Ahead of his new album ‘Strawberries’ due for release on 23 May 2025, I had a thoroughly entertaining chat via Zoom with living legend Robert Forster about the past, the present, creativity, the legacy of The Go-Betweens and his new Swedish band.
But let’s get a couple of big questions out of the way. The ‘G is for Go-Betweens’ Box set Volume One is definitely being reissued and all is to be done is to work out an affordable pricing. There are, disappointedly, no plans for touring the 40th anniversary of The Go-Betweens’ magnus opus ’16 Lovers Lane’ in 2028 with the living members who played on that album. I’m not sure the latter has been discussed a lot but it was certainly something I was hoping for.
We began by having a little reminisce about the incredible Sydney music scene in the eighties and the strangest The Go-Betweens gig ever at Sweethearts in Cabramatta. Funnily enough, Forster didn’t remember me and my friends at the front of every gig at that era but he did express wonder when I told him that Lindy Morris once called me cute. Noting I was chatting from Hobart, he remembered the great gigs he had there recently at MONA.
I was curious about Foster’s musical birth – what came first, the desire to write songs or play the guitar? Foster recalls it was the late seventies and everyone was into acoustic guitars and listening to Cat Stevens and Don McLean. His best friend had bought a guitar and persuaded Forster to get one too.
I had a great interest in music I was very interested – but my parents weren’t into music and I was the oldest child – but I was prompted by this friend.
We discussed the environment in Brisbane in the late seventies – the spectre of Jo Bjelke Petersen and the oppressive nature of the Queensland Government and the police force at the time, and the emergence of The Saints (arguably the world’s first punk band). Forster noted that The Saints went down a completely different path – raucous, loud – they were older boys and their musical influences were The Stooges and heavier stuff. Ed Kuepper was very proficient on guitar and Chris Bailey was a classic lead singer with a really loud voice. Forster reminisced about meeting and teaching Grant McLennan the bass, emphasising how they were both inexperienced, musically.
I asked whether the political background at the time had an impact on creativity.
(it was) more than just the backdrop, you know…it was all intertwined. It gave gave Punk in Brisbane a political edge which was not existent anywhere else in Australia even though you might not hear it so obviously in the The Go-Betweens. Punk was sort of anti authoritarianism, you know, Anarchy in the UK and and what bands like The Clash was singing about was a lot more aligned with Queensland politics than, you know, like I’ve said before – Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer could only dream of being in Brisbane, because it was everything that their lyrics were about, you know?
Being two self-described intellectuals at University, McLennan and Forster went in a different direction – the politics were personal with a literary bent:
Writing about Lee Remick or about woman who worked in a library – I don’t want to overstate this but these were political statements within themselves. Two twenty year olds walking around, thinking these things, writing these songs and being on stage and playing these songs to people in Brisbane in 1978, 1979 has a certain force and was out of step with what was going on politically or socially in Brisbane.
I joked that it certainly would have offended the sort of macho element prevalent at the time.
Very much so – you know we were regarded as odd characters, surprisingly enough.
And exactly why they engendered so much love amongst all the other odd characters in the world.
I asked the big question I like to ask everyone: what is the definition of a good pop song. Forster laughs and says immediately it has to be under three minutes, a great melody and interesting lyrics – you have to fall in love with it on first listening. I referenced an interview I did with XTC’s Colin Moulder where he said every good pop song needs a hint of melancholia, and Foster joked that being in a band with Andy Partridge would certainly cause a degree of melancholy.
I asked how Forster dealt with the critical success and the commercial failure faced by The Go-Betweens. He was quite clear that the lack of money was debilitating, leading to enormous pressures – we would have had better wages, and we could have taken our time with things a little bit more, instead of saying yes to virtually everything, because we needed money.
And yet despite this, Forster has, justifiably, enormous pride on what he and Grant achieved – suggesting that success was its own reward and far more satisfying than money.
