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- [00:00]
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- [00:15]
Ian Gittins
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- [00:29]
Bradley Morgan
Terms welcome to the New Books Network hello, welcome to the New Books Network. My name is Bradley Morgan and I am joined today by my guest Ian Gittins. Ian has written for such publications as Melody Maker, Q and the Guardian and he is also the co author of Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx for the Heroin Diaries, A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star. His latest book is an updated edition of the Cure, A Perfect Dream and is published by Gemini Books. Ian, thanks so much for joining me today.
- [01:00]
Ian Gittins
Thank you for having me.
- [01:02]
Bradley Morgan
So, to get things started, can you share with us what your book is about?
- [01:04]
Ian Gittins
It's basically a career long history of the Cure, which attempts to be definitive may get there, it may not. But looking at each album one by one, looking at where the band was at, looking at their creative process, really something that hopefully will be loved by fans but also will reach a wider audience.
- [01:23]
Bradley Morgan
Also, the Cure had been around for nearly half a century and when a band has been around for that long, there's a lot to talk about. We won't cover everything here because readers can go and pick up your book and learn more, but I did want to focus on a couple of points in their career. So with that, let's start at the beginning. Robert Smith would found the Cure in the mid to late 1970s, first as a group called Malice and then the Easy Cure before ultimately shortening the name. And the Cure crafted this unique sound in the English suburbs that was part of the new wave musical experimentation that followed the punk rock explosion. And they were inspired by literature as more much as music. What were those early gigs like and how did the Cure sound when they were first starting?
- [02:02]
Ian Gittins
They sounded a lot more punky than they do nowadays because as you say, they came out of the tail end of punk. I mean the first album they made, Three Imaginary Boys in 1979, is really quite a sort of scratchy raw Rudimental kind of record. The sort of the. The depth of texture and feeling that they introduced really quite soon afterwards are not there. It's essentially a. An art punk record.
- [02:28]
Bradley Morgan
So let's talk about that first record because in 1978, Robert took the band at the Chestnut Studios in Sussex and there they recorded demos for the debut album. But I was reading through a book that most industry people ignored them. But their atmospheric sound caught the ear of Chris Perry, who was a New Zealand producer who would eventually become the band's manager. And his involvement would. Would relate to the release of that debut album, Three Imaginary Boys. However, Robert wasn't happy with how the album turned out and has since come close to almost disowning it. Why and how would the album have sounded different if Robert had his way? I know there was a new remix that came out just within the last week of one of the tracks, but I want to get a sense of just his own personal relationship with it.
- [03:10]
Ian Gittins
Well, there are two very different characters. Robert Smith was still a teenager, he was still 19. He had this vision of making music about the. The existential angst of the human condition, I think. Whereas Chris Parry was a very worldly music industry guy who'd been around, he'd been in bands himself, as you say. He was an A R man. He signed and co produced the Jams, firstly albums. He was basically steeped in the music industry in a way that Robert Smith and the rest of the Cure weren't. When they came to record the first album, Three Machinery Boys, we say did in a London studio. They recorded at night because Chris Powell had booked the studio for the Jam, who making an album during the day. And the Cure would go in at night time and use essentially free studio time. And Chris Pye made himself the album's producer. And I think there's quite a lot of butting of heads went on because Robert Smith didn't know exactly what he wanted. He knew he wanted a certain sound, but he didn't have the vocabulary or the language or the experience to express what that was. And Chris Parry, who's quite a. Quite a bluff, you know, kind of confident character, I think pretty much steamrolled him. And even to the extent that the. The album's cover, which is a quite unusual cover of a photo of a lamp, a refrigerator and a vacuum cleaner, that was news to the band. They didn't know that was gonna happen until they were presented with it as a fatal company, and they don't. It's quite ironic now that he, Chris Poe did that because he felt the Cure lacked an image. They were just three scruffy teenagers with no particular look and you thought that was kind of weak. And he said, as they have no image at all, let's make an image for it. Let's do a cover that is an anti image cover. Of course, within a year or two, the Cure had a hugely idiosyncratic and recognizable image. But it was very much a first record. There were teething pains and, yeah, there were tensions between the band and their manager.
