My Life as an Uncle

The new Cure album Bloodflowers is a return to the dark masterpiece Disintegration from 1989. But the bands leader, Robert Smith, would rather take a trip to the moon than have a new number 1 hit.

-Making Bloodflowers was such a great surprise – because I didn’t think we’d be able to. I had become very disillusioned. I was under the impression that we had been reduced to an average band, and that the passion had disappeared. And I thought it was all my fault; that I had lost the drive.

Robert Smith leans back in obviously satisfied and smiles a bit self-ironically. As he sits in the sofa, talking, he looks mostly like an inflatable doll of the icon, which has been on the walls of many, many Cure-clones throughout the 80’s and 90’s. It’s almost too weird, that “the spiderman”, “the gothic king” is both talkative, and humorous. In addition he is more than satisfied with The Cure’s latest album Bloodflowers. After the patchy, inconsistent 90’s albums, Wish and Wild Mood Swings, Robert Smith wanted to gather the 90’s and finish them off with a true Cure album:

- There is a style and a sound, that the Cure plays really well. And even though I have had the desire to experiment from time to time , we always return to that point. When we made Wish and Wild Mood Swings, Disintegration was still deep in my heart, my favorite album because of the force in the songs. So when we began working on Bloodflowers, I told the band that I wanted to do an album along the lines of Pornography and Disintegration, deeper and more thought out – without pop – that could compromise the album, explains Smith, leans forward and looks thoughtfully ahead.

-I had begun to speculate about why there were specific songs on those two albums, that worked so well, and why it’s always those two albums, that Cure fans choose as some of our best. I agree with the fans, and to me it has to be the temper, I involved in the process of those two albums, which is similar – my ability to loose myself completely in my own material and forget about everything else; paying the bills, driving, everything but the music.

Writers block – a stupid concept

The project then, was to find that temper again. But before we got to that point, a few years had passed by completely without music. Robert Smith didn’t have the desire to express himself through the Cure and became more and more content with the part of the life he lived outside of the band. Subjects such as Astronomy, walking on the beach and reading the complete works by selected writers has taken up Smith’s time these past years. In addition to this, he has started taking his role as an uncle more seriously.

-The reason why I wrote songs and wanted to perform had disappeared , and I didn’t want to force it out. I didn’t want to sit down and force myself to write a song, like I did with Let’s Go to Bed. Anyway, I’m not afraid of getting writer’s block – I think that concept is way out there. If I don’t write, it’s because I have nothing to say, and the desire is getting smaller and smaller. It will probably disappear completely someday, Robert Smith feels.

-It would be impossible to continue on the level I’ve been on, for another 10-12 years. I had to reach a state, where I was satisfied with some specific things in my life, and that tends to overshadow my artistic side. I have lived a normal life, and so there is not so much to write about. I follow my nieces and nephews to school and watch them play football. These are things I have never done before, and it wasn’t till I turned 39 that I started looking back and some of the old things came up again. I got the desire to do a Cure album, which could put everything in perspective.

The Joy of Change

One can’t expect to open up to old issues, without finding some unwanted demons appearing. As the band got working on Bloodflowers and Robert Smith became more and more intensely involved with the work, it became everything but a nice process. It started to resemble more and more the processes that unified Pornography and Disintegration. Finally the band left the studio and let Robert Smith record the vocals and mix the album on his own.

-It was necessary to set a specific atmosphere in order to make Bloodflowers. Opposite the earlier albums, where dinner and the social side was a very important factor, the dinners here were much more quiet and I didn’t say a thing. The band thought I was uncomfortable, but I can’t get all those issues that have annoyed me and worried me over the past 10 years, if I also have to have fun during dinner.

Apart from this atmosphere during the recording process, there is another equality between Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers, which is the generally dark song universe.  A theme, an atmosphere is consistent on these three albums, which should be looked at as complete sets of work rather than a selection of songs. Where Pornography (82) finalized the first phase of the Cure, and Disintegration (89) marked Robert Smith’s sharp turn to 30, then Bloodflowers marks the beginning of his life in the 40’s. And this can be felt on the album.

-On Bloodflowers, there is none of that frustration which is found on Disintegration or any of that anger found on and dominating Pornography. It is more accepting. It is about things, which I have been fiddling with for many years

– for example, the undeniable in change. In some situations you can’t help but fight against it, even though you know that change and development can’t be stopped, but I’ve become better at letting go and just letting things happen the way they will and actually wish that things develop. I had become tired of having to have control of everything and tired of having to be certain that everything works out precisely as I want it.

From Lazy Boy to Mature Artist

The Cure's career has been synonymous  with Robert Smith’s excesses in over 20 years and his time and again mirrored his humor and musical style. He thinks the dreamy 20 year old Smith would be satisfied with the result of the Cure’s development. As he says, there is only one of his childhood dreams that hasn’t come true, a trip to the moon.
-My ambitions were actually quite small. All I wanted was to be an artist. I wanted to make something that had never existed, and I wanted to be able to live off it. As long as I didn’t have to get up in the morning and go to work. But my ambitions grew alongside the first albums, and suddenly I thought: “maybe I can create true art”…. (long pause)….And I honestly believe that I with Disintegration and Bloodflowers, created works of art that operate on a level, that you can’t verbalize or intellectualize. Either you feel it or you don’t.