Coming from Brisbane, you know, two people – Grant and myself: and he didn’t play bass, and we were just playing these really simple songs that I wrote in a lounge room in a share house in Brisbane. To have got as far as we got that – making albums – touring around the world, you’d have to deem that as successful. We left town, we were playing everywhere. And so, you know, it does obviously come to the obvious question, what do you see a success?
So I see the band as successful. I just think that we needed more money and and I think obviously being more successful would have and really we didn’t have to have singles.
Indeed looking back on The Go-Betweens, Forster is clearly proud of the legacy – the nine albums, the consistency, the development and the growth. Something bands like Joy Division and Nirvana were unable to do emulate. He wishes there could have been more albums together with McLennan, and the process of compiling the box sets of the The Go-between albums has deepened his connection to the past.
You know, I’ve listened to the albums closely again, search for photos, I’ve listened to tapes, I’ve become re-acquainted with the albums, listening to them in a test pressings, new versions, you know, like new re releases. So,it’s not like the band is distant to me, you know, like some people talk about their bands, and you sort of tell that they haven’t really listened to the records in 30 or 40 years, which is okay. I mean, that’s, that’s just that happens, but I feel engaged through the box set series with what the band sounded like and did. And, you know, I’m very, very, very, very happy with it and those box sets are fantastic.
It is at this point we discussed how many fans were calling for the reissue of Volume 1, and Forster said he was in talks with his manager and Domino and something was going to happen very quickly – negotiations are taking place with the manufacturer and the only challenge was an affordable price point.
I cheekily asked whether there were any prospects of a celebration tour for the 40th anniversary of ’16 Lovers Lane’ with the living members of the band at the time its release. Forster was straightforward in his response saying it’s not anything anyone has talked about and he can’t imagine it’s something he would want to do ‘at the moment’.
When I think of the things I still want to do that I’m full capable of, that is not on my list.
I referenced the 2017 Kriv Stenders film ‘The Go-Betweens: Right Here’ and the acrimony following the end of phase 1 of the band. I tentatively asked whether there has been a degree of rapprochement in the following years, noting that Lindy Morrison had made friendly comments on his very erudite and entertaining Facebook posts.
Look..there has been, and I think that’s come through working through the box sets and the passage of time too with the members on ’16 Lovers Lane’…Lindy, Amanda (Brown) and John (Willsteed). They did a ’16 Lovers Lane’ show and I saw it and contacted them again. So things are better.
I mentioned that Robert Vickers now does his publicity in the US which was another good sign, and Forster said it was wonderful to be connected to him through his work for Tapete Records and that he and Robert always see each other when visiting. He’s a lovely person.
I ponder what song Forster is the most proud of over his career and he wryly states that he will commit the sin many artists do, and reference something from his new album. It’s ‘Breakfast on a Train’ from ‘Strawberries’:
I think it’s going to be my favourite for a long time. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever written before and it’s something I’m really proud of. It’s also the longest song I’ve ever written! It feels like such a classic song that it’s almost like I can’t believe I wrote it and I’m getting feedback on it from people pleasantly surprised even though they like my other material. It feels like a next step or like a big step up in my songwriting which…given I’m in my mid-sixties…(laughs)
I repeat my oft used phrase that creativity does not have a use-by date and Forster whole heartedly agrees.
To be honest with you, I never thought that this would be the case. I never thought I would still be writing songs that I am content with – I thought it might dry up. I think because I came out of the post punk world I thought my music had a use-by date. I thought I would just continue by sheer force of character or a force of my nature but there has been a certain musicality that has crept into what I do and I’m very grateful for that.
I referenced my review of Forster’s previous album ‘The Candle and the Flame’ where I wrote that its biographical and personal nature almost felt like a farewell letter – filled with poignancy about the past and a resolution and acceptance about the future.
I wrote most of the songs before the big event – my wife’s diagnosis with severe health issues – except for ‘She’s A Fighter’. I didn’t necessarily see the album as a farewell note but a couple of songs were written through COVID and I’m sure that has something to do with it.
