Sarah Konoski

When Midnight Oil were playing gigs in the 1980s, Rob Hurst hit the drums so hard that his drum kit had to be nailed to the floor.

Rob's drumming with the Oils was always fast and ferocious.

It forms the bedrock of the band sound, lifting the roof off sweaty pubs across Australia and then stadiums all around the world.

Rob's brought that energy to other parts of his life too.

A loving but complicated family and a great affinity for the Australian bush.

Hi Rob.

Hi Sarah.

Tell me about the place that you go walking almost every day.

So they're big, they're fierce.

You might lose a forearm or something.

Being able to go to the same patch of bush, you know, day after day, year after year, that's pretty special.

Has your relationship with that area changed over the years you've been there?

Have you learnt that just by observation or have you got books or people you've spoken to?

Where did your love of the bush start, Rob?

So growing up, loving the bush, still having that keen connection to nature and open spaces, how did pop music come into your life?

It was the promise of something on that TV.

Was there a song that really grabbed you in those early years?

Innocent farmyard song.

When you were listening to those songs, listening to The Stones, watching what you could make out on the TV, were you paying particular attention to the drumming?

So it was when you moved to Balmoral that you started drumming yourself?