Entretiens avec The Cure

RAG Magazine's complete, exclusive interview with Robert Smith
Read the Cure cover story in the March 2007 issue of RAG Magazine.

Interview by Monica Cady

RAG: What are you most excited about right now regarding the Cure?

Robert Smith: It's been a strange period, really. This is the first interview I've done in ages. I was thinking that as I was dialing the number. Normally, you kind of get into a groove with these sort of things, and sort of field questions. I've been doing it long enough that I know how to do it. But I haven't really thought about what we do in terms of summing it up in an interview sense. It's quite weird to do it on the fly.

We started recording a new album last summer. We played a one-off show – similar to the one we are doing in Miami – at Royal Albert Hall, last April, for the Teenage Cancer Trust in London. It was just before we were going into the studio because I wanted to remind everyone, you know, part of the reason for doing it was to remind ourselves of why we do it – the main reason was because it was a good cause and it was a great opportunity to play Albert Hall.

We started recording, which kind of went on and off through the summer. We ended up with 33 songs, I think, by August. But interspersed with that were all the re-released stuff. I've been putting together deluxe double packages for all the Cure albums. I had to listen to everything – all the old tapes and get all the extras together, and do the booklets and stuff. It was kind of time consuming.

Alongside that, I started writing a book, kind of like the official history of the Cure book. And then, it was about August, a couple of people approached me, who had been on the crew with us the previous year, when we had been playing festival shows in 2005. They showed me some of the edits they had done on some of the footage they got together, and played me some of the live recordings and I thought, "Oh it would be okay. Why not? Let's go for it and try to get a DVD done by Christmas."

But that was like a huge project. I didn't realize. I thought I would kind of knock it over in a couple of weeks, but we struggled to get it out before Christmas. That went through November and took up pretty much every waking minute for about two months. That knocked me back, because the rest of the band were kind of waiting around for me to do vocals so we could finish the album, because I had only done, sort of, guide vocals.

We're now in the position where Christmas came and went, and we're back in the studio. I'm finishing the vocals and mixing the album, which should really have been done last October. So everything has been sort of pushed back. I think we're on the third push back now from when the album's going to get released. I think people have generally sort of given up putting a date on it. They are just waiting for me to say, "Okay, it's done." And then we'll kind of fix a date.

The Miami show … we get lots of offers all the time, and the others were very surprised that I accepted this, but it's seemed like such an unusual thing to do. Because the one-off at the Albert Hall last year worked really well. It kind of kick-started everyone. I thought that if we set our sights on playing Miami in March, it would give me kind of an [album release] deadline that I had to stick to because we have to be ready to play. We have to finish the new songs. If there is no deadline, I could see myself going into this summer and picking up a couple of projects along the way, and never really quite finishing [the album].

Just the idea of playing specifically a dance festival is something that we've never done before, and I like the band to experience new things – they are few and far between. It's a great lineup. We're all now looking forward to it.

We just started, in fact, this week, thinking about what set list we are going to put together because it's going to be a one-off, it's not going to be a precursor to what we do. Because we will be playing this year, but we won't be starting until kind of late summer, and we'll be playing through until Christmas, but that will be on the back of the new release. And it will be our own show, and it will be something different. This is much more to do with like the Cure's dance side, I suppose. There's been a bit of conflict – actually, just within the last 48 hours – in the band as to how dancey we should go.

There's a view that we've been – it's hard to kind of put into words really – that there are quit a lot of people in the dance community – producers and DJs – who really like the Cure, but who like the Cure because of what we do, and they make us dancey. We have become part of that [dance] culture because of what we do, and I suspect if we try too hard to do what they (DJs, dance music producers) do, then we'll kind of miss the point. It's almost like we're approaching it, in that we're choosing a set list of songs that we think sums up why the Cure appeals to the dance community. But we're not really gonna go all out and try and put on a dance show. So, it's a fine balance. It's nice that we're focusing on something that's this odd. I suppose, in a way, because it's quite a bit of work, just to do a one-off show, it makes the show that much more special, which is the whole point of doing it.

I was really excited to see that you were coming to Miami. The last time I saw you was at Curiosa, which was amazing.

Yeah, that's like a totally different thing. For me, personally, that was probably the best touring experience I've ever had actually, because I loved what went on behind the scenes. I just loved the camaraderie that developed on that tour and the general sort of mayhem. I thought that as a band we sometimes didn't rise to the occasion. I think a couple members of the band were kind of tired of playing at that point. But I, personally, really loved every second of it.

I saw your first show of the tour in West Palm Beach.

I remember it like it was yesterday. (laughs)

Do you think you'll ever do another Curiosa? That must have been a huge project.

Um, we were approached to do one. I said I wouldn't do one the following year in 2005. We were approached to do it last year, but I wanted to do a new record, so we turned it down. It was suggested to us that we could kind of almost continue it as a band kind of thing and get someone else to take the lead slot. I figured that was sort of missing the point really. I mean I wanted to be part of it. (laughs) The idea wasn't to make money. It was for me to have an experience that I would never otherwise have. It was a very selfish reason why it was put together in the first place. It worked really well, you know, commercially people were surprised by how well it did. But that wasn't really the point. And to put another one together, we've toyed with the idea for this year – over Christmas we kind of talked to a few people – but at the end of the day, there's a very strong sort of sense from hardcore Cure fans around the world for us to play our own shows, to play for longer. The one drawback of doing something like Curiosa is that the more bands you put on, the more interesting it becomes generally, but the less time we have specifically [to play]. And so therefore, it's almost like we have a cameo performance, you know like 90 minutes or so, but never more than two hours. For example, at Albert Hall last year we played just over three hours. And it just flashes by because we really enjoyed it. And I would like to do that this year. I would like to play Cure shows, rather than … you know, I think we'll still take a couple of bands with us when we come to America, but it won't be the same thing with the two stages and the whole razzmatazz. But I don't know, I never say, I mean maybe we would do it again. Maybe we'll do it again next year. It's one of those things where, I think if the right bands, sort of are there, the right feeling, I suppose it's one of those things that probably could happen again.

What can you tell me about the new music? What's gotten harder and what's gotten easier with regard to writing songs over the years?

Well, it's always the words [that] are the hardest part for me. The music, we could probably record 100 songs a year, I should think; if we put our minds to it. The music isn't really a problem. It is a lot harder for me to focus this album, or has been, because of the return of Porl on guitar. He's contributing such a different kind of musicality to the group. And because we are all putting songs in the pot and saying, you know, "What does this sound like?" We're trying lots of different things. We've actually got such a breadth of different stuff. I mean, stylistically it's kind of reminiscent of the Kiss Me album, because there are so many different things going on.

At one point, I was thinking maybe [this could be] a double album with some instrumentals, and being really, really artsy. But after I talked it through with the rest of the band, and primarily the record company (laughs), they weren't very thrilled about a double album. [The label] think[s] it's conceptually sound, but in the current climate, probably not commercially viable. So, I'm thinking we'll probably do the album in two stages. We'll have one [released], which is, in and of itself, a thing. Then we'll probably have like another kind of album, which will be a download album, and will complement the main album. That's my thinking at the moment.

So I think the [songs on the] main album will probably be more connected. It's really, really difficult talking about new music. Because it does sound like us, but it doesn't sound like us at any particular time. You can definitely tell that Porl is back in the band, so it kind of reminds me of the period of Kiss Me, Disintegration and Wish – just because the mood within the band [shows that] Porl's character has come back.

We have got a keyboard in the studio, but it's been used very, very sparingly. There are little touches of piano, and little bits of noise here and there. But generally, it's just a four-piece band. It's bass, two guitars and drums. And it's quite stripped down. There's a lot more space in what we're doing, but it's really a lot more powerful, in a funny way. Because we've only been back in the studio for two weeks, it seems like a long time ago that we played these songs. It's almost as though they're old songs because I've been listening to them since last July. It's amazing that they haven't leaked. It's scary isn't it?

Yeah.

That's because I'm the only person in the world that's got a set. (laughs)

Do you write lyrics every day?

Since we released the last album, which was mid-2004, I've got – I don't know how many pages – a box full of words. I write just as a matter of course. I just write thoughts. But I've never made myself kind of think, "Now I'm writing. This could be something." Because I think that would take away [from it]. It's almost like trying too hard to remember your dreams. It becomes somehow a little bit too intellectualized. I'll often read back on what I wrote and just think, "Rubbish!" and tear it up and throw it away. But at the time I'm writing, I know it doesn't have to be good, and so therefore, it's a release. It's like playing guitar when you're drunk. It always sounds bad the next day. (laughs)

But when we start doing a project, I look through this box of words, and I start trying to match up words to music, and sometimes it's very easy. Other times, it's not so easy – particularly after all this time. I'm kind of 300 songs in [at this point in my career]. It's difficult to try and be genuinely excited about what I'm trying to say. I don't see any point, really, in writing words so that we can make a record. It's never made any sense. It was much easier when I was in my 20s, and I had only done like three or four albums. This is like the 13th album along. But I'm not worried about it.

I think I did do an interview in the last six months, and the interviewer took what I was saying [and made it seem like] I was suffering from writer's block. And I thought, "This is so wide off the mark." I've never understood the concept of writer's block because if you haven't got anything to say, then you haven't got anything to say. It has absolutely nothing to do with trying to write.

I've got so many words. But it's one thing to have sheets and sheets of words in front of you, and it's quite another thing putting it together in a song. Unless you try it, I don't think writers – that's basically journalists – struggle to see the difference in just like writing a few words and actually imagining yourself in front of a microphone, performing those words and singing them. It's a totally different thing.

I've got an ongoing book, that's been going on for years, of things that I think are quite good that I've written, but I would never sing. I couldn't dream of singing [them] because the words are wrong. They would sound ridiculous if I sang them. But on paper, and when I read them to myself in my head, I think they work quite well. So at some point, I'll make that into a thing that will be totally separate. It'll probably be about 600 pages long. (laughs) The stories of writer's block will be knocked firmly on the head.

When you write lyrics do you always write as yourself, or do you ever write through the eyes of other characters?

No, well, if I was really honest, I think the best songs that I've written are me singing, because I feel better. They feel right. Probably some of the bigger songs, or the most popular songs, aren't really me singing. I don't limit myself to my own experiences. I try to write from other people's point of view. I try to write from an imaginary point of view. But often, I'll just come back to something much simpler, and something I've written in that particular time when I was feeling strongly about something. And they're usually the songs that mean something to me.

I think it's the difference between writing a song that has a lot of emotional content and writing a song that's just a good song. The trick, I suppose, is making that good song connect with people, and that's really hard. I think any singer who kind of means what they sing – who doesn't just read the words off a piece of paper – is trying to get inside the character. Writing it is one thing; but actually trying to inhabit the character when you perform it, is another. There are things that we do, where I'm singing things that in my real life I wouldn't dream of saying or singing about; but they're more, kind of, performance things. They sometimes are the songs – when I listen back at our albums, which isn't that often, but when we do the remasters – I think, that I meant, and I can think, that one I don't think I was too sure about.

On the Kiss Me album, that was kind the first time I tried to write from another perspective. I think before then, everything I had written was from my point of view. I think the Kiss Me album, in a lot of ways, was me trying out different things and the band tried different styles. I tried different ways of singing and different ways of writing. But with Disintegration, I went back to my own point of view. And then I tried a different thing again with the Wish album. So, I sometimes incorporate it, but I would prefer it if I could write all the songs from a kind of more heartfelt position because I just think they work there – or they last longer, I think.

To what do you attribute your longevity, and even your influence on so many new, younger bands?

It's partly what we were just talking about. I mean, I've met and gotten to know a few of the younger generations of bands. I think that the one thing they all had in common with regard to the Cure was that they enjoy the fact that we've kind of hung around, and we've done what we wanted to do, and we've been successful but we haven't courted that success. We've kind of just forced our own path, and we've meant it. I think it's that the perception is that we have done what we wanted to do, and even if it had gone wrong, we wouldn't have changed what we did. I think it's that any young band that's any good has to aspire to that – anything else is just worthless. If you succeed on someone else's turns, it might be great at that moment, but I suspect it's pretty short lived. I mean the idea of being proud of what you do – whatever you do – is far more important than the end result. The experience of doing it is worth more than the end result, to be honest. [It's] all of those things.

