Lovecats, the movie

John Hughes wrote a screenplay inspired by The Cure’s ‘Lovecats,’ Molly Ringwald says

Vanity Fair published a lengthy, and quite engrossing, profile/tribute to the late John Hughes, the exceedingly reclusive king of ’80s teen films who died unexpectedly. On the magazine’s website, the feature’s author, David Kamp, also has posted outtakes from his interviews with some of Hughes’ biggest stars: Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall and Matthew Broderick.

One of the gems buried in Kamp’s interview leftovers: Ringwald reports that Hughes started work on a script based on The Cure’s jaunty 1983 single “The Lovecats” — and even assembled a hypothetical, jazz-filled soundtrack for the film.

Ringwald says: “When ‘The Breakfast Club’ ended, he started writing a script called ‘Lovecats,’ because I played him that song by the Cure, ‘The Lovecats.’ I was obsessed by the Cure — still am. I think Robert Smith is an underrated songwriter. Anyway, I played this song for John, and he started writing a script, and he gave me a mix tape of what the soundtrack was gonna be. Which was pretty much Dave Brubeck, with the last song by Bob Dylan.”

Hughes, of course, was no stranger to using ’80s college rock in his movies, and famously titled his 1986 film “Pretty in Pink” after a Psychedelic Furs song of the same name. This news, however, raises all kinds of questions: Did Hughes finish the script? Was Robert Smith ever aware of it? And why would a soundtrack to a film inspired by a Cure song consist “pretty much” of songs by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck and Bob Dylan?

Sadly, the answers to those questions probably died with Hughes.

Man of a thousand faces

He’s fat! He’s thin! He’s a genius! He’s an idiot! He’s off his rocker! He’s Mr. Sensible! Cure singer Robert Smith has heard it all, but is he as schizo as those funny journalist people like to think? David Giles goes to see Robert armed with his old press cuttings to find out.

 

“Sort of delirious”

“That’s true from time to time – it’s true of everyone from time to time. I don’t think I’m as delirious now as I was when that was written, about 1983/84. I’m much calmer now… I just wanted to see howe excessive I could be. I don’t regret it now, but it could have been dumb if I’d fallen out of a window!”

 

“A libidinous, drug-headed weasel”

“I think I know who wrote that – it was horrible girl who did the Face interview. Obviously written by someone who didn’t know me, had never spolen to me. None of the above adjectives apply to me at all – except ‘headed’!”

 

“Mad Bob/No more Mad Bob”

“That was the Melody Maker… I suppose that bunch were taken into confidence at a certain time when we were delirious; I suppose they thought that we would be like that all the time… it was just another way of interpreting my actions, I suppose. I was quietly irrational for a couple of years, and I suppose if people got near to me they’d have thought some of my actions were a little peculiar. Sometimes I don’t recognise the sort of person I was then – I wasn’t a very nice person then, wasn’t very entertaining to be around.”

 

“Just to damned effete to live”

“Yeah, that was David Hepworth… he said I had a handshake like a wet kipper! It’s all fabricated, because I’ve got a body temperature of 100 degrees – I don’t know how I could ever feel like a wet kipper! No, I wasn’t effete – that was a long time ago, and it was just because I was wearing this green check suit and I was emaciated then.

“He said that because I was drinking Perrier water when he met me – it was about 1pm and I was only 19! We’d just met at the preview of Quadrophoenia and I got into a fight with that horrible kid out of Secret Affair (70s mod band) – Ian Page. He was a tosser!”

 

“His mind a constant whirl of activity”

“Unfortunately that’s true – it gets in my way now. It never used to, I can remember being very tranquil, able to lie down somewhere and vaporise clouds, but I’ve become hyperactive. I’m sure you can contract it…”

 

“The thinking teen’s pin-up”

“Er, there’s no such thing as a ‘thinking teen’… it must mean someone who sits with the curtains closed – they’d have to have the curtains closed if they had me as a pin-up! I got sent a very bitter photo by someone – one of the people that I’d been corresponding for a long time – and she was tearing all the pictures of the Cure down. She was having a cathartic (No, we don’t know what the pretentious drip is on about either, but it says in our dictionary that cathartic means ‘purifying experience’, – Ed) experience she said, and had realised that cirrhosis of the liver wasn’t what she wanted – and she had a picture of ‘Before and After’. It was really sad to see remnants of my cheecks and bits of my hair on the wall…”

 

“Haunting/Haunted”

“Yeah, to some people in the past I’ve been haunting – and I’ve been haunted by myself. I’m haunted sometimes in the fear that I’m changing for the worse rather than for the better – I don’t worry about it publicly, I just think about what I’ve done, what I could do, and what I actually am doing, in terms of writing, and living…”

 

“The messiah of angst”

“The what of angst? Yeah, I suppose in things like ‘Seventeen Seconds’ the lyrics were about fear of existence, but now other people have adopted that particular cross.”

 

“Hesitant”

“Um… (Robert hesitates)… I suppose I am. I’m hesitant when I speak, when I do interviews – I’m not when I think. I’m just slow. I would be more hesitant in a situation like this, ‘cos I don’t really know you, and I’m thinking I should say something that’s worthwhile saying. Whereas in normal conversation I’m not hesitant, because 99 per cent of what people talk about is garbage. When I’m hesitant I’m usually thinking about four different choices of what to say, and quite often I don’t say anything, and that’s why people think I’m quiet.”

 

“Ill, thin and pale”

“Yeah, you see – someone thought I was thin! My body weight fluctuates between stones! I have been ill, thin and pale at times, in the true tradition of being in a pop group.”

 

“On a fine line between agitation and boredom”

“That’s not true. I can be in an abnormal situation such as an interview. But I never get bored, never. Never in my whole life. I don’t see how you could be bored, when you’ve got everything inside your head. I suppose you could be bored if you had a job that required a degree of concentration, making sure everything went in the right place that it actually excluded thought. I’ve only ever had two jobs, both of them for less that a week. I’m not suited to employment.”

 

“Crafty”

“I could be, but I’m not. I always say what I think to people, about anything. I never feel the need to be devious. I hate that, you meet so many people who say one thing, about someone, and then say another – that’s so hypocritical.”

 

“Eccentric”

“I’ve always found it difficult to define eccentricity, because I can’t really accept any kind or normality. If you put me into under-five playgroup I would be very, very boring, but if you put me into the middle of a bank in America, and I was drunk, I would be very eccentric.”

 

“Shy”

“I’ve never been shy. People always equate ‘quiet’ with ‘shy’. I’ve always been very confident. I would never start a conversation at a bus stop, but that’s not being shy, that’s just not being forward. Not being American.”

 

“A pretty good midfield player”

“What an insult! A masterfly player! I used to be a left-winger, but as I slowed down I moved into midfield. I play the Glenn Hoddle role in the Cure team.”

 

“Funny”

“That’s now. I’m a born-again comic.”

 

“A moggy replete with whiskas”/”An old, comfortable persian cat”

“Yeah, that horrible bloke from the NME wrote those – they’ve got that sanctified air about them. I don’t think I’m like a cat, no more so than anyone else. (Then he suddenly realises that there is a pint of milk on the table in front of him).”

 

“Fat boy”

“It’s true. But that’s through my love of milk! I am at the moment, but I wasn’t two weeks ago… I stopped drinking because we were doing a video. If I stop drinking for four days I revert back to my fighting days, but I do still tend to drink too much – and it all goes on to my face. I’m really conscious of it, I hate feeling fat ‘cos it just makes you feel uncomfortable. But I’ve never been fat – just podgy.”

