But we were pretty soon all back together again doing something. It's just that after that I particularly was quite exhausted, mentally quite exhausted and said "I'm never touring again". But like I say every day "I'm never drinking again". It becomes a bit of a joke really. But we were soon back in the studio doing "Never Enough". That was the point that we were experimenting with, we actually went in to experiment with kind of electropop again and we were using a computer and stuff. By the fifth day we got so fed up with programming stuff in that we just plugged in the guitars and "Never Enough" was born instantly.

I think had we allowed ourselves time then we could have started working on an album right at that point. It didn't happen because it didn't feel absolutely natural so we went off and did loads of European dates. We went to Prague and we did festivals and stuff in Eastern Germany, places that we hadn't been to before. So we sort of kept busy and all the time, in between time, we've been like going out with each other socialising and listening to each others tapes and gradually a point was arrived - there was one particular night last year when we were all sitting about listening to each others tapes and I think it dawned on everyone that we had more than enough songs to make a really good album. Me and Simon then sort of went off round the country looking for a studio, it was an excuse for a nationwide pub crawl, looking for a good residential studio and as soon as we got here the whole thing sort of fell in to place and we knew that with the songs that we had and this studio we thought it would be a really good album.

- There seems to be a huge variation in the styles on the record, from tracks like "Open " and "End" which seem to be quite doomy couple with things like "Friday I'm In Love " and "Doing The Unstuck "...

Robert : "Doing The Unstuck" is a pretty sort of throw your hands in the air, let's get happy kind of record. Same as "Friday, I'm In Love" as well -it's just a very naive, happy type of pop song. A bit like "Lovesong" -same kind of vein. Overall there's a real diversity with this. There was on Disintegration as well because it had "Lovesong" and "Lullaby" and "Fascination Street" and I just think that the overall impression that people formed, the initial impression, was that it was quite a difficult album, but I think in retrospect a lot of people have realised there's a lot of light and shade. I think with this one, it's probably just more instant that you realise. Also the way that the running order has been put, it kind of takes you in wild mood swings from one song to another.

- How long has each song been in the making - have they all been written quickly?

Robert : It's different really for each song. A year ago we had a short list of forty songs that we had like individual ideas for songs and some of them were virtually completely formed songs, others are just basic tunes or with Boris they are like rhythms and stuff. Once we start playing and we start demoing they sort of change. They're never sort of finished until they are finished. Some of the songs have been written here and like "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea" and "End" and "Friday I'm In Love" actually just came out of us just paying in the studio together.

But the rest of them, the basis for each song, the kind of initial idea has already been worked out in a demo studio just because I think everyone feels much more confortable coming into a studio of this type. It allows you a sense of freedom to experiment, if you know that you've got a good idea to start off with then you can go off at tangents. If you are trying to write from scratch in a studio, the last time we did that was the Faith album and we know from experience that it puts an awful amount of unwanted pressure on you to come up with something good. Really, in this kind of environment you should just have to concentrate on your performance as much as anything else and just enjoying yourself within the group not really worrying about "is this a good idea to begin with, this is going to be a good song?".

So most of the songs, we have quite a good idea of what they are going to be like. The thing about recording here over six months, by the second month the atmosphere had really changed. It was probably with us writing "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea" we sort of looked back at what we'd done over the first month and realised that a lot of it wasn't really up to standard, the actual performance, the atmosphere hadn't built up at that point so we rerecorded quite a lot of the stuff. Some of the songs we re-recorded two or three times just to get the feel right which is something we'd never done before. Which is why I think this album actually sounds more like The Cure than anything that we've ever done.

- Do you actually play as a proper band in studio ?

Robert : What generally happens is that Boris and Simon always play together and usually I'm doing a vocal or play guitar and usually Perry will join in either on a six string bass or guitar just so Boris has got something to play with otherwise it would be a bit tedious. Porl usually does things separately because just through physical necessity in this studio, he's got a little eagle's nest sort of bit at the top but it's so loud that it would just like get in the way of everything and swamp everything. There's elements of playing as a band, also there's individual performance as well which is like if you feel you can do something better obviously you go back and re do it.

- You and Tim Pope are inextricably linked in the making of Cure videos - how does that creative process take place?

Robert : Because we've written the song and played it we do have certain ideas of what sort of mood we want to put across on video and he just sort of takes off from a point that we give him then mutates it and tries too, I suppose, come to terms with how he sees the group and how we see the group. We never really know where we are going to end up.