It is difficult to resist the temptation just to become rubbish. So many bands as they grow a bit older, they just get worse. It's a struggle, and, you know, life has a tendency to take over. It's a terrible thing to resist [regular life] entirely. You can't just like keep being in a band. I mean there are a couple of older bands who sort of think all we need to do is be in a band, whereas I like the idea of sort of balancing playing music with other people and integrating into a more kind of rounded life as you get older. I mean it would be awful for me to feel as alienated and disturbed as I did when I was in my 20s, at this stage in my life. I mean, I would be dead if I felt like that. So, at the same time, when the Cure does do something, I get so immersed in it, I feel like I felt when we did the very first album. So nothing's really changed.

What do you do when you are not focusing on music?

I've got a huge extended family, there are almost 40 of them. It's like uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces, and brothers and sisters and stuff. I spend a lot of time doing normal stuff but without the incumbents of a normal job basically. I have the ideal life that people would like, in that my work is probably the thing that I enjoy the most, and I do it when I feel like it. I kind of go for walks, and I am trying to take up astronomy in a more serious way over the last few years. I am trying to catch up on a lot of things that I've missed on film and television over the last few years when I've been on the road. I've been reading books actually. That's been my biggest chore. I think I read about 15 books in the last two months. And [I do] things that seem really dull, but actually just sitting down and thinking, "I can read until I finish this book and no one can interrupt me." It's that kind of luxury that I really value still. It's something that when I was in school I used to dream about – not being interrupted. It's that part of what I do that I enjoy the most.

Do you think people have this misconception that you are sad and gloomy all the time because some of your songs are melancholy?

Um, I think there was a misconception for a long time. I don't think it's probably as bad now because when we're (pauses) – that's a tricky one. (laughs) The Cure still makes some pretty dark music. I mean there are songs on this [next] album, which are among the darkest that we've ever done. They reflect a part of my character that's still there, that will never go away. I still am subject to incredible bouts of depression, I suppose. But it's in the same way as pretty much everyone I know who thinks about what's going on, is subject to those kind of dark thoughts and dark moments.

I've always tried to work [my emotions] out and into songs as music. Sometimes they work so well that other people kind of feel that they're about themselves. It's great when that happens because I think that's the reason why I'm doing it. You know, if I was doing it for just myself, I wouldn't bother recording the vocals. So, it's a wonderful thing when that happens.

But, I suppose if there ever is a downside, it's that then this perception starts to grow that that's who I am. But I've always maintained that I'm just not very good at writing happy songs. (laughs) It's really honestly as simple as that. Occasionally I come up with a really good happy song like "Mint Car" or something, and then I shock myself. I think, "I'm genuinely happy in this song." But most of the time when [the band is chatting, they] will say, "Let's do something a little more upbeat," and I try it, and it just sounds awful. (laughs) It sounds really insincere.

Last summer, when we recorded, it was the best time that I've ever had in the studio - ever - like my whole life. It was just such good fun. And yet, at the end of the day, we would listen back to what we had done, and it would be incredibly doom-laden. So it's a weird sort of dichotomy. The happier we get as a band, kind of the gloomier the music gets. I think it's one of those things where if we were really unhappy with what we were doing, we would try and (pauses) – it's kind of what they say about comedians being really tragic, you know, I suppose we must be pretty happy. That's why we make miserable music.

But, all jokes aside, I think the reason that perception has sort of dissolved a little bit or gone away is because the Cure's work is now seen in a slightly different way. [Especially with the remasters] it's kind of saying, "Well hang on. We do songs like 'Mint Car' and all those pop singles." It's kind of like the Miami show. We're being asked to do that primarily because of the singles, not because of the permanent epics, but that's a side of the band that I really enjoy.

There are so many different sides to the Cure that it's very hard for us to think that everyone thinks, "Ah there's that miserable bloke." There are too many instances where I'm not that miserable bloke. It doesn't really work. I think without that really dark side, I don't think the Cure would be a very interesting group.

Pete Wentz said that he was too intimidated by you to say hello when you two rode an elevator together. You're such an icon and I would imagine a lot of fans might be too intimidated to talk to you. Do fans approach you often?

Um, yeah, I think we've really been accessible. Well, I haven't seen a lot of bands being in close proximity to other bigger bands. I think we're pretty accessible. I mean, certainly as people we are. It's sometimes hard to be as accessible as fans want you to be because fans see you from their point-of-view, whereas I see 500 people. One of those 500 people just sees me. Sometimes you can't probably be as accessible as you would like to be because it's physically impossible. You often see people sort of hanging back, and you're thinking, "Go on, go on, take the step, I'm not going to bite you." The more outgoing people are obviously the ones at the front of the cue, kind of thing. But um, I mean we've always had really good rapport with our fans. I mean, I hate talking about the fans because we've gotten to know so many of them over the years that there are actually a lot of them who are friends really, on first-name terms and I have numbers in my phone of people who I first met backstage or outside. So, you know, whenever I look at people, I don't look at them as fans. I just look at them as people who enjoy the show. I know it seems like a foolish distinction, but it's kind of important. I would hate to kind of take it for granted that people like the Cure just because we're the Cure, you know, that would be in a bad mistake.

So, you know, people being kind of worried about what's going to happen if they say anything [to me] – actually, they should be. (laughs) Be frightened to speak.

Tell me about your experience with South Park. Do you keep in touch with Matt Stone and Trey Parker?

Yeah, I saw them on the Curiosa tour. We don't hang out. (laughs) It's kind of hard living on the other side of the world. I still watch South Park. I still think it's one of the best things on television actually. It's excellent how they keeping pushing. I mean I think they've been trying to get themselves taken off the air for the last three years. They just haven't managed it yet. (laughs) It's refreshing. They deal with subjects in their own way, which a lot of people are kind of reluctant to touch. I think underlying South Park, amidst all the idiot humor, there's always the part where they say, "What have we learned? I've learned something today." I share my enjoyment of it with my nephews and nieces. It's one of those bonding things. Everyone kind of sits around and rolls with laughter. When I was in [the South Park episode], it was a career high for me.

Do you still wear MAC Ruby Woo?

You know, that's a good question. I have no idea. I still wear MAC because they gave me a huge box of stuff. (laughs) I have no reason to change. It doesn't run on stage, which is what I really care about. I'm not wearing make-up at the moment.

You do your own makeup before you go onstage, right? You don't have someone do it for you.

No, I always do it. I hate people touching my face. It drives me mad.

A lot of fans probably wonder whether you check your own MySpace page, or if it's a record-label thing.

Ooooh, it's not a record label thing. The thing about MySpace, last year, when we were in the studio, we had a Cure MySpace page and then Geffen was doing it. It was last spring. And I realized, I had been told by a couple of people, that someone in particular was pretending to be me, and people were being taken in by it. And they were getting e-mails and stuff, and it was all getting a little bit unpleasant. And so I went on to MySpace and created a site. And I said to the other [band members], we should all start our own pages, if for no other reason than to kind of run our own MySpace pages and link them to the Cure, and at the same time take over control of the Cure MySpace site.

So, the Cure MySpace site is run by us, in much the same way as the content of the Cure – the www.thecure.com is run by us. It's really weird because I post on there and my name comes up, and I'm posting in big capital letters and people still think it's the record company. With the Cure MySpace page; that's run by us. With the individual ones, I think Porl's page is quite active, and Simon's as well. I don't think Jason even knows he's got one. And mine, I think I've got five friends at the moment because the Cure page, I think, is much more important. The friends' request is run in a proper way. Mine is just to stop anyone else from pretending they're me.

I suppose I've got a lot of younger nieces and nephews who are on MySpace. I've always been very loathed to go on because I fear that there's something slightly uncomfortable about their Uncle Robert going on MySpace. So I like the idea of me having a page so that no one can pretend to be me, but I don't really think that I should get too heavily involved as an individual. I think the band benefits from being on there. I think it's kind of a good networking thing. But I think it's weird how many people who are kind of my age are on there. It feels a little bit kind of odd, I don't know. But if I say that, people will look at me and say, "What do you mean odd?!" (laughs) It's like a young person's community. That's what we got from it when we were investigating it last spring. It's a great idea. It's a fantastic idea. But it's not really for us. I mean our network takes place in the real world, and we go to Japan and America and meet people. You know, it seems rather strange for us to inhabit this place where people haven't got the means or aren't old enough basically to kind of be out there doing it for real, but hopefully … I think the best thing about it is that it engenders this idea of a global community in a very real sense. In that way, it's a good thing. You know, the marketing side and the advertising side will eventually make it uncool, and people will probably migrate to something else. But the actual concept of it is such a great concept. We have to be involved in it because we are a global band.

I know you said the label wasn't really supportive of the double-album concept for your next release. Considering the challenges in the record industry lately, do you think the label tries to have more control over what you do than they did in earlier years?

No, they don't really. If I wanted a double disc; I would have it. They wouldn't stop it, but they just are advising me that they don't think it's a good idea in commercial terms, which is what they're there for. I mean they're not questioning what I do artistically. They wouldn't dare. Well, actually, they wouldn't want to because we are on the label because they like what we do. There's no point in them trying to second-guess what I do. That's why they signed us. No, I think, I mean it's obvious to me, as well, that the trend is away from albums. [The trend is in] the single downloads.

We're probably on the cusp of a complete paradigm shift with regards to how people listen to music. I realize that we are at the end of a particular era. We grew up with punk and we've kind of gone through to the end of this album-based era. I think it is changing, which is kind of sad in a way because I like the idea of like an hour's worth of music by an artist, but then, maybe that's just because that's what I'm used to. Many people now just like listening to songs rather than albums. I think we don't suffer as much as a lot of people because there's very little filler on a Cure album. That's why it takes so long to do. (laughs) People, generally, with our downloads on the stuff that we've got, it's our albums that are downloaded. It's very, very rare that people download single Cure tracks, when I've looked at the [reports] that comes my way.

With the Festival DVD, we gave it to the label and said, "We want this sold around the world at the lowest possible price. We actually don't want to have any money from this at all. We just want you to sell this double disc for nothing." And they went with that. They were happy. Well, they weren't actually that happy with it. But they understood the concept of it.

It's always difficult to get the balance right when you're dealing with people who essentially, at heart, want to be commercially successful. That's what record companies are. There are people at record companies who are really good people, and who care greatly about the artists, and essentially the music, and understand that is the reason they exist. There are other people at the record companies who find the artists irritating and the music kind of an annoying product, and wish that they were selling something easier so they could make more money.

I've always thought that we control our own destiny, but I've never been too involved with kind of the lacerations of the record industry. It's kind of trite, really, and a lot of the people are so stupid and it's just not worth it.

I guess one of the benefits of getting older – there are a few, but not many (laughs) – is I find myself being older than most of the people now who are telling me what would be best, and kind of dry out my senses because they probably realize that I've seen that and done it. It gives me a certain amount of clout, I suppose.

Definitely. What are your plans while you're in Miami?

We're staying for a week actually. It will give us a nice break in the sun, and will do us good.



-- www.thecure.com

The Cure plays tonight at Ultra
BY MICHAEL HAMERSLY
mhamersly@MiamiHerald.com

* Winter Music Conference best bets

Judging from his all-black get-ups, gloom-and-doom lyrics and songs with titles such as The Hanging Garden, Torture and Disintegration, fans might expect Robert Smith to come off as surly and withdrawn.

But the iconic lead singer of The Cure -- the hugely influential British band that evolved from the post-punk Gothic-rock scene of the early '80s into creating poetic pop-rock soundscapes with swirling layers of guitar and keyboards -- is downright jovial, at times almost bubbling over in a pleasingly self-deprecating stream-of-consciousness, muttering and stammering along like Hugh Grant in a romantic comedy.

Smith says The Cure might have some surprises in store when it headlines the dance music-heavy Ultra Music Festival tonight at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami. He talked to The Miami Herald about his life and the band.

Q: How do you feel your music fits in with a festival that's so heavily dominated by dance music and DJs?

A: I've been thinking about this on and off since we agreed to do it. There's been a connection between The Cure and dance as a genre in its various forms throughout the years, probably starting with Let's Go To Bed in 1983, and that was kind of the advent of the 12'' single.

This connection between us and the more modern dance movement probably stemmed, I think, from Paul Oakenfold's remix of Lullaby in 1989 and it got massive play on Ibiza. And at that time, very few people even knew what Ibiza was -- you know, it was an island somewhere. It didn't really have the cultural significance it does now.

And the reason why we did the Mixed Up album is because we got this idea that there were lots of people playing Cure music at raves, and this whole kind of movement was kicking up -- and I just really loved what I was hearing.

We did the Mixed Up album on the back of that, using a lot of remixes that we'd done and sending stuff out to be remixed. We were completely hammered for it -- we were slayed by the press, and a lot of fans were a bit disturbed by that release. They wondered what we were doing: Was this the start of something horrible?

