Folha de S.Paulo (December 1995)

"In the beginning, there were a lot of rage inside of me "

Robert Smith reviews the dark period of the group career and says that discovered that is not difficult to like people.
Cure intends to take advantage of the four free days among the shows that will do in Rio and in São Paulo to record a clip in Brazil.
Robert Smith doesn't still know which music of the new disc will be filmed, but he already climbed Tim Pope to accompany the brazilian Cure tour.
'I don't know what Tim will film, but I have the premonition that will be a very strange week that one we will pass in Brazil. Something will happen and I want to have somebody that film closely', Smith said.
The new disc of The Cure will be released in the beginning of May. One month before, the new single will be on the stores.
Simon Gallup counts that the group recorded 24 music since October 1994 and didn't still choose the 12 that will be part of the new album. Three of those new music should be played in Brazil. The temporary titles of those songs is "Want", "Jupiter Crash" and "Mint Car".
'The show of 96 will be much better than the show of 87', Gallup says, which was very impressed with him first visit to the country. 'I remember that was a chaos. The Brazilians were very nice, but everything was very big, an exaggeration'.
Since 1992, with the Wish release, Cure didn't enter in studio to record. In 93, the group issued two discs recorded during the shows, Paris and Show.
The Cure almost ended in 1989 after accomplishing the album Disintegration. This disc marked the departure of Laurence Tolhurst.
Cure premiere was in 1979, with the album Three Imaginary Boys. Up to 85, the group consolidated with depressed discs, that spoke about morbid loves, strange climates and forbidden drugs. With Head On The Door and Standing On The Beach, Cure became pop.

You were already called, with irony, of ' the depression leader'. Does that definition still exist?
RS: No. I hate tobe considered leader of anything. In the past, I made some songs that had to do with a certain ' dark' mentality. But that doesn't give the people's right to think that I know some thing about the life that they don't know. Besides, I was never as happy as nowadays.

Really?
RS: I solved the things that inconvenienced me. When I was young, was afraid of get old. also, I discovered that I adore everything that I do and I am rounded of people that I like.

In the beginning, didn't you like what you did?
RS: No. When I began, there were a lot of rage inside of me. I hated the people. Today, I try to like the people - what is, in fact, not so difficult.

Have already the new disc a title?
RS: I think will be called Wild Mood Swings. It is a title that contemplates the idea of being at the same time happy and sad.

Who reads what has been already written about you in the last fifteen years, notices that you are always speaking about your spirit state: or you are in a very depressed period, or a little sad, or trying to be cheerful...
RS: I think the people confuse the things. If you write a song about the depression, they think that you are depressed.
As any person, there are days in that I wake up discouraged, and in other deliriously happy.
I am as anyone. The difference is that I write about my spirit states. Perhaps in the past I have written more about the depression than about the happiness. Today, I try to balance. Especially because it would be false to want to seem sad nowadays.

You complained when somebody asked your age. Does that still happen?
RS: No. I have... 36! I am from April 1959. I don't have problem in saying the age. The problem is that, sometimes, I forget how many years I am. There are days that I feel with 56 years old.

With how many are you today?
RS: 26.

In the music "End" you wrote: "Please stop love me. I am none these things". Are you speaking to the fans?
RS: It has two aspects. I wrote that music during the United States tour. First of all I am looking at in the mirror and speaking to myself. Then, I am speaking to a specific kind of fan, which sees me as an icon, as I was a religion leader.

Are you afraid of being attacked by fans?
RS: No much. I was only attacked once, in Mexico. But it was not serious. He just jumped on me. I am more afraid of those people that are stopped in front of me, looking at me without saying anything.
That is very strange... I try to have a normal life, to be a normal person.

Is it impossible?
RS: I try. I drive, I go shopping, I take the clothes to wash...
It is obvious that to be inside a studio for months, recording a disc it is not something normal. But I am not isolated in the world. I cannot be isolated. When that happens, you begin to be crazy.

Are not you hoping to have a normal life during the shows in Brazil?
RS: (laugs) No!

The Cure had never played for so much people as in the Brazilian tour’87. There were more than a hundred thousand people in the total. How was that experience?
RS: It was a very big surprise. We thought, I swear, that we would play for a small public, in small places. I was afraid when seeing size enthusiasm and interest of the people in Brazil.

After that, did you already play for larger publics?
RS: Yes. In United States and in England for this summer. We played for hundred and twenty thousand people at the Glastonbury festival, in the Southwest of England. It is very strange...

I read about your participation in Greenpeace. Do you collaborate in the activities?
RS: We donated part of we won with the last two discs to Greenpeace, to the International Amnesty and to Red Cruz. But The Cure is a totally nonpolitical band. I prefer not to be filiated to any organization.
Personally, if I see a band declaring that is filiated to a certain organization and, if I don't like that band, I start then to hate the organization.
If I say 'It is necessary to support Greenpeace', and somebody hates Cure, he will start to hate Greenpeace.

Is there something new in the british rock actually?
RS: The best thing I saw and I heard in the last months was Supergrass. They are brilliant. I also like Oasis.

Do you still accompany everything that happens on the footbal world?
RS: Of course, I adore. Yesterday, I saw on television the Ajax team to be champion world. It is a great team. I found very strange the Grêmio team. It didn't play as a brazilian team. They play in a very defensive way.

Your favorite team, Queen's Park to Screak, is it very bad, not?
RS: It is on third position - but under upward in the list. I don't feel grace in that fact.

Did you already see Juninho playing? (note: Brazilian player that is playing in the european footbal)
RS: In the first two games he was not very well. I think he is still not in good form physics. The english footbal is also very difficult for a skilful player.
But in the last departure, Juninho was great. When he is in good form physics will shine a lot.
A friend of mine, which like Midlesbrough, is delirious about Juninho. It is incredible as a person can change the climate of a whole city.

Is the same thing about the rock?
RS: Yes. It is noticed a clearly transformation in the people's face. I don't understand very well...
(Mauricio Stycer)

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