English Translation of the article (Thanks Pietro!):
HEART OF DARKNESS
The lunatic outbursts of a too much sensible artist the world would soon
recognize as the Dark Master have made Robert Smith a receding man and
not eager to compromises. And yet, nobody better than him managed to
tell the existential pains of more generations to the sound of
unforgettable songs such as "Killing an arab", "A forest" "Charlotte
sometimes". Heavily made-up eyes and night paleness, Smith has more than
once touched the bottom, as he tells in this interview. But he also
found the strength to react, resisting for more than 20 years to
fashions and charts.
by Gianluca Jandelli (Rockstar #48 September 1984)
Born on the 21st of April in '59, Robert Smith is a shy man, so shy you
would hardly believe he is the leader of a charismatic group such as the
Cure, almost bashful until you see his eyes glow under the constraint of
a smile. His melancolic and obscure music is the result of a severe
responsibilty, entirely focused on essential things, strong, granitic
and with nothing of unnecessary, but from time to time enlightened by a
sudden sun ray, like a revelation. Symbols and allusions form an
absolutely naive poetic, which, together with the music, describes
Robert Smith's capacity to deeply impress in our generation's conscience
with the sharpness of a diamond.
Have you got beautiful memories of your family? And, in general, how do
you judge your past?
"I love my family very much and I've got brothers and sisters I still
can relate with easily. I left school still young, and I formed the Cure
that I was still 16, 17. Of my past I regret, as everybody by the way,
something, only a couple of episodes.
Have you ever been fond of any character or singer?
"I think I'm still fond of several people, Jack Nickolson, Echo & The
Bunnymen, whom I met recently for the first time and that are really
funny. Also Jimi Hendrix, of which I re-wrote "Foxy Lady", but he's dead
now and I find it hard to be still fond of him. Actually I appreciate
many people, I try to admire them and understand them more than being an
hard-core fan: indeed I haven't joined any fan club".
In which percentage are your songs autobiographic?
"They are for about 50%. Most of my songs are built around real
situations and others which I think may happen, events in which other
people are involved. I only write what already exists in nature, even
the most weak previsions. So when I want to write the lyrics toa songs I
do nothing but put together all these words and make them coexist. That
is usually what I do"
Do you remember the first time you ever thought to death?
Probably it was when I was 7 and my grandafather died. It has been the
first person of my familiar environment to die and this made me
understand how much people are strictly linked to time."
Have you ever thought to suicide?
Sometimes. When I spend a nice period I think that there's no reason to
think to suicide, because I'll die anyway. In that moment I can't
understand the reasons that push someone to suicide. But there were
periods in which this thought was present, almost blinding: for
instance, when I wrote the 17 seconds songs"
Do you think you're living a life, like Camus said, "through your own
constant revolt, freedom and passion?"
I try to. I appreciate most of Camus's ideas, but more his attractions
than his life model, whose reality is different from his books and his
philosophy. Anyway, when you write something, you often have to escape
from reality. But I certainly don't take long walks thinking on Camus's
writings: I just behave how I feel, which is sometimes clever and other
times silly.
Frm The Stranger by Camus you took your first song, "Killing An Arab".
Was this an homage to your young passion?
The true reason why I read that book is that "The Stranger" was the
first book I read in french at school. Since I liked it a lot, instead
of writing a commentary I had the idea to write my first song about it.
You've often described fabulous, imaginary places, like "Fire In Cairo",
"Hanging Garden", "Wailing Wall", "The Top". Why?
"Fire In Cairo" is about pop shamelessness and what's behind it, while
"Wailing Wall" deals with from a trip to Israel I made last year with
the Banshees. I went to visit the wailing wall e I was deeply shocked.
