ifitbeyourwill Podcast
“ifitbeyourwill" Podcasts is on a mission to talk to amazing indie artists from around the world! Join us for cozy, conversational episodes where you'll hear from talented and charismatic singer-songwriters, bands from all walks of life talk about their musical process & journey. Let's celebrate being music lovers!
Season 6 starts Fall 2025… Looking for indie musicians
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ifitbeyourwill Podcast
ifitbeyourwill S06E02 • Robert Forster
Ever wonder what keeps a songwriter creating fresh music after four decades? Robert Forster, the legendary co-founder of The Go-Betweens, takes us on a fascinating journey through his musical evolution—from meeting Grant McLennan at Queensland University to recording his latest solo album "Strawberries" with Swedish musicians.
The conversation unfolds like a masterclass in creative persistence. Forster reveals how The Ramones' debut album gave him the confidence to write his first songs, declaring "if they could do it, I could do it"—while artists like Bowie felt too intimidating with their virtuosic musicians. He candidly shares his struggle with the fundamental songwriter's dilemma: how to create something new when there are only so many chords. His solution involves constant experimentation—inverting chords, using capos, exploring different positions on the fretboard—and the patience to play for months until something genuinely fresh emerges.
Most surprisingly, Forster opens up about nearly abandoning music twice when faced with two-year creative droughts. What kept him going? Simply the joy of creation and, later in life, diversifying his creative outlets through music journalism and writing. This multifaceted approach actually revitalized his songwriting, removing the pressure and allowing new perspectives to emerge. The result is what he considers his most consistent body of solo work over the past decade.
"Strawberries," his latest album recorded with members of Peter Bjorn and John, represents this artistic renaissance. Forster speaks about it with rare satisfaction, suggesting he'd be content not to record for several years because "I don't know how I'm going to top that." Beyond music, he shares exciting news about completing his first novel, set for publication in Australia next year.
Want to witness the magic that happens when an Australian indie legend joins forces with Swedish pop sensibilities? Catch Robert Forster on his European tour this September-October, where he'll be performing with the same musicians who brought "Strawberries" to life.
All right, here we are, If it Be your Will, podcast. We are at the beginning phases of season six Season six already. I can't believe this journey has led me so far yet. Not far enough yet. And I'm reaching over to our Australian friends in Brisbane. I have Robert Forster from the Go-Betweens in his solo career, coming and joining me and we're going to talk about Strawberries, which is his latest release. But, Robert, first off I want to just thank you again. Thanks so much for hopping on here and sharing some of your thoughts and experiences with us. My listeners love getting process questions and how things evolved and how songwriting works for you, and I mean I can't think of any better person to talk about those kinds of things to than you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's very kind of you and I mean I can't think of any better person to talk about those kinds of things too.
Robert Forster:Thank you. Thank you very much. That's very kind of you.
colleyc:Well, robert, I guess maybe my first question is and I've been doing such a deep dive, I'm kind of like overwhelmed with what your career has been so far and the experiences that you've had. Could you maybe like bring back to us a few of those salient moments that happened so far in your career that were kind of pivotal moments in the development of not only the go-betweens but also your own personal solo career as well?
Robert Forster:Well, to skip like just through, skip through it with, I guess, significant moments. It would have to be like right at the start when in the late 70s I met a fellow student at the Queensland University where I was studying for an arts degree, and I met Grant McLennan, who was also a student there, and we became friends and a couple of years later we started the Go-Betweens and I taught Grant I just started to play, to write my first songs, my first good songs, and I met Grant and we decided to start a band together. And I met Grant and we decided to start a band together and I taught him to play the bass and so we started the group. So that's probably the most significant thing of it all, really, because without that I don't know if I would have got a band together or if anything would have gone anywhere. So it might have just stopped right back there. So that's significant.
Robert Forster:I think making our first record Lee, remick and Karen that's a milestone. I mean, that's just you can start a band and not make a record. But we made a single, probably our third single. That was on postcard records. That sort of got us out into the world more Like we were in Glasgow for a short time in 1980, and that was our third single and that just sort of pushed things to a broader way. That was our third single and that just sort of pushed things to a broader way. Right, right, right.
