After 10 imaginary Years,are the Cure still as weird and wonderful as ever?
Last Week Robert Smith and his merry men strolled into 'Top of the Pops' to
perform their top 20 single 'Lullaby',but were told they couldn't play
unless Smith removed his black eye make-up and lipstick.He refused and the
band stormed off stage.After an hour of argument,'TOTP' finally relented.
With their 11th album,'Disintegration' out next week,it seems the Cure
remain fascinating,sinister and controversial.In the first of a two part
interview,Jonh Wilde hears Robert Smith meet his imaginary self and the
fictional heroes and heroines that have misshaped his life and work.

Robert Smith

How much of Robert Smith is imagined?How much do you think?I mean,how long
is a piece of string?Actually,the question presupposes that I do think
about what I'm presenting.But it's going on constantly.I do contrive things
sometimes.I like to trick people.I trick myself a lot of the time.It's
sometimes the only way I can have fun.Often I wake up feeling fucking awful
and my first is,how am I going to have fun today?
I spend a day at "Top of the Pops" and that's not me.I would despise myself
if that was true.It's not even pantomime.It's just pandering.I thought I
would have got away from all that by now.Having to summon up the strength of
conviction to continue wearing make-up whether or not they say we can do it.
At the same time,it's going through my head that the only reason I'm wearing
the fucking make-up is that I'm doing "Top of the Pops".I don't arrive like
that and I don't leave like that.It was contrived for something I wanted to
put across.I suppose there's a small pleasure to be taken from the fact that
people still get scared about things like that.
I'm a clown a lot of the time.An absolute clown.All the time we're in public,
but not actually on stage,The Cure is a very light-hearted thing.It's
incredibly stupid a lot of the time.
When "Top of the Pops" told me I couldn't wear the make-up,I was so angry I
could hardly speak.I suddenly felt very uncomfortable.As uncomfortable as
the first time we did the show.When we play live again,I'll feel
uncomfortable when we walk out onstage.But I'll get over that.I don't know
if anything makes me really nervous any more.I've developed self-confidence.
I can't really be nervous as I've got nothing to be nervous about.Obviously
I'd be nervous if someone asked me to jump off the Tower of London with an
elastic rope around my waist,promising me they'd catch me an inch from the
ground.But,when I'm presenting myself to the public,I'm not nervous because
I have the choice.If I got sickly nervous,I wouldn't do it.

I hope I'm conscious of how much irony is involved with The Cure.I would
hope I've retained my sense of irony.I think irony is a short step from
cynicism.With age,irony does often turn into cynicism and I'm wary of that.
It's very easy to get ironic as you grow older.Trying to keep an edge to
things almost precludes a certain amount of irony.I think that's what's gone
wrong with New Order.It's very easy to be like that sometimes.It's a very
difficult and delicate balancing act.It's not done for anyone else's benefit.
But I don't want to wake up in the morning and feel tear-stained.At the same
time,I don't want to have to worry about who's going to take my photograph
today.It's a balancing act between the public me and the private me.It's a
question of who sees what bit of me.
There have been times when I've been too self-involved.Years in fact.Not
now.Not at all.I don't regret any of it.I don't look back and think how
awful some of it was.It's been the saving grace of many records I've made,
records which I still really cherish.Nothing can take that away.They're
like children,which is a very trite thing to say,but that's how I feel
about the albums.They are there and,whatever shit went on,there are always
plus points.At the end of a year,I always read my notes,diaries and
song-words to see if the year has been satisfactory.I stopped doing it
around the time of "Pornography" because things were so unbalanced.Now last
year was brilliant.The Cure didn't do anything.I've become more comfortable
with my self recently

