Smith Concentrates On His Strange World

Isolated at a ranch not more than two hours of London, the vocalist of The Cure is patiently finishing the band new album, expected to be put out in May of next year. Before, the band contains the Hollywood Rock Festival in São Paulo, January 21, and conclude the festival opening night in Rio de Janeiro, 26. Against Robert Smith is the fact that not much was talked about Cure in Brazil in the last years since from the tour’1987. In favor of Robert Smith is a petition with more than twenty thousand signatures asking the turn of the band.
The house gives the impression of a of tunnel time. A century XVII construction with views for enormous fields lawns, portals of wood slice and pictures portraying members of the family to which the house belongs.
The band rented the place there are about two years and ever since it is full of magazines, videos, keyboards and electronic equipments that Smith uses to give the final shape to the disc.
Smith knows that, in a certain way, he became a character and, although he treats the fact with a certain sarcasm, he knows how to maintain that folklore in agreement with his interest... Sat down in a sofa, he talked about The Cure.

The shows in Brazil will be close to the final preparations for the release of the disc. Is the idea to promote the new album?
RS: Not even we will play many musics of the new disc. Perhaps just two. We are just going to Brazil to do the shows and not to sell discs. That we will mix old songs with things of more recent albums that are not so well-known in Brazil. It would be stupid to go to Brazil after ten years and only to play the new things because twenty thousand fans signed a petition asking our turn wanting to hear old things.

Does that include hits that you already played when they were in Brazil, as "Boys Don't Cry"?
RS: It is important to remind that it is a festival show, therefore there will are a lot of people that won't be there because of The Cure. We have to try to capture those people. The ideal is to play a music of each disc at least, what would already make a 15 music set. And to choose some other ones that work well in that kind of show. We have about 30 musics rehearsed to choose. But actually we will just know what will play in the hour.

The live album Show has several climates passages, with keyboards effects and climates used for a calmer audition. Will the shows in Brazil have that rhythm or will they be faster, once Cure is the fifth band of the night ?
RS: I saw Supergrass live and they are brilliant. I never saw Smashing Pumpkins, but I know that they are also good live. White Zombie is a very heavy group. We are different from all them, but we don't have to try to play weighed in order to not being behind White Zombie. There are ten years ago I thought in that way, but today I don't need because, after all, we are the main band of the night. I am not saying that we are better than the others, but we are as good as the others.

My question was more on the aspect of entering in the stage and the public already to be gotten tired...
RS: In Brazil? I doubt. Any way, when the cast of the night is good, the public doesn't get tired.

On the way you does speak, doesn't it seem to have delayied so much to return to Brazil?
RS: When we finished the Disintegration tour, I was razed and thought never will want to play again. Then, in 1992, we made 150 shows and I was again exhausted. Unhappily, when we are on tour, we drank a lot, we used many drugs and we were wakened up until the dawn. At the end of the trip, nobody tolerates more. There are bands that make two year-tours. I can’t. Although I don't have family, other things that I like to do exist and they are not possible during a tour.

What did change after Laurence Tolhurst's departure, once he wrote all the music?
RS: If was him that made all the music, how the group stayed the same with him having left five years ago? And why didn't he produce nothing during all that time? His departure didn't mean anything for me. Us no longer we spoke to each other when we were in Brazil, in 1987. He became an alcoholic and a drug addict. Actually, it was a relief to me. Unhappily, he tried to process me last year saying that, as founder of the band, he has the band name copyright. But he never made anything important and just was in the band because he was my friend. The reason I place the name of everybody in the music copyright is because I don't want to fight for money. We won enough to divide among everybody.

Mike Dringberg, designer that created the character Sandman, and Tim Burton, director of Edward Hands of Scissors, they assumed that based on you to create the characters. How do you feel with that projected image?
RS: With relationship to Sandman, I feel honest because Neil Gaiman's character is brilliant. Concerning to Edward, Tim Burton tied me and he asked me to do the music for the film. When I saw it I was disturbed and I found better not to do anything. After all, the people already thought was me that was in the film, but actually it doesn't have anything to do with me. It is just a projected image based on a visual.

New band only maintains Simon Gallup
The band that will accompany Robert Smith in the shows of The Cure in Hollywood Rock is very different from the band that was in Brazil in 1987. Just Simon Gallup integrated the group at that time, but once he doesn't like to talk so much he prefers to summarize the passage for the country as: 'It was a chaos'.
The new companions are Roger O'Donnell, Perry Bamonte and Jason Cooper, that just is in the group for one year. Actually, Bamonte also has memories of Brazil. He was roadie. 'In Brazil it was a positive chaos, in Argentina it was caotic in fact'.
For the band, it is an interesting experience to begin the year with a new temporad in Brazil. Everybody is anciosos. 'When we played in the European festivals, Were was encouraged', comments Bamonte. He thinks the same will happen in Brazil without the danger of the band not being in good form. 'We will be cold but playing with pleasure'.
'If the fans want to hear things from 1987, we won't disappoint them', informs Roger O'Donnell. 'I think the sound of the band is now big and better', tries to define Bamonte. 'With a little lucky we learned to play', Gallup says.
None of the band knows for sure waht to wait from Robert Smith for the disk. All the bases are already recorded, but the music move as he makes the letters and record the vocals. 'It is a continuous composition process', O'Donnell says. Twenty-four tracks exist of which twelve are just going for the album. 'The material is very varied and it can surrender the disc with a defined theme or not', comments O'Donnell.
Anyway, the new album of The Cure, four years after Wish, has the mission to comfirm that the band really got to cross the bridge among the decade of 80, of the which was one of the english rock symbols, and the one of 90, in that still appears as one of the legends in activity. 'In fact, no many bands survived', O'Donnell says. 'If you try to return, it will always sound unupdated'.
(Gabriel Bastos Júnior)