They formed in the late
1970s in Brisbane, their core the songwriting
partnership of Robert Forster and Grant McLennan.
Several record labels, at least three continents
and - most importantly - a clutch of the fine LPs
(not to mention the singles) later they split up
in 1990.
1999 has seen Forster and
McLennan performing together again as an acoustic
duo to promote their recently released ‘Best
Of’ collection and the ‘Lost
Album’, an LP of early demos.
The latter release is a
breathless run through of some of Forster and
McLennan’s first songs as The Go-Betweens,
many of which have never seen the light of day,
along with some classic pre-first LP singles.
Jonathan Richman and The Velvet Underground
influences are very apparent, but there are a few
hints too as to the direction in which the
band’s songwriting would develop.
I had a chat with Robert
Forster before the second of three sell-out gigs
at London’s Jazz Café in May, on the
subject of various matters relating to The
Go-Betweens. This is what he had to say.
Who found the Lost Album?
"The tapes were
bouncing around Brisbane, our home town - Gerry
Teekman owned the tapes - for a long time, and
then I just got them and made some copies of them
in the early 90’s, and then his tapes
disintegrated so thankfully I got to them in
time.
He just recorded us in the
late 70’s and I never had a copy of it, nor
Grant, and he just stayed in Brisbane and
eventually we met up again."
When did the idea come to
put them out?
"Grant and I started
talking, we’d always had an idea, even in
the 80’s. For a start we knew we’d done
the work, we knew that there was an album there
of really good songs that we really liked, but at
that time we just knew it existed because
we’d done it.
We always thought around
the mid 90’s, early 90’s, that it was
going to come out, that we were going to do it,
it was just a matter of timing. And then the
‘Best Of’ was going to be put out and
then we thought - okay well, you know - the
Powers That Be decided that it would be good to
do these sorts of thing together, you know?"
One would expect something
like that to come out on Beggars
"No, my contract ran
out with Beggars a long time ago. I’m not on
Beggars, Grant’s not on Beggars, so
we’ve just done it on our own label."
What about your future
stuff. Have you got a deal with someone else now?
"No, I don’t
have a deal. I’m with Tag Five who put out
the Lost Album. I’m happy with them."
The press release
mentioned that it was felt that the Lost Album
would have made a better first album than Send Me
A Lullaby (which I still really like actually)
"Definitely. Whoever
wrote the press release that’s their opinion
and it’d be my opinion too. I think it
would’ve been a good first album that one.
But then the whole history of everything
would’ve been different you know, like if
we’d have made that album the perhaps it
would’ve been successful or at least
something would have come out of it and maybe the
way the whole thing went would’ve been
different."
Was that album as it was
recorded set to be an album, or were they demos
for a potential album?
"No, they
weren’t even for a potential album.
A week after we’d
made those recordings we were going to be
recording a single, our second single People Say
(which is a song that we’ll play tonight).
And so we were just running through all of our
material and we recorded about three versions of
People Say (which obviously I didn’t put
on). We were demoing People Say basically so that
we could hear it before we went into the studio
next week. So while we had Gerry there and he was
recording us we just did a whole lot of other
material that was in our set at the time."
You came on last night
and…
"You were here last
night?"
Yeah! I expect you’ve
had a word with the sound guy after the beginning
last night!
"That’s why
we’re down here soundchecking now"
It was really good
afterwards, once that was all sorted out. You got
into it straight away.
"As soon as we
started playing the next song it was behind us,
you know. We did a really good version of Part
Company. So no, we were all right, it didn’t
upset us."
I suppose, bearing in mind
that this was billed as a Robert Forster and
Grant McLennan gig rather than a Go-Betweens gig,
you did your own stuff, each of you, but also
some new material as well. Are you working on an
album of your own, or Grant’s own, or do you
envisage doing something together, possibly?
"I don’t know,
we’re talking about it at the moment.
We’ll just see. It’s really hard
talking because this is like the third week of
our tour. We did two weeks in Australia."
How did that go?
"Fantastic.
Incredible. And we’ve got another two or
three weeks here. Another two weeks here and then
a month in The States so you know like we’re
talking and things are… you know, as
we’re going on we’re… the first
couple of weeks we’re still getting
everything together, sort of feeling how it is.
We’ll see."
You’re still in
Bavaria?
"I still live there,
yes. He lives in Brisbane."
Did you go down to
Australia to rehearse?
"Then we started
touring."
What have the gigs been
like so far?
"We did one here. We
did Glasgow on Friday - that was good. Australia
was very good. We sort of broke through onto a
different sort of media level in terms of things
like television and all that sort of stuff. We
really hadn’t had much before. So all these
sorts of things were going on…"
Had you played in
Australia since you split?
"We’d done a
couple of shows in Brisbane, our home town.
We’d done one show in Sydney in 1990.
We’d done one show in Melbourne back in
94."
Playing the songs now,
compared to ten, fifteen years ago, does it feel
different to approach the songs?
"No. We’re
playing the songs that we feel comfortable with.
There are some songs we’ve tried that just
didn’t feel right."
What like? What’s
fallen by the wayside?
"Er, Spirit of a
Vampyre. Just didn’t feel into it. I
don’t know, it just sounded like half there
in a way, but playing it again I just
didn’t… It felt like a roll I
couldn’t get back into or something, you
know?"
Will you dust down To
Reach Me for this tour do you think?
"No, no, no. We
actually had a little go at that on guitars and
that didn’t sound good."
It sounded really good
with the band last time you...
"It sounded good with
the band but not with the acoustic guitar. We
tried That Way and that didn’t work either.
We played that about three or four times, it just
doesn’t work. Some things do, some things
don’t."
I didn’t see the 16
Lovers Lane tour so I missed out on Streets Of
Your Town so it was really good to hear that last
night.
"Yeah, yeah. We just
sort of get that one by! [laughs]. It sounds
nice. We’ve taken that down to a completely
different feel and just sort of works. It’s
a song we wanted to do and… yeah, we got
there."
Do you like it when people
join in with the backing vocals or is that
distracting?
"No, it’s
fantastic. I really like it. Grant and I are very
happy with that - it means there’s, you
know, less for us to do… no!"
After a brief discussion
about Australia’s chances in the Cricket
World Cup (and an assurance from Robert that it
was pure co-incidence that he and Grant were over
here on the eve of said tournament) I left Robert
to prepare for that evening’s show. Whether
he and Grant will ever record together again is
still anybody’s guess. Personally I think
it’s quite likely, though not as The
Go-Betweens. Either way, in my view their back
catalogue is second to none in its quality, so if
you haven’t already, go out and enjoy!
© Ed Stainsby 1999