- [05:08]
Bradley Morgan
So after Three Imaginary Boys, when it came time to record a follow up album, Robert had developed a more defined idea of how he wanted the band to sound. And as a result, Chris Perry was largely excluded from the studio sessions. And that would ultimately become their sophomore album, 17 Seconds, released in 1980. And Robert has since called this the first proper Cure album. What did he bring to the album as a co producer with that vision?
- [05:32]
Ian Gittins
I think he learned a lot from making the first record, including a lot of things that he didn't want to do. The engineer on the first record was a guy called Mike Hedges, who at the time was quite unknown. Of course, he went on to produce U2 and Dido and some of the biggest figures in the, you know, in. In modern rock music. But Smith co opted Mike Hedges as his co producer. So he had the experienced hand who knew the way the studio worked and knew which buttons did which. Smith was now more capable of explaining what he wanted. And I think you can see that the sound of the second album is so different from the first. Much more luxuriant, much more. Not much, much more vast, really.
- [06:09]
Bradley Morgan
So during the recording sessions for 17 seconds, money was really tight, so there really was no budget and the album was recorded in less than two weeks. You write in the book about this that the strange circumstances may have been a blessing. Could you tell us more about that?
- [06:23]
Ian Gittins
Well, I guess necessity is a mother of invention. I mean, Robert Smith is very, very prone to procrastination, to second thinking. I mean, this is why in the later years, as you'll talk about later, I'm sure albums could take five years to come out and he could spend two years tweaking them. Making 17 seconds, he had no chance to do that. He literally had two weeks or the money was going to run out and they hadn't got the studio. And I guess it focused him in a way that he probably did need focusing.
- [06:50]
Bradley Morgan
Well, I appreciate you sharing that with me because the Cure's early days as a band is really fascinating with some Amazing recordings. When you've got a band that's been around for as long as they have, they have particular phases and those early records are truly special. But at this point I want to jump ahead a few years to 1985, because by this time the band's lineup had changed again just before, just before recording the album that would become the Head on the Door. And many fans regard this as the Cure's classic lineup. And you even write in the book that it engineered their stratospheric breakthrough as the Cure were going into the studio. What about that lineup itself had set itself apart from earlier ones?
- [07:27]
Ian Gittins
Well, I think there's just had a natural chemistry between them. I mean, Robert Smith and Simon Gallop, obviously friends that go back 50 years, but it's one of them. They had a big falling out and Gallop left the band for a few years. He'd returned. Paul Thompson's in the band. Boris Williams was a very kind of personable. I spoke to Boris quite a lot of length this book. He was a great interviewee. He was an asset to the band, I think. And the interesting thing is one of the band really, Lol Tolhurst was at that stage of liability. He was drinking heavily, according to both Smith and Lol himself in later years when he served a. He was pretty much drunk all through the making of the album. He'd get into the studio, he'd start drinking and they put him in a taxi home at 8 o' clock in the evening before they'd even started the proper recording session. And there's. And there's a lot of resentment towards Lol not pulling his weight in that way. But even. Even allowing for that, that sort of factor. They're just a very close unit, I think, at that stage. And they'd made. They'd made five albums by now. They knew what they were doing. An interesting thing, Robert, at this point, of course, the Cure always known the cliche for the Cure from the start was that there were this kind of moody, gothic, doom laden band and to a large degree they were. But by then that had hits like Love Cats and the Walk and the Caterpillar, really kind of upbeat pop songs which MTV loved to death and which were hits in the upper reaches of the charts. And Robert Smith as well is quite sniffy about that side of things. When he had a big puppet, he'd normally say, that's not proper Cure. He almost, almost had to talk people out of buying the records, I think, because he thought the Cure were in some way letting themselves down by making this music. And what he said making the Head in the Door is I want to write moody songs and pop songs and put them on the same record. And I think he did do that.