I'm not the miserable bastard some people think I am.Some people might see
"Disintegration" as gloomy and miserable,like another "Faith".But it's not
like that at all.This time,I wanted to something I could get really involved
in and be proud of.I thought,at first,that I should have done these songs
on my own.I didn't want to take the Cure back to that position again and
force everyone to be,um,miserable.As it turned out,having the others
involved,working all these songs through as a group,gave this record extra
dimensions.It isn't uniformly doomy.There are two very depressing songs
on it.As a record,as a whole,it's more uplifting than "Pornography" or
"Faith" to listen to.There's a spark in there that didn't used to be there.
A sense that it's sad,but it doesn't have to be.
It's difficult to talk about "Disintegration" even now because it was
written,lyrically,this time last year.There's nothing left of this record
for me at the moment.Once we go out and start playing it,when I start
singing it,it will become real again.At the moment,it's just a record and
it's the reason we're doing shit like "Top of the Pops".I always go through
this period of resentment over the fact that I stirred the group into doing
this in the first place.
I demand to be interested and stimulated constantly.That's why our gaps
become longer and longer,until our gap will get so long that one of us
will die and we won't know about it until we read about it in the paper.
I do think that "Disintegration" is the last record the Cure will make.I'd
be surprised if we make another.But I'm always saying that the Cure are
about to give up.Fuck it!It's going to carry on for at least another 10
years.So fuck off Stud Brothers!Why shouldn't we make another?If I move out
of London after this tour,then something will have to happen to me for me
to make another Cure record.Because everything has gone from me.I've got
rid of it all except this huge thing that bugs me---internal disintegration.
All the other things---the small things that worried me,the incidents,the
people---I've pretty much rubbed them out by writing songs about them.
Most of them have completely gone.Some of them remain.....

A Character From A Patrick White Novel

The woman from "Eye of the Storm" who's stranded on a desert island.I'd
like to be her.I'd like to be any character out of a Patrick White novel.
They're all so brilliantly thought out.He's become my favourite author over
the years.I've gradually begun to lose this ability to empathize with
imaginary people.I would hate myself if I hadn't cried at the end of "Mary
Poppins" the last time I saw it.It takes a really consummate author to draw
me in these days.Or to upset me or elate me.Patrick White is one of the few.
Perfect things happen in his books and it disturbs me that they haven't
happened to me.He describes sensations I've never felt,which I find quite
strange.

Dumbo

I only watched "Dumbo" for the first time at Christmas.Weird and brilliant.
I get much more emotional about things like that now.I used to think they
weren't true.Now I think they are true.I've never seen "Bambi" because I'm
waiting for the right moment.I'm much more inclined to believe in Bambi
now than I would have 10 years ago.I'm likely to believe him more and more
as the years pass.
"Dumbo" was great though.I love the bit where he gets pissed up and starts
flying and he wakes up in a tree.It's a classic moment.Know how you feel
mate.Very hallucinogenic that film.The way all the bubbles turn into little
people.....

Winnie The Pooh

The bear of very little brain.He was good though,Winnie.He had some good
friends---Eeyore,Piglet and Tigger.I suppose I should hate Piglet on
principle because he was so fucking useless.He's very gleeful but a little
to easily impressed.I mean,the colour of peas would send him into a frenzy.
Fucking Hell!I think there's one brilliant line that justifies Piglet's
existence.He reaches out to Pooh and says,"Pooh." So Winnie says,"What?"
And Piglet says,"Oh nothing.I'm just making sure you're still there." Now
that's classic.
In the last book of the Pooh series,I thought it was criminal of AA Milne
to leave Pooh behind just because Piglet has grown up.Awful.Broke my
bleeding heart.

Andy Capp

If I'd have achieved my life's ambition and become a grocer,I might have
been a bit like Andy Capp with a fag always dangling from the corner of my
gob.But I'm not really belligerent enough.I think I'd spend most of my time
making sure that the fruit and veg were in the right combination,the right
colour scheme.Rather than shouting at old ladies to keep them from
manhandling the grapes.I couldn't really be a grocer because I couldn't
sell it.I would feel inclined to give it away because there would always
be someone who needs it more than me.There would be crowds all the way
down High Street.Word would get out that this idiot grocer was giving all
his fruit and veg away.I'd be fucking useless as a grocer!

Ena Sharples

Mat Snow and Fiona Russell-Powell are the only journalists I wouldn't
talk to again.Apart from this Japanese chap I met last week who couldn't
speak English.He kept passing me these notes across the table and they made
no sense at all.I left after half-an-hour,pretending I had a dentist's
appointment.I never saw "Coronation Street",but I imagine Fiona 
Russell-Powell was a bit like Ena Sharples.She had the nerve to offer me a
slimming pill!
I can't be bitter about most journalists.If they're nosy,then I probably
invite it.I'm hardly hunted at tabloid level.If The News of the World
started camping out on my lawn,then I'd get very bitter.But it's a little
unlikely.
It would be unnatural for me to tell everything in an interview.Not even
Mary tells me everything.Mary has never asked me about a song I've written.
She doesn't know about any of them and she doesn't want to know.If I'm not
going to tell her,I'm unlikely to tell anyone else.She loved "How Beautiful
You Are..." off "Kiss Me", but probably hoped it wasn't about her.