 

“Brilliant”

“That was written about me, was it?I use that as an expletive quite often in the studio, if something goes exactly as I’d planned it, I see a big balloon saying ‘Brilliant!’ like a Young Ones sort of balloon. If people are going to bandy adjectives like ‘brilliant’ about they may as well apply it to us as much as anyone!”

October 10, 1987

© David Giles & No. 1

The wit and wisdom of Robert Smith

The Cure are back in the charts with “Just like heaven” and Robert Smith is back in form and talking to Doug Adamson

 

Who’d have thought it? Of all the great singers of the 1977 punk era – Rotten, Strummer, Weller, you name them – the one who’s lasted the best turns out to be the shy little Robert Smith.

Ten years after he formed The Cure with the ever-present Lol Tolhurst, Robert Smith is still fresh, still making music – mountains of it – and above all, still true to himself.

In a pop world full of career opportunists, Smith stand out as a beacon of indipendence. Quite simply, he does not compromise.

And in a pop world full of blandness and self-obsession, it’s always refreshing to hear Robert Smith talk…

 

…on pride:

“The reason why the group started was to react against the dross, and that’s the reason why the group still continues.

“I haven’t heard a record that’s as good as “Kiss me kiss me kiss me” recently – it sounds dreadfully big-headed, doesn’t it? – but I thought there had to be a song that translates our pride in the album. That’s “Fight”.

“It’s almost like a Big Country song (much laughter). Obviously it doesn’t sound anything like a Big Country song, although it is a bit anthemic. I can just see our audience punching the air now!”

 

…on chart success:

“We would never had this longevity if we’d had chart success a few years ago, because we’d have been too easily labelled. Now we’re able to deal with it; we’re much more slippery. We can escape tags and things because I’m so used to playing the extremely foolish games that you have to indulge in.

“I never think, ‘Oh, grief, we’re not in the top ten’, because I look at the top ten and I’d seriously rather hang myself than be there if I had to be like the people that are in the top ten. I’d rather have a smaller audience that we meant more to, than a big audience we meant nothing to. That’s a part of my nature, which is why we’ve always been slightly outside of the mainstream.

“Even if we sold ten million records I still don’t think we’d ever be accepted as a mainstream group.”

 

…on being the biggest group in France:

“I don’t know why. I think we just offer something that’s a bit odd and people like it. There are no good cultural or social reasons why we’re more popular in France.

“I’d like to think it’s because they have excellent taste, but unfortunately they eat snails and garlic, so that’s not true!”

 

…on responsibility:

“The one big problem about becoming popular is me having to come to terms with people seeing me as someone larger than life. I can never get used to it.

“It’s difficult when you know that everything you’re doing, especially in France, is going to be reported and photographed.. I can’t throw up in a club any more without worrying about the consequences.

“I don’t feel responsible in the way of thinking, ‘Hey kids, this is your Uncle Robert saying don’t do this’ – but I haven’t done anything over the last few years which I wouldn’t want anyone to know about anyway, so I don’t have to agonise over it too much.

“I don’t see why I should be forced into it just because our records are popular.”

 

…on The Cure being fashionable:

“We seem to go in and out of fashion. In South America we’re horribly fashionable at the moment, ‘cos we played concerts there earlier this year.

“In California at the moment we sell more records than Bon Jovi, but we’re not fashionable in the way that Bon Jovi are. We know that they’ll be dead and gone in a year and we won’t be. We’ve always shied away from too much exposure.”

 

…on being unstable:

“I don’t have tantrums in public. I’m reliable, up to a point, but I don’t think I’m particularly stable. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be stable; it doesn’t leave you much option to go berserk, does it?

“The people you should be wary of are those people that claim to be stable. They’re the ones that have the chainsaw under the bed.

“Lol would claim to be stable (laughs). Then he proceed to peel the wallpaper off the walls while he’s talking to you.”

 

…on wrecking hotel rooms:

“No. God forbid (long pause). Only by accident; never by design.”

 

…on getting older:

“I didn’t think I’d make it this far when I was 21 (he’s now 28). But as soon as I got past my 25th brithday I gave up worrying about how long I was going to last.

“After I was 25 I re-evaluated my physical consumption and my mental outlook. I became much more responsible to my own body.”

 

…on being criticised by Mary, his girlfriend of 15 years:

“Lyrically she’s very critical. She often says, ‘You shouldn’t sing that, it sounds stupid’, and I either agree or disagree.

“She doesn’t ever impose herself so I generally have to ask her opinion. I’m not isolated to the degree where I take no notice.

“As Mary has known me for so long, she’s obviously got more of an insight to what I’m trying to do anyway.”

 

…on his parents and his family life:

“I’ve always got on well with my parents. I was a mistake, you see. My mum wasn’t supposed to have any more children – there was a 15-year gap between me and my elder sister.

“I had a peculiar upbringing really. They gave me a little sister when my mum realised she could have more children.

“They’d already brought up my older brother and sister, so there was nothing I could do that would shock then, They were very liberal – my brother used to smoke dope around the house when I was quite young. They said to him, ‘As long as you don’t give it to him’ (meaning Robert).

“They take a very wordly view of things. They’re very religious, and go to church every Sunday.”

 

…on God:

“No, I don’t believe in God really. In my worst moments I have belief in absolutely nothing. Most of the time I have no belief in my own existence after I die, which is where a lot of the depression comes from in a lot of the songs.”

 

…on death:

“I can accept my own death, because I’ve thought that I was going to die at least twice. Once I fell off a balcony when I was really drunk and caught hold of the rail just in time, and the other was a few years back when I just got so… run down, shall we say… that I thought I was going do die.

“Through all the period that I was making ‘Seventeen Seconds’ and ‘Faith’ I thought about little else other than death and dying, which is why I was such a morose bastard. At least now I balance it with other things.

“I’m surprised I didn’t get myself beaten up more often then, I was so miserable.”

 

…on writing film music:

“That’s what I imagine I eventually will do. I’d like to do the entire score for a film.

“It seems pointless to try and do it now, and do The Cure as well, because it would take too much time.

“It would mean that I could let myself go to pieces and get as fat as I wanted and no one would know!”

 

May, 9, 1987

© Doug Adamson & Record Mirror

Robert Smith & Brian Molko – A Cure ouvert

BRIAN MOLKO : It’s interesting to be the other side, it’s the first time I play the role of the journalist. When I was a kid, I used to watch you on tv, to read your interviews. Now I ask you some questions. What is your oldest memory ?

ROBERT SMITH : My father had a video camera super-8 and he used to film us a lot, my mother, my sister, and I. And I saw all the films. I am born in 1959 and I grew up in Blackpool, in North East England and, at the border of the sea. There are a lot of films where I can be seen running like a crazy man, with some asses in the back. My  first memory is : seeing my sister eating worms, and to be honest, I dig them up and she ate them.Ii was about 3 and she 2. And my mother punished me. It must be one of the few times I had been hit. I remember also the smell of the asses. One of my first memories is bound to the noise of the sea. When I left London, ten years ago, I was ready to go anywhere but somewhere near the sea. I wanted to be able to wake up and hear the sea. It’s bound to my childhood, to pure happiness, to innocence. I love the music and the perfume of the sea. so I moved in the south of england and I feel myself completely different. In london I had a feeling of hate against the whole world.

BRIAN : As asphyxiated ?

ROBERT : Yes, and now I breathe. The noise of the sea comfort me. I have lived in London for ten years, and at the end I was wasted, a human rags. I lived in a basement, like in a Roman Polanski’s film, the walls crumbling, yelling in the 3rd floor, I was always tense. After a year spent far away from london, I was completely transformed. because I left the past behind me, I left the temptations. I live in a lost place, neart Brighton. Brighton became a in-place, but it’s still a pleasant town.

