All language subtitles for [English (auto-generated)] The Cure_ Rock Case Studies _ Full Documentary _ Tony Dolan _ Jerry Ewing _ Hugh Wright [DownSub.com]

i think we slipped through the um the

net of goth really the holes were too

big to catch us

and there's other people do that a lot

better

probably a lot with a lot less humor

perhaps

this

this changed things

good god what i would have accomplished

if i hadn't been listening to that

record all the time

they didn't

invent a goth movement not by a long

shot oh my god what on earth is the

music going to sound like

[Music]

don't fight go red and blue

[Music]

but you can't wear that makeup you'll

scare people it sounded like nothing

else it sounded like it was

a tortured scream coming up from the

bottom of a deep dark well

[Music]

watch me

is

[Music]

i think if jim morrison had lived

20 years longer he would be as lucky to

be as

fat and charismatic as robert smith has

been

do i look do i look like somebody who

would be qualified to sit here and talk

to you about the cure right okay can you

quiet this is a serious bit

[Music]

the word goth came about when a

journalist

wrote in the nme

about joy division's debut album they

referred to it as having a gothic sound

it wasn't

a kind of a goth movement or anything

like that it was just a one-off comment

that that journalist had made at that

particular time that later

got of course turned into a whole

subculture i don't i've never really

liked

what's you know like your idea of goth

music it's always seemed to me

pretty dirty but um

i think it goes beyond that why people

identify with the group it's more to do

with the attitude than wearing black i

think

if you look at how they looked in 79 80

81 i mean they just looked like

kids

they didn't really look any different

than

you know they weren't all

punk rocked out like the pistols or the

clash

they

they kind of just looked like

pretty average individuals i don't think

you could look at them and say oh

there's goth right there and i wouldn't

even say that it sounded remotely goth

and the band themselves didn't even look

like goths at that stage robert smith

had short brown hair they were walking

around with this very kind of mismatched

image

and it's for exactly that reason

that fiction recordings chose to have a

very strange cover for three imaginary

boys showing three or rather mundane

household appliances the front of the

album had a picture of a hoover a fridge

and a lamp

and on the back instead of actually a

track listing there were just lots of

little pictures it was guitar driven pop

that had drawn from

certain aspects of punk rock but mostly

they wrote pop songs

catchy pop songs and it's an element to

the cures career that has

been a constant despite being perceived

as the ultimate goth band you know

they've always successfully had

a pop feel

without compromising who they are

[Music]

and we started off as a really dumb pop

group when we did three matching boys

and boys don't cry

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

boys don't cry

was definitely something that probably

hit the hardcore cure fan across the

face like a

uh

being in north america like a hockey

stick that will always be you know

a perfect pop song

and that brought in a whole

oh to use the word tenderness maybe

a softer side of the uh of the punk rock

movement as well you know voice has two

things

which you know when you had the

posturing of johnny rotten and the uh

you know it was it was a pretty

revolutionary stance i think that it was

the beginning of the pop side of the

cure

it was definitely the beginning of

something new for that band

[Music]

i thought we were a pop band well

think again

[Music]

i have to say actually the from the

beginning i actually i got into the cure

in 1980 when there is their second album

um 17 seconds and the track that i heard

um first was a forest

[Music]

when i hear it on the radio it's still

sends shivers makes all the

little hair i have stand up on it

[Music]

[Music]

i think a forest is the first indication

in the cures cannon of music that you

know this was an avenue that they were

going to pursue and obviously it's an

avenue that's very appealing to to that

gothic crowd

mike hedges uh produced 17 seconds

uh for the cure what he managed to do

with that album was uh explore a much

darker side

[Music]

the cure man it managed also to separate

the pop from the bleak and for some

reason it worked a lot of bands people

would have went what the hell is this

and forgotten all about them but the

cure managed to do it so well the fans

stuck with them

most of the people we meet that really

like the group like us for the same

reasons and it is to do with attitude in

the way that we do what we want and that

we don't really

i don't know

we don't follow any pattern

we're quite an unpredictable group

with this album what was interesting 17

seconds is is exactly that that hedges

sort of just wanted to you know he could

see much more depth in in robert smith

and just wanted to dig in there a bit

and and they just sort of went at it in

you know an ad hoc type of way a forest

is

definitely the best track on 17 seconds

but

there's good arguments possibly the best

track the cure i've ever recorded it was

a big

departure from the other songs that the

cure had actually been releasing it's

their first kind of long single they

weren't afraid to

to pursue a gothic sound um i mean you

can draw comparisons i think with the

forest and with uh bauhaus's bella

lugosi's dead in the way that they use

quite stark buildups to sort of reach

their sort of quite intense climactic

points

[Music]

