ROBERT FORSTER & THE GO-BETWEENS

As co-founder of The Go-Betweens, Robert Forster was one half of the greatest songwriting partnership in Australian pop, alongside the late Grant McLennan. His solo career hasn't been too shabby, either, and the latest fruit of his labours is new album Strawberries, in which he responds to more challenges in his personal life with some of his most luminous songwriting to date. He takes Johnnie Johnstone through his back catalogue.

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“I don't feel nostalgic for the past,” insists Robert Forster, on video call from his hometown of Brisbane, “but it’s a lovely place to visit. I like going back and rummaging around.”

And it is surely worth more than a cursory look. Forster was partly responsible for the sunlit shadowy sound of The Go-Betweens, the 80s band who formed in the late 70s and reunited after almost a decade apart in the 90s. The ‘rock’n’roll gentleman’, weaned on Fitzgerald and Isherwood paperbacks as well as Saints and Jonathan Richman records, admits: “I like the way my career has been broken up. It sort of reflects life. Things happen in a person's life, and they affect musicians and bands more than people realise.”

Many ‘things’ have happened in the life of Robert Forster. He managed to survive a relationship breakup (with band drummer Lindy Morrison), the demise of the band itself, and even met actress Lee Remick, the subject of the band’s debut 45, on The Mike Walsh Show in 1986. There have been lean spells when inspiration dried up and times when poor health made prospects of longevity appear slim. Instead, it was his songwriting partner and soulmate, Grant McLennan, who was to prematurely depart this world in 2006. Forster has been a music journalist, author of an award-winning memoir, and even launched his own signature brand of muesli. Around three years ago, he discovered his wife - Karin Bäumler - had cancer, a reality which could have tempted him to abandon the idea of making music altogether. But, like Bäumler, he's a fighter.

Record Collector spoke to him about his latest album, Strawberries, and the key recordings of a colourful career.