X-Press issue #562
(Nov. 20th, 1997)


THE MAN FROM UNCLE by Bob Gordon

The X-Press Interview - Robert Smith, The Cure.

"I have no idea really about singles in general, it seems strange as we've released a singles compilation. I know
when I've written a single but I have never sat down and _written_ a single."

Haphazard as Robert Smith may sound down the line from London at 2:30am, The Cure's new Release 'Galore',
a singles collection spanning the years 1987-97, seems to prove that when it comes to the singles caper, he does
indeed seem to know what he's doing.

Despite the differing perception of The Cure as being at turns, gloomy, whimsical and alternative the band has
long attracted and sustained stadium sized success, while holding onto the left-of-centre fanbase from which the
group drew it's initial appeal almost 20 years ago. But please don't call them Goths.

The band's first singles instalment, 1986's 'Standing On A Beach' holds pride of place in many and varied CD
collections, such is the crossover power of that strange phenomenon known as The Cure. 'Galore' splendidly
follows suit.

Diehard fans may be pleased to learn that a b-sides compilation is a strong limited edition possibility for next
year. Others will be happier to know that Smith's priorities lie with the band's next album of new material, due in
mid 1998. A taste of "new" Cure is found on "Galore" with "Wrong Number", a track featuring David Bowie's
guitarist, Reeves Gabrel. A gushing Smith rates it as one of his favourites three Cure singles from the last 10
years.

This week's X-Press interview with the 38 year old Robert Smith took place after he all-too-aptly called the
wrong number. A more down to earth enigma you'd be hard pressed to find.

-X-Press: If you compare 'Galore' to the previous singles collection, 1986's 'Standing On A Beach', in what ways
is it different and how do you think it depicts the changes in you?

-RS: Crumbs. I think it's better, for whatever reason that's worth (laughs). it's difficult to say, 'cause I never
really know quite what I mean when I'm comparing one piece of music to another. It's more accomplished... I
think there's certainly more depth to it that the first one, there's just a more noticeable change. It's more varied
with 'Galore', I can recognise who I was whereas I remember putting together 'Standing On A Beach' and really
wondering what on earth was going when I was listening to some of the earlier stuff.

-XP: A common perception about The Cure is that the earlier years were gloomier and the later years have been
happier, or at least more upbeat. Is that necessarily true, or is it just a different kind of gloom?

-RS: Or a different kind of happiness? I think it's simplistic and not true at all actually. When we started out I
liked as much and as varied music as I do now. I liked Hendrix and I liked the Buzzcocks and somewhere between
the two I wanted us to fall, but we did 'Boys Don't Cry' as an early single and 'Jumping Someone Else's Train'.
Essentially I wanted us to be a pop group then I changed and wanted us to do something a bit heavier and through
the years I've kind of fluctuated in that manner. It's reflected how I've felt for a particular period, sometimes only
for a matter of weeks when I'm writing songs, the rest of the year I write nothing.

It's always very unfair, I think, to kind of sum up how the group's reflected how I've been and what the group's
done in terms of "happy" or "sad". It's much too simplistic. Like 'Galore', our latest release, I mean how do you
place that? Where does it fall? There's an awful lot of stuff that fits uncomfortably in between those two extremes.
In fact, for me, most of them fit in between those two extremes.

-XP: On 'Standing On A Beach' there was an old man on the cover and on 'Galore' there's a baby. Is that
significant?

-RS: Well, it was either that or a mound of sand with a cross in it (laughs). We thought the baby would be a lot
more cheerful. It was just a slight twist. I wanted the same beach and unfortunately the bloke that was on the
original cover's dead now so he couldn't have made an appearance. I wanted it to have the quality of certain
photographs I've got of myself at a very young age sitting on the beach. That technicolour thing, how all children
see the world, very bright colours. Just something that's very attractive and carefree, but also at the same time
very greedy and almost overbearing, which is how I think the album is.

-XP: With all the songs lined up together do some speak to you or take you some place else more than others?

-RS: For different reasons. One that immediately springs to mind is 'Just Like Heaven': it meant a lot to the group
and has done so for years. I think it's the one song that's been the constant in every set that we've played since
1987. It's one of my all time favourites and it just reminds me of a period in time that I felt the group was at last
managing to do something that I felt we always could do. I kind of thought we'd started to really make good music.