okay

[Music]

i think it just opened up a whole new

kettle of fish for the band

it may have been

drug influenced who knows but for

whatever reason i think the whole um

i think they found space physical space

in their music a little more it's a

great great piece of music for starters

um and yes it's the first indication of

a goth band or a goth side to the cure

lurking within their framework i think

there was just a whole lot more

experimentation coming on

17 seconds it was a case of i think that

robert had found the niche of music he

wanted to write

and sort of said before three imaginary

boys did like show that

you know there was quite a lot of

seriousness to his music so yes i mean

things like forest faith and pornography

were written very much sort of like you

know teenage angst

there was a lot of talk about robert

being the new ian curtis um because you

know the way that the music was going

um 17 seconds was sort of like the light

version of this

[Music]

it was around this time that robert

smith actually developed his trademark

look the story goes he started dabbling

around with some quite hard drugs at the

time he was dabbling about with some

opiums a lot of hallucinogenic stuff and

they went to a bit of a a do following

a birthday party gig that was nick cave

and the bad seeds originally that was

the band that he was in

and

very high on opium robert smith decided

to borrow some of susie sue's makeup and

apply it to his face

and because he was so completely out of

his head of course it went a bit wonky

but somewhere along the line robert

smith must have thought yeah this is a

really great idea i'm going to stick

with this perhaps that was the look that

he was trying to achieve all this time

he'd started to borrow quite a lot of

inspiration from steve severan from the

banshees as well

starting to look like him wearing the

same shades wearing a lot of crucifixes

so he was already starting to get an

image and as an album pornography

reflected that image

well it's up to him as an individual

it's you know

the way robert smith looks has got

nothing to do with the music he makes

that that's that's something that's

placed upon him by the media and by his

fans i think really

the english media does have a problem

with with a group like us because we

don't fit in and we don't and we don't

go away

and they just find it's really

irritating i can understand why because

we've sort of disregarded everything so

we're still

able to to do what we want so we're sort

of rotating

[Music]

robert smith really did develop his

style as a front man massively through

the 80s when you consider what he looked

like when he first started in the cure

to what he looked like circa 84 85 with

the big hair and this wild makeup and

this sort of slightly if you like kind

of almost deranged personality not that

he was deranged but that was the

personality that he portrayed in a lot

of the videos those are all very strong

things for a front man things that

people can identify with certainly his

hair and makeup i would say had a

massive massive impact i would suggest

that if it wasn't for that they might

not have actually done so well a lot of

record labels music journalists even

fans themselves want someone with a

strong identifiable image to actually

latch onto robert smith had that image

in terms of the actual musical

performance

his vocals were very distinctive you

would hear a cure song on the radio even

if you didn't maybe know the song you

would know that it was the cure because

of those vocals it's another very

important thing for any front man to

have is this very distinctive vocal

style and robert smith had that

[Music]

encourage me responsible for this

[Music]

i'm still very very limited i forget

very frustrated when i hear good singers

but um

it's just funny it's such an

embarrassing thing to do sing but i

couldn't sing now

i jump in the river rather than sing but

if i'm sort of

i don't know in a certain frame of mind

and i'm singing

songs

a release this way

[Music]