Robert Forster:Lindy Morrison joined the band on drums in 1980, and then us moving to London in 1982, so we get out of Australia and we make our second album called Before Hollywood, which was sort of a breakthrough record like internationally, with a song on it. The lead single called Cattle and Cane. Robert Vickers joined on bass, then Amanda Brown on violin and oboe and vocals. We lived in London for five years in the 80s. The band broke up in 89 in Sydney after making six albums through the 80s. Then I made my first solo album, danger in the Past. I recorded more solo albums in the 90s and got back together with Grant and I to record in Portland in 2000. We then made three albums.
colleyc:And was Ocean of Parts, your final record that you guys did together. That was the final record.
Robert Forster:And that was the band then was with Glenn Thompson and Adele Pickfans, and so they were Such a great record, such a good record.
Robert Forster:Yeah, I mean, I'm very, very happy with that album and the albums that we did before that. And then in 2006, grant passed away. Grant and Clendam died at 48. I became a music journalist in 2005 and I started to write regularly for a sort of nationally syndicated magazine here in Australia. So I started a career as a writer and I put out a memoir in Australia. So I started a career as a writer and I put out a memoir in 2006 called Grant and I, and then I made my solo career, started again and I've made four albums over the last, released four albums over the last 10 years, which I think is actually the most consistent body of work I've done as a solo artist and you know I've toured and I write. They're sort of significant moments.
colleyc:And Robert, what inspired you to first start penning songs? Like you met Grant when you guys were in university, right, like you were in an acting class together, yeah, like before then, what was going on with you, just with music itself? Like I mean, you were playing guitar. Were you starting to write songs at that time as well?
Robert Forster:Yes, I was in a band. I was in a pre-Go-Betweens band called the Goddows and we started from about 1975 to late 77. We only played three shows and towards the end of the Goddows I started to write songs. And then, right at the very end, I started to write Good Ones, which is when that I knew that I had to stop that band, which was essentially a covers band, and start a band with my best friend. I realized that my songs were so simple I could teach him, if he was willing, which Grant was to play the bass, and I knew that that was the foundation. Then that was a band, the two of us.
colleyc:What was it about those first songs too, Robert, that felt like you were onto something that yeah like from from covers to actually penning your own tunes. Where did that start to come to you that, wow, this is something that maybe I have an inclination to do. Did that come once you had met Grant, or was that happening?
Robert Forster:before then. That was before. Okay, I was. I think it was self-expression, I think it was. You know, I only picked up the guitar when I was around 15. So it wasn't like I was like a child prodigy or something you know, like I wasn't playing piano at eight or something. I think like a big part of it, and this is just one small thing.
Robert Forster:I think the Ramones' first album in 1976, I heard that pretty much when it came out and I thought about writing songs and I was writing songs. They were very derivative and not very good and I just heard that record and I thought I could do that it was. There was no lead guitar, it was just three chords. It was just three chords. The lyrics were quite simple and personal and a little bit funny and I just that was like a door that I could. It gave me confidence. If they could make a record, if they could write songs, I could write songs too. You know, if the Ramones could do it, I could do it when. You know, like things like Led Zeppelin or even someone I really like, like Bowie, was way too intimidating and musical and there was virtuoso musicians all over it. It was something to admire, but I couldn't see a way in Right right.
colleyc:And in those early days when you were writing songs, how would you go about it? Like, what was your process that you went through to you? Know, get an idea to actually saying, okay, this is something that I could record down the road.
Robert Forster:No, it was more, and it still goes right through to today. I need to have the music there. I know I'll always be able to write a lyric, but the music is something I really have to work on and to write that I like, and I want the music to be good. I don't want it to be sounding like something I've heard before. I want it to have its own stamp, and so I need the music, and then lyrics will invariably come.
colleyc:Great, and is there a way that you, you like, do you have like a ritual, for starting to come up with a melody? Or I mean in in reality and I've heard you talk about this which I find fascinating is that there's only a handful of chords right and there's only, like I remember you, you were talking on an interview about grant writing, um, um streets and how it was uh, a D and an A or something along those lines and that how are we going to make this different than all the other A, A and D songs that are out there?
colleyc:Yeah, yeah, how did you approach that kind of like, knowing that there are only a limited amount of chord structures and chords that sound well together, to infusing it with energy and life and something that people never heard before?
