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A Go-Between goes it alone

Peter Holmes — Sydney Morning Herald, May 1990

When the Go-Betweens called it quits with a show at Max’s last December, Robert Forster walked off stage and allowed himself a deep sigh of relief.

Their last album, 16 Lovers Lane was considered by many as the masterpiece they had been promising to create for 12 years, and it seemed as good a time as any to grind the wheels of one of this country’s most treasured groups to a halt.

"Grant McLennan and I started the band," says Forster, "and Grant and I finished the band. It was the last days of 1989, the end of a decade, and I guess that was floating at the back of our minds also. We could have kept going, but I hold the Go-Betweens in far too high regard for that."

Before heading back to Sydney for those final few shows last year, Forster had spent a few months in Bavaria. Within weeks of the demise, he had settled in Germany, renewed an acquaintance with a young lady whom he has since wed, and continued writing material for that was to become his first solo LP, Danger In The Past.

The album is classic Forster – overtly dramatic…painfully honest charming and often very funny. As a guitarist, Forster is no virtuoso, but as ever, he has used his talents of lyricism and simple melody to weave a handful of timeless ditties.

With 16 Lovers Lane, the Go-Betweens took an unusually long time to record. He admits this is part of the reason for the band folding, and also for his decision to record the solo album very quickly in Berlin, with Bad Seed, Mick Harvey.

"I was tired of working like that," he says of 16 Lovers Lane. "You can do one album like that, but I couldn’t any more…

"With the band on this album, there was no rehearsal (as Mick Harvey played bass, piano, organ, guitar and percussion) That’s what was great. Thomas the drummer didn’t turn up until the second day. He’d hear the acoustic version of the song about three times, and then we’d record.

"What I wanted to get down to was, ‘Here is a song, let’s mike up all the gear, look at each other and play the song. No patching, just play it again until it’s night’."

The result pleases Forster, who is as relaxed as ever. He is a towering chap, who sounds a little like Bill Collins – passionate and ever so careful and choosy with his words. He is tremendously serious about the art of songwriting. Despite his quiet veneer, the smoke has always billowed from his ears when conversation turns to other bands who don’t or can’t write decent lyrics.

"One of the clichéd songs is like a put-down of a girl," he says, "and to me, that is dishonest songwriting. If you haven’t really got anything in mind and you think, ‘Got to write a song, I’ve got this melody, why I don’t I do the standard tune about putting the girl down?’ – then that to me is dishonest songwriting.

"I hate that. I try and write honestly. No-one can check up on that, but it comes down to me, it’s a code of ethics that I try and abide by, and I do."

So, does he feel then that, although a lot of the songs on Danger In The Past are fairly gloomy, that it is more a celebration of a writer who’s prepared to say ‘I bummed out’, than the diary from a depressing period?

"Exactly…exactly. I find people can write honest songs, in a certain sense sad song and I feel a great sense of uplift from that. If it’s done well, I get a greater sense of uplift from than. I like happy songs, but people who are just writing quite facile happy songs…I find that very depressing."