In a very sort of stupid way I think 'Friday I'm In Love's a good song because it also reminds me of a deliriously
happy day. For that same reason I really like 'Mint Car'. But most of the stuff I'm really proud of isn't in the
singles collection because it's the more emotional stuff, the stuff which we've never released as singles.

-XP: The background to 'Pictures of You' is interesting, whereupon reading the essay, 'The Dark Power of Ritual
Pictures' you threw out all your personal photos and videos. Do you recall the state of mind you were in to do
something so drastic?

-RS: I'd forgotten about 'Pictures Of You' ... the whole 'Disintegration' album in 1989 and the tour that followed
was probably the most difficult year I've had, certainly in the last 10 years. For a variety of reasons: there were a
few people that were close to me that died; I turned 30 and I got very wrapped up in, I don't now, the wrong kind of
things.

-XP: So 'Pictures Of You' arose from that incident?

-RS: Yeah and I regret it. I destroyed most of my past in that year. I turned 30 as I said and I just wanted to
sever a lot of ties and a lot of people and things that I'd grown too dependant on.
Looking back it was a bit of a mistake. Some things I was right to do, but it was a bit drastic really. I burnt all the
cine-films of me when I was young and stuff like that which was a bit stupid really (laughs).
I just should have put in a big box and locked it away for 20 years and gone back to it when I was in a better state
of mind. But if I'd done that I would obsessively thought about the big box. I just had to kind of get rid of things.

-XP: How much do you owe to the mysterious, scary Uncle Robert, cited as the inspiration behind 'Lullaby' and
other songs?

-RS: Not all that much unfortunately, he's no longer with us. He was alright. We didn't see him that much, we
didn't live in the same part of the country. I just remember his visits being quite frantic.
I think looking back and judging by family mythology, he certainly has some of the drinking genes I've inherited
(laughs). I didn't realise it at the time, I think a lot of it was alcohol fuelling his antics. I just thought he was a very
loud, funny, boisterous individual. Now I realise he was just pissed a lot of the time.
Which is not a bad thing. I suppose it some ways I equate it as a kind of particular smell which I realised later in
life was the smell of warm beer and cigarettes. But it has good connotations for me, people laughing and having
fun. But if he'd been staggering around beating me about the head I maybe wouldn't have enjoyed drinking so
much (laughs).

-XP: I believe you're an uncle some 17 times over. You're not scaring the hell out of the kids are you?

-RS: No, I'm carrying on the great tradition of Uncle Robert actually (laughs), hoping they associate the smell
with good fun as well. I'm trying to be 'the uncle' I suppose. I wished he'd hung around longer.
I like taking the kids out, looking after them on weekends and stuff... teaching them the wrong things in life.

-XP: 'The 13th' was written after you sung 'Copacabana' at a talent contest in a bar in Rio and lost. Obviously a
tougher audience that your normal Cure show?

-RS: I was just up for it really and again, I'd had a couple of Pina Coladas too many. I honestly did no worse than
anyone else that got up, apart from two - this brilliant guitarist and a really good woman who sang. But most of the
people who got up were either completely out of it or just totally hopeless. Or a combination of both. The band
knew 'Copacabana', I was hardly going to ask them to play 'A Forest' or something (laughs). As it was most of the
crowd were pretty slack jawed, they weren't a Cure crowd. They weren't tough, they were just plain shocked I
think (laughs).
The saddest thing was that I knew quite a lot of it. I kind of dredged it up from somewhere. It was frightening, I
thought "I didn't even realise I knew this song" and was sort of lustfully singing along. It was almost like an out of
body experience.

-XP: I believe that while writing for 'Wild Mood Swings' (1996) you felt you were struggling, lyrically to surpass
'Disintegration' or 'Wish' (1992). Does the body of work haunt you when you're trying to write new material?

-RS: I feel that I held the group back a lot with 'Wild Mood Swings' because I made everyone wait months and
months while I'd get the words exactly as I wanted them to. It was for purely selfish reasons, but then I figured
that if I had a different approach to how I was doing it I'd have different goals, so therefore I wouldn't worry so
much about what the narrative was.

