Much Music, Toronto, Canadian TV 21st October 1985





- You've been on tour for a little while I guess, supporting the new album which is called The Head On The Door. And this is the first visit to Canada as far as I know with this LP.

Robert : Humm, we started off... the very first day on tour was Vancouver.


- Oh, all right.

Robert : Two weeks ago. And then we're going to Montreal.


- How do you find the Canadian audiences this time around ?

Robert : Toronto is very different to Vancouver. Vancouver is much louder, much more "aaahhh" than Toronto.


- People are screaming at the Cure this time around ?

Robert : Yeah, generally.


- That's interesting to me because I've always seen the Cure's music as not a music you would scream to à la perhaps U2 or the Durans or anybody like that... That it was more music you would sit back and listen to and then try to... I don't want to say figure what's it all about, but just music that would make you think a little bit.

Robert : I assume they probably scream of despair, they probably reached the point they figured out there's nothing there and just go "aaahhh".


- Do you like people trying to read into the music, in performances especially ?

Robert : It depends.. We tend to work around the audience than the other way around. So like yesterday we did a very dressy audience, we played probably too many pop songs for their taste . Hummm, we usually get it right. I mean, it depends, some audiences you can tell. You just sort of look around, you can see what they look like, you can see what the place is like. So you play a set which is going to make them feel either totally horrible or totally good. And what we feel like as well.


- The original audience was one that used to more or less not scream.

Robert : Yeah. The original audience was much younger, they sort of grown up with us. And another lot has moved in and replaced them, they're sort of the same age, 16 or 17.


- So the new one group is the one that screams...

Robert : Yeah, 'cause there seems to be more girls than boys. When we used to be much more a boy group.


- What do you think of these new kind of fans, because it seems to me that if anybody is the antithesis of a pop star group, it is the Cure.

Robert : Yeah, but at the same time it would be the most frustrating thing in the world to stay with the same audience. Duran Duran has probably housewifes screaming at them for ten years... We made a decision that we should change our audience. After Pornography, we released Let's Go To Bed, we knew we would be getting a new batch of people. It's funny, it makes the whole thing more up really for us, more interesting.


- The basis for the audience has always been UK and Europe. And North America has been a ground where you got in there on an underground or alternative level but you never broke through to the mass audience. Is it a market you really want to hit, do you care much about it ?

Robert : (laugh). That would be horrible. We appeal to a certain amount of people, I think there's a limit beyond which we'll never appeal. It's something that we accepted when we started. We were never massively popular, it doesn't really make any difference. I can't think of something worse but... there's very few things that would be worse than spending your life trying to sell a lot of records in Canada or America.


- How are you, as an artist, dealing with record companies, a structure that is "just make as much money as you can".

Robert, They quickly learn we're not like that. That's why we change of label every year...


- How do you do that ? What gives you the power to do that ?

Robert : Humm, because we never take any money off them. That's the only terms I'm thinking. If you say : 'we'll sign a deal for a year, you've got to give us total control and we don't want any money', that sort of things... -Ahh, What are they up to ?... If they don't give you any money, then they don't care if you leave at the end of the year and say 'you're not right, I don't want to stay here'..


- It's a dangerous way to live as artist.

Robert : Not really. Why is it dangerous ?


- You don't know where your next record is going to be recorded on.

Robert : That doesn't matter 'cause we have our own label in England. Everything that gets released around the world comes from us in London. All the artwork, anything to do with us, anything that has our name on it...it has to be approved in an office in London.


- So you do it on your own church.

Robert : Yeah, wherever we go to, it's just distribution really. Elektra are probably the best one so far because they sort of realised we have been around long enough now, they've got to take us seriously.


- There are a lot of people calling this new album the one to really break through in North America.

Robert : (laughs).


- But then you turn around and say you don't think you're safe or confortable or banal enough to blend into the American ideal.

Robert : It's really easy to sort of generalise and be banal anyway about America. I don't think I said that. People who come to see us in America are the same who come to see us anywhere around the world. There's no difference at all. It's just there's more people here than there are in England. In England, it's far easier to communicate with a lot of people, because there are a lot of people there. I mean, here, like tomorrow, we're going to Cleveland. We've never been to Cleveland before. Every tour we do in America, we go somewhere where we think it will be funny. Last year we went to Texas. It always ends up being clichés.


