(Notes from Kenny: There are quite a few question marks where I couldn't understand what was being said.
You can also let people know that I would gladly give them a CD copy of the interview if they send me enough
money to cover shipping and the cost of the CD.  Anyone who wants it can email me at kroa@zoomtown.com)
 

97X: And it is 10 minutes before 10 ‘o clock and I am very pleased to have with me on the telephone Robert
Smith of the Cure, good morning, Robert

RS: Good Morning

97X: I appreciate you calling in, I know you’ve been very very busy this morning already.  Or this afternoon in
London, really

RS: Yeah, it’s still my morning, actually.

97X: Ok, let’s, uh, first of all congratulations on the new disc, the greatest hits CD that’s coming out and the
new music that is on that, a couple of songs. We’re of course playing “Cut Here.”  Tell us a little bit about the
new songs that are on this CD in addition to “Cut Here” there’s also another duet on there, I believe, right?

RS: Yeah, a song called “Just Say Yes,” and it’s a duet with Saffron, of Ex-Republica ??? yeah, it’s just with the
way the greatest hits are put together now is while the groups still exist, which I think is a shame because I think
it was better in the old days when the group had stopped before they put a greatest hits out ‘cause ??? felt like
the right thing to do for me, but um…  So they want, you know, the record companies wanted something new on it,
to attract fans, I suppose, ‘cause they otherwise wouldn’t buy it because they’d have everything on there… Um,
we felt that was a bit weak, so we uh, we also did an acoustic CD of all the greatest hits we did, and we re-recorded
everything, one very entertaining day and we put that out.  It’s supposed to be a free accompaniment, but I think
in America they’ve heightened the price a couple of dollars, a high amount of tradition just to squeeze every last
cent out of everyone…

97X: absolutely, and the acoustic set you said was recorded all in one day, just the guys sat down and just go
through them?

RS: Yeah, we rehearsed furiously for uh, from Monday through Thursday, it was; recorded it I think Friday or
Saturday; and it was good, I mean we just treated it like a live performance with an audience.  We gave ourselves
two shots at each song, and it was good, I think it was all done chronologically so if you listen to it, I think you kind
of hear the performances peaking, and then slightly ?turning? away, I think as a certain member of the band
became a little bit the worse for wear, but it’s got a nice mood to it; I wanted to do it in one go ‘cause I felt it
would be more coherent and for me it means more when it’s done as a performance.

97X: Ok, there’s also a DVD version that will be out in the stores with the videos, and you recorded videos for
the new songs and there’s to be some hidden things on the DVD as well?

RS: Yeah, we’re just putting that together now, it’s still being done, which is kind of pretty tight up against the
deadline, but, yeah, we filmed six of  the acoustic songs and also there’s some other things on there.  There’s not
as much as we’d like, actually, it’s a shame.  What we’re probably going to do is we’re putting together a website
at the moment as well and we’re going to put some stuff up there.  We were thinking of just having it accessible
only to people who get the CD or DVD but in the end I think we’ve decided to go for a more kind of open
approach.  So, there’s obviously lots of archived stuff, but the problem with putting it on a commercial release
then is we have to get clearance for a lot of it because a lot of it’s not ours, you know, it’s from old TV shows and
stuff like that so, rather than go through all the legal hassle, you know, that would ensue, we figured if we just
stick it on the website, if anyone says ‘Hang on, that’s mine, you can’t use that,’ then we’ll just take it off it.  You
can’t do that with a DVD.  But there’s still stuff on the DVD that you’ve gotta find.

97X: I’m glad you mentioned the website because I spent a little bit of time there this morning and it certainly
looks like you and the other members of the band have a real active role in that website.

RS: Yeah, ??? I haven’t updated it since… three weeks ???  I sort of, I give up slightly around when we’re doing anything like this ??? the fansites ??? they often know what’s happening before I do ???  So sometimes I go there
to see what interviews I’m doing the following day.  But yeah, me and Roger have always done the website since
we first put it up in ’95 I think; I’ve never understood bands that don’t, to be honest because it’s ??? that you can
get in a point of view across, you know, with regards to what you do ??? to explain what’s going on, and you know,
why we’re doing certain things a certain way; I think it’s really good to have a hands-on website, I think it ’s pretty
key?

97X: Well I certainly agree with you because I know that most bands, in turn just pay somebody to put the
information up there, and it’s obvious from your site that you don’t.  As a matter of fact, it looks like your site is
for your fans that actually “get it”, and what I’m talking about is you say things in your website like “Don’t ask
us, this is the record company’s deal”, and it kind of conveys that, that the band realizes that the record
company’s gotta do what they gotta do, even though, not necessarily you agree with it, the website is a way to
convey that, I think.

