When the Australian cult band the Go-Betweens decided to split up in December 1989, it was an unhappy Christmas for their fans, a large group of Doc Martin-shod, black 'n' grey-wearing types whose lives were made all the more bearable by empathising with the Go-Betweens' melancholia. From the late 1970s, the band - fronted by Grant McLennan and Robert Forster, the post-punk Lennon and McCartney - had captured the mood and mien of the mellowing of the Blank Generation. The two songwriters might have been inspired by the zeitgeist of punk, but they were as much influenced by Bob Dylan and The Monkees as they were by television, Sex Pistols and Patti Smith.
The band started life in Brisbane, releasing a couple of singles on a thin-string budget. Lee Remick and People Say were strong enough to attract the attention of Scotland's Alan Horne, boss of prestigious UK post-punk record label, Postcard. Horne invited the band to Britain to record a single (I Need Two Heads), but they soon returned home to record their debut album, Send Me A Lullaby. This led to interest from London-based Rough Trade, which offered a record contract and a base in London from which to operate. One Quantas flight later, and the Go-Betweens' dreams of making it big were becoming a reality. Except, it never really worked out that way. Despite being that most God forsaken of things, the critics' favourites, a series of record companies dropped the GoBetweens due to lacklustre sales.
Albums such as Before Hollywood, Springhill Fair, Liberty Belle And the Black Diamond Express, Tallulah and 16 Lovers Lane (each with the trademark two lls in the title, although separated in the latter case) were lauded as atmospheric, anti-rockist and sober collections of beautiful pop songs. How they lasted as long as they did in a decade where pop values took a back seat for the likes of Kajagoogoo and Dead Or Alive remains an enigma. The fact that the Go-Betweens were Lost Romantics (as opposed to New Romantics) provides a salutary clue.
Now 41, Grant McLennan sits in a straight-backed chair in a Dublin hotel ante-room, sips from a pint glass and ponders the one and only reason why he and Robert Forster have decided to resurrect the Go-Betweens after a 12-year burial: "It felt right and good playing together last year on a long acoustic tour, where we were playing songs from the Go-Betweens' and our respective solo careers. It just all fitted together. What we noticed travelling on that trip was how many people in their early 20s knew as much of our material as the older fans. In some way, it proved the songs are timeless."
One of rock's more thoughtful, considered people, McLennan went to boarding school ("a brutal and archaic system") before attending Queensland University. Working in a record shop while a student - "very High Fidelity" he notes - his passion for the US punk scene and movies was matched by that of Forster's. Their dynamic, he says, hinges on the provocative belief that a song matters; the idea of the Go-Betweens, and how he and Forster followed through that idea, consistently pushes things.
"Not many bands have two songwriters who don't argue," he says, allowing himself a smile. "Also, we conducted ourselves with a reasonable amount of dignity. The dynamic is not easy to describe, but I know when we work together something happens. On a purely mechanistic level, we both have songs, but the minute I start singing it and he plays a guitar with it and vice-versa it becomes this thing that is the Go-Betweens. From Lee Remick onwards it's been very much like that."
Was there any reason not to reform, then? The vast majority of comebacks are rooted in the notion that grown-up fans actually want to hear the old songs, albeit from someone who should, by rights, be sipping expensive cognac beside a roaring fire in their stately home. "There would only be one reason for me not to do it, and that's if I thought the songs sucked. And they didn't. The way we wanted to do it was the way we've always approached a record: not too much fussy production, not spending too much time in the studio, and to make it as intense and as pure a listening experience as possible. That's why we've always had 10 songs on a record. Records are too long. Always have been. You should just get in there, say your piece and get out. In some ways, the CD format gives very average people the chance to, fortunately, show how average they are."
The Go-Betweens' new album is very much a pure listening experience. The Friends Of Rachel Worth (their first studio album not to feature two lls in the title; "we had to let something go . . .") is that rare thing in current pop, an honest, unaffected record. While it's hardly going to alter the perception of the band as anything other than literate and mellow, it's nevertheless going to appeal to the type of person who drools over Badly Drawn Boy, Pavement, Mojave 3 and Granddaddy. Does it matter to Grant if the Go-Betweens still remain a critics favourite?
"It's better than having no audience," he responds calmly. "Did it ever matter to me? No, I don't think our audience or those good reviews put the band into a position where no one could join the club. I'm just happy we had an audience, if that doesn't sound too romantic. And the fact that we didn't embarrass ourselves was a good thing, too. We haven't been stuck in aspic - we always had more than two songs."
While record sales remain an irrelevant notion to the Go-Betweens - even the most generous terms and grading prove them a commercial failure - the band has always been judged on the quality of its work. Grant regards the discussion of commercial under-achievement as academic ("Just look at our royalty statements! Best sellers, no, but Best Album lists - yes."), yet values the worth of the band's back catalogue as priceless.
"Part of me wants to leave it at that . . . I think the things that inspired us when we decided to form a band remain cut in stone now. For people who have been playing music in the rock area for such a long time we've come through it quite well. The constantly amazing thing is how much people care about our songs. I'm very humbled by it. As a music fan I know songs that have stayed with me for decades and that I turn to in times of great happiness and sadness, songs that make me feel whole. The Friends Of Rachel Worth is the start of a new chapter, unless stuff happens to cut it short that myself and Robert can't even imagine."
The Go-Betweens' new album, The Friends Of Rachel Worth, is released on September 18th. The Go-Betweens play Dublin's Olympia Theatre on October 26th.
