On second thoughts

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

To many discerning Kiwi fans of alternative pop, the Go Betweens were the best Australian band of the 80s.

Spending much of their career based in Britain, they were Oz rock outsiders with their literate lyrics, subtle melodies, and acoustic-based songs that sported hints of Dylan and the Velvet Underground.

Having started the band at university in Brisbane 1978, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan broke up and headed into solo careers in the 90s.

But the singing-songwriting partnership reunited to support a best-of album a few years ago, recorded a new album and toured - their Auckland show tonight is the last before they head back into the studio in Brisbane.

The Go Betweens started as a duo before growing to a five-piece. Tonight they're back as a two-piece with a bulging songbook from seven band albums and their solo outings.

In separate phone calls to the Queensland capital, Forster and McLennan talked about the nature of their on-off partnership and the band's legacy .

On reforming

Forster: I had an album virtually ready to go but then Grant and I did the tour to support Bella Vista Terrace, a best-of record and, we just really enjoyed it. It just seemed like the next adventure. I was surprised by the amount of energy that was there, the ideas that we had. It was enjoyable, I always thought that we could get back together again anyway, so it came as no surprise to me.

McLennan: Well, to me it's like when you get malaria - it keeps on coming back. But in between 16 Lovers Lane [their last album before the split] and Rachel Worth [their reunion effort] it was more that we were just kind of absent. There was geography involved with Robert living in Germany for such a long time.

So, I guess, after 10 years and six albums and achieving pretty much what we had wanted to achieve - beyond having a house next to Never Never Land - the main reason to reform in 1999 was our English record company had wanted to put out a best-of and it seemed like a good thing for Robert and me, not only to talk about but to play some of those songs together. And it just seemed like "why not?" When Robert and I work together, something happens. I am not saying it's always great, but it's always interesting.

On the split

Forster: We basically had enough - we were in Sydney, we had done six albums and we were still struggling to get wages every week. It was quite demoralising. And we were just about to come up to another album. An album is a real commitment - you've got to go in the practice room, you've got to write the songs, you've got to do the cover - it's a real six-month hurdle. And every time the band had made that hurdle, sometimes we had been a bit shaky. Grant and I looked at this one and just went "no".

On hometown Brisbane

Forster: I think we were helped by the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era. In a way it clamped things down so much and it was such a deterrent to any sort of creativity or any joy in life that after he went in a sense the city bloomed again. The city has crept out of the 1950s where Bjelke-Petersen buried it and you still feel that here. It was 20 years of dictatorship.

As soon as Brisbane bands got up they went down to Sydney which is a graveyard for Brisbane bands - it's probably a graveyard for New Zealand bands too. Now bands like George and Powderfinger can stay in Brisbane - you don't have to go anywhere.

McLennan: There's been the inexorable rise of the majesty of Brisbane music but it's the same situation, in that there's hardly been any places to play. And there are squares and real estate developers who encourage people to live in the inner city and then bitch about noise. At least we don't have the pokie machines that have gutted the music scene in Sydney.

On their enduring partnership

Forster: We were keen students of the history of rock'n'roll - and we would see people like Lou Reed and John Cale, or Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, or Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine, who parted from bands really early because either Lou or Bryan Ferry just couldn't take having another strong presence in the band. Both Grant and I were insistent that we wanted to include both of what we did. Which is the reason we've survived as a friendship.

McLennan: It's an unspoken thing - but basically on any Go Betweens record Robert sings half the songs and I sing the other. That's allowed us the freedom as writers to know that whenever we get to make a record there are five or six spaces there. In the long term it's meant that record companies haven't been able to get in and separate Robert from myself. It's sort of unique, especially in the noughties, the idea of two distinct voices in the one group - it somehow seems to fit now more than it did.

On their pick for the other's best solo album

Forster: I liked his last one In a Bright Ray because it was a Brisbane album and it had a very strong collection of songs and it also had 1+1 which when he played to me I thought was one of the best things he's ever done. Also Watershed - I know a lot of those songs as well. That's a strong album too.

McLennan: Danger in the Past. Only because I like the James Joyce reference - the pretension of that - he's about the only guy I know who could pull that off. And the studio he recorded it in in Berlin is such a great studio and I like the sound that he and [producer] Mick Harvey got on that record. And lyrically he's just bursting.

* The Go Betweens play at the St James tonight, supported by the Brunettes.