‘I am extraordinary normal’

In fact Robert Smith and The Cure have been declared dead and buried a hundred times already. He would go
solo. He would take it easy and yet this summer, a quarter century after their first single, there is a new record of
the band that gave the post-punk its slobby make-up. After the drugs, the fights, the liquor and the depressions,
it’s time for ‘The Cure’.

The room is characterless, anonymous and sterile – even for hotel room standards. It looks like an airport waiting
room, a fact that is undoubtedly related to the hotel being close to the Gatwick Airport in London. Nevertheless
the person in this room looks nothing like a traveling salesman waiting for his plane. With his shapeless, black
clothes, his black painted and chaotic hair, his greasy, black eye make up and his smeared, red lipstick, he looks
like a porcupine torn out of his cosy little hole, dragged through a teenage fashion house and finally dumped at
the cosmetics counter. But maybe he looks even more like a too enthusiastically inflated sex doll.

The man in this hotel room is Robert Smith, godfather of the goths and eternal chief of all bats. Twenty-eight years
ago, he started a band together with Lol Tolhurst, Porl Thompson, Michael Dempsey and Peter O’Toole and
called it The Easy Cure. Lead singer O’Toole left soon to Israel to make the desert bloom and lacking a decent
substitute, Smith took his place behind the microphone. Two years later, the band realised their first recording, the
single ‘Killing an Arab’. Even back then, before the Gulf War broke out, the title was very controversial and
Hansa, the label that had signed The Cure (after winning a ‘Battle of Bands’), dropped the band. Therefore the
record was released by the much smaller, independent label ‘Small Wonder Records’.

The same single was brought out again in 1979 by Fiction, a label especially founded for The Cure. This label also
released their debut album ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ in the same year. The Cure made it to the ‘top 50’ and went
on tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees. During these concerts, the public got to know Smiths preference for
make-up, albeit remaining within the bounds of decency back then. Looking back, Smith declares ‘he needed a
mask’ to camouflage his role as the lead singer. Amongst the band members, there was trouble from the start.
After this first tour, Michael Dempsey left. Simon Gallup and Matthieu Hartley took his place and with them
Smith recorded ’17 Seconds’, the much darker and more introspective second album, establishing a pattern that
would repeat itself over and over again through the history of The Cure. The music became gloomier, they ended
up higher in the hit parade and a band member would leave after each album. Faith (1981) was created by the trio
Gallup, Tolhurst and Smith. Gallup left and the masterpiece Pornography (1982) was made by no more than two
Cure-members. This traffic of personnel surely had to do with Smiths pretty quick-tempered character attaining a
crescendo at that time. The lead singer fought, verbally and physically, with band members, roadies and even the
public. The situation became so intolerable that Smith, after recording the hit single ‘Let’s go to bed’, resigned
and became a full time member of Siouxsie and The Banshees. As some kind of occupation, he started the
experimental project ‘The Glove’ together with the Banshees guitar player Steve Severin and singer Jeanette
Landray. Fiction however, promising television shows and big festivals, lured Smith back to The Cure and with a
totally refreshed line-up, they recorded the hits ‘The Walk’ and ‘Lovecats’. But never being the man to recognize
megalomania when he’s looking straight at it, Smith recorded the solo album ‘The Top’ almost on his own (1984).

Three bands, tons of alcohol and bathtubs of LSD led to a nervous breakdown for Smith. Once up and running
again, the singer restricted himself to The Cure only and in 1985 he released The Head on the Door, a perfect mix
of dark, post-punk melancholy of the early days and the poppy sound of the early eighties. The album became an
unprecedented hit in the States. This success story continued with the double LP Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

As a counterweight to the absurdistic life of a pop star, Smith moved to drowsy Sussex where he married his childhood love Mary Poole. The quarrels with other band members continued nevertheless and Lol Tolhurst was
removed from the band. Lol started a lawsuit against Smith about the name of the band, but lost it, because Smith
‘because the judge fancied his lipstick’.  For the Disintegration tour (1989), as ever, a new incarnation of the band
went on stage. And the traffic in the pigeon-house the Cure will always be didn’t come to a halt when Wish (1992),
Wild Mood Swings (1996) and Bloodflowers (2000) were released. Since then it became silent around the Cure.
Smith could be heard though on the latest album of Blink 182 and the new Tweaker. He also collaborated on the
dance hit Da Hype by Junior Jack. Yet no one can deny that these are all projects out of the spotlights Smith was
wading in for years. Now, however, he has a reason again to meet interviewers in impersonal, even untidy hotel
rooms. The Cure has created a new album: The Cure.