Robert Forster:That's the great question, that's the great mystery. There are only a certain amount of notes and a certain amount of chords, and that used to perplex me all the time and still does. It's just getting. It's a combination. You're playing chords, but you invert the chords, you turn them around, you play them in different positions, you write notes.
Robert Forster:You might start a song with just like, almost like a bass riff on the acoustic guitar. There's different tricks that you just sort of you might capo, you know, put a capo on the guitar and suddenly your chord sounds different. Right up there's all these things where you're trying to find something new that you've just got to dig out of the guitar and just sort of learning different chords. I mean, and you know, like majors and minor sevenths, and you know sevenths and diminished chords, all this sort of stuff. It just helps the palate of. So it's a real learning process of going through and learning and listening to other songs and hearing what people do.
Robert Forster:There's great mystery to it. And you just I try every day and I can play guitar for six months every day and get nothing, and then I arrive at it one day and I can tell that I'm hearing something that, at least to me, sounds new and I get very excited and that's a way into a song. Um, it's a lot of hard work, um, because you know it's. There's only a certain amount of chords and notes, but you can dig them out on the guitar on the piano right, and I mean looking at your catalog, robert.
colleyc:I mean it's, it's incredible the amount of songs that you've you've written, you know, starting in 1977, I mean it's it's incredible what do you do when you hit that wall of like? How do you find that resilience or the persistence to to keep pushing, to keep going, to keep saying, all right, I'm stuck on this and it's going nowhere?
colleyc:to hell with it, you know, like, or even after, like the go-betweens, kind of like, like, why not just say okay, there was my career, what was? It inside you that persistence or that resilience that you found that this had to be a part of something you did because I enjoyed it.
Robert Forster:Um, you know, pervers, you know, given how hard it was, and I've come twice to almost quitting where I didn't write anything I liked for two years, and that was in 1980 to 82 and then 1992 to 1994. And I really did think it was the end and I thought I'd burn out anyway with my limited musical skills, sometimes in my late 40s or 50s. So I'm quite surprised it keeps on going. I just thought that I'd exhaust the guitar and I really haven't. And it really quite surprises me.
Robert Forster:And I think another thing that might have helped me was getting older and starting to write like journalism and the memoir and just sort of. I just got to the point where I relaxed with it, I think, and I just didn't care as much and I had something else in my life creatively and it just sort of gave the other half a lease of life. You know, strangely enough I took the pressure off myself and all of these things helped. And I think also, you know, as you get older, new feelings come into your life. You see things from new angles and I think you think, oh, you know, like that would be good to chronicle in songs. You know, like those songs chronicle me when I was 20 or 30 or 40. I'm still evolving, I'm aging, and so maybe that can. Somehow I can look at that in a certain way and it can work in a song. So all of those things combined really.
colleyc:Yeah, totally. So along comes Strawberries. Now I checked out I mean I've been listening to it a lot. I just find it's such a happy record. I mean it's just like almost finding you know of, like folky, you know, feel that comes along with it, which you had talked about in previous um go-between songs, where it just wouldn't fit. And then you found this in your solo career, which I'm so happy for. Yeah, I think to the production of this has been amazing. You went to sweden. You found these kindred souls that were so willing to do anything they could to make this record come out. Could you tell us a little bit about how those songs came to be and then the process of you then going to sweden and finding these people that would then become the band that would record Strawberries?
Robert Forster:I wrote these songs, two of the songs I had for my previous record, the Candle in the Flame, and one of them was Foolish, I Know, and the other one was Such a Shame so they didn't fit on the Candle in the Flame and mood-wise they just weren't right for that. And I had enough songs for the Candle in the Flame and so I started this record. After Candle in the Flame I had two songs and then I wrote the others. Two of them came over the next like two years and then I wrote the last four in about a year. I had a really bang period, which for me four songs in a year is incredible. So the record for a start was going to be recorded this year actually, but I had eight songs I really loved and so we bought the recording for a year, the musicians on it and so yeah, and so the musicians.
Robert Forster:This is a long story, but I'd met Peter Morin from I don't know if you know about Peter Bjorn and John yeah, totally, and they're a Swedish band and I met Peter at a music festival in Australia and we just started communicating and he was a fan of what I do and I was a fan of his and of his band, and then he invited me over and he put a band together for this tour in 2017, this little Scandinavian thing. If I was in Europe, he could put a band together. It was a beautiful, generous offer. He's a lovely person, peter, and so we just did these five shows and they were just amazing.
