All language subtitles for [English (auto-generated)] The Cure_ The Making Of The Goth Rock Legends (Full Documentary) _ Amplified [DownSub.com]

[Music]

out of all the bands that emerged in the

immediate aftermath of punk rock in the

late 1970s the cure was one of the most

enduring and popular

led through numerous incarnations by

guitarist and vocalist robert smith the

band became notorious for their slow

gloomy songs and smith's ghoulish

appearance

as one of the bands that laid the seeds

for goth rock the cure have enjoyed a

hugely successful 25-year career which

has seen nearly 30 million album sales

worldwide

[Music]

the cure began life in 1976

in the southern english town of crawley

four school friends paul thompson

michael dempsey lawrence lowell tolhurst

and robert smith decided to form a band

which they named easy cure the cure came

together it's basically a school band i

mean pretty punk just so so it's

interesting that the county got counting

has come a post punk bands but their

actual roots lie before punk i think

it's basically obviously robert smith

as a driving force right from the start

with a couple of schoolmates putting the

band together

playing the youth club circuit so it's

it's like a classic british kind of

school band never really having a plan

to get anywhere but right from the start

they had more of a quirky kind of um

idea to what they were doing i think

robert smith's just a really good

songwriter and a really good like uh

he's got a really good imagination

by 1978 paul thompson had dropped out of

the band and the remaining members

changed their name to the cure

a demo tape found its way to polydor a r

man chris harry who was impressed enough

by what he heard to ask for a meeting

with the band

chris parry heard them really like too

they got them a deal on small wonder

which like one of the hundreds of indie

labels around the time is one of the

more successful ones

and they put the first single out on

that but then he realizes a bigger

potential so he took them and formed his

own label called fiction which he did as

a subsidiary of politics a bigger label

and put them on that that kind of

support really helped the cure as well

because being an independent label

idealistically was fantastic but it's a

really rubbish way trying to get

anywhere because there's just no support

at all

seventies was an interesting decade in

terms of music i mean there were all

kinds of things going on like glam rock

you had tamla

and

certainly that that sort of that the

prog rock was lending itself to

something suddenly going boom something

was going to explode something was going

to happen and of course that was um was

punk 1977 was really

the high point of punk rock everything

was thrashing everything was bondage

trousers and big hair and safety pins

and

you know torn t-shirts and all that

malarkey and

the cure came along and they really were

something

different they had an enormous charm

they were very english their music was

very english i always thought

and very home count is english you know

it's very much about southern southern

england

it was very unpretentious but at the

same time it was very

much it's its own thing

in the winter of 1978 the cure began

recording the basis of a debut album

parry produced and was keen that the

group's sound should be sufficiently

different from that of the punk

phenomenon

smith and parry developed a more

stripped down enigmatic sound and in

december the band were invited to record

a selection of tracks for the john peel

sessions

a whole generation of people were

listening to peel every night and

reading papers looking for something

different all the time saying what's

next what's next that was a question all

the time what's going to happen next we

wanna

you just there's a hit list of things to

check out you know you hear someone say

go check this band out the cure you know

or you'd list the field and you've had a

session that that's the first time i

heard them and it's just like wow this

sounds great this is so different

in early 1979 the band returned to the

studio and begun recording in earnest

their debut album three imaginary boys

was released in may to largely good

reviews in the british music press

people just trying to change rocker to

something completely different just

being obstinate really just just being a

pain in the ass and the cure seemed to

fit in with that very quickly

so so because the whole generation was

looking for this and was getting

encouraged people were taking risks and

when you hear the first cure album

there's a lot of risks musically and

sonically being taken that record it

seemed like a manufactured

sort of punk new wave construct that you

couldn't really take seriously and i got

to review their first album

and i and i hated the whole packaging it

seemed to be it seemed to be there was a

concentration on trying to market

mystery

and that really at that time got up my

nose and i have to review it on the

night that margaret thatcher got elected

and i was in a really bad mood and i

really took it out somewhat on the album

the first album doesn't actually sound

anything like laid to cure apart from

like the smith's voice which is like the

constant they don't

apart from three imaginary boys it

doesn't even have that kind of doomy

kind of sound to it it's very kind of

quirky that the mix is really weird as

well you get like a really quiet guitar

really loud drums or it'll suddenly flip

to the way around it's really

interesting the way it's mixed i was

always wondering if there's like a kind

of almost a dub regulate kind of

influence in there the way things are

mixed almost back to front

and they did a record 1015

which again was very very stripped down

was

very very much not the thrash of of of

punk rock which is very sort of

linear blocky sort of music you know

what the clash of the pistols or the

susie and the banshees wouldn't actually

not so much the banshees but buzzcocks

or something which was very much a

thick block of sound from the first bar

to the last bar

um

the cure music at that time was this

very spiky and angular and and slightly

uncomfortable slightly disjointed and

and

i like that because it took you by

surprise always there's a starkness to

the sound and it's very experimental

when that period people were trying to

uh redefine what rock music was

and change it to something else it

wasn't like first chorus verse chorus

middle bit guitar solo went out there

was a bit like you have a long intro and

then the end or just whatever you

normally do let's do the opposite so

like guitar solo will turn the guitar

down really quiet so you could hear that

in the way these tracks are mixed there

was definitely some kind of thought of

trying to make this it's very art rock

and it's a very conscious effort to like

redefine the premises of rock and roll

and even the artwork of the record as

well you know the uh just a little the

tracks don't even they're not even named

on the record they just have little

pictures for each track and the covers

just doesn't even have the name of the

band or the name of the elbow on the

cover it's just like a random kind of uh

bits furniture from a house it's very

very much the time

that people like trying to like change

what rock and roll was and what it

sounded like and what it looked like and

what is perceived as i think there's

something about that first time they

didn't particularly enjoy themselves i

think there was something quite fake

about the whole thing and the

and the little um squiggles and and

sort of symbols for the song titles and

all that seemed really annoying

and didn't really seem to reflect what

they were really interested in i mean i

think it was interesting that they'd

come you know out of the sort of strange

bowie world

