The Cure. Celebration on DVD.
The Cure has just released, like celebration,
a DVD live, the renowned Trilogy, in which are interpreted the
albums Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers
and it gave to us the opportunity to chat with Robert
Smith.
The majority of your fans are thirtysomething.
Trilogy it was done thinking about them or about the new
generations?
R.S.We do not question it. Our audience has
changed very much. Now we have fans of the fifteen to thirties or
forties years
some of them probably are so
old as we, but we are attracted by the idea of having fans of
different generations. The old men have certain
nostalgia and the young men not, but essentially what they like is
The Cure's music and they do not do this differentiation.
Pornography took for surprise to the world
in his moment. Now that few ones hear dark discs, you return to
surprise us with a material full of slow,
dense and melancholy songs.
R.S. Disintegration was done in a moment in
which everything what The Cure was doing was big and successful;
it goes on to many bands and simply it works.
In Trilogy it is evident that Bloodflowers is so good as
Disintegration and Pornography. I believe
that Bloodflowers is the best album that we have done; I am not trying
to sell it, but it is the most poetical and
artistic thing that we have reached. To join these three discs is my way
of
binding them and of which they are like a
celebration of twenty-five years for the group.
How you feel playing albums that you composed twenty years ago?
R.S. It was strange
I believe that the tour
that we did for Pornography in ' 82 was terrible
we were a
disgust and were completely out of time and
order. This time in Berlin I was feeling as if we had never played a
Pornography's show. Finally we had the courage
to play it like it must have had played
Were changes intentional of tempo and pace in songs as "Fascination Street"?
R.S. We make sure ourselves that some versions
were happier
we did not want that everything was sounding
exactly like on the discs. The current line-up
has done changes, because simply it is the form in which they play
now, but I believe that the spirit of the
songs is kept.
How would you describe the process of hero's transformation to icon?
R.S. (laughing)
. I do not know what happened,
I believe that the people experienced to The Cure year after
year and now that The Cure is twenty-five
years and there is something of us in the books values what we have
done
I itself am realizing what I have done,
though sometimes I do not feel very differently from the first time
that we were The Cure.
In ' 92 approximately fifteen thousand Mexican
fans travelled eight hundred kilometres and were three hours
stopped to a temperature of thirty seven degrees;
those are the things that you do for a hero.
R.S. Yes, when we start playing I became more
conscious than the people think that I am. Now I am a being who
can live through a more natural life; I am
charmed with planning tours and playing at live
I PROMISE YOU
that we go away to seeing in MEXICO THE YEAR
THAT COMES, I ASSURE IT 100 %.
For what can we expect now from you?
R.S. The next record is going to be Bloodflowers's
continuation; of no form it will be pop, do not even make
happy, because what has happened to me lately
has not been very good and I want to return to the "hard" line.
We are trying to produce it so that it does
not look like anything of what already we have done.
And your solo album?
R.S. It is a project that goes two years floating,
but before we will re-release the whole collection in a box of
limited edition and it has taken me a lot
of time. The solo album is a strange project, because actually they are
not songs, but instrumental, like that pieces
it is that there is no urgency for release it; I believe that it is a
timeless project and wait to complete it before
it comes at the age of fifty, (laughs).
Mixed Up was an ultramodern work that was including
Paul Oakenfold & William Orbit works when still they
were not enjoying popularity
will this DJ
that you take inside influence your subsequent work and that of The
Cure?
R.S. Not!
(laughs) I do not believe it, it
is something that I have done only or with other persons, but it is not
any more that to play with the controversy
of producing something dance and scrap , using dance German, dub,
chillouts and black tones, but still when
we like the ideas "deutsche vië dielbast", and though the current
line-up
enjoys different types of music, it will be
difficult that we return to hear something dance of The Cure.
You have some relation with Siouxie, Echo and The Bunnymen or other prominent figures of your generation?
R.S. I continue in touch with Steven Severin
and occasionally with them of Echo and The Bunnymen. Actually
we do not meet very often
The Cure always
has been very isolated and reserved to have friends of the musical
environment; we prefer a bit more normal people.
If you could choose some bands to do covers
of your songs, would which be the bands and the songs that you
would choose?
R.S. I would choose Hell Is for Heroes for " 100 Years "; to Mogwai for "Untitled" and to The Strokes for "Maybe Someday".
By Aleajndro Castro to Jorge Isaacs, hostage of the ´80´s.
(Thanks to Jorge Luna for translating and typing all of this up!)