But I loved it. At the time, I said in interviews, ''This is the only Cure album I can listen to,'' and I was being truthful, because it was like someone else had made a Cure album. I could kick back and listen to The Cure and it had nothing to do with me. It just appealed to me.

Q: What can we expect from The Cure's show at Ultra?

A: We want this Miami thing to be special, that won't be like anything else we've done, and probably won't be like anything we will do. So we're trying to create a two-hour show that reflects the fact that we're in Miami playing a dance festival. And we've hit kind of a wall, because we're unsure within the band whether we should try to reflect what [DJs] do onstage -- a dance set.

Or should we play a Cure set comprised of songs such as Pictures Of You and Lullaby in their Cure form, to have some kind of musical relief from what's going on in the other 48 hours? It's a tricky one.

I like the idea of perhaps putting some songs back in the set that we haven't done for awhile, some of the more upbeat, immediate stuff.

Q: So many of your songs are about romantic relationships -- some sweet, some dysfunctional. How much of that is based on your own experiences?

A: A lot of the songs I've written -- in fact, most of them -- are written from experience. Some of them are more honest than others. Some of them -- I take situations and I kind of do a ''what-if'' in my head.

Q: You have a reputation as this mopey, rainy day persona, but you seem just the opposite. What's the story?

A: I've led a charmed life, pretty much. I can't believe that I've been able to do pretty much everything I've ever wanted to do. But when I was younger, looking back, I think perhaps unknowingly I engineered situations where I would endure pain [laughs]. I think that's what young people do sometimes -- just to see what it feels like. I tend to do things now that I hope I'd enjoy.

There are places inside my head that are still quite dark. I'm really lucky in the life that I'm able to lead, but I still have huge unresolved dilemmas about life and what goes on in the world.

As a personality, I think I'm a bit fractured: I've got two very distinct sides to me and one of them is unpleasant, which I try to keep in check. But it works for the band.

Q: Do you have a preference between the lighter or darker side of The Cure?

A: I am drawn, much more so, to the more emotional, darker stuff. I think the really bright poppy stuff, when it works, is really good and it makes the band more interesting. But there's another part of The Cure, which is a more wistful or slightly melancholic or happy/sad kind of thing, which I like and has drawn a lot fo people into The Cure -- like Pictures Of You. It's not a terribly sad song on first listen -- it's not obviously end-of-the-world stuff -- but at that time in my life I was kind of laying bare things that were probably better left unsaid. It caused an awful lot of upset in my own life; it's the price you pay for writing songs that are genuinely emotional.

Q: Do you consider yourself a romantic ?

A: I would like to be. I don't really know whether I am or not. I find myself at times, you know, howling at the moon; other times I can't believe how untouched I am and how disconnected I feel.

But I haven't really closed down as I've gotten older. If anything, I've gotten worse, I suppose. I've become more tearful [laughs], but I think that's just old age creeping in. I'll find myself in tears watching a cat food commercial -- it's madness, really.

Q: It took a few albums for The Cure to have much commercial success. How important was it for you to finally have ``hits''?

A: With hindsight, it was crucial to the band. The first album, [1979's] Three Imaginary Boys, was a weird collection of stuff we were doing out of school, and it was quirky and I wasn't really convinced by it, so I didn't expect anyone else to be.

[Later], when I was being pushed as kind of this idiot lead character doing The Walk and Lovecats and stuff, I went along with it.

But it was much more important to me to make albums that contained songs that had genuine emotion in them. The singles almost used to trick people into listening -- they were the lure.

Q: How long will The Cure keep it up?

A: I don't ever think about it anymore. I used to make these pronouncements -- you know, ''That's it!'' But we're just at the point now I'm finishing vocals and mixing on a new record. [And] we are scheduling shows starting in late summer that will run through to Christmas, so this year we are gonna be quite active. Beyond that, it really depends on what my physical and mental health is like come Christmas.



Ultra Music Festival 2007

March 23rd, 2007 - Miami, Florida (Bicentennial Park)

Out of This World, Pictures of You, Fascination Street, alt.end, End of the World, The Walk, Lovesong, Push, The Big Hand, Lullaby, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Hot Hot Hot, M, Play For Today, Friday I'm In Love, Inbetween Days, Just Like Heaven, Want, Never Enough, Wrong Number, One Hundred Years, A Forest

1st encore: Let's Go To Bed, Close To Me, Why Can't I Be You?
2nd encore: Boys Don't Cry

The Cure Seeing Double On 13th Studio Album

July 09, 2007, 12:25 PM ET
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

Would one expect anything less than a double album from the Cure on the occasion of its 13th studio release? "Rather than cut it down, at the stage we're at with the band, I'm making this record because I want to enjoy the process and be proud of the finished result," frontman Robert Smith tells Billboard of the as-yet-untitled effort, due in October via Suretone/Geffen. "It isn't a commercial concern for me."

"What will probably happen is that a double album will come out like a limited edition, mixed by me," he continues. "A single-disc version, which I assume will be primarily chosen by the label, might get mixed by someone else in order to have a different thing. There's a concern Cure fans will feel like they have to get both, but the fact is, I've agreed to sell the double version at a single album price, because I feel that strongly about it. It is almost impossible to get a double album nowadays. I naively thought my standing as an artist would push aside all objections, but the world gets ever more commercial as it turns."

Tracks due to make the cut include "Lusting Here in Your Mind" ("It sounds suspiciously like heavy rock to me," Smith says), "The Hungry Ghost," "The Perfect Boy," "Christmas Without You" ("That's not a very happy song," he says) and "Please Come Home."

"There are songs about relationships, the material world, politics and religion. They're very upfront and dynamic," says Smith of the new songs. "People will be surprised how stripped-down and in-your-face the record is."

Smith also trolled through his massive catalog of demos and found three pieces dating back to the '80s that the band revamped. "They've changed quite a lot, but the basic melody and chord structure has remained," he says. "They do have a certain old Cure-ness about them."

As usual, Smith slaved over the lyrics, contributing to a delay in completing the project. "I've gone through so many revisions, probably more than all of the other records put together," he says. "I just wanted to get the tone right to reflect how I am at the age I'm at."

Smith promises the Cure will play new material during its fall North American tour, but not too much. "A lot of people who come to Cure shows want to hear something they haven't heard before, but they also want to hear old songs," he offers. "I enjoy playing them. But the idea of going out and doing a two-and-a-half hour show and including 10 or 12 new songs would actually be really awful, I think. A show is an experience. Anyone coming to a Cure show isn't going to go home and think about buying the album. They've already made their minds up by the fact they've bought a ticket to see us."




LUSTING HERE IN YOUR MIND
"It sounds suspiciously like heavy rock to me"

THE HUNGRY GHOST

THE PERFECT BOY

CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU
"That's not a very happy song"

PLEASE COME HOME

Here comes The Cure
By Zul Othman, TODAY | Posted: 10 July 2007 1215 hrs



What: The Cure - Live In Singapore
When: Aug 1, 8pm
Where: Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Tickets: $178, $148, $118 and $78, from SISTIC

Robert Smith, front man for The Cure and supposed Godfather of Goth to many, is in a good mood.

The reason? A new album is in the works, and he is looking forward to the prospect of unleashing it to legions of fans early next year.

"I've given myself a deadline to finish before Christmas, and I should be shot if I don't finish on time," the 48-year-old told Today in a phone interview from a recording studio in South London on Friday where he was promoting The Cure's highly-anticipated Singapore Indoor Stadium debut on Aug 1.

Over the phone, Smith sounded in high spirits, as if he had forgotten the tough last few years for the iconic British outfit, which burst onto the music scene in 1977.

The Cure — which for the past two years have also comprised guitarist Porl Thompson, bassist Simon Gallup and drummer Jason Cooper — belongs in the pantheon of hugely influential cult bands, and is best remembered for their sombre post-punk melodies as well as Smith's smudged lipstick and gravity-defying hair.

To date, the band has 12 studio albums and five live ones, selling over 27 million copies worldwide. This, despite the fact that their last three albums, Wild Mood Swings (1996), Bloodflowers (2000) and erstwhile swansong, The Cure (2004), barely registered on the public radar.

Smith expressed his excitement for the upcoming concert, but his voice shuddered slightly when talk of events leading up to the last album came up. "Recording the last album was a harrowing experience," he said. "We had contracted a brand new producer, Ross Robinson. It was the first time we've ever done anything like that.

"I wanted to trust someone, let go of my responsibilities and just be a singer for a change. I wanted a person I could trust and respect, and Ross was that person. He had no interest in telling me how to do what I do; he just wanted us to sound as best as we could."

It proved too much for the rest of The Cure, which lead to a break-up in late 2004. "The character of the band was fractured by what Ross did," Smith sighed. "(We) had become slightly complacent — perhaps towards each other — and Ross tore that apart. As an album, The Cure is slightly too long and unfocused in parts. But that wasn't Ross' fault but more to do with the band."

>> Album No 13 <<

Bringing an outsider to size up your shortcomings was not easy, Smith admitted. "Under Ross, I was screamed at. That never happened before for as long as I've done music, but I found it strangely liberating," he said.

Smith then took a few months off but was enticed back in 2005 by his brother-in-law and long time The Cure associate, Porl Thompson.

The latter first debuted on their 1979 album, Three Imaginary Boys, but the long-time friends also shared a tumultuous musical history and often fought over the band's creative direction. Deciding he had enough, Thompson left in 1993 to take up a stint as a guitarist in Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Jimmy Page touring band.

Nonetheless, Smith was delighted by Thompson's offer to be part of The Cure again.

"Porl's the real catalyst for us getting back together," he quipped. "When he offered to rejoin, I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. We set aside our differences and two years on, we're hard at work."

Initially, Smith confessed that he wasn't too eager to re-form. "I was worried about getting new band members and not having anything in common with them. Thankfully, Porl shares our experiences and our backgrounds so he's a natural fit," he said.

Bassist Gallup has been in the band on-and-off since 1979, while drummer Cooper has been playing drums for The Cure since 1995.

Pleased that his band is up and running yet again, rock's poster boy for doom and gloom sounds like a man who got his groove back.

For a rocker who's spent three decades in the game, Smith is surprisingly down to earth: During the 30-minute chat, Smith was a polite, witty and affable fellow who seemed completely at odds with his reputation as a British music icon. While humbled by the fact that newer bands like Interpol and My Chemical Romance are constantly singing praises about The Cure, Smith said his real focus is getting album 13 out to the stores as soon as possible.

Not that he needs to hurry, of course.

Judging by his vast body of work, Smith may never have to compose another song again: The Cure have left behind classic albums such as 1987's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, 1989's Disintegration, and songs like Charlotte Sometimes, The Hanging Garden, Just Like Heaven, In Between Days, Lullaby, Friday I'm In Love, along with over 100 others.

But Smith has a more personal reason for buckling down to work. "It's been 20 years since one of our most famous albums Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was released in 1987," he said.

"That has been one of my touchstones when it came to preparing album number 13. I'm hoping this thing we're working on right now can be seen as a continuation to Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, (that) there will be there some songs on our new album that people will remember in 20 years time."

So what's the album title?

"Only I know that, not even the band knows what (it) will be called. Until we announce the exact release date, I'm not telling anyone. Not even my own mother!" he said, playing coy.

>> IT's not about fame <<

Smith is confident that their latest album will go down well with fans, but The Cure's continued cult success leaves him in a quandary.

Although he has no problems playing to audiences half his age, Smith finds it "distressing" that some critics are deriding The Cure's recent re-forming as "1980s has-beens trading on past glories."

It's sad to know The Cure are now on the same level as Duran Duran, he joked.

"Duran Duran epitomised the worst excesses of 1980s music," he scoffed. "Seeing that we gained prominence in the 1980s ourselves, I don't think I'm being hypocritical. If you were British at that time, things were split down the middle: On one side, you had (then) Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher bringing in a money-grubbing 'me me me' culture which spawned the detestable, despicable and greedy people of the time," he said.

For Smith, Duran Duran was a manifestation of that Thatcherite ideal: The five-piece outfit is remembered for many excesses and were wantonly spending money on the most frivolous things like making a music video for their single, Save A Prayer, in Sri Lanka, circa 1982.

"Although we weren't a politicised band, The Cure represented a less materialistic view of England. The Cure would go to play in stadiums across America and no one could understand how we did it. We were an underground band who sold millions of albums and playing concerts in front of thousands of people. Duran Duran and bands like that tried everything to be famous while The Cure couldn't care less about fame," he laughed.