uh of both pop songs and and and

soundscapes and at that time you

couldn't really tell everything seemed

to be

like a desperate need to be

interesting rather than just being as

interesting as they actually were which

slowly developed from there and then i

became a huge fan

the recording of three imaginary boys

had been characterized by frequent and

often heated studio debate between parry

and smith

parry had been vocal with his ideas for

the band while smith had been equally

keen to assert his own vision of the

cure a vision on which he was not

prepared to compromise

i think from the start it was very much

robert smith's project i think he wants

other people to contribute but maybe

they didn't contribute enough i think

well the original lineup from lol told

us to matthew hartley i think he wanted

it to be everybody writing songs but

i think he's just very crazy he's a very

creative person it's hard if you're in a

band with somebody he's very good

songwriter i mean other people did

contribute bits and they'll and they did

right the old song but robert smith

stuff is just just so much better it's

like getting those bands at the time

that when anybody anytime there's always

one maybe two

dominant members in a group robert was

very much the man with his hand on the

rudder

but lal and michael dempsey

uh

were also

quite um

strongly opinionated i i i i imagined

and i thought there must be some

fantastic bus stops in the studio when

these three are uh uh uh recording

something

robert smith must have you know as a

child must be very into like almost like

progressive rock or there must be some

like kind of rocks music kind of

influences as well very art rock kind of

thing going on

but i think when pum came along they

obviously galvanized them and energized

the sound although they were never ever

a straight kind of punk rock band but

that created the audience for them to

exist in i mean there was well people

who got into punk weren't just listening

out for bands of sound i totally like

punk people looking for like people are

going to change rock and roll this is

the whole idea of the time that rock and

roll was going to change and there was

contemporary balance of the cure there

was like joy division well i think were

a massive influence i always think what

was interesting about the queue is that

they really come out something like

david bowie and and the idea that david

bowie had written a lot of very strange

singer-songwriter-type songs like early

on with hunky-dory and space oddity and

then he'd experimented with this idea of

glam pop songs with you know ziggy

stardust and and

up to diamond dogs and i think diamond

dogs was quite a key thing because then

that bled into that area where he worked

with eno and low and heroes and i think

that all that really is the seed of the

cure they come out of a sort of gloom

rock um

strand as well i've always liked the

leonard cohen's of the world or the

you know some of that more gloomy joy

division stuff which i suppose was

around more or less at the same time

which was

the post

after that first

huge explosion of punk rock you've got

this

echo in the bunnyman thing or teardrop

explodes thing or you know the liverpool

mob or howard devoto in the magazine and

um

the cure and then

later on you got bands like bauhaus and

and going into the

new romantic thing of the early 80s i

suppose

in the summer of 1979 the cure were

asked to support susie and the band

she's on tour

they had only performed a couple of

dates when the tour took an unexpected

turn

the first big tours the cure did was

support the banshees which is perfect

all of them really the bandages always

had a really good support balance it was

one thing that punk you didn't wait for

your manager to order you what banter

take out the rodeo the lot bands at the

time very interesting what was going on

listen to all the groups and they did

they picked the cure to do the tour with

them so they cure the tour starts it

gets going and the bounty split open

about the third day to the tour when

when the rhythm says when the

guitar player the drummer just walks out

walks out on the banshees

but because about susie's got this

really kind of persevering attitude and

instead of like scuttling off back to

london and giving up they decide to

carry on and they asked robert smith to

play guitar in them he learns the songs

overnight and they carry i think they

missed out one date and just carried on

the tour i think he was more annoyed

than than possibly we we were because it

was his first big tour and

you know these two people were pulling

the rug out from under his feet and

immediately

so by the end of the evening he kind of

offered his services and we just sort of

laughed it off and forgot all about it

but we didn't forget that

we didn't think it was possible

and we went through about a week

of really torturous auditions for people

and then

we just asked robert and he just turned

up and played three songs immediately

perfectly

and we said can you do two sets a night

and he said of course you know and that

that was it we were

back on uh on on the road within a week

it seemed odd at the time it was like

some kind of thing eric clapton would do

being two groups at once a kind of you

know

super group uh but robert did it out of

some kind of perversity as long as the

cure could could keep supporting you

know giving himself double the work as

well you know i mean unbelievable really

so the the tour carried on with robert

now part of susan the banshees

which he he he

he wasn't necessarily the greatest

guitar player susan the band he's ever

had because he was something you know

there was there was something about him

that was other that didn't quite fit

but um i think out of his pop idealism

he wanted to make it work because wow

what a great opportunity to suddenly be

in this really successful group and i'm

the guitar player it was it was quite

strange doing it during the tour because

i felt um

there was quite a bit of um

in some strange way that the fact that

robert was playing with the banshees as

well

was kind of

divorcing him from the rest of his band

and i think

i think lol was cool with it but um i

think michael was a bit um

maybe envious i think it nearly killed

him i think you know

the the idea of doubling up and the idea

of the tension it caused within the cure

the idea that you know he was suddenly

in a more successful group uh oh and

will he leave and the idea of the cure

without robert smith well it was no cure

at all you know so i think

it was um it was a typical move really

in one sense because it was out of it

was a kind of good-natured thing but

also it was incredibly messy and led to

all sorts of psychodrama and one of the

great things about the cure course is

the constant psychodrama and this was

one of those great soap moments i think

in the in the life of the cure

i think robert learned quite a lot by

being in the band i think he learnt

how to be a front person

just by standing next to susie every

night for a couple of months i think he

completely

changed his his

persona on stage because of that

he came out of his shell

i think

that he learnt

how to be a bit more flamboyant

and how it was okay and i think he

he saw how

you know

actually put it suzy's more diva moments

were kind of acceptable

because they were the front person and i

think he learned how to get away with

stuff um

and just a bit about stagecraft and

learning how to use the audience a bit

more because

you know if you look at early clips of

of their performances you can see he's

sort of sort of he's much more shy and

retiring than he becomes a bit later on

and of course his whole

look changes as well well his look at

the beginning wasn't

as extreme uh as as it became and i

think it became extreme because of his