i think that you find there's a great

empathy

between smith and his fans

which should never be underestimated

you know i mean cure fans

very passionate about about the band in

the same way smith's fans were

passionate about the smiths because

there was a huge empathy between

morrissey and the fans and the cure have

that and it's something that smith's

never let go well his image certainly

doesn't hurt him uh you know i mean he

was you know this this little scrawny

kid who came from crawley england in the

in the in the mid 70s started this band

with a couple of friends and gradually

evolved

into this this figure which had the hair

all over the place and the the messed up

lipstick and the white makeup you know

taking elements of the the goth scene

yet still staying with the lipsticks you

know making it all smudged as opposed to

what everybody else does make a picture

perfect kind of creating his own image

and creating his own sound now his voice

to me is the is

is his strength um not only what he says

but the way he sings it he just gets by

he's kind of like a sort of um

a kind of

a slightly sort of cynical cat that sort

of stays on stage and and kind of looks

out and lets people in when he wants him

to come in

i think part of the reason for the well

the

um the endurance of the cure is is the

fact that robert smith has consistently

written great songs

i mean he may not have

managed to

collect

you know a whole group of them all the

time for every album

but you know the cure haven't made a bad

a wholly bad record ever

most of our albums are above average to

very very good

he's sort of a kind of minimalist

and it's sort of like

he's not going to really do very much

there may be any sort of five points in

the show where all he'll do is might he

might just run to the drum kit that'll

be a huge event

um

whereas you tend to find most sort of

front men they're running around the

stage an awful lot and they're they're

working the audience the whole time

robert's almost like kind of sort of

disengaged from the audience he's not

really looking at them he's just staring

out

um quite manically it's about identity

and the identity of the cure is

unmistakably and unshakably robert smith

[Music]

when faith first came out it was around

the time that robert smith had stopped

touring with susie in the banshees i

think he thought maybe

that you know he'd kiss that band

goodbye but he would still carry on

being friends with them little did he

know that they would later feature in

his life faith was written around the uh

the death of the drummer's mother

which is why it's got such a funeral uh

feel to it there was this theme of death

that was very very strong among the cure

i suppose if you like

the cure

family whatever you want to call it the

cure group

and that really affected the way that

robert smith was thinking in the way

that he was writing so there's this very

strong death theme in there so if you

like it's getting a little bit more

towards the gothic end of the spectrum

it's getting darker the music the music

is getting slower the songs are getting

a lot longer as well

already it's moving towards further

towards finding the cures niche most

sure fans will own this record in fact

almost for sure they will it's the sort

of bits regardless what's regarded as

their magic 3 the 17 seconds pornography

are fake i think it's it's it's a very

sort of it's a stark album it's quite

depressing

um but then again it's got a track like

charlotte sometimes on it which you know

it's um sort of again it's sort of that

sort of popular element even if it's

morbid i mean like the sleeve very

gracefully very gray kind of sound um

the kind of thing that you know sort of

goths will pick up upon but again i

wouldn't call it a goth album the title

track faith um is considered to be one

of um

there are very

some songs people sort of say or some

kill fans say oh i love that song oh i

hate that song i love that song

faith i don't think i've ever met

anybody who doesn't like the song

one of the uh things about the cure and

one of the reasons why they are so

popular is because

a lot of people feel the band are just

playing for you they're not playing for

anybody else you can be a concert um 10

000 people i remember seeing them in

wembley in 1989

and i was with a friend of mine

who'd not really seen them before and

they played faith at the end

and my friend was looking at all the

security guards and the security guards

were like a little bit

perplexed i think was probably a good

word because the entire audience just

stood

and stared at robert

um because

everybody feels that he's playing that

song just for them this album is is very

much a cure classic and i'd say that all

day hardcore fans own it and love it and

um yeah so it's a very good piece of

work i think it was the sort of template

for their very successful careers during

the 80s

[Music]

it's it's part it's it's a it's part of

a process that's leading up to

pornography which is the album that

follows it um where all of a sudden you

know the keyer hit you with like my god

what is this and where has it come from

[Music]