Be that as it may, fans can rest assured that advancing age hasn't stifled any of Smith's so called eccentricities. He assures that at the upcoming Singapore show, the lipstick and gravity-defying hairstyle will be present and correct.

When asked about what sets him apart from the other bands, Smith said The Cure have survived this long because they're not in it for the fame.

"I'm glad we shied away from all that rock star grandstanding, and I'm proud to say there isn't a single picture of me from the 1980s that I would call embarrassing," he said.

"When I think about it, every single band in the whole f****** world looks s*** when compared to The Cure!" - TODAY/fa

Good guys wear black

It's not all doom and gloom in the world of the Cure's Robert Smith, writes John Lloyd

John Lloyd
Jul 19, 2007

The last time Robert Smith stopped in Hong Kong, he wasn't sure where he was. Tired and emotional after missing a connecting flight from Japan
to Australia (or the other way round - he really can't remember), he recalls being in a hotel room with his band, the Cure, feeling far less than 100 per cent. Something to do with drinking. It was 1984. The outside world was a muddle of bright lights and loud noises. "I don't even think I knew I was in Hong Kong," he says.

It's 4.30am in London, but Smith sounds chipper on the phone. It's the end of his work day, or night (he starts at 2pm) and he's been trying to wrap up the band's 13th studio album before they head off on a tour taking in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australasia and North America. When Smith arrives here for the Cure's July 30 show, he'll be treating it as his first official trip. "My intention this time is to visit Hong Kong and walk away from it with some memories of what it's like," he says
with a wry laugh.

The Cure have been pegged as a gothic rock band, but their vast catalogue of songs, from the gloomy Charlotte Sometimes to the syrupy Friday, I'm in Love and the hopelessly romantic Lovesong, renders any categorisation futile. Since the band formed as a teenage outfit in the 1970s, its changing lineup of members has threatened, but never extinguished, its existence. Smith has been the only constant.


Guitarist Porl Thompson is Smith's brother-in-law and was a member of the original lineup in 1976, but was dropped in 1979, only to be re-enlisted in 1983. He stayed until 1993, when he left to tour with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. He eventually helped reform the Cure in 2005.

Jason Cooper has been first-choice drummer since 1995.

Bassist Simon Gallup joined the band in 1979, before leaving three years later due to differences with Smith. As he explained shortly after: "It's just basically that Robert and I are both really arrogant bastards, and it got to an extreme. I suppose you just can't have two egocentrics in a band, and Robert was sort of `the main man'."

But Gallup was back with the Cure by 1985 and was best man at Smith's wedding in 1988.

With his bird's nest of black hair and lipstick that looks as if it's been applied with a spatula, 48-year-old Smith remains a looming influence in pop culture, as evinced by the mainstream success of emo, of which he's probably chief progenitor. Bands such as My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Interpol all owe him a debt.

He has drunkenly interviewed David Bowie on a London radio station and performed at his birthday concert, he's beaten up a cartoon version of
Barbara Streisand in an episode of South Park, and he's responsible for writing the music that helped sell more than 25 million albums. But he's
not sure what to expect in Hong Kong. "I don't know what the Cure mean in Hong Kong, if anything," he says.

He needn't worry. The band has a solid following here, says music critic Wong Chi-chung. "They transformed gothic into another level that's more
accessible, which is a good thing because sometimes gothic music turns itself into an indulgence," Wong says.

Local musicians such as Seasons Lee, formerly of the band Virus but now a solo act, consciously reference Smith. Lee plays his own brand of
Canto-Goth, says Wong.

But there are detractors. In 1990, for instance, an evangelical radio host described their work as the music of "negativism, nihilism, and nothingism" and convinced a 13-year-old fan to renounce the Cure on-air and pledge to heal her troubled relationship with her mother, for which the band was apparently to blame. Smith, a soft-spoken but talkative man with a quick wit, scoffs at the story. "I think all evangelicals are nutcases," he says. A half-second passes. "Unequivocally - nutcases."

Despite an increasing benevolence demonstrated by a series of charity gigs in recent years, Smith stands by the nihilism of some of his lyrics. "Essentially, my position has remained unchanged: I find it very, very difficult to see a real point in existence."

But his gloom-mongering has been tempered by time. "At 48, you'd have to be insane to think, `I can just keep doing what I'm doing without
taking any notice of what's going on around me'. You'd be morally bankrupt."

The forthcoming album has been more than a year in the making, having been delayed by a drawn-out DVD project, Festival 2005. When it eventually emerges, a special-edition double album mixed by Smith is likely to follow. He has resisted the urge to airbrush the songs in an effort to capture the spontaneity and rawness of the recording sessions and he's pleased with the result.

Smith is also rediscovering the joy of being in a band. The Cure's last outing - for 2004's eponymous album - was so fraught that it resulted in another break-up. But he says that "this album has been without question the most pleasurable experience I've ever had in a recording studio."

It feels as if the quartet are all pulling in the same direction. "We've played great shows and the last album had some great songs on it and was a good album, but I forgot what it was like to come off stage feeling that I was part of something bigger than me."

A Night with the Cure, Jul 30, 8pm, AsiaWorld-Arena, Chek Lap Kok, HK$380, HK$580, HK$780. HK Ticketing. Inquiries: 3128 8288

Documentary To Celebrate The Cure's 30th

July 19, 2007, 3:00 PM ET
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.


It's still two years away, but the Cure frontman Robert Smith is well underway on a DVD documentary about the band that will be released in 2009, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of its debut album, "Three Imaginary Boys."

"This will include interviews with everybody who has ever been in the band, and everybody who has been an important part of the Cure," Smith reveals to Billboard.com, adding that the interview process will begin shortly.

Smith is hoping to secure the services of longtime Cure video director Tim Pope to assist with the as-yet-untitled project. "Tim has been there from 1982 onward into the mid '90s," he says. "We've kept in touch and he's done some things with us since. People will react to him very well in an interview scenario."

Due to time constraints, the documentary will take on a new life on the band's Web site, which will feature additional archival footage. "We're planning on an hour per decade, but there's at least 20 hours per decade on videotape and other weird formats," Smith notes.

Also in the pipeline for 2008 are expanded reissues of the vintage Cure albums "Disintegration" and "Wish," which Smith had to put on hold while finishing the band's upcoming double-disc set for Suretone/Geffen. He says "Disintegration" will feature a bonus disc of new remixes, and that he's pushing for "Wish" to include a new 5.1 audio mix.

"People seem to want to kill that off, which is a shame," he says of that format. "It's far and away the most fantastic way of listening to music."

As previously reported, the Cure will tour North America this fall, beginning Sept. 13 in Tampa, Fla.



Smith: Don't Hold Breath For Simpson Collab

July 20, 2007, 2:20 PM ET
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.


A few months back, most everybody was surprised to hear that the Cure's Robert Smith was going to collaborate with pop star Ashlee Simpson on some of her new material -- and no one more so than Smith himself.

The truth, according to Smith, is that the two parties have not worked together in any form as of yet, but a pairing is not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

"I would be hugely surprised if I end up working with Ashlee this year, but I haven't ruled it out," he tells Billboard.com. "I went to see her in Chicago. We have people we both know, and I have some nephews and nieces who think she's really good. I was impressed. The fact is, when she got on stage and sang, she was really good."

"It was staggering the amount of coverage that got," Smith adds. "I was encouraged to issue a denial, but I thought, why? I don't deny anything. I don't see the point. I've worked with lots of different people down the years."

According to a Geffen spokesperson, Simpson's next album should be out before the end of the year, but no release date has been confirmed.

As for Smith, he revealed he has another unusual collaboration lined up, but declined to elaborate at this stage of the process, other than to say, "It's in a different genre than the one I'm associated with."

"The people who are involved, their label doesn't know about it," he says with a chuckle. "I don't know that they'd be happy. I mean, I could well tarnish other peoples' reputations -- people who rely on being squeaky clean or family friendly. Their label might not look very kindly at all to them working with someone as objectionable and as suspect as me."

As previously reported, the Cure will release a new album in October via Suretone/Geffen and will be on tour in North America this fall.

The best Cure in town

July 22, 2007 03:35pm


THE love of playing brings legendary The Cure back to Australia for the first time in seven years.

“That's one of the reasons we're going out on the road again to tour now before there's even a new album out,'' says Robert Smith, frontman of the English band which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Not everyone sees the sense in Smith's decision to hit the road without a fresh album but, to him, it's pretty straightforward for the influential dark pop act.

“The record label thinks I've lost my mind,'' Smith says. ``They don't understand but it's simple, innit - we're going out to play Cure shows.

“We don't need to try to sell the next record. Being honest, people don't really want to hear 13 new songs at a show. They wanna hear a few new songs and loads more they recognise.''

As it turns out, Adelaide holds a very special place in Smith's heart.

“Yes, it's true,'' he says with a smile.

“I've got a lot of love for the place.''

While he has a very special, at-yet-untitled new recording project on the boil, we'll have to wait until October for it to arrive.

Smith's wrangling with lyrics is infamous and once more contributed to the delay in arrival of the new album. But he assures us it will be worth it.

“I have to be proud of what I've written and I'm not happy just banging something out for the sake of it,'' he says. ``It has to fit and so I have to think about not only what I want to sing about but also what do I want to hear.

“Lyrics are always the hardest part of the process and it's rewarding when I get it right, but it is the only part - that ever feels like work.

“The writing of the music is sometimes as simple as just picking up an instrument and start playing.

“When I'm playing with the others nowadays, particularly with Porl (Thompson, guitar) back in the band, I find a vitality that was starting to get lost in the last line-up.

“It's like I've rediscovered why I love to do this.''

Smith is quick to clarify he is casting no aspersions. ``We played some fantastic shows in the previous line-up - don't get me wrong - but something disappeared along the way: the joy of playing music for the sake of playing music and for no other reason,'' he says.

Audiences will get plenty of opportunity to hear their Cure favourites as this four man line-up (sans keyboards) is planning on a very long show.

“We’re having such a good time playing that people will definitely be getting value for money,'' Smith says.

The lead singer is conscious the band is about to reach a couple of important milestones.

“Blood scary, innit?'' he says. ``This is the 13th Cure album and we're getting close to our 30th anniversary as a band. I wanted to do something really special and grand to celebrate.

“About this time last year, we all went into the studio for about three months without really knowing what we were going to do. We were all in the same room, playing live and creating music naturally as we went, and it came together really well.

“I figured it would hopefully turn out to be a happy experiment so we just kept recording. We ended up with 33 backing tracks.

“I originally wanted to write the words as we went along but my idea very quickly fell by the wayside because I just couldn't keep up.''

Other commitments sprang up to delay work on the album.

“Some people have wondered where weve been all this time, but we have been busy, believe it or not,'' Smith says. “Honestly, we've probably spent less time in the studio working on this record than we did on the last three albums.

“Instead of concentrating on lyrics, I got co-opted into other projects during the time off, including the 30-song Festival 2005 DVD.

“But I ended up being dumped on the other side of it near Christmas with no words written.''

Smith's high spirits show that, rather than negatively effect the new record, the break seems to have been just the ticket.

“The funny thing is, by having a nine-month break between the first and second recording sessions, it's actually become a better album,'' Smith says. “Everyone has had a fresher perspective on it. We've had a lot of time to think about it without going over it too much.

“We've been able to come back and play them with much more freedom than if we'd laboured to death over them. That's when I came up with the idea of reworking the material into a double album.''

Trying to convince a record label at large in the real world that a Cure double album is commercially viable might normally be a tough prospect. But Smith takes it all in his stride. “We're at that stage in our career where, to be frank, I don't really care what anyone else thinks,'' Smith says.

“Who gives a toss what people think is commercially viable? We're the bloody Cure, aren't we?

“If I had a penny for every time someone's told me I was committing commercial suicide because I took a left turn with my creativity, I could've bought my own island. Commercial viability means nothing if I'm not happy with the record, so the question I've got to ask myself is: is it creatively viable?

“Because that's a much more pertinent line of inquiry.''

The Cure's influence has been noted by many critics .

“Personally, I'm really touched and flattered when bands cite us as an influence,'' he says. ``Interpol for instance. I really like them and think they're probably one of the best live bands I've seen in ages.''

Smith uses this example to show how what goes around, comes around.

“No one exists in a vacuum,'' he says.

“No one seems to have picked it up, but one of my biggest influences is Jimi Hendrix - but I'm more influenced by the way he sang and the songs he wrote than I am by his guitar playing.''

