Autumn 1996 by Mad-JT
French fanzine Three Imaginary boys
Translated in english from french by Mad
TIB interviews are privileged moments, and insights deeper than we can find in the media. These interviews often take place outside of normal promotional periods , and try to present a different side of The Cure. Bercy's backstage provided the starting point for these series of rendez-vous. From the tentative meeting in the fascinating atmosphere of The Prayer Tour, an irrepressible attraction to this exercise lead us to renew the experience, first in the recording studios during the Wish demos, then on the following tours. You'll read in this chronicle, extracts from the most significant words gathered as the years go by... (http://www.thecure.com/tib.html)
The world tour was coming to its end. An impression of serenity prevailed backstage. Few times during the European tour, Robert took time to confide to us his thoughts and state of mind during the most key moments of the Swing Tour. TIB met The Cure singer at the Bataclan, Kiel and Birmingham.
Robert is analysing the big transformations between the Wish and Swing Tour's gigs. The words are lucid and he's talking about the reasons of the Swing Tour success.
Flashback over the mood of the tour…
In a lot of ways I’ve changed a lot since the Wish Tour. I found it very difficult to make sense of some of the things I did, how I was like... I did things in public that I found quite weird. But I’m still like that.
I think that some of the concerts on this tour have been among the best concerts I have ever done. And I think the reactions kinda prove that. It's just not me kinda thinking like its some kinda nostalgia. But, one thing really good is having Roger back in the group, and actually being able to play some of those songs again. Having the ability to play "Prayers For Rain", do it properly, and actually make it sound good. It added a dimension to the group which I think was missing on the Wish Tour. The Wish tour was really good but it kinda just stayed the same, and didn't evolve. The first two concerts were almost the same as the last two concerts. Where on this tour it's like it's a completely different show, a completely different sound, different mentality, different group almost than the first concerts.
The biggest difference is my mental approach to this tour is very different than to the Wish Tour. The Wish tour was much more like a show. It was like the entire show was on purpose. It's like I was making fun of myself because it was like a show. Where as this is much more kinda back to the idea that I used to have, that I'm the most important person on stage, not the audience. So it's back to the selfish days. But it's weird because I think it works better. We just play what I want and we do what I want, and the audience seems to prefer it anyway. When we were doing the Wish Tour, it was constructed to be a spectacle and that’s what it was like... but it was only one step away from Disintegration. It's kind of a logical step to get bigger. We went back to America and did the Rosebowl, the biggest venue in America, and Texas Stadium, it's like it doesn't make sense. This time we couldn't. I was really pleased in a bizarre way that we weren't as popular. Because probably given the option to do a stadium we would be like, "Ok just one more", you know. So it was really good that we went off the stadiums.
I think it was really good to see that everything worked together on stage. It's nothing compared to 92 where everybody played for himself. Now it seems to be more like a band playing together.
Yeah. There is actually communication on stage, but this is like the first time it's happening in about ten years that I talk to everyone on stage. I walk and then just chat with them. Before, I always felt very uncomfortable. I've always talked to Simon, but if I ever tried to talk to Porl, it was like something was wrong. I'd only have a talk with him if something was wrong. The only communication we would have on stage was, "what the fuck is going on?". Whereas this time you get someone that smiles and, It's nice they're smiling up to you.
I also think the balance is right as well on stage. And that's the difference. That's like introducing some of the other songs, I think it's giving everyone an understanding of what the group is and what the group does. And even on the very rare occasions when we've done songs like "The Figurehead" or "The Drowning Man", by the way the audience reacts, it kind of gives a sense of what the purpose of the group is, not the history of the group. It reminds me as well, it's like I enjoy doing it. Whereas on the Wish Tour, we just concentrated exclusively on the obvious songs, or the Wish songs, and that was it. Whereas with this tour, it's kind of, you know, there have been a couple of nights we've played like only seven songs from Wild Mood Swings which was pretty unheard of in the past. I think the emphasis is probably more promoting the album and promoting the group, whereas this time it was like "fuck no one likes it anyway so we better enjoy it". So in some ways the lack of audience is actually worked to our advantage because you have to cope with it. I mean it doesn't upset me as much as it upsets some of the others they’re a bit like, "oh no, no ones likes us" but there's a way of dealing with it. I tried to introduce in to the group psyche of thinking, the people there are the ones that matter. So it's like if it's good for them, it doesn't matter about the people who aren't. Whether they believe it or not, I don't know. So you've got to make them feel like when they go away they say, "you should have been there it was really good". That how you get back at the people that didn't bother to go.
So you are enjoying the tour?
