Original subtitles

and it's also different sequence in an album putting an album is different to just presenting a song to someone it's like bide disappear yes that's the sad part of it because in the old days we'd have really good songs we think we use them as bside so that it didn't you know they weren't going to get lost whereas now you think where's it going to go you know it's super are we all happy we're ready we're ready to start it's a r everybody everybody's pH on silent says to myself say action yeah action you yeah are we good yeah all good if you could introduce yourself first it' be good yeah I'm Robert from The Cure and let's let's start at the start let's start when did you think you sort of officially started writing this album um I was thinking about this a bit earlier I think when we first when the band first started out and we were kind of um doing the traditional root of album tour album tour and and you did have this very I had this strong idea of like we now have to you know we're going to write an album we're going to it was just there it's just what we what we did um I don't think there was really a kind of an official beginning to this album because it's been kind of drifting in and out of my life for like an awful long time I mean if I have one regret is that I said anything at all about it in 2019 because I really shouldn't have done um because we'd only just started creating it um I don't know there are various points where I thought um I think we're going to make a new album and then it's kind of the idea sort of like for various reasons other things have happened um and the idea has been sort of pushed back so I'm not sure but there have been definite points along the way where I thought ah you know this you know whether it be the first song I think I mean key I think in the history of the band is um if I know what the opening song is and I know what the the closing song is I think that's the album's halfway done you know they're the two that's the key to to for an album um so I can remember those two moments and and lyrically I can remember a moment when I was I thinking this is going to be we're definitely going to make a new album but honestly in in probably in 2016 2017 I I Was preparing for the 40th anniversary of the band and I thought a new album would be the way to to um you know to to do that um and life again kind of just like crashed down on me and and it never got done and it's um as things turned out it was probably good that that I didn't do it then because the songs that I was that we were going to record in 2017 are not the songs we ended up recording in 2019 so so tell me about that how come sorry can I just interject just one thing Robert uh your uh playing with your uh bracelet ever so slightly there and so just try not to fidget sound everybody does it um yeah it's okay honestly do we want to run that question again no a little bit of bracelet noise is fine honestly be all right yeah so that's the least of my wor it's when I start wheezing yeah so what was it going to be then tell me about this this moment that well I I I was I felt that um we should be kind of summing up and so I thought we've got the the 40th anniversary of the band happens in 2018 and the 40th anniversary of the first album was was 2019 so I was thinking we'll do something which kind of like sums up what the band is and where we've got to and it was all you know it was a grand plan and Grand plans generally don't work very well in my experience so um it wasn't really being done for the right reason Seasons it was kind of a bit triumphal I suppose looking back and and and the tone of it was a bit sort of like it was wrong you know as it turned out um what happened in 2018 was a great way to Mark the anniversary of the band and allowed me the time to actually think about why we would be making a new album and and and what happened in 2019 was much more natural and and it kind of everything evolved out that there was no longer this idea that we were kind of celebrating something or marking something it was just like a it was becoming something it was much more more artistic actually to be honest rather than something that was a part of this overall sort of idea of like here's the Cure after 40 years like you know be amazed so the songs were all written over that period there was no kind of much older songs oh no the're really old I mean the oldest song on this album is a the demo was done in 2010 actually that they stretched all the way through the bulk of them I would say of them probably have been written since 2017 but three of them are you know one's 2010 one's 2011 I think and one's about 2013 or 14 so there there's so many there's so many songs to choose from that um I mean this is jumping about but I mean we recorded 25 26 songs I think in 2019 we recorded three albums in 2019 that's always been the problem because I've tried to I've been trying to get three albums completed cuz my idea was like let's after waiting this long let's just like throw out cure arms like you know every few months um yeah I I you know it's everything with hindsight you think like really I could have done that a lot better but um it it will work out this time because having finished this one is L and the second one's virtually finished as well the third one is a bit more difficult because um yeah if we get that far after you know she talking about the Third see what I mean so I can't help myself yeah this is going to be one of my questions about like that kind of process if there's like a whole Spate of demos that get worked on simultaneously or like specific songs get finished before you move to the next one how does the kind of but I guess it's everything it yeah I mean probably since the um in the in the early part of the band so like the first 15 years of the band the writing was pretty much it was all me I mean it was just and everyone you know I was more like I conducted everyone I showed them what they should be playing and and everyone interpreted it and then I say no or yes less often yes um and Simon would often join in and and and he'd give you know there's always a great Simon song on on the early albums um sometimes more than one to be honest and but really it was I was just writing and writing and writing and that's sort of what I did but the in the latter half of the band's career I've been I have said to the others you know if you've got something play it to me and like if if I like it we'll do it you know and often some of the weird stuff that we do isn't me at all it's like it's one of the others you know because I think well that's really I would never have written that so I always write the words but the but musically some sometimes you know Roger comes or Perry or and say you know I don't think it suits us but what do you think and I'll think that's great you know it's like let's do you know like some of the like the jazz songs and stuff on wild Ms and and it forces me to write and know lyrically writing a different way singing a different way and the band it becomes better for it you know we it expands in in ways which I wouldn't have otherwise imagined if it was entirely left down to me I think we would be a much less interesting band um but when push comes to shove it I have to be able to write I have to be able to sing it you know we're not an instrumental band so that's really you know once it gets past that point and I've written something and I sing it then you know the so the process has opened up over the years but um with this particular album they were all they were songs that I had written they were all my demos and and I didn't you know and everyone kind of understood that we we got together in 2017 and I talked through what went to it at that point everyone was giving me stuff and we we had this like I was saying earlier this plan of but by 2019 I had focused in on a group of songs that I had written over the previous 10 years and I thought this this is actually what I want to focus on I want you know if we just get one album out of this and then I'll engage with the others to do what you know what they want so we ended up in 2019 recording all the songs were recorded were my with my songs were my demos so which is really unusual hasn't happened for a very long time um so it's a strength in one way because that there is a sort of a there's a cohesion to the songs which I think would otherwise not be there which is really the thing that I Most Wanted about the album was for I wanted it to feel like it was a a thing so some cure albums have have had have been thematically kind of you know they they're very they kind of put together in a certain way albums like um disintegration or pornography these albums that BL flows they they they have an atmosphere that you know other cure albums like the Kiss Me album or wild Mings or a much more kind of like you know scaton and like they're um I prefer the ones that are thematically you know the the progress through and have an atmosphere I like us doing the other stuff but I really I I I I just engaged more with the stuff that's got more of an emotional core I think so I wanted that this album to to be one of those kind of albums and it helped that I was writing all the music as well as it was because the cohesion was there anyway so um but yeah it's it's a it's a been a strange and protracted process because from from recording 2019 it's like 5 years later and like the first album comes out you know first new album's out it's it's slightly bewildering if I'm honest that's but there's this lovely thing where where you're touring on the 22 23 shows over 90 dates you played six songs six brand new songs so those songs have sort of seeped into the audience's Consciousness I mean did that did playing the live shape then yeah it has that has been strange we've done that a few times over the over the years um particularly in the early days funny enough when I'd be writing we'd be writing songs as a band and playing them and I'd be just having a couple of beers and going out the stage and just singing Whatever came into my head a lot of bands do that whether they admit to it or not um and sometimes you think you know i' I'd get them to record out front and i' I'd listen back and I'd think that's really that's a really good line you know some of the songs from 17 seconds were written like that some of the faith songs were written like that um but as you as you become more popular and the audiences get bigger you're less inclined to go out on stage and just like you know jibber jabber into the mic um it takes more than a couple of beers I'm not sure um that I you know playing the the songs be we'd already recorded them and I'd already sung the songs so we knew what we were doing so they were actually like within cure world the new songs were were part of the repertoire and that this is what we were going to play and it was weird going out because I thought right will I get better at this will the songs develop will they become something else having already done vocals actually to of of the so five of them are on the album of the six that we did and of those three of them I thought I won't get any better than that because the vocals were very raw they were like they were written and sung and they were kind of that's in a in a genuine genuine emotional state and I thought you know but it's one of those strange things with with songs when you record a song it almost by it becomes the defining version you know that's and sometimes it's it's um it's a bit of a millstone you know because you you record stuff in the studio and you you've never often you know in the in the early days I'd be writing songs and the sing of First Take and that's it and then you go out and like in a year later you listen back and you think really you know it's like there awful um so this allowed me to to to sing you know like night after night the these songs and also more importantly I think to gauge the audience's reaction and to see how far I could push it like emotionally like vocally and and the band also like you know really grew into the songs we were playing the songs a lot better than when we recorded them I have to admit and we did redo quite a bit of a Simon I think re replayed everything actually and um and Reeves I spent a few more days with Reeves doing other things because he was suddenly playing stuff on stage Reeves is a kind of guitarist like if he's got people in front of him he plays in in a totally different way than in the studio