The Catastrophic Extremes

Even though Robert Smith sees a line from the early ambitions to the later albums, the road from young to 40 has been long, and there are some earlier periods that he has a hard time relating to. The dividing line for him is clearly when he turned 30.
-When I turned 30, it had a profound effect on me. It was one of those rare experiences, where you wake up and feel different. I had not killed myself before that day, so I thought  that it was time for a new phase in my life. And my life has been different ever since that day. Everything, that lies before feels just like a dream, while everything after feels real.
It  isn’t worse than Smith clearly remembers the tough times in the mid 80’s, even though it’s obvious that Smith doesn’t want to spend too much time on those memories. At that time, the band got commercially successful, but things didn’t work out completely as they should. The drugs were wrong came out in his personality as very dominating, aggressive and demanding. Since the magical 30 Smith (according to Smith) has tried to moderate his personality.
- I have become more friendly and more open, I’m still aware that a part of my personality tends to move toward extremes and that I have a tendency towards dependency. If I allow myself to live life to its fullest, it’ll end in a catastrophe.

The End

Self control or not , you certainly can’t call Bloodflowers a catastrophe, that to such an extent gives life to the great Cure sound. The album dwells around themes such as endings and saying goodbye, and usually, Robert Smith says that this is surely the final Cure album. But even though Bloodflowers smells of goodbye, and Robert Smith from next summer after the tour will begin his long awaited solo project Music for Dreams , he is for once not definitive about this record being the last. But honestly, who would believe him – how many times can you cry wolf. But that the end will come, Robert Smith is sure.
- When the time comes where I no longer need to express myself through the Cure, then the Cure will end. To me, the Cure is not a career. It is not the road to the end. It’s the end in itself.

Interview by Signe Gahn for Gaffa
 

The Backcatalogue with Robert Smith’s thoughts:

Three Imaginary Boys: “Not a very good album. Michael (Dempsey) was the only one who could play, so his guitar  melodies were quite dominant.”

Seventeen Seconds: “When I listen to it today, I think: it’s so simple. But when I made it, it was the music that I loved making, and I was simple. In fact I think that this minimalism saved us from becoming just like all the other bands in the early Cure days.”

Faith:  “I made a credo in those days saying “Less is more”. The idea behind Faith, was that nothing was to happen throughout the entire album. I felt I was compromising, when I put in the drums. It’s not my favorite album, but when I look back, I see an honest attempt from someone too young, who had not experienced enough to do what he wanted.”

Pornography: “A very angry album. I understand why many Cure fans see it as one of the best Cure albums, we have made.”

Japanese Whispers:

The Top: “Just as all authors make at least one bad book, all bands make a bad album. Our bad album has to be the Top”

The Head on the Door:

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me:

Disintegration: “When we made Wish and WMS, Disintegration remained my favorite album. There’s a sensitivity in the songs, that it comes close to who I am.”

Wish: “When I look back at this one, I think the problem was that the songs jump around too much”

Wild Mood Swings: “It reminds me of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me because there is so much variation on it. If I took out three songs: Gone, Round and Round & the 13th, it would be a good album.”
 
 

He also mentions his three favorite Cure songs as:

"- Disintegration: because of all those things it means to me
 - Trust: it was the first time I  wrote a quiet song/ballad, that was emotionally real
 - Want: It's the closest to how I am most of the time, as I am in the band, this neverending desire for more"

The perfect moment for Robert Smith in the history of the Cure:

" The guitar solo in Bloodflowers. After I had done it in one take, I thought: This is what I have been wanting to
create since I was very young. It was very personal, I have never played a guitar solo, that I was actually happy
with. This and then coupled with the whole context the solo is played in. Bloodflowers is as close to the perfect,
atypical Cure song as possible"

In the article/interview, there is a mention about Robert Smith's solo project, Music for Dreams:

"Music for Dreams is a solo project, that Robert Smith has been talking about since 1983. The project is based on
novels, which are the result of dreams of Smith's, and the music will be more of compositions rather than songs. At
the end of next summer Smith will put a group together to realize the project. Robert Smith says:

"All this material that has come about over the years, but which is not really The Cure, has been thrown into a small
Music for Dreams box, and through this a theme has evolved. If I can get it to work musically, with an instrument or
a voice, then that will be consistent thoughout the album. Some of it is completely different from The Cure. It's not
driven by bass and drums; it's just a gathering of instruments, some conventional others not. I've made it with
samplers and synths, but when I record I'll do it with people and then possibly film it as it goes along and then show
it on  the net"
 

(Thanks Christoffer)