That was then, this is now, UK television, July 1988

Robert : I don't think really when we started, that any of this would ever had this vision of what we would be doing in ten years. I mean, I still don't know, I don't think of what I'd be doing in ten years. And I don't think many people do. If you're involved in anything creative, you can't really allow yourself to think about security. Which thinking about the future is... I always hoped that we'd be able to keep going, until we'd want to stop. I didn't know that'd be like ten days or ten years.


Survival

Robert : It's always related, I think, in a degree to success. But success is never like longevity. We can have normal success and then disappear. I think, you have to have a certain amount of success, mentally as much as physically, to keep going. Because you've got to think other people appreciate what you're doing. I don't think it could be very much fun if you have a certain amount of success and then it starts to wane and you're still doing things, because you realize the people, they're moving away, it's not really that interesting. It's not an explanation for why we have been able to do what we've done.


10:15 SATURDAY NIGHT - First Promotional video

Robert : We were just told to arrive, when we did that video, at this adress in London. We all turned up and expected to meet a film director who was going to talk through what he was going to do. And we had all these ideas of what we could do for the song. And he said : "we've got two and a half hours, there you go, here's your instruments." And we were "oh, we're doing it now !". So we mimed. And we thought "maybe he's doing a run-through, he wants to see how we look like when we're playing"... We sort of went away after and thought that was a bit weird. The bloke was a bit weird. And we waited and waited and nothing... We never saw it. We thought "it must have been a rehearsal". We waited about six months to do the real thing. Because it was never shown... I've never seen it on television before... And it was only two years ago, when we were putting together a video compilation, that's when I remembered. I thought : "Maybe it does exist". So we asked Polydor and they had the original copy of this film. I wish they hadn't in some ways (laughs).

What it looks like, I mean, knowing what we were like at the time is the kind of poor face that we used to adopt when we thought something was incredibly stupid. We were overwhelmed by how stupid everyone was in the record business when we first started. How sort of fixated everyone was. I think it's how we built this reputation for being very solemn. It was mainly through politeness, we didn't actually want to laugh at people. We used to just go away and think "Good God..." So we were seen as very quiet, serious bunch of lads. There wasn't really much we could do. In the first year that we've got involved, we didn't have that much control in what we were doing. It was pretty much Fiction and Chris Parry trying to mould us into this sharp new young three piece. And it took us a year to make him realize that we were in fact scruffy and awful and broke his dream.


First appearence on Top Of The Pops

Robert : I must admit at the time I didn't want us to do it. I remember distinctly saying it was a bad idea to do it. Because Top of the Pops did represent a lot of what we were trying... We were trying to succeed without using programs like Top of the Pops. I don't know... It was Simon really, 'cause he was saying "if we don't do it someone else is going to do it, you can't change things if noone knows who you are." And he was right really. I came to see that we actually had to get some level of exposure because we can't present a choice if people don't know the choice exists. So we had to let the people know that we were there, to be liked or disliked. And if we didn't do it there was like ten other groups behind us keen enough to do it. So we did it.

I think for anyone that goes for the first time, you don't really get what you see there, what you see on television. It's so different. I mean, I used to see David Bowie, Marc Bolan at Top of the Pops, and think "it looks like a really good disco". And I could go and see David Bowie or Marc Bolan playing there. When you're actually there, I mean, we were looking around thinking "where's the audience ?" in the afternoon. Suddenly we were in, we did it. And we were out and that's it. "Good night, you can go now". It's horribly disappointing.


Image

Robert : Obviously we think about what we're going to look like. Everyone does. It's impossible not to have any image. If you have a choice of clothes in the morning, you make a choice for various reasons either you want to look a certain way, you want people to see. Everyone's conscious of an image. I think it's just that we relegate it to its proper position rather than elevate it like the image is more important than what we're doing. We've always tried to keep it as a kind of secondary thing. You know, from time to time we all go out, buy matching suits... we had these shirts done. It only lasts a few weeks, everyone goes fed up and wear what they would wear anyway. Everyone who had been in the group is basically very scruffy. Noone's really that clothes conscious. They'll all hate me for saying that. (laughs). Porl is quite clothes conscious. Porl always looks very smart.


Promotional Videos

Robert : We had no interest in videos at all really, until we met Tim Pope. He sort of fired an enthousiasm that was latent is us for presenting the group in ways that would be complementary to what we did musically. Until then it was always somebody, you know, the record company, saying "next wednesday you're going to make your video". "We can't do what we want, we've got a guy to make the video. There's no input from us". We tried with Charlotte Sometimes, we met Mike Mansfield, we gave him the book from which the song came from, we tried to get him in the feeling of an old asylum, an old film noir kind of thing and it turned up like that... I mean, it was enough to kill any aspiration for us to make a decent video. It was one of the worst moment of my life I think, when we first saw the Charlotte Sometimes video.


We didn't even have a say to pick up the girl. And it was the key to the whole video. I don't know how they used to get away... I suppose it's because he had nothing to do with us. Because we were paying for him. And I think because of a complete lack of interest.


