The Lost and the Found: Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst releases new album with his long lost daughter, Jay O’Shea
Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst and his daughter, country star Jay O’Shea, will release their debut album together – a decade after they found each other.
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Midnight Oil’s Rob Hirst and country star Jay O’Shea will release their debut album together, a decade after the father and daughter found each other.
Hirst and O’Shea will release the aptly titled The Lost and the Found on February 28.
O’Shea spent 15 years trying to solve the frustrating puzzles around her birth and discovered Hirst was her biological father.
The incredible story of their bloodline connection started with Hirst and his childhood girlfriend, two teenagers who had to face the life-altering circumstances of young pregnancy.
Hirst’s then girlfriend was sent to Adelaide by her parents to have the baby on January 17, 1974 in the Memorial Hospital in North Adelaide.
The child was immediately removed from her — she wasn’t even allowed to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl — and all the documents relating to her birth were completed with fabricated names.
Hirst and O’Shea, who is based in Nashville with her musician husband Mark, have been writing together over the years and collaborated on the single The Truth Walks Slowly released in 2016.
That song, about late farmer George Bender’s battle for landholder rights against coal seam gas companies, won a Golden Guitar in 2017.
O’Shea said working with her father has been “one of the biggest highlights of my life”.
They swapped ideas between Sydney and Nashville for 18 months before Hirst headed to Nashville for the album recording.
“I loved that we got to work on a project without any kind of pressure or parameters of what a father and daughter should sound like together,” she said.
“We just got to make some music. I’m not even sure it has a genre, but I guess that’s just fine.
“To get to know my birth father more through this collaboration has been the most beautiful, epic adventure.”
Hirst said the pair “unsurprisingly … have a natural chemistry”.
“We both like songs with melodies that stay in your head, and lyrics that tell little stories,” he said.
“We’re suckers for a strong chorus. And of course, Jay’s voice is a remarkable instrument: It lifts every lyric, magnifies every melody. This album was a joy to make.”
Originally published as The Lost and the Found: Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst releases new album with his long lost daughter, Jay O’Shea