COME BACK STRONGER

Tears For Fears, an A-grade solo from Steve Rothery and, erm, whalesong have all made their mark on the current release from Dave Foster Band. The guitarist and vocalist Dinet Poortman discuss their more relaxed approach to Maybe They'll Come Back For Us, and Foster opens up about his recent departure from Big Big Train.

- Grant Moon

Voluble, knowledgeable and infinitely positive, Dave Foster’s the kind of guy you’d happily spend a day in the pub with talking music, from its surface ephemera down to its deepest workings. We’re here to talk about The Dave

Foster Band’s sterling fifth record, Maybe They’ll Come Back For Us, but the happy tangents come thick and fast, about his favourite musical scale (the Lydian mode, anyone?), David Bowie’s divisive Tin Machine outing (“misunderstood”) and even the anti-arthritis injection recently stuck into the thumb of his impressive left hand. It was, he assures us, “The worst eight seconds of my life!”

We’re catching up with him right after the official announcement of another painful moment – his departure from Big Big Train (see sidebar). But that’s a lone cloud in an otherwise sunny sky for him. The album’s out and doing nicely, and he and DFB vocalist Dinet Poortman are on a high after some support slots for the Steve Rothery Band, among whose ranks Foster very firmly remains.

At those Manchester shows they played acoustic tunes from their 2016 album Dreamless and 2019’s Nocebo plus, of all things, a Suzanne Vega cover.

“We’ve been doing Marlene On The Wall,” he says, “which really suits Dinet’s voice. And she’s not just singing the words – she’s actually becoming something. I watched her at the shows and saw the way she’s developed as a singer and performer in front of my eyes. I’ve known her for a long time now and she’s amazing. I’m very proud of her.”

It’s been over 13 years since mutual friend Rothery introduced the pair at the bar during a Marillion Weekend in Port Zélande, Holland (Poortman’s home country). The two hit it off and set about making a proggish brand of pop-rock that really began coalescing with Nocebo, built up artistic speed with 2023’s assured Glimmer, and hit high gear with this latest selection.