1990 - Bravo - (Germany)* (Translation below)
"Bravo Talk Show: Robert Smith: We won’t ever tour again!"

Bravo: TALK SHOW: Stars in private

 Robert Smith: We won’t ever tour again!

Picture in right corner:
Robert Smith while talking with BRAVO reporter Hannsjörg Riemann

Picture on bottom:
It will be very seldomly when you can see The Cure play live again.
From left to right Robert, Perry, Porl, Boris, Simon

BRAVO: For more than a year there are continually new rumours going on about The Cure throwing in the towel. Does your band still exist?

Robert Smith: Those rumours came about because of our decision, at the end of the “Disintegration“ tour last year, never to tour again. This decision is fixed. In summer we played seven concerts at big festivals in 15 days. That’s the way playing live is fun. I have time to have a good night’s rest and to have a look at the country. I feel good, I’m not homesick. If The Cure want to go on a huge tour we have to launch a gigantic, expensive machine which in the end degrades us to small wheels. We hired a bunch of people and then were of course responsible for them. There wasn’t any room for spontaneous ideas or decisions. That’s not fun at all, that’s hard work. And we aren’t into those kind of things. By the way, the band exists. Right now we’re working on a new album. But I don’t have an idea when it will be finished.

BRAVO: So once again – you will never ever tour again?

Robert: No.

BRAVO: Will you at least play regularly at festivals?

Robert: I don’t know. The travelling and live-playing is a really difficult chapter for me. I don’t want to predict anything. I know how fucked up I felt in the middle of the “Disintgration“ tour. Different factors are working together. The most important one: I’m too old for the business. I neither have the physical nor the mental strength to stand it. When we hang around with each other the entire time on tour, we drink of course. And then on stage we try to push ourselves to the limit so that the concert will be great. Afterwards I feel like a squeezed-out orange, empty and broken. I can’t manage that for weeks anymore. The prospect to not be able to close my front door behind me for weeks is utter horror for me. Packing a suitcase every day and climbing into the bus – brr. Please don’t think that I’m a sissy. To be on tour is actually a lot of fun. But the way The Cure are, it’s always been too much fun for me. I just can’t get drunk every night of the week, the way we usually do, to not sleep three days a week. I’m too old and too tired.

BRAVO: Is alcohol your main problem?

Robert: No, that way it would be easy. It’s the combination of the whole tour frenzy. I’m more sensitive than most people in that respect. Maybe it’s just that I’m the focus of the band, energy-wise. The fans are staring at me. Certainly, that’s why you’re going on tour, because you want to be seen by people, because you want the contact. But I was quickly fed up with it. I feel like the goldfish in the tank, who’s stared at by everybody, who can’t hide anywhere. In the morning I come into the hotel lounge. And there are 200 Cure fans. Of course I want to be friendly to them. But at the same time I feel drained and abused because nobody cares about the way I feel about it. A crappy dilemma, I can tell you. The entire energy is drained out of my body and my mind and I couldn’t even prevent it. At first I lose my physical strength and then slowly my mind. I watched how Lol (Laurence Tolhurst, the ex-keyboarder who left at the beginning of 1989) broke during the tours. I’ve become careful.

BRAVO: Does it actually bother you to look out of your hotel window or down from the stage and see all the time three, four, ten or twenty Robert Smiths who all have the same hairdo, the same make up, the same jumper and the same lose shoelaces as you do?

Robert: I got used to that. I don’t accuse anyone who identifies that much with me that they also look like me. Actually that’s sweet and for sure it’s one of the dreams of a musician when they start out. But back then fans who wore my clothes irritated me a lot. I’d have loved to hide somewhere. Because...what should I do to still be outwardly myself, the one and only Robert Smith? If I wear make up, ten minutes later fans wear the same make up. If I wrap a turban around my head, ten minutes later fans wear it as well. To be honest I can’t really understand those people. To me the thought to be mistaken for somebody else is frightening. Some fans rather seem to be afraid to be themselves. But however, I’m very happy to have fans. It’s a good feeling to be liked.

BRAVO: What about the story that you won’t enter a plane, even travel to America by ship even when it takes a week to get there?
Robert: Four years ago was the last time I flew. When I was younger I was actually very fond of flying. Then in Brazil we had two very serious bad flights which both caused us to be in mortal fear. Once the plane lost half an undercarriage in the air and we had to ditch which also made the other wheels break. Thank God nothing serious happened. But then we thought what a lunacy it is to risk one’s life just to be a couple of hours earlier at some place. The next day we were supposed to play in Sao Paolo. We rented a bus and rode through the Brazillian rain forest. That was grand. It took us twelve hours instead of two but we had a great deal of fun together during that ride and we realised what we actually missed because of the hectic flights. I can only advice anybody to go to America by ship. That’s the most wonderful thing on earth. I’m not seasick but I can get sick when I have to fly. I’m never entering a plane again.

BRAVO: What did actually happen to your old friend Lol you mentioned earlier. Did he leave forever or will he come back to The Cure?

Robert: I can’t imagine him coming back. At least not right now, the wounds are too fresh. Furthermore he has a new band called Lost who will release a record soon.

BRAVO: Wounds? So you didn’t part amicably?

Robert: No, it was a hard thing for me and for him. I had to throw him out. Lol is an alcholic and was on his way to drink himself to death. When we recorded “Disintegration“ he couldn’t remember anything we talked about, he didn’t know anything about the songs and didn’t even remember the previous day in the studio. It got too dificult for me to carry an invalid around. Lol lost interest in the group and obviously in himself. Neither himself nor the others had the slightest bit of respect left for him. That hurt me a big deal. He drowned two bottles of cognac a day. After I threw him out he quit drinking. As far as I know he’s still clean for more than a  year. Furthermore he married and became a dad in October. I never talked with him again. I know I hurt his pride a great deal, even though I might have saved his life by throwing him out. It’ll take a long time until he’ll forgive me. But I heard that he plays the drums again. He never was a real keyboard player. He had to quit the drums with The Cure years ago because he was too fucked up and most of the time too drunk.

BRAVO: Whatsover caused you to get into trouble with the Crown Prosecutor because of  your pirate radio station?

Robert: Concerning this story I can only tell you that the Crown Prosecutor is investigating and is accusing us of having disturbed the regular BBC radio programme in parts of London for hours by operating an illegal radio installation. For something like that you can go to prison, that’s what people told me. Technically speaking, this programme was said to be a real flop, but in any case a unique event in the entire history of rock. Quite funny for the fans and for The Cure if it really took place at all, which nobody proved yet.

BRAVO: What are your next musical plans like?

Robert: As I already said we’re working on new songs. Six are finished but I don’t like them enough, with the exception of one, to feel like releasing them. But this one song is really cool. A real heavy metal song. Who knows, maybe that’s our new direction. In any case I’d like to do that. Furthermore we will probably write the soundtrack for a film about the sea called “The Blue“. And we’re working on our long time project “Music For Dreams“. That’s supposed to be a real album one day consisting of quite extraordinary songs we recorded when we were drunk or because of other reasons didn’t play the things people actually expect of us.

 Thanks so much Falland/unseen_colours for TRANSLATING.