Grant and I ― Inside and Outside the Go-betweens

"In early '77 I asked Grant if he'd form a band with me. `No,' was his blunt reply." Grant McLennan didn't want to be in a band. He couldn't play an instrument; Charlie Chaplin was his hero du jour. And yet, when Robert Forster wrote Hemingway, Genet, Chandler and Joyce into his lyrics, McLennan couldn't resist a second invitation to become the 80's indie sensation The Go Betweens. The friends would collaborate for three decades, until Grant's premature death in 2006.

Robert Forster is a musician and writer based in Brisbane. In 1978 he cofounded with friend and fellow singer-songwriter Grant McLennan the internationally acclaimed rock band The Go-Betweens. They released nine albums during their career; their sixth, 16 Lovers Lane, was placed at twelve on The Hundred Best Australian Albums list, and their last, Oceans Apart, won the 2005 ARIA award for Best Adult Contemporary Album. In 2015 Forster curated the box set G Stands for Go-Betweens Volume 1 1978–84 and released his first solo album in seven years, Songs to Play, to strong reviews. A parallel career began for Forster in 2005, when he was appointed music critic for The Monthly. A year later he won the Geraldine Pascall Prize for this writing; and a collection of his journalism, The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll, was successfully published in 2009.