MTV Italy Interview (Feb. 15th, 2000)

MTV Italy broadcast this special Tue 15th of February: the name of the program was “A night with…The Cure”. It lasted one hour and a half: during the first part they showed as usual a videography: from 10:15 to Wrong Number.
Then suddenly the face of RS appears smiling and he says: “The return of the Cure…!”.

“In 1998 when I hit 39 I started to think about writing a record about the feeling of being close to 40. It took me 6
months to get the songs written, but right before going to record in the studio, I just wanted back the spirit of the
band as a group. I had a very clear idea in my mind about how those songs had to sound and to be structured, but
for the other members it was a bit harder and less enjoyable process. It took me a total of four months to get the
songs recorded: two with the band and two alone, but then when the record was made by the end of June 99 there
has been an incredibly long gap, so the album is out on February 2000. It is a very melancholic record, a way of
looking back to the last 10 years in The Cure; I felt that I needed to have a look to what I have done just after a
decade, but it’s got nothing to do with the Millennium fuss! When one hits 40, it’s just like when you hit 20 or 30,
you have the chance to decide what you’re going to do with your life, if you still have a future as well!

I am not sure whether The Cure’s story as a band and the success we’ve had has to be considered as a linear
direction: Bloodflowers recalls the atmosphere of Pornography and Disintegration and of some other song in other
records, so musically there is some kind of linearity now, or anyway there is for me as an artist and songwriter.
The Cure are just like a creature existing since 20 years: we haven’t changed our identity or even tried to, such as
other groups often claim to have done … it’s like I put up a pair of sunglasses and say: <Hey, I am a different
person now!> … It doesn’t work like this (laughs).
For years I haven’t accepted the idea that The Cure have had their own definite sound, because we’ve been
experimenting different styles through the years, but now I have to admit that a Cure sound effectively exist, and
after all I don’t dislike too much this idea.

I think that The Cure story can be divided in three parts: I wouldn’t keep in count the first record, because I have
never felt it as our production. The first part of the story is about a bunch of friends playing together: I have been
doing it since I was 14 and during the last year at school we took part at a competition organised by the English
magazine Melody Maker, and to tell the truth it had a very ridiculous announcement. It said “Wanna be a rock
star?” … (laughs). I remember thinking “no, I’d just like a recording contract !”
It was 1978 and I had already written some of the songs that later formed Seventeen Seconds; A Forest for
example was written in that period and this was the kind of music that I wanted to write and perform with the band.
I’ve always felt that 17 seconds has really been the first Cure record, which together with Faith and Pornography is
the completion of the first phase of the Cure: I just wanted a three piece band.
Pornography let The Cure became famous. When we started writing the music for that record, the atmosphere was
really moody and I was completely absorbed by myself and by those feelings and so the record was just the result of
all these things. Meanwhile, we started having our fans who where mainly those people enjoying bands that made
“unhappy music” … and The Cure were one of those bands among the others (meanwhile images of Ian Curtis and
Joy Division pass on the video).

When Ian Curtis died in 1980, I have known that people thought that I was going to be the next one on the list: well,
we have been somehow a bit excessive about things at that time, and so it was kind of natural for people to consider
things like me dead very soon. But these things kind of bothered me and meanwhile the group wasn’t working well
and I started asking myself what I really wanted, as that lifestyle didn’t really fit to me anymore. The only thing to
escape this monster, that I have contributed to build up, was to destroy it.  My reaction towards all those people
who thought that The Cure could only be  pessimistic and negative, … and predictable, all the time, was to make a
demented and calculated song like Let’s go to bed: the purpose was specifically to destroy our image and then
somehow start it all again.

I also expected that all the fans that loved us would have eventually hated us for this change of direction, but I
couldn’t really imagine that it was going to have a lot of success instead … nevertheless I really enjoyed making
The Walk, The Lovecats and the following record.
What made me go on was that at one point I was even playing with Siouxie and the Banshees, so while with them I
was making a gothic and dark music, at the same time with the Cure we were doing all those demented songs and
videos: it was like having two separated but somehow parallel lives, and it went on for almost two years. I kind of
started accepting the idea that in The Cure the two things could even live together and since then I haven’t been
worried to mix the darker side of the band with the brighter one. I knew that there were people ready to accept the
two things at the same time.

The Head on the Door was the next step: the band was for me the best way to express myself and I wanted to write
moody and pop songs and put them in the same record, which is what really happened. During that period the fact
that we’ve been paying attention and efforts in making videos, made The Cure not only a listenable band, but also a
seeable one: Close To Me helped us in that sense, because it has become one of the most famous videos ever and
MTV passed it quite regularly for a long time. The kind of pop music that I wanted to do was a mixture of The
Beatles and of The Buzzcoks: the basic idea was a three minutes pop song just like Boys don’t Cry.

The Kiss me album was mainly an experiment for me: suddenly I was having a lot of freedom and The Cure could
literally do anything. We wrote 20 songs and recorded 15 of them and I was just keeping on writing because we
were developing lots of ideas and I thought that the only way to get the best out of it was to never stop writing!
Well, most of the songs of that album had a lot of success, like Why Can’t I Be You and Just Like Heaven: anyway,
again I couldn’t have ever imagined that the reaction was so huge in terms of commercial success.

When we started making Disintegration I felt that I wanted to finish it all: after the tour the band would have split
up because at that point we’ve reached an artistic level that couldn’t just be improved anyhow.
Disintegration has been again a great commercial success, but I think that depended by the fact that people knew
we were those who made Kiss me and so they bought the new record even though they didn’t really know us: with
Disintegration The Cure started to perform regularly in big stadiums …  the record was a reaction against the fame
and the richness we had earned and quite the opposite happened, because at the end of the Prayertour we were
even bigger!!!
It’s hard to find a legacy between that period and the one in which I was 20 because at that point so many things
were changed …

In 92 it was the time for me to keep away from The Cure: the group has always been a way to express myself, but
after Wish I felt that I had nothing left to express and thought that the band would have come to a natural end …
Well after Disintegration every record had to be the last one: I know that now it has become quite a joke, even for
the other members, but they know that this time I have a solo project just after Bloodflowers, so it means that it
could be the end for The Cure.

The atmosphere of the record is very sad and moody: in a way BF is about changing, even though for me the idea of
changing is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that I am looking forward to do a solo album and I feel that I could
eventually regret it if at 40 I wouldn’t even try to do something different.
The fact that the others knew that this could be the end while recording, has influenced the final result as well … but
I sincerely can’t say now whether it is the last album or not! I just don’t know!
I have really enjoyed making BF though, because during the sessions I have felt a lot of strange emotions and
feelings that I have never experienced before: if  there will be some other record in the future, then I’ll be happy to
do it, but if it’s going to be the last Cure album, then I’ll even be happy  because I couldn’t think of a better way to
end our story. I know I could feel a sense of empty without The Cure, but at the same time I would feel very stupid
if I wouldn’t follow the strong will of changing that I feel deep down inside at the moment.

Back