he's like much more expansive and and reacts to to the live environment um so capturing that was was important um but as it turned out at the end of it I did I did after the European leg of the tour I did reing everything at home I did all vocal at home and I I reang everything um and I when we came to mix the album I preferred the original vocal on all of them because there's something about them that was that was um very like I said earlier just raw it just like I I I think I sang them better Some Nights on tour and I think some of the defining versions of those songs actually happened live but it it seemed wrong somehow to go back and meddle with what I'd already done I don't know it's it's a it's it's the live versions are there you know bootleg bootleg B I think in history but um so all those versions are out there so I thought this version you know particularly of of alone the opening song and end song um and I can never say goodbye that those three songs in particular I I didn't even though I felt like I was singing them better whatever that means after the tour they didn't have that something that the original vocals that I did had you know I don't know so it's the weird thing is it's almost like after you done it once everything else is a cover version of the first version you've done sort of it almost always is which is why it's strange that we were able to have this option to to play it like over and over and over and then and then I still ended up you know like like preferring the the first version I I did changed some of the songs um after the tour weirdly enough some of the songs that we didn't play because I realized why we hadn't included all the songs into the into the repertoire and I looked at the you know then the three the three other songs that are on the album um were changed because of of the five songs that we that we have been playing and the sixth song that we did will be on the next one so it's um yeah it's an interesting process it's also strange that it's a new album but but cure fans kind of know more than half the album which is that's that's odd in itself that's quite cool yeah as a as a side point because you did the Roy Festival Hall in 2015 and played two songs that haven't made the record but I presume they're going to be finding their home yes they um um they they were quite old then I mean they I think we recorded them originally in in for the 413 dream album 20 2007 I think 2008 um we have since re-recorded those and a couple of others from that session and some others from SE from The Cure session before that and actually a song from The Wish Album sessions in 91 so um yeah I haven't been afraid of going back and and using stuff that didn't seem to work at the time and and using what I know now to actually turn them into because sometimes if if you've got there's lots of things make a you know a good song and and you know Melody is is obviously pretty key and it for us as a band and there are songs that have been left behind I think it's such a great Melody such a good cool progression stuff but I haven't managed to understand what the song is I haven't been able to write for it or I haven't been able to sing it or there's just the wrong Tempo something about it just doesn't work hasn't fit at the time doesn't fit with the other songs so I I I spent um some of lockdown when I was actually focused a little bit on on what on the fact that I was in a band which I forgot for most of it um to revisit all these old you know in fact their old cassette tapes and stuff and transfer everything and listen to stuff and came up with some you know and I've been doing that with the remastering of all the UR albums I've come across some some things so we went and recorded quite a few things so the things we did at the the two songs there were part of that as well we've re-recorded those um one of them we've been playing live quite a lot actually um it can never be the same which was called Christmas without you when we first did it um and that's goes down really well it's a really you know it's it's a lovely song to play and it's it's a powerful song to sing um so that will be out on probably on the next one um yeah this is oasis is it like the next out when they talk about the next Al's much better than this um so yeah so there's a big poll of songs and and but as I was saying before that we started um filming the the I I was imagining this this album songs were lost was going to be very much um everything was going to be relentlessly downbeat that was sort of my idea for for the album and a few people who I trust listened to it and said you know that it's the the songs individually are really really good but it's it's too much we can't you know you can't expect people to listen to this much Doom and Gloom it just doesn't work you know you need something else in there so um so a couple of the songs which I really do love were kind of like knocked off and a couple of songs brought in which I didn't think would work at all and yet and I actually streamlined the whole thing took it was originally 13 songs um and now it's like eight and it's it's a much better record for it because it has a bit of light and dark and it's also it's um I mean most people have heard up to this point want to hear it again that's the first time in a long time that anyone said that about Cur album because they've been too long you know it's like our shows it's like it took me to doing a 4H hour plus show to suddenly realized that we were probably playing for too long it's it's it just takes me a little bit longer to to realize than the people around me what was the track that was there a track that you finished that kind of unlocked the record that kind of like when when you had it down you're okay now I feel like I know the the maybe the identity of the whole record because this this song has kind of pointed the way unlock the door yeah as I said earlier the the the opening and closing songs those those two songs they're always key in every cure album they're always the key to to the album and I remember I discovered or actually I rediscovered a poem by um Ernest dson an English poet who who um it's called dregs and I've got a book and I I jot down you know over the years things that like I think that's interesting like it's not some of it's just like you know couplet some of it's like rhyme some of its words that I look this word up you know it's just a general sort of it's not a journal it's it's a lot of it's gobbley go you know it's not it travels with me and and there's more than one book actually to be honest and you know I'm outside in the dark actually like and you know scribbling most of it's illegible to be honest and and and a lot of It's Just Junk but occasionally I'll turn a page and there'll be something and I think oh that's great and I'd actually transcribed this poem I don't know when um and and I I was struggling to find the right imagery for for the opening song for alone and I had some of the stuff in it and I kind of knew what I wanted and I and and this poem the opening line I thought that's it you know so I I didn't Nick it I was inspired by it I mean it just the the idea of um because it was in the back of my mind I was thinking I've read this somewhere that that every song we sing like we we're alone however much we you know ultimately we're alone and um but however I was writing it it wasn't poetic and sudden I discovered this I thought that's it that's that's what's been bugging me so that was a moment when I sudden cuz I knew what the song was supposed to be about and end song I wrote it just in one night and it was actually in 2019 um because the album The Sessions were called live from the Moon it was actually called life transmission one was the first session transmission 2 is the second session it was um because it was the the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 the lunar Landings and and I was actually outside and I was remembering back to you know I was I think I was um 10 years old and I was in the backyard with my dad and I was I I remembered you know the feeling of like really you know I didn't believe him I didn't actually believe there was a man on the moon but um and I was and I thought here I am still stargazing you know and I'm still kind of like I I do believe man walked on the moon I'm not so I don't think it was done in a studio next door um but just the idea of how the world seemed to stall at that moment in a in a strange way you know I kind of grew up like in the The Glorious 30 years from like the end of the second World obviously I wasn't born until 59 but the world that I was born into was getting incrementally better every year every year it just seemed that the world was on an upward trajectory and and the moon landing was part of that and and it around that time I turned 1675 and it seemed like the world sort of like stalled and then has been traveling down ever since and I mean that's the core that's the Beating Heart of the of the album of the songs of were lost world that is the lost world and I realized when I wrote the you know I just wrote that in one go outside like this is how I feel about you know the young me where did it go sort of thing it's um at that moment I thought well that's that's the end I've got the end song I got the opening song you know so it was a I think those two moments put together and both happened in 2019 I sort of knew that that you know which is probably why I started blathering about the album to people we've got a new album we've got a new album when in fact we had like 26 pieces of music and two songs so I was being slightly disingenuous but I I did it in good faith I thought it might motivate me to kind you know once it's like when you make a promise in public it becomes more difficult to break it and I thought you know as it turns out I've eventually you know finally got there but it's just taken a lot longer for various reasons um yeah we're talking about lockdown how did it how did that impact you and impact the record or did it just serve as a did it do well things I don't know how was it how was it for you down um yeah strange I again with hindai I feel I could have utilized lockdown I could have finished everything really you know it was like 18 months pretty much um over a 2-year period where very little went on you know we we couldn't do anything you know a lot the time you you couldn't see anyone do you couldn't leave your home um I was in a very privileged position where i' I've got enough room at home for me to think like well I you know I'm not crowded on top of other people and it's so and we live in a reasonably remote area so it wasn't too fussed about um you know walking out the gate I didn't think I was going to be immediately arrested I wasn't doing a Boris Johnson but you know and in fact I after a while I because I was in a privileged position I actually relished the um certain aspects of lockdown I loved the fact there were no planes in the sky it was [ __ ] great and the birds were singing a lot more I mean everything was sort of reverting back again into this like it felt like an old world and it's like um I'm I I've never had a smartphone and there's only one thing in the house that connects to the internet and if the lids shut the the house is like you know we're disconnected we're not off the grid but um I was oblivious to like so and I actually really loved it you know I said to you earlier there's a part of me that really actually enjoys solitude it's a strange occupation for someone who enjoy Sol because a lot of it is actually you know um so I I liked the idea of of not having to do I didn't get dressed very often you know some weeks I was just wandering around I did this I did a few things um I think in the first lock down called which end up being called Barefoot sessions I did some stuff from home of just playing some old songs and I didn't even realize that I wasn't dressed I mean it was actually quite a you know in a funny way I like because it went out online and um saying he's not wearing any shoes or socks and I thought am I not and that was like that was the thing oh he's got he's got feet you know um so yeah it it changed I almost took a step outside of myself as thinking about because I did a lot lot of things that were nothing to do with with what I do as you know my my I don't really have a normal life I suppose I I but I kind of stepped out of me through lockdown and I did stuff I read all of John larro's Books the whole irra in one