The Cure plays Adelaide Entertainment Centre on August 6. Bookings: Ticketek.

Cure is just the tonic

5:00AM Sunday July 22, 2007
By Hamish Mckenzie

It took two blokes from the 'Naki to convince the Cure to add New Zealand to their upcoming tour of Asia, Australia and North America - and Robert Smith couldn't be happier. The frontman for the iconic alt rock band wanted to return to the country he describes as "breathtakingly beautiful", but for various reasons it was left off the itinerary.

That's when Alastair Ross and Gordon Pitcairn of New Plymouth stepped in. Their "We Need a Cure Tour!!" petition attracted more than 3000 signatures and ultimately resulted in the band booking a spot at Auckland's Vector Arena on August 14.

"It coincided happily with our intention to play New Zealand anyway, so we could be the good guys without really trying too hard," says Smith on the phone from a London studio, where he's been working on the Cure's 13th album.

The band was under pressure to play more shows in Australia because it's a bigger market, but Smith says he couldn't ignore the petition.

"And they seemed very sweet lads as well, so I thought it's only fair. If people get motivated like that, you have to respond because otherwise you feel really bad about yourself."

It will be the band's first visit here since 1992. Smith is no stranger to New Zealand. Chris Parry, the Cure's former record label boss, is a Kiwi, and the band toured the country frequently in the early 1980s just so he could get free trips home, jokes Smith.

It was also the first country in which they had a number one single. So, in Parry's era, they found themselves touring New Zealand in 1980, 1981, and 1984. Not only was it near the top of touring list, but it also became the band's favourite holiday destination - and it didn't just stop at Auckland.

"I had a very memorable night at a farm in Dunedin with some Scottish people," Smith recalls. "Maybe you even know them."

At the time, New Zealand had a thriving music scene, buoyed by the "Dunedin Sound" and the bands signed to Flying Nun Records. Smith remembers jamming with local musicians in rehearsal spaces after the shows. "It was really good," says the singer. "I loved it, I really did. It's a fantastic country."

It's just after 4am in London and Smith is wide awake. He's coming to end of his day, after starting work, as usual, at 2pm, but he's full of energy, speaking softly but quickly, and littering his speech with witticisms and frequent references to his advancing years.

He also has an extraordinary ability to speak in paragraphs - one breathless spiel lasts a full three minutes.

The 48-year-old is upbeat about an album he thinks Cure fans will love. When it eventually emerges, it will likely be followed by a special-edition double set mixed by Smith.

Gloom with a view

Cameron Adams

July 26, 2007 12:00am


DESPITE his long-standing reputation as the most miserable man in rock, it doesn't take much to make the Cure's Robert Smith laugh.

Persistent rumours he was working with pop starlet Ashlee Simpson gave Mr Gloomy a hearty chuckle a few months ago.

"I got this flurry of emails saying, 'Oh my God, is this true?' " Smith says, laughing.

"People were talking about the concept like it was the end of everything. I thought, if only we could get this much publicity about our record!

"So I'm loath to quash the rumour. It's actually started me thinking about what other idiot rumours I could start to draw attention to the fact we're bringing out an album."

The Ashlee-does-the-Cure rumour, reportedly part of her steering somewhere towards credibility, is just a rumour.

However, Smith, frontman of the Cure, author of arguably the bleakest album of the '80s in Pornography, the man who has made millions out of misery, is an unlikely Ashlee Simpson fan.

Uncle Robert took his nieces and nephews, big Ashlee fans, to see her when she performed in Chicago on London's West End last year.

"She was really, really good," Smith says. "She's a really good singer. I didn't know anything about her, I'd never heard her music, so I had no preconceptions.

"I know she got some flak because she mimed on some TV show, didn't she (Saturday Night Live)? She was obviously told to do that by some idiot who looked after her. She's a better singer than most people I've heard sing in public. A lot of those people who criticise her, I'd like to see them get on stage and sing in a musical. It's hard work."

Smith insists the pair have not recorded together. Yet.

"Have I worked with her? No. Am I going to? I wouldn't rule anything out. I'm sure she should be the one to stop the rumours. I quite enjoy them!"

Smith, it must be noted, is in a chipper mood. He's putting the finishing touches to the Cure's 13th studio album. It was supposed to be completed before the band's Asian and Australian tour, which starts next month.

It's not.

"Cure albums sell over a very long period of time," Smith says. "The record company should be happy they do. Anything else is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. It won't be ready until it's ready."

Smith has a vision -- an extended one. He wants the new, as yet untitled record to be available as both a single and double album.

The Cure have form for double albums -- such as 1987's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

"Back then we were the band," Smith says. "If we'd said we wanted to put out a quadruple album back then, no one would have minded."

However, in the iTunes-friendly world of 2007, double albums have become the dinosaur of the music industry.

"I'm not stupid," Smith says. "I know commercially it's not a very attractive proposition to release a double album by the Cure. But I got the record company down to listen to it, to listen to what I'm trying to do, and they went away a lot wiser and happier.

"What we're doing isn't aimed at selling shedloads of albums on the back of a hit single. There's more to it."

Smith's vision is for a 13-track single album (to mark their 13th album) and a 26-track double album that contains several instrumentals. The double will feature different versions of songs on the single and he's hoping to use a different mixer for each record to create different moods.

Or it might not come out at all, if Smith isn't happy with his double vision.

"I'm not stamping my feet saying it has to be a double. If it doesn't work, I'll know. But I'm buggered if I'm going to get this far down the line and at least not try to make it work.

"I've always been our harshest critic. I don't need anyone else to tell me it's not good enough. We have 33 pieces of music, 20 of which have turned into songs. Six are great instrumentals. If it's put together in the right way, it'll work. If it doesn't, it's a f---ing great single album anyway."

SMITH is so passionate about the project he's halved his royalty rates so the double album can be sold at the same price as the single, circumventing any bleating from the record company.

"The cost of making a single album and a double album are the same. A disc costs about 10 cents. If you put a double album and a single album on the shelf, Cure fans will buy the double album. It's a no-brainer.

"But they think, rightly, that stockists in the big chain stores in America will look at a double album and go, 'Why?' and put the single album on the shelf. We'll see. If we do manage to get the double out it'll be an interesting experiment. I'm on a good bet with them the double outsells the single. I win something."

Smith is coy about what exactly is his prize.

"I'm not saying. But it's a good enough incentive for me to get our myspace site up and pumping out 'Buy the double!' "

Smith is not motivated by money. As the Cure's manager as well as their creative spine, a lot of offers come his way. He refuses most.

The latest was a mobile-phone company sponsorship for looming concert dates in Singapore. A swift personal email to the head of the Cure's record company in Singapore shut them down.

"They're saying, 'This is how we do it in Singapore' and I'm saying, 'But the Cure don't do it that way and we're the Cure!' " Smith says.

"We don't want corporate sponsorship on this tour. We don't need it. They take it for granted that you do. Everyone, apart from us it seems, wants more money. I realise I'm fighting a ludicrously naive fight against the commercial world."

Smith says he constantly turns down offers to use the Cure's music on TV ads.

"People think we're waiting for the right price and then the price keeps going up. I usually don't tell the rest of the band about the offers most of the time because the temptation would be too great. They'd probably lock me in a room for 24 hours while they said yes."

Smith has agreed to two ads using Cure songs to hawk computer software. The payoff wasn't a fat cheque; rather he retained control over the Cure's incredibly lucrative back catalogue, which he has been personally remastering and re-issuing over the past three years, raiding his own archive for fan-friendly rarities.

"It was painful," Smith says about agreeing to the ads.

"The compromise I managed to achieve was that they used non-vocal parts of the songs so no one knew it was us. This infuriated them. They were trying to sell a Cure greatest hits and you couldn't tell it was us on the ad. Perfect."

Most ad requests involve their 1983 hit The Lovecats being used to sell cat food.

"It's always the same handful of songs. I guess it's people who grew up listening to those '80s hits. Their kids have left home and they have a disposable income and need to buy a new car."

Smith admits managing the Cure has taken such a toll he's increased the breaks between the band's albums.

"Everything goes through me, right down to ticket prices. Everything. It's an absurd workload but it's not continual. There are long gaps nowadays between Cure projects. But I found it very hard to delegate anything to do with the Cure. I never wanted it to go wrong because someone else made the wrong decision. I wouldn't be able to cope with that.

"Some of it veers towards drudgery, setting up a tour and looking at endless pictures of what bus we want, but when it comes down to it, if someone else picks a chocolate brown bus with orange interior you think, why didn't I just pick a nice blue one?"

Smith's stroll through the Cure's back catalogue will end in 2009, the 30th anniversary of their debut album. He's been promised he can release a personal best-of -- "my pick of what the Cure have done".

THAT will also coincide with Smith's 50th birthday, but he has no plans to retire himself or the band.

"I don't feel it ( 48 )," he says. "It's worrying. When I'm in the studio singing or on stage I don't feel any different from when I started. It'll probably hit me like a ton of bricks when it eventually happens. I'll wake up one morning and my skin will have fallen off."

He's also still promising lengthy Cure shows for their looming Australian tour.

His attention to detail is such that he's dug out setlists from their 2000 tour, working out which songs were played in which city to stop double ups. They've rehearsed 70 songs and only three new songs -- maximum -- should surface.

"Being honest, if I go to see a band I like, I want to hear the songs I like. We're not too bothered about working up the new songs. Plus the idea of them going straight up on the web is a little strange."

Australian fans should also prepare for the usual lengthy show.

"We aim for three hours," Smith says.

"Hopefully I'm not too tired. We're doing a festival in Japan first where we're strictly limited to 90 minutes. We're only just getting into our stride after 90 minutes. We'll just keep playing until people leave."


Cure for nostalgia

Cure fans will have to wait slightly longer for the next instalment of their re-issues. Next in the que are 1989's classic Disintegration, 1990's Mixed Up and 1992's Wish.
They won't surface until next year at the earliest.
"They're half-ready", Robert Smith says. "I gave up on compiling the extra disc".
However fans will be rewarded for their patience.
"The extra disc for Disintegration will be great", he says. "It's very atmospheric. There are some strange versions of some of the songs".
Meanwhile the remix album Mixed Up will come with a bonus disc of new remakes by "contemporary" remixes.

Smith has also discovered the missing tapes for the 80's live concert The Cure in Orange, which will be issued on DVD along with 1993's Show.
Rifling through old Cure tapes in his archive isn't only good for material for bonus discs.
Smith has uncovered 3 songs which he's reworking for the new Cure album.
"I was loath to put them on as extras; I'd thought they'd work well if they were played by this band", Smith says.
"One's really early, between Pornography and The Top, from 1983. The other are from the Kiss Me period, 1986-87. I'm sure I'll find more, we did loads of stuff that didn't get used on Disintegration".

Smith is also preparing a comprehensive DVD for The Cure's 30th anniversary in 2009.
"It's all the live footage that hasn't come out, lots of TV stuff I've got on video. That's the full stop. Once that's done, that's it for the re-issuing and remastering".

Playing their last show, again
The Cure return to Japan after 20 years
By IAN MARTIN
Special to The Japan Times

"This year is 30 years since I first went onstage with a band called The Cure and 2009 will be 30 years since our first album," says proto-goth Robert Smith, speaking via telephone on a suitably ghoulish Friday the 13th.

Headlining this weekend's Fuji Rock Festival '07 will be the first time The Cure have played in Japan since 1984. Focusing on his past has given Smith time to reflect on his band's legacy.

"I've been involved in the reissues and, listening back to things like (The Cure's 1979 debut album) 'Three Imaginary Boys,' it feels like I'm listening to a different person," he muses. "It's totally different to singing the old songs onstage. I really get a sense of how long I've been doing it."

For a band that has been renowned for its lineup changes — there are, in total, a dozen musicians who have been members at one time or another — the current lineup is fairly true to the original Cure, with original members Smith and drummer Porl Thompson, as well as bassist Simon Gallup, who first joined the band in 1980. Smith disagrees with the perception of The Cure as a band in constant flux.

"If you look at the lineup changes and don't take into account that this is over a 30-year period, it seems like a lot, but most of those changes were over the first seven or eight years," he says. "The last lineup was together for 10 years, which is longer than most bands are together in total, so it's a long time since I've thought of the band as a volatile entity."

If there were any doubts about the scope of The Cure's influence, then the recent raft of bands who owe a debt to their sound must surely have put an end to them. Smith — who invited The Rapture, Muse and Interpol to support the 2004 "Curiosa" tour of the United States — is enthusiastic about his band's status as an inspiration for young bands.