Yes.... I've really enjoyed virtually all of it this time apart from one or two occasions where I felt a bit ill. Also the area of travelling I'm never gonna enjoy it, it's shit. Hotels can be really fabulous, but it's still shit having to live out of a bag. Particularly now that I have a really nice home. I'm kind of much more settled that I used to be. Having to get up day after day and go somewhere else, or go somewhere different. But the mood of the band has been a hundred times better than it has ever been before on tour. There's only been one big argument on the tour.
Between?
Me and Simon. And it was seriously a big argument as well. We had a fight, that was really good, the first time in years. But that was it. As soon as it happened all the tension went. It was all built up from the start of the tour, as there always is. The most important thing is how the shows have been. Generally, It’s certainly some of the best we've ever done as a group, and I think the standard of the shows have been really high. Genuinely high, and I think it comes with actually daring to do a lot of sets. Before I wouldn’t do different songs that we had never did. On this tour, we have actually done different songs and it made the difference just going on stage and playing old songs and you're not quite sure if they gonna work, it's really good, it's a really good feeling.
We should have done "Six Different Ways" I was thinking it'd be funny like when we did "The Same Deep Water As You" for the first time in Manchester. I thought we must do one last new song tonight, but I don't think we will get away with it. Really I think it was terrible. But it doesn't matter, we have almost done as much as I wanted to do. I think I wanted to do 75 at the start. I've got a list of 75 songs in my bag and I think we've done about 70. Have we? Something like that! Over the course of this year, the only one that we didn't do that I wanted to do is "All Cats Are Grey". We didn't do it which is a shame. I wanted to do "Pornography" as well at one point but...
Bataclan
...I hated Bataclan. Horrible. That was the worst concert actually. Lots worst than Stuttgart.
I thought it was much too hot. We didn't have any fans on stage. I asked for fans and there wasn't a single fan in the building. That was incredible. Even if I was like 21, I would need a fan!!! It was so hot I was gonna die, and I kept running out of water on stage because they forget to give me some. That is a minor point, but when it turned out you have five seconds to get a drink and there's nothing there... I was really angry. It just didn't work for me. Just I really hated ever second of it from the moment we started to the moment we finished. There was a foul mood when we got back to the hotel.
But every fan enjoyed this show!!!
Do you reckon? I think it's one of the things there's kind of a nostalgia or like "I was there" ...
No I think they enjoyed it because you played unusual songs. You we're wondering before if the people cared about "Subway Song" and I can tell you yes. The people there were real fans.
Yes I suppose that's what made the difference, but as a concert it was rubbish.
Do you really think that?
Yeah. If you compare that as a performance, and everything about it to the Bercy show, I think the Bercy show was infinitely better. I was really angry the next day because Bill phoned up and said "oh people said it was the best show you've done in France in ten years" I thought "It's fucking bollocks, it is."
That's not the same thing. I don't think we can compare
I thought doing "Funeral Party" was good. But even "Subway Song" was really fucked because they got me the wrong harmonica, in the wrong key.
Nobody noticed that!
I did. It's supposed to be B flat, and they gave me B. They just said don't blow as hard and it'll sound the same. And also I think because there was so many things going on that day that I didn't really enjoy it. There was too much, and I think going back through Paris, when I got on stage my head was just spinning. If I had gone for a beer for a couple of hours and got into the mood I would have enjoyed the concert. But I felt like I was just part of the side show.
You got stressed?
I didn't get into the atmosphere at all. That would have been the kind of show if we'd have been up in the dressing room for an hour before we went on, everyone would have been really excited. It would have been really good, but we just kind of arrived, and went on stage. It wasn't really that much fun. I don't know about the others, but I don't think Simon enjoyed it. They said the reason it wasn't really good, is because it was too long, and because I was too pedantic about having two songs from every album. I should just have one song from every album.
That's why you skipped "Never Enough"
Yeah. I mean I could see that point actually. If we had done one song from every album it would only have been a thirteen song set.
Swing Tour
Did the fact that you got less audience this time compared to the Wish tour affect you?
Over the course of the whole tour? It didn't in America. I didn't really noticed it in America. I suppose because it's generally bigger audience anyway. Apart from Orléans and Kiel which was ludicrously low audience, like about 1500 or something. 1100 in Kiel and 1500 in Orléans or 1600, which is pretty dismal. Had we done Aberdeen, that was about 1100 as well. It would have been pretty awful. I think everything bellow 2 is "we can't even play 2000 people." At the same time it doesn't get to me in the way that I feared that it might. Because I've enjoyed the concerts so much that in some ways I kinda think, "if we had more people here it would have been louder, but it wouldn't have been better". So at least you know that the people at the concerts are really the ones that want to see us play. That they're not just going because.... I think maybe in the past people felt the feeling "oh we’ll see what they like, or we'll take a chance" so half the audience is buying tickets and we've got to impress them. Whereas this time I don't think anyone had done that. There wasn't a single person in the audience who'd bought a ticket and were gonna wait to see what we were like. I think every person there knew that they liked the group. So in a lot of ways touring in Europe, probably more than in the UK, the audience was really good. Spain and Italy, they were fanatical. That was like.... And in France the audience was genuinely pretty good. Germany was a bit funny, and it's always funny in England. Well Wembley was a really good concert and Manchester was really good. I didn't like Sheffield, I thought it was terrible.