go stuff like that I thought you know I never thought I'd have time to do any of these things I read War and Peace you know I never honestly thought I everyone say they going to read war in peace I read it it's like um what's it like is any good uh I think it's one of those books I I realized that big big famous books like that um you've invested so much time and effort into getting to the end that you have to say it's good I mean honestly I I it was it's well written is me going to critique war and P this is going to be great um I didn't enjoy it that much actually to be honest I I didn't because I wasn't really very sympathetic to any of the characters in it I didn't really see the point it's very of its time it's very mannered it's like a lot of historical literature where you just think for [ __ ] sake just say something you know like because it's all to do with like you know social Moors and and and and it's very hard to to to sort of take them seriously like with a lot of that kind of literature you just think just speak up man you know it's like um and then I embarked on reading you know on on the back of of of this stuff I was reading a lot of books that meant a lot to me when I was younger to see if they had the same resonance so I read an all probably you know 100 plus books in in the first year lockdown what I did I listened to vast amounts of music I just had I thought right it was almost like an extended holiday the Dark Side of is it meanwhile like um all all my remaining aunts and uncles died um in Care Homes and you know my cousins I mean everyone that I knew was was kind of dealing with with this sort of awful reality of like not being able to my mom and dad had already died and and so I didn't have to go through that I think it would have I would have had a completely different experience if I had seen them in in the situations that many of the people that that I know were were were not able to go and engage with their own families I mean it was really awful after the event you know when I start of talk to people it dawned to me the reality of lockdown for most people wasn't it wasn't a good thing you know I mean I don't think it was a good thing cuz people would die I was aware of it but I mean just on a personal level for me it was just about quiet and Solitude you know it was very very selfish lockdown if you like was like which is the spirit of lockdown in the way I I would um I was relieved it came to an end [ __ ] h i did grow tired of it I must um doing the thing that I did with the church churches in particular and we did the thing with gorillas and it was like the first thing the first time I've been out you know like for for months and it was really weird how desocialized everyone was it's the mask covered up this fact that like behind the mask you kind of gning because you weren't quite sure how to compose your face in front of other people so it was very very odd it took quite a while actually to to get back into some Seance of normal all this sort like St you know even now people stand slightly further apart than they used to and like and there's a this like very slight hesitation in shaking people's hands and stuff it's all minimal things but it it was an enormous thing looking back and and um and as you were saying earlier it seems to almost like it's a a mass forgetting of what it really was and I always think of it in my own mind when I'm trying to piece together from 2019 through to now it's all sort of it's kind of quite blurry smeared sort of memories of like what happened then the only defining thing for me is actually I got um I got shingles in my face at one point um and I got it because the the bloke who treated me said it goes it's chickenpox basically and i' had it as a kid and it the virus stays in you and it's most of the times it's triggered by stressed and he said are you stressed off I'm actually not I feel more relaxed than I've felt with my 20 OD years um and he said oh have you been out in the sun Aline I said yeah I have been out in some much much more than I normally would and he said it's it's that sun sunlight can trigger Jingles I so yeah I had all this my entire face I look like Elephant Man for a brief period of like postulating s war and things so that was um I can remember that that there's a before shingles an after for me so cuz it it [ __ ] hurts so the album songs of L world I mean it it it deals with some with some dark themes and you've talked about experiencing loss during the creation of the records I mean how was it going through those experiences then putting that down capturing that yeah it's one of the I mean our songs have always had that element of of um you know a fear of mortality I suppose one of a better way of putting it this always been there since I was young I mean I've kind of wrestled with it since I was pretty like 8 years old I think um but as you get older it becomes more real and and all all of us you know the circle of people the band and my most of the people that it's kind of like know um socially we're all growing older at the same rate give or take um and death and dying becomes more you know more every day unfortunately and it's some it's something you so it be when you're younger it's a kind you romanticize it even without knowing it you romanticize it all and it's a and then it starts happening to people like you know your immediate family and and and friends and suddenly it's a it's a th it's a different thing and it was that really and it's something that I struggled with lyrically was to how to put this into the songs because I feel like I am a different person than I was when we last made an album you know and I wanted to I wanted that to come through I think I'm um yeah and and and I struggled a lot with the right tone of like I can never say goodbye was about my brother dying it was trying to achieve the right balance between like the outpouring that I had after the event and and just trying to take the right part of that and put it into a song you know some of the versions of that I that I did were so overr you know I thought they were great and then i' I'd play them they like you know you can't it's too you know it's too much you can't you can't do that and I realized I couldn't doing that song Live sometimes it would actually there was the one it would really kind of break me up and and it was very difficult to um to to not go over the top um but yeah I mean that that that was been true for all for me trying to write the words to all of the new songs is just trying to have the right sort of tone and trying to reflect the fact I mean I don't feel my age at all but I'm aware of you know I turned 65 this year it's like for [ __ ] sake I'm 65 so um I want to be aware of that I want to reflect that in the songs I want to reflect the fact that I am where I am and that the things that matter to me now aren't the things that mattered to me like 20 years ago and it's um yeah and so in some way it constrains me it has constrained but I think in a good way I think it sto it stopped me from um straying too far from you know I want the songs to mean something I suppose what I'm saying whereas in the past I wasn't really that bothered there have been big periods of the of The Cure's history where some of the songs mattered and some of them didn't on this album they all matter you know so it's cuz I realiz I haven't got that many more albums although I've got another two kind of not that many more I how did it how did it change you doing this record cuz like we're not the same person going into a record as we are coming out of record or any kind of artistic Endeavor it's byid of doing it it changes you how did this record change you it does but it's very because of the way that it's been done it's kind of incremental and so I think that it's more I I was ready to make the record before we made it whereas of often I know what you mean often in the past there's something and particularly if you if you make an album then you go and tour it at the end of that period That's how I Define my adult life is by albums and tours you know I mean in some ways it's it's great because I can actually place things you know I'm there's lots of photographs and stuff and I can I can place where I was what I was doing who I was you know by songs it's it's strange even when I'm on stage and I'm singing songs live it takes me back you know for that three or four minutes I can go back to where I was when I when I did the song it's an odd sensation I think with with this album I was kind of ready I I felt like I'd already made it in a funny way it it just came out of me because I was already there you know so it the change that happened to me I think between the last it was the 10 years that we'd spent as a band kind of like playing that's the period I changed through I think we got to 2019 I I think I pinned so much on 2018 as an anniversary year that I think once it was gone I I was it was that that changed me I was sort of like it's all behind me and I thought every moment from this point on is pretty much above bonus you know cuz I I thought that the high part show would be it I thought that that was the end of the Cure I went into it thinking that that that's you know I didn't plan it but I had a sneaky feeling that this was going to be it um and it was only because it was such a great day in such a great response and I enjoyed it so much and like we suddenly got a flood of offers to headline every European Festival you know every every Maj glur came do you want to play glast like you know I thought well maybe it's not the right time to stop but I wasn't stopping because I was sort of like thought I don't want to do it anymore I just thought it'd be a nice time to stop and it allows me a few years while I'm still kind of like you know able to do something else I can go and do something else and and and really um I wasn't that bothered funny enough I thought that's it I've kind of because I'd i' I'd arranged everything to end in 2018 so when we got to 2019 I sort of felt really relieved like we we did it so it's I've had a very different Outlook to everything actually since since 2019 I see it the world in you know and because everyone that died that pretty much everyone that died that meant something to me died prior to 2019 um it just I felt like this you know I've got to make the most of this it's like you know it's so it's kind of like the freedom of splitting up but then not actually having to split up yeah in a strange way I mean 2019 was the culmination of all that we had a fantastic year playing festivals and then um I want because then I started to work on the songs and I knew that we needed to expand the band in order to do justice to him live we Perry came back into the band and and since then we you know there like another kind of version of The Cure's gone out and played stuff so yeah I mean it's it's a strange sort of sense of of us evolving or just just changing but very slowly it's not really like a like we've made the album oh it's like a you know it it it's just gradually sort of like turning into something else all the time so when we next play it will become something else again you know so I'm I look forward to to it it's a a blessing because I find it very hard to live in the moment I think that's another thing about lockdown that I enjoyed I actually found myself spending the day just not thinking about anything to do with tomorrow it was like very unusual for me because I'm normally kind of always thinking ahead to like what's what comes next um and I've fallen back into that way of thinking unfortunately I haven't managed to retain the the lockdown sort of like you know today the only day has ever been sort of thing um which is what one of the songs was about was like trying to to retain that sense of of self just existing In This Moment not yesterday and not tomorrow but but now tell me a bit about that was a rambling answer that's why we needed two hours it um tell me a bit about the artwork tell me a bit about the sculpture where that comes from and why that was chosen uh this is an U story actually I don't have many of these but um I was given a book um this particular book of um Slovenian sculpture and it was a signed book by um the one of the sculpts in it Janes Pat his name and uh this was like in January 21 and I was I was I was doing all this I was clearing stuff out and I came across this book and I thought I've never even opened this book so it's just full of photographic plates of