The Ghost Out Of 'Goober And The Ghost Chasers'

When I was growing up,my mum and dad's house was not exactly tastefully
decorated.There was always weird-patterned wallpaper and weird-patterned
carpet that didn't match.I'd always see faces coming out of the patterns.
Like ghosts emerging from the carpet and wallpaper.
There was always a dim light on when I went to bed.Things would come out of
the walls.Some of them were friendly shapes but sometimes I'd see a light
at the corner of the wardrobe and I was sure there was something behind it.
I never had the nerve to look.
Except once.There was a funny-looking man in a mackintosh whispering in
Polish.That might have been a dream,come to of it.
When I was five years old,I was convinced there was someone living in the
house in a secret room.I knew they were there,but I also knew I wouldn't
be able to see them,even if I found the room.I'd hear creaking and think
it was a person on the stairs.I'd rush out of the bedroom to catch them
and there would be no one there.They were too fast for me.

Roy Of The Rovers

I'm very much in favour of the notion of Roy Race.If you like football,
you're always going to be dreaming of the winning goal.Raven of the Wing
was much better than Roy.The kid with long flowing black hair who used to
play in bare feet.He was my idol.The fact that he didn't wear boots made
him even more incredible.He used to do banana shots before anyone had even
heard of them.Well ahead of his time.

Spiderman

Spiders are one of the phobias I've not been able to overcome.Fat spiders
with long thin legs that look like they're going to burst make me go really
weird.
When I was young,I was really scared of spiders and they always used to be
in my bed.They weren't actually there at all,but imagined they were.I'd try
to get over the phobia the way you get over any phobia.I'd approach them
and force myself to pick them up.I can hold spiders now,even the big hairy
ones.But I wouldn't let them near my face.Tim Pope wanted to do that.He was
trying to persuade me to fill the bed with spiders in one of the videos.
These horrible,bird-eating spiders.I refused and he thought I was being
petty.He knew this spider-keeper from London Zoo.Tim thought they were
pretty and kept holding them up by the legs and poking them.
When we were touring South America a couple of years ago,I remember turning
the light on in the bathroom in Brazil and this huge spider disappeared
behind the cabinet on the wall.I kept thinking him and his friends are
going to join me in bed.Didn't sleep all night.
It's one of those things I'm scared of that's irrational.The other ones are
things like heights and flying and there's a good reason to be scared of
them.I can't get over the fear of flying.It's the hardest of all.I told you
You Magazine that I was planning to do a parachute-jump,but that was a
complete lie.

Pinocchio

If I was Pinocchio,my nose would be three miles long.I had given up lying
until I started doing interviews again.It's the only time I feel the need
to lie.I need to make things up to make it more interesting for myself.It's
not just a case of heighting the truth.I usually make up things that I wish
were true,about the group or about myself.I'm not lying so much at the
moment because this new album doesn't lend itself so much to lies.In the
"Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" LP,there was enough material there for me to
weave tales out of.On "Disintegration",it's more obvious.The words on this
new record are glaringly obvious.
It's weird with Pinocchio.The way I actually feel about it depends so much
on when I see it.I've seen it when I was young and when I was more grown
up.When I was young,I loved Pinocchio himself.When I grew up,I liked the
fox in the fur coat who wants to take him into show business.
Unlike Pinocchio,I didn't have a great reluctance to go to school.I had
difficulty staying at school.I actually enjoyed it while I was there.But
I was considered to be unsuitable.I was suspended from school when I was
supposed to be doing exams because my attitude to religion was considered
wrong.I thought that was incredible.During my last two years at school,the
teachers weren't supposed to acknowledge me.I didn't want to speak to them
anyway.But,if I put up my hand to ask a question,they would just ignore me.

Mary Poppins

One of my all-time favourites.I watch it every year at Christmas really
late at night.It always makes me cry at the end.
I remember being taken to see it by my mum and I came out thinking it was
completely real.I was thinking,fucking hell,why haven't I met anyone like
Mary Poppins?Why can't my mum slide up banisters?She had to tell me it
wasn't real.That was like being told Father Christmas didn't exist.I cried
for weeks.With Santa,it was different.I saw him coming down the street on
a lorry.I was crushed.There's no way Father Christmas would be sitting in
this fucking stupid lorry.I was three at the time.I never recovered from
that.