period in susie and the banshees

and i think because he wasn't really

part of the susie thing and it was

something that just happened and almost

sort of killed him in a way

there was almost a sort of jokey

response and he started to dress like

susie you know in a way and he started

to be

physically like susie and i think that's

really when that whole thing that became

known as the goth thing came about i

think for me it was that period he spent

he wouldn't have won a crucifix or

anything without being in susie i think

he felt that was the uniform because he

takes those kind of things seriously

he's in a group this is their uniform i

will wear their uniform and and that

whole sexual ambiguity thing i think

came

you know to kind of copy the way that

susie looked and susie's look was such a

big influence on the whole goth what

became known as goth i think for that

period robert got kind of got dragged

into that and and and it kind of

exaggerated his glam pop look

uh and turned it into something kind of

somewhere between grotesque and

inspiring

he

borrowed suzy's lipstick and disappeared

to the the the toilet

and came back with basically his

trademark look

i think he was probably a bit worse for

the wear in some fashion or other but it

sort of sprang from there and i think he

just

you know

they were you know he was already

getting into this whole idea of the mask

and stuff with with pornography and i

think um

working with us just brought that out a

bit more

and

it it gave him that sort of one sort of

barrier between

the real him

and the audience that i think every sort

of front performer needs i mean i don't

suppose you can avoid it and people go

oh him you know he looks like joe brand

or you know and lippy and stuff but you

know i've never ever i mean i've always

seen past it

and and it's just the way he is and i

rather admire him for sticking to it as

well isn't it true that mary she always

liked him wearing the lippy and stuff

and so he said well you know if she

likes it i'll keep it fair enough

i started wearing it on stage just

because i've got very

ill-defined features and i just wanted

to make more of them so it's not so much

vanity i don't think because it's a bit

too odd to be van it's more

theatricality

robert smith's image was incredibly

important to the cures popularity i

think

um

it was um it was very clever because it

was a very androgynous image so you

could copy it if you're a boy or a girl

which is quite unusual you know amongst

rock stars generally you know you might

get loads of blokes dressing up as you

you might get loads of girls dressing up

at you but you very rarely get both but

robert smith if you went to one of his

gigs then you know it's actually quite

difficult to tell the boys and the girls

apart because they'd all have a

ridiculous you know

giant black widow spider person on their

heads they'd all be dressed in black a

lot of them would be wearing sort of

dubious smudged makeup

and um it was brilliant if you were a

cure fan because you could instantly

recognize other cure fans you know if

you were

on your first day at college or you know

an indie disco there was none of this

you know sort of wondering oh i wonder

if they like the same music as me

because

if they were a cure fan you just knew

because they look like robert smith so

you could just walk up and say

into the cure by any chance and they'd

always say yes

[Music]

the tensions within the cure that

surfaced during smith's flirtation with

the banshees came to a head in late

1979.

smith felt that an irreconcilable breach

had developed between he and dempsey and

dempsey was ejected from the band to be

replaced by smith's longtime friend

simon gallup

keyboard player matthew hartley was

asked to join the group and in early

1980 the new four piece began recording

their second studio album 17 seconds

standout track a forest earned high

praise from the music press

killing an arab is the one that's been

from the start

has been a really famous song but boys

don't cry it's the first kind of hits

and that's the one that kind of crossed

them over quite a lot but for me the one

song that really defines a cure for me

personally is a forest it's just got

everything's great about the cool it's

very sparse it's it's a very it's it

sounds a bit like the first album it's

got a kind of weird kind of sound to it

in his footage

very poppy melodic but

it also sounds like quintessential kind

of dark moody cure

that kind of and it's got that kind of

weird kind of dream childlike dream kind

of feel to it it's very um

i say mother but i mean late 70s kind of

piece of psychedelia it's kind of very

post punk psychedelic it's a very black

and white kind of sound to it and it

sounds like it come from any kind of

period of their career fit in any album

so to me a forest is definitely the

quintessential cure track

i mean for me the big one that really

changed my whole mind about the queue

was was a forest

and i just thought that was a wonderful

um combination of

of spooky guitars and and a dream voice

and and their a formula seemed to be

developing i i i yeah the the voice the

guitar and also an image that seemed

very specific to robert smith and his

mental state you know his mental state

is always a key factor in in a cure song

uh the combination of

of quite ordinariness really

down-to-earthness and yet something very

strange and bizarre and and far-fetched

so he's quite rooted in in a funny sort

of way but he's also completely you know

off his head

and i i guess that was the moment when i

i first started to notice that that that

was an interesting tension

the cures first world tour followed the

release of 17 seconds but was marred by

further bust-ups which culminated in

hartley leaving the group

reformed as a three-piece the cure begun

work on their next album faith

the cure have been through

various different incarnations so

i think when you when you look at the

early stuff they were

they were by no means a sort of ordinary

band but they were much more ordinary

than they became so songs like you know

boys don't cry which is an absolutely

classic you know cure pop song was this

kind of wiery minimalist punk thing you

know

if i'd if i got into them in 1979 and

heard a song like that i'm sure they

really liked it but in a way you

wouldn't have thought there was a band

that was going to go on to make you know

10 albums and become one of the biggest

fans of the world they seemed like a

quirky british thing they're um their

early stuff it was when they got into

the real gloomy stuff faith and

pornography that was when the band

really started to sort of resonate with

with um a wider fan base by faith which

to me was you know when it started to

become interesting

there was a seriousness about the way

that they were using sound you know so

they they could obviously write these

kind of very haunting and attractive pop

songs and like a forest was so seductive

and it seemed to have that combination

of of being about sound pure sound

coming out of eno and bowie but also the

idea of the pop song

coming out of the the more sort of

stranger end of david bowie and i guess

because diamond bog the diamond dogs was

almost an original

example of what became known as the

gothic sound you know diamond dogs was

almost ground zero for that in a way you

know along with the american band the

doors you know those were the two areas

where it began and so it was it was when

the cure started to really kind of get

that sense that they had their own

identity coming out something that was

interesting but but it was you know a

mix you know bowie kind of jumped from

one thing to the other the cure seemed

to put it all in one place so there were

these you know gorgeous soundscapes and

occasionally these ravishing pop songs

[Music]