RS: Yeah, I mean, the tone of the website is really, it’s driven by the band, and I suppose especially by me
because I sit there and I type things out; I mean, I have in the past put things up on the website and regretted
it, and taken them down again, because it's caused some people emotional breakdowns ??? mention no names
???  I have to be a bit more careful, I think, nowadays than I was when we first put it out, I thought “great, no
one’s really reading this, apart from fans,” but I quickly discovered that people were reading it, so I kinda bite
my lip a little bit more.  But, yeah, the tone of it, you know, there’s kind of a sense of frustration sometimes of
how difficult it is to, you know, fans think “well if they want it done this way, then they should do it this way,” and
it’s trying to convey the idea that, you know, sometimes it’s a real struggle, even to get, you know, things done
half way decent, you know, because unfortunately the music business ??? how much more the business, you
know, has taken over from the music aspect.

97X: Sure, Is the Internet the largest change in the 25 years that the Cure’s been around; Is that the biggest
change in the music industry?

RS: Um, I think that and the dance explode; I mean they do tie together really, but I think the home computer
unit explosions and the way that the kind of hardware and software, um

97X: The way it’s recorded?

RS: so the price came down to this point where people could afford to make music at home that much more easily.
??? I think that was the first big change ??? about 10 years ago.  But the Internet, I think, yeah, is by far and
away is the biggest thing that’s happened.

97X: Musically, over the 25 year career of the Cure, Robert, music has changed so much, you guys started out
playing kind of edgy pop music and really, then went to this ??? Goth sound and moved away from that before
Goth was actually in, and you’ve developed a reputation as kind of the Goth founder, or legend.  Does that
reputation kind of set ok with you?

RS: Um, (laughs), it used to bother me; it doesn’t really anymore.  I suppose when I was the “Grandfather of
Goth” or the “Godfather of Goth” I was still in my twenties, I used to think ‘How dare they?’ ??? I could think
of worse titles.  It’s not really true, I think the thing with the Cure is quite funny, I’ve ??? a couple of questions
already this week on the subjects, and I find it still quite difficult not to smile when we’re releasing a greatest hits
album, which contains at least 15 really upbeat kind of songs that have been played on the radio, you know, and I
often think that the media, and this is not going at you, but the media has, over the years, tried to make the Cure
into something that it isn’t, I mean, the Cure’s kind of got more than one kind of facet.  My heart lies with the
more emotional side of what we do, I think it gives me more satisfaction.  But the pop side is as important, in a
way.

97X: How would you, obviously there is so many styles of music there to try and talk about; How would you
categorize the Cure and their history?

RS: I’ve always said that the Cure make Cure music.  I really can’t narrow it down more than that.  On the
Greatest Hits, even listening to the differences between songs like Love Cats and Wrong Number, you know,
they’re so different, the styles are different, the playing is different, and also because we’ve had a lot of different
line-ups, and there’ve been quite a few different bands called The Cure, and the only thing that connects them all
is the fact that I’ve been in all those bands.  But I look back and I think the band that made Pornography, that
trio, was so different in every way, you know, personality wise, including the person that was called Robert
Smith, is just so different to the band that makes music today, that’s called the Cure.  So, it’s not that easy for
me, really, to lump it all together, because I feel like I’ve been in at least five different bands.

97X: You’ve been obviously very busy putting together this CD, the acoustic stuff, you’re working on the DVD
now; Any chance of touring following the release of this CD?

RS: We’ve decided, when we discussed this project in early summer, when we agreed to it, we decided as a group
that we wouldn’t do any live promotion for it.  I think we’ve gone back on that because I think we are actually
doing one, we are doing one thing next week.  But it’s for a really old friend of ours, who used to be a, what do
they call, VJ’s, and he’s got a TV show, and I think as a favor we’re gonna go on and do something.  But we
decided that it would take away the enthusiasm that we felt for doing the whole project, if we thought that we
were then going to go off and do that promotion stuff around the world because we can’t just go one place and do
things, we’ve generally ??? everything, which is like another three months of, you know….  I don’t know how to
put it without sounding really spoiled, but I mean last year we had such a fantastic time, we traveled for about
seven or eight months last year and played well over a hundred shows, and it was the best year I’ve ever had with
the band, and I thought, I don’t really want to spoil it.  This year it’s just getting back on kind of a primary
treadmill and just doing shows to promote an album, so we wanna wait until we’ve done something new and then
play some more shows.  We haven’t stopped playing shows.

97X: We’re chatting with Robert Smith of the Cure here, at 97X WOXY Oxford Cincinnati, Dayton, the future of
rock ‘n’ roll; A couple of questions from our listeners, and one was e-mailed in, and you’ve been at it for 25
years, you’ve influenced a lot of different acts, a lot of different solo artists, a lot of different bands.  What are
some of the acts that have kind of influenced you or caught your ear over the years?

