Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst has revealed he’s been battling pancreatic cancer since 2023, sharing the news publicly for the first time in a new interview with The Australian.
Hirst, now 69, was diagnosed just six months after the band wrapped their farewell tour across Australia. He’s kept it private until now, saying it felt like time to get it “literally off [his] chest.”
“I’ve had pretty much every treatment known to man. Every scan, ultrasound, MRI. I’ve kind of had the works,” he said, adding that while it’s an ongoing fight, catching the tumour early helped. Doctors found it at stage three, and though he’s undergone chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and a major eight-hour Whipple surgery, the cancer remains.
Still, Hirst isn’t interested in self-pity. He’s using the moment to highlight how underrepresented pancreatic cancer is in public conversations. “It hasn’t really attracted the attention, for example, of skin cancers or breast cancers or others,” he said, urging people to pay attention to early signs. “A simple blood test… could be life-changing, and life-extending.”
Anyone Midnight Oil fan will tell you that Hirst has been the heartbeat of the band since day one. Forming the band in the early ’70s, Hirst was instructive in driving their sound across decades of protest songs and political fury. Even after the band split in 2002, he was there for the reformation in 2016, their final two albums, and the farewell tour that wrapped just before his diagnosis.
The Oils’ last run was one final burst of purpose. They gave away proceeds to causes they believed in, played smaller venues for a more personal send-off, and dug deep into the catalogue to mark 45 years of connection with their fans.
Now, Hirst is facing something much more personal. But in true Midnight Oil fashion, he’s turned it into a reason to speak up. It’s not a curtain call. It’s a call to action.
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