- Where have you been in Texas ?

Robert : We went to Houston, Dallas and Austin. I mean, we're really defensive about we weren't Texans. We're not like : imagine how they're gonna be. In fact the only time we've ever come across a loud talking Texan was in a bar...having a drinking competition. So it's not really true. All of us that would be like, I'd be wearing a bow hat 'cause I'm English. It's not really true. But at the same time, the record business side of things, the way it works over here is very different to the rest of the world. It's really hyper. And it's all based on the idea of being successful. There's very little room for anyone to do anything purely for artistic reasons.


- It's starting to change, there's a whole independant network starting up in Canada...

Robert : There's always been things going on. Again, everywhere we go, cassette tapes are given to me by local bands. Wherever we go, there's people trying to do something. But it's much harder to do anything here. Because in England you can get noticed so much easier.


- You played so many hits last evening, why didn't you play Lovecats ?

Robert : Argh. 'Cause we can't, strangely. We didn't learn it on purpose. We played it twice on the past two years, both times it was disastrous. I don't think we'll play it again. It was good as a club record but live somehow it doesn't really translate.


- How do you like playing to four or five to six thousands at the time. Is that the way you like to do it best ? Because it seems to me that the perfect venue for the Cure would be a broom closet in a house that would be two hundred years old...

Robert : It depends how we feel. Some days I feel like that, yeah. I've got such bad eyesight, I can't really see past the front row anyway. So I never know how it feels. First there was only a hundred people I believed.


- How strong is the persona of Robert Smith ? For the last six months, every time you see some little girl with a funny aircut like this, she says 'when is robert Smith coming ?'. She doesn't say 'when is the Cure coming'. And I know that as far as personnel change goes, the Cure has pretty much been a revolving door with the exception that you never left.

Robert : Although it's revolved full circle because out of five, four of us have been involved in the Cure before. So there's only really one new comer, that's Boris. I don't know, I suppose it sort of developed over the years that I become like a focal point. It's not something that we tried to plan. The others encourage it, 'cause they can stay in bed when I have to come and do this. So... I don't mind really. I always think of me in the third person anyway. How different I am from myself.


- I know that you don't dance around on stage like perhaps Paul Young would, it's perhaps more mystique, mysterious...

Robert : I'm not a very natural performer. I don't fit really naturally into this at all. I find most of it really absurd. Things like this came out a decision that was taken at the beginning, that we should try to get this record heard. It was out of frustration of hearing Paul Young as opposed to us.


- If you want to get out there and get the record heard that sort of goes a little bit against what you said before : you just want to do it purely for art sake and you don't care really about commercialism...

Robert : Yeah, but it's the same. When we did Pornography, we released like Lets Go To Bed and The Walk and The Lovecats, we never obviously desired to get played on the radio. So this record is more accessible. I mean, there's ways you can do things. I think this is the most complete record we've ever done, it's not my favorite, but I still think it's better than 95% of what anyone does.


- What's your favorite ?

Robert : Pornography... the Cure remains one of the three groups I think "I'd like to be in that group". I don't mind what we do. I don't really mind if we disappear or if -we never wanted success- we're successful. It's all based on an attitude more than anything else. Our attitude has always stayed the same : a total disregard for what other people do, what other people think.


- What is it about the darker things in life that intrigue you ?

Robert : Name something in life that isn't dark.


- There are a lot of dark things but so many people... What about the fun things that make you forget the tribulations in life ? And I believe that's perhaps a shallow attitude, but to write clearly about the dark things...

Robert : The Lovecats isn't really this sort of song. A lot of it, when I have a sort of... I don't know... despair, I suppose. It's all come out when we constantly like argue and talk to ourselves about things. It's not only socially. If you don't have any type of faith in anything, it's very difficult to be happy. I mean, properly happy. And some days I do. Today, I'm not really awaken enough to know if I believe in it. I'm not sure if I'm happy standing there.


- So you're pursuing hope in the future or...?

Robert : No. Not the sort of things I should talk about really. I'll be here for another two days...