- [09:12]
Bradley Morgan
While in the studio, Robert played the Bandica set of demos he had written for this new album and also had shared them with some other recordings about what he was kind of envisioning. And in contrast to earlier Cure albums where songwriting credit was shared, the Head on the Door would be the first album where Robert had soul songwriting credit. Can you tell us more about how Robert was evolving as a songwriter by this point?
- [09:33]
Ian Gittins
I think Lud have always had sole songwriting credit. I mean, obviously the Cure is very much his project. People come and go, but he's always at the heart of it. It's very much his artistic vision. And I think in a way, the albums where he is the sole songwriter is the truest to that vision. That's where you get kind of the strongest feeling of what the Cure is all about. And on that album, it was. Again, there are two fantastic pop songs on there in. In Between Days and Close To Me Close two. Two fantastic sort of pop songs, but also those sort of really lugubrious songs like Kyoto Sung, the Blood. I mean, these songs. But even those songs then had great melodies. It's almost like sometimes a sports team hits a fantastic run of form and they quite work out what's doing so well. The Cure were just in good spirits and in good form, I think, and it was. It was a tremendous album.
- [10:21]
Bradley Morgan
Yeah, you mentioned the melodies and maybe that's the answer to this question, but you write in the book that Robert felt revitalized at this time and his self assurance is evident throughout the album. And I just was wondering if you could share some examples of. Of songs where you can hear this come through. I know you mentioned the melodies are brighter in certain songs, but you know that. That kind of rejuvenated feeling coming through the album.
- [10:41]
Ian Gittins
Well, it's something like the Head on the Door is a great example, something that people tend to know. It's just. It just seems to be full of kind of wacky, kind of left field poptimism, which are not things that you'd normally associate with the Cure at all. And of course, the video that made them famous at the same time. It's a lot of fun. It's funny. It's not a laugh out loud funny when they're all packed into the wardrobe being pushed off. The suicides. The Beachy Head suicide spot, it made the Cure look fun and wacky and lobster, I think then later came to regret this slightly because he wanted to return to the more kind of serious image. But it's a sort of music that you don't make unless you're feeling confident, unless you're feeling on top of the world and you know what you're doing. And also, of course, at that stage, he knew he had a. A huge audience behind him. He knew that they're very, very successful band. I do, actually. While I think about it, what's worth saying, I think, is that he really broke America for them. Because when I spoke to Boris Williams, the drummer, he recalled that the tour before him, when they were touring the previous. The previous album, they're playing to clubs with maybe a thousand people. You know, clubs or maybe small theaters, and they're suddenly playing 12,000 people are. I think you're correct. MTV was a big part of that. But the Cure had really taken off. They become a major league band. They weren't a cult anymore in the way that they always had been previously.
- [12:01]
Bradley Morgan
Thanks so much, Ian. I really love the Head on the Door, and it's such a great way to explore the album a bit further with you and moving on. I do want to jump ahead a decade to the mid-90s, you know, even though there's a lot of great albums in the late 80s that we could talk about. But I want to ask about their period in the mid-90s, because they were going through some challenges. You had mentioned earlier that Lowell Tolhurst was going through some substance abuse issues, and there were some other changes over the last decade and. But this was predominantly the most enduring. And it made him an unreliable bandmate. And this was troubling because he was a founding member of the band. However, by this time he would eventually sue Robert and their label, Fiction Records. Can you tell us more about that case?
- [12:43]
Ian Gittins
Yes, it was very unfortunate. It was when. When. When LOL was basically chucked out of the band because of his. He couldn't really contribute as a. As a, you know, functioning member anymore. He. He took, I think, very bad legal advice. The USO later that he could sue for unpaid royalties and for share of the band name, which he did. And the case came to the High court and it was just deeply. Nobody really came out of it well. LOL came out of it badly because all the stories came out about his heavy drinking and his kind of wretched performances in the studio. And the band came out badly because they came over as bullies. He had many stories about the Way they treated him, kind of, you know, drawing on him while he was passed out in the corner, making fun of him, having insulting nicknames for him. It was really a. Really an unhappy episode all around, I think. And what amazed me was years and years later, and probably 25 years later, I met Lol Tolhurst at a festival and talked with him and he said that he'd. He'd since refriended Robert Smith, they'd made up and they'd since paid on stage together, in fact, and all was good. And that without making any noise about it or even announcing that he'd done it, Robert Smith repaid, gave Lowell the money he'd lost in that fateful court case, which was at least a million pounds because the legal fees are astronomical. So Robert Smith did an extraordinarily generous thing, I think, rooted in friendship and didn't say a word about it, which is really, truly exceptional, I think.
