Midnight Oils' co-founder strikes a fresh chord
Midnight Oils rocker didn't fade away, he just found a new way to have fun
Byron Shire
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JIM Moginie happily admits it took a while to make his bearings after the break-up of Midnight Oil, the iconic Australian band he co-founded.
But his has been a life in music of which, 16 years on, the Oils have just been a part.
Now in his "creptitude" as he puts it, the guitarist/songwriter/vocalist is back on the road touring with The Family Dog.
The Family Dog came together in 2006 to promote his first album Alas Folkloric: a compilation he also happily admits included all the songs the Oils didn't do.
The band's latest album Bark Overtures, which was recorded live at Oceanic Studios, was released on November 2 by Sony Music Australia on CD and vinyl and by Orchard digitally worldwide.
Moginie said The Family Dog formed after an invitation from a mate to play at his 50th birthday.
"We rocked our socks off," he recalled.
"We're good at following each other. We're all veteran rockers and have no baggage.
"It's a joyful thing, a wonderful thing to do."
The Family Dog's line-up includes Moginie, guitarist Kent Steedman and drummer Paul Loughhead, of The Celibate Rifles, and multi-instrumentalist Tim Kevin, from La Huva, Hoolahan and Knievel.
They'll be joined by Ben Ely, of Regurgitator fame, on the three-gig leg of the band's national Summer Of The Dog Tour, which takes in Maroochydore at Solbar on December 15.
"There's some post-punk cred there," Moginie describes with a laugh as being a new band despite its members' encroaching age.
"The rehearsals have been humungous. It's quintessential Oz rock.
"We can all think on our feet and it's good fun."
The 14-stop national tour, which starts in Canberra and finishes in Perth after Christmas, would showcase the new album while also delving into the band members' considerable back pages.
"It was recreation for us (to start)," Moginie said.
"We were not trying to make an album but we found some diamonds in the rough that we polished up. When you make a record, you tour it - that's the Australian way."
Moginie said he still had politics in him.
Midnight Oil as a band sought a dialogue with its audiences through either music or words.
"We wanted to make people think," he said.
That's what he has tried to do in the song Blind Devotion on Bark Overtures.
"It doesn't judge anything," Moginie said of a song that refers to people who follow anything in a fanatical way.
He said the Oils helped people think things through, whether it be about the environment, Indigenous Australians or nuclear power.
"Why don't people like trees and nature? Why do they obsess with crap," Moginie said.
"What we're doing here, it's music. People can engage or not.
"Internationally, they got it more but in the US, I think they thought Beds are Burning was about sex.
"What we did needed good music. You just can't bang on in G chord."
The Family Dog members, he said, were trying to be themselves, playing original music and having plenty of fun doing it.
Tickets for the Maroochydore show are available from https://solbar.oztix.com.au/
Jim Moginie and the Family Dog tour dates
December 15 - Solbar, Maroochydore
December 16 - Byron Bay Theatre, Byron Bay
December 21 - The Small Ballroom, Newcastle
December 22 - Flow Bar, Old Bar, NSW
Originally published as Midnight Oils' co-founder strikes a fresh chord
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