of sculptures and I was looking through it and I saw this photo of this this head it was kind of like it's sculpted it's emerging from from rock or it's embedded in rock or it's kind of a and there's something about I thought that that's it that's the album cover I don't know why it just like struck me I thought it's like this is it's things that just sort of happen you think that's it you know that's the image I want I don't know why and and so I thought I better find out if he'll let me use it so I open the lid up I went online I looked him up and he died that day Anis P had actually died the day I looked and I'm not I don't normally buy into this you know like oh it was meant to be um but it was a very strange coincidence so which cemented the idea thought that is it you know that this has got to be the this has got to be the album cover um so I got I got in touch with this Widow eventually and like and actually ended up with the with the sculpture itself I now have the sculpture at home which is really is fantastic sculpture um so yeah it just that that was it there was no other you know I didn't know anything about it just it arrived that and that was it it just yeah I don't know and yet people that see it and then and hear the the few people that have seen it and hear and have heard the album think it works as well there's a connection it's you know I think it's because of it's the Lost World it just looks like something it's obviously taken a lot of you know it's done by hand obviously and it's taken a lot of work a lot of care a lot of thought and it's just um it's a beautiful object and it's just I don't know just resonates with me I don't know it's it's beautiful it's kind of Jacob steiny kind of thing really yeah it's work um cure album artwork usually includes a few lines by famous poet yeah this time the words from a poem when I have fears that I may cease to be yeah why why do I do that uh I to put me in my place in case I'm getting like to Grand ideas of like of of where I stand in the scheme of things um I don't you know I was thinking about this as well but I don't really enjoy a lot of poetry I'm not kind of person like I'll settle back and read a book of poetry I I find most poetry really tedious um but when I come across something that works I I I'm in I've always been really intrigued by how a great piece of poetry can make you feel something and you can't put your finger in it that's for me is the mark of a great poem it's like you don't really know why you're reacting the way you're reacting it's like great music so it's exactly the same emotional response and and I'm always striving to do that with just like with one line or a series of lines just to just to try and get that kind of emotional response you know in in a song it's a slightly different thing because you obviously you're you're trying to marry words of music and you're trying to create a hole when you're writing words to a song it's not really like writing poetry but there is an element of poetry to the best lyric writing you know it's um it's a blurred boundary between the two um and I just again going back to my like you know notebooks with a junk it's there's lots of se you know fragments of of poems that have really moved me over the years and and generally they're the ones that end up on on cure album covers that I'll think I know what this you know this reminds me of and it'll be you know I think we used a tennis in one on the last album and I think a words was before that so they're traditional you know they're English poets in the main and um yeah I don't sort of like s you know I'm not sitting there reading poetry by candle light I wish I was something but no I I just I I like the the fact that it can conjure up an emotion I think with that set of of lines it's sort of the breath before you listen you you start listening to the album it kind of sets you up and you read that and then you start listening to the album it kind of puts you in the right frame of mind I suppose that's what I do when it was done when it was sequenced and mixed and mastered and you sat down and you thought and you listened to it and you were able to kind of you know final brush strok so I'm going to step away from the painting I'm not going to put any more on it or take any more away and I'm this is it and you listen to it tell me about CU that's that's the big it's kind of letting go tell me about yes how did it feel that was actually here that was in Abby Road it was the in the the um because the final part of it was doing the atmos mix you know the big cound mix and I did that here over a couple of days and that was the very last part of it because it was after that you can't really change anything I had been changing things the vyl mixes ever slightly different to the digital and the CD mixes I still going home and like and change stuff cuz I mixed it at home so but when I came here it was the final part of it was was the atmosph and I'd had to pay really close to attention to everything in the songs and I hadn't really done that when we were recording them it's different you kind of almost putting it all apart to see which bit goes where and if you really want it to go anywhere or if you want it all to stay down the front or like and it was actually sitting here and I sat on my own and listen when we' done it and listened I listened back to it and and in the mid you know and it was that moment I thought it's it's done you know um a mixture of enormous relief uh having actually finished it um and also I I really like it I think it's a really it's a really good album I mean I'm not again I'm going to sound like racist it's not as good as the next one but I'm I'm pleased I I my original ideas for for what it was going to be I'm glad that I was flexible enough to change that kind of Midstream and to turn it into something which is it's a much more engaging piece of work I think it's sequenced in such a way that I think you it kind of takes you somewhere you end up at like you know it's just about 50 minutes long and I think you end up somewhere different than when where you started out and hopefully it's a it's a you know people will react to it the few people that have heard it so far have which I'm really it's very gratifying having spent the time with it that I have to suddenly let other people listen to it you know it's a strange thing it's always it's always a weird moment when suddenly people start listening to what you've been doing cuz you can't help but like I mean why bother unless you want people to like it I ha people that say it's a kind of faux Artistry when you think I'm just doing it for myself I mean you're really not you don't make records for yourself it's like you you can sit home and strumble acoustic guitar and sing for yourself but you don't bother going through all this and like making an album unless you want people to really like it and so um yeah I think it's it's turned it's turned out really well it's great when can we expect to see the Cure on stage then I presume the intention is to take it out um yeah I we'll we'll be playing I think we'll be playing an album show this year but um yeah we'll start up again next year doing I mean I I still have to I seriously I have to finish the second half so we were going to play festivals next year but I just a couple of weeks ago I decided that we wouldn't play anything next summer so then next time we go out on stage will be Autumn next year but then we'll probably be playing quite regularly through until the next anniversary the 2028 which is my it's just like looming on the horizon the the 2018 one I to think about late 2016 I thought I've got a year and a half it's it's easy and I still didn't manage to get there in time so now I'm starting to think right like 2028 I must start to get things in order so um the documentary film and various other things like so I am actually still now thinking about 2028 is as been I I I'm 70 in 2029 and that's like the 50th anniversary of the first cure album and that's it that really is it if I make it that far that's it um so in the intervening time I'd like us to to you i' would like to include playing concerts as part of the overall plan of what we're going to do cuz I've loved it the last 10 years of playing shows have been the the best 10 years of being in the band I've absolutely you know it's it it pisses all over the the other 30 God years it's been great that's kind of cool yeah I mean it's for not having a new album you know for for all that period of time from you know and read joining the band and actually the makeup of the band being allowed you know allowing me allowing us to actually we've played I know 1340 different songs because we're playing we've just turned into like a live band that that draws on the catalog so we can go out and play shows and we can play two nights of three hours a night and play completely different songs both nights know it's there's a freedom of which any band you know I mean if you've got a good catalog you can do it but the pressures are always there this Insidious sort of pressure to you know and 2008 when we did the last album that's we didn't we were out of contract for the first time since the first album we didn't have a record label and I didn't sign this to anyone so for 10 years I could wake up in the morning think this is what I'm going to do and I didn't have to consult with anyone I just so i' just tell the others this is what we're going to do and and we do it so there was an enormous Freedom um and great joy actually in just going out and playing music and i' not that I'd forgotten it I don't think I'd ever had it like I I'm going to take it for granted and I think meltdown made me realize I shouldn't really take it for granted okay am I back in the right place yeah looks sort of technically technically yeah sorry could just thank you okay I mean you touched on this before but over the past decade you've mentioned all these different projects there's 146 dream live in Paris South America Tour film cure documentary Pope any of these things looking like they're going to happen they they all stall for different reasons um most of them will get completed the the South American tour film that we made we we took Tim with us to South America I mean it was utter chaos and some of the footage is really funny and the shows were good um but they didn't seem any point to it I sort of started watching it all back and I thought why would we make a film about this it didn't but it's there you know and similarly 2008 we actually did finish a film that we made in Paris of the band but um that was probably the worst and most acrimonious disintegration of any versions of the Cure and I really couldn't be bothered for you know it just needed tweaking and finishing off and mix the Final Mix and stuff and I just couldn't be bothered and then I we moved on and I've never really gone back to it which is a shame because I suppose time has kind of softened my um anger and it's a it will probably emerge at some point I suppose be after I've died I don't know but um and the Tim pooke the document thing with sorry documentary thing with Tim Pope um that will definitely happen yeah that's like an ongoing thing it's it's it's the preliminary stuff all the digitizing and all the and and once we do it it will be done really quick but I mean essentially it's my um perspective on everything that I've done with the band so I'm you know I've been hanging fire really um well everyone else makes their version of events public I I'm I've just waited and so it's just seems so for me that if if I do get to the 50th Anniversary that that will be the summing up of of really essentially what I've done with my life I suppose but um yeah things that I don't normally talk about and stuff that you know footage and and recordings and things that wouldn't otherwise see the light of days so if you're interested in the band it will be interesting it's a historical kind of piece you know it's not really um it's not going to be salacious in any way but I but it will be uh revealing I again because we're in AB Road I love the thing like the Beatles thing you know lots of people plan it way too long you know I it's great I wished it was like another 10 hours it's like you know so you either like that kind of thing you don't so the thing I'm doing with Tim is more kind of that it's more like an overview for me of what it was like to be in the band rather than like to here's what we did here's what we did it's