BRIAN : What frightens you most ? For me, I’d say to get imprisoned because of a drug affair. Because of my size, some would abuse of me, as they would be bored. I couldn’t stand being raped in a cell.

ROBERT : i hope you don’t think about that too often! I don’t like flying. Each time I get in a plane, unless I’m completely drunk, I wonder if it’s gonna be ok. I did a lot of stuff in my life, to push away my limits, to test myself, but I don’t know if I could parachuting. Actually, I’m afraid to die. You are afraid to suffer on a long time. I’m scared that everything stops. During the 80’s I was afraid to become crazy, because I burned my neurones. I was afraid to wake up one morning and don’t recognise anybody anymore.

BRIAN : Musically and visually, is david bowie also a part of your first memories?

ROBERT : I was immediately fascinated by the character, like a lot of people of my generation. I discovered him with “Starman”, at the end of 72 – early 73, I was about 13-14 years. Each of my friends who were interested in music, were talking :”have you seen the weird guy yesterday night on tv ?” he personified another world. When you are 14 you feel a frustration. Bowie showed us that a fanciful world existed. I have been obsessed during 2 or 3 years. And then, I bought “Heroes” and I criticised it because I began to have my own opinion. it was weird, like to question his own parents. But I turned away from david bowie. The punk movement began in 1975-76 and that’s what attracted me. But when I heard “Earthling” in 1997, I went back to bowie. I was really moved to play with him for his 50th birthday in New York. He left a message on my answering machine. As my phone number is not listed, nobody knows it, I  thought it was a joke from a friend. I left a message on his answering machine: “I’ll call you back, I’m not sure”. but deeply in myself , I was euphoric.

BRIAN : Do you share his fascination for internet ?

ROBERT : Concerning the downloadable music, I think the debates are far away from the essential, that is to say that the artist have to be always paid for his work. Otherwise, he can’t live. The problem is that music is too expensive. It’s a naive vision to think that internet is free: there’s always somebody who pays, somebody who get the money, somebody who owns the infrastructure. Offering your own music freely is playing the game of the big business groups. the money gets to those groups. Internet is simply a new way to distribution. In the States, some artists don’t even own their own work.

BRIAN : Would you be ready to be in the stock exchange, like Bowie ?

ROBERT : No. When I talked about it with him, we disagreed on almost every point. Actually I had drunk too much and I was quite aggressive. But I’m not naive. Cure at the beginning hadn’t any manager, so I learnt to analyse the contracts, to discover how people would try to cheat on us. That’s why we decided not to sign another contract with a major company after this “Greatest Hits”.

BRIAN : Chris Parry has never been your manager, but with his label “Fiction Records” he did a great job with and for you.

ROBERT : At the beginning, he was the only one believing in us. I think the first song on the cassette was “10:15”, and in the 10 first seconds he wanted to sing us. He was incredibly enthusiastic. at this time, we couldn’t ask for more. Even if our friend believed in us, it was hard to let us be known. I wanted a small label,Ii wanted a only one interlocutor I didn’t want to be said : “This one doesn’t work here anymore”. We had no written engagement. We knew that if something went wrong, we could shake our hands and go away. So, the end has been a little disappointing. Our new album “bloodflowers” had no hit and some found it wasn’t that good. It’s hard to know that your label isn’t enthusiastic anymore. I had already suffered from the critiques about “Galore”, three years before. The single “Wrong number” didn’t get the success it deserved, except in the USA, no radio played it in UK. I even wondered if it wasn’t a conspiracy ! That’s what killed the band as a pop band. So I decided to give up this part of the band. When we re-recorded “Just say yes”, I wasn’t able to sing, that’s why I ask Saffron (singer of Republica) to do it. I wasn’ t able, I had tears in my voice. 

BRIAN : People tend to think that somebody like you doesn’t have any stage fright.

ROBERT : In the studio, everything is based on the emotional. In general, I don’t sing on the demos. Sometimes, I’m really a crap in the studio. If I drank too much, I can’t articulate and when I’m in a bad mood, or when I’m tired, I sing like Serge Gainsbourg ! The first take is rarely good. For “Bloodflowers”, it’s one of the rare times it worked quickly.

BRIAN : Most of your videos have been directed by Tim Pope. Did he have a special vision, a visual interpretation in harmony with your universe ?

ROBERT : When we met, we had the feeling we’ve have known each other for a long time. He succeeded to bring to evidence he human side we tended to hide. He did a great job for Cure.

BRIAN :At the beginning you had an image of darkness, of obscurity, of decadence, of perversion, of despair, and then you wrote love songs, more pop, with a certain sense of humour. Is there something in particular in the origin of this evolution ?

ROBERT : The first album doesn’t enter in this logic. It was born during we were at school, I don’t consider it like a personal album, but like an album made in community. Until “Pornography”, I was in a vicious circle. The inspiration was endless we were about 20, we were at full tilt. During the tour we were wondering who would die first, we abused of everything. Weirdly, I was happy to live in the excess, it was an obsession, I had forgotten everything else. But at the end, we couldn’t stand each other anymore, it was really violent, we didn’t see each other during a year and a half. Then I went on holiday with my wife Mary to a walk ride on the North of England and then I realised, while suffering because of the physic efforts, that I didn’t want to abandon everything. Chris Parry, the boss of our label, Fiction, had been very important in that matter as well. I had written the demo of “Let’s go to bed” which could have been in “Pornography” with its very slow gimmick. And Chris said : “Come on, do a pop song”. And I answered, “Ok, but not under the name of Cure”. But he refused it. He said that a posteriori, in ten years time, I would understand why. He was ten years older than us, he had a real clear global vision. Then I worked with Siouxsie and the Banshees and I developed that pop thing, with “Lovecats” and “The walk”. Without it, I wouldn’t have dared it. The problem is, that with “Pornography”, we were stuck into this image and people around us wanted to see in me that very dark person. It was a horrible period of my life.

BRIAN : Do you feel responsible for the gothic movement and all those ridiculous aspects ? I often laugh at this trend, because we have been sometimes reproached of being Goths and that really gets to my nerves. We are not crows !!!

ROBERT : That’s weird, we’ve never been a gothic band, in the sense that there are no pictures of us with a crucifix or anything else. We were instead a band in raincoats ! The Banshees are gothic, in the real meaning of the word. I don’t have any gothic album. I hate The Sisters of Mercy. During the first interview I made for this “Greatest Hits”, the journalist questioned me about that gothic side. I went crazy; “With songs like Lovecats, Let’s go to bed, show me what’s gothic in it, listen to Friday I’m in love ! A gothic band wouldn’t do songs like that !”. But anyway, I like the Goths, they’re lovely. If you forget their morbid fantasies, their belief that they’re gonna die if they stay too long under the sun, they can be really funny. Have you ever been in Mexico ? the best Goths can be found there. When you see them from the stage, you think they wear Goths clothes; all in black, and when you meet them, you realise they wear shorts of every colour.

BRIAN : What do you think of the neo-metal ? Slipknot, Limp Biscuit, Linkin Park ….

ROBERT : I like some part of guitars. The problem is that, with this kind of bands, I don’t like the voices. It’s like with the gothic band they believe they have to conform into an aesthetic, to scream the same way. It’s a kind of rebellion which is normalised, mainstream. The real rebellion is the one which doesn’t fit in definite form, which goes off the stray of the beaten tacks, individually, not collectively. And I got the feel that the neo-metal is horribly cynical. I suppose that those guys live for their bands, they really believe in it, but they must be too dumb to understand they’re victims of a huge marketing plan. I know a little of that because my nephew makes me listen to some stuff. “Fuck you, motherfucker, blablabla”. and I say : “Ok, do you have the t-shirt?” Slipknot, they look like Alice Cooper, but they can’t hold a candle to him. That sense of theatrality, cult of pain, of degradation….. and then they go back home and everything is alright.