"Take Interpol — when we played with them they were fantastic. I mean, Mogwai were playing, they're my favorite band in the world ever," says Smith, "but on that tour I felt Interpol were the band that just beat all the other bands off stage."

While he likes some Cure-influenced bands more than others, he is most gratified by bands who "try to forge their own way in their own terms."

The Cure's last, self-titled, album was released in 2004, and the long wait for new material to emerge has led to rumors that Smith has been suffering from writer's block. According to Smith, the delay has been the result of the opposite problem.

"It was really relaxed and it worked brilliantly — we ended up with more than 30 songs. I had words for about a dozen but there was far too much so I decided to take some time off," he says.

Since then, Smith has been involved in mixing a Cure live DVD as well as working on the reissues. The extra space this has given him has allowed the new album to grow still further in scope.

"We could make this into a double album, where we can use the bridges from some songs to make a coherent whole," Smith says. "If it works, it'll be the best thing we've ever done, but if it doesn't, we'll still have a good single album. I want to take this opportunity to do something big."

This constant, self-imposed pressure to top the band's previous output lies behind the frequent claim that each new album would be the last, a claim that accompanied the release of most Cure albums up to and including 2000's "Bloodflowers."

" 'Bloodflowers' was conceived and executed as the final word, but in the end, we just enjoyed doing it so much. 'The Cure,' as you can imagine from the title, was made as our last album as well, and it really was the final album with that band," he says. "I always encourage the band to think of each album as our last one. I think this one should be as well."

The Cure don't limit this approach to their recordings though. Smith says that "when we play live, I tell them to treat it as if it's the last gig we'll ever play. I don't do the dramatic pronouncements any more, but I still say it to myself: 'It has to be the best thing we've ever done.' "

With Fuji Rock being The Cure's first appearance in Japan for more than 20 years, Smith is still deciding on the band's approach.

"Festivals can go one of two ways. If we're playing on quite a mixed bill, we'll try to play something that's more accessible, because we don't want to be bludgeoning them over the head with 15-minute epics," Smith says. "With festivals, what you have to remember is that they're not about the band — they're about the festival itself."

For a man with such a fearsome reputation for gloominess, Smith talks wistfully about the "communal" feeling of some festivals and criticizes others where "so much of the music is kind of the same that by the time you get on, you want to do something different."

At the heart of The Cure, there has always been a desire to please, which Smith puts down to the tunes: "If you take an album like 'Pornography' and strip away the production, there are still tunes. I know there are some bands who don't want to make music that's accessible, which always seems strange to me. I don't think that makes art more viable in any way."
The Cure play the Green Stage at Fuji Rock Festival '07 on July 27, 9:30 p.m. Tickets are still available through Pia at t.pia.co.jp.

Robert Smith in his own words, July 5, 2007

July 26th, 2007
Hamish McKenzie



Here is a transcript of the bulk of my recent interview with Robert Smith, which led to stories in the South China Morning Post (under a pseudonym) and the New Zealand Herald. It’s close to 3,000 words, so I’ve put most of it after the jump. I’ve interjected throughout the interview with notes or questions, to put his quotes in context.

—————

It was 4:15am in England when Robert Smith called from a London studio, where he was working on the Cure’s 13th album. Smith is a nocturnal creature, usually starting work at 2pm and heading to bed around 5am.

“I’m trying to wrap up the new album before we set off on our trip around the world. It’s looking a bit bleak at the moment because it’s a strangely evolving project that we’re involved in and it’s a huge, sprawling mass of songs. There’s like more than 30 songs and I’m trying to put them all together, which I’ve been postponing for as long as I can. It’s proving to be much harder than I thought. It’s good fun, it’s interesting. We’ve been re-recording stuff and I’ve been re-singing stuff…

I wanted it to be a 26-track double album from the moment we started making it, but I’ve kept it kind of quiet. I think what will happen is there’ll be a single album, and a double album — I think I’ll have a limited edition double album that I’ll do, and there’ll be a single album for the less hard-core fans…

It’s just taken up so much time to get the whole thing to work together.


Smith and the band have been working on the album in stages since April last year, when they first recorded the songs. This project is the first time in more than 20 years they didn’t do demos — they learned all the songs as they went along. The album has been delayed because Smith got distracted by the Festival 2005 DVD, for which he had to do a lot of the work. It turned into a three-hour, 30-song epic. “When I came to, it was Christmas,” he said. When he returned the songs a year later, he re-thought what the band was doing and they started re-recording some songs, and he started working on the lyrics.

“There’s a fantastic amount of spontaneity in all of this stuff. I felt particularly on the last album, I thought we got some great performances, but when I compared the finished album to the very first demos that we did three months prior to that — I just thought some of the demos as they always have this rawness and energy that you’ll often lose along the way when you finesse everything and everything has to fall on the beat and everything has to be just so, and you rule out mistakes. So I wanted an album that was a bit more edgy, I suppose, so I kept in the things that normally would be airbrushed out — particularly nowadays when you can pretty much do anything; you can make a tuba sound like a banjo. We’ve just stuck mikes up in the studio — the one thing we did the same as the last album, we recorded it as a band. We recorded it in the same room, all at the same time.

With this line-up, I really enjoy the way we play music with each other…

The mixing’s a piss of piece. They mix themselves, because they were played with dynamics. The hardest thing for me is actually tailoring the words to not only suit the songs but also to make me feel good about what I’m singing. With each album project, the lyric writing gets increasingly more difficult.”

Smith was enthusiastic about the new album.

“I think a Cure fan is going to love this album…

I think it’s brilliant, I really do. The thing is, the last album was the most fraught album I’ve ever been involved in — the one we did with Ross Robinson. Not because of Ross — quite the opposite, I really enjoyed my part, the part I played, he was the producer and I was really just the singer and guitarist, I took a step back from the whole thing. I like Ross and have a great relationship with Ross, but the band as a whole, and the way it was done and the way everyone responded to it, and the people around the band, who were close to the band, it became incredibly fraught. Almost like a communal mid-life crisis, looking back at it.”

Do you mean the recording sessions?

“Yeah. The recording sessions were about three months, and they were the most intense and difficult three months that I have spent with other people who I thought I knew. And at the end of it — the real reason why the band changed line-up, the seeds were sown in the making of that album. This album, by contrast, has been without question the most pleasurable experience I’ve ever had in a recording studio. Which sort of worries me in a way, because I’d forgotten what it was like to play music and have fun whilst you’re doing it. Even when you’re playing music that’s actually inherently — a lot of it’s quite sad. And quite a lot of what we’ve been playing is quite dark, but the actual atmosphere when we’ve done something good is celebratory. It’s really weird to think how long it’s been since the band felt that. And it’s been years, really. We’ve played great shows and the last album had some great songs on it and was a good album, but I forgot what it was like to actually come off stage feeling like I was part of something bigger than me.”

What’s the difference?

“We just get on. The dynamic in the group, the personalities in the group — there’s four of us and we just get on. It’s difficult, when you’re in a young band, you can throw tantrums and act your age. It’s very difficult to do that and take it seriously when you’re at the age we’re at. You’re investing huge amounts of time and energy into something, you want other people to feel the same, and with these four people I get that, I feel we’re all pulling I the same direction, and it’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt that in the band…”

He realises he’s getting older.

“I honestly wouldn’t have believed that I’d still be doing this — if you told me at 17 that I’d still be doing it now, at 48, I don’t think I would have believed that I would have been able to, either mentally or physically, or actually been allowed to, I wouldn’t have thought I’d have the audience more than anything else…

Our audience renews itself, it’s really quite weird. We’re one of the few bands that does that…

Acknowledging your age is a difficult part of the process. I remember passing 30 and thinking, ‘Oh no, it’s all going to change’. But the fact is I do now kind of acknowledge where I am and who I am within what I do. I don’t pretend that I’m 18, so I think it’s that acknowledgment that a younger audience appreciates. It’d be pretty awful if I pretended that I was younger than I am. I wish I wasn’t as old as I am…

The reasons why I do it have never changed. I never wanted to be in a band to be famous. I wanted to be in a band because I wanted to make good music.”

Smith once interviewed David Bowie on-air for a London radio station. By his own admission, Smith was drunk and obnoxious.

It was basically just one hour of him fielding my increasingly belligerent questions, rather gracefully actually, with hindsight. He didn’t take it badly, though, funnily enough. He actually enjoyed the to-and-fro of it because he invited me to perform with him at his birthday show a few years after that in NY. So it didn’t do me any harm. But afterwards I was mortified. I listened back to the tape the following day with a headache and I thought ‘How could I have done this? I love this man, and I just gone in there like an idiot’. It shows you the evil of drink, and I’ve learnt my lesson. Nearly.”

Smith talked about the band’s recent gigs for charity and his attitude towards ’social awareness’.

“We’ve always been involved with the same charities down the years but we’ve never tried to make any capital out of it…

This is an opportunity for these people to come out and talk to people about what they do. These are people whose basic ideas I agree with…

I still stand by the nihilism, by the way, that’s involved in the Cure’s lyrics — essentially, my position has remained unchanged. I find it very, very difficult to see a real point in existence. Having said that, I think the morality stems from other things than an external, all-seeing, all-powerful being, and I think if that message come across — I think people should be treated fairly, I think that justice is fantastically important, all the things Amnesty stands for, if they had their way the world would be a better place, and I would have a more enjoyable life, I wouldn’t have to sit through all the shit that I have to look at on the television, I wouldn’t have go out and walk down the streets of my own country with people telling me I should be in fear of my life all the time.

The modern world is becoming increasingly more fraught for all the wrong reasons. So it’s ridiculous, I think, as an artist to get to a certain age and think, ‘Well, I’m still gonna be cocooned and I don’t care what’s going on around me’. At 18, I think it’s fine to be like that, actually, I think there’s nothing wrong with it, but at 48 you’d have to be insane to be alive and think, ‘I can just keep doing what I’m doing without taking any notice of what’s going on around me’. You’d be morally bankrupt actually if you didn’t pay attention.

You become socially aware — it’s slightly pejorative of me to put it in that way; individually members of the Cure have always been socially aware. I’ve always been very reluctant for the band to get involved, or politicised, because I think it gets in the way of what we try and do creatively. It’s also been the case that there have been disagreements within the band down the years about certain aspects of becoming — I mean, politicised is probably a bit too strong, but you do run the risk of starting to preach to people rather than singing to them. And I’ve never really enjoyed — there have been very few bands I’ve fallen in love with, or artists I’ve fallen in love with, who have tried to tell me what I already know. I find it kind of patronising. And it’s a very fine line, all this, slipping over into telling someone, ‘Haven’t you seen what’s going on?’ Because I credit our audience with a certain degree of intelligence — in fact, there’s a lot of intelligence — so for me to start pointing out the blindingly obvious is perhaps not the best way to get things done.

So we’re very subtle in the way that we do things, and we underplay it a lot, but there are times when we have to go out and say, ‘Well, look, this is what we think is right, and we think you should get involved’…

It would be churlish of me to say, no, no, we don’t do those kind of things…

The Cure’s never been known as a particularly socially aware band, but we quietly have been, actually. In monetary terms we’ve given a fantastic amount of money away down the years, but we just haven’t tried to get anything out of it, whereas a lot of people do, they try and trade off one thing against the other, and say, ‘Hey, look at us, we’re doing this for charity’. And that’s where a lot of cynicism creeps in and you see a lot of people doing charity and think, ‘I wonder why they’re doing it’…

I don’t think what I do now is going to affect how people listen to Disintegration in the next 20 or 30 years.

Smith is well-practiced when it comes to interviews.

“I’ve been asked probably everything that I can imagine — particularly at this time in the morning. I haven’t answered everything I’ve been asked — that would be ludicrous. I’ve always shied away from answering questions about what I do outside of the band, not through any great desire to remain mysterious… I’ve always enjoyed the idea that I’m visible in the band and what the band do, but outside of that I do live a very, very quiet life, and it’s always been the case.”

He’s gone quiet in the media.

“This is only the second interview I’ve done, in, I think, probably this year. I’ve given up doing them.”

Why?

“I thought I’d just take a break from doing them, because you end up just going into autopilot and reeling off the same old shit, basically… I told the label I would do no interviews at all this year. They will now, that’s the problem. The floodgates will open now… Can you phone up when we’ve finished and say I never phoned?”

The Cure were lured to add New Zealand to their tour itinerary by of a petition started by a couple of guys from New Plymouth.