like this is what it meant you know is that the perspective is slightly different so um I mean I'm enjoying the preliminary stuff I'm enjoying like digging through stuff and and and and realizing what was important to me and what wasn't you know and what I thought was important and what really isn't um so yeah I mean that that'll definitely get done there there are a lot of outstanding projects and I'm I sometimes I you know I've I've actually got like two lots of shelves with like labels on like you know and posted notes get this done and it's like a really you know so like in terms of other stuff you've done in recent years you've worked with churches uh gorillas couple the Twilight sad remix No Gallagher like tell me a bit about what you get out of those that collaboration process working with different people yeah they they're quite random I mean I get um a reasonable number of requests through um in in an average year to do things get involved with you know producing or or whatever sometimes I do things like not publicly just like I'll I'll comment on on you know if it's like a younger artist younger band like what I you know offer an opinion um for what you know but actually collaborating and getting involved you know in something which is going to be for public consumption it's very um I don't know if there's any really any good reason I just sort of think that would be be good you know there's no I I don't have a manager we don't have management and and we haven't had it like I said we haven't had a label so something just you know it appeals to me I did the thing with um with chino from the death tones like recently and it's just because he just sent me the chat said you fancy like you can s what you want I thought it's great I loved it you know um I Pro I'm kind of picky um in what I do or I don't do but I think that um if I'm sent something and I'd like it then just do it I don't really think I will this further their career or mine I just think this would be really you know I was surprised you know when like when Daman asked me to do gorillas I was genuinely surprised that they asked me but it was great you know I hadn't um spoken to him for you know I don't even know how long um and it was just really nice to be part of that for a brief period it was a really enjoyable experience um and simly like being asked to remix um one of the old songs you know like you know I didn't know he was a cure fan i' I'd seen him you know we we've bumped into him over the years at festivals and stuff and and the crew always say to me no G was watching him the side where else you going to go on a festival like with the headline band everyone ends up on the side of the stage um but yeah you know so that was a nice surprise and yeah I probably should have done more if I'm honest I should probably have used my time you know but often I think really once I get involved with it I think I really want it to be great and I'm not always sure that I can bring to someone else's project what they think I I'm going to bring so I often just decline because I I'm never I you know there is a part of me that worries that it's not going to be like they want it to be it's not going to be as good as they think it's going to be and so I think it's better just to remain like shadowy figure and know it could have been great but you know so have you got any more collaborations planned or any more kind of work I do actually have one coming up yeah I won't say what it is cuz they want it to be a surprise but yeah there is one in in the offing but um but now I'm more immersed in this back into cure world as well so um but yeah I you know I I I like it just makes me step into someone else's world that's how I feel it's like I'm drawn into someone else's sphere and it's like um it's just nice engaging with with people who who do what I do and just see how they do it's just it's it's kind of it's interesting and and generally people are you know everyone's really nice and it's it's a it's a good experience often I turn things down and then Afters I think why did I say no you know that's the downside to it but um were there any when you were like look back and you were gener like that if I should have done that one um no because at the time when I've turned things down with hindsight as with always with highight you think it could have made that work but at the time I knew that it wasn't the right thing to do a lot of what these things that um if you don't have label and management you're entirely working on Instinct you just kind of think like all or whether you think you'll enjoy it or not um and some sometimes I suppose I've second guessed myself and and then I think I probably could have made it well probably would have been good F if I just know but at the time you think oh there is a sort of element of self-doubt that Creeps in particularly when you being asked to do something with someone who you know is really really good you know and you think I'm actually not as good as you think I am it's so I'm not fishing you know it's it's a genuine concern I I'm when I started singing and I first Steeps on stage I I never thought I'd I would sing I sang like one song because I because I just wanted to see what it was like at the very first show we did and and I hated it you know and I became the singer by default because we went through a number of singers who were all absolutely really Dreadful um and I thought well I'll I'll do it until we can find someone cuz I didn't want to not play I just thought we unless we start playing and we got played to people so I became the singer and then I just ended up being the singer and it's always um it's intrigued me as because it made me start to think how I could be better as a singer and how I should present myself and all that sort of stuff but Al also you you can't make people like you you can't make people like your voice it's one of those weird things that and I was thinking whether it's sometimes you fall in love with someone's voice when they're singing you don't know anything about them you can hear a voice and think God that's that's fantastic I love that voice for me it's like hearing Nick Drake when I was about 10 years old I didn't know anything about Nick Drake my brother played this album I thought what you know I didn't think what a great voice there was something about it I was like absolutely entranced by it and all through my life I've like wondered about what the the marriage between when you know someone you know something about them whether you're projecting something onto an artist when you listen to them or whether you genuinely know who that person is or you think you know who they are and and so you're listening so it doesn't really matter you know some people do really well and they got terrible voices some singers got awful in my opinion really [ __ ] awful voices but they're great and I love them other people are technically brilliant and I [ __ ] hate them you know so there's something about the human voice that's like it's not like any other instrument and it's a it's a it's a thing it's always kind of um I think about from time to time it's like why I've ended up being able to sing to people when I don't again I'm not being funny I'm technically I'm a very um I can sing in a certain way but that's kind of it you know I'm not I haven't got a particularly um you know voice of every oh you know he's got a five otive ranges but there's something about that that draws people in I'm able to emotionally connect when I sing with people and it's like if I wasn't able to do that I wouldn't be doing it you know I wouldn't be able to be doing it so many people I know who have tried to you know who are really otherwise great are the great musicians they step in front of a mic and start to sing you think oh no no don't you know and yet they can hold the note they can pitch they can breathe it's like it's um it's one of those those strange things said that I've yeah I've been very lucky in that because if if people didn't kind of engage with me as as a singer we we wouldn't really I wouldn't have that much of a career to honest because I don't practice guitar enough to be a guitarist questions from different areas now do you still follow QPR do you still follow Queens part rers I fell out of love with football about 10 years ago I come um I don't know just I don't know lots of silly little reasons it just each season become more and more predictable more tedious I don't support anyone else I just don't I don't really bother with football any um anymore I mean you know I went I met Stan BS he he was doing um uh sort of meet and greet at at Rangers the last time I went to a football match I went out for a curry with him which was one the highlight of my life cuz he was my idol when I was when I was a kid um but no I don't know I mean football was sort of it was different I suppose when I fell in love with football when it was just a it was a completely different thing I it sounds like it's really kagin is it but it it was just it it's it was more it was about other stuff I think you know I mean going to football matches in the 70s was a kind of it was a bit of a right of passage really and it was a it was a different experience entirely and the footballers themselves were funnier you know they were in the pub before the game at QPR I mean it was just it was a different again it was a different world it's just very corporate it start with football's just all about kind of you know I mean it's about hair and I mean I say hair and tattoos but it's like and it's just about selling stuff everything is about like branding and about um you know sponsorship and and betting it just doesn't it doesn't move me like it used to I suppose I I you know I I followed I I still watch um the euros and the World Cup and I watched I hosted a a Euro's final night watched England I watched every game watch like you stumble into the final I was the only person drinking Spanish beer at the at the final and I was the only one smiling at the end as well yeah so I'm a foot I am in so at heart I am still a football fan because I Spain were the best team in the competition they should have won the competition they won the competition I was happy I've fallen out in love with International football for the same reason that I've fallen out out in love with a lot of international sport because like the you either like buy into the idea that it's like it's my country against your country or you don't and if you do it's my country against your country it's kind of like inherently stupid I appreciate that I mean you know and it go it flies in the face of everything I believe in like you know like we're all on the same Planet but if there are members of a of a national team that that have you know barely even been to the country they're playing for it makes it like goes into the Absurd and so I've really fallen out of love with International football because I think like it's you know any of the latest game that was on I think like they you know he actually had the goal the commentators like they used to be Irish but now they're English and I'm thinking this is really quite surreal you know I've had so many arguments over the years about about how you know you should qualify to for for an international team looking back there quite funny always drunken and always you know like but what about if you're born in international War you know one of those sort of arguments but um something I want to ask you about so during the North American leg of the shows of LOF world to you very vocal about giving fans like a really fair deal on tickets and merchandise you know I guess that's something that's always been been really important to you that kind of cause yeah keeping control over prices has always been has played a part ever since we um so we we we moved away from ition which had been our label since the beginning in 2000 with the blood flows album that was the last album we did with them and up to then we'd always had like a a support structure of a of a you know an independent label attached to affiliated with you know the UN what's now the universal group um and I used to leave a lot of it you know I used to delegate and just say comes with the headline stuff you know and I'm not going to but after that I started to get more involved also realized I didn't know as much as I should know about what the industry that I was in and The Wider world that it existed in and you know and so I started to learn about how