When Jim Moginie released his post-Midnight Oil solo record Atlas Folkloric he caught up with Sean Sennett to discuss the album. Check out the album and if you want a quick fix, have a listen to the lost classic tune ‘All Around The World’. Here’s that interview from 2006. Later this month Sony are releasing the twin CD compilation The Essential Midnight Oil.

Jim Moginie has been practicing his rock star moves in the mirror. For the
bulk of his working life, Jim earned a crust in the engine room of Midnight
Oil. Usually planted on stage left, Moginie played chiming guitar and spent
his off-stage time either writing or co-writing tunes for one of Australian
rock’s most lauded canons. Together with Rob Hirst and Peter Garrett, you’ll
find Jim’s name all over Midnight Oil’s fine print alongside such seminal
tunes as ‘Power And The Passion’, ‘Beds Are Burning’ and ‘Blue Sky Mine’.
Now Moginie is front and centre in support of his first solo album in a
career that began in the mid-1970’s. The new album, Alas Folkloric, opens
with the barnstorming flurry of ‘All Around The World’ and then explores
gentler terrain.
“It’s about growing up and getting a bit older … and just saying ‘this is
what I’m doing'”, explains the affable Moginie of the album. “It’s about
loss, grieving, love, politics, all sorts of things, … things you probably
wouldn’t expect.”
Moginie has always harbored thoughts of a recording a solo album, though
Midnight Oil, until Garrett announced their break-up in 2002, was always his
first priority.
“I think every songwriter worth their salt is always doing a solo record,”
he muses, “You always have your little tapes that you make in the studio;
you put them in the car and you play them to people. You get excited about
them. But, [for a long time] The Oils were really enough for me. I never
really pushed it, or wanted to take anything away from The Oils.”
“I think, towards the end of the band, I was semi-consciously working on it.
It’s just what you do as an artist. There were certain things,
stylistically, The Oils had problems with. That’s not a bad thing. If a
band’s got a ‘sound’, that’s what the sound is. [But], there were certain
songs of mine that were folkloric, which sat outside of what The Oils were
really at their best doing.”
Moginie admits that, for once, not being part of a democracy was a good
thing.
“Oh shit, yeah!” he exults, “the kid was let loose in the candy shop.
Democracy’s a funny word isn’t it? We were all having bizarre collaborations
within the band. Rob and I did a lot of writing, and Pete as well. Martin
[Rotsey] was a great editor and guitar player, and has a great instinct for
songs. We had a good support network there and it was a good democracy. In
other words, we were very honest with each other and that’s why the quality
was there.”
“This record is definitely an out pouring of sorts for me. There’s no way a
song like ‘Pastoral Scene’ would make it on a Midnight Oil record, although
I pitched it many times. Pete would be grimacing at the thought of that song
being brought into the band again [laughs]. The band will be relieved some
of these songs have finally gotten out there, as I used to torture them with
them over the years.”
Moginie thrives on collaboration and on this record he found time to write
with Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey [‘Halfway Home’] and Cold Chisel’s
Don Walker [‘A Curse On Both Your Houses’].
“I’ve always been a believer that the best songs are written quickly,”
continues Moginie.
“Paul and I wrote ‘Halfway Home’ in twenty-minutes, but somehow it’s got
some sort of truth and resonance about it. ‘Stranger Than Truth’ was a song
I recorded myself during the last year of The Oils. Pete’s great, but he was
never very good at singing things that were indirect, abstract or
psychedelic. He was more about singing ‘This is what I believe’. Songs that
fell outside of that realm, even though he wanted to give them a go,
sometimes didn’t ring as well as the one’s where he could really hook in.
Having said that, a song like ‘All Around The World’ he could have hooked
into really well.”
Moginie’s right. ‘All Around the World’ features both Hirst and Rotsey and
sounds like ‘classic’ Midnight Oil, minus Garrett.  The beauty of Alas
Folkloric is the sonic journey Moginie takes the listener on. Among the more
laidback tunes are a smattering of jewels, dotted with lyrics as gorgeous as
‘the suit that he wears is cut from a cloth/that once graced the shoulders
of mermaids/the shoes come from cartilage and armadillo/he chews but he
tries not to swallow.’ [Stranger Than Truth].
“I’ve always loved records that wantonly wander around stylistically,”
admits Moginie. “I’ve never wanted everything fast or everything slow, it’s
good to mix everything up. After being in a band for so long, it’s good to
have variety right now and sing about the gamut of things. It’s funny,
[Midnight Oil] would sing a song about surfing … and people would think it
was about water pollution.”
“The band sang about all kinds of things, but everyone else had us in a
political straight jacket. Our public profile put us in that politically
correct basket, which we were happy to be in, but we weren’t singing about
that stuff all the time.”
Back to the mirror and those rock star moves. Of late, Moginie has been
testing his new material over a month of Tuesdays at Sydney’s Sandringham
Hotel. It’s here Moginie gets on the microphone and sings his heart out on a
formidable batch of new songs.
“It’s very different from The Oils,” he say’s of the live experience, “we’ll
probably do two to three Oils’ songs a night. I don’t feel comfortable doing
any more than that. I always choose one’s that I feel have been over-looked;
I won’t do the big hits. I’ll do the one’s I can identify with.”
“Pete really owns The Oils’ thing,” he deadpans, “but some of the songs we
did I feel I can have a go at without too much of a problem.”
‘Owns’ seems an odd word for Moginie to use. For anyone with more than a
passing interest in the band, Midnight Oil was a five-headed beast.
“The singer of the band always carries the kudos of the band,” reasons
Moginie, “whether it’s Bernard from Powderfinger or others. The band is the
sum of the parts, but the public sees the singer with a bunch of shadowy
guys in the background. There’s the guys with charisma and the guys without
(laughs).”
“I think that’s a necessary thing in the world, it simplifies people’s
views. It’s only when you get into a band you start to see how it really
works. If anyone claps at my gigs, I feel like I should start clapping them
(laughs).
With Alas Folkloric about to chart it’s own place in the world, don’t hold
your breath for an Oil’s reunion.
“If the time was right, and the cause was right [we’d do it],” offers
Moginie not entirely convincingly. “It’s a classic thing with bands, the
band breaks up and everyone say’s ‘When’s your next gig?’ No-one ever really
believes you if you say you’ve broken up.”
“I’m happy with our run, I don’t personally feel the need to go out again.
We did it, and we did it well for a long time. You don’t want to be a
nostalgias thing. With the Oils, we’re all still connected and helping each
other out with our little projects. We’re brothers in rock, if we did a
reunion it’d only be for a cause, not for the money.

SEAN SENNETT