Robert Forster:You know, I just thought I found this band, you know like, and the two Jonas and Magnus that Peter chose, which is brilliant, and it was like I've just been gifted this gorgeous band, and so from that time, I knew, after those six shows, that we had to do something more, and so it took us seven years to make the record. You know, covid came, obviously, and other things, but it was just like there's something with the four of us as musicians. I'd love us to make a record, and it was just, I think, a beautiful coincidence that these songs fitted them so well. You know, like I wasn't necessarily writing for them, but I knew that this would be Stockholm, I knew that it would be these players, and I just wanted to go somewhere exotic. I just wanted to go, I wanted to have an adventure, right.
Robert Forster:You know, it's like if I was sitting here and I'm going, I want to make an album in Montreal, I want to make an album in Quebec, and I can just imagine that and just arrive for a month, work with local musicians and just. But we had a history because we'd toured together and we'd sort of played. You know like, when I was twice, when I was in Stockholm passing through, we actually played, you know like, did a show just on the memories of that 2017. We could actually play a set. We stayed in touch, obviously, and then it was like, okay, let's do this Right right, it sounds like they totally got you.
colleyc:They got your songs, yeah, and it was almost seamless. I saw a couple of videos too. There was one where you're like, yeah, we've never played this song before, but just gonna play it yeah, and it was just beautiful. I mean, it just seemed like the chemistry was there um yeah, it's, it's amazing.
Robert Forster:You know, like this, the swedes, they're such good. You know, like this is broad, talking about them, broadly, sure, but they're, they're very, you know, it's not that it's like a rock and roll thing with them.
Robert Forster:You know like they're very.
Robert Forster:They've also almost gone to music schools or not. They've played in lots of bands. They're great historians of music. But at the same time, what I love about Peter and Jonas and Magnus is that they're also very lucid in the moment, you know, and they're very creative. It's not like they're just regurgitating stuff that they know and it just seems like they've got a sort of I don't know like a youthful power and energy that I think is really good with me.
colleyc:I think it's really Totally I totally see that, robert, yeah, yeah.
Robert Forster:And so I really like that, that they just sort of take material and just sort of zoom with it. I think it's really good.
colleyc:Yeah, and that pop sensibility too, that I mean you see a lot of indie pop artists coming out of Sweden, they just have that. Yeah, you know it's hard to describe in words, but I just feel too it fits so well with the way you approach songwriting as well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert Forster:No, they've definitely got that pop thing, which is something that I've always loved, you know like, and so when I recognize it straight away, something that I've always loved, you know like, and so when I recognize it straight away, it goes right back to early Gober Twins and stuff that I've done, but this group of musicians just sort of play it the best you know it's just great, yeah, and you've had a bit of distance since the album came out, like is it still sparking you, is it still something that you feel like wow, what an accomplishment that we did.
Robert Forster:Yeah yeah, yeah, I honestly you know I'd be happy not to record an album for four or five years because I don't know how I'm going to top that. I'm really happy with it and it's like you can be happy with a record and then two or three years' time, or even a year's time, I want to make another one, where, with this, it's like I want this to sit. I really appreciate what this is, I know what it is and I'm just happy for it to just sort of ring.
colleyc:Absolutely. I mean you've got some bangers on there. I mean, tell it back to me. I mean what a song, uh like, what a song, even strawberries, just that playful kind of you know, it's just it kind of keeps you on your toes and you're just happy to listen to the whole thing. It's just so good, so good. So, peter, as we kind of wrap up here again, thanks so much for this. I mean your words and your experience and knowledge and history are just such a treat to hear these stories Thank you Looking onward to 2025, 2026, what do you got on your docket that you can tell us about?
colleyc:that might be interesting for us to anticipate.
Robert Forster:Two things. Well, I'm doing a tour with the Swedish band in September October in Europe UK and Ireland and I'd like to play more with them definitely. So we're just sort of going out to play and show people what we're doing. That's sort of a part of this thing as well is to promote the record. I really want to play the songs. I want to take what we've got with the Swedish band out of Sweden and Norway and Denmark where we played, and take it further. I'd like to take it all around the world if I could, but we've got to go out and show people what we can do. Maybe there'll be someone will invite us somewhere, someone will, sure. So that's one thing, and the second thing is I've written, I'm really finishing a novel that I've been working on since 2017.