it's a very sort of it's a dense

depressing um you know

very

it's a goth album um

you know from a band who weren't up

until that point a goth band and they

are stressed didn't remain a golf band

but could make goth albums pornography

is probably um the hardcore cure fans

favorite album this is probably the

album that uh if you're a fan of the

cure this is the one that does it for

you i love it because of its intensity

and it really it means hard work it's

very hard work but when you first heard

that album it knocked you for six

because you hadn't really heard anything

like it before i think it's probably

regarded uh to my ears it's their sort

of bleakest

darkest album and i think that's why

it's sort of

it's sort of almost held up as a

kind of tempest goth music if you put

that up against what are perceived as

classic goth albums it's totally

different it's nothing like the sort of

sound of the sisters of mercy hand that

will be appropriated by band like say

fields of the nephilim and it's nothing

like the more artistic side of things

that like bauhaus were doing it's dense

it's awkward it's deliberately awkward

you know you have to listen to it to

find the tunes in there but you do

listen to it it's a very appealing album

um draws you in it's very seductive um

you know um because again it's a goth

album being made by a band who weren't

strictly a god bed i was i was just

looking at the date of it again and it's

a 1982

i believe and

and to me

to think of that record coming out at

that time you know only three or four

years removed from the first record i i

think it's

you know

i think it's a

massive a massive step over that time i

think pornography was a brilliant record

when we had the album title pornography

it wasn't we weren't going to write

songs about

you know child sex it was

just cool pornography because it gave us

a sense you know we discussed the idea

of pornography and we had a night you

know that that word has connotations and

it colored the record

there was a faith tour um in the autumn

of 81

to uh

promote the charlotte sometimes single

and they started playing early versions

of pornography and unfortunately with

the pornography tour and the way that

the music left the entire band and

audience drained on stage the band

unfortunately imploded

um in germany in the summer of 1982.

i'm always prepared for it to end

i get

very disillusioned very quickly with um

i never sort of feeling that we've

achieved anything it's like a you know

i'm always discontent

so i always think we should you know

that we're not really getting anywhere

we're not doing anything

and also i'm not just dramatic

[Music]

[Music]

and they were asked by a bbc tv show the

oxford road show to perform let's go to

bed live

and robert um

sort of got there and said no i'm not

going to play what they want me to play

and he played two tracks off the

pornography album

and realized how much he loved playing

and writing

so therefore he went off and wrote

the top

[Music]

the monster that is the cure nowadays

you know we all met up and i say to the

others do you think we should do another

record everyone goes yeah

and then we do and everything just sort

of picks up

[Music]

again used to love

walking this gorgeous block

this top is a place where nobody goes

just imagine

just imagine

[Music]

a lot of the drugs that he was taking

played a pretty strong part in a lot of

the songs there are several album tracks

on that and b-sides that were written

around the same time which chronicle a

lot of his use with hallucinogenic drugs

[Music]

[Music]

always

[Music]

you

[Music]

is

[Music]

remember in studio we have guidelines of

what we're going to do and then we play

and that's how it turns out and that's

the idea of being in a group

the idea of being a group isn't to make

a record that you feel will somehow

promote your image or change your image

or something that's what you want to be

seen as i mean

whatever we've done through the years

we've done because that's what we want

to do and sometimes it's worked and

sometimes it hasn't and it's it's

that side of if you start to control

every aspect of what you do you lose all

the sort of spark of originality

[Music]

piggy in the mirror was one of the album

filler tracks that robert smith wrote

was very heavily under the influence of

drugs it was written about drugs it was

quite a stark contrast to the novelty

album of japanese whispers if you like

it was the first proper cure album after

japanese whispers

so

if you want to regard

being on a lot of drugs as a more mature

sound then perhaps it was

is

[Music]

oh

[Music]

is

[Music]

oh

[Music]

[Music]

um at this sort of stage there wasn't

really much of a band it was really just

like him and um lol tolhurst who was the

drummer who was still with him

but basically uh

the bassist he got into play when they

toured it was

phil fornaly who produced pornography

and then

who is essentially was at that stage a

session drummer andy anderson

um so it wasn't really

it was probably more of a robot solo

album

[Music]

i don't think all the group feels as

strongly about about my obsessions as as

either and that's fixed anymore

otherwise it will be right in the words

and i can have a holiday

[Music]

it's a pretty

dark sort of desolate track um

it starts opens with a sort of very

hypnotic base

figure that sort of keeps repeating

throughout it's quite kind of it's quite

sort of depressing it's not the kind of

it's not sort of happy base playing by

any means um

it's not the kind of track you're going

to play at breakfast time and sort of to

start your day off sort of right it's

sort of quite quite almost got slightly

suicidal by about so this sort of base

quite amazing base opens the track and

it just stays there

[Music]

