and Music Feeds. His second solo album, The True North, followed in 2024. In April 2026 he was announced as Chair of Landcare Australia, his own site says.

Craft, sound and style

The voice

Garrett has never pretended to be a trained singer. He told Rolling Stone Australia he ignored the singing teacher, and put it this way: “I believe in the democracy of the voice.” That flat, shouted, Australian delivery is the sound of the Oils. He also told the magazine he is “never happier than when I’ve got a big loud rock band onstage”.

Writing with the band

Garrett wrote with his bandmates, and the band’s own history describes songs drawn from the people and places around them. The songs are about places: the desert, the Pilbara, the city.

A Version of Now

For his first solo album, Rolling Stone Australia says, he demoed with Oils guitarist Martin Rotsey at Moginie’s Oceanic Studio, then cut nine tracks in 12 days with producer Burke Reid. Garrett calls them “simple folk songs, made electric”. The band included Jet’s Mark Wilson and Pete Luscombe, also known for playing drums with Paul Kelly, Who’s Who number 20.

Stories people still tell

1. PG For PM.

   At the 2006 ARIA Hall of Fame induction, Pollstar reported, Silverchair played the Oils’ I Don’t Want To Be The One, and Daniel Johns, Who’s Who number 23, spray-painted “PG For PM” on the stage.

2. The Exxon banner.

   On the flatbed outside Exxon in 1990, Louder says, the banner read “Midnight Oil Makes You Dance, Exxon Oil Makes Us Sick”.

Legacy

Midnight Oil went into the ARIA Hall of Fame on 29 October 2006, which Pollstar reported at the time and ARIA confirms. Garrett was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003, as the Parliament of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery both record. Bono sent a video message to that Hall of Fame night and praised their “red earth rhythms under urban rhymes” (Pollstar).