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Robert Forster Interview: Burning Memories

Photo by Bleddyn Butcher

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It came time again where Robert Forster felt like he had the songs. The former singer of indispensable Australian rock band The Go-Betweens hasn’t released many records, even when his main band was inactive; in almost thirty years of solo material, he’s dropped only 7 full-lengths. It’s not that Forster goes through creative bursts--rather, he writes at most a few songs a year, and sometimes, he looks at what’s in his back pocket and discovers that they have something in common. “It’s a matter of feeling that the group of songs represent a record and are cohesive in some way,” he told me over the phone earlier this year when I asked him about his then upcoming, now released latest record Inferno. 

The oldest song on Inferno, the penultimate, string-laden “I’m Gonna Tell It”, is from 2007. The second oldest, bossa nova-inspired reflection “Life Has Turned A Page”, is from 2012. Arrangement-wise, they’re different from most songs on Inferno, as they were recorded and originally meant for Forster’s previous effort Songs To Play. Moreover, the latter track is really different from much of Forster’s general output--when he played it Monday night at SPACE in Evanston, he made sure to warn the crowd that it contained his only guitar solo of the night. “I don’t know how many fans of my guitar playing there are here tonight--probably none,” he joked. “It’s there, so thank you for indulging me.” Still, all the songs on Inferno have Forster’s trademark wry observational skills that stand the test of time. “Eat only what I eat / Breathe only what I breathe / And leave,” he describes of “One Bird in the Sky”, but also of the futility of human life. The theme continues in “Inferno (Brisbane in Summer)”, whose video shows Forster mowing the lawn--bound to the same earth that’s currently trying to throw us off in it. The song was recorded, coincidentally, in Berlin during its hottest summer in decades.

Robert Forster at Evanston SPACE, 11/11/19

Inferno also generally sounds like a Forster record, aided by the fact that the new faces weren’t entirely new. Session drummer Earl Harvin was suggested by producer Victor Van Vugt, who worked on Forster’s debut album Danger in the Past. Keyboard player Michael Mühlhaus played with Forster in 2013, and Forster knew bassist Scott Bromiley from Brisbane even having never played with him. It allowed them to essentially track the album in four days, leaving time for Forster to decide on important public-facing thing like the sequencing.

Forster claims that sequencing in general for him--whether of albums or a set list--is difficult, but you wouldn’t know it listening to Inferno or seeing him live. “I could build a set off of my last three albums, and I want to play other songs from records I made in the 90��s,” Forster said. “It’s a good challenge to have.” Even so, the set on Monday consisted of over half Go-Betweens material, something that doesn’t change whether he’s playing with a band or solo and acoustic like on Monday. It was incredibly well-paced with slow jams interspersed in groups of fast, peppy ditties.

Bleddyn Butcher’s Inferno album art

Still, it’s nice to hear that Forster likes Inferno as much as I and other fans do. When I asked him what his favorite song on the record is, he mentioned the final song he wrote for it, “The Morning”. “It has a classic feel to me,” he said. “It’ll probably never happen, but I have a feeling people might cover that song. I’d like to hear other people sing it. My songs are kind of picky and idiosyncratic.” Which person, dead or alive, would he like to hear sing it? “Otis Redding,” he answered without hesitation. “I think it could have a soul feel, and the lyric would fit. Adele could sing that song. But Otis would be the first person I’d think of.”

The Go-Betweens remain, undoubtedly, what Forster is known for. Their Vol 2 follow up to 2015′s G Stands For Go-Betweens box set comes out next month, this time covering their three albums from 1985-1989: Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express, Tallulah, and 16 Lovers Lane, the first and third of which occupied a great deal of Monday’s set list. The interest for the band, too, still sticks. When I asked Forster about groups coming out of Australia making it big overseas, he recognized The Go-Betweens’ influence. “There are a lot of bands that are well-known in Australia and a lot better known than us, but they only really played in Australia and their success was confined...We had to go elsewhere to get signed and not play Australia endlessly. These bands now saw what we did. It’s inspirational.”

As for me, I’m just glad I was able to see Forster, period. Initially, he was skeptical about coming over to the States. Apart from the cost of a visa, he said, “I’m not all that popular in America. There are people that like me and what I do, but they’re scattered over such a large country.” Well, Forster was able to make a tour out of this large country, and he was thankful Monday night for a captivated audience cheering for Go-Betweens and solo classics alike, from “I’m All Right” and “Part Company” to “Baby Stones”. The crowd willfully sang along, even a capella, on comeback album The Friends of Rachel Worth’s “Surfing Magazines”. When he ended his set, he shook hands with various crowd members. “I don’t have anything to sell,” he clarified, “But I’ll be out in 5-10 minutes if you have questions, suggestions to make this better, records for me to sign--they don’t even have to be by me.” His usual self-deprecation aside, his last words likely stuck with everybody in the audience: “Thank you for making this memorable.” May Forster continue to tour and experience fodder for 30 more years of songs.

Album score: 7.7/10