breaking you know top ten uh uh

unexpectedly i think uh probably uh just

give uh um give robertson the pat on the

back to go to for himself personally to

think yeah i'm right just right the way

i want to race

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

for a band who up until this point had

kind of been chopping and changing their

approach

um

everything would come to a

head

if you excuse the partner with head on

the door

they would define themselves completely

and then they were up and running and

really away as as a mature band but they

were still they were still finding their

feet in certain musical areas with the

top

which is why i don't think it works

overall it's an album

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

a lot of people were surprised in the

cure first sort of entering sort of the

top ten the pop charts um you know the

music press wanted to know a lot more

about robert smith's personal life as

soon as he was appearing regularly in

the charts

so maybe it's a little bit of him going

like that to you know saying listen i

can write kind of a top 10 record like

that if you really want to know and here

it is and it's all got some

you know degree of integrity and it's

still got a musicality that others lack

right by the time the cure release head

on the door they were headlining when

the arena that gives you some kind of

indication of how big they were in the

uk right they were also about to break

in america where they became even bigger

they were at this point and would be for

a long time a stadium rock band now they

didn't have a stadium rock sound but

they were of that level they could you

know they were that popular

1985

um saw one of the i actually remember

being delighted by this um

1995 saw the return of simon gallup

to the cure fold

we were also joined by paul thompson who

played with the band

before they became the cure he's

actually

robert's

brother-in-law um

and

uh

sort of like the

the head on the door album that came out

in 1985 is one of the perfect cure

albums in that it has the pop side of it

has things like in between days and

close to me close to me was it it was a

pure

cure song to me you know the uh um

it's delicate you know

again simple bassline simple guitar

overlay you know his his his vocal is is

really gentle and uh you know i just

think it has all the qualities which i

personally enjoy about the cure in these

softer moments it's

that's where everything you know it's

it's the defining moment in the cures

career from that point they're up and

running and they don't look back

well close to me is another song like

let's go to bed and like boys don't cry

that essentially showed the pop the

poppier side of the band

uh i i don't think that uh

i think if if anything that was their

most pop song that was the song that

could have probably made it on am radio

back in the 80s and the kids and their

mothers would have liked it as well

because it's quirky it's catchy

lyrically it's brilliant and it uh

it just fit with the way they looked the

way they acted and where the band was at

that time

it was perhaps indicative of what later

the cure started doing when they started

with an album called all mixed up which

was basically a remix album again they

dabbled with this dance sound so i think

it really showed the direction the cure

were heading in and this kind of

interest that they wanted to experiment

with different sounds it's actually

quite interesting because a lot of the

bands that

came out of that post punk goth scene

they did start using dance and

experimental dance

towards the kind of 90s end

and

i don't know why they did that but

there's been an awful lot that have

actually used it that they've almost

seen dance as being the new punk it it's

another way of being able to express

yourself so perhaps that was what robert

smith was thinking of as well

i really like the cocktail twins i

really like mozart i really like caller

abdul

you know it's

it's

supposing that people can only like one

type of music and it's wrong i mean

people like lots of different you'd have

to be

like the most dull person in the world

to only listen to one type of music so

what we do is just we do what we feel

like

where's the head in the door album is

obviously very very very loved and very

kind of favored by

um

the queue and i think it's probably that

the cures audience by that time by 1985

and started to grow up a little bit you

know they've been maybe been sort of

sort of

around the sort of 16 17 18 mark you

know sort of in 1979 1980 they were now

like 24 25 there was or we sort of had

to make decisions you know finish

university or whatever get jobs so i

think the band is of the audience are

grown with a band and sort of culminated

in the head in the door album i think

the kiss me album was purely probably

because they had to do an album so if

you know it was two years after they had

the album you know their company called

for an album they needed an album to

tour so i think they sort of just not

went through the motions but delivered a

proficient sort of professional sounding

album and it got put out and i think

that's the situation in the kissimmee

album was supposed to be like a showcase

almost of things that we can do and it's

like a

record you would really listen to with

you could listen to with other people

[Music]

