Rob Hirst

Rob Hirst was born Robert George Hirst on 3 September 1955 in Camden, New South Wales. He grew up in Mosman on Sydney's lower north shore and attended primary school with Allan Border, who went on to captain Australia at cricket. At 12 he had surgery to remove a benign tumour from his right leg, and afterwards he was given his first drum kit.

Hirst met Jim Moginie at high school in Sydney, and the two began playing together in 1972. He later studied arts and law at the University of Sydney, and it was as a student that he placed the newspaper advertisement for a singer that brought Peter Garrett into the band.

The band that began as Schwampy Moose and then Farm became Midnight Oil in 1976, with Garrett on vocals, Hirst on drums and vocals, Moginie on guitar and keyboards, Martin Rotsey on guitar and Andrew James on bass (later Peter Gifford, then Bones Hillman). Hirst drove the band's live sound and co-wrote many of its best-known songs, including Power and the Passion, Beds Are Burning, The Dead Heart, Forgotten Years, King of the Mountain, Short Memory and Blue Sky Mine. His drum solo on Power and the Passion, recorded in 1982, was often played live on a corrugated iron water tank from the 1986 Blackfella/Whitefella tour. The band took a long break after Garrett entered federal politics in December 2002, returned in 2017, released Resist in February 2022 and played its final show at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion on 3 October 2022.

Hirst formed Ghostwriters with Rick Grossman of Hoodoo Gurus and Andrew Dickson, releasing four albums between 1991 and 2007. He joined the blues band Backsliders in 2000, formed the Angry Tradesmen with Dom Turner (Beat the House, 2008), recorded In the Stealth of Summer (2005) with Paul Greene, and played in the instrumental surf band the Break, whose albums Church of the Open Sky (2010) and Space Farm (2013) also featured Moginie and Rotsey. Solo and collaborative releases included The Sun Becomes the Sea (2014), Crashing the Same Car Twice (2015) and Born Electric (2025) with Sean Sennett, and The Lost and the Found (2020) with his daughter Jay O'Shea. With Moginie and Hamish Stuart he released the EPs Red Continent (2023) and A Hundred Years or More (2025). He also wrote the book Willie's Bar & Grill about touring North America after the September 11 attacks.

Hirst was married to Lesley Holland (also reported as Leslie Holland), and they had two daughters, Lexi (Alexandra) and Gabriella, an artist. His eldest daughter, the country singer Jay O'Shea, was born when he was a teenager and placed for adoption. They reunited in 2010, a reunion connected through her birth mother and his bandmate Bones Hillman, and went on to make music together, including the 2017 Golden Guitar winning video The Truth Walks Slowly and the 2020 album The Lost and the Found.

Hirst's lyrics carried Midnight Oil's concerns about Aboriginal land rights and reconciliation, war, the environment and corporate greed. Blue Sky Mine was written for victims of the Wittenoom asbestos disaster, and Hercules mourned the Rainbow Warrior. After his diagnosis he spoke in support of voluntary assisted dying, for which he was eligible in New South Wales. His family said he loved Australia and dreamt of a day when the country could heal through Makarrata and get on with caring for Country together.

Hirst is remembered as the beating heart of Midnight Oil and one of Australia's great rock drummers, and as a songwriter whose work was often overshadowed by the band's famous frontman. Jimmy Barnes called him the engine driving one of the greatest live bands of all time. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was the real deal. His songs remain fixtures of Australian radio and of protest and reconciliation movements.

Beds Are Burning won an APRA Gold Award (1989 to 1990) and placed third in APRA's 2001 list of the best Australian songs, with Power and the Passion also in the top 30. Midnight Oil were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006 and received APRA's Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music in 2018. Gadigal Land, co-written by Hirst, won APRA Song of the Year in 2021. In the 2026 Australia Day Honours he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the performing arts through music.

Hirst wrote Willie's Bar & Grill, an account of Midnight Oil's North American tour in the weeks after the September 11 attacks. He appeared on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton in 2003, recorded a long-form interview for the Australian Music Vault, and in 2025 gave a candid interview to The Australian about living with pancreatic cancer.

Hirst was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer in 2023, about six months after Midnight Oil's final concert. He outlived his early prognosis and kept writing and recording. He died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, on 20 January 2026 at the age of 70, in New South Wales. The family asked that anyone wishing to honour him donate to Pankind, Pancreatic Cancer Australia or Support Act.