Robert Forster:And that is like right at the end of its process now and I imagine we'll be coming out at least firstly in Australia next year. You know like it's really close. I'm working with an editor and we're like right at the weeks or even days before it's signed off. So that is enormously exciting. I'm really happy with the book. This is something I've been working on and off for the last eight years. It's my first novel, so there are two things that are before me that I'm really looking forward to.
colleyc:And the Swedish band. Is it Peter's, like the band that you recorded with? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Robert Forster:Yeah, it is for the first six songs Actually. Then Magnus has to go back to a theatre production, so the first six shows, which are from Stockholm down to Vienna, winding down through Berlin, hamburg, copenhagen, dresden, hamburg, so we get to Vienna and that's Magnus' last show, and then he's being replaced by a Swedish drummer, daniel, who is recommended by the whole three of them. It's unfortunate, but Magnus, a long time ago, got this theatre gig that goes on for months that he couldn't turn down, which I totally understand, and so Daniel's going to be in the practice room in Stockholm in about two weeks.
Robert Forster:So yeah, so that'll be, but they assure me that he's really good and I'm sure he is.
colleyc:Right, right, and does the song rating continue on? And, but they assure me that he's really good and I'm sure he is right, right, and and rather, does the song rating continue on? Like, is this something that you can't just turn off? Like, are you already thinking about other ideas being inspired?
Robert Forster:by different yeah I've written one song since the album uh, like that's a year ago. It it's really really good and it sort of comes out of this record. It's about six minutes and it's really something different and big. But at the moment I've been on the book and I've been happy to leave the songwriting. It's almost like I want to back off. This one just popped up and it was just like and I just sort of go well, there's a start. But I've been concentrating on the book. I still play guitar, you know, but I'm not really desperate or searching hard. But you know, like being back on the road and being with a guitar in my hands, who knows what will happen out on the road, you know, like that's always a good place where you start to get ideas, so something might happen.
colleyc:And being around those inspiring musicians as well, right, definitely I mean that's kind of amazing. Definitely, definitely.
Robert Forster:Like you know you get a feel for it. You know like you're in front of an audience and you're playing for two hours and you just have a good time backstage or in the hotel room and it just you're around music. You know it's really in your life when you're touring. It's really, really there with you, the way it is at home which can lead to songs, so that'd be good. Yeah.
colleyc:Well, robert, wow, thank you. I so appreciate your words. This has been so fun for me.
Robert Forster:I hope you've enjoyed this.
colleyc:I know Very much Great.
Robert Forster:By the way, chris, beautiful questions, beautiful approach, and it's been a real real pleasure, chris. Beautiful questions, beautiful approach. Thank you, and it's been a real pleasure, chris, to talk to you, because I can tell that you know what you're talking about and it's a pleasure, absolute pleasure, to be on your show.
colleyc:Well, you've been inspiring me since the 80s. I mean, I was only born in 72, five years before you guys formed. But I've been a fan forever. All right, thank you, a real treat, real treat. I wish you all the best on the tour. Also, robert, and the novel as well. I'll keep that on my list to find and read. Okay, and all the best, thank you.
Robert Forster:Chris, been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me on your show, ciao.
Robert Forster:When I met you, I was through with some business. I had to do business of a strange kind. I taught English. You were French. We kissed on a bench. Your world so different to mine. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you see. Tell it back Back to me. Tell me what you see. I was corporate. You were folk out distance. We thought a joke, one that got funnier over time. We thought of marriage. Marriage. We thought of kids. We knew a marriage on the skids because of the kids.
Robert Forster:Tell me what you see. Tell me what you see. Tell it back back to me. Tell me what you see. What do you see in the distance? What do you see through the wall? Fresh love is good, love is new love. Ah, we see it all. When we parted, it soon started an emptiness and her and me, the finer things weren't so fine. We met again through a friend who told us to start again, to try, try again. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you see. Tell it back Back to me. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you see. Tell it back back to me. Tell it back to me. Telepathy.
