Between thought and expression

NEVER MIND what Stuart Clark has to say. His hormones must've been acting up. When The Go-Betweens played The Mean Fiddler on the 3rd and 4th of June they put to bed all whisperings about their parentage.
Watching the capacity crowd lip-synch their entire back catalogue it was clear that this duo are truly the sons of God incarnate. Forget a slew of past messianic pretenders: Bono, Paddy McAloon, Michael Stipe, Rocky DeValera even. Forster and McLennan have shown us the one and only path worth following, and boy, did they know how to light it up.
It's been eight years since they called a halt to the creative energies that fuelled The Go-Betweens, leaving behind six pristine pop records for our delectation. Watching them trawl through their back catalogue recently, it was as though they d never left home without one another. The phrase 'soul mates' barely captures the symbiotic relationship. 'Blood brothers' might be closer to the truth.
Their last album, 16 Lovers Lane, was one hell of a high note to go out on. Do they think they could ever better it?
McLennan smiles, Forster allows a fleeting grin to crease his lips. "By us?" Grant asks, arching his eyebrows. "Yeah. I don't think many other people could!"
Forster is quick to colour in the gaps.
"We were a band who weren t going to peak and then release mediocre records. The band started in a burst of fire and I think we always knew it would end like that too."
Did their lack of American success prove frustrating, particularly since they were showered with critical plaudits at home and in Europe?
"There's a core of people in America who like us and understand us," Forster insists, "but I think we were way too literary, way too ironic for the American market. Over there, it's that Hootie & The Blowfish thing: it's the work ethic, it's quite dull, a number of things that we just weren't part of."
McLennan nods in agreement. "The '80s in America was a barren land. I'd hate to have been in an American band that was trying to do something different. Imagine being in LA in the mid- 80s? It's changed now - Pavement, Dinosaur Jnr. There s a similarity to what we were doing although obviously they re doing it a bit louder! And Americans, like Australians, want their bands to have attitude. They don't really want someone suggesting that the whole thing s a bit of a joke. Americans really want to believe in their pop stars."
Watching The Go-Betweens live, they surely embody proportional representation at its best, with two frontmen sharing Mantre D duties seamlessly. Forster doesn't see this as unusual.
"Grant and I have been comfortable writing and playing together," he says. "I'd seen Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell break up, Lou Reed and John Cale break up over really petty things. I always thought that that was such a tragedy. To an extent Lennon and McCartney too. And Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry. Obviously Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have got it really worked out where they aren't threatened by each other and can work together. And it s always been like that between Grant and I. We ve always known what The Go-Betweens is, so we couldn t let any kind of petty stuff get in the way of that."
Today, the Mean Fiddler. Tomorrow, who knows? Tinseltown's been looking for a piece of the action.
"We've been working on a film script together for a while," McLennan reveals, "and we sent it out to some people who wanted to see it. Basically there s Hollywood phone calls now!"