BRIAN : So, what do you listen to for the moment ?

ROBERT : My favourite band, this last few years, except yours, of course, is Mogwai. I had a small correspondence with their leader, Steward. I said him that “Young Team” was one of the best debut album ever, he thanked me, etc. And one day I talked about them to NME, the journalist interpreted my words and put them on their site. I try to explain to Steward that was a mistake, but he stopped writing me. They have energy, spirit, you can hear it in their music. It’s full of power, a band that believes in those values.

BRIAN : Thanks to the cartoon “South Park” you won some goods points with your nephews. You saved the planet !

ROBERT : And Stan at the end says : “Disintegration, is the best album ever !” I didn’t know how it would be. They send me a video cassette, the one where they discuss whether the dog is gay or not. I really laughed, but at the same time I found it ignoble. They sent me something to read, I trusted them. I had the script, but there were some blank spaces to keep the surprise. They didn’t want anybody to know, they wanted to shock. When I saw myself, I found it surrealistic. I would have liked to be more implicated in the project.

BRIAN : For the “Greatest Hits” how did you manage to select the songs ? Did you set a poll or a vote among the fans ?

ROBERT : That’s what the label wanted, but I only accepted to promote this album if I could chose the songs and if a second CD could be offered with the best of. They agreed, because to add up two songs isn’t enough. The idea to make an acoustic album came after. I thought that, as a fan, I would like to hear the songs played differently. I was the only one who really wanted that acoustic album. We are the first band which had required a free CD with a greatest hits. The majors hate us because now, people will want a free CD with every best of. Artists will also hate us because they will have to create something more. Until now, the ‘best of’ were only for the money. I know that in the States, they wonder how we manage, financially speaking : they don’t know what the word “free” means. That was the only way so I could look at the fans directly in the eyes. Then we met, the 5 members of the band. We had 10 songs in common. I wanted that this “Greatest Hits” was a commercial success, but I didn’t want to put away what we did in the beginning. “A Forest” has never been a hit, but it would have been a pity to let it aside, if this song could please the fans and the band. So I abandoned to impose some of my favourite songs, like “A Letter to Elise”, “Charlotte Sometimes” and “Hot Hot Hot”. I wanted that this CD would make a “whole”, something complete. A lot of people asked me why we didn’t choose “Killing an Arab” of the first album. What I don’t like is that they think we didn’t dare after the September 11 events. This song is pursuing me because of its title. The gulf war, the terrorist attacks in the States…. that’s the number one of the anti arab songs. If I could change only one thing, I would go back in the past, that day at school, when I chose the title and I’d change it. But I’d keep the song.

BRIAN : How many times did you think to stop ?

ROBERT : The band formed in school had exploded. The next trio, the one that made “Pornography” split up. After the tour of “Disintegration”, i was truly wanting to give up everything. I was on my knees, I thought I had to take the distance of all. So I stayed at home for a few months. After “Galore”, in 1997, I thought it was over. But I feel better with the band today than ten years ago.

BRIAN : There are some artists for whom the music is as much essential as to breathe or eat, they create constantly, they can’t help it. I think you are one of those persons.

ROBERT : It’s not always easy to accept, I realize I’m still with Mary only because she has ever been incredibly tolerant towards that fire in me. I only live for the music, the rest has no importance.

27/11/2001

© Les Inrockuptibles

Brian Molko intervista Robert Smith

 

Brian Molko: E’ interessante stare dall’altra parte, è la prima volta che vesto i panni del giornalista. Quando ero un ragazzo ti vedevo alla tv, leggevo le tue interviste. Adesso sono qui a farti delle domande. Qual’è il tuo primo ricordo?

Robert Smith: Mio padre aveva una telecamera super-8 e spesso riprendeva me, mia madre e mia sorella, così ho visto tutti i filmati. Sono nato nel 1959 e sono cresciuto a Blackpool in riva al mare, nel nord-ovest dell’ Inghilterra. Ci sono molti filmati in cui mi si vede correre come un pazzo, con degli asini sullo sfondo.
Il mio primo ricordo è questo : vedo mia sorella mangiare dei vermi e, ad essere sincero, io scavavo per cercarli e lei li mangiava. Io avevo circa 3 anni lei 2. E ricordo mia madre che mi puniva. Deve essere stata una delle uniche volte in cui venni sgridato. Ricordo anche l’odore degli asini. Uno dei miei primi ricordi è legato al rumore del mare. Quando lasciai Londra, 10 anni fa, ero disposto ad andare ovunque, purchè vicino al mare. Volevo potermi svegliare e sentire il rumore del mare. E’ legato alla mia infanzia, alla pura felicità, all’innocenza. Amo la musica e il profumo del mare. Così mi sono trasferito nell’ Inghilterra del sud ed ora mi sento completamente diverso. A Londra ce l’avevo con il mondo intero.

B.M.: Come se stessi soffocando?

R.S.: Si, e ora posso respirare. Il rumore del mare mi fa sentire bene. Ho vissuto a Londra 10 anni e alla fine ero logorato. Un relitto umano. Vivevo in un seminterrato, come in un film di Polanski, i muri che si sgretolavano, le urla al terzo piano, ero sempre teso. Dopo aver trascorso un anno lontano da Londra, ero completamente cambiato, perché avevo lasciato il passato alle spalle, avevo abbandonato le tentazioni.
Vivo in un posto sperduto, vicino Brighton. Brighton è diventata un posto alla moda, ma è ancora una cittadina gradevole.

B.M.: Che cosa ti spaventa di più ? Io sarei terrorizzato se dovessi finire in prigione per motivi di droga, a causa della mia statura gli altri (prigionieri), annoiati, abuserebbero di me. Non sopporterei di essere violentato in una cella.

R.S.: Spero che tu non ci pensi troppo spesso! A me non piace volare. Ogni volta che salgo su un aereo, a meno che non sia ubriaco, mi chiedo se andrà tutto bene. Ho fatto un sacco di cose nella mia vita, per superare i miei limiti, per sperimentarmi, ma non so se riuscirei a buttarmi con il paracadute. Ora è la paura di morire. Tu hai paura di dover soffrire a lungo. Io ho paura che tutto si fermi. Negli anni 80 avevo paura di diventare pazzo a forza di bruciare i neuroni. Avevo paura di svegliarmi una mattina e non riconoscere più nessuno.

B.M.: Musicalmente e visivamente David Bowie fa parte dei tuoi primi ricordi?

R.S.: Sono stato subito affascinato dal suo personaggio, come la maggior parte delle persone della mia generazione.Lo notai in “Starman”, fine ’72 inizio ’73, avevo circa 13-14 anni. Tutti i miei amici appassionati di musica dicevano: ” Hai visto quel tipo strano in tv, ieri notte ? ” Lui personificava un altro mondo. Quando hai 14 anni ti senti frustrato. Bowie ci ha mostrato l’esistenza di un mondo immaginario. Ne sono stato ossessionato per 2-3 anni. Poi comprai Heroes e ho iniziato a criticarlo perché cominciavo ad avere una mia opinione. E’ stato strano, come mettere in discussione i propri genitori. Così mi sono staccato da Bowie. Il movimento punk è iniziato negli anni 75-76 e mi attraeva molto. Ma quando ho sentito ” Earthling ” nel ’97 mi sono riavvicinato a Bowie. Sono stato veramente commosso di suonare con lui per il suo cinquantesimo compleanno a New York. Mi aveva lasciato un messaggio sulla segreteria telefonica. Ma dato che non sono sull’elenco nessuno sa il mio numero così pensavo fosse uno scherzo di qualche amico. Lasciai un messaggio sulla sua segreteria: ” Ti richiamerò, ma non ne sono sicuro “. Ma, dentro di me, ero euforico.

