DARK, brooding, mysterious: these are some of the impressions that come with singer songwriter Robert Forster.
Forster made a name for himself as one half of the song writing team of legendary Australian indieband The Go-Betweens alongside the late Grant McLennan.
These impressions could be something to do with his sharp John Cale-like appearance, but more likely it is the dark and abrasive nature of his songs, a darkness brought into sharp contrast during The Go-Betweens era when paired with McLennan’s jangly, much sunnier compositions.
However, the singer speaking to Community News from his Brisbane home reveals himself to be a softly spoken, humble and obliging person with a strong instinct for keeping his ego and his art a safe distance apart.
Forster said The Go-Betweens’ sound was drawn from a range of influences when the band first formed in 1978.
“Definitely the Beatles, punk bands, bands like Television, The Ramones, that sort of stuff,” Forster said.
“At that time, we were right into Highway 61 era Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival and modern influences like Bowie.
“There was a lot of good stuff around, it was an exciting time.”
Forster said he and McLennan would write their songs separately, but work together to craft the final product.
“The songs were written by then but we would just play guitar, flesh them out and arrange them,’ he said.
The Go-Betweens became critical darlings in the ’80s, particularly in the UK, but their ongoing and frustrating lack of chart success factored in the band’s break-up in 1989.
Forster said just one chart hit would probably have been enough to keep the band together.
“We didn’t need a truckload of money, just a carload would have made a difference,” he said.
“It was a difficult decision to break up, but it was one that meant we had all had enough.
“We started off in Brisbane, moved to Melbourne, lived in London, Sydney, and we did a lot of touring on our last two albums before we landed back in Sydney at the end of 1989 and trying to get up the energy for another album was very difficult.”
Forster got married, moved to Bavaria, Germany, and released four well-received solo albums in the ’90s, before reuniting with McLennan for a trio of new Go-Betweens between 2000 and 2005, a reunion cut short by McLennan’s sudden 2006 death from a heart attack at age 48.
In 2005, Forster reinvented himself as a writer for The Monthly and despite having no writing training or experience, won a prestigious Pascall Prize for Critical Writing in 2006.
Some of his articles formed the basis for his first book The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll released last November.
“They are actually more like realisations or observations on being a musician than rules,” Forster said.
In 2008, Forster released The Evangelist, his first solo album in more than a decade, which contained the final songs that he ever wrote with his old friend and comrade McLennan.
Robert Forster will perform at Beck’s Music Box, Perth, on February 24.