Not since the U2 of 1985, or Prince, the Clash and Bruce Springsteen of a decade ago, has a band or artist emerged that combined such a pure, almost messianic, vision with such powerful, often transcendent, music.
The band is Midnight Oil, and after 13 years as Australia`s brightest hope, America is finally taking notice.
A national tour, which brings the Oils to Poplar Creek Music Theatre on Friday, marks the first time the band has played the lucrative outdoor circuit in America. It follows the release of the critically acclaimed ”Blue Sky Mining” (Columbia), the band`s second consecutive U.S. Top 30 album.
What makes these successes so unusual is that they have all come on Midnight Oils` terms.
”Oils will always be Oils,” says Peter Garrett, the band`s singer and spokesman. ”We have a burning desire to speak out on what we see.”
His words are borne out by the albums and concerts in which the Oils have turned the nuclear threat, environmental decay and the trampling of human rights into a fist-pumping, foot-stomping crusade.
”In the absence of these issues being discussed extensively in the media, we couldn`t be silent,” the singer says. ”These aren`t political issues, but gut issues, life issues. Our purpose is to explore and explode hypocrisy.”
Garrett`s righteous rage isn`t a pose. His 6-foot-5-inch, bald-headed frame and ferocious stage movements, which resemble those of a lanky marionette being tugged and twitched by some unseen hand, belie the fact that in the ”real” world he`s a lawyer in his mid-30s with a high political profile in his native land.
In 1984, Garrett mounted a last-minute campaign for the Australian Senate as a member of the fledgling Nuclear Disarmament Party and received more than 10 percent of the popular vote.
These days, the onetime surf punk still finds time for a ”brief interlude with a 6 1/2-foot tube courtesy of the Creator”-surf-speak for a ride on a particularly wonderful wave.
But mostly he works full time in the band`s Sydney headquarters as the unsalaried president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, a federal advisory board on problems of national heritage and environment. He takes time out to tour, of course, but even when the band was recording ”Blue Sky Mining” he spent his days at the office, his nights in the studio.
”I don`t take the title seriously, but I take the role very seriously,” he says. ”What`s happening to the environment and the aborigines is at the crux of what`s happening to my country, the world, and I see my role as making young people aware that if we don`t address and solve the problems within the next 15 years we might as well wrap ourselves in body bags and check ourselves into a radioactive waste receptacle.”
Though he`s a powerful public speaker, Garrett`s passion is channeled best through Midnight Oil, where he blends his concerns with the music and lyrics of fellow songwriters Jim Moginie and Rob Hirst. The band`s new album addresses the cancer epidemic in the asbestos mines of western Australia
(”Blue Sky Mine”), the poisoning of the Earth (”River Runs Red,”
”Antarctica,” ”Mountains of Burma”), gang violence (”Bedlam Bridge”)
and humanity`s short-term memory about its blood-splattered past (”Forgotten Years”).
Last Wednesday, the band literally took to the streets in New York City, performing at the base of the Exxon building to magnify its concern about the encroaching environmental crisis, while giving a highly visible boost to their tour.
But agitating the Powers That Be is nothing new for Midnight Oil.
The Oils set the tone for the rise of independent bands a decade ago with their do-it-yourself philosophy: writing, arranging and producing their own albums, supervising publicity, hauling equipment, booking gigs, snubbing the big record companies and cutting out middle-men promoters. They played with an intensity that won over some of the toughest audiences in the world-the beer- belting denizens of Australia`s surf bars-and built a fan base whose passion mirrored that of Springsteen`s early following.
The Oils` love-it-or-leave-it approach led to a five-year wait for an American record deal. When ”10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” was finally released by Columbia Records in the States in 1983, it inspired critical praise but lukewarm sales, as did the 1985 follow-up, ”Red Sails in the Sunset.”
But Garrett, bassist Peter Gifford (since replaced by Bones Hillman), guitarists Moginie and Martin Rotsey, and drummer Hirst struck gold with
”Diesel and Dust” in 1987, and most recently, ”Blue Sky Mining.”
”Diesel and Dust” hardly had the earmarks of a hit album. It was written after the band toured its homeland`s primitive Outback and played to audiences of Aborigines who had never heard of Midnight Oil, much less rock.
”We were humbled-we learned that in the larger scheme of things, beneath a star-covered sky, we weren`t all that important,” Garrett says. ”And we saw that a close relationship to the land, as these people had, is essential for psychic and physical health.”
The rhythm of the Outback made its way into ”Diesel and Dust.” The opening track, ”Beds are Burning,” decried the plight of the Aborigines, whose land was taken away centuries ago: ”The time has come/a fact`s a fact/ it belongs to them/let`s give it back.”
Remarkably, the song became a hit, packing dance floors around the world with its relentless rhythms. Soon the band was headlining 5,000-seat halls across America.
But many newly converted fans heard the chorus and assumed the song was little more than a steamy bedroom romp, just as a few years ago Springsteen`s ”Born in the U.S.A.” was often misinterpreted as a patriotic anthem.
Springsteen`s popularity seems to have eroded the force of his message in recent years, and Garrett sounds wary of falling into the same trap. On ”King of the Mountain,” from the new album, he shouts to those who would make idols of the Oils: ”Don`t put me up on your bedroom wall!”
Yet the pop industry, and its attendant hero worship, has given Garrett a platform that he otherwise might not have to speak out on the issues.
”That`s why the music, the songs, always come first,” he says. ”We want the audience dancing in the aisles, and as a bonus, you`ve got some little sparks of lightning in the lyrics. If one hits home with the audience, that`s fine.”
Just to make sure, however, Garrett says he plans to be a ”little more straightforward” with his song introductions on the current tour.
One thing the audience won`t get is a heaping helping of love songs, a blind spot in the Oils` repertoire.
”Oh, there`s three I can think of that we`ve written,” Garrett says with a chuckle. ”But I don`t sing a particularly good love song, and more importantly, I think the word `love` has been devalued in pop music because it`s been used so much. We want to kick-start something out there, not follow the leader.”
Of all the statements Garrett and the Oils have made, that may be the most radical. The love song long has been a key component of the most successful rock acts. Even Springsteen and U2 have introduced an element of sexual heat to their acts in recent years.
That refusal to succumb to pop`s pleasure principle may keep Midnight Oil`s incandescent greatness forever in the shadows of American music. Which is exactly why they`re a band for the ages.