B.M.: Sei affascinato dal mondo di internet ?

R.S.: Riguardo la musica da scaricare penso che i dibattiti siano molto lontani dai punti essenziali, sarebbe a dire che un musicista dovrebbe essere sempre pagato per quel che fa, altrimenti non potrebbe più campare. Il problema è che la musica è troppo costosa. E’ un’ ingenuità credere che Internet sia gratis: c’è sempre qualcuno che paga e qualcuno che guadagna dei soldi, qualcuno che possiede l’infrastruttura. Offrire la propria musica gratis vuol dire fare il gioco dei grandi gruppi economici. I soldi vanno a questi gruppi. Internet è soltanto un nuovo modo per distribuire il prodotto. Negli Stati Uniti alcuni artisti non sono più nemmeno padroni del proprio lavoro.

B.M.: Saresti pronto per essere quotato in borsa, come Bowie?

R.S.: No. Quando ne parlai con lui eravamo in disaccordo su molti punti. Effettivamente avevo bevuto troppo ed ero piuttosto aggressivo. Ma non sono un ingenuo. I Cure, all’inizio, non avevano nemmeno un manager, così ho imparato ad analizzare i contratti, a capire in che modo le persone avrebbero cercato di fregarci. Questo è il motivo per cui abbiamo deciso di non firmare nessun contratto con un’altra major dopo l’uscita di questo ” Greatest Hits “.

B.M.: Chris Parry non è mai stato un vostro manager, ma con la sua casa discografica, la ” Fiction “, ha fatto un buon lavoro con e per voi.

R.S.: All’inizio lui era l’ unico che credeva in noi. Se non mi sbaglio la prima canzone sul demo era ” 10:15 ” e lui, dopo aver ascoltato 10 secondi del brano, voleva farci firmare il contratto . Era incredibilmente entusiasta e all’epoca, non potevamo chiedere di meglio. Anche se i nostri amici credevano in noi, era molto difficile diventare noti. Io volevo una piccola casa discografica, volevo avere soltanto un interlocutore, non volevo sentirmi dire: ” Quello non lavora più qui “. Non avevamo un contratto scritto. Sapevamo che se qualcosa fosse andato storto sarebbe bastata una stretta di mano per salutarci. Comunque la fine è stata un pò deludente. Qualcuno pensava che il nostro nuovo album ” Bloodflowers ” non avrebbe avuto successo e che non fosse un gran che. E’ dura sapere che la tua casa discografica non è più entusiasta per il tuo lavoro. Avevo già sofferto molto per le reazioni per le critiche a ” Galore “, tre anni prima. Il singolo ” Wrong number ” non aveva avuto il successo che si meritava, tranne che negli Stati Uniti, nessuna radio in Gran Bretagna lo mandava in onda. Mi sono anche chiesto se non si trattasse di una cospirazione! Questo è stato ciò che ha decretato la fine della band come gruppo pop. Mi ero deciso così ad abbandonare questo lato del gruppo.
Quando mi trovai in studio per registrare ” Just Say Yes ” non riuscivo a cantare, è questo il motivo per cui chiesi a Saffron ( il cantante dei Republica) di farlo. Io non ero in grado, cantavo in lacrime.

B.M.: La gente tende a pensare che uno come te non abbia nessuna paura da palcoscenico.

R.S.: In studio tutto si basa sulle emozioni. Normalmente io non ho una voce impostata sui demo. Qualche volta faccio veramente schifo in studio. Se ho bevuto troppo non riesco ad articolare bene le parole e quando sono di cattivo umore o stanco canto come Serge Gainsbourg ! Raramente la prima registrazione è buona. “Bloodflowers” è uno dei rari casi in cui è funzionato tutto subito.

B.M.: Molti dei vostri video sono stati diretti da Tim Pope. Aveva una visione speciale, un interpretazione visiva in armonia con il vostro universo?

R.S.: Quando ci siamo incontrati è stato come se ci conoscessimo da sempre. Lui è riuscito a far risaltare il nostro lato umano, che noi tendevamo a nascondere. Ha fatto un gran lavoro per i Cure.

B.M.: All’inizio avevate un’immagine di oscurità, di decadenza, di perversione, di disperazione ma poi hai scritto canzoni d’amore, più pop e con un certo senso dell’umorismo. C’è stato qualcosa in particolare che ha originato questa evoluzione?

R.S.: Il primo album non rientra in questa logica. E’ nato quando ancora andavamo scuola, non lo considero un album personale, ma come un album fatto insieme. Fino a ” Pornography ” ero in un circolo vizioso. L’ ispirazione era infinita, avevamo circa 20 anni ed eravamo veramente fusi. Durante la tournée ci chiedevamo chi sarebbe morto per primo, abusavamo di tutto. Soprannaturale, io ero felice di vivere negli eccessi, era un’ossessione, avevo dimenticato tutto il resto. Ma alla fine non ci sopportavamo più, tutto era troppo violento,non ci siamo visti per un anno e mezzo. Allora io andai in vacanza con mia moglie Mary nel nord dell’ Inghilterra per fare delle escursioni e allora mi accorsi, mentre provavo molta sofferenza per lo sforzo fisico, che non volevo abbandonare niente di tutto questo. Chris Parry, il capo della nostra casa discografica, è stato molto importante in quella circostanza. Avevo scritto il demo di ” Let’s Go to Bed ” che avrebbe potuto essere inserito in “Pornography”, con il suo suono molto lento. E Chris mi ha detto: ” Su dai, fai una canzone pop “. Ed io gli risposi: ” Ok, ma non con il nome dei Cure ” ma lui si rifiutò. Mi disse che a posteriori, dopo una decina d’anni, avrei capito il perchè. Lui aveva circa 10 anni più di noi ed aveva una visione globale molto chiara. Poi ho lavorato con Siouxsie & the Banshees e ho sviluppato il mio lato pop con ” Lovecats ” e ” The walk “. Senza questa esperienza, io non avrei mai osato questo genere. Il problema è che con ” Pornography ” siamo stati classificati come gruppo dark, avevamo quell’ immagine e la gente attorno a noi voleva vedermi come una persona molto cupa. E’ stato un periodo orrendo della mia vita.

B.M.: Ti senti responsabile per il movimento goth e tutti i suoi aspetti ridicoli? Io, spesso, prendo in giro questa tendenza perché qualche volta ci hanno ” accusato ” di essere goth e questo mi fa saltare veramente i nervi. Noi non siamo dei corvacci!!!

R.S.: E’ strano, noi non siamo mai stati un gruppo goth, nel senso che non esistono nostre foto con crocifissi o robe simili. Eravamo piuttosto un gruppo in impermeabile! The Banshees erano goth nel vero senso della parola. Io non ho nemmeno un disco goth. Odio i Sisters of Mercy. Durante la prima intervista che ho fatto per il “Greatest Hits” il giornalista mi ha fatto soltanto domande che riguardavano il lato goth. Sono diventato pazzo, gli ho detto ” in canzoni come ” Lovecats ” e ” Let’s Go to Bed ” dimmi che c’è di gotico! Ascoltati ” Friday I’m in love ” ! Un gruppo gotico fartebbe canzoni del genere! ” ma nonostante questo, mi piacciono le persone goth, sono adorabili. Se tu tralasci le loro fantasie morbide, la loro convinzione di morire se sottoposti alla luce del sole, possono essere veramente divertenti! Sei mai stato in Messico? Lì puoi trovare i goth migliori! Quando li vedi dal palco pensi che vestano in abiti goth tutti di nero, ma poi quando li incontri, vedi che indossano pantaloncini di tutti i colori!

