Why fans are sharing their stories with Midnight Oil rocker Jim Moginie – and what he’ll do next

Rock legend Jim Moginie shared a deeply personal adoption story in his memoir – now fans are bringing him their own tales of tragedy and joy.

“I was adopted too.” That’s how the conversation occasionally started as Midnight Oil co-founder Jim Moginie met fans of his deeply personal memoir The Silver River.

While the book gave a rare insight to the inner workings of one of Australia’s biggest bands, it also shared his search for his birth family in his forties. His was told he was adopted when he was 11.

Not all of the stories shared with him by people he encountered at his book signings mirrored his experience of being supported by his adopted family and the “surrendering” parents and siblings he discovered.

“Some stories were terrible; kids treated like mud, or just left with other people who didn’t care about them, in institutions or orphanages,” he says.

The rocker’s public face … Australia got to know Jim Moginie from his work with Midnight Oil. Here he is, left, at an early Oils gig in Melbourne around 1978 with Peter Garrett, Rob Hirst and Martin Rotsey. Picture courtesy of Jim Moginie.

“Or they told really good stories where, kind of like me, they lucked out and got a really great family.”

A year on from making his adoption story public in The Silver River, Moginie says he wanted to write about it partly as an “instruction manual” for his daughter Alice and son Sam to better understand their father and his complicated life.

After many years of searching records, the rocker got in touch with his birth father Brian McRedmond, who led him to his mother Anne and siblings John, Janet, Paul, Dave and Susan, all born after his unwed parents gave him up for adoption as a baby.

The players in his life story were supportive of him sharing it with the world, but there was some discomfort, in particular for his birth mother, because of lingering social stigma attached to adoption in the 1950s.

Reunited at last … in May 2003, Jim finally met his birth mother, Anne, and his father as well. Picture courtesy of Jim Moginie/Suzy Flowers.

Loved … Jim was adopted by Betty and Paul Moginie, pictured here with his brother Kim. Picture courtesy of Jim Moginie.

“Part of the view of the book is also trying to see the whole subject of adoption through the eyes of all the characters involved,” he says.

“You’ve got the adoptive parents, you’ve got the surrendering parents and you’ve got the child. And you have the new family members you might find.

“Some people felt uncomfortable about the amount (of information) I revealed in the book but it’s what happened. And everyone had feelings about it … but I think in the long haul they see that it’s OK because it’s me (telling) my story, and it’s also our story.

“My birth mother, when I met her, was horrified at first that her secret had been revealed, that I actually even existed but at the same time, she was really blown away by the fact I’d found her and she could check me out and I could check her out.”

After the Oils played their final concert at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on October 3, 2022, Moginie quickly wasted no time moving on with his creative life.

‘I could go more into the Midnight Oil world’ … Jim Moginie, pictured at his Brookvale studio, is thinking of writing a second book. Picture: Tim Hunter.

The musician and producer has had his Oceanic Studio on Sydney’s northern beaches for several years where himself, Sarah Blasko, Lime Cordiale, Cold Chisel and his Oils brother Rob Hirst have recorded.

He released his solo guitar album Murmurations, inspired by the natural phenomenon of a flock of starlings in flight in the evening sky above his home in County Carlow in Ireland, where he spends a few months each year.

In 2023, he made the Red Continent EP with Hirst and Hamish Stuart and in November last year, released yet another album called Everything’s Gonna Be Fine.

“I’m a very spontaneous person, I never really know what I’m going to be doing next,” he says.

“Even after the band split up, I didn’t know I would make the guitar record, I didn’t know I would make the songs record, I didn’t even know if the book would come out – I just tend to follow this wayward creative path.”

Powerful tale of blood and music … The Silver River by Jim Moginie.

Moginie’s artist partner Christabel Blackman, also shared her book about her artistic parents, Charles and Barbara Blackman last year.

While his next project will undoubtedly be a musical one, ideas for another book are percolating.

“I find (writing) really related to songwriting in terms of putting the words on the page and juggling it until it starts to glow and vibrate,” he said. “So the book is kind of an 80,000 word song.

“Maybe for the next one I could go more into the Midnight Oil world.”

The Silver River by Jim Moginie is available now, published by HarperCollins.

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Originally published as Why fans are sharing their stories with Midnight Oil rocker Jim Moginie – and what he’ll do next