Midnight Oil founder Rob Hirst dies aged 70 after battle with cancer
Rob Hirst, the drummer and founding member of Australian rock band Midnight Oil, has died at the age of 70. Hirst was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer in 2023. The band confirmed his death on Tuesday afternoon.
“After fighting heroically for almost three years, Rob is now free of pain – ‘a glimmer of tiny light in the wilderness’,” they wrote in a statement on social media. “He died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. The family asks that anyone wanting to honour Rob donate to Pankind, Pancreatic Cancer Australia or Support Act.”
In 2025, Hirst spoke about his support for voluntary assisted dying, which he was eligible for in New South Wales.
“Why should you have to die in terrible, drawn-out pain?” he told the Australian. “When you’ve had this amazing life – a life like I’ve had – why should end-of-life be so horrific when there’s an alternative?” Having formed Midnight Oil in 1976, Hirst was best known for his furious drumming abilities, but he was also the co-writer of the lyrics and melodies for many of the band’s best-known songs, including Beds Are Burning, The Dead Heart, Short Memory, The Power and the Passion, Forgotten Years, and King of the Mountain.
“Rob was brash, funny and super intelligent, contrary to the clichéd view of drummers,” his bandmate Jim Moginie wrote in his 2024 memoir The Silver River, calling him Midnight Oil’s “engine room, onstage and off”. Hirst was also a member of several other bands: Ghostwriters, Backsliders, the Angry Tradesmen, and the Break.
Born in NSW in 1955, Hirst was given his first drum kit after a benign tumour was discovered in his right leg when he was 1,2 and he underwent surgery. Hirst formed a band with his school friend Moginie in 1972; the band was initially named Schwampy Moose, then Farm (which stood for Fucking All Right Mate).
Hirst placed an advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald for a singer to join Farm, which Peter Garrett answered in 1975. With Garrett on vocals, Hirst on drums, Moginie on guitar and keyboards, and Andrew James on bass, the four were joined by Martin Rotsey on guitar and their “sixth member”, manager Gary Morris, and changed their name to Midnight Oil in 1976. James was later replaced by Peter Gifford, then Bones Hillman.
Midnight Oil released 13 studio albums over almost 50 years. Hirst remained in the band until they took a prolonged hiatus in 2002, when Garrett left to pursue a career in federal politics. The band resumed playing in 2017.
During another Oils hiatus in the 1990s, Hirst joined guitarist Andrew Dickson and Hoodoo Gurus bass guitarist Rick Grossman to form the Ghostwriters, who released four albums. He was also a member of the Backsliders, a blues group, and of the Angry Tradesman, a band he formed with vocalist Dom Turner, which blended drum and bass and experimental post-punk.
Hirst and his Oils bandmates, Moginie and Rotsey, also formed surf rock band the Break, with Violent Femmes bass player Brian Ritchie and Hunters & Collectors trumpet player Jack Howard. The Break released two albums in 2010 and 2013.
Hirst is survived by his wife, Leslie Holland, their two daughters, Alexandra and Gabriella, and his eldest daughter, Jay O’Shea, also a musician, who was given up for adoption after she was born when Hirst was 17, and her mother was 15. O’Shea and Hirst reunited in 2010.
“It’s been absolutely better than anything anyone could ever ask for,” he told the Australian in 2025, of his life. “And so, if my life is attenuated by this tiny little tumour that threatens to do me in, then I will still consider myself incredibly fortunate.”
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