Like 'Wrong Number' is essentially meaningless in certain respects. It's about miscommunication, so it can
afford to be meaningless because it doesn't actually say anything (laughs). That's my way out of it, but with some
of the new stuff I'm worried less about the narrative structure. In the old days I used to worry about
communicating a sense of something through words or phrases, whereas over the years I've developed a style
of writing that's a lot more straight forward, much more obvious. So I'm going back to how I used to do things.
It's easier, because it means I can throw more things in. Actually, in some ways, it means more to more people.
I've got too specific over the last few albums.

-XP: Are you annoyed when people perceive The Cure solely as being you?

-RS: Um... I make a distinction in my own mind between the fact that the group wouldn't exist without me and the
fact that it is a group. So it's never just been me, I've never been a solo artist. I can reconcile it, it doesn't bother
me too much. People pick on me 'cause I'm the singer and I talk the most and I s'pose I write the words and I'm
by far and away the best looking (laughs).

-XP: Have you ever felt that it was over?

-RS: Yes, quite a few times. Probably at the end of every big tour we've ever done I've thought 'that's it' and
said as much. Then a few months later I'm back doing it again.
I think, very obviously, I'm nearer the end now that I was when I started, but as to how near I am I don't really
know.

-XP: What of the concept of going solo? Is it a consideration or do you like the group mentality too much?

-RS: In the context of playing or being in a live environment I'd much prefer being a group so I always have
been. I'd hate to play shows as a solo artist. I think it would be much too much bare. Not with things going wrong
but the attention. Mentally I'd be very unprepared.
But certainly doing stuff outside of the group... what I really want to do is write a film score. I would probably do
that on my own. I wouldn't feel the necessity to a have a group set up to do something like that. It's just that over
the years it's been much more fun because The Cure is essentially based around a group of people who are
friendly with each other. It's not based on virtuosity, it's based on attitude.

-XP: Your video director Tim Pope has said of the band that "The Cure are one of the stupidest bands you could
ever work with yet they are also one of the brightest and most intelligent". Do you agree with his summation?

-RS: (Laughs) How does that work then, eh? God he comes out with them!

I know sort of what he means. I think there's a part of the group that's always been there which I take very
seriously, there's certain aspects of the music that I think is important, to me anyway. There are other sides to
what we do that I think are completely absurd and making videos is part of that process. That's the part that
where we come into contact with Tim, so he does see a side of the group which is, in essence, foolish.
But he also understands the longevity we've had and that the kind of fanaticism that's developed around the group
over the years from time to time can't be solely be based on this idiot persona I put forward in front of the camera,
that there is more to it. He's also seen that side as well. But I don't know about one extreme or the other. I just
think we're pretty... (pauses) somewhere in between, actually. Generally. Like fire and ice, lukewarm water. That
kind of deal.

-XP: Do the Goth stags still annoy you? or are just putting up with them?

-RS: I never hear of them unless I'm doing interviews.
The bizarre thing is that the general public - whoever they are - know the group through the singles that are on
'Galore', from the past 10 years. People will come up and say "You're the group who did..." and in the past it
might have been 'Boys Don't Cry' or 'Lovecats' or it could be 'Lullaby', 'Just Like Heaven' or 'Friday I'm In
Love'.
It's always been the singles, or the videos. They don't come up and say "Oh you're the band who does the eight
minute version of 'The Same Deep Water As You' (from Disintegration) on stage aren't you?" It's something that
I'm honestly never aware of unless it's levelled at me in a question. It's never been true. People who are into the
band realise there's more to it than the pop side of us. There is a kind of darker, more emotional side - certainly in
concert and on record as well. But you have to be into the band to want to listen to that anyway and I don't think at
that point you think "is this goth or not?" It's not something we ever worry about.

-XP: You've said that one of your traits is an overwhelming dissatisfaction in the face of achievement. At times
like this do you allow yourself a little enjoyment out of this thing?

-RS: That's me at my worst saying things like that. I derive a huge amount of satisfaction of making something
out of nothing. That's why I still do it. When I've written a good song I think it's good it gives me as much
pleasure as anything else in life, because it didn't exist and now it does. It's what motivates me still, it's why I'm
still doing this.
I think what I was getting at is that the sense of achievement, as in the accolades you get, or the fact that you've
done something that other people like - which enhances it all and makes it more enjoyable - isn't really at the core
of what I do.
What I do is for very selfish reasons. When other people get into it I enjoy it more, but it never justifies what I
do. It never vindicates it.
 

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