How can you explain this. Is it because you kind of disappeared during four years?
Yeah, I think we missed out on like a whole generation of students (laughs-Ed. note) by being away for four years. Being absent there's a high percentage of people who goes to the shows in that age, so you lose. I mean, people of my age don't really go to concerts anymore so we have to refresh our audience, and I think they made more of a difference than I imagined they would. But I just think we're like probably more unfashionable than we've ever been at the moment. It's just that. It's the way I look I suppose. I don't know. We're just very out of step with what's in vogue, particularly here . I'm not really sure about it in Europe. I think a lot of it is kind of a media trivia or a lack of exposure in the media. In the sense of people are very familiar with who we are. They don't feel like they know who the group is. And they don't really empathise with me as a singer. So it's much more difficult to do an album. I think that if Wild Mood Swings had came up two yeas after the Wish album, it would have been number one. Because it would have been the same people. But I think after four years, people forget and they kinda, moved on to different things. And then the next generation of people are not being told that The Cure are good because everyone in the papers are saying we're shit. We don't have a hit single, and we don't really get that much exposure on the radio or TV, generally. But it's very difficult. I suspect that after this tour, if we were to bring something out next year depending on what it was, it would probably do better than Wild Mood Swings. But there's isn't really the point of doing that. I've never worried you know. I mean, that's the first time I ever had to consider the fact that our audience is going down. That’s kind of a new thing but it's not... you know, I remember when actually playing to 1100 people would have been a fucking dream so... I thought we were good then so it doesn't really matter. I mean, I wouldn't go back to playing if I suspected that no one really wanted us to play anymore, or that no one wanted us to do something. I wouldn't force the issue. I wouldn't, I mean I wish that we'd done the UK dates in theatres. I was imploring them that we play in theatres. They would have been really excellent to play like the Albert Hall, and Manchester Apollo. They're really, really good places to play and that was the kind of level I feel we were at. But the promoters said, "no no no, you'll be fine, we will do a lot of advertising " and it hasn't worked. Because it doesn't matter , you can put up as many posters as you want, but if people don't want to go to the concerts, they won't go. So it's a bit of a mistake. And it's a kind of a shame the way we’ve ended??? I mean I think it would be all right tonight, because Birmingham is usually quite good, but I think it's a bit downward in England, anyway. We should have ended in Rome or something.
About the future...
What about next year?
I'll be recording next year.
You don't want to wait 4 more years? It's too much?
I don't really know if I want to tour next year to be honest. I honestly have thought of all these concerts as being the last time I'll do it. Which is one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much.
You say that every time you tour!!!
But it has to be true at one point. I know we'll never do a tour like this again, travelling around in a bus doing like hundreds of concerts 'cause I don't have the mental capacity to do it. I don't really don't...
Do a small tour, festivals...
Yeah, but It's not really as good to do festivals. I mean it would be possible to do it, a small tour of just like major cities, but it would cost a fortune and we'd have to get sponsorship. I don't want to do concerts with sponsors so... It's difficult. It would be like doing a tour for the sake of playing live. I mean that's what happened with this tour, which started off just wanting to do big cities. Then when it put out just how much it would cost if we wanted to get a proper stage, we would lose like a hundred thousand pounds doing it. No one wanted to lose a hundred thousand pounds so we had to make the tour much longer. It's one of those ridiculous things you have to play a certain number of concerts a week if you got a big production. Obviously we could go and play clubs and it cost nothing...
I heard you still have an album due to Polydor?
Well, if we make another album, it has to come out on Polydor. It doesn't mean we have to make another album. They're two different things. I mean we could make an album, or I can make a solo album that counts as a Cure album as well to get out of my contract. Then I could re-negotiate another contract for a greatest hits and make lots of money. Great!!! I don't know what I wanna do really. I actually haven't started to think about it too much. There was just this thing about South Africa the other night because I know this girl who's a princess in South Africa. A Zulu princess, she actually flew over to Copenhagen and we cancelled. She was a bit upset. She said she would organise for us to play in South Africa, but I don't know. I know everyone else wants to.... If I said yes, we would go to Japan, Australia, South America, and South Africa next year, March and April. It's only me that holds it back. As usual, because I don't really fancy going at the moment. I'm the only one that’s got a home, and Simon.
So are you going to make another album?
Yeah. I'd rather do that. But I don't know how we're gonna do it!!! Because what I want to do is like nothing that we've done before.
That's another question, is there any ground that you want to experience?
