Les Inrockuptibles magazine, January 2000
-Translated from French


Robert : Because I have experienced all the Cure line-ups, I refuse to get nostalgic and see the romantic side of the old times when the Cure was a 3 piece band. Because, when you listen to the tapes, you realize it was shit. The Pornography tour, for exemple, I listened to it again and it was awful. All right, we didn't sound like everyone else but musically... It didn't work as an event. But I'm not rejecting everything we did at the time. We had good ideas. That sometimes worked and that most of the times didn't. Which frustrated me.

When we went on tour, the four of us, after Seventeen Seconds, I was absolutely sure that we could be a sensation on stage. But I didn't think Matthew, the keyboard player, would be so difficult. He didn't understand a thing. Of course, I still like this era, we had fun, but it's impossible not to think the band improved with time. And my singing is much better now too.


- You spent 9 months in the studio for Bloodflowers, did you turn into Pink Floyd ?

Robert : It's more complicated than that. It's true that it took from September 1998 to June 1999 to record and mix at the Genesis' studio. Oops... but it's because it's near to where I live, I could go back home every night... I spent two months on the vocals. It seems ridiculous but for 5 hours a day, I didn't do much, I listened to records : Nick Drake, slow songs by Thin Lizzy or Hendrix, Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, old Bowie songs and even old Cure songs.


- How would you describe your singing ?

Robert : Most of the times, it's quite close to the way I talk. During the first 10 years of the Cure, I considered myself as a guitar player who was singing and by then I was really singing the way I talk. I reached another level with the Kiss Me album, when I accepted myself as a singer. And I thought that, despite my limitations, I was a better singer than guitar player. My main force is honesty. And the guitar is the most dishonest instrument I know.


- But how do you know for the vocals, it's the right take, the most honest one ?

Robert : That's not difficult. I drink when I'm singing. So I don't realize things. And the following day, the first thing I do when getting into the studio, is to listen to what I recorded. Usually, I think it's terrible. But if I like it and if I get emotional listening to it, that's the right one. I believe in the use of altered states to create. But it's true that this method isn't always convincing with the singing. I sometimes cry while singing so it's unlistenable and unbearable. You're supposed to control your singing a bit.


- You said recently, talking about Bloodflowers : "It's the Cure's sound, I accepted at last the Cure had a sound". Why was it so hard to accept the truth ?

Robert : I was really angry when people tried to impose their vision of the Cure to me. When I was told "That thing you're playing to me, it's not the Cure". And I was the one who recorded it, bloody hell ! But these last years, I accepted the fact that the Cure had a sound or at least could be better than other bands at writing some kind of atmospheric songs.

Actually, I accepted the band's limits. I thought we could do anything and explore any kind of music, but I have to admit, now, that it's not true. And it's not just a question of sound. Proof of that is that even if I think there's a link between Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers lyrics wise, I realized during the rehearsals that the old songs don't really match with the new ones. The sound on Bloodflowers is warm, with lots of acoustic guitars. We wanted to sound like if we were playing in somebody's living room. But the old songs are cold and always distant. My songwriting is better now than it used to be on the Pornography era. I put aside my childish anger and developed a reasoning approach.


- Now that you're 40, how do you explain that anger from the old days ?

Robert : Everything frustrated me. I wasn't satisfied at the time, everything I tried would disappoint me in the end. Everything seemed wrong. Nowadays, I gave up those dreams of perfection I had when I was young. The moment you understand what inaccessible dreams mean is even better. That's where my obsessions come from. Me wanting to control everything. And at some point, everybody has enough and just leave.


- Do you think you were born to be a pop star ?

Robert : It's true there are certain sides of my job that I should hate, but I like them though. Like fame and that kind of stuff... I wanted to be famous when we started. I wanted to be an artist but not a musician, when I was young. Because my younger sister was an amazing musician, she could play Mozart at 7. Compared to her, I was just an idiot that played 3 chords on a guitar and nobody in my family would consider me as a musician. All I wanted to do was creating. I tried different things but finally I was the first one to be surprised at school when we started this band that would become the Cure.

I don't consider myself as a performer, but I ended up creating a style. I'm not shy, contrary to what people say, but I'm not somebody that attracts all the attention when entering a room somewhere either. To me, that's what a pop star is. But it's true that I could think it was wrong for me to make music. In the past, all the frustration also came from that, the feeling I made a mistake about the kind of job I wanted to have and the fact that my music didn't mean anything. When we became famous with our pop songs, it went worse. But at the same time, there's not a lot of people who are able to write a good pop song. The way I was behaving helped me too. I don't live in London. I don't go to parties or shows. People say I'm an enigma. Nobody knows where and how I live outside of the Cure.


- It's one of your main themes in your lyrics, this struggle to stay normal.

Robert : Again, we have to go back to my dreams of perfection. I wanted to be famous and not famous at the same time. So that, my wife, Mary, and I, could go and drink in a pub or attend a Mogwai gig without being disturbed. But it's not possible anymore. But it's just a little sacrifice. What I talk about in the songs is more important : it's being disgusted by the fact I let myself be what people want me to be. That means, over-exagerating and be more than a pop star too. But usually, I'm aware of that, maybe too much...


- The album is getting released on Valentine's day. But it's more about the end of love...

Robert : It's about an end of an era and that's why I wanted it to be released in 1999. Bloodflowers looks back rather than look to the future, it's true. With the lyrics, I tried to express this change I could feel in me and also the feeling the band naturally reached the end. So it's more about relationships : the band with myself, the band with the others... What's sure is that it was recorded as the last Cure album.


- Was it the last one you owe to your record company ?

Robert : I have been on the same label for 20 years and I'd like to work as an independant online, in the future. What's sure is that I'll release my next work without the band. If I'm pleased, I'll go on solo. If not, I'll reunite the band. We'll keep the contact. Without me, this band, wouldn't be successful, would it ? And at the same time, if I did a record by myself and release it under the name of the Cure, it wouldn't work either. People know that even if I'm the Cure, I can't represent the band by myself. Simon Gallup, playing bass, is part of the group's identity. And when he wasn't with us, people could feel it wasn't the same thing.

I don't write songs for the Cure the same way I write songs for myself. What I write as a solo artist is less structured and much more bizarre. Sometimes I like it because I think it doesn't sound like anything else. Other times, I think it doesn't sound like anything because nobody thought of recording such awful things...