I noted the new album, with the exception of the lead single ‘Strawberries’ seemed to return to an imaginary world full of vivid characters and not so based on personal experience. Forster agreed, referencing a need to move away from reality into an imaginary world through his music:
I had written a lot of personal songs (on ‘The Candle and the Flame’) and I just didn’t have any more to write on that front. I stopped writing the lyrics for about a year and half after ‘The Candle and the Flame’. I couldn’t work out anything I want to say about what we were going through as a family at the time – what I was going through, just didn’t seem to interest me at all.
And I just started to slowly find an outlet, a way to write that still meant something very much to me, but that wasn’t centered so much on me and I had to find my way to that. And when I started to write songs again, over about a year and a half, two years, I started to see the direction where they were going, because I don’t write them all in two weeks. It’s not like, okay, my themes are going to be this. I’m writing these songs over the next three months, and that’s going to be my theme. I don’t work like that. I sort of write maybe two songs a year three, if I’m very lucky, and it’s just sort of because it’s all going by very slowly. Yeah, it sort of evolves.
And I see what’s happening quite slowly, and it’s only towards the end of the album, and I’ve been writing it for three or four years and I realise this is what it was. This is what it is. So it comes to me, but I was aware of of this almost when I’d finished I could just see what direction I’d gone in.
I noted that his wife Karin duets in the single ‘Strawberries’ and makes an appearance in the video. I was sure this was a first for Forster.
It is new! It was her idea! I wrote this song on holidays. We’re on holidays. Her and I by the beach, and I often write at the beach because there’s no pressure on me. And suddenly songs can come when you’re very relaxed. And I started to write it and and she started singing. It was very relaxed atmosphere, coming back from the beach. She suggested we do a duet and it just fell into place – we were throwing lines at each other.
We discussed the other family connection – his son Louis – who has played live with Forster and recorded with him and was in the late lamented Goon Sax. Forster disclosed that Louis is working on new material and is clearly very proud of him.
We turned to Forster’s clear excitement at his forthcoming tour with his so-named Swedish band (touring as Robert Forster And His Swedish Band, no less). It was a complete revelation to me that the band is actually Swedish and its members are drawn from that brilliant trio Peter Bjorn and John. Forster describes meeting Peter Morén, a big fan of The Go-Betweens, in 2016 at a festival where he was playing which lead to Morén offering to put a band together if Forster was ever touring Scandinavia, which happened the following year. The band consists of Peter Morén on guitar and vocals, Jonas Thorell on bass and vocals, and Magnus Ollsen on drums and vocals. This is the ‘core’ band on the Strawberries album recorded in Stockholm in September/October 2024.
I thought, one day we’ve got to do something with this, and after ‘The Candle and the Flame’ I went over to Sweden and organised it. And so the band that I’m in – they are drums, bass and guitar. Peter produces the album. Peter produced ‘Strawberries’. So these three guys are my Swedish band. They’re the rhythm section and guitar player and producer on the album. We got in a saxophone we got in a brass player, piano player, Karin sings, Louis plays on one song, and that’s the album!
We discussed our mutual love of Stockholm and how for Forster it’s become a little world he has entered into.
And now we’ve made the album, and now we’re trying to take out what we’ve done for the album as a touring band, and bring it out to the world and and hopefully, the tour we’re doing in Europe and the UK and Ireland, in September, October, is the first tour, and we’ll be able to tour in Australia and play other places. That’s that’s the hope of the band.
‘Strawberries’ is out on 23 May 2025 through Tapete Records and available to pre-order through the link below.
Forster will be doing a couple of in-store appearance in Australia to celebrate the release of the album: details below.
Robert Forster and His Swedish Band tour dates and tickets are as follows:
Feature Photograph: Stephen Booth
Related
#chat #living #legend #Robert #Forster #GoBetweens #solo #renewed #lease #creativity #bands #good #days #ahead #release #album #Strawberries #Backseat #Mafia
