I find it difficult when people try and sectionalize the audience into people who like the darkest and the people who like the poppier stuff. Because I like pop music, some pop music. I like Paula Abdul single and I like the Cocteau Twins... So it's like if I can like two things like that... I mean, I think The Lovecats is a good song but I think Disintegration is a good song. I think people would be dumb to only listen to one type of music. It's like reading one type of book, watching one type of film or eating one type of food.

I think that what appeals to people about the new record, and one of the main reasons why I like it, is that there's like an old Cure style that we sometimes revert to. And I suppose if I was pressed, I think that's probably what we'd do best, that kind of atmospheric, slow music... Although, you know, The Walk is a good single. I don't know. Really, it's very difficult to pretend to know why we do things or how we do them because they just happen. And from year to year, depending on how everyone feels in the group, who is in the group, how I feel... We just do different things. There's no plan, like "This year, we're doing a pop album". It's just whatever I happen to be writing or the others writing, that's how the music sounds like or that's how the words come out. It's very haphazard. There's no logic to it. There's only a logic to you when you look back.

- You don't see yourself as a rock star ?

No. I think those elements of competition of somehow feeling... like people in the past and still try to make me feel as if I'm in competition with other people and I'm not. It seems really stupid. That's the sort of the side of the music business that's trying to sell more and more records, for no reason other than to get famous. It just seems really stupid to me.

There's never really been any sense of preaching or teaching in the words of our songs. They are really just... I mean, a lot of it is like a diary. But at the same it's intimate but also I try, I suppose, to manipulate the words to have a kind of much wider appeal. The things I feel are exactly the same things as other people feel. If I read a book and there's something in it that triggers off an emotion in me, I don't somehow feel that was written particulary for me but I'm glad the book has been written and that's what I try to do in the Cure, with the words. It would appeal to other people. They'd know it isn't written for them but that would trigger some kind of emotion. I try very hard, I suppose, to communicate emotions in the songs. And the group tries very hard to get that musically as well. Which a lot of people don't really bother about. Perhaps they don't want to. So it doesn't make any difference.

We will not tour again. This will be the last tour we do. I suppose if we don't end up killing each other, we'll probably make another record some time, either late this year or next year. But beyond that, I don't really know. I'm getting to the point where I think maybe we should be trying to do something completely different. I don't really want the Cure... I would like it to sort of stop while we are still going up. I wouldn't wait until we get to the top and then we start to slide back. It'd be a good way to end. Most groups don't. Most groups wait too long before they stop, I think. But I mean, stopping touring and stopping working within the context of the Cure, doesn't mean I will stop writing music or playing music 'cause I have always done that. And I always will. But I think there's a part of me which is going to be fed up with this side, the visual side, being filmed and being looked at all the time... It's a bit much after a certain amount of time. I'll grow a beard...