- What's the story behind "Friday I'm In Love"?

Robert : I went home for a night to get some things and on the way back I was listening to everything we'd done and at the end of the tape, I just started singing the tune to "Friday I'm In Love" and I thought, it would be really nice to do. Beaches at that point we hadn't got, we hadn't actually done anything that was particularly upbeat and I thought, "What this record needs is something like a nice upbeat song". So I was driving back here singing it and by the time I'd got here I thought "This would be a really good song". So we all went in to the studio and had a party. It was actually Friday night which is why it was called "Friday Night" but once it was recorded it was left alone and then we had another party and I did the vocals which was again a Friday night. But it was really just to get one of the songs to be very sort of like carefree and stuff. It was a juxtaposition against some of the ones that were quite down and quite introspective. The mood generally has been quite easy to do songs like that, we could have done more of them really because there has been a really good atmosphere within the group all the time we've been here in the studio. I found it more difficult to sing the more down songs.

- Are any of the songs written for specific people?

Robert : I don't think any of the songs are really specific because I've sort of taken things from personal experience and then kind of made them bigger, so that there are elements in all of the songs this time aren't necessarily to do with me. A lot of it is observation of what's gone on around me.

- How important is chart success to The Cure these days?

Robert : It isn't really, it's as important as it's ever been. It would be nice for the album to go in straight at number one, but I don't know why.

Perry : Because it confirms what you feel about the album. We all believe in it, if it went to number one it means a lot of people agree with us.

Robert : But if it doesn't, it doesn't mean that it's not as good as we think it is.

Perry : We still think it's good. If less people agree with us, it doesn't change our opinion of it. It's just never something we think about - clocking up chart positions.

Robert : I think certainly when "Lovesong" got to number two in the American chart there was a general like disbelief in the group. We thought that we were being fed disinformation and at one point they thought it might actually get to number one. I found that very hard to accept that we'd have a number one single in America. I don't know why but it just seemed a bit weird really. So it wasn't as though we were just sitting there thinking "Oh go on, go on let's hope this gets to number one". It was just a kind of absurd notion that we'd have a number one single and I think the charts are sort of approached in that way generally. That whole idea of a race to the top, that constant race, no one can ever win because there's always next week's chart. It does seem rather futile.

- Do you have any yardstick for success?

Simon : If we like it that's the only yardstick we ever use. It's come to a point with this album where it's nearly finished and if we feel really pleased with it, that's the success I suppose.

Robert : It's difficult. You don't really think in terms of success. By the time we finish something it's from a purely selfish point of view, it has to be good, it can't really be better than other things because you don't really draw those kind of comparisons between albums, but you have to feel it as good as it could possible be and that's it really. Once we've finished and get it for the first time at either a CD or a tape or something and you look at it and think "That's it". You've let it go then, it's like it goes out into the world and makes its way and some people will be ecstatic about it and other people completely unmoved by it. We never really use that as a yard stick, we never gauge what we do by other people's reaction. To me, success is still like fifteen years on being able to do this. Even if it was on much smaller scale, I'd still consider it to be a success because I wouldn't have had to find some other way of looking where my next meal comes from. I'm still enjoying myself.

Perry : It goes back to what we were talking about yesterday, about the motives, of why people start playing in bands as well. If it wasn't your initial intention to be in the charts or be on Top Of The Pops you're approaching it from a different point of view or ambition.

- How much of a democracy is The Cure these days ?

Perry : Undeniably, the weight of responsibility passes on to Robert. I say it that way because a lot of the time he's making decisions and we like gladly let him do so. It's not because we are lazy it's because we trust its judgement.

Robert : I think the group has been more democratic on this record, musically with what everyone has played and the way everyone has approached it and the way that everyone is not afraid to just try something out and see if the others like it. But I think in any democracy, I don't know, there is a group. It's like I said right at the beginning - making all decisions by committee doesn't work, it really doesn't. It takes so much time and effort and energy to get everyone involved in every single level so I mean there has to be, I mean it's like he says it's just a trust that exists. Over the years I have proven by what's happened - as regards how I've judged things and how I've approached things - that I'm to be trusted.

Simon : Like a good example, with the remixes, because there's still songs being remixed, if we listen to a remix we know when Robert makes a decision about it he's going to speak for all of us because we all like the same sort of thing. It's trust.

- Was there a particular experience that prompted "Open "?

