INTIMATE PORTRAIT ROBERT SMITH
 
Let’s get this out of the way up front:  The Cure will never really break up, despite repeated threats to the
contrary over the past 25 years from bandleader Robert Smith.  But every new release feels like a resurrection.
And, the Cure’s self-titled 13th album (their first since 2000’s Bloodflowers) actually is one.  Thanks largely to
producer Ross Robinson (Korn, Slipknot, At The Drive-In) and the respect of buzz bands like Interpol and the
Rapture, the Cure’s signature mix of sweet pop melody and post-punk brooding sounds more vital than it has ever
since their 1989 masterpiece, Disintegration.  Over lagers in a suite at Manhattan’s Essex House Hotel, Smith,
45, sat down to ponder how long it will last this time.
 
I lost my virginity to Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me.  So I wanted to thank you for that.

[Laughs]  We have heard similar tales.There’s a generation of people who grew up with the Cure.  It’s strange.
The Cure have always been there.
 
When it was announced that you’d be working with Ross Robinson, many hardcore Cure fans bristled.  He’s so
closely identified with nu Metal.

But he also grew up with the Cure.  On the first day of recording, he let us play for an hour, and then he just went
absolutely mental.  He kept saying, “Don’t you know who you are?  You’re the Cure!  What the fuck are you
doing?”  Everyone in the room thought, “Oh my God, he’s saying really obvious things!”  This is a band that is
never usually confronted-it’s usually just me saying to them, “Try to pull something out.”  Suddenly, we had this
bloke kicking things over, going “Do you realize who you are?”  I was almost crying with happiness.  I knew at
that moment that it was going to work.
 
Your creative revitalization has happened at a perfect time.  The Cure are more influential than ever.

It’s really nice having younger bands like what you do.  Since our Grammy nomination for Bloodflowers, suddenly
these people are saying they like what we’ve done.  It’s reached a kind of critical-mass point.  We’re not doing
anything different.
 
Why do you threaten to break up after every album?

To keep the band on their toes.
 
That’s it?

 Yes.
 
So you never really intend to break up.

[Silence]
 
Do you foresee a time when you will feel too old to do this?  When do you finally grow up?

I actually think I’m the most grown -up person I’ve ever met, in that I run a huge business and have been
married to the same person for years.  I’m more emotionally mature than anyone I know.  And yet, I’ve always
felt young.  I really, really love music still, and when I’m at home, I like to drink and listen to very loud music.  I
don’t want to change.  Why bother?  Life is so short.

Will you always wear lipstick and tease out your hair?

It will stop one day, I’m sure.
 
So after all the false breakups, how will the Cure finally end?

Um, naturally, I think, the same way everything we’ve ever done has happened.
 
Heart attack on stage?

[Laughs]  Yeah.  But I think the gaps between albums lately are natural.  It would be painful and utterly insincere
to keep banging out records.

So the next one’s gonna happen in, like, 2011.

And, I will most certainly not be wearing black and lipstick in 2011.  That’s a guarantee

I think you will.

I know I won’t. Well, I might still be wearing black…

- Marc Spitz