Midnight Oil singer quits
2002-12-03 10:39
Sydney - Environmentalist Peter Garrett, the bald, imposing lead singer of Australian rock band Midnight Oil, will quit the group after more than two decades, the band said on its website on Tuesday.
"The last 25 years have been incredibly fulfilling for me and I leave with the greatest respect for the whole of Midnight Oil," Garrett said on the website.
Garrett is president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and an adviser to Greenpeace. He was narrowly defeated for a seat in the Australian senate in 1984 when he ran for the Nuclear Disarmament Party.
"It is time for me to move on and immerse myself in those things which are of deep concern to me and which I have been unable to fully apply myself to up to now," he said.
Midnight Oil's second album Head Injuries in 1979 went platinum, aided by the strength of their single Armistice Day and landed them a recording contract with US giant Columbia.
In 1982, the band released the album 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, protesting against the escalating arms race. The album contained an anti-American anthem, US Forces.
Political activism
Midnight Oil won international exposure in 1987 with their hit Beds are Burning, about land rights for Australia's indigenous Aboriginal people.
Led by Garrett, the band has taken its political activism from the Australian outback to New York where they performed a free concert outside the Exxon building to protest the Exxon-Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska.
At the Sydney 2000 Olympics the band performed in T-shirts which said "Sorry?", a jab at Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to deliver a national apology for wrongs against Aborigines.
Besides Garrett's political lyrics, he is known for his jerky, short-circuit dance style and his imposing figure. He stands nearly two metres tall and is totally bald.
The band's four remaining members, bassist Bones Hillman, drummer Rob Hirst and guitarists Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey, said they would continue making music together.
Midnight Oil's latest album, Capricornia, its 14th studio album, was released in February.