in the winter of 1982 the cure embarked

on a uk tour supported by steve severin

of susie and the banshees

when the tour wrapped up in december the

band retreated to the windmill studio to

rehearse some new material

it was during these brief sessions that

new tensions began to flare up with

gallup accusing smith of wanting to

leave the cure to collaborate with

severin

a confused and distant smith journeyed

to london and stayed at severon's house

where he wrote the bulk of the lyrics

for

pornography

robert was in this sort of mid

this sort of limbo between not not sure

he wasn't really sure whether he wanted

the cure to continue or whether he

wanted to go solo

so he's sort of

mid

um

and he just used to turn up on my my

doorstep you know friday night with a

crate of different sort of beverages and

he'd sit there making cocktails and we

would talk and watch videos because i

just got a video player him and severine

sort of became quite good buddies and

had all sorts of uh you know experiments

with psychedelia music and i suppose

took a lot of acid together and

and and kind of um lived quite an

extreme life and found found it found

connections with things they were

interested in i think you know the

darker side of david bowie robert smith

sort of mapped onto severan's

kind of um appreciation of truly dark

things in life and

the edgar allan poe and everything and i

suppose they they did find a way to fit

into the same glove which was kind of

interesting

in early 1982 the cure recruited

producer phil thornley to begin

recording pornography at rack studios in

london

the album was released in may 1982 to

tepid reviews and the ensuing tour was a

disaster a fist fight between smith and

gallup ended the bassist involvement

with the band

chris harry tried to encourage smith to

take a new more mainstream pop direction

tolhurst moved on to keys and the band

begun recording upbeat singles such as

let's go to bed and the walk with

session musicians on bass and drums

smith however remained distracted and

begun to move closer to severin

collaborating on a joint project the

glove as well as recording and touring

with the banshees

we got a lot

of negative vibes as we should say from

fiction

because they

they felt roberts

was getting pulled in too many

directions

i think i was seen as like you know this

kind of

elemental on his shoulder whispering in

his ear telling him not to be the cure

and which wasn't the case at all it was

just that

you know and i was there at one meeting

with with him and um

chris parry where he explained quite

eloquently why

he wanted to go and play with the

manchester for a second time why he

wanted to do the glove album just to get

different experiences to add to the cure

and um

but i think chris was um

was very nervous that he was going to go

off and leave

the cure behind and join the banshees

permanently so there was this all there

was this tug tug of war going on

um

which manifested itself more

during the recording of the banshee's

album hyena in 84 that we did with

robert

the actual glove sessions were quite

they left us alone you know they they

never thought you know

it was kind of like oh let the two boys

have their holiday and you know they'll

come back to their senses eventually

in september 1983 the glove released

their only album blue sunshine

the glove got sort of mixed reviews

people to this day either love it or

hate it

but by that point um

you know the banshees were suffering

their first

backlash

um

so it kind of it kind of fell in the

midst of that and so it was seen as you

know

self-indulgent and uh you know a waste

of time

but we were quite open about it

you know we just said yes it's totally

self-indulgent that is the whole point

of it

smith had spent much of 1983 splitting

his time between a pop project with the

cure and working with the banshees

towards the end of the year his

relationship with the banshees started

to become strained

by the time he was in the band for the

second time i was really

i really was that elemental on his

shoulder i was trying to convince him to

leave the cure behind and to join

the banshee's full-time

selfish reasons of course because you

know number one he was my friend and

number two i wanted the banshees to get

some stability and i think you know

i was definitely trying to

squeeze lowell out of the picture i make

no bones about that

but

you know i respected his wishes and that

you know and

kind of in the back of my mind i knew he

would never kind of give up the cure

because

he had too much of a personal vision

to be subsumed into another band

particularly with such a strong front

person and susie even though you know

he's been very

conscientious and very determined and

very neurotically needy of having the

band of the cure i think for me it's

always just been robert smith and this

loose band of people who throw cure type

shapes you know

there's a certain way that a cure member

must look

and and hold his instrument and and it

gives the illusion for robert who seems

to need it that he's in a band

that kind of helps keep him together but

for me it's always been you know from

the very very early days really robert

smith

you know to the extent on someone like

the top you get the feeling that you did

it all it was all him you know this

great kind of multi-instrumentalist kind

of brilliance that that was the true

kind of essence of of this thing he

calls the cure but for me is smith

i never used to be able to to put any

feelings of optimism or hope or anything

into songs it was always

complete despair even though my my

actual personality was always quite

balanced or as balanced as it is you

know

but now

what the cure do tends to reflect like a

whole more than just one particular

piece of it's more like a group

mentality but yeah let's go to videos

for

probably the only contrived

record we ever made i never will make

because it was designed to completely

break the mould of what the cure had

become which i thought was very

aesthetic and almost stagnant

robert smith is the cure that's

definitely true and you know you

couldn't imagine the cure without rob

smith but obviously there has been the

cure without any other band member you

can think of because

you know apart from the fall he's

probably had more lineup changes of any

band in history but i think the key to a

successful cure lineup was always where

there was people who prepared to follow

robert smith where he wanted to go he's

got really as far as i can tell anyway

i've got a really committed um approach

to making a record that um you know he

demands full-on commitment from

everybody and if he's going to make a

sort of bleak depressing record then you

know he wants everybody to be having a

bleak depressing time if he's making an

upbeat uh pop record then you know he

wants everybody to be having an upbeat

pop time so there have been in certain

members of the cure that have been

really important to that sound i mean

obviously lol tolhurst who fell out very

badly with robert smith eventually and

was kicked out of the band was certainly

key to you know their early um stuff and

you know had a big had a big impact on

the on the band musically

uh and in terms of certainly their

spirit

um and it went very hideously wrong

obviously in the in the long run but um

you can't underestimate

the impact of of all the bit players and

and the fact that they conquered america

is not just down to the fact that robert

smith wrote brilliant songs is because

he went out there with a band who could

you know rock out with the best of him

because you can't appear in front of 65

000 people uh you know in some

[Music]

barn of a stadium that's used to hold in

baseball games unless your band can rock

[Music]

i think what always struck me about um

robert smith and certainly uh when i

first met him

you get the impression it's like with

his his marriage his relationship

with mary he's in

something for um that duration

um

and

i think that's something that that

struck me i mean he he

along with a lot of other people as well

but it's

it's it's a career it's longevity i

think the key to robert smith's appeal

as a fan is that you're never quite sure

where you are with him he's enigmatic in

the very best sense of the word um you

know if you just listened to his records

you'd think he was some sort of uh love

lawn poet up in his attic you know

tearing his hair out of despair but then

you read his interviews and you find out

that he actually spends a lot of the

time you know like he's uh

uh like he's i don't know a footballer

perhaps he seems to spend all his time

you know playing football getting drunk

and having a good time so it's that kind

of unique thing that he can be you know

sort of uh

one of the lads and he can be this kind

of enigmatic poet figure which makes him

really intriguing as a person i think

one of the things that that

made us sort of fast friends was

his sense of humor

he's got a really um

a really good sense of humor and that's

not something that comes out too often

in in the work that he does and there's

no reason why it should

um

but you know

the public face of somebody isn't isn't

always what what they really like so

um

yeah i think that's that's

i think that's key

to a lot of creative work is

understanding the the sense of humor and

the jokes that you can

you can throw in to

you know um

just sort of soften the blows of of all

the other stuff you're trying to deal

with

we don't sing really about issues that

are socially relevant particularly so

that they're not placed in england

there's a lot of if you get caught up in

singing about

social political issues in england it

tends to alienate a lot of people

because i don't understand what he's

doing i mean i don't understand british

politics

the thing about robert smith's voice is

that on the surface it's rubbish

if he turned up the pop idol audition

they'd kick him out within you know 10

seconds and just telling me can't sing

um

[Music]

