Aoife Moynihan speaks with Midnight Oil co-founder on his new memoir
As a child growing up on the North Shore, Jim Moginie’s summers were filled with the smell of bushfires and the buzzing cicadas while exploring the bush on his bike.
It was quite a blissful childhood until at the age of 11, Jim learned he was adopted, and the rug was pulled out from under him. “I went into this funny period where I lost confidence in everything,” Jim, 67, says. “I thought, ‘My parents aren’t my parents. My brother’s not my brother. Where does my stuff come from?’”
When Jim started high school at Shore in North Sydney, he found it challenging. At the time, corporal punishment was the norm. “I found it brutal,” says Jim. “We got caned regularly. I didn’t question it, but there were times where I thought it was so unfair – someone reports you for talking loudly on a train, and you get drawn up and hit in front of everybody.”
Jim started playing music in school with Rob Hirst, and it became an escape.
They formed FARM in 1972, which became Midnight Oil in 1976. Although Jim now lives south of Sydney, the North Shore and the Beaches were significant during those early years.
Home and HQ was in Chatswood, an old Federation house owned by Rob Hirst’s father. Midnight Oil made some rough recordings in the living room before moving to a demo studio across the back lane.
After that, they recorded at Airborne Studio in Brookvale. In fact, Jim now runs Oceanic, a recording studio in Brookvale.
Midnight Oil cut their teeth at the Royal Antler Hotel in Narrabeen. It was the first place they got a residency after Peter Garrett joined the band in 1973.
“We played there a lot,” Jim says. At first, there was only a smattering of people. The following week, there were more. And soon there were a hundred, then 200, and then it was sold out.”
Live music was big on the Beaches, and with no DVDs, home theatres or dance clubs, people saw bands. Midnight Oil also played at the Avalon RSL and Manly Flicks.
“That’s where you met people,” says Jim. “Many romances were played out in front of us from the stage. We knew we were doing something right. We didn’t have any radio play. All we had was our music and performance.”
“We became a full-on Australian pub band but with music that was about Australia and Australian things,” says Jim. “And delivered with a lot of punch.”
Midnight Oil signed their first record deal in 1978 at the Black Stump restaurant in Frenchs Forest. Jim struggled with fame and didn’t like the spotlight. “I was fine writing music,” says Jim. “But promo stuff was uncomfortable. With adopted people, it’s the fear and flight thing – you just want to run when things get hard.”
At 45, Jim found his birth parents, Brian and Anne, who had married and had more children after the adoption, although they had since separated. Jim had a year with Brian before his death.
“My father was a troubled man,” says Jim. “The drink was running things when I found him. He was a rock and roll guy without the rock and roll.”
Meeting Anne was emotional. She touched his skin, examining his features as if checking that he was real. “It was how you look at a baby,” says Jim. “A 45-year-old baby. I knew her when I met her and when I hugged her, it wasn’t just a ‘hug’.” Anne hadn’t told anyone about the adoption which was clouded with shame in 1956, and she had been sent away to Sydney to have Jim. He was glad to have time with Anne before she passed away five years after Brian.
Finding his birth parents led Jim to Silver River in Ireland where his grandfather was originally from. “The Silver River is where they farmed,” says Jim. “(Meeting them) was like scraping back and finding yourself. Discovering these were my people. I had a beautiful adoptive family, but the nature side of it was like peeling back an onion and saying, ‘There I am.’
The Silver River is published by Harper Collins