RS: (laughing) That’s a tough one… I don’t spring readily to mind, ‘cause I have to be careful, ‘cause otherwise
they’ll sue me for stealing things. Um, I suppose the bands I’ve heard, the most recent example of a band that’s
had an impact on me, that I’ve been able to pinpoint, I suppose, would be Mogwai.  When I heard their first
couple of albums, a couple of years back, it really made me think that I should be doing something more, you
know, it kinda made me feel young again.  And it’s really in that way that bands affect me, I mean when I hear
bands that sometimes I don’t even really like what they’re doing musically but I just think the spirit they’ve got
or the way that they’re doing something, just something about it makes me feel ‘Yeah, that’s really good, they’re
doing something different, and they’re really into what they do’ and it comes and gives me added enthusiasm for
when I sometimes feel a bit run-down by the business side of what we do, I kind of remember how I used to feel
waking up in the morning and thinking ‘I want to be doing this’, and when that comes surging back it’s a really
great feeling, that’s usually when we get up and we go and play to people.  It’s not really that often I hear
something musically which I think ‘Yeah, I could try that.’  I mean I do ??? try to figure out how someone’s doing
something, whether it be Fatboy Slim or something, I think how’re they doing that, how’re they getting that sound,
technically how they’re achieving it, and I kinda ??? but, generally speaking I think people who are doing a
certain type of music have usually reached that point through a period of using extended period of trial and error
and are pretty good at what they do because of that, and I think for me to suddenly ??? paint, because they’ve
got a paintbrush in their hand, there’s a lot more to it.

97X: What about over your career, Robert, what is the moment or two moments that you can go back to and say
“These were really special, this is why I was doing what I was doing”?

RS: Um… springs to my mind… I think, playing Texas stadium in ??? is one of my best moments,
because it was probably one of the most surreal moments of my life, walking out on stage and thinking “We’re
actually playing in a football stadium in Texas” because we’d always had this thing that we would never ever be
popular in America when we first started, and we thought the last place on earth that anyone would ever like us
would be Texas, I think when we reached that point, which was on the 1989 tour, I suddenly felt like everything
I’ve ever thought to be true about this group has actually turned on its head; and that to me I suppose was just
a kind of a key moment in the live history of the band.  I think actually finishing the Bloodflowers album and
listening to the playback of it a couple of years ago was also a really defining moment, because I thought that we
had made the best album that we’ve made for 10 years, and I was genuinely astounded at how well it had turned
out.  I actually remember sitting there and thinking “We’ve made a really really good album,” and it’s just a
great feeling, after all that time just to still have the feeling that we were able to do it, it was just very exciting
for me.

97X: What lies ahead, for you there’s been talk about maybe a solo project, or will we see another Cure album?

RS: Um, I’m not sure which one’s gonna ??? ‘cause I was actually doing my solo stuff in early this summer, just
before we agreed to the greatest hits, and so I have to put it on hold again.  This is the second time I’ve done
that.  But when we were in the studio doing the three new songs and the acoustic CD, the band was sort of
badgering me to get something going on the Cure front, so we did these couple of other songs, and we demo’d
some ideas and, so I’m not really sure actually, it kind of depends on how I feel after Christmas.  I’ve got studio
time held in January and I’m not sure what I’m going to use it for yet.

97X: Oh, ok, so there is still a strong possibility of another Cure CD, and….

RS: Yeah, I think my line I’m taking on this is that we’re going to have at least another 10 years and a Greatest
Hits part 2 hopefully.  ‘Cause I’m fed up with saying that we’re gonna finish.

97X: Oh, ok.  Well that works for me, trust me.  I’ve been playing the music here for 17, 18 years and loving
everything that you…

RS: Yeah, I really thought that 2000 was kind of like the year that that would be, I was going to have a change of
life, you know, and it didn’t happen.  And I actually had, like I said, the most fun I’ve ever had with the band in
2000, so I think that was telling me something.

97X: Well, certainly, like I said, it is good news for people like me, and everybody else here at the station, and
everywhere around the world that are fans of the Cure, to hear that you’re excited about it.  What was the first
album that you bought, with your own money?

RS: Ziggy Stardust

97X: Ziggy Stardust, really?

RS: Yeah.

97X: Oh, ok, very cool.  Well, Robert, I want to thank you for taking the time to me.  I can’t tell you how much
this means to me to be able to chat with you on the telephone.  And I really enjoy the new songs and certainly
the Greatest Hits DVD is something that I’m looking forward to.

RS: Thank you very much.

97X: Thank you very much, Robert Smith of the Cure joining us.  This is the first song that you’ll find on the
CD, it’s the Cure at 97X.

(Boys Don’t Cry)