and i suppose technically they they

might be right but

when it comes to conveying emotion and a

range of emotion then obviously he'll

knock any you know winner of american

idol um you know into next week because

it's really quirky which is really good

especially in an era when most singers

were fairly bland production line uh you

know stock ache and waterman type thing

so to hear somebody essentially

squawking

like some kind of mad bird uh over a

record was you know was a really

refreshing but

he's got a lot of range as well so he

can do kind of dark and doomy and he can

do up and poppy and be equally

convincing on both and

a song like something like just like

heaven for example

if that was sung perfectly i don't think

it would be as good a record as it is

it would just lose something it would

feel like more of a cliche pop record

but in his hands i think the fact that

you know he's a bit sloppy with it makes

it just you know that's the the missing

ingredient that makes it just a

brilliant record

i think robert's got a very distinctive

voice um

you know it's him immediately

um

and so somehow it always seems as though

it's very it's a very emotive voice

there again it's you know it's it's a

kind of

people either love it or they don't um

which is usually a sign of of something

that's their good in my opinion um or at

least unique i love the way i can just

there's a kind there's a passion in

every note every

thing he does the way he says words how

he phrases

um and i i it well you know the thing

that struck me

uh most originally was it was the first

thing you know sometimes it might be a

riff my intention

and in the case of robert smith it was

the voice that is it is vulnerable um

it's got so many different emotions it

can be sound paranoid sometimes it's

manic

um

but you know he he pulls off so many

different things with the voice

it's his best instrument

apart from the very obvious sort of

songwriting and the and the singing i

always felt that robert was a really

kind of underrated guitarist

having seen how he could

so easily

put life into some of the banshees songs

which weren't written by him

um

[Music]

i knew that

there was much more to him as a guitar

player than than

really been previously seen

so um when we came to do the glove album

i really wanted to sort of push that

area of him and i think he i think some

of his best guitar playing is on that

album

just because i think he just you know he

wasn't the front person you know we were

doing it together and we basically got

somebody else in to sing

and so

you know there was a couple of moments

on that album where he really lets loose

as a guitarist and i think it's

fantastic

he can play

virtually any mood

um

but one of the great things that he is

able to do is create an atmosphere with

his guitar playing i mean most people

can pick up a guitar and strum a few

chords but he's able to

with the tuning he uses all different

kinds of tunings on the guitars as well

so

those moods that he's always create

uh

kind of

for my own personal taste remind me of

johnny mitchell a bit because she uses a

lot of different tunings on the guitars

his voice is his calling card that's

the great thing i mean

just like

bob dylan's voice or

johnny rotten's voice is his calling

card

so it is with uh

with robert

that and his hair

and i think

they've been incredibly astute over the

years that however

far out they've gone from that original

cure sound

the two things that remain constant are

the hair

and the uh

the voice

um and that's great

branding you know you've got to have

product identification in the modern

world of marketing and profiling and

[Music]

although the pornography tour had been

an uncomfortable experience for the cure

it had also provided an occasion for the

band to develop their visual image

the band members wore lipstick around

their mouths and eyes and began to

articulate a clear sense of their live

identity

when some still play live

there's

robert smith a

kind of stand there hold his guitar and

sing and there was not much move very

charismatic though he didn't have to do

anything sam and gallop would do like

kind of like he does now kind of punch

over his base and move backwards and

forwards very kind of uh stranglers

stroke peter hook thing going on there

and that that was a performance they had

a film as well they showed a film in the

background they made like a very kind of

arty kind of film it's very stark

lighting and very dark but they didn't

need a big performance because the music

was so dense it kind of pulled you in

it wasn't like there's a massive mosh

pit at the front you know well it was

for a lot of forests and slightly faster

songs but people just kind of like

captivated by the music as that kind of

audience

a cure gig is always about atmosphere

now

by the time i was going to see the cure

they were already playing big places and

in fact i've only seen the cure play

sort of really big gigs

but

even when they were playing a massive

you know arena or they were playing

glastonbury festival which they've got a

really good connection with

um

or they were playing you know in orange

and the massive amphibious when you're

actually sat on a hill

half a mile away

they were really really good at

retaining the atmosphere of a small gig

now it's partly because the sense of

community of the fans

um partly because they're a really

really good live band but i think

they would never sacrifice

um you know they wouldn't subscribe to

that cool indie idea of you know it's

not about performing um

and that's why they succeeded with so

many bands

didn't because they would always put on

a show

now not showing the fact they weren't

doing dance routines you know they

weren't um having dancing girls on stage

but they would always make sure that um

the visuals or the lights or the smoke

or whatever always you know would

enhance their performance when you saw

the cure live on stage mostly you saw a

band very intent on delivering their

music in an uncompromising pink floyd

type way relying on lights and shadows

really to give the illusion of some

atmosphere but effectively they were

there pretty much just just going

through the music they were just

delivering the songs and

i think because it was all coming out of

robert smith's mind to an extent and we

saw little hints of it with the hair and

the lips

essentially was a mental state he was

delivering so physically

he he wasn't you know a natural

performer and i guess his size counted

against him the old fat bob thing you

know he wasn't necessarily going to

throw loads of poses and jump about and

and give that kind of physical resonance

so it did it did have that slight sort

of

sense of uh of a delivery of a concert

like pink floyd a concert of music it

was that serious side of robert you know

that he tried to give great disguise

with the hair and the lips but

effectively a serious musician you know

delivering serious songs that had

serious you know sort of import about

them and that's really what you got from

their live shows i think

in the late summer of 1983 phil thornley

and andy anderson joined the cure on

base and drums respectively

the new look cure recorded the hit

single love cats and a collection of pop

singles and b-sides japanese whispers

was released in december 83.