Robert : I think there must have been. The words to that were written quite a while ago - I think on a tour somewhere on the Disintegration tour. But I can't think of a particular night, but I can recognise in that song a feeling that I've often had. I don't think it's particular to being on tour, I mean it's just like when you are in a situation you almost know that you are letting yourself be drawn into, a situation that you know you are ultimately going to regret.

- "End" sounds like it was written for some of really intense fans...

Robert : Again it has elements in there which I suppose I'm addressing the idea that people have of me. It's kind of like a semi-mythological being. But I don't think it's specific again in that way. It has personal overtones as well. I think again it's probably the feeling that people understand when they're put into a position whereby they are liked or loved or thought of and they are almost becoming a caricature of themselves and wish that they could change but they haven't the courage to. So in a sense, it's like being forced into living a lie I suppose.

- Who's Elise ?

Robert : Well I used the name Elise because it's the name of the girl in Les enfants terribles by Cocteau. The song isn't about her but the name has overtones for me, a kind of symbolic name. But it isn't actually about someone called Elise.

- Have your motivations changed since you began The Cure?

Robert : No, I don't think they have at all. I still think of this as a young group a kind of outside what's going on a lot of time. We are still railing against the same old faces and I can't even believe that the establishment is as it was pretty much intact as when we very first started. I can't believe it. Now that we've passed the thirty mark and the old adversaries are still there making records. It's like when you were seventeen and you looked around you and you think, particularly because we started with punk and that whole feeling was "look at all these fools, we can do better than that" and there's still generally that feeling. I suppose it's tempered with the notion that we no longer have to prove that we can do it. In a sense you had to find, not really find different motivation or different drives because there's a kind of need. Even though it's quite a long gap between say like Disintegration and between this new album, it sort of arises out of a need to play. I don't know, it's still very selfish, the whole thing's very selfish. I think the attitude in the group has stayed the same, much the same as when we started.

- There's a track on the album called "Wendy Time ". What's Wendy Time?

Robert : Wendy Time is this indefinable time. The title it hasn't got very much to do with the song although the idea of Wendy Time is sort of crystallised in my mind as being a certain feeling at a certain moment, like when someone leaves the room and you sort of heave a sigh of relief, but why it's called Wendy Time, only Simon knows and he won't tell us.

- "Apart " seems to me quite unusual for a Cure song because it's fairly straight forward...

Robert : That thing that immediately seems unusual for me to be singing is because it's in a third person, not in a third person, but it's like I'm an observer and I'm not actually involved, I'm not emotionally involved at all in this song. I'm just singing it quite dispassionately, but trying to get involved with the two protagonists in the song and singing each of their point of view. So it is quite unusual, but there's a couple of songs on the record that I've tried to lyrically approach in a different way rather than always singing I, I, I... I think that tends to get a bit tedious after a while, it gets a bit tedious for me. I think that song's got a really good atmosphere to it.

- Are you still approached to do film scores?

Robert : We get film treatments all the time. I ask to be sent them. In fact, foolishly, well not really foolishly because we were just about to do Disintegration , but we were offered the soundtrack to Edward Scissors Hands, because Tim Burton's a big Cure fan. He actually sent me the Edward Scissors Hands' script about at least four years ago, before he made Batman. Because he said he'd been asked to make Batman and "after I've made it I know that it will be a success and they will let me make this into the film I want to make and I want you to do the music". But when it came round to it and he'd finished making Batman we were doing the demos for Disintegration and I thought that was more important.

- Besides flying, what makes you nervous?

Robert : Going to the dentist I actually get nervous. I was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist and I thought to myself "Look at me", reading Country life magazine or something. I didn't think I would get nervous, although the second time I went I didn't get nervous because he was a really nice dentist. But I've had a very bad dentists through .

- Is the aim always to make a better record every time?

Robert : I suppose subconsciously it is really.

Perry : You want it to be better than the last.

Robert : But there isn't any sense of better, because you can't, like I said, you can't really draw honest comparisons between this new album and anything that we've ever done because it's just different. Having said that regardless the semantic what better means, I think that we all feel it's a better album, because playing is better and the songs sound more complete. Lyrically, I think they are generally of a higher standard than almost anything that we've done before. But I think that the main thing that makes it better is the playing. There's some really excellent playing on it. It sounds like what we sound on stage. I think it's the first record that we've done that captures that kind of freedom in what we do, there's a kind of looseness and at the same time it is so tight, loose, yet tight.