Complete Control

Robert : There's a sort of unspoken term of what I want is usually what happens. I find it very difficult to compromise when we're playing music, when we're writing music or making records. Because I know exactly what I want us to be like. I mean, there's always wild differences within the group, they usually worked out but if those differences arrive time after time with the same person, it becomes a bit pointless. Constantly arguing. I spent most of my time backing down or trying to do what I want. And the whole thing is supposed to be fun. I've never liked the idea of the group existing with a fixed line-up. Because that's how other people see the group. I've always liked to change. It doesn't bother me. I'd play in a group with anyone I'd get on with. Either they could play music or not. It has far more to do with personality involved really. I don't know, in the past there had been a few people that just really not liked what I wanted to do and they left.


Let's Go To Bed - The Video

Robert : I think it achieves exactly what we wanted to achieve which is to make me and Lol completely stupid. Sort of a Tears For Fears video. We just tried to shatter all the illusions that people had built up about us being very remote, very solemn, moody. We just wanted to make something that was so stupid people wouldn't actually be able to accept it was me and Lol. And it worked. I couldn't accept it was me and Lol for years ! Just denying it was us at all.


I think Lol's like a blanket really. Like an old blanket, dirty, that you don't really think about why you carry it until someone says "why do you carry this dirty old blanket ?" And you suddenly realize you couldn't get a new one. 'Cause you've become sort of emotionally attached through mutual experiences. I think Lol is that blanket. Fair enough that ! (laughs)


1982-1983 Pornography and pressure

Robert : At that time everything's got too much really. The whole thing had become too intense and very depressing. And everything seemed to be wrong. We seemed to be so stagnating and me and Simon were fighting all the time. Eventually it just got to the point where Simon left and it was just me and Lol. And after how close I've been with Simon and how good I think the group had been for about two years as a three piece, and we didn't seem we got anywhere really. When we made Pornography which I was really pleased, really proud, noone else would like it. So I decided to go off for a few months. So I disappeared. I took a tent and went camping in England. And I just found I was writing songs again.

And I remember the Oxford Road Show... I phoned the office once a week to see how everyone was and what was going on. And they asked us to play so I thought it'd be good just to say yes, even though we didn't have a group. That would force me to do something because I was getting worse and more depressed so... we drew together a group from nowhere and just went and did it. Part of it was... I was trying to prove to Simon, looking back, that the group could carry on without him. There was pride involved. And the songs and the idea of the group is more important than any of the individual members. So I thought I just need to get anyone with me on stage and just play songs from Pornography. It was actually set up as a promotional excercise for Let's Go To Bed. At the last minute we changed and did songs from Pornography. We had two weeks before actually performing and it was really good fun. I actually enjoyed myself like I hadn't for about two years. I felt really like I was singing...


Cure Live

Robert : Playing concerts is just... one of the motivation of being in a group. Just wanting to perform in front of people. It's just like experience. If you start to question it, you start to question anything really. It's all it is. Experience. I enjoy it. If I didn't enjoy it, the group wouldn't play live. I don't really think that you have to. It adds a dimension to a group. You can interpret songs, if you play together for long enough, you actually establish communication within a group, actually enhance it when you play or go to the studio. The last record we played I think it's the best one we've ever done because we went to the studio and we played live, we played as a group. It shows... You know, groups that don't play live build records rather than play them. You can tell.

There's like a sense of communion as well when you play live, when you play a good concert. It transcends the idea of a group. Because I'm sure most people going to a concert, if it's a good night, it has not much to do with the group. You meet people that like what you like. It's just a whole event. And that's what I like. The atmosphere of that, being part of that. Making all the records in the world, you can't get that. You can't actually get that kind of physicality.


Cure in Orange - Feature film

Robert : As we were just about going into the studio to record the Kiss Me album, I wanted to set up some concerts for the group. The idea of being able to play together in front of an audience to make us feel like a group. So when we'd go to the studio we'd play like a group. And I thought when we come out of the studio, we're gonna have a lot of new songs therefore when we play live again we're gonna play a lot of new songs. So we'll have to discard a lot of old songs. I just wanted to capture us at that point playing everything we recorded up to that point because I thought we were playing really well. I thought the group looked and sounded good. And I just wanted a video done for our sake.


(Six Different Ways live)

Robert : It was the first bit, the first one that we saw when the film was being done. We asked to see a song of it to see how it looked like. We were recording down in Miraval, in France. And it sort of reminds me, just for selfish reasons, of the whole time and also as soon as I saw it, it made me feel exactly how I feel on stage. It makes me squirm.


Fame

Robert : It happened so slowly and I suppose I've grown used to people coming from time to time saying I really like your last record. It seems natural, we don't have a kind of an adulation, we do in certain countries, but it's only there 'cause it's manufactured I always think. But for me personally, what I do, hasn't changed over the years, wherever I go, who I see... You don't become the president of America because you want to be famous. It's how I think of what we do. It's regrettable in some ways, I don't really think I could recognise Ennio Morricone in an Italian restaurant but he's more famous than I am. It's different degrees, if it happens slowly enough you understand why it's happening. You don't go seeking it. I think it's controlable.