Dennis The Menace

Obviously,a huge influence on me.I once went to a fancy-dress party as
Dennis.My mum knitted me a stripy jumper.I found this cat on the way and
I walked in with the cat,pretending the cat was Gnasher.Nobody believed
me.In fact,everyone thought I was fucking stupid.So I had to throw the cat
out the window.I remember it distinctly because it landed on it's back and
I had always believed that cats land on their feet all the time.
I've been reading the Beano since I was three years old and I have every
issue.It goes through some weird changes and I'm not too sure about the new
glossy style.There was a really weird patch when Dennis got into war,around
1974.There would be all these black and white pictures of guns and planes
with Dennis drawn over the top.Really bizarre.Around that time,Little Plum
was the best thing in it.Dennis has always been the best Beano character
though.
I always envied Dennis for Gnasher because I never had a dog or anything
that was blindly devoted to me.With Dennis,you know he's never going to
get away with it.But,in a strange way,he does.The slipper never seems
like enough retribution for the mischief he's got up to.

Charles Foster Kane

The rest of the group will smile at this one.They're fascinated with how
I manage to communicate a kind of caring image while they secretly think
I'm a tyrant a lot of the time.I do it for their own good.I often feel
that the rest of the group are more insecure than they should be.It might
seem,to an outsider,that I have these points where I just snap and suddenly
one of the group is no longer there.It's much more obvious than that.If
you were in the group,you would know that you weren't going to be in it
much longer.Lol,for instance,wouldn't do anything about it.He refused to
believe he wasn't going to be in the group and that stems from complacency
more than anything.The group keep me feeling like that too.I don't want
to get to the point where I feel it's just a cushy number.I want everyone
to think it could end tomorrow.In a sense,my solo record is a threat to
the others.
But I want to be in the Cure still.It's just that I don't want us all to
become like a revolting bunch of tossers.I would hate us for that.I want
people from other groups to look at us and wish they were in the Cure.I
want it to be the best group.
I can be a perfectionist about things and it irritates me,but I can't do
anything about it.It irritates me the way that ashtray is where it is on
the table there.It's not in the right place.There's no symmetry on the
table.Sometimes I get that really badly and I suppose I take it out on
the others.I want everything to be good all the time.
Like Charles Foster Kane,I'm an over-achiever.I can't think of any other
way to be.I've never been an under-achiever.I often wonder what the point
of it all is.Like doing "Top of the Pops".Usually,I'd rather stay in bed.
Then I leave it up to a democratic decision in the band and the other four
want to do it.So we do it and I turn around and blame them!Basically,I
don't want to be any more famous than I am.I'm already far too well-known.
The only way I can become more invisible is to stop it all
I'm not interested in looking for Rosebud though.I don't use the group for
things like that.It should be,and it usually is,good fun.It's fucking
brilliant being in a group.I can't pretend I'm using it as therapy.People
assume that,but it's absurd.I couldn't go through that process with people
I liked and cared about.They would hate me if I was using the group for
that.If I need that kind of release,I can find it elsewhere.I'd start going
out to see QPR play.

Sooty

My nickname at school because I never spoke.It as better than being called
Muffin the Mule.

Jekyll And Hyde

The "Pornography" album,definitely.Sheer hell!I just didn't know what was
going on at the time.It was pretty stupid actually.I was physically
suffering around that time.I didn't enjoy the things I thought I was
enjoying.I didn't even know they were going on.But,if I hadn't done
"Pornography",nothing would have come out of it.If I hadn't written those
songs,I would have just become a fat,useless bastard.It's still my favourite
Cure record and it always will be.
It was the inability to be violent,but that just came from physical excess,
completely losing a grip on things.I didn't think any of it as important at
the time.I went through a period of thinking everything was fucked and then
I started to write these songs.In one lucid moment,I realized we could make
a bloody godlike album so,unconsciously,I channelled all the
self-destructive elements of my personality into doing something.If I hadn't
had that outlet for doing things,then I would have gone down until I
couldn't go any further.The fact that I wanted to do something was my saving
grace really.

Andy Pandy

I used to like "Watch With Mother".Nothing could ever go wrong.Andy Pandy
was always going to go to sleep in his basket with Teddy and the world was
a happy place.Teddy was godlike.I could never figure out Looby Loo,the
rag doll.She never did anything.Weird.