kiss me kiss me kiss me is a double

album that the cure put out and uh

i think if you looked at the numbers as

a record rep or as a record member of

the record industry at their label you

would probably say that kiss me kiss me

kiss me was a far stronger album from

the cure

because it had songs like just like

heaven which was a big hit for the band

in north america hot hot hot which was

sort of there

the only way i can describe hot hot hot

is sort of their jamaican

english

influence i don't even know if that

makes any sense but um that album i

thought was a little long-winded as a

fan of the band

i thought it was a single if it was a

single album it probably would have been

their best album but because it wasn't i

think their best was still yet to come

being a double album there were some

tracks on it which i feel um

could have been left off it would have

made a fantastic single album

i mean it's the great why can't ibu

single the beauty of catch

there is just like heaven which i would

probably say is one of the finest guitar

pop singles ever written

head head-on door was a very reflective

album written post-smith's nervous

breakdown

so

kiss me was a

almost like coming out of that and i

think that he was

maybe the whole band were a little bit

not so sure where now to head they

started dabbling with the dancy sort of

stuff a little bit ahead of their time

really it wasn't i don't think that

people were quite ready for that so now

it was like well maybe we should just

move back slightly and try and do

something that's a little bit more

subdued maybe a little bit less

experimental now in terms of

commerciality

maybe that would be a better move

because that kind of stuff is going to

sell more but for the fans perspective

it wasn't the cure it was

the cure

not

being as they had been not experimenting

with things not

coming up with these sort of rather

melancholic tracks

[Music]

from an outsider looking in i think the

disintegration was a very dark time for

the cure broken bonds old lies

opportunities belated sort of

realizations you know sort of i think so

um

anyone who's loved and lost and maybe

found love again will identify with sort

of you know various

uh key elements in this record so i

think it's sort of he's realized that

there was a universality about sort of

life and

almost the secret of songwriting is of

exposing your

soul enough to

let people get a glimpse inside and then

they can kind of relate to your

experiences those human emotions that

songs like pictures of you

and

last stance and more their

obsession and fixation and not really

love it's not love liking them love song

love songs the only one that actually

sort of is about the love that exists

between two people in a real way all the

other songs aren't they're actually

about the lack of love if anything

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it's a funny record it's a funny record

they were just starting to make it in

the states big time

and yes robert smith was again falling

apart so yeah i guess

autobiographical but maybe in a bit more

of a

tabloid

let's watch the person's demise

personal demise kind of a way

disintegration i think was in some ways

the pinnacle of what robert had been

looking to achieve

it's considered by a number of

cure fans to be the definitive cure

album i think with a song like lullaby

for example

um you know again it it has a

has such a warmth and a depth to it you

know robert smith's never been

emotionally

constrained you know he's always been

able to express himself much more than a

lot a lot of artists and unashamedly he

seems to wear it all on his sleeves

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[Music]

lullaby is

robert smith's uh sensitive side coming

out again i hope that doesn't sound

wrong but i mean you know we all have

sensitive sides some people choose to

show it some people don't and robert has

never had a problem with that i don't

think a lullaby is a lullaby that was

why it's titled the way it's titled i

mean that's essentially what it is you

take a man who sings the way he does

which cannot be described until you

actually hear him sing

the way he sings it was like the perfect

song it almost reminds me of a song that

somebody gave him and said you know what

i wrote this song i think this is

perfect for you but somehow robert

managed to pull it out of his of his

head or wherever he pulls his music out

from and he made this this this song

that was just this beautiful

piece

that

you could play for

the cure fan that had been there for 10

years say was in their 30s now had a

daughter had a son whatever little baby

could play them before they went to bed

you know what i mean it's such a

beautiful song the song lullaby is

probably one of the most disturbing

songs that the cure has ever written

it's this wonderfully

creepy

oh it's just for me it is just the most

goth song that they've ever written

smith's vocals in it are just

it's almost like he's really

enjoying doing this song and he's making

it sound as creepy as possible

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it's obviously the spiderman is just