"The Top" is what people could be, but I never think about it: usually
they are quite happy if they are calm, at ease. Not that they should
suffer, but question what they are doing. Not wandering around asking
why, but just revalue what you're doing since you're doing it. Because
if you try to change and if you decide something then so be it. If you
do not care about it you will never stop asking yourself who you are and
what does that moment mean: you change without noticing. Personally I
don't like the idea of change, because I'm in it all the time. For me
it's much easier to change because... it's like doing videos... it's
easy to "act" in front of a camera.
In "A Forest" you sing: "lost in a forest all alone". It's a song about
extreme solitude, especially when you say: "it's always the same, I'm
running towards nothing, again and again and again".
It's a song about an accident really happened to me in a forest. I was
quite young, about 8 or 9, and I got lost in a forest. In "A Forest" I
try to capture that feeling of extreme fear I was being taken by and how
- maybe in other ways - this type of unpleasant feeling can still be
felt by anyone.
In "At Night" you sing: "listen to the silence at night, someone has to
be there". What's the meaning of night in your music?
That song is inspired to Kafka, to the fact that there is a guardian -
that is God's concept afterl all - that sees us. Coming back to the
niht, it recurrs frequently in what I write because I prefer it to
daylight by far. I usually work at night and sleep during the day. I
don't know why, but it is so.
Your second album, 17 Seconds, seems to contain more fear than the
following, Faith, which is more relaxed, almost resigned towards a
possible evolution. Is this true?
I think that 17 Seconds is more naive than Faith. I was very different
in the periods when I wrote the two albums. In the first I was very
young and the period among the two records changed me a lot. And indeed
during the recording of Faith I was sick of everything. In a sense I
wrote it to give vent to a certain situation I was fronting in that
period. But just after it I didn't feel as involved by that record and
the feelings linked to it. I almost didn't want to release it anymore
because - even though musically good - I didn't feel it mine anymore.
For this reason now I find it difficult to talk about Faith and what
happened when I wrote its songs, also because in a record there's many
people involved, that adviced, took part and were present in a word of
which you can be more or less proud, but that clearly falls under the
effect of many variables. I think that 17 Seconds is better than Faith.
Can you talk to me about "Charlotte Sometimes", a song I feel unfairly
forgotten?
That song is the best single the Cure ever wrote and indeed, apart from
performing it live, is the only tack I've listened continuously for
three months circa on a tape I had recorded myself. Maybe it was
forgotten because we didn't create any big fuss around it.
I've got the feeling you're looking for - through dreams or real stories
- semplicity, immediacy and a certain "corporal" component. Do you agree?
Yes, absolutely. I prefer the concept of purity, but just for this
reason, being I a literature lover, people think I should constantly
refer to it. But I never did it, even though there are really good
people like Dylan Thomas. What always struck me is how people may want
me and how may I influence them. If you say it because I'm an artist it
makes no sense: I do buy records as all the people producing material
do. They listen to what I do just like I can read what they write. All
of this is just an experience: if you learn something is something more,
because you don't discover anything since the moment you're born.
Actually, usually you tend to get worse. Because you are born knowing
everything, then you begin to forget.
Have you got any certainty in life?
I don't think. I don't love neither safety nor responsibility. I don't
own a house nor a car; I'm not married. It may seem terribly selfish,
but everything I have to think about right now is myself.
Don't you think "Lovecats" takes some of the sound of "Three Imaginary
Boys"?
Practically everything we've done is the last two years looks like our
first period, even the attitudes, the variety of sounds and atmospheres.
The last album, The Top, contains several atmospheres: eastern,
psychedelic, dark. Is there a common feeling? Or else, in which period
of your life did you write it?
It was all written after "Lovecats", except for two tracks. Practically
The Top is a collection explaining what I've did in the last two years,
since Pornography on., but does not takes bacj anything of it, its
desperation, its specificity. The musical parts have been written in
different periods, I collected them in a tape to listen calmly and
choose the best ones. The lyrics, instead, were added later, without any
hurry, like it was for Pornography, that was written in a week. I threw
down what was already in me, without any tearful background. I've
changed now and I don't feel like that anymore.