B.M.: Che ne pensi del nu-metal? Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park…

R.S.: Mi piace qualche pezzo di chitarra. Il problema è che, in questo genere di gruppi, non mi piacciono le voci.  E’ come per i gruppi goth, credono di doversi conformare ad una determinata linea estetica, di urlare allo stesso modo. E’ una sorta di ribellione diventata scontata, una corrente. La vera ribellione è quella che non rientra negli schemi, che esce dalle strade già percorse, singolarmente, non in massa. E ho la sensazione che il nu-metal sia terribilmente cinico. Suppongo che questi ragazzi vivano per le loro band, ci credano realmente. Ma sono troppo stupidi per capire che non sono altro che vittime di un enorme piano pubblicitario. Ne so qualcosa perché mio nipote mi fa ascoltare questa roba. ” F**k you, motherfu**er, blablabla ” e io gli dico: ” O.K., hai la loro T-shirt? “. Gli Slipknot, sembrano Alice Cooper, ma non sono degni nemmeno di lustrargli le scarpe. Quel senso di teatralità, il culto del dolore e del degrado….ma poi tornano a casa loro e tutto va bene.

B.M.: Bene, che ascolti al momento ?

R.B.: Il mio gruppo preferito in questi ultimi anni, a parte il vostro naturalmente, sono i Mogwai. Ho avuto una piccola corrispondenza con il loro leader, Steward. Gli dissi che ” Young Team ” era uno dei migliori album di debutto mai realizzato, lui mi ringraziò ecc…, un giorno parlai di lui a nme, il giornalista interpretò le mie parole ele mise nel loro sito. Io ho cercato di spiegare a Steward che c’era stato un errore, ma lui smise di scrivermi. Loro hanno energia, anima, tu poi sentirlo nella loro musica. Sono pieni di carisma, un gruppo che crede in quei valori.

B.M.: Grazie al cartone ” South Park ” hai guadagnato dei punti nei confronti dei tuoi nipoti. Hai salvato la terra!

R.S.: E alla fine, Stan dice: ” Disintegration, il miglior album di tutti i tempi! ” Io non sapevo cosa sarebbe successo.Mi avevano inviato una videocassetta, quella in cui tutti discutevano se il cane fosse gay o meno. Io ridevo a crepapelle, ma allo stesso tempo lo trovavo ignobile. Mi spedirono delle cose da leggere, mi fidavo di loro. Avevo il copione ma c’erano delle parti mancanti per creare l’effetto sorpresa. Non volevano che nessuno sapesse niente,volevano stupire. Quando mi sono visto, ho trovato tutto molto surreale. Avrei voluto essere coinvolto maggiormente nel progetto.

B.M.: Quale metodo avete usato per scegliere le canzoni da inserire nel ” Greatest Hits ” ? Avete fatto un sondaggio tra i vostri fans ?

R.S.: Quello è ciò che voleva la casa discografica, ma io ho accettato di fare la promozione di questo album soltanto se avessi potuto scegliere personalmente le canzoni e se fosse stato incluso un secondo cd con il best of. Hanno accettato. Visto che aggiungere soltanto due inediti non ci sembrava abbastanza. L’idea di un album con le versioni acustiche è venuta dopo. Ho pensato che, da fan, mi sarebbe piaciuto sentirele stesse versioni suonate in modo diverso. Io ero l’unico che voleva veramente quest’ album acustico. Noi siamo stati il primo gruppo a richiedere un cd gratis da allegare al ” Greatest Hits “. Tutte le major ci odiano perché ora la gente pretende un cd gratuito allegato ad ogni ” Greatest Hits ” .
Ci odiano anche gli artisti perché ora devono inventarsi qualcosa di più. Fino ad ora i best of servivano solo a far soldi. So che negli Stati Uniti basano tutto sul possibile guadagno finanziaro: non conoscono quale sia il significato della parola ” free”. Quello era, per me, l’unico modo per poter continuare a guardare negli occhi i fans. Quindi ci siamo incontrati con gli altri cinque componenti del gruppo. Avevamo dieci canzoni su cui eravamo d’accordo. Volevo che questo disco fosse un successo commerciale, ma non volevo escludere le nostre prime canzoni. ” A Forest ” non è mai stata in classifica ma sarebbe stato un vero peccato lasciarla fuori, visto che comuque ai fans ed al gruppo avrebbe fatto piacere trovarla nel disco. Così io ho evitato di imporre le mie canzoni preferite come “A Letter to Elise”, ” Charlotte Sometimes ” e ” Hot Hot Hot “. Volevo che questo disco fosse in qualche modo completo. Molta gente mi ha chiesto perché non avevamo scelto “killing an Arab” un pezzo del nostro primo album. Ciò che mi infastidisce è che pensano che non abbiamo osato farlo dopo gli eventi dell’11 settembre. Questa canzone mi perseguita per via del suo titolo. La Guerra del Golfo, gli attacchi terroristici negli Stati Uniti… è la canzone numero uno delle canzoni anti-arabi. Se potessi cambiare una sola cosa, tornerei indietro nel passato, a quel giorno a scuola, quando scelsi il titolo e lo cambierei. Però non cambierei la canzone.

B.M.: Quante volte avete pensato di sciogliervi ?

R.S.: Il gruppo, che avevamo formato a scuola, è scoppiato. Il trio seguente, quello di “Pornography “, si è sciolto. Dopo la tournée di ” Disintegration ” ero veramente sul punto di lasciar perdere tutto. Ero in ginocchio, ho capitoche dovevo prendere le distanze da tutto quanto. Così sono stato a casa per alcuni mesi dopo l’uscita di “Galore” nel 1997, pensavo che era finita. Ma mi trovo molto meglio ora con il gruppo piuttosto che 10 anni fa.

B.M.: Ci sono artisti per cui la musica è essenziale, come respirare o mangiare, creano continuamente, non possono fermarsi. Penso che tu appartenga a questa categoria di artisti.

R.S.: Non è sempre facile da accettare, mi rendo conto di stare ancora con Mary solo perché lei è sempre stata incredibilmente tollerante verso questo fuoco dentro di me. Io vivo soltanto per la musica, tutto il resto non ha importanza.

November 2001

© Les Inrockuptibles

Rule, Britannia!

June, 12, 1992

© Daily Mirror

The Cure at the Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust

At the end of March, The Cure became the first band in the Teenage Cancer Trust’s 14 years of gigs at the Royal Albert Hall to headline two nights, Friday and Saturday, after every ticket to the first was snapped up by fan club presales.

Through the efforts and industry of the benefits’ apparently indefatigable driving force, TCT patron Roger Daltrey, and promoter SJM, the dates attract big hitters, Ed Sheeran, Paolo Nutini, One Republic and Suede among the headliners this year. It puts the charity’s persuasive message out to a broad public, across the generations, but two sell-out nights from The Cure was a perfect exception.

“Friday looked like a great day to do it, so that’s what the band was focusing on, and straight away SJM was holding the Saturday,” production manager, Steve Allen, tells EIN during their second soundcheck.

“Robert Smith is a total original and to have him here for two nights is such an honour,” Daltrey said.

Alongside Smith, the latest version of the band features American guitarist Reeves Gabrels, once with Bowie’s Tin Machine, bassist Simon Gallup, who’s been there, by and large, since 1979 and doesn’t appear to have got any older, drummer Jason Cooper and keyboard man Roger O’Donnell.

Their 45-song, three-hour Teenage Cancer Trust set made the occasion(s) even more special, dropping in on just about every chapter, from 10:15 Saturday Night to The Hungry Ghost off the last album, 4:13 Dream. And it was a big night in terms of the video, at the back of the stage, and the lighting too, which was bolstered by a substantial Cure floor package.