Robert Smith is 45 years old now. He’s chubby and his eyelids are swollen. He looks like he has just woken up,
but he sounds like having swallowed a huge amount of amphetamines. He talks fast and passionate.  Very often
a monologue is followed immediately by a rectification or a negation. He talks and deletes in one move. ‘Sorry’,
he says after another incredibly long and complicated answer given in one minute. ‘But I have to get used to this
again.’

During our last interview, you said that you were ‘determined to do something without the support of the Cure’. We’re talking again now and it’s not about your solo album.

I did mean that  one hundred percent. After having released Greatest Hits in 2001, I didn’t have a record deal for
the first time in my adult life. So I thought: ‘Now I can finally liberate myself from the idea to play with the same
musicians over and over again, to sing with this same bass-drums-background.’ I spent a lot of time in my home
studio to work on the material for the solo album. In an attempt to become free from the things I had done all
these years, I worked together with a bunch of very different artists – Blank And Jones, Junior Jack, Tweaker,
Blink 182, Earl Slick. I had even booked some recording time in the studio. When we went to Berlin in 2002 for
the Trilogy concerts, it was my intention to play the last Cure shows ever. The final ones. I really thought of those
concerts as being the Cure terminus. For months already I was trying to bring myself into the right atmosphere,
to do justice to what I think are our three best albums: Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers.

And what happened then?

I met Ross Robinson. After this meeting, he didn’t stop calling me, telling me how fond he was of The Cure. He
absolutely wanted to produce a Cure record. To be honest, I was flattered by this attention. But I didn’t know
exactly what to think of it. Some things Ross did, like At the Drive In, I really like. Limp Bizkit however, does
nothing to me. So for a long time I thought it went nowhere, but in the summer of 2002, Ross came to our shows
and we got along immediately. He is a very energetic person. He has more zest for life than anyone else. His
adrenaline never decreases beneath a given level. I thought this fact very interesting.

And so you signed a contract with his I Am Records label. That didn’t mean you had to throw away the idea of a
solo album, did it?

No, so that was my plan: I would ask Ross to produce my solo album that I would start recording in 2003. But he
didn’t agree. He insisted the next album should be a Cure album. He said: ‘The time is right for a new Cure album.
I have a gut feeling.’ And maybe he was right. I noticed that a lot of new bands were talking about us: The
Deftones, the Rapture, Hot Hot Heat and some others. Probably it has to do with the fact that those musicians
grew up with Disintegration in their CD player. It’s like a new generation is discovering what we have done back
then. However, there seems to be some kind of revival. So it put me to the difficult choice of sticking to my solo
career plans or working together with a producer who seems to understand the inbeing of The Cure and who has
a connection with a younger generation of artists and fans. Ultimately I chose for the last option, thinking:
‘There’s a chance I’m going to regret this.’ But I also felt that we hadn’t met without a reason. So when the
Trilogy concerts were finished, I decided to put the solo album on hold and I totally went for The Cure.
Fortunately, since this album is a lot better than the one that I would have created on my own.

So much better that you called it The Cure straight away?

That was the working title when we started recording. Before we went into the studio, Ross said to me: ’This is a
summary of 25 years of The Cure, so this should be the time everything comes together.’ I think his opinion was
that when we called it that way, we would all do our utter best for it. I don’t know whether this title has made it a
better record, but it is without a doubt the most passionate project we ever did. So we didn’t change the title.
Since, if you dislike this album, you don’t like The Cure.

This sounds like pure magic in the studio. What made working with Ross so special then?

It’s hard to describe how it was without using words I really detest – at least before this experience. Ross is some
kind of weirdo. A little bit naive, a little extraordinary, you know. But he’s very intelligent, incredibly enthusiastic
and when he puts his teeth in to something, he never looses his grip again. In fact Ross walked into the Cure and
totally turned upside down the dynamics of the band. While recording this album, we didn’t have a fight once. In
the past there always seemed to be a reason for a good fight. You know, it’s not like we all stood in a circle with
our feet bare shouting ‘I love you’ to each other, but the entire band was focused on one thing. That’s what he
did to us.

But if the secret doesn’t lie in dreamy hippy rituals, then what exactly was it Ross did?

Before each session, he made me recite the lyrics of the song. Afterwards he put them on the wall. The he said:
‘Tell us, what is it about and what do you expect us to feel?’ And so then I told how the song had been created
while the band listened.

And laughed fit to burst?