- [14:18]
Bradley Morgan
And is Lowell, has he been better the last couple years? I know you put out that goth book a few years ago that was really well reviewed. How is he doing?
- [14:25]
Ian Gittins
Well, he put out a book that wrote his story, his life story, in which he was an absolute mea culpo. He confessed to all his alcoholism, to his lack of performance in the Cure, and he was there, was talking, doing a second book. To be honest, I wasn't sure what the second book would contain because the first book seemed pretty definitive and that never happened. But I happened to notice just today before I talked to you, that he's playing some dates next year. He support, I mean, later this year supporting the Chameleons, who are similar kind of band of that ilk, that vintage in the post punk era. And he's going to be playing with a new. With his own band, playing the songs of the Cure. So maybe that's the way forward for LOL now.
- [15:04]
Bradley Morgan
Oh, yeah, I would see that.
- [15:06]
Ian Gittins
No, I saw Good morning. Literally.
- [15:08]
Bradley Morgan
So after the case with Lowell had finished, Robert began focusing on recording a new album. However, he ultimately had no band, as the Cure had effectively just dissolved, waiting for the court battle to be over. What had happened with the band and how did Robert shape his new lineup?
- [15:23]
Ian Gittins
Are we talking about the time of wild mood swings?
- [15:25]
Bradley Morgan
Yeah, we're leading into that.
- [15:26]
Ian Gittins
Oh, do you know what? I can't remember exactly all the comings and goings of the mid-90s because people like Paul. Paul Thompson left and rejoined about three times. I mean, some. I can't remember exactly what happened after in that era. What I do recall from that time is that Robert Smith is quite wary about where the Cure stood by at the time. It was 1996 when they came to make world mood swings and obviously America was all about, you know, the fallout from Kurt Cobain suicide and grunge over here in Britain. It was all about Brit pop. It was about Blur versus Oasis and it was about Pulp. And I think he thought are the Cure still relevant? Are we now an anomaly? Because do. Do people care about the Cure anymore? And I think Wild Mood Things but was quite a cautious album really. It's quite tentative and it didn't do well. It didn't do. It sold less than a quarter of the previous Harbour and Wish which had been a huge success. It's it in both Britain and America. It charted fairly high. I mean not as high as they had done before, but it was number nine I think in Britain and number five in the States. But then it fell down the chart straight away. It had like one or two weeks, then it had gone because die hard fans bought it straight away but they weren't picking up any new followers and any. Any new supporters. So it was a tricky time for them and it was a funny. I interviewed him around that time. He was. They made the album at this mansion house near Bath in West country in England owned by Jane Seymour, the actress. There's the studio there she used to rent out. And I went down and spent an evening listening to them recording and talking to Robert and he told me, he said exact words were a bit confused as to what we thought of at the moment. He wasn't sure how. I think because they came out of the punishing court case because it'd been a few years since the last album and because the kind of musical environment at the time was so kind of not. It didn't seem, you know, fitting for the. For the Cure. They weren't a bit pop band and they weren't a grunge band. And he only is telling that I mean what wild mood swings. He quite can fairly claims to be one of his favorite Cure albums in interview but that you won't hear a song from it at any. They don't play anything from it in their. In their set list nowadays.