i'll always have a great deal of

affection for the love cats because it

was one of the records that you know

really got me into the cure

um but also because

it was one of those records that showed

that you can have the poppiest record in

the world you can go out and you can be

popular than any boy band any girl group

anything that's got simon cowell's name

over it um

but it doesn't mean you have to be

stupid you know and the love cuts is an

incredibly intricate and clever record

um

you know it sounds really weird i mean

it sounded weird then mainly because

it's got that sort of that weird double

bass now which just wasn't a very trendy

record to have on records in 1983 but it

sounds really weird and yet it's

instantly accessible so it's one of

those cure records you could stick that

on at a wedding and your granny would

probably keep keep dancing to it you

know but you could stick it on at the

most alternative alternative disco and

everybody would drop their call for you

know five minutes and dance along to it

so i mean it's it's a brilliant public

and

you know one that responsible really for

the cure

reaching that really wider mainstream

audience and that those singles were

really important i think harcourt cure

purists who were into the band prior to

those records had a tendency to sneer at

the time but i think you know a few

years on

they probably actually appreciate what

robert smith was doing with those

singles because they were quite

important to him as well he needed to

get away from the depressing angst rock

uh otherwise you know he probably

wouldn't have been able to go on to make

the later albums

the robert smith will not be found to

love cats precisely because

uh it's people's favorite and he knows

that really there was a you know he does

do that he does novelty songs he's very

good at a novelty song because he's so

infused with the spirit of what pop

music is he can do that he can make

novelty songs okay those novelty songs

are blindingly you know interesting

because they you know something like

um

i wish i could be you

or why can't i be you it's like it's

it's a weird combination of um

upbeat but the lyrics themselves are

still smith lyrics you know and and and

he can do that he can make great

melodies he can he can you know tap into

pop history and and the great pop songs

of david bowie and mark bowlen

uh you know that's that's what you can

do but it's something that ultimately he

he's bored with he doesn't want to do it

but it's it's the curse of him in a way

is that that's really what people

remember

it's the upbeat it's the pop choruses

it's the catchiness not the the epic you

know textual glories where he's

approaching some kind of you know

post-modern classical music using the

guitar almost in a sort of lou reed

sense i think like if you took the body

of what we've done

like right from the beginning right the

way through it's pretty evenly balanced

between like unhappy and happy

1983 also witnessed an important step in

the development of the cure as a visual

art project

the band had decided to shoot a video

for let's go to bed a move that began a

long and much celebrated collaboration

with director tim pope

[Music]

tim pope's videos for in between those

and close to me in particular were you

know incredible

incredibly groundbreaking

videos people think of the 80s as the

golden age for the pop video but

actually 99 of them were rubbish and uh

you know the other one was just

expensive rubbish so to have something

which clearly had not a great deal of

money had been spent on but it was an

enormous amount of visual creativity in

those videos and uh and indeed you know

in loads of other videos that they made

as well

but just the idea of robert smith in a

wardrobe falling off a cliff

or being attacked by fluorescent gloves

or whatever those things were you're

never quite sure what was going on in

their videos which was you know a bit

different to the other stuff as well so

um certainly livened up the chart show

on many a saturday morning

tim hope always did something that was

more arty more clever and much more

original and so you knew if you know if

there's a cure single coming out you

couldn't wait to see the cure video

they weren't a visual group a visual act

and it is fascinating that they had that

dimension given to them

by by you know mainly tim pope sort of

interpreting

uh the idea of of what the cure might be

like if they were a wacky pop group as

they occasionally appear to be and i

guess pope gave them that that image

that sent that they were you know almost

like the british group madness you know

these incredible little kind of

vignettes of eccentricity and

exhibitionism which live they weren't

they weren't that at all but but it was

a fantastic way of sustaining themselves

during the video here tim pope managed

to sort of get into the

to that part of robert smith that is the

exhibitionist he's you know that does

have the hair he doesn't move like one

but he has the hair and he has the lips

and he managed to create all sorts of

visual

symbols for that in these videos that

gave the cure a lot of um

a lot of energy through the video period

in 1984 the cure released the top a

bleak and ill-received album that saw

thornely and anderson leave the band

following the subsequent world tour

smith reorganized the band adding

drummer boris williams and guitarist

paul thompson as well as inviting simon

gallup to rejoin on base

the new lineup released head on the door

in 1985.

the album not only reached the uk top 10

but it also climbed to number 59 in the

us

the first time that the cure had broken

the american top 100.

i think the the key cure tracks

probably in terms of cementing their

popularity with the british public were

in between days and close to me

because really that was all the genius

things that the cure do

just crammed into two songs you know you

didn't have to listen to an entire album

to get a sense of what they were doing

you could just put one of those songs on

and pretty much instantly know where

robert smith was coming from because

there were great tunes for a star um and

in other hands they could have just been

probably fairly mainstream pop songs but

because robert smith is not a member of

a boy band um you know they weren't i

think that i think weirdly the songs he

does best and is perhaps not what he's

known best for is that he does actually

write really good love songs it's just

that when you're listening to them it's

not always immediately apparent that it

is a love song because he doesn't deal

in the cliched they were unclassifiable

and at their best they always are they

they kind of leaving their wake

ideas that they might be post punk or

they might be goth or they might be you

know power pop or they might be whatever

but often i think it's because they're

just writhing about in their own

particular area

and what i ended up liking about them

the most was that they they always

confronted expectations based on his

sheer sort of um perversity

but almost if he was about to be

something that could be classified he

would turn his back on it so if he felt

they were becoming too much a pop group

then then he'd go into the soundscape

and if he felt that they were being too

much you know art pop then he'd then

he'd turn his back on that and and and

that was in the end one of the things

that i really started to enjoy about him

he's just a perversity a lot of the

tracks are not time specific they're not

because they they never

followed a fashion like they never tried

to make a punk rock track or a

a scar track or two-tone track or

whatever or new romantic track

they never got bogged down in going for

that particular sound or that particular

style or that particular structure or

that particular

vocal affectation they'd really plowed

their own furrow and because of that

okay some of the recording techniques

maybe sound a little bit dated now but

in general

a lot of that music if it came out on

the radio now for the first time you've

never heard it before it would be very

difficult to say

when was this first recorded you know is

this is this

a new band or is this an old band and

you know if if it's an old band is that

a 70s track at 80s track or 90s track

the cure dabbled in all sorts of genres

in their time but i mean the key to them

is that they did essentially invent goth

um

now that obviously means robert smith is

responsible for thousands upon thousands

of really dreadful bands but should

never be held against the against the

cure

um because although you know they had

all the

the staples of goth in their element you

know they wore black they had big hair

they wrote miserable songs

um you know they just did it in a

because they were the first they did it

in you know

a really fresh and exciting way and when

the cure goth it never seemed to be

quite such a sad thing as when fields of

nephilim were goth um and so for a lot

of people they're always going to be

associated with that movement but the

key to the cure was that they were never

just tied to that and when goth died the

cure didn't die with it

you know they just reinvented themselves

again and kept going

[Music]