Well, initially it was me who was very sceptical about this process. But the inbeing of what Ross is doing is to
bring together a bunch of people and ask them: ‘Why did you create this song? Why do you sing it? What does it
mean?’ These are all questions I pose myself every time we create a new album, without being able to get
whatever band involved in them. The answer always sounded like: ‘It’s up to you, you decide.’ And when I asked
‘What do you think of this’, they told me ‘that’s fine’. Ross didn’t accept that kind of answers. He forced
everybody to be involved. Once he said to Jason: ‘Every time you lift that drum stick and make the drum sound,
the listener should be able to say: “that’s how you have to feel”. I know, this sounds very queer. We really had to
make ourselves believe this kind of psycho-talk was going to help. At the time we really played the songs, Ross
came into the studio, stood amongst us and screamed: ‘Jesus Christ, do you feel that?’ And he was right. It felt
like the best moments on stage. The kind of moments you look at each other and think: ‘This is so damned
great! This is the reason why I still do this at my age.’ And that entire feeling he brought into the studio. It was
very invigorating. It can’t be compared with any other experience. At the end of the day we were totally wringed
out. But we all knew: ‘Tomorrow we’ll do this again!’ and we looked forward to do it again. In the past my
standard reaction after recording a new album used to be: ‘OK, let’s put a halt to this band immediately.’ But to
be honest, in this case, I’m already thinking about a successor. Simon already proposed to call it The Cure
Volume II.

But before that, you’re doing a world tour with a lot of guests like the Rapture, Mogwai, Cursive, Muse, Head
Automatica, Interpol and Melissa auf der Mauer. It sounds like your own version of Ozzie Osbourne’s Ozzfest.
This is Curefest?

There is some truth in that comparison. I have chosen the bands myself. And I know that each band on that list –
with the exception of maybe one band that I’m not sure about – has something to do with The Cure. I hear pieces
of The Cure in the Rapture. And sometimes I hear The Cure in the work of Mogwai – but maybe that’s just
wishful thinking because Mogwai is the best band on this planet. However, if I were a Cure fan and I had the
opportunity to see all those bands together, I would be heavily impressed. These are all persons who believe in
what they do and who have this ambition to bring it to a higher level. We operate in the same way, with the same
passion. I love to watch a band giving you the idea they are dying on stage. That it is not just working, but real
life being dragged on stage. (Laughs) It will be frightening to play after all those bands.

Does this mean there will also be a reality show like the one The Osbournes have done? The Smiths – a visit to
the little house at the sea of Robert and Mary?

(Laughs) Funny enough we were asked by VH1 for their series ‘I married...’ about unknown partners of
well-known artists. That there’s often a very good reason why those partners are unknown, is something the
makers of this show don’t understand. Only some hardcore Cure fans know Mary from our wedding pictures that
are circulating on the internet. But apart from that she could be with me in a room full of other persons and no one
would know who she is. And that’s exactly how she likes it.

So Mary said no?

In fact she wanted me to do it. But with a replacement for her. (Laughs) A fake wife. Even fake kids. She said:
‘Tell them you have four kids and that you’ve kept it a secret all along. You can really get them there.’ If I’d had
the time for it, I would have done it. But I was writing the album already and couldn’t do both.

And what did we miss?

My life at home with Mary is very prosaic. And I mean that in the most positive sense of the word. I really
cherish the time we spend together. It seems like doing nothing, but in the meantime there’s a lot coming out of
my fingers. In fact we are very normal. We live in the same house for fifteen years now and I know the baker and
the butcher by name. I’m pretty integrated in the local community, although for most neighbors I still am ‘the guy
with the weird hair’. I’m not going out much. Most of the time I watch movies, listen to records or read books.
Books have always been a passion of mine. Our first single, ‘Killing an Arab’, was inspired by ‘L’étranger’ by
Camus.  We have a pretty huge family that likes to visit us – I have nephews and nieces whose ages vary from
one to 25 and there’s one for each year of birth. They take their boy- and girlfriends here because I’m the
eccentric but benignant uncle who has an interesting house and doesn’t tell them when to go to bed. And I had a
role in South Park, which is why they think I’m pretty cool. Apart from writing and making music, these visits are
probably the most interesting thing in my life. So it would be a very boring television show...

Is this boring life at home part of an attempt to behave like a 45-year old?

I’ve tried very hard to re-educate myself to a middle-aged goth . But that’s not easy. My whole adult life was
about excess. And I have a genetic tendency to excess. There’s a lot of superabundance accidents in my family.
To be honest, I like excesses. Although I am a lot more moderate now. During the Bloodflowers tour, I stopped
drinking before going on stage. This was a huge step for me. Before that time, I never went on stage sober. During
those last concerts we did, I was, for the first time in my life, totally drugs and alcohol free.