“They’ve happened in the past and they’ve worked, and it does make a difference, particularly with the advent of the internet — it does make it easier. From time to time I’m in direct contact with people through the website, and I occasionally join in and post stuff. It’s a good way of keeping tabs. It’s slightly skewed because you do get a lot of more extreme fan-postings, so I don’t take it too much of it as gospel, but you get a general feeling of what’s going on and when the petitions arrive — it’d be awful not to take note.

We went to Australia in 2000 and we didn’t go to New Zealand and that wasn’t our fault, actually, because we had a New Zealand date pencilled in, and for reasons which I still don’t quite understand and at the time infuriated me, we didn’t do the show, it was never confirmed. So this time around — well there was a lot of consternation, because we weren’t allowed to announce the Auckland show until after the Australian shows for a number of stupid reasons.

The weird thing was our manager, actually, the record label boss — Chris Parry, ran Fiction records for 20 years, we were signed to him — came from just outside Wellington, so we used to go to New Zealand all the time so he would get a free trip home. I mean, we went to New Zealand in 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 [note: the Cure didn’t tour New Zealand in 1984] — we were always going to New Zealand. We were number one in New Zealand — I think that’s the first country in the world we ever hit number one. We had very close ties with New Zealand for a long, long time. We used to spend our family holidays with him. So what I don’t Rotorua and all that kind of shit. We played Dunedin and Christchurch and everywhere.”

Yeah, I’m from Dunedin as well, actually, it’s where I studied.

“Are you? I had a very memorable night in a farm in Dunedin with some Scottish people, maybe you even know them.”

Yeah, because you guys would have been quite in-synch with the Dunedin Sound — you know the Dunedin Sound?

“Yeah, there was a thriving New Zealand scene, actually, through the ’80s, when we went there were some great bands. We’d end up in rehearsal spaces after the shows playing with people, it was really good. I loved it, I really did. It’s a fantastic country. It’s breathtakingly beautiful, as everyone now knows, with the films that have been made there.

We used to go and play all these places around the world and no one would ever know where we’d been. We’d arrive back in England nine months later and people would go like, ‘Oh, we thought you’d given up’, and we’d just played like 150 shows around the world. It is a different place, the world now, you can’t do anything without everybody fucking knowing, which is a little bit irritating at times.

But the idea of the petition — it coincided happily with our intention to play New Zealand anyway, so we could be the good guys without really trying too hard… There was a lot of pressure actually for us to do more Australian shows than go to New Zealand because it’s a bigger market and blah blah blah, but I couldn’t really have ignored the petition. And they seemed very sweet lads as well, so I thought it’s only fair really. If people get motivated like that, you have to respond because otherwise you feel really bad about yourself.”

A close encounter with Robert Smith

Sunday Star Times | Monday, 30 July 2007

Grant Smithies talks to The Cure's Robert Smith, and finds the godfather of goth is animated, thoughtful, funny and charming - and obsessed with life.

It's three in the morning on England's south coast and The Cure's Robert Smith is sitting in his living room, staring out into the inky blackness towards an ocean that he can hear but cannot see. It whispers and sighs, like nature's own lullaby, but Smith is wide awake.

Now 48, the so-called Godfather of Goth sits nursing a cup of tea, and he talks to me for well over an hour as his childhood sweetheart, Mary, sleeps in the next room.

"I'm really looking forward to coming to play in New Zealand again," he says, though he admits the decision to tour here had little to do with the internet petition instigated by two New Plymouth fans. He was intending to come here anyway. "After 15 years, it's about time, really, isn't it?"

It's impossible to hear Robert Smith's voice without picturing his famous look: his skin white as paper; his thick black hair back-combed into a gravity-defying rat's nest; his lipstick smudged like the world's sloppiest kisser; his eyed panda-ed with kohl; his body soft and rounded, as if someone had slightly over-inflated him with a bicycle pump.

But the longer I talk to him, the more this image fades. He becomes an ordinary bloke. I have to remind myself that this is a songwriter who has made his millions fetishing alienation and depression; that he's the patron saint of ledge-jumpers and wrist-slitters. Far from being a monosyllabic moping ghoul, as some of his music might suggest, Smith is animated, thoughtful, funny and charming. This elder statesman of musical gloom is not obsessed with decay and death. If anything, he is obsessed with life.

"I am as happy as I could possibly be," he says quietly. "I love making music, and I love living here, just down the road from where I was born. I did my stint living in London, but then moved back down here. The call of the sea got too strong, and the call of family, too. Both me and my wife's extended family all live within a 50-mile radius. Like me, a lot of them did time in London then started drifting back to the countryside and the sea. Perhaps it's a homing instinct.

"Jesus! I sound like one of those nostalgic old blokes, like - (he adopts an old geezer accent) `It were all green fields 'round 'ere when I were a lad'."

When I were a lad, I went to see The Cure on their first New Zealand tour. Drunk as a pickled onion, I staggered along to the Founder's Theatre in Hamilton, on July 31, 1980, almost 27 years ago to the day. Their second and best album, Seventeen Seconds, had just come out, and terrible local band Lip Service played first.

"That was a great tour," says Smith. "We ended up playing in loads of people's basements and garages. People would come up to us after shows and we'd go drinking, then we'd end up back at someone's house, playing in their shed or whatever. It was very convivial."

Convivial? This is not a word I'd expect a filthy rich British rock legend to employ when describing drunken jam sessions in the suburban carports and implement sheds of 80s New Zealand, but there you go. Robert Smith is no ordinary rock star. For one thing, he hates irony, which has become the emotional default setting for most bands these days.

"Irony is the recourse of the weak- minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say `Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest."

Smith also seems unusually unpretentious. He will readily admit his own weaknesses and eccentricities. For example, he is extremely short-sighted, but doesn't wear his glasses, not because he's self-conscious about looking nerdy, but because without glasses he can't see whether people are staring at him or not. The fact that anything beyond the end of his arm is out of focus gives him a welcome sense of privacy. Of course, one simple way to stop people gawping at him would be to flag the smudged lippy and gorsebush hair.

"A lot of journalists give me a hard time about how I look, but I've never met a journalist I'd rather look like," he says. "I like how I look. It just feels like me. And it's not just a performance thing. Really, I don't look that different when I'm off stage than when I'm on- stage, except I wear a lot more make up on-stage."

Trivia-obsessed fans will already know that Smith's favoured lipstick is MAC Ruby Woo, because it's a fetching blood red and doesn't run under the heat on stage, and that he always applies his own makeup, because he hates other people touching his face.

"I don't drive around the countryside in full makeup because it would scare the animals, but I've been wearing it a long time. I started when I was teenager at a school, after I saw Bowie wearing make-up on Top of the Pops. I immediately borrowed someone's older sister's makeup and put it on. I loved how odd it made me look, and the fact that it upset people. You put on eyeliner and people start screaming at you. How strange, and how marvellous."

These days, of course, many an urban man has embraced cosmetics. Smith's familiarity with the dark arts of blusher and foundation is perhaps less surprising than his refusal to become musically irrelevant like so many of his contemporaries. Even after 12 studio albums, The Cure has remained fairly interesting.

"Yes, 30 years together and we're still not rubbish! It's amazing, isn't it? Part of the reason is that The Cure has never been a job for life, like some bands. If someone becomes complacent, I replace them, and their replacement brings in some new energy.

"If I ever become crap, perhaps they'll try to turf me out and all 13 ex- members will rejoin and walk off into the sunset together."

The Cure has also retained our interest by refusing to stick to one musical style. Elegantly morose dirges may be their trademark, but they've also given us day-glo radio pop, post- punk minimalism, glacial instrumentals, slippery synth pop, tarted-up techno-rock, woozy psychedelia, even an art-house movie soundtrack full of great crumbling towers of guitars and synthesisers.

"Yes, and that's why it's hard for me to take seriously accusations that we're a goth band; we've played all sorts of music, and you could list 30 songs that any serious goth would run screaming from. When we first started The Cure, I wanted us to be like the bastard child of The Beatles and The Buzzcocks, a mix of pop and punk. Then as time went on we started to sound a bit more dour, not because we were dour people, but because we wanted to make mood music of a sort that hadn't been made before. Then, after a while, I allowed a lighter part of me to come out by making songs like `Love Cats' and `Let's Go to Bed' and so on. And ever since, we've gone between those two extremes."

Extremes is right. Played loud, The Cure's 1982 album Pornography makes me feel physically ill. There's Bob on the first track, wailing "It doesn't matter if we all die" over some horrid guitar noises and a rhythm section that plods along like Frankenstein's monster in heavy lead boots. He sounds like terminally damaged goods on that record, but today, he's a box of birds.

"I'm not a morose person; it's just that my best songs reflect on the sadder aspects of life. It's very rare that I'll write an upbeat song that captures the essence of me feeling joyous. It's not that I don't have a fantastic life; I do. I couldn't dream of a better life, really. It's just that I don't feel the need to document my every happy thought, and that I don't think I write happy songs convincingly."

Righto. In an hour the sun will be poking its bright bald head up over the sea outside Smith's windows. Time to let him brush out his tangled hair, wipe off his makeup and head for bed. What a lovely man he seems, so content with his life, his home, his music.

Does he see himself retiring at any stage? "I'm still enjoying it, so why stop? People often misunderstand why older musicians keep making music, I think. Take the Rolling Stones. People surmise that they're only still doing it for the money. They're not. They're doing it because on stage is the place where they really exist, the place where they operate in some sort of heightened state that's important to them.

"I suppose I feel the same way. I still feel things as deeply as I did when we made our first record, and I still sing these songs to express myself, not for the fame or the money. I'm still overwhelmed by what I do when I do it well. If I ever thought I'd become a caricature, then I would stop."

August 12th, 2007 - Melbourne, Australia (Rod Laver Arenae)

Tape (intro), Open, Fascination Street, alt.end, The Blood, A Night Like This, The Walk, The End of the World, Lovesong, Pictures of You, Lullaby, Hot Hot Hot, Push, Inbetween Days, How Beautiful You Are, Just Like Heaven, Primary, Shake Dog Shake, Us Or Them, Never Enough, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Wrong Number, One Hundred Years, Shiver and Shake, End

1st Encore: If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, The Kiss
2nd Encore: Friday I'm in Love, Let's Go To Bed, Close To Me, Why Can't IBe You?
3rd Encore: Three Imaginary Boys, Fire In Cairo, Boys Don't Cry, Jumping Someone Else's Train, Grinding Halt, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab

Soundcheck: Lullaby, How Beautiful You Are, Jumping Someone Else's Train, Open


Story of a petition

The build up to this show was fraught with a weeks worth of not sleeping, frantic phone calls, butterflies in the stomach, last minute applications for a Visa to enter into Australia (cursed UK passport!) writing questions and the constant fear that the whole trip to Aussie would collapse.

Thank the stars it didnt! The last time I saw the Cure back in 2000 it was also in Melbourne at the Rod Laver Arena for the Dream Tour! Thanks
to TV3 in NZ I was back again due to a petition myself and best pal Gordon had started earlier in the year to try and bring the Cure back to NZ.

I have to say a million thank you's to people, such as all the fan's who signed the petition, without you it would have been a four signature document (Gordons, mine and our wifes Jo and Susannah) which wouldnt have been that convincing really!
Thank you also to TV3 of course, Clayton, George, Carol and everyone else who said yes! The media who supported us Daily News, NZ Herald, Stuff etc etc, Bridget Delaunay and Summer...the list is quite long!

The show was incredible, yes the crowd seemed quite static and many people (Robert included) said it was flat and this affected the bands eneregy, but I can appreciate why it was like this, its almost like being under a spell when the band plays, especially for audiences in these parts of the world I think. Because we get to see them so very rarely, we are all kind of in a dazed trance! ha ha, well thats how I perceive it anyway. I don't think there is even a hint of anyone not loving it a million per cent or anything like that.

The second 'Tape' started my heart raced! Hearing 'Open' again, I thought I was going to burst! It really is incredible hearing all these songs again. 'A Night Like This' was brilliant, to my ears it almost seemed like Porl managed to make his guitar sound like a saxaphone.
Porl was simply magical, sure it is odd hearing some songs without keyboards, but he really does things with his instrument that defy me! having him back in the band is such a blessing. He did a very cute wave to the crowd on our side of the stadium at one stage and looked to be enjoying himself, in fact the whole band appeared to be having a great time, they managed to hide the fact they were not having the best show of the tour.

The Third encore was thrilling, they wove each song into the other seemlessly and were obviously loving playing these older tracks! I was hoping they would end the show with 'A Forest', but alas it wasnt to be! Nevermind.....The Background images are great! Esp the train journey for 'Jumping Someone Elses Train', the colloseum for 'The Blood' and the descending spiral for 'End' which was a bloody amazing way to end the main set.