it all kind of like how it worked and um I was shocked actually at how much profit is made on everything it's it's absolutely astonishing so I thought well we don't need to make all this money on everything everything doesn't have to make this much money is like it was a really simple kind of like and that still it drove us through with with everything and I've all my fights with you know with through through the ensuing 10 years with the label was always about like how we could price things lower because I I always thought well we have longevity if we're good enough and if we're good enough that's up to me and if we haven't got longevity why would I you know that's the only reason why you'd be charging more because you're worried that it's the last time you're going to be able to sell a t-shirt you know it's like if you don't have the self-belief that you're still going to be here in a year's time you want the show to be great because you want those people to come back you don't want to charge1 as charge as much as the market will let you you know because that's you can squeeze everyone just it sits really you know it doesn't sit well with me at all and so it reached a point now I'm pretty much doing everything myself because I know you know it's easier for me to just to say yes or no because I know how it all works I say like don't be ridiculous like I know how much it costs to do that we're not charging that so it was very easy just to set ticket prices it's still a battle I you still have to spend an awful lot of time because the other side will try and wear you down they have teams of people telling you why your idea is a bad idea so you have to kind of be very you know be quite resilient pigheaded there are people who would say that um and you know it I also realized I'm like with the Ticket Master thing that happened in in um on the American tour on that leg it's not it wasn't really about Ticket Master I mean it's it's the system you know it's you take a step back you're working in a capitalist system but it's essentially that Ticket Master have shareholders that they're legally obliged to make as much money as they can if they don't they'll go that you know some well they won't end up in sh no one ever does but um that's what they're there for if it wasn't them it would be someone else that's the way the system works so what pissed me off most was that I had spent an awful lot of time ensuring that we were selling like $25 tickets because I wanted younger people to be able to afford to come and see us um and then they were loading those tickets they were charging more in fees and more like and and all this other stuff so we we didn't allow Dynamic pricing because it is a scam you know and and every artist could just say I don't want that and it would disappear but but you know most artists hide behind management so we didn't know any we didn't know it was going on the fees side of things I was saying you know I was saying I want the fees included in the ticket price I want a $25 ticket to cost $25 and yeah yeah of course you do of course you do yeah so then when it first they started rolling out the tickets and then said like $25 and by the time someone get reached his checkout it's like $57.50 you're thinking like where the [ __ ] is all this where are these fees going so there then I'm on the phone to the broker runs Ticket Master and he's like oh Robert you know this is like you know summon us to up the building the car I said look if all this is true and they why don't you just tell people what the fees are for put it on the front of the website say like you're going to pay $25 for the ticket that's what the band are charging and we're going to charge you $27.50 to you know to sweep the car par and see what happened you know so in the end I managed to wear them down I managed you know because I they they they really did piss me off because at first they weren't taking me seriously and it's like you know it just drove me crazy so it takes an awful lot to get me angry and I did get really really angry so then I said like you have to re start reimbursing people they're like what and they did you know it cost them quite a few million dollars in the end but um but I wasn't thinking like his me up against Ticket Master I was thinking like I was just pissed off that actually the thing that came out of it I was pissed off that no one no one apart from Neil Young had had either the the inclination the courage or whatever to stand up and say yeah actually this is this is a Fair Point that he's making no one of all the like the major and they all know what's going on and anyone that says they don't they're lying they're are [ __ ] stupid or they're lying um it's it's just driven by greed but it's it's the system system you know it's like you're up against something where you everything's monetized I mean that's like my lost world is like you know it's a kind of a it's seeing the world know historic through rose-colored spectrals to some degree but there was a time when not everything you know the goal to privatization stuff we're moving into very sensitive areas but it's like it it's it's Madness it really is I mean that's the reason why the world is kind of Fallen apart is because is you know is greed inequality Mone ation it's just it's insane so in my own small corner of the world I was like you know you won't this won't happen to us so it's um yeah but we're selling T-shirts how can you sell a t-shirt for $20 like half of that profit I mean we're making we sold 10 times as much stuff I'm like reducing the prices all the time $15 and we sell 100 times more t-shirts and I I'm saying to people look we reduced everything down so that there was barely any profit on any of the stuff we're selling and we still made so much money we sold so much stuff it's like we just do the same everyone's happy we're happy we're sending loads of stuff loads of people wearing t-shirts we're making money off them loads of people wearing t-shirts cuz loads of people could afford to buy them you know it's people saved money on the tickets so they bought Birch or they bought beer I mean it doesn't really matter what they're spending on it's like there's Goodwill the shows are fantastic people if we went and do you know we go back and play the same shows people are going to come and see us again it's like so it's a self-filling good vibe you know and I don't understand why more people don't do it it's just it's either laziness I I say of stupidity or greed it has to be one of those three things there is no other reason let's do uh a little bit on each of the songs just so we know kind of where each the songs of the record are coming from so should we start with alone if you could if you could give us the title of the song and just Yeah It's Tricky talking about the songs individually because the I think as I said before we started that that I lyrically I spent a lot of time on them trying to make them making them less obtuse than I normally would I spent more time put the other way I trying to make it very obvious what I was singing about there's not very much ltitude for misinterpretation on the on the songs on the album I think alone like again like I said earlier was was was I had written most of it but I was waiting for like in the back of my mind I had this this um this line about um and it was an Earnest dson poem called dregs and it was about we we toast with bitter dregs and I was thinking like where where is that from where have I read that from and I was actually and I was outside like and two or three of the songs were all written in the same place um outside I spend spend quite a lot of time out wandering around outside in the dark that is something I do which is in character I don't R by can like but I do wander around I'd love you I've got a telescope I'd love being outside and looking at at the sky and um and usually there's a fire going and there was a when the fire dies down and the stars blink out and Dawn arrives there is a feeling like ah the night's gone you know I've always felt that from being young it's like there's a certain the sun that's comeing up for most people it's like oh the sun's coming up for me it's like oh the stars are disappearing it's um it's not you know it's and it was that I wanted to capture that feeling of like of being feeling very very solitary there is a moment when that happens that you suddenly realize it's getting light you feel incredibly like um vulnerable and alone and that was really what the song was was trying to just like get that that feeling of being just like you know born alone and dying alone it's a it's a it's a it's trite which is obviously always with a lot of this stuff a lot of the stuff I'm trying to write it's your it's a balancing act where you don't kind of like Tipple over into like oh really you know we're all going to die surprised me you know it's it's it's trying to sort of dig into the that and getting some kind of like emotional connection of like what you're really feeling it's like but essentially the songs you know do Doom and Gloom is is just his fear of death it's that simple I mean everything's fear of death pretty much that's greed Fe of death love comes into it somewhere um [ __ ] me I'm simple AR I um uh and nothing is forever if you could name the song and nothing is forever it was um about a promise that I made to someone who was very ill that I would I would be with them when they died it was that it's that simple um and I wasn't and because I wasn't I wrote the song which is small compensation for me in my darker moments but I wasn't able to be with the p with the person for for for what were good reasons but um it still it upset me cuz you can imagine it's like you make a promise to something it's it's not good to break promises so yeah the song was just an attempt for me to um I suppose reconcile myself with with something that had happened there's nothing I can do to change it so I thought perhaps by memorializing it it would somehow make it easier for me to deal with but is it it was emotional singing it on stage um yeah I think yeah the the person who the song's about would would be would be happy with the song I think a fragile thing once again if you could know a fragile thing is um it's a it's the love song I think on on the album and but it's not really a love song and way the love songs a love song it's about love and and and how love is kind of like the most enduring of emotions I think it's the most powerful emotion and it's and it's incredibly resilient and yet at the same time incredibly fragile it doesn't that's paradoxical I know it doesn't really make much sense but I think you know what I mean it's like it can it's you feel sometimes you're in danger of destroying something and yet you kind of know it can't be destroyed it's I don't know it's a I struggled with that song to try and it was actually originally it was called kill the sun and it was a very different song and it was a um and it mutated into this this song which was very specific to me I suppose but I'm hoping that it resonates with other people because it's is a universal theme again I was trying to keep the album on universal theme so even though most of the songs are very personal that they they are they're not exclusive they're not things that only happen to me so um yeah I me FR I think it's it's I suppose within that it's how you can not live up to the person that you really think you should be I think that's part that that drove me to write the song a disappointment in myself I think was at the heart of it thank you we good once again if you could give the title for us War song war song um was a song it's it's a generalized song I suppose about so it's we're born to war again it's a it's a kind of it's I sadly as I've grown older I've started to believe it more I was I was brought up to believe in the best in to believe that people are generally good and less proofed otherwise and um it's hard to maintain that through as you grow older because there's so much evidence points in the opposite direction and um just you know how I think the world is kind of spiral downward like I was saying earlier and it's like that we almost like it's always sort of people always fighting each other for like absolutely nothing it's so it's so ridiculous and and it just feels like that you know you you can you know at a certain age males in particular will just like want to fight it's just because we're basically because we're monkeys you know it's