And what was it like to see the public without this haze?

My sight is terrible and without glasses I don’t see very far. And I don’t wear contact lenses either. So this haze
remains. It also has to do with the fact that there’s a lot of self-consciousness involved in doing a show. But I
learned to live with that. Recently we played the Coachella festival in California and during our show I thought:
‘If I can’t loose myself in what I’m doing on stage, then why should I continue to do it?’ Which made me decide
not to have these ‘few drinks before the show’ anymore. The advantage of drinking before a concert is that you
start to listen to the music in a better way, but on the other hand it is not very good for your performance –
certainly when you’re becoming older and your body can’t have it anymore. So I thought it would be an interesting
experiment to see whether a concert could be as fulfilling when being sober. It turned out it was even better
without the drinks.

So you regret having done so in the past?

I don’t regret the things I did. If I would meet myself being 25 years younger, I’d probably find him a very steady
person – obsessive maybe. There was nothing that could stand in my way. That’s a quality I’d appreciate, since it
has logically deteriorated over the years. I think you need a lot of energy and youthful passion to do what I have
done. On the other side this made me very egoistic. I had no pity at all for others. That’s not a very nice feature,
but it went together with my obstinacy to make something out of this all. I had the feeling I had to be egocentric
in order to get something done. Which is a little bit weird at the same time, since I didn’t had any clue about what
it was that I wanted getting done. I know it had nothing to do with fame, I just wanted to make the best album ever.
That was the big plan for Pornography. Just like the Trilogy concerts, that album was meant as the ultimate ‘fuck
off’. The idea was: to make the perfect record and then blow up the band. And the album was perfect. It was
exactly like it was meant to be – that was the only time I succeeded in doing so. But the effect was different from
what I expected. I only felt emptiness.

And your answer to that was?

After having finished Pornography, I went camping in the  Lake District. Partly to get rid of my alcohol and drugs
abuse. At that time I got the idea of writing the most cynically commercial song I could. Which turned out to be
Let’s go to bed. Which was garbage. Bad on purpose. Stupid synthesizer riffs, stupid lyrics. All I hated about pop
music is in that song. It was meant as some kind of suicide – band suicide. I thought: once this is released, we’re
over and done with.

But the song turned out to be a hit. It even was the beginning of the band’s success in the States. How did it feel
to be finally acknowledged at the other side of the ocean?

We did a long tour in the States. And I have to say it was a very claustrophobic experience. At that time, we had
a lot of fans that were more than a little obsessive. For instance there was this PhD student who wrote his PhD
about Cure lyrics and who calculated that I died exactly 74 times in our songs. I received so many suicide letters
by mail that I got used to it. During a concert in LA, a fan climbed on stage and stabbed himself several times
with a knife, right in front of me. We decided to film our public back then. We filmed our public while they
entered to find out who they were and what they wanted from us. It turned out to be very scary. In the middle
of the tour we decide to stop filming because we were to disturbed by what we saw, especially in the States.

Is that the reason you bough your house in Sussex at that time to live there with Mary?

Probably. I’m very satisfied with my quiet home. A few years long I have made myself do nothing at all. I was
always sure that when there would come a time we did nothing, the whole thing would come to an end, but now
I’ve reached this stage of absurdity that makes you laugh with all this.

And from that perspective, how do you look at all those years of The Cure?

I never think of The Cure as one band. It always lacked coherence. The Cure is four bands with four different
moods. The first band played up to Pornography.  The second one existed until the mid-eighties and The head
on the Door. This one had a very short life, but it had the best idea of what it was doing. Then comes the third
one, until Wish. Finally, Bloodflowers, I think, was the start of the fourth era. In fact Wild Mood Swings can’t be
put in this entire classification. Although I think it’s a good record, I don’t look at it as a Cure album. It’s difficult
to explain what I mean by that, it’s rather intuitively what I say.

Which brings me to the same question again: do you regret something of this all?

Like I said before, if I would meet my younger me, we would have a pretty decent conversation. I would think
him a little bit naive and pretty stiff, but we would get along. And I don’t think my younger me would have a lot to
worry about me. OK, I agree he would be pretty fucked up about the commercials I did for Fiat Punto and HP.
But he would understand that that are in fact the only concessions I’ve ever done in my life and that I was forced
to do it and that they were needed to release the box set.  In the same way, I would understand that my younger
me had to be egoistic and monomaniac in those years. If I wouldn’t have been like that, if I wouldn’t have been
that passionate, I wouldn’t be capable to be here and to still do what I’m doing.

So, you’re still having fun doing all this?

(Laughs) Sure!