01	Redneck Wonderland						03:09
	02	Concrete						04:12
	03	Cemetary In My Mind						03:58
	04	Comfortable Place On The Couch						04:07
	05	Safety Chain Blues						04:21
	06	Return To Sender						03:31
	07	Blot						03:24
	08	The Great Gibber Plain						04:38
	09	Seeing Is Believing						04:28
	10	White Skin Black Heart						04:01
	11	What Goes On						02:59
	12	Drop In The Ocean						04:15

Peter Garrett - vocals
Rob Hirst - drums
Jim Moginie - guitar, keyboards
Bones Hillman - bass
Martin Rotsey - guitar

Just when Peter Garrett thought it was safe to sing about surfing, the climate change hits and summers on hold. Sure, these will be looked back on as dark times. The banner headlines have a new urgency. People are buying the papers and expressing opinions, as good willed but complacent folk realise something nasty has slipped in the back door. The lines are drawn at your local, over dinner with the folks, with your lover, or your best mate.

You expect the politicians to sit on the fence and protect their bottom line at the cost of their values. But with Midnight Oil you count on a statement as strong as "White Skin Black Heart" which the Oils released last year in the calm before the storm that broke with the Queensland elections.

"What you gonna do now" Now that you've started"/The words got out there... you're gonna leave us lying here dealing with the consequences of a bad sound"

On June 12, the word was still spreading. Peter Garrett had just emphasised his direct re-involvement in politics by announcing his re-instatement as President of the Australian Conservation Foundation after a five-year absence. There's more on his mind than the obvious political moves. He's just played a show at Kakadu, the site of the Jabiluka mine, where a few hundred encamped activists took some energy from a set performed by the Oils and Brisbane's version of the Anti-Hanson, Regurgitator.

Already, this year the Liberals' king-hits to childcare, reconciliation, education, environment and unionism sent shock waves to voters who went to the polls aiming to oust an inert Labour Party rather than re-instate what Rob Hirst calls the 'born to rule mob'. On an even larger scale globilisation and economic rationalisation have become a new religion. And Australia's doing it to dispel the clich_ that it's a nation united by apathy and lacking a grasp of the basics of politics. Instead, we're replacing the relatively harmless reputation for being hard drinking good hearted knock-abouts with a more insidious rep for racism.

There's hardly a blunter way of protesting all this than calling your album, single and tour Redneck Wonderland. Like Hirst says, "Midnight Oil is at it's most convincing when it's pissed off." He's right when he adds, "The title is an indicator of the main thrust of the record. Pete is spitting out these songs. There's an anger and urgency to Redneck Wonderland that we haven't had consistently since the 10 to 1 record". There's a chilling claustrophobia to Redneck' which is as hard and dark as anything Midnight Oil have ever done - a far cry from the centered exploration of the Diesel and Dust period, even further from the Australian spiritualism of the last studio album 'Breathe'. Listen to deadset hard rocker "Concrete" and the screaming edge works with the songs' warning. This is Midnight Oil making music as mad as the times, and edgier than anything they've done since "Head Injuries." While the new kids have gained more attention than the Oils in the late 90's, this is like a restatement of intent. Grunge came and went but Midnight Oil have stuck around, now with a renewed political relevance and revitalised sound.

Of Redneck Wonderland, Peter Garrett said, "In some ways Redneck' is an example of us just basically confronting what we are head on and saying this is what Midnight Oil is. In some ways it's also universal because it's saying, get colour blind - stop getting hung up about the way people look - and stop blaming them for your problems. This is clearly not the right way to go."

It was out on the road on the 20,000 Watt RSL tour that Midnight Oil road-tested these new songs, so while they've worked with new guard noisenik producer Magoo (who's worked with peers like Regurgitator, Front End Loader and Not From There, but was stoked with the opportunity to produce bonafide Australian legends), there's a solidity in the songs that negates any worries about the Oils going trip-hop or taking a spot on any tech-based bandwagon. There's a few loops and samples here, but just like "White Skin, Black Heart's " placement between "Dreamworld" and "Kosiousko" on 20,000 Watt RSL best of proved the continuity of sound, it's all in the context of great rock songs delivered in a style Midnight Oil have personally defined as Australian.

They also brought in Diesel and Dust producer, Warne Livesy to add final touches and record the title track. When Garrett says Midnight Oil threw away the blueprint, he's not kidding. From the opening of deadset hardrock song "Conrete", there's a new atmosphere. Dark industrial metal meets gigantic Led Zeppelin swing on "Blot" and scuzzy '90's glam on "Safety Chain Blues", while they move in unfamiliar directions on Brian Wilson/"Strawberry Fields" inspired "Drop In The Ocean". The emotional tone connects the dots.

