Midnight Oil’s beating heart, Rob Hirst, dead at 70 after pancreatic cancer battle

In 2020, Hirst released a collaborative album with his daughter Jay O’Shea, with whom he had only reconnected a few years earlier. At the time, O’Shea shared the deeply personal story behind the project on Instagram.

“For those who don’t know, I was adopted as a baby and 10 years ago found my birth parents.The story of how we all came together sounds like bad fiction writing as it’s quite unbelievable,” she wrote.

“We really made this music as a way of getting to know each other better and after much laughing, drinking some good wines and eating too much cheese, these songs were born,” she added.

Started counted his days

“There were no parameters, guidelines or pressures of what a reunited Father/Daughter collaboration should sound like. Each song is a snapshot. Each song has its own space and story.”

Hirst final project, an solo EP titled A Hundred Years or More, was released last November. Continue reading…