A Night Like This

Allen has worked on the TCT shows since The Who headlined the first, in 2000. The technology might have changed, he says, but the principal remains the same.

The programme has retained some 95 per cent of the suppliers from its origins, Entec, and PRG among them, and the venue has fallen in with its unique approach.

“Over the course of 14 years, going digital has meant we can do all the sound on one small [console] rather than having to drag desks in for every act, and it’s the same with lighting,” Allen explains. “You can have three artists with three different looks playing on the same night and all the information is stored on a show file. Ten years ago, everything front of house was double-stacked and squashed in. Now you can swing a cat in there.

“[The Royal Albert Hall staff] were really shocked by the duration of the shows to begin with, and by the 100s of people that descend on the stage and the backstage, so it was a learning curve for them,” Allen, who will start planning for the 15^th anniversary shows at the end of the summer, adds. “And it’s definitely got better. It’s not quite perfection, but it’s getting there.”

“The last two nights, for us, have been astoundingly good, really moving concerts,” Robert Smith said, after closing the show with The Cure’s first single, Killing An Arab.

April 16, 2014

© Nic Howden

Robert Smith: “I don’t want to beat people over the head with new Cure material”

The Cure’s frontman has been telling XFM that the band’s two shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust were “pretty sensational”… but that his plans for the rest of 2014 are still up in the air.

It was reported earlier this year that fans were likely to get the follow-up to 2008’s 4:13 Dream – a series of songs that were recorded over six years ago but which remain unreleased.

“We’re in a weird kind of predicament,” Smith told XFM’s John Kennedy after coming offstage at the Albert Hall last night (Saturday 29 March). “I’ve finished singing and mixing an album that was made by a band that no longer exists. So I’m trying to be convinced that I should release what is the second half of an album that effectively came out in 2008.  It’s a bit of a sore point, to be honest.

“It’s good, it’s really good, but it’s not really new. I just never sang it. I couldn’t be bothered! I didn’t think the words were good enough, but over the last eighteen months, I’ve re-written it. It’s an album that is really different to anything else we’ve done. People who want to hear it will hear it and those that don’t, don’t. They’ll just keep dancing to Close To Me and Love Cats.

“We’re playing in May in America and then I don’t think we’ll play again until late September. So it’ll probably come out in that summer ‘dead air’ period for albums.”

Robert revealed that the album was likely to be released on the Fiction label – which was the original home to The Cure between 1978 and 2000. “It seems like a nice way of squaring the circle,” he says.

“Having said all that… I’ve no idea. I’m very bad at planning long term. I’m at an age where I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I don’t feel such a strong urge to beat people over the head with new stuff.”

The Cure performed over two nights in aid of the charity, which helps teenagers and young adults come to terms with being diagnosed with cancer and the extensive treatment that goes with it. Each show lasted over three hours and featured 40-plus songs, some of which have rarely been performed live.

“I like dipping into the history of the band. I’m so enthralled by digging out songs we’ve never played before. They’re like new songs to me.”

The frontman also paid tribute to Roger Daltrey and his work with Teenage Cancer Trust: “I’m utterly amazed at what he does. The time he puts in, keeping it going. It really is staggering. It’s a totally different vibe to anything else we do, it really is.”

30th March 2014

© XFM Radio

The Cure’s Robert Smith Talks Guitar

“Is your magazine technically slanted?” inquires Robert Smith in a tone that hovers between suspicion and bemusement. The Cure, it seems, have never been interviewed by a guitar magaizine, despite having generated 13 years of consistently creative and often brilliant guitar-based pop.

“Depends on the artist,” I fudge.

“What about us?”

That, too, depends on who you talk to. To their gargantuan worldwide following, the Cure combine sublime pop and heartfelt expressivity; to a large segment of the music press, they’re self-obsessed gloom merchants, purveyors of pessimism to suburban America’s petulant teens. But many of the band’s detractors have probably let Smith’s personal flamboyance divert their attention from the band’s phenomenal pop craftsmanship and stylistic range.

The Cure have been called “the world’s biggest cult band.” While most stadium-circuit musicians trad in easily digested attitudes and images, the Cure have attained those heights without fist-in-the-air anthems or a down-home, populist stance.

Robert, the Cure’s only constant member, has graced each of the band’s 12 albums with moody, multicolored guitar textures. He has largely defined the group’s guitar voice, even though he often appears guitarless in videos and delegates parts that he played in the studio to other players when performing. His lines tend not to stand up and announce themselves, but merge with other instruments into deep, evocative atmospheres. The casual listener might not realize that beneath that hooky vocal melody lurks a rat’s nest of complex, intersecting figures. Here, Robert discusses some of his 6-string strategies…

On Guitar Solos
It has taken me a long time to come to terms with having guitar solos in our songs—I used to abhor them. I didn’t like the whole wanky idea of stepping to the front and saying, “Look at me!” But now it doesn’t bother me, because it suits what we’re now doing musically. It would have been dumb in the past to put in a guitar solo just because someone felt like playing one, but it would be equally dumb now to stop someone from doing one if that’s what the song needs to make it more exciting.

 

On Who Plays What

Even people who are quite close to the band are surprised to learn that I played the solo on “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea.” Everyone would immediately assume it’s Porl [Thompson, Cure guitarist]. But why should it be important who played what part? When I’m in the studio, I have a picture of the overall song, as opposed to what I’m going to play in it.

On Demos
We never fine-tune things at the demo stage. A lot of the fun of being in the studio is adding that element of improvisation.

 

On Volume

The short spell I spent with Siouxsie & The Banshees warned me about what high volume can do—they’re deaf! The Cure’s stage volume has always been based on the acoustic volume of the drum kit.

On Stompboxes
I’m drawn to Boss pedals because of the colors [laughs]. I really miss the old pedals like the Fuzz Face. Everything used to be a different shape, as well. It was really easy to know what you were going to hit.

On Guitars
Actually, the key to my current sound is the new Gibson Chet Atkins semi-acoustic—it’s brilliant! It’s the first guitar since my very first Jazzmaster to sound exactly how I want it to. The extra pickup on that Jazzmaster is from a Woolworth’s Top 20 guitar—my very first electric. I took it in to record our first album, along with a little WEM combo amp. [Manager/producer] Chris Parry, who was paying for the record, said, “You can’t use that!” We went out and bought a Fender Jazzmaster, and I immediately had the Top 20 pickup installed int it, which really upset Chris. I played the entire Three Imaginary Boys album through a Top 20 pickup. It’s a brilliant guitar, though I actually bought it because of how it looked. Same with the map-shaped Nationals I used on the last tour. For mt onstage nylon-string, I use a Gibson Chet Atkins. I stared on classical guitar. I had lessons from age nine with a student of John Williams, a really excellent guitarist. My sister was a piano prodigy, so sibling rivalry made me take up guitar because she couldn’t get her fingers around the neck. I learned a lot, but got to the point where I was losing the sense of fun. I wish I’d stuck with it. I still read music, but it takes me too long to work through a piece.

On Modulation
A lot of the things on our record that sound like heavy chorusing are actually just detuned instruments. The only drawback to that is that onstage it’s very confusing sometimes, especially with a lot of phasing going on. It turns into this overwhelming pulsing sound, and you can’t hear anything.

 

On Simplicity

When you leave holes, you can peer through and hear things—even things that aren’t actually there. I tend towards the “less is more” ethic. It’s really exciting to go mental for a few minutes on a song like “Cut,”but if the whole set was like that, it wouldn’t have any dynamic. That’s what’s wrong with a lot of grunge metal: It’s uniformly in your face, and it doesn’t have any shading or impact.