So far, this reads like any mainstream media opinion piece, preaching to the converted. But while the progressive papers distance themselves from the people who they need to communicate with - those that believe that these journos are indeed the one-eyed witch hunters they always suspected - Midnight Oil take it direct to the punters.

Who are you going to listen to" Someone who writes down out at you from some distant and irrelevant urban tower, treating your ideas as a self-evident joke"

Or someone who comes to your town to your pub, waves you down with those gigantic hands and asks, "What Goes On"" For the next couple of months, you'll be able to catch Midnight Oil speaking direct to Redneck Wonderland. Maybe it will wake a few of us up, on both sides of the ideological fence.

Redneck Wonderland the album is released July 6. Watch for the Redneck Wonderland tour, hitting your local over 30 dates from July 1 to August 30.

TRACK-BY-TRACK

1. Redneck Wonderland

"Redneck Wonderland" was the last song to come up on the record, even though it bears the title, and for me it was the track that the album was waiting for. It really sums up a lot of the stuff we're saying on the other songs, but more directly. It's quite clear what it's about. It's about the great place that we live, Australia, but it's also about the current political climate which is determined to send us back to a darker, more sinister period in Australia's history. We're resisting that course, as are most Australians, but there is a vocal minority who are determined to divide, and perhaps rule, Australia.

It's not in our nature to remain quiet under this sort of onslaught, and in many ways it reminds us of the period when we started off under the Fraser government at the time. There's something about these coalition and conservative governments in Australia which provokes Midnight Oil's best work. I think it's to do with an anger and frustration, and today is no different. Particularly now that the Wik Bill, the Amendments to the Native Title Bill which gave room for negotiation between pastoralists and miners and Aborigines, our native peoples, it looks like that right to negotiation is about to go down the gurgler. So all the more reason to have a song like "Redneck Wonderland" out on the airwaves. -Rob Hirst

2. Concrete

This version of "Concrete", the second track on the Redneck Wonderland album, is the second time we had a go at it. We recorded it with Magoo and then went and did the 20,000 Watt RSL collection record. That took quite a while, because we wanted that record to come from the band and not the company. We took a long time over track selection and one thing led to another and then we did some live shows. And when we'd do the live shows, "Concrete" suddenly took on a new dimension. It became tougher and harder and faster and I think part of that was reading the morning papers as well. In the interim, "the rednecks started roaring", as the line goes in "White Skin Black Heart", and as we got angrier every day we took it out on stage every night.

So "Concrete" became a much wilder version and when he heard the original again after the space of four or five months we realised that we had to re-record it, and I'm really glad we did, because it's one of the toughest, concerted efforts by the band I think in many years. It reminds me of the anger and frustration that came out on a record like "10 to 1", all those years ago in London with Nick Launay. And it's probably the toughest record that Warne Livesey and the band have collectively done. I think it's a really successful track and putting it No. 2 on the record really sorts out the people that are going to go the distance on the album. Because there is some more melodic stuff later, but to put it number 2 it's like, okay, this is what this record is about. -Rob Hirst

3. Cemetery In My Mind

"Cemetery In My Mind" is another song that we've had a few goes at. We played it for about six or seven months before Christmas last year and basically we had a very strong chorus, but maybe the rest of the song needed to come up a bit, and that's the message we got from people that heard it. They said, "Oh, you've got half a great song here", so we went away for a long time and we agonised over this track. Some songs come up really quickly, as in the case of "Redneck Wonderland", but others, like "Cemetery In My Mind", took ages to get together. I came in with the bridge part "tomorrow is better than yesterday" which changed the song, so it then had a pre-chorus as well as a chorus and then we had a lot of different versions for a verse.

It was a bit like moving a jigsaw puzzle around, oh this bit works with that, or Scrabble, like what have we got here, what's the final thing, is this the strongest we can do, because we knew we had something really strong, but we knew also that it hadn't reached its potential.

So finally once again with Warne Livesey producing we came up with a song which, although it took about a year to get together, I think it was worth the wait. I mean even in the mix it was difficult. We had to mix it about three times until we got the right combination, but it's a fairly pivotal track for the record so it was worth getting right. -Rob Hirst

4. Comfortable Place on The Couch

Actually "Comfortable Place on the Couch" now seems really apt because John Howard, our beloved Prime Minister, promised us a comfortable place on the couch, he promised us a more comfortable society under the coalition. In actual fact I think the band and a whole lot of people out there now actually find it a very uncomfortable society and many members of the Australian community are actually fearful for the first time. Many minority groups, Aboriginal people, are frustrated that they haven't been able to push through the reforms that even five years ago seemed possible. So I guess that song is about a hardly disguised anger about the apathy that has overtaken the land and the inertia that's coming from the leaders where it should be strong leadership taking us into the last couple of years of this century. -Rob Hirst

