Interview in Rouen, France, for Libération, 01st October 1981

- If you had to define The Cure's music...?

Robert: It's impossible in relation to nothing. It has to be defined in reference to other things. We've done a lot of things. Appearances with other bands (Siouxsie and the Banshees)... And it's something you can't define. It moves, it changes. Sometimes very quickly. From one concert to another. Or between the moment when you go into the studio and the moment when you get out of it. We could have done different arrangements for the first album, given more fullness to the sound. Some bands have restrictive ideas, principles... I don't know what's best. Recently we did a long tour, visiting lots of different places, from which there are good memories.

The music must always come from an experience like life, entertainment, pleasure. We just spent time in Australia and Canada, we only had three weeks and it wasn't enough. We were tired. It was mentally exhausting. In that state, when we go on stage and we must restrain ourselves, it's like we're breaking a marriage.. Since we stay one hour or more on stage, we have to hold out, but nothing happens and we think, "All these people who made trips to see us, who have spent money, it's hard to not give them more."

If we'd do what we want, it would be a commercial suicide. People buy our records and come to see us because they liked the records, but they wouldn't necessarily follow us to where we want to go. I don't think we have true fans. We attract people who like a certain kind of band: Public Image, The Banshees, Joy Division, etc., and those people like all these bands equally. Now they've started listening to Echo and the Bunnymen, for example.

- You're not bothered by these parallels?

Robert: Oh, no. What we do has a quite singular sound, it doesn't sound like any other, but we don't seek to avoid similarity. It's not our goal.

- When one's a musician, one must have an ideal tune in mind. What is your "little song"? What makes the link between your first records and "Carnage Visors"?

Robert: It's a little song that has been terribly developed since we started. The records we made at the beginning deserve to be thrown away. I personally hate... I sort of like three songs on the Three Imaginary Boys album. And about "Carnage Visors", it's pleasant to listen to, but only as background music. We don't really listen to this. It's only pleasant without paying too much attention. We'll probably do things like that again, but it won't be our main focus.

- It's becoming closer to repetitive music. Do you feel close to people like La Monte Young, Philip Glass ?

Robert: I like them, but to make this kind of music, you have to know exactly what you want. Submiting yourself to a discipline...I couldn't do that. I'd lose the sense of what I do. And I believe there's more emotion in what I do. It's not exactly hypnotic music. It's more a mix of influences, elements. If we stay together with Lol and Simon, it's because we have quite the same opinion about this. Even if we disagree on some details.

- One of your songs, Killing An Arab, is directly inspired by Albert Camus.

Robert: I've read The Outsider once when I was young, and I've read it again in 1978, everything was engraved in my mind: discovered at school, discovered by myself again. It was a shock.

- Do you think about death?

Robert: My own death?

- Yes. How do you see it?

Robert: Depends on the day. Sometimes I have the feeling that it will be dreadfully black. Sometimes....no. But it's not something that haunts me all the time... I'm not obsessed by this. And as I don't worry too much about this, sometimes it helps. It avoids dramatizing lots of things. But on the other hand, it's also a handicap, because sometimes it's frustrating feeling serious things from a distance. It's like being out of time... It makes it difficult to take seriously what's happening. There are things people hate. Me, I don't care...then they think I'm a bit like a cop. About death again, I think it's black. Mainly because I don't have faith. I don't have a fate. I don't know how or where I will die... Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to die tonight, because I still have a lot of things to do.

- Can you imagine to stop that search one day for the perfect sound, to stop making music ?

Robert: Making perfect sounds ? Writing ? ...Yes, I could stop. There will always be other people to write, to create perfect sounds. Sometimes some people reach a stage I'm afraid I will never touch. Erik Satie and his piano music had a big influence on mentalities... Katchatorian, too. What he wrote for cello, for strings... Cello has, itself, a perfect sound. It's a bit frustrating to see that we work very hard in the studio and there are only junkies around. It's a bit sordid. It can add atmosphere too.. when it's used properly. A dimension the sound doesn't have... On the second album, there are songs, sounds...that I consider to be perfect.

- As long as time goes by, as albums follow each other, it seems that everything becomes darker and darker... In the end, will The Cure resemble to the silence ?

Robert: The way Polydor press records, Cure will rather resemble to vinyl cracks... Creating, it's a bit like screaming. Or painting. Or getting drunk... Same thing. It's a way to express oneself. We're not forced to always do things the same way. At the moment, I think a lot about films. Not videos. Movies. It's a format I like... Although the sound is the thing I imagine the best. It's the ideal. With music you can do impossible things in other ways. The music is always a part of events, history...ok, it sounds romantic... In fact, very few films leave impressions... I liked 2001 a lot.

- And apart from 2001?

Robert: It's the only thing that touched me, the rest doesn't last. That's why we want to always play songs on stage in an emotional way, with a bit of the feeling from when we wrote them. It would be stupid to go on stage just to play songs that people want to hear ! Of course, we provide entertainment, but we can't only do this...like certain bands. Yesterday, it was awful. It was the first night of the tour. In the East. It was really bad. Terrible...

- And Crawley in Sussex, where you come from... What impressions does it leave ?

Robert: I lived there from 6 or 7 to 14-15 years old. It's a grey town. Missing a bit of inspiration... not exciting if you want to do something. But when we're on tour in foreign countries, like when we went to Canada, I feel like coming back home and being in my room. I wonder, "Why am I not in Crawley?" And when I'm there for two weeks, it becomes unbearable. Living in Crawley is really awful. There's nothing. Impossible to make music. There's nothing ! About one show every three months... for about 180,000 people. Not even a disco. There's nothing.

- Will you make a "red" album one day?

Robert: Yes. Maybe. Faith could have been a red album... There were people who died during this era... two people died. I was close to them, like a family. It made me wonder about death. Like a test. I could see how it affected me. I was touched, but not so much. I don't even know if I'll cry at my mother's funeral.

- That's beautiful, lovely...

Robert: But you mustn't print this, she could read it. Of course I'll cry, Mum... !!!


(Interview : Bayon - Photo : Duval - Translated from French)