The Merchandise is excellent, not disappointing in the slightest! I had to grab the black shirt with Roberts face in the front, it reminds me of a cool Peter Murphy T shirt I saw once back in the Bauhaus days.

Once the show was over I felt my excitement reach a crescendo...time to meet Robert backstage. The Producer of the segment had only just let me
know I was conducting the only Australasian TV interview, equal parts AAAAAiiiiieeeee and Arrrgh.

A niece and nephew of Robert filmed the interview which made me feel twice as nervous, but by the time he walked in, that feeling vanished, I was too stunned to believe it was happening. Let me say this, he didnt disappoint me in anyway, you kind of expect that there is a chance that when you meet the person(s) you have been in awe of for years that you may find them to be difficult or disinterested? Not the case at all.

Robert was very generous with his time, he must have been exhausted, he said the band was very cold on stage and it was a struggle to play at times as they had claw hands, I remember seeing Porl blowing on his hands at one stage and looking unhappy.

Robert said that the band had not had the best show, as they felt the crowd wasnt that into it and it felt like a battle of the wills. I asked him some questions about the new album and he confirmed he had the mixes with him (I wanted to say please play them, dream on) and that the album would not be out this year, he said in the scheme of things once its out people wont remember the waiting, they will only remember if they liked the album or if they hated it.....a fair point! He said they will be playing new material on the US dates (lucky beggars) and that there just isnt enough time to get the album done and do it justice between the end of the Australasian dates and the US ones.

Porl told me that he had done three different versions of the album cover so far and he had no idea which one would be used, he did say that the inside booklet was all but finished.
Porl also said there are instrumentals on the album. But this could of course change, he suggested the number of tracks on the album could increase! Greedy Eyes rolling around in my head! Which is a good time to mention if you watch the interview and wonder what Gordon and I's dancing is about at the start of the clip....its our now (in)famous greedy dance! the dance we do when something we have been wanting for ages comes to fruition.

Gah! Sorry this is so long. Anyway I asked about the re-issues and he said a few things were done, Disintegration is all ready to go, he is still working on Wish and confirmed my suspicions about something that will be on it....but he swore me to secrecy! He talked about the anniversary DVD that is coming out and that he prefers this format to writing a book, he said that all the books written about the band are all 'wide of the mark' and made a funny face!

He said there is no plans to ever bring keyboards back in, but who knows perhaps they will have one onstage in the US and if any of the band feel
like embarrassing themselves then maybe it will get a bashing! and he said the ever delayed solo album will one day see the light, but then kind of laughed and made a very funny smile and poked his tongue out! He said if the band are touring again in the next couple of years they would definitely be heading back to the region! fingers crossed!

I will end this one here....once I have the full interview I will send it to Craig to post online! US fans prepare to enjoy yourselves! and show the band some love!

- Alastair





Auckland

A Straight review of the night for you all, first up Vector Arena did not poise any problems soundwise, that I could complain about anyway,
the merchandise stand is outside so you can load up on goodies before the show, so no panic about not getting to the front (am I the only one
who worries about these things?) A Friend Sam mentioned that 'Open' was a bit muddied at the start but it was cleared as a bell by 'Fascination
St', hearing this was super cool and a great treat as missed out on hearing it in Melbourne. The tracks off the new album sounded really
good and fit well with the classic material, I have really grown to love the album and 'alt-end' was a great moment. 'End of the World' does
suffer from not having the Moog, there is no getting around that one I'm afraid. I was really pleased they didnt play 'Us or Them' as it just
ends up sounding like a huge wall of noise. As with Melbourne a hugh highlight was hearing 'Push' its just the best song live!

I was in heaven with the first encore, 'Plainsong' is just one of my fave Cure tracks full stop, so when it started I was absolutely ecstatic, the backdrop a sea of stars was so cool, Simon spent the intro of the song staring at them.

Everyone seemed to gasp when they played 'Faith' just as they did when they played 'How Beautiful You Are' in Melbourne. The Second encore was
just brilliant and everyone was jumping up and down, and as if the night couldnt get any better they played a Forest to close! Amazing! Robert
was teasing Simon with his playing at the end and trying to put him off, Simon was visibly counting his playing at the end to make sure he didnt
stuff up the outro! Hilarious!

There was quite a lot of interaction within the band on stage, lots of smiling and arms around one another and Robert spoke quite a few times more than he did in Aussie and said he would have done more but he didnt want to lose his voice......he and the band were on fire the whole night!

Afterwards we got to go back stage and meet the band, Simon was full of the flu he said, Jason was great to chat to and said he had had a brilliant time even though he was feeling sick from some dodgy plane food, Porl was quiet but told us he had enjoyed himself and elaborated a bit about the new album, see my Melbourne review.

I have to wonder why some or most of the people who were in the backstage area were there? most of them just drank the free booze, didnt even say hello to the band and were saying the most inane things, one girl saying something about shagging the blonde one (Jason) and one girl thanked Porl calling him Jason, he corrected her. God what dozy twits! A shame that some of the people who would have genuinely loved to have met the band couldnt have their chance as they would have made them feel alot more at ease! When one of them complained about the size of the table with drinks and said that when she was backstage for Guns 'n' Roses there was a whole wall of booze and food I knew she was some dismal star f***** with no appreciation of the band at all.

Thank you for coming to NZ~ it was utterly brilliant and Robert said "See you again!" we are crossing our fingers!

- Alastair

Bob critique l'industrie musicale....
http://www.voir.ca/musique/musique.aspx?iIDArticle=52885

Interview de JASON par Toberr sur son forum perso !!!!!!!!!

Merci TOBERR, trop fort !!!!

http://jasoncooper.heavenforum.org/portal.forum?article=22&pid=1




Jason Cooper Forum
A forum dedicated to Jason Cooper, The Cure drummer




update : MERCI JASON

Ce n'est pas merci Toberr qu'il faut dire mais merci Jason ;-)

Entretiens avec Michael Brennan, qui mixe le son des concerts de CURE !!!!
Article Hyper intéressant, fait à Melbourne, 2007.


The Cure on VENUE in Australia
27/08/07 Stephen Bruel



Performing for three hours from a back catalogue of material spanning almost 30 years to an appreciative expectant audience packed into Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena on a Sunday night - mixing The Cure is a major gig. For FOH engineer Michael Brennan, the decision to use a Digidesign® VENUE D-Show® system for the show, and indeed the whole tour, was based simply upon constantly striving to improve the mix within a comfortable simplified framework.

“It’s brilliant. I can go wherever I need to go, hire a VENUE board, load up my mix and I don’t need any external gear as everything I need is on board, and away I go,” Michael said. “Therefore each night the mix is constantly improving as I add more and more to the sound within Robert’s (Smith) parameters, smoothing and massaging the sound.”

Michael said The Cure have 77 rehearsed songs for the tour, which they can call upon on any given night, spanning their entire career from 10:15 Saturday Night right through to modern releases such as alt.end. With such a diverse range of material incorporating elements of three vastly different musical decades, Michael used the VENUE system in attempt to try to emulate the tonal qualities of their recordings.

“I try and match the tonal qualities of recordings, particularly the early ones, as I first heard them on my stereo, as that’s what the crowd wants,” Michael said. “With the onboard effects, scene recall and using pro tools (Digidesign® Pro Tools™) as a guide I was able to achieve this, and more.”

Michael spent two weeks on pre-production with The Cure in a film studio in London working through the show. Each day Cure frontman Robert Smith wrote up a set list with information regarding beats per minute (bpms), instrumentation and general pointers and highlights he thought was important in each song.

"You need to figure out what is driving the song, whether it be the bass, digital drums, guitar melodies or vocal melodies,” Michael said. “Once this feature is identified you need to then underline this with a good quality mix so the main hooks can be heard.”

The band would then work through the material with Michael, constantly tweaking the sounds until they were happy. Michael said once a song or element of a song was completed the settings were stored as a scene to be recalled later, and they moved onto the next song.

The VENUE is so versatile as you can change anything at any given time with a scene recall,” Michael said. “By the time the tour started we had 80-90% of all the mixes down.”



Michael said Robert is heavily involved in the production process at all levels, is very professional and has a great set of ears. Monitor engineer for the tour Rob Elliott confirms this.

“Robert is very hand on and has great ears,” Rob said. “He sometimes comes over to the monitoring board and adjusts the EQ on his vocals during sound check.”

Another feature important for Michael was the seamless integration with Digidesign® Pro Tools™. While in pre-production, Michael would record everything into Pro Tools™ for Robert to listen to. Michael said this was an invaluable tool to help Robert and himself tweak and attain the sounds they were after.

“We got sound up on the board and recorded straight into Pro Tools,” Michael said. “I would tweak things on my laptop later, or in front of Robert there and then so he could hear it. We would then arrive at a sound Robert was happy with and we would create the scenes.”

Pro Tools™ is also used at each live gig. Michael said he records the FOH mix of each show in Pro Tools™ every night then hands a CD of the show to Robert each night to listen to and they discuss possible improvements.

Michael said the comprehensive range of plug in effects available on the VENUE was very helpful in running such a big show. For example, Michael set up 4 bass lines and ran Joe Meek plug in compressors across all 4 lines.

“I found the compressors available on board sound fantastic,” Michael said. “I’ve tried a lot of external compressors while on tour and they all do nice things but there is no point as I get everything I need on board.”

Spotted by Robert while mixing a Mogwai gig six months ago, Michael has come along way with the band in a relatively short time with the VENUE system.

Now there's a Cure
Conversing with the agile Robert Smith

BY KIMBERLY CHUN
Wednesday October 3, 2007

Going against the tide of such prankery is UK goth pop vet Robert Smith of the Cure, famous for his singles-chart cri de coeur "Boys Don't Cry." I've never been a rabid Cure fan, but I must admit that the voluble, down-to-earth Smith won me over with his earnest intelligence in a call from his studio outside Brighton, where the band is embroiled in its forthcoming double album. Making further inroads against fakery, Smith told me he's been writing more "socially aware lyrics" than he normally pens. "Obviously I live in the real world, contrary to what a lot of people think," he said. "I get angry about things, and I thought it was time for me to put those things into songs."

"It's just kind of insane," he continued. "The world seems to be reverting almost to the Middle Ages, with the rise of the idiocy of religion. The whole policing of thought and action is anathema to any artist. Any artist has to react!" He described "Us or Them," off the band's last self-titled LP (Geffen, 2004), as the closest he's gotten to writing a song protesting "childish, black-and-white portrayals of the world — that isn't a world I want to live in!"

It's just been a matter of fitting the words to the right music; otherwise, Smith said, "it sounds like I'm singing, quite literally, from a different hymn book." The band recorded more than 25 songs two years ago, rerecorded them last year, and is back at work on them, although the Cure will take a brief break to play the Download Festival in the Bay Area despite pushing the rest of their North American tour to next year. "We can postpone 27 shows, but we can't postpone Download Festival," he said. "So we're just doin' it! We're coming over on the Friday, playing that Saturday, and then home on Sunday and going back to the studio.

So it's quite a bizarre weekend for us, but good fun."

The return of on-off guitarist Porl Thompson seems to have inspired the Cure's latest surge in creativity, though the shock-headed vocalist's involvement in the band's recent live DVD, The Cure: Festival 2005, interrupted progress on the double album, which Smith said he will mix and Geffen will release at the same price as the single-album version, which someone else will mix. Smith is wagering most listeners will want to buy the double CD for the price of one. "The difficulty now is to get the digital domain to accede to our wishes and price two songs at the price of one," he said, though ultimately he's not worried. "I'm at the stage now — well, I've always been at the stage — of making music primarily for myself, that I enjoy, and then for Cure fans. So whether or not it's commercial is not a great concern."

The plan so far is to release three singles, he said. "One is a very heavy, dark single, one is an incredibly upbeat, stupid pop single, and one is out-and-out dance, so that shows you the variety of stuff on the record."

Stupid? How can anyone as obviously smart as Smith go for that? "I'm saying that most good pop singles are stupid — otherwise they're not good pop singles," he demurred. "I'm from an age when disposable wasn't necessarily a bad thing."

CLASSIC TRACKS: The Cure 'A Forest'

Producers: Robert Smith, Mike Hedges

Mike Hedges made his debut as a producer with one of the Cure's most enduring singles. 'A Forest' and the accompanying Seventeen Seconds album used his and the band's creativity in the studio to the full.


http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec04/articles/classictracks.htm