5. Safety Chain Blues

"Safety Chain Blues" is one of those songs which started off as a simple guitar, bass, drums and vocal song. We decided that we'd add the strings that you hear later on and orchestrate it. We had a couple of goes at that as well. I think the string arrangement now is one of the highlights on the record. I think it's really added to the song. -Rob Hirst

6. Return To Sender

Return to Sender" is a song by Jim. It appeared first of all on a series of demo songs that Jim had done in his own studio. I immediately liked it, I thought it was a standout and perhaps it could have been easily on the last studio record "Breathe", but for one reason or another it wasn't, and it's probably good because we actually got quite a groovy version of this.

Once again we had a couple of cracks at it. We recorded it last year and ended up using a drum looping version and the main keyboard line was an organ rather than the electric piano that we ended up with. So it's taken on a few changes. I'm particularly happy with it because I spent quite a long time getting the right groove for it, because I had to overlay real drums onto something that was already recorded, and sometimes this is a bit difficult because you're in a bit of a different frame of mind. I mean this was months after the original recording, but we finally got it and Bones Hillman then came in and did the bass line. So it was done in a weird sort of way. I mean not the correct school of producing at all. It was all back to front, but often that makes for some good versions of stuff that we wouldn't have come up with.

So I think it's my favourite track. Also it's positioned on the record after about five or six really strong songs, so it's actually quite a relief when it comes up. And we can play it live - I don't know how we're going to calm down enough to play it, but we'll see how we go. -Rob Hirst

7. Blot

"Blot" is about the ghost of Alan Bond and Christopher Skase and whoever's featuring in Who Weekly this week and will have disappeared next week, but believes that they're invincible because someone took their photo or paid them money for telling their story."

Peter Garrett-"It suggests in one of the lines that we never thought there would be a real Citizen Kane after the movie came out in the 40s or 50s or whenever it was. But there is now, and there's a lot of them. -Jim Moginie

8. The Great Gibber Plain

The original "Great Gibber Plain" was an acoustic version based on one of Jim's songs. It took a long time to work out whether we should keep it in the acoustic version, a la Diesel and Dust, those campfire songs, or try to do something a little bit different with it. So now it's almost like a song in two halves.

You've got the acoustic section and then you've got the crimson turning into gold second half which has got all those great sounds, it's got that glock counter-theme and some really interesting guitars and stuff going on in the background and I think it's a good melody. In a way it harks back to some stuff that the band's done before and is immediately recognisable as such, but at the same time because it's got the Magoo touch and the Warne Livesey touch as well, it's slightly different, so we've actually taken it a bit further down the track than we would normally have. Once again it took a long time to get it together, but it's also a nice relief when you hear "Gibber Plain" because those acoustics are so fresh after all the loud drumming and guitars, it's a relief. -Rob Hirst

9. Seeing Is Believing

"Seeing is believing" is what is it that makes you pause when you get out and go somewhere. When you look around and you see something going on and you think, well this is happening in real life. When you see it on telly it's not real at all, but when you see it in real life it is. But what is it that you're seeing and what is it about it that gets up your back, or even makes you laugh? I mean it's a funky dance song with back scratching words. -Peter Garrett

10. White Skin Black Heart

"White Skin Black Heart" really is about where Australia's conscience is at and whether people are committing themselves to the idea that when you cut us, we all bleed and our blood's the same, and what's the business saying that someone on the other side of the room is your enemy because they look different to you or because they arrived six months later than you did.

And I guess in some ways it's us, just getting in a studio and turning everything up as loud as we can and just saying "Hey, some people out there have really got it wrong, and just remember history, baby". -Peter Garrett

11. What Goes On

"What Goes On" is a song that we had a few versions of. Actually the one that appeared on the "20,000 Watt RSL" album actually starts the collection. It was maybe the third go that the band had had with that song. I mean fundamentally it's the same, with the same set of lyrics. -I guess it's a cry from the heart about waste, whether that be teenage waste or human waste of any kind, and a sense of not knowing the big picture. A sense of frustration, and maybe that's a particularly Australian thing that we are away from the major power bases of the world and feel like we're constantly being left in the dark or we're the last to know. -Rob Hirst

12. Drop In The Ocean

The style that we recorded it in was fairly innocent, it wasn't a particularly polished performance but it summed up the spirit of it. It's really about, again, that whole thing of you've got all these problems that are happening and people who are actually torn and they have to compromise and they have to make all sorts of deals to get through, but at the end of the day, it's all just a drop in the ocean. -Jim Moginie