in 1986 the cure released a collection

of their singles staring at the sea

the album went gold in the u.s and

consolidated the transatlantic success

of head on the door

the band followed up in 1987 with kiss

me kiss me kiss me a double album often

considered to be a mix of their best

styles

the album spawned a raft of hit singles

both at home and in the u.s

[Music]

of all time

even though it felt soft at the time i

always used to wake up sore and i just

think that's absolutely brilliant

laurel tolhurst departed acrimoniously

from the cure in 1988.

tolhurst filed and eventually lost a

lawsuit against the band claiming that

his contribution merited greater

financial reward than his contract

provided for

the band replaced tolhurst with roger

o'donnell and released disintegration in

1989.

the album was a huge critical and

commercial success entering the uk chart

at number two and the u.s billboard at

number 14.

the band followed up the success of the

album with a stadium tour on both sides

of the atlantic

the cure peaked

commercially and probably

artistically on you know disintegration

which was at the very end of the atix

for me um

since then you know the cure haven't

been cool and we weren't particularly

cool before then but they certainly have

been nowhere near calls since then until

now ironically loads of bands have

decided their hip but they were always

there and the thing about the cure is

that

the work they did in the 80s has

basically insured them against needing

to be cool

because

you wouldn't read about the cure in the

90s in

you know trendy magazines you wouldn't

see them on the telly but every time

they did a gig it would always be a

really really big gig and it would

always sell out because they you know

they've just got that army of devotees

they're always slightly marginalized and

they always have

a minority

uh

constituency

but the minority constituency can still

be massive you know of course it's just

a flake of the record by in public a

tiny flake of it

but globally

as long as they're still in their

punching

they're

they're making a fantastic living

there's always going to be people that

are going to like us because of what we

look like of course we're a group but at

the same time i think we have a higher

percentage of people who do listen to

what we do and are very critical of what

we do as well we've always had a very

critical audience which sometimes

doesn't get annoying but it's generally

a good thing to have

in 1992 the cure released the hugely

successful wish

the album went to number one in the uk

and number 2 in the us and included the

multi-platinum single friday i'm in love

however subsequent lineup changes the

ongoing legal dispute with tolhurst and

the emergence of brit pop sidelined the

cure for the rest of the early 90s

it's ironic really that in in many ways

robert smith wrote the template for brit

pop in that it was you know um pop songs

done in a quirky alternative way which

i'm sure a lot of those brick pop bands

picked up on subconsciously if nothing

else

but that was the movement that really

sort of finished the cure off as a hip

band for the media but um it didn't kill

them they killed lots of other bands in

96 a lot of bands who were experimental

in nature or were interesting had a

problem because of brit pop in this

count you know in in the uk especially

but i think it spread

wide apart there was that sort of

nostalgic need to go back to the 60s

normal shapes of pop songs you know

normal symbols of the swinging 60s union

jackson and the beatles and then

something like the cure they were one of

the groups that definitely would have

suffered in that period because they

were

by nature experimental and you did get

the feeling that groups like the queue

were slipping off the planet almost

because it was a very tricky time for

forward-thinking people and robert smith

has always been a forward-thinking

person wouldn't have wanted to join in

with that great you know brit pop is

everything he does not believe in

because it was so great and conservative

where he's a flamboyant personality

that's into dreams and exuberance

and i think that you know that was one

of those moments there'd be many of them

where you think the cure had gone i mean

i think for me the cure have split up

hundreds of times he just never really

told us officially and it's never been

the case ultimately because it's robert

smith and he's not split up per se

although occasionally he has

so you did get but you did get the thing

in the idea of the brand name the cure

it was all over and you could not

possibly see how it how it could happen

again

in 1995 with williams and thompson

replaced by perry bermonte and jason

cooper the cure began recording their

10th full studio album

wild mood swings was released in 1996

and a world tour followed

the brief was

really to

uh move the band on from where they'd

been

because they'd been one of the biggest

bands of the 80s in the early 90s

and he felt that um

[Music]

my impression was that he felt slightly

stagnated in what they'd been

and now was a whole new

evolution of the band because two of the

major members of the band had left

when i started there was no drama

so

[Music]

we

gradually put the band together over the

first recording sessions

um and that was quite amusing where

what we did was we we put the basics of

the tracks together

uh obviously myself recording and

running around and then robert

perry

and simon playing along to a click track

and then the dramas would come along and

they would play just to that not with

the rest of the band

so i would have to

put this relationship together between

myself and and the drummer as a musician

and the rest of the band so that was an

interesting position to be in and robert

would be kind of

in this huge house

with the rest of the band sort of

popping their head around the corner and

seeing how things were going

so it was very different

beginnings to a record the title in

itself sort of encompasses basically the

feel of the whole record because there

are lots of different types of songs on

it

from want which is i think the lead

opening song

which is a full-on kind of wild

rock

track

to something like bear which is i think

the last song on the record which is

this fantastically moody

big string acoustic guitar kind of

lament

um

and then

the 13th which is this

almost uh brazilian-esque south

american-esque anyway

a western european's eye on what they

think south american music

can sound like

there's lots of different flavors within

the record and i think that's a good

thing

even though i might feel that there may

be two too many songs on the whole album

after the low-key release of another

singles compilation galore in 1998 the

cure begun surfacing at the european

summer festivals

another studio album blood flowers was

released in 2000 and was genuinely well

received

the album managed to recapture the

quintessential cure sound and was seen

as something of a return to form for the

band

smith revealed that after faith and

disintegration blood flowers was the

third installment of a trilogy

[Music]