like it's just what we do but it's weird how it's it's part it's just become the norm it's just like you kind of live with it it's like there's always war going stuff and and and then on a on a personal level it's also it's about someone in particular that I fell out with who I shouldn't have fallen out with who I was who over the decades I've I've I've kind of fallen out with and made up with fallen out with made up with and it's just St to think like it's weird because like everyone has those relationships where you can't ever sort of like Get rid of the person or really ever want to get rid of them but you know that you're just going to r with them or just argue about it's it's strange and it's like but that's well okay I kind of quite like I liked it and the original version of the song was about that and then I expanded it into the idea actually what I'm doing with this person is really what everyone on a grand scale everyone's like and there's no reason why I'm doing it it's just you know for the same reason that people are like are just fighting each other for absolutely light and that was you know and at the end of it everything's the same it's like except a few million people are dead it's it doesn't make any sense it's um so it's a bit of a dismal song war song probably I in my mind the most dismal song on the album actually great guitar solo uh track five drone no drone yeah drone no drone was um I think that's it's a strange song again it had there two there were two versions of it the original version was a um someone sent a drone over our house and I was outside and it really upset me um cuz in my pants not just for that reason but um I thought it's like I hate this you know this is the it's kind of was the modern world here we go again it's like why would you send a drone over like to see what what I'm doing outside the back of my house it's like really pissed me off um and that this song but then it mutated into this of like a completely sort of like a weird there is there is a connection in my own mind and I kind of like if if I read it through I could I could say where the connection is but it ended up being about me coming to terms with my reaction to it of of how I'm kind of like becoming an old grouch you know and and it's again very easy to tip over into like oh the fund me memories of of a world that I think is is rapidly disappearing or has already disappeared which has happened to everyone in history you know it's like it's like I don't thankfully I'm not like oh music in my day was I still I actually think music my day was better but um I'm not going to like you know I know too many younger people who I can who are coherently arguing that their music is is as good if not bad and I realize that it's what means most to you is what what good means but I I I'm aware that some of my reactions to to the modern world are a bit extreme you know I'm like for [ __ ] I mean I'm tell you know I don't believe it I'm in danger of that sometimes you know um and so Dron OJ was was really about like me coming to terms with the the end of what has been a you know a chaotic life at times and me thinking all that do I have the the the drive and the persistence to continue like can I step back out can I walk out the front door again and continue doing this and it's um yeah I mean I can and I and I will I do um but there are moments that I think oh you know I just really don't want to turn that I just let's leave the front door shut let's just go back upstairs I just I think there'll be enough in there but there was a bit of chair creaking oh that's right yeah yeah will think it's my prosthetic track six I can never say goodbye title the answer again yes I can never say goodbye it is um there was when when my older brother Richard died obviously affected me a lot because he kind of brought me up he T taught me everything really when I was younger um I there was an enormous outpouring of know emotion which was like words music and just general sort of you painting even you know I started I was just I I needed to somehow get what I was feeling out of me I couldn't stand what I was feeling and um and I I wrote this song A lot of different ways as well um until I hit on the just it's a very simple um Narrative of actually what happened on the night he died so it it went all around the houses I went everywhere with this song to try and um sum up how I felt and and in the end it just turned into like a a reasonably Bleak little vignette so it's a I think it's it's also I wanted the music on on on the song I think the music was more I wrote the song about it and the music itself was what I wanted to breathe so I I kind of like was aware of that so some of the I didn't want the words to dominate the song in a way that sometimes what you can dominate a song the music just becomes like a a backdrop to what you're singing in this song I think that the music is more important than what I'm singing in a way it's kind of you know so um yeah it's again it's a very difficult song to sing live but um but great you know people say cathartic too much but it's a it it was has allowed me to to deal with it all and I feel much more comfortable with it all than than I than I did and I think it's helped me enormously to you know it's beautiful yeah thanks track seven all I ever am yeah all I ever am is is a probably the it's the hardest song in a way to explain because it's um it's it's essentially it's it's about the P this is going to sound so this is private eye stuff I think of a way to put this without appearing in in that um it's about how you how you remain yourself but not in the sense I don't want to change it's like it's the Persistence of of of um of being through time you know what I mean it's like how how we you know so when you look back at yourself and and like if you see a photo or something and you think that's me like so prior to like maybe like the last 150 years and people thought back of themselves I I I think they must have thought their memories must have been firstperson memories about where they were that what they were doing and I think with the Advent of of um photography and that the your memories become the third person you see yourself like and and then film like now [ __ ] knows you know because if anyone ever watches what they film I don't know but your memories are sort of of so my memories of me being young are formed by home cine films and and pictures in photo albums and so I kind of I don't really engage with what I and I realized I don't and I've written a song about a song called Lost which is about the same kind of feeling when I'm thinking like that was that isn't me though and then it's even not me five years ago I'm thinking how how is that me when I did that you know it's not a way to like absorb yourself of like you know think that wasn't me you know Al plays some part in it think I can't believe that you know that really wasn't me it's the Persistence of of of being and and in fact that that of course it's you you know that is you that's who you are now it's it's it's there it's part of you it's in there and it it was me trying to understand whether I believe that or not so the Tong's kind of like it's slightly ambivalent as to whether I do you know whether I can genuinely feel me at this moment is all the M that's ever been or whether I think me at this moment is is nothing to do with the all me so I mean I know in my head that of course I'm the sum of all the parts but in sometimes I don't believe it I just cannot accept it so it's it's a strange feeling of dissociation from myself and it was that I was trying to put in the song and I don't I'm not alone in it because when I've talked to about it with people like most people seem to have it to some degree there feeling somehow think something's not quite right whether it be you think you're going to get your life over again or with there are various ways that you kind of get this sense that things aren't quite as they as they seem and it was that that sort of uncomfortable feeling that um maybe I'm not who I think I am it's yeah it's an odd song actually and and took me that's took the longest for me to be happy with with with it and I'm still not quite sure when I read it cuz I've done it in such a way that it's it's actually quite hard to one of those this is like War and Peace again it's just like a very very long sentence you think like how did it start it's got like three double negatives in it it's like what does he mean so it's a it's a yeah it's it makes sense to me kind of it's like that SL but when I was talking to someone that knows about these things we talking about memory and I assume that memory was like a fing cavity you bring out the pitch and you remember you don't you you when you think of something you re imagine it every time you think of it so your memories and slightly change it are being not only you're drawing them again every time but everything that's happened to you and doing to you is changing the way you draw that memory so you are changing your own path yeah that's what I mean it's like a feedback loop because because you are the sum of your memories but at the same time your memories themselves are being changed by who you are yeah I know I mean it's that it's all it's that and also it's like the Persistence of being it's like um of you know I I I can't remember the title of the book which set me off down this train of thought um there's a very particular book um arguing that we're not that we don't persist through time you know it's it was a philosophical that it was rubbish it was a great book and made me think but at the end of it I'm like you know it's one of those the arguments I used to have in the band like you know you know and you always used to with someone like punching you in the head and say that was real you know and most philosophical arguments I've ever had end up with someone punching me in the head and saying that was real but um and the final the song at the end end song yeah end song was um as I said at the beginning I was me looking back at at the moon landings and and thinking you know where did it all go and that's say that's the line in the song it's like um and and book ends with alone they the the themes are the same and I wanted them to kind of echo each other and in fact there is a the the song That's supposed to end the album after end song which much as we do be disintegration which ends with disintegration to all intense purposes but then has homesick and Untitled and Untitled for was always the end song on on disintegration for most people they think it's disintegration but it's Untitled and I wrote this song called um bodium sky and in fact the word the lyrics are actually on one of the vinyl versions I think um and that right up until the end that was going to be the last song and then right at the very end I took it off and it's it's a kind of um it answers the the the where it all gone in endong um and it's it was kind of an up it's just me and an acoustic guitar very sort of hippie end and in the end that's probably what what put me off it because it seemed a bit self-indulging but it's a lovely little song and it and it it did do something and it's it kind of lifted you up after you know but that that was when the album was much more intense and didn't have drone no drone in it and it didn't have um I don't think it had all over am in it either it was much more lowkey and much more you know and this was just like a little spark of light right at the very end a little twinkle um and I didn't think it needed once I put those two songs into the album I thought actually we don't need this song at the end so we'll probably redo it as a band and have that on the next one but um yeah I end song I suppose you know the clues in the title but it uh yeah it was just me wondering it kind of Carries On from what we just saying about um all I over am because I was thinking like who am I still you know I feel the same looking up at the Moon as I did when I was 10 but I'm not the same as I was when I was 10 and yet I kind of am so the moon's pretty much the same um not far now not long to go um this is a question I'm looking forward to asking you what are your 10 favorite Cure songs and why off the top of your head yeah I mean there's no such thing as there is like my 10 very c songs it would change if I start if I answered now I'll change my mind halfway through it's um um I I when I think about what we've done I suppose if if I was to answer the question