EchoBlog

Irish rock star and activist Sir Bob Geldof says the “doom loop of irrelevance” characterising much of the modern media has been central to his decision to hit the airwaves Down Under.

Sir Bob, 71, said radio was what “saved” him from his austere upbringing outside Dublin but feared the 24-hour media cycle was diminishing the standard of broadcasting and distracting the public from important issues.

The Boomtown Rats rocker became the biggest name to help launch Disrupt Radio, a venture established by Perth businessman Benjamin Roberts, by hitting the airwaves with Libbi Gorr in its inaugural week last week.

The radio station, which has billed itself as a new form of broadcasting focused on ideas and entrepreneurship, is based in Perth but launched last week in Melbourne.

Sir Bob, who also organised the Live Aid concerts in 1985, told NCA NewsWire that radio had more potential than any other news medium and had played a central role in his own development.

“(My) Life was not good. Through the airwaves came the voice of people not much older than me talking of other voices and other possibilities,” he said.

“I could conjure those possibilities.

“Here was the reality: dysfunctional family, no money, school is sh*t and I don’t want to co-operate.”

“And here lowered down from the purple rock and roll ether is the golden thread of a potential future which I clung onto and which I have been clinging onto ever since.”

But as opposed to the “galvanic” effect of radio on his upbringing and cultural life in the post-war era, Sir Bob said the medium was losing its relevance.

“People became so tired of the discourse, which was shrieking at each other over binary problems,” he said

Sir Bob said the dearth of fresh and interesting ideas had prompted him to get on-board with the Disrupt team.

“What are the conversations that need to be held? Who are the people that are making these arguments? Who are the experts that can come and you can listen to them?” he said.

“Our job was to get this going with fairly free-flowing ideas/

“I’m up for that – I’m up for a laugh. It’s like crossing the Pacific (on a yacht). F**k it, I’ll do it.”

But primarily, Sir Bob has rekindled one of his first loves.

“Radio is the first love,” he said.

“TV is very prosaic – what you see is what you’re meant to think.

“With radio you have to invent what they’re telling you – voices have to make it, sounds have to make it. It’s a much more powerful, much more simple technology.”

Sir Bob said despite having old friends in Melbourne and an adopted daughter who lives in Fremantle, Perth, he was looking forward to returning home.

But he won’t be travelling by boat, which is what he did part of the way to Australia when he left the Mexican port town of Cabo and headed southeast for 10 days.

“I was on a very comfortable, very capable boat – lots of grub, you know, and a very capable crew. I ain’t (explorer Ernest) Shackleton,” he said.

People can listen to Disrupt Radio, which includes hosts such as Jules Lund, Moana Hope, Adam Ferrier and others, on DAB+ digital radio and online.

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