like a kind of a um

vogue man character really it stands for

his

symbolic of

various things that's trying to sort of

disguise

those phobias it's just the sometimes

when you

your fear of going to sleep because you

don't think you'll ever wake up again

that you have particularly when you're

young

you know you get it's sometimes sleep

can be really welcoming and it can be a

sort of reprieve

from from day to day life and other

times it can be you know if you get into

a pattern which i've been in from time

to time of nightmares that you really

dread falling asleep

you try and keep yourself awake at all

costs and it's um it's just about that

it's just about the last time that

happened to me

but the spider-man is very thinly

disguised

analogy of various

phobias

he sort of sings like the inner child in

all of us i think that's the best way to

describe it you know he sort of

manages to whine without it being

annoying

if that makes sense and i think that he

uh

he has that such an original sound to

his voice that only for some reason um

i find anyway that that bands in the 80s

and 90s managed to to create very very

well for themselves to to kind of

segregate themselves from other bands

but the cure use their image they use

their sound robert uses a style of the

way he sings to make it such an

individual band it's such a band that

stands out from any other bands even in

the same genre they were never afraid to

try anything um and you've always you've

always got to admire an artist who is

never afraid to try to think especially

when they get away with it most of the

time which the cure did either you

relate or you don't relate and the cure

were always one of those bands that

managed to relate to their fans uh out

of that era very few bands i think came

out of that era the late 70s early 80s

and managed to

continually

write songs that made people want to

come to them i think that the cure were

always progressing always progressing

and i think once they got to the point

where they had

tapped

what they could out of a

direction i think that they

there was always a willingness to

change direction start again

take that to its logical extreme

and

once they felt they had said everything

they could with that

to move on to the next one

the decisions may be questionable

they may get to a point where

like with pornography

maybe there might have been uh maybe

they could have gone deeper and darker

and

you know maybe they could have

put some of their own blood in with the

vinyl which um

but you know they made their decisions

they moved on and i think that that's

been a great hallmark for for them in

their career and they're very unique you

know there isn't a band like the cure um

you know they're called a goth band but

they're not a goth band you know robert

smith i don't think would ever call

himself a goth he just said well i'm me

you know it's just the way i look and it

just happens to be a look that a lot of

people have copied because they like the

band that i'm in

um

you know they've consistently made good

music you you can't you can't have a go

at a band who consistently make good

music

um

you know and

they they could write the most intense

difficult to get into rock song and they

can write the most charming poignant and

enjoyable pop song and they can have

both on an album um

and you know and you never listen to any

of their records and think well that's a

bit odd what's that doing there you just

accept the cure for what they are i

don't know what robert smith at 50 will

be

i don't know how much

pain and heartache

you know these men can

take and put into their art at a certain

point you do just want them to write

happy love songs for the rest of their

life because you want them to be happy

and in love i think that they've

deserved it

i think they've

i think they've given us enough pain on

an asexual level as well they were quite

uh they were quite clever they didn't

just haphazardly do an album they've

gone to i think they've thought really

carefully when

to make and then release an album when

to talk where to tour it how to tour it

i think they've their real winning

combination is that they've

i think they always come down to less is

more

so they'd never do too much even when

they could afford it they you know the

tours are never over the top it's never

a huge stage set and never huge stage

show

when the albums come out there is a

fanfare of course to announce the album

there's no they've never relied on sort

of

gadgets or gimmicks or

you know gone with marketing trends it's

like essentially

you're getting the cure

it's not for sort of people that live in

the mainstream it sounds very very easy

to say that it's like we could do better

but we don't want to but it is actually

it's true in our case i mean i there's

so many things that we don't do that we

should do to kind of establish ourselves

even more and to capitalize on on what

we do but um

really the idea of that kind of

overwhelming is fame you know in a way i

mean that's every likely we would get it

but

it's it's

has too many disadvantages and we've

been doing it too long

to be taken in by the sort of the veneer

of fame and what it brings um because

all it brings is trouble really which

brings heartache you know you can't do

anything ever again without people

criticizing you basically

and looking at you all the time they

don't come across as sort of like big

pop stars

um they do come across i mean they write

music which is very personal to people

that connection is something a lot of

bands will never achieve i think if you

look at the cure um you know three times

unprecedented headline as a glastonbury

you know brit awards best videos you

know they have the industry recognition

but unashamedly and undoubtedly it is

robert smith that that is the focus and

is the cure yeah he wears

the image

which is a mask

uh but allows him to then be personal

and i think if you anybody ever wanted

to know robert smith or you wanted to

know how he was feeling or what he'd

experienced then it's there it's there

in the discography you know go back from

the very beginning his school bands his

first project winning the battle of the

bands and follow the cure through he

leaves

nothing hidden it's all there his

emotional ride his drug-induced

psychedelia his his heartfelt emotion

his screaming his angst you know it's

all there his happy moments

um you know it's in their catalogue i'm

sure that whatever decision they make

about what direction they want to go in

will be

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the right decision i'm sure it will

astound it will amaze

and it will always be the cure

[Music]

you