Yeah. I can picture it in my head and I can hear what I want to do. Just about... It's never that clear but it's taking shape. But it sounds like nothing that we have ever done.
It's between what and what?
Well... I don't really know what my reference points are. I wanna use a string quartet again because I really like the sound. But I want to use a string quartet that I kinda live with for about a month to get them to play in a certain way. Than I want to use that quartet itself as an instrument, rather than just a quartet. I want things to be very rhythmic. I wanna use combinations of instruments that a group wouldn't use. I don't want to make another pop record basically, or another album that's like based around bass, drums, guitar and keyboards. It would just sounds like Wild Mood Swings. So I wanna do something that's... If anything, "Numb" would probably be like the closest thing in a general direction of what I wanna do. But it would be much harder in that it wouldn't be so traditional. But it would still be melodic, and it would still be listenable. I don't wanna do music that no one likes. But I just like the idea of using combinations of sounds that we haven't used before, that I haven't used before.
So what about the dance album?
Well this would incorporate dance. When I was saying about a dance album, it doesn't mean I was gonna make jungle album, or club dance. I mean, there's dance and there’s dance. I mean Tango is how I think of dance. Like I said before it really is not that kind... .I mean Accordion is like another instrument I'd really love. I think it got a fucking brilliant sound but... what they are called, the French group that used it? Les Negresses Vertes, they're using an accordion on some of their songs. When I hear that I think well I really love the accordion, and I only used it once in our pretend French song, you know "How Beautiful You Are". But that wasn't a real accordion. But then like to work with somebody who can play accordion it would be really good. Just like it would to write a song for an accordion player and me to sing to with like a good beat. The problem is if I start writing words, and if I sing it's gonna sound like The Cure, so it doesn't really matter. If I don't sing to it, and if won't sound like The Cure it doesn't really matter. All I've got to decide is if I want to sing on the album, or if I wanna get someone else to sing on the album, or if I just don't want anyone to sing on the album. That's my only dilemma.
I can't imagine someone else singing!!!
I can't imagine a boy singing.... Maybe singing with someone, or maybe singing with a different person on each song. Having guest people perform. I don't know anything, just something different. I just don't want to make the same record again. I thought Wild Mood Swing, followed down from Wish. I think they worked together, there's a lot of similarities and I think Wild Mood Swings carries on from where Wish left off. But it wouldn't carry on from where Wild Mood Swings left off. I just want stop there and then do something completely different. Which is a bit weird because it would be the first time ever the group stayed the same. Because as far as I'm aware no one is leaving, unless they haven't told me. Whereas after the other tours we've done there was always someone who'd left the group. So it would be funny using the same people, but I think if we bring other people in from the outside to play it actually would change the kind of internal dynamic. But I think we should do something next year or not at all. Because it'd be too late. I think if I go home again and sit down in front of the fire I would never get up again. It might not be a bad thing. But I might do it at home. I might record at home this time.
20 years anniversary
It's gonna be your 20 years anniversary next year!!!
Yeah. It's actually 20 years that I first got on stage at my school.
I mean the 20th anniversary of the group is like a promotional marketing campaign. It won't happen next year, because when it happens it's like that's the end. It would be held until 1999, I should think. Because that would be the first album, Three Imaginary Boys was out in 79. So I think if it's Polydor, or from Fiction's point of view, they would rather celebrate a 20 year anniversary with the release of the first album. They will bring all the albums out and make more money. It doesn't mean anything to anyone that I got on stage twenty years ago, except to me. But I think once that retrospective happened that's the end of the group. Really. So 1999 that will be better for me, Psychologically better. It'd be much more like a close circle. I'd be 40, so it would all falling into a place??, at the same moment. I don't know, I mean earlier in the year, I was pretty adamant that next year would be the retrospective year and that was it. I really wanted to give up. But I don't now. So I've changed over the course, just over the last three or four months really. I don't feel as despondent as I did after the American tour. I was really unhappy after the American Tour, I just felt really tired but.. I actually feel better at this end now, then I did at the start of the European Tour . I feel in a better frame of mind. I never felt so happy at the end of a tour. There's something going wrong, I'll fall offstage and break my legs tonight!!!!
Honestly, I wouldn't like to see you on stage old and you couldn't sing!
That's why I feel like we have to do something different. So it does lie with the opportunity of doing something different. Because if I did wanna play in front of people, I don't want to do this. Because I don't want to do this again. I don't want to go on stage and be Me doing "Just Like Heaven" again. That's what I don't want to do. In two years time, I don't wanna go on tour and do that again. Go on stage doing something which is like based around a completely different... Using different promos and I won't be the focal point as much. Actually.... I don't know. There's a lot of things that one can do and still perform. I pretty would miss it. I don't think I'll stop completely.
Europe, Autumn 1996