in 2001 the cure broke with fiction

records and smith begun to feel that the

band had reached the end of its natural

life

one year later highly regarded producer

and lifelong cure fan ross robinson

bumped into smith at a hotel in

switzerland

robinson an influential new metal

producer of acts such as slipknot and

corn persuaded smith to begin another

cure project

the band signed a three album deal with

geffen in may 2004 and their self-titled

album the cure was released in june of

the same year

it is surprisingly good i wasn't much of

a fan of blood flowers which were that

was their last one

it was billed as the third part in the

depressing trilogy that is pornography

disintegration it was part three

um it was still you know fairly it was

still on the world record but i don't

think expectations for this one

were that high um but coming to it in in

fact it's if people have heard franz

ferdinand or the strokes or the rapture

you know dropping cures name

and wonder what they're getting into is

actually a really good record to buy

because it does basically see rob smith

you know dabbling in all the things that

he's done at various stages in his

career it sounds like all the classic

bits of cure stuck into one record it's

got a darkness to it

it's got a good driving bass line

melodic bass line it's got it's got the

kind of like

classic robinson vocals but it's also an

encase and a really good pop song as

well just like they kind of like merge

all the good periods of the band back

into one like kind of song which is a

way to do a great comeback is get

everything you got out put into one song

if you can so i think he's pulled that

one off i mean i just think they'll go

on and on and on i can't see robert i

mean unless robert fell out of love with

music

or robert suddenly you know got some

kind of block where he couldn't write

anything

but i just see the cure

going on and on and on and we'll all be

at the

nursing home

singing

oh cure songs and robert might come in

and do us a couple of new ones

well it's interesting robert smith

because every single time they put an

arm out he always said it's the last one

you're going to split the bound up and

that's it's all over but i think i've

been making records for them for 20

years you know

it's it i can't imagine going out making

a solo record and we can make a solid

record but it won't be a serious record

i mean rob smith is secure and the

killer robert smith there's no getting

away from it so i can see the cure just

every few years putting out another

record i mean especially if they pull

this if they pull this come back off

it's very important one

and they do get a new record to do

really well it'll give them a platform

to keep making new records i think

they'll keep trying to find

new boundaries and you new ways of

trying to be the cure but it'll still

fit within their kind of either kind of

poppy cure or dark your kind of

parameter

well i think robert smith will maintain

the idea of the cure until his dying

days

as he always has done every time he's

died he's always held on to the idea of

the cure and in a funny sort of way he's

died many times and always held on to

the idea of the cure and i think as an

artist he can he can keep going because

he'll always have interesting things to

say because he is an artist and he'll

always have kind of thoughts about how

he can sonically make that contemporary

not in a fastable way not you know

suddenly becoming hip-hop or suddenly

you know r b or or nicking

you know kind of transient studio

techniques but just as a as a you know

a new piece of work that necessarily

brings forward his past with him to

create this kind of hoover that he now

realizes he has you know so i

i personally think you know

that however much he tries to fool us

now by pretending it's the last one or

the farewell or the goodbye just the

very nature of the fact he's an artist

will will mean he keeps coming in and in

a genuine sense keep surprising us with

with what he does i think the cure

became such a success because the time

was right

um

that

punk had opened the doors and then other

stuff was going to come through and the

cure were doing something that didn't

sound

like anything else at all

um there was absolutely nothing to hang

around

like them and the sound was different

but the songs were still perfect i think

the cure more than perhaps any band in

history succeeded entirely on their own

terms

they're absolutely impossible to pin

down to just one thing

and um

that's for a band that's been around for

as long as they have that's incredible

you know every other band becomes a

cartoon sooner or later and while while

there are cartoonish elements to what

the kyo do

you can never just pin them down to one

musical style you can never just pin

them down to you know one lyrical theme

you can never even pin robert smith down

to just one haircut because he has had

more than one throughout his career and

that's probably the key to the cure is

that they've never rested on their

laurels um they've never just thought

well let's make an album to please our

goth fan base uh you know another album

of gloomy rock

he's always kind of reacting against

what he's done before he always wants to

take things somewhere different and he

nearly always has and that's why the

cure was successful they never stopped

working and i think it was a time when

if you're playing live there's a certain

momentum that just builds up naturally

and

timing timing is everything and they

were the right all-male band to be

hitting america at that point they kind

of represented

something to americans that they

couldn't get from their homegrown people

they're very good at being a pop band

even though they even only came from the

from the very left field kind of scene

that they always had ross had always had

a very good bloody touch he's also a

very good pop star and he's very

charismatic

and also they just hit a nerve you know

for all the um

people sitting in their bedrooms

miserable kid types they always hit a

nerve those kind of people so even when

they wear poppy they just just hit

another generation those kind of people

you know so they're more kind of

artistic kind of people zoned in on the

cure and i think i think they've always

been very very good at doing that i

think

it's just a very it just it became a

very good pop star because he looked

really like a pop star like uh pop stars

have to look kind of cuddly as well but

it also managed to keep the dark side in

there as well which is like a very very

good trick to play you can still get

taken seriously as an artist even though

you're a pinup

and you're a smash hits kind of pop star

is it is it is it fine balancing at

someone that you managed to pull off he

has a beautiful voice he has a a great

guitar technique and and writes the

songs that are

as a pop song unbelievably catchy

and as sonic experiences uh unbelievably

challenging and there were these

wonderful little bursts of look you know

the right place right time kind of

scenario but i think that the best thing

about it ultimately is that uh

he is you know he's in a very he's a

very attractive kind of personality as

peculiar and as odd as he is in fact

he's a very attractive personality

because of that and and at stages in

teenage life someone like robert smith

in the great pop sense is the kind of

guy you'd want to be your hero he seems

to live out your fears he lives out your

vulnerabilities he he's created an

alternative lifestyle he's he's rejects

authority he looks like he rejects

authority he sings songs that are about

mysterious things all those kind of

factors when they're also combined with

great pop songs you know will mean you

will have success because there is a

teenage audience and and nowadays an

audience in their 30s 40s and 50s that

really identifies with that kind of

struggle

and it's beautifully presented

[Music]

what the cure offer is a combination not

just of words and music but with their

videos and album sleeves they represent

a whole art project

smith has always played himself maybe a

bit plumper these days but possessed by

the same mixture of playfulness and

anxiety that he was exhibiting a quarter

of a century ago the story continues

[Music]