honestly and if I picked a song from each album it would proba it would reflect the songs that I would like to have written for this album so you know I I I'm not going to say love cats because that's not really kind of how I feel but I think the fact that I wrote love cats is great great and I'm really you know I think well that's that's an unusual song to have written at the age that I wasn't it's um I I would pick song so I would pick three imaginary boys the title track of the first album would be a song I'd be happy with now it's still kind of resonates with me I think um at night from 17 seconds for the same reason we play that a lot live I think it has the same kind of mood as this album it would fit quite happily on this album I think Faith the title track from faith I it was always been a song that I feel when I wrote that I can remember thinking ah I can write songs it was actually the first song I I was really really proud of and it's there's not much to it and yet there's something about it which I was just it was everything I wanted it to be I could have given up actually when I wrote faith I thought that's it I provve to myself I can do it um I think what on the pornography album I'm not sure actually if there cold probably is because we've been playing that a lot live in the last few years that would fit on this album mood-wise and musically um this is going to be difficult for me to the top album um I think the probably the title track the top I think that's that would kind of fit that's a weird song it's strange sort of mood um sinking from the head in the door again bit of Doom and Gloom but it's kind of couched in a more sort the whole album's a bit more sort of like bright and Breezy than than this that we've done um if only tonight we could sleep would be the song from The Kiss Me album because that's another song we've played live quite a bit over the last few years and has a lovely kind of mood to it when it's played well um disintegration it would be Untitled actually the the because it's one of my favorite that is one of my favorite K songs um I like I like that I didn't title it I it's really stupid but I had the courage to not bother thinking of a title um uh what comes after that wish album to wish impossible things actually is one of my favorite that's another one of my favorite C we never play that I don't know why i' be there if we play that but that would fit happily on or unhappily on this album um wild M wild M next oh God this is difficult one I'd have to say from Wild M no treasure actually treasure would be a great song to fit on this cuz that's about loss that was inspired by Christina Rosetti P another one that's inspired by some else's words um last day of summer from blood flow cuz we played that quite a lot over the last few years and that's become a favorite um I was never quite sure about it as a song but I think it is it is a good song um now it gets tricky The Cure album I know uh my probably my least favorite album that we've that we've made so I'm not really I don't I don't like some of it's the only album I don't really think works actually I like before three I think it's a good song that would that would probably work um and then 413 dream uh Hungry Ghost CU I just think I think it is a really good song I think that that's it wouldn't fit on this album but I do like it I think it's a good it's it's about how um people are consumed by wanting more and more and more including me and um it it I just think it's a good song Words of Music work really well I think that's it I think that's all the Cure albums I lost God dear me that's all that's it for me it's my entire light like flashing before me I'm going to ke over in a second um just couple more questions um the question was going to be like what are your sort of favorite songs by other people but maybe we could tether it to this album are there things that maybe you listening to or things that maybe feel like I can see how I'm not yeah I can't do another 13 songs by other people like this is really beond me um songs that spring to mind that would would probably inform me as a as a as a writer or as a musician or um would be referring back to Nick Drake again it would be like um th has told me which was the song I was on a sampler it was on an island record sampler called nice enough to eat I first heard ni Drake that song it stuck with me all my life it's like his voice the way he plays the Simplicity of what he does and yeah it's incredibly difficult impossible to replicate like if you can play anywhere near what Nick Drake play on the guitar you're a good guitarist you're better than good guitarist um and beautiful words really simple the way he delivers him it's all very heartfelt very emotional it connects and I just you I've always loved him as an artist um Jimmy Hendricks informs everything I've ever done just because I always wanted to be him when I was a kid I didn't know anything about him I didn't I didn't know he was black I didn't know he was American I didn't really know he was a guitarist I just thought it was a poster of my my brother's W with Jimmy hendri I thought I'd like to be Jimmy hendris that that would be really good fun I mean I was that's you know I was in school being told what to wear so being Jimmy Hendricks was a great option um janisan um that album you know te sympathy or song like that would be the sort of mood and emotion I'd be trying to capture on this album or Joan armor trading love and affection all the I'm going back to old stuff but so this is my Lost World stuff um yeah Bowie obviously always informs everything I ever do I was kind you know what would David do but yeah a song like young uh not Young Americans Life on Mars actually would be that's a song huge impact on me it's like you know um the way it was although you know it's kind of nicked a little bit structurally and stuff but the way it's put together and the way it's delivered again it's just it's perfect um yeah I mean I could actually go on buy me a drink I a CH night about song like like um yeah they're all there they're all there you know I I the the music that you listen to when you're there a certain period of everyone's life I think the music that you listen to during that particular period sort of like around about 13 usually maybe a bit earlier up to about sort of 17 sometimes a little bit further on they're the songs that I think that you know if you turn into a creative person later in life or even at that point they're the songs that that's the music that informs you you can pick other things up along the way I've you know I've fell in love with M and I've loved them ever since and there there are lots of other bands as well but the the resonance that you get the emotional attachment that you have to songs that you hear when you're at that particular you know you you discover sort of your own music you discover books for yourself all those things matter so much more that um than they should really cuz rereading Rel listening I mean I'm lucky that the things that I liked when I was young musically I still like I you know I I think I was right in my appraisal of most artists and most music it sounds bigheaded but I think I was right about most people I kind of got the sense of who was who was good and who wasn't not so much with literature I think I'm I stumbled a little bit around some of the books that I thought were great and and I've reread and I don't think they're that good at all again going right back to the start I feel like shaking some of the protagonist in the books that I really like some of the cathus like just get up and leave you know it's like so I think in that I realize that I have changed but but it's that's more to do with just like you know it's growing older and and having agency which is I think a lot of the stuff that appeals to you when you're at a young age is because you have no power and you invest That Into You Know into objects and and other and works of art and music and stuff so but it does it it has a hold on you that like like that and it never lets go which if youve you know if you've been exposed to and you fall in love with the right things it's great cuz you can fall back on them they're always there so total tangent just cuz we're doing something about them were you talk talk fan I wasn't I see that's a band I admire what they did and I was always aware that what they did was really good but I never fell in love with them but it was too late by then there I was a competitor you know I mean when you start in a band I mean whatever anyone says you are very competitive you have to be you know it's like you have to believe that you're better than everyone else otherwise you you you fall by the wayside there is that sort of horrible determination that you have to have which most people don't sort of acknowledge because most people want to be artistic but you do have to like think ah you know they're [ __ ] rubbish and you even saying anything you know they're really not they're probably better than us but you can't say it I someone showed me yesterday that I said about um Joy Division that they using me that they're doing that New Order thing like New Order Joy Division thing and I'm apparently in it saying like d pissed all over us and they supported us at the market which they did you know but like probably shouldn't I shouldn't have said it I mean had had I done nothing in the interfering period I would think why did you say that like you were headlining what's the best thing about being Robert Smith right now well apart from this from this right been know to like you walk into Abby Road um I'm I have have led a very privileged life I can't believe how lucky I've been um yeah I I am say in all sincer I I find it astonishing that I've I've had the life that I've had and I I suppose the fact that I'm still upright is actually the best thing about being me because there have been points in my life and I I honestly didn't think I'd hit 30 you know or then 40 and then 50 so it's like it's nice to still be reasonably my mind functions not quite as I have the same kind of like acity that I used to have but I'm able to enjoy stuff um I'm much more relaxed than I used to be um I think I'm easy much much easier to get on with than I used to be I know I am because people smile at me a lot more than they used to uh yeah it's good I um you know I'm I'm lucky and I've have people around me I I enjoy you know and and I'm able to do something which I always wanted to do and I'm still able to do it I mean that probably is that that's the best thing about being me I I'm I'm still doing what I've always wanted to do so that 19y old boy in the Cure still here we are that's yeah and funny enough that voice never leaves me that's all I always always it's it's the yardstick that I still use it's like what would I have thought when I was a punk still that informs like you know the Ticket Master stuff and everything it's like come on you know like I mean I've said it a few times about going to a Bowie show and like we buying the tickets on the back market slepping up to London like it cost I didn't have any money and like and he played for like 42 minutes or something I was like no you know you I was right at the back of CAU I thought it's taken me like five [ __ ] hours to get in this seat and you finished and like there's no on it's like ah so part of like like if you ever do this don't ever do that you know and even though he was my my my hear I thought you know come on if you knew all these people idolize you and they could you know it's not enough and so I've always um probably too much you know maybe why we play too long a lot of the time but um I always feel that voice saying remember you know remember that feeling of you know so it's there and the decisions that I make are still informed by this sort of like pretty naive 19y old voice which is good I think it's a good thing I I I would hate to um to feel like I I wasn't able to justify myself to that 19y old I think yes interesting that that punk part of that punk thing is still yeah yeah that doesn't leave you I don't think but that's not really about the you know it's it's either you're either like that or you're not it's a it's a thing it's it's a character thing yeah it's been good to speak you that's been yeah very interesting thank you very much I feel almost socialized at the end it um that's all our questions I don't if there's anything I don't think if there's anything we've covered everything