- [17:39]
Bradley Morgan
Which is a shame because I think it's a really, really good album. I think it's. I think it's stance as a highlight from the 90s for me certainly. And you know you touch upon. Upon a lot of great points that you know it did take. The album did come together slowly. So by the time from the mid-90s to. Sorry. From the early 90s to the mid-90s, the UK music scene had changed considerably and the court case certainly had an effect on it as well as the album sales, because it became their lowest selling album in over a decade and would mark the beginning of this downward commercial trend. But as I mentioned, it's one I still very much enjoy and I was just curious about to hear your thoughts what were on your. On the album when it was released and what may have changed for you listening to it 30 years later writing.
- [18:21]
Ian Gittins
This book, I think I was surprised just how it's a very curious. For the plan. Words Not Intended. It's a very curious album. I mean the first single after the 13th is a really unusual. You wouldn't almost. It's not a typical Cure song. It's got jazzy horns, it's got Marie Malarkey rhythms. It's almost like they were casting around to find out what are we. What, you know, what are we. Still the same band that we were. Let's try a few different things and see if they work. And I take your point. There's some nice songs on there, but I must confess, I don't often go, I like Jupiter Crash, but there aren't many songs that I go back to on a. On a regular basis on Wild Mood Swings.
- [18:58]
Bradley Morgan
Well, I appreciate going over that with me because, you know, as I, as I've always appreciated the 90s work, they, you know, they released a couple great albums after that. Pornography is a brilliant album. But with that, as this updated edition includes what the Cure has been up to in more recent years, I want to get into that a little bit and jump ahead. In 2008, the Cure released their 13th studio album, Four Thirteen Dream. And unbeknownst to us all, they wouldn't release a follow up for another 16 years. But however, before we get into that album, I do want to talk about what they were doing during that time and throughout the 2010s, they were playing major festivals and going on very successful tours. And I remember trying to get tickets a few years ago and it was one of the few shows where I just couldn't get any. It was absolutely impossible. So I want to ask you what accounted for this resurgence of popularity and how did the Cure become one of the best touring bands there are right now?
- [19:49]
Ian Gittins
I think a lot of it's to do with their longevity because, I mean, as you said, World mood swings didn't sell.413 Dream didn't sell at all. It was really kind of unsuccessful album, but they could still sell concert tickets. And as you well know, there's so many bands of that generation who don't really make new records. They just. They just live off the back catalog. They get called heritage acts, which is a bit of an insult, I guess. But they're bands who. They can. Their audience has grown with them. They've been around for 40 years, 50 years. Sometimes the audience has grown with them and the audience love hearing these old songs. And it's all quite a cozy, cozy relationship, really. And it certainly seemed to me all through the 2010s that the cure were falling into that. Into that category because there's no new music. Robert would say there'll be an album soon. There'd been album next year and it never seemed to happen. And they just sail on playing these kind of very well paid, obviously lucrative festival headline sets every two or three years. I mean, Robert Smith describes. He's a strange man. He describes himself openly as being lazy. You say he's very lazy. And he always said that he formed the boundary in the best way to do nothing, the way to have the least effort to expand all the way through life. And yeah, as well as being very lazy, he's very driven. He's a perfectionist artistically. And that's obviously in some ways quite a frustrating combination, certainly for him, and must lead to many, you know, angstridden, long dark nights of the soul as he castigates himself for not producing, you know, more music. But again, he's also very vacant fairy. He described that spell all through the 2010s and the early 2020s as his happiest time in the Cure because he said he, they could go out and play these two hour, two and a half hour festival headline sets. They had so many songs to choose from, they could, if they want, go out and do two different sets on consecutive night. Entirely different. Of course, they never did that, but they could should they want to. And he seemed to be. It seemed to have come to terms with this quite easy life. But at the same time, I think something nagging in him, itching in him, was that he wanted to be creative still. I mean, again, as you said, he came from punk vark and punks hated the. The old bands that coasted long gone past glory, all about being urgent and immediate and creative. And Robert must have known as he went into the, you know, Festival sets 10 years after his last album that he was. It was time to do something.
