Rock Star (Feb. 2000)

Cure: Total Recall

Robert Smith now remembers it all. The past of the Cure, the sound that made them so famous, the best records
from Pornography to Disintegration. Then he says: “ the last album, Bloodflowers, will become another classic”.
Could this be really the end?

On the table are the covers of (almost!) all the Cure records and Robert play with them as if they were pieces of
domino.

“Here Pornography is missing” he says quietly, with the black hair as a mess and just a trace of eyeliner ... Yes, I
say, Japanese Whispers and Concert are missing too actually. “Yes” he says “but Pornography is more important
because along with Disintegration it is our best reference”. And he crouch himself in his blue hockey suit.

“Before recording the new record, BF, I seated the others in the band in front of me and let them listen
Pornography and Disintegration, telling them to imagine BF as their natural sequel. To tell the truth, when I
recorded Disintegration, I haven’t thought to it as the second record of a trilogy. With BF instead, it was very
natural to look back at those previous records. Even Disintegration was made to mark a particular moment of my
life, and with BF I started in the same way, making a classic Cure album, with our distinctive sound”.

He puts the covers in two separated rows: “Seventeen seconds, Faith,  Pornography and Disintegration are the best
records and BF should be put right next to these. With Disintegration I knew exactly what I wanted, even before
getting into the studio; with BF the same happened. Disintegration has been quite a solo album for me, because I
haven’t involved the others if not in a very advanced state of the songs; when I realised that playing those songs
acoustically all the power that they had couldn’t be well expressed, I gave them to the band. At the time I was a
very … difficult person (he laughs). I thought that if the other members would have been involved too early in
making the record, something like the Kiss me album would have come out again. I remember that people in the
record company told me it was going to be a commercial suicide. Which is the same I was told when BF was finished
last summer. It’s true, there aren’t obvious potential hit singles, but I got an age and a state in which I couldn’t care
less about hit singles. Maybe it’s just because I am getting old, but it really makes no sense to me singing
something that doesn’t emotionally involve me. I just couldn’t imagine myself going onstage and singing pop songs
anymore! When we toured to promote Galore, I felt strange because every time I went onstage I just felt nothing:
with the new songs I feel quite the opposite, because they’re powerful and well defined. We’ve been looking for a
definitive sound for years and now we got it as well. It’s the result of different elements: the six strings bass, the
acoustic guitar and my voice”.

In BF there are songs in whit long instrumental introduction, for example Maybe someday (one minute) or Out of
this world (more than 3 minutes).
“Well the intros in Disintegration were even longer! The original idea for BF was to put an instrumental intro of 30
seconds or so before every song, just to get a compact atmosphere. The reason for Out of this world is so good is
that the emotion grows while you’re awaiting for the vocal part”.

There is a dichotomy in the lyrics of this record, you’re often using the words “always” and “never”. In the title
track they’re represented as an open contradiction.
“Yeah I know. I’ve been playing in The Cure since I was 15 and I’ve never imagined myself doing anything else in
my life. While we toured  Wild Mood Swings I have discovered a side of me that I have completely neglected. I
have found out that I was feeling comfortable staying at home; I’ve known better my relatives and become a friend
with my nephews and now there’s almost a fight between these two parts of me. I just can’t stay at home, have a
normal life outside the band and then go touring for months. In the past, there was no chance: I preferred touring
and making records with The Cure, and my whole life was going on inside the group. Now being around all the time
is a pain to me, that lifestyle doesn’t fit to me anymore with drugs,  drinking and the inevitable tensions: it’s not for
me anymore. I’d rather stay at home … with drugs, drinking and tensions as well! These things are what mainly the
album is about: the dichotomy and the choices that I have to face sooner or later. I just have to accept the idea that
I am a different person now: for the first time in my entire life, I feel that some things don’t come naturally to me
anymore.
Just think to “39” the last but one song of the record: I have written it during my birthday. Instead of having a
party, I just closed in a room all alone and started writing my own … Happy Birthday”.

Right in that song you say “there’s nothing left to burn / and the fire is almost out”: do you refer to the inspiration?
“Yeah” he admits with a sad note in his voice “in this record I’ve felt I wanted to be honest about my feelings. I just
wanted to write down songs that have a real meaning to me: if it’s going to be the last album with The Cure – I
thought – I have to be sincere. Now everyone around me is saying that the record has had a positive impact on me
towards the band at all, and I have to admit it’s true because I have changed my mind during the last six months
thanks to Bloodflowers. It’s a kind of paradox, but before recording it I felt that The Cure were slowly sliding away.
Maybe it’s the case to go back home and write music by myself – I thought – but then I found new enthusiasm in the
group. I feel that now we’re great: if we would play live right now at a festival, in front of any audience with any
other bands on the bill, people would still perceive that we are the best. Playing the new songs mixed with old ones –
those that are most powerful – I have found out that The Cure are a great band again, an important one … to me at
least! I don’t give a fuck about what the rest of the world could think about us! Last year I though that we would
have given up touring because I found it a bit depressing: I though that BF would have surely been the last album
and that was the feeling that inspired me to write those lyrics. Every song is really a piece of me. The Loudest
Sound is about my biggest fear about the future: it was inspired by staring an old couple walking along the beach in
front of my house. While I was writing BF I was feeling very nostalgic. I just have never placed my pictures in an
album, so I bought some and I have stared at them looking back to my past. I have looked to whatever I have done
in the last ten years and tried to imagine what could I do during the next decade. Another record in a couple of
years? I don’t know, and don’t want to think too much about what should come after BF, because I am mainly
concentrated on these things now, and I don’t care of all the rest. And then … my future plans never work at all!!!”

Robert talks us about the Cure albums:

Three Imaginary Boys: I don’t feel it as a Cure record. We recorded it in three nights and mixed in other three
nights. It’s the record I like the less.
Seventeen Seconds: most of the songs were already written during the Three Imaginary Boys period. This is the
very beginning for The Cure.
Faith: along with Seventeen Seconds and Disintegration it’s one of the best albums we’ve done. When I wrote
Primary, the first single, I didn’t think it could be played on radio.
Pornography: the highest point of the first part of our history. One hundred years is one of those songs we still play
today.
Japanese Whispers: I’ve been thinking about a solo record twice, then I have changed my mind. Those songs were
already written anyway and I used them for JW.
The Top: this was an attempt to make The Cure a … coloured band. We had a pop side, a psychedelic and a gothic
one at the time.
The Head On The Door: another step to take away The Cure away from the gothic notion people had about us. I
felt more comfortable with three minutes pop songs.
Kiss mex3: it’s such a strange mixture of songs and I liked the idea of making so many different styles. There are
songs written by any member of the band.
Disintegration: the impact it had on people depended by the sound which is very particular. There are no obvious
singles and I still am surprised by how much popular it has become.
Wish: I thought it would have been another dark record, instead it came out very jolly. Friday I’m in Love isn’t a
moving or touching song at all.
Wild Mood Swings: Mint Car unfortunately didn’t get high on the charts and that was when I understood that pop
was changed.
Bloodflowers: The Cure have a definite sound and this record was made on it: the songs are long and moving.
 

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