Noddy

I used to have Noddy fuzzy-felts above the head of my bead next to pictures
of Catwoman and Stanley Bowles,the QPR footballer.Noddy and Catwoman were
strangely intertwined,both really scary.I sort of liked Noddy.He seemed to
have a brilliant life.He would jump in his stupid red motorcar with his
friend,Big Ears,and something weird would always happen.The ideal life in a
way.Big Ears was an evil sort of character I thought,but not as evil as
Mr. Plod.

Reginald Perrin

The idea of disappearing and coming back as something else definitely
appeals to me.In fact,it appeals to me so much,I do it every couple of
years.I think enjoy The Cure because I do come back as a different person
every time.

Betty Boop

I've got her painted on my leather jacket.Simon's got Batman.She's very
sexy,absolutely gorgeous.Almost the perfect woman.Beautiful big eyes.Lovely
squeaky voice.It's quite weird to think she started out life as a cute
little dog.Very strange that.Betty's a bit lacking in self-sufficiency for
me.Having said that,she always gets her own way in the proper Betty Boop
cartoons.She always wins.She's always manipulative.I like the idea of Roger
Rabbit.If that was true and you could bring characters to life just by
drawing them,I could surround myself with cartoon goddesses.I fell in love
with Betty the first time I saw her.It was one of those banned cartoons
where her dress goes up and you can see her panties.I thought that was
really weird.It had nothing to do with the story.The artist obviously just
wanted to show her skirt going up.I was very grateful for that.

Peter Pan

This also makes me cry every time.Before I discovered Betty Boop,I was in
love with the fairy Tinker Bell.I kept wishing Tinker Bell would come alive
and rescue me.I also remember Wendy Darling's nightdress very vividly.It
was blue.It should have been pink.
The idea of Never-Never Land is awful because it's the best idea in the
world.At least half the songs I've ever written are about Never-Never Land.
When Wendy,Peter and her two little brothers go out of the window,that's
the perfect childhood moment.
When I think about the film,I always think of Peter trying to convince
everyone they could fly.Only a fool wouldn't believe him.When we tour,we're
going to play "You Can Fly" as we walk off at the end.

The Prisoner

My brother lives near Portmeiron so I've been there a few times,and I first
went there when I was very young.I never realized people lived there until
the third time I went.Me and Mary walked into the front-room of this house
and there was a family sitting there tucking into their liver and bacon.
We thought they were just actors,showing visitors what it was like to live
there.We imagined them sitting there all day every day eating liver and
bacon."What the hell do you think you're doing?" one of them shouted."This
is our bloody living-room!" It was really bizarre.Only two or three people
actually live there.The rest of the buildings are rented out at various
times of the year.
I love "The Prisoner".I bought them all on video and watched them all in
one sitting.It lasted 20 hours or something.It's the only way to enjoy it
properly.Severin from the Banshees bought me one of those huge balloons
for Christmas.It burst on the first day.
I like this idea of McGoohan waking up in his own room and everything has
been displaced.It reminds me very much of the period I spent with Severin
when we were working on "The Glove".

Alice In Wonderland

I love this idea of a little girl having these strange adventures in the
realms of the imagination.I liked the Mock Turtle,but my favourite was the
Queen of Hearts.The power to have someone's head chopped off is brilliant!
I've been having some odd dreams myself recently.Last night,I dreamt about
Steve Sutherland and Tom Sheehan.Sutherland was coming out of the pub
toilets,minute after minute,wearing a different outfit every time.One
minute he'd be wearing a Southhampton shirt and nothing else.The next,he'd
be dressed like Lou Grant.Sheehan,meanwhile,was standing outside the toilet
wearing a Scots Guard's uniform with one of those big black fluffy hats.
Very Strange.
Like everyone,I dream more vividly when I'm upset about things that are
going on in the real world,whatever that's supposed to be.We seek escape
from things.Most of the time,for me,there's a real blur between what's
real and unreal.What's real about spending all day at "Top of the Pops"
and someone deciding we can't go on after Diana Ross because they don't
like my make-up?

Next Week:The real world of Robert Smith.Will a Smith solo album mean
the end of The Cure? "Disintegration" in full.Why Robert doesn't want to
find his Rosebud?Life after Lol--who's the new scapegoat?What Simon said
to Diana Ross at "Top of the Pops".The paradox of Robert Smith....