His Favorite Songs

My top five all-time favorite songs are “Are You Experienced?” by Jimi Hendrix, Tom Waits’ “Tom Traubert’s Blues,” “Give My Compliments to the Chef” by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, David Bowie’s “Life on Mars”—just because it reminds me of the first time I danced with [wife] Mary—and…hmm…”Faith” by us. Jimi Hendrix has always been my idol, though I absolutely hate Crash Landing, Midnight Lightning, and all that. I remember first hearing The Cry of Love on a really good stereo when I was 11. I listened with headphones on maximum, just deafened by this stunning stereo picture. It was one of those moments that’s stuck with me through my life. I’m also very drawn to Eastern music, though the things we’ve done with it, of course, are very dilettantish, quite tongue-in-cheek. “Killing an Arab” is obviously very dumb, though “The Blood” was very fun to do. I’ve always loved the drone side of it, and that’s probably influenced what I write more than any other kind of music.

 

April 22, 2014

© Guitar Player

 

‘Love’ Story: The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’ and Robert Smith’s Romance, 25 Years Later

Twenty-five years ago this week, the Cure released the magnum opus that Kyle from “South Park” once rightfully declared “the best album EVER!” While the Cure’s epic eighth studio effort, “Disintegration,” was among the band’s gloomiest and doomiest (frontman Robert Smith always considered it an unofficial companion to 1982’s intensely, brutally dark “Pornography”), it ironically yielded the band’s sweetest — and most commercially successful — single, “Lovesong.”

The Cure broke out of the post-punk underground in the mid-’80s with “The Head on the Door” and its double-disc follow-up, “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me.” But it was 1989’s “Disintegration” — the culmination of all of Smith’s stylistic experiments, simultaneously gorgeous and raw, melancholy and exuberant, grandiose and intimate — that transformed the Cure into stadium headliners. After slugging it out with a revolving Cure lineup since 1976, Robert Smith — with his spidery hair and trademark smeared scrawl of crimson lipstick — had somehow become one of music’s most unlikely and reluctant rock stars.

And all along the way, a girl named Mary, who inspired “Lovesong” and soon after that became Mrs. Smith, had been by Robert’s side.

Smith met Mary Poole when he was just 14 years old at St. Wilfrid’s Comprehensive School in Crawley, England, when he drummed up the nerve to ask her to be his partner in a drama-class project. “I just struck lucky early on,” he told The Guardian in 2004. According to an interview he conducted with the publication Lime Lizard in 1991, it was Mary’s lack of confidence in his future as a musician that instilled in him the drive to make the Cure (originally the Easy Cure) successful. And almost 15 years after they met, a very successful Robert penned “Lovesong” as his wedding present for Mary. The two exchanged vows on Aug. 13, 1988, and are still together, their rock ‘n’ roll marriage bucking the odds and showing no signs of, well, disintegrating.

“It’s an open show of emotion,” Robert told journalist Jeff Apter at the time of “Lovesong’s” release. “It’s not trying to be clever. It’s taken me 10 years to reach the point where I feel comfortable singing a very straightforward love song.”

While not much is known about the reclusive Smiths’ personal lives, Mary seems to be as eccentric as her husband; Robert once told The Face magazine that she “used to dress as a witch to scare little children,” and he described her as “mental.” More seriously, he told Pop magazine in 1996: “Mary means so incomprehensibly much to me. I actually don’t think she has ever realized how dependent I’ve been of her during all these years we’ve been together. She’s always been the one that has saved me when I have been the most self-destructive, she’s always been the one that has caught me when I have been so very close to falling apart completely, and if she would have disappeared — I am sorry, I know that I’m falling into my irritating, miserable image by saying it — then I would have killed myself.”

But Robert’s other occasional comments about his wife to the press have been — and this isn’t a word most would usually employ to describe the spooky, frightwigged singer — downright adorable.

“I love her, I adore her… She’s my Cindy Crawford,” he told Top magazine in 2004. When asked in 1990 by Cure News what one experience in the past he’d like to go back and repeat, Robert answered, “My first dance with Mary.” (Incidentally, Mary isn’t in the “Lovesong” video, but she did make a cameo dancing with Robert in the video for 1987’s “Just Like Heaven,” another sweet Cure song that she inspired.)

Robert’s wedding present to Mary, sometimes known as “Love Song,” hit No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart on Oct. 21, 1989; it was the Cure’s only U.S. top 10 hit. It was also the band’s biggest British single, peaking at No. 5. And the song was the wedding gift that kept on giving, no doubt creating a nice nest egg for the Smiths with royalties from later hit cover versions by 311, “American Idol” winner Candice Glover, and especially Adele, who recorded it for her “21” album, which sold 26 million copies worldwide.

Ironically, “Disintegration” as a whole wasn’t a very lovey-dovey album at all; it was actually a concerted effort to return to the more claustrophobically depressing, and presumably less mainstream, sound of the Cure’s earlier material. “After the ‘Kiss Me’ album, we got our first real taste of big-time success in America. My reaction to it was to make ‘Disintegration,’ which was at the time considered to be commercial suicide,” Robert admitted to Yahoo Music in 2000.

The recording of “Disintegration” was plagued by Robert’s preoccupation with his looming 30th birthday, by his discomfort with his increasing fame, by his regular LSD use, and by original member Lawrence Tolhurst’s alcohol abuse. (Tolhurst left the band midway through “Disintegration’s” recording.) The album’s first single, not “Lovesong” but the brooding “Fascination Street,” was hardly a formulaic radio hit, featuring nearly two-and-half minutes of anticipation-building guitar noodling before Smith’s pained vocals even kicked in. Other tracks, unlike the perfectly precise 3:30 “Lovesong,” clocked in at seven to nine minutes, and dealt with Smith’s favorite obsessive hot topics, like death, drowning, aging, unraveling relationships, rain, and killer arachnoids. This was not a shiny happy pop album.

And yet somehow, owed at least in part to “Lovesong’s” unexpected success, “Disintegration” became the Cure’s biggest release, going triple-platinum and helping define “alternative music” long before Seattle’s flannel-swathed ’90s revolution swooped in and rendered the term “alternative” mostly meaningless. But “Disintegration” didn’t just mark the Cure’s commercial peak; many critics would argue that it was the band’s greatest artistic achievement as well. And interestingly, “Lovesong” wasn’t even the album’s best cut. Real Cure diehards (no pun intended) would likely cite the title track, “Plainsong,” or “Prayers for Rain” as better representations of the “Disintegration” experience.

Some of those fans, not to mention music critics, have only half-jokingly attributed the Cure’s commercial and/or creative post-“Disintegration” decline to Smith’s increased contentment as an older, wiser, more settled married man. While the Cure went on to release other successful albums, notably 1992’s “Wish,” and the group is a headlining fixture on the festival circuit to this day, the Cure’s output since “Disintegration” has been frustratingly sporadic. The Cure issued eight iconic studio albums between 1979 and 1989 (nine, if you count the B-sides/singles collection “Japanese Whispers”) — practically an album a year — but have released only five uneven full albums in the entire quarter-century since. The band’s last album, “4:13 Dream,” came out nearly six years ago. A new Cure release is tentatively scheduled for this year, but it almost seems like Smith had nothing left in him after he laid something so massive and ambitious as “Disintegration” to tape, since the band never totally recaptured that album’s glory.

These days, Robert, who just turned 55, lives a quiet between-tours life with wife Mary in London, seemingly a different man from that neurotic 29-year-old whose early-onset midlife crisis spurred “Disintegration.” But his landmark album, like his marriage, has endured. And when longtime fans listen to that timeless album, to loosely quote “Lovesong,” it makes them feel like they are young again.

May 01, 2014

© Yahoo Music