- [22:09]
Bradley Morgan
So within the last few years, as the Cure were Preparing the tour. Robert had made headlines when he took to social media to publicly criticize Ticketmaster for the extra fees fans were charged when buying tickets. And the stand he took against them actually helped open the door to a broader dialogue about the company's policies in ways that weren't done before. I mean, Ticketmaster had been under fire for over 30 years, but he seemed to be really effective. And I just wanted to know what made Roberts criticisms about Ticketmaster so effective as compared with other bands who had tried to take them on?
- [22:39]
Ian Gittins
Well, I. I didn't say he's the biggest person who spoke. I mean, I know Eddie Vedder spoke out a lot previously, but.
- [22:45]
Bradley Morgan
Well, in recent years, yeah, that's a very good question.
- [22:48]
Ian Gittins
Why it had the effect. I think, again, it comes back to the punky thing. I think, you know, the whole punk thing, the punk ethic, which still drives the Cure after all this time of, you know, doing it for the kids and. And being done. You know, he didn't like the fact that there was a big corporation ripping off their fans with really quite unjustifiable, you know, sort of additions to the ticket prices and charges. And he did outspoken about it, and he got a result. You know, it's. I mean, good for him. Very, very, very good that he did that.
- [23:20]
Bradley Morgan
So while the world is waiting for a new Cure album, Robert made several references to it over the years, as you had mentioned, but it kept getting delayed and. But as time went on, they were performing new songs in concert, and I remember seeing one in 2018 here in Chicago that was completely new. And I just wanted to get your sense of fans respond to these songs and what impression did it give them about a potential new album?
- [23:41]
Ian Gittins
Well, Songs of a Lost World was originally intended for release in 2019, and for about two years before that, Robert had been teasing the fact that this album was well underway, it was going well. The band were in the studio in 2022, three years after it was it was going to be released. And it was so definite that they scheduled a tour, the Shows of a Lost World tour of Enduro. But by the time the tour began, the album Soul wasn't out. So they're playing a tour. Actually, they did that before 13 dream, where they announced the tour and then didn't get the album out in time. And I think the album could have been released then. But again, it comes back to this perfectionist thing that Robert Smith has. He was still tweaking the songs, he was still overdubbing. He still wasn't quite sure that they were there. And even the next year, 2023 took the songs of a lot, sorry, the shows of Lost World tour to America and the album still wasn't out then. So they're playing two or three by then, about four songs from the record, which couldn't be bought, which couldn't be heard on online or, you know, they couldn't. Fans couldn't actually buy the records. So it was a strange and even by Robert standards, a tortured and labyrinthine process really.
- [24:52]
Bradley Morgan
So after a 16 year hiatus, the Cure announces their new album, Songs of a Lost World. And they announced it with a cryptic poster at the Railway Pub where they played their first gig in 78. And then the website gets updated to show the Release date is November 1, 2024. And you mentioned that Robert considered this the happiest time of his life, but there were a lot of things going on in his life that resulted in this hiatus, this writer's block. I know he experienced some tragedy during that time. Can you tell us about more about what Robert was going through during that time?
- [25:21]
Ian Gittins
Yeah, well, although I've been kind of castigating him here for his kind of folk fascination. I mean, also the COVID of course, the COVID when the world closed down for 18 months in 2020. 2021. And during that time he lost both his parents and his. His brother. His brother Richard died. He was always very, very close to Richard. In fact, he used to call him the Guru, because when the. When he was a boy in Crawley, Richard was the boy who was playing records, who's playing him the songs that he liked and getting him into bands like Zeppelin and. Oh, who's that really odd one, Sensational Alex Harvey bands and all sorts of people. So along sort of the pun bands in the new wave band Robert was kind of soaking up. He had this older generation of bands from. So he's very close to his brother, extremely close. And in fact, as you sure you know, he wrote a song on the album I Can Never say Goodbye about. About the death of his brother, which he said was the. The hardest and the most painful song to write.
- [26:21]
Bradley Morgan
I know there was a comment earlier about Robert's songwriting and how he's really the sole songwriter for, you know, the Curious, all their albums and songs. But Songs of the Lost World is the second album that is credited solely to Robert, first being the Head on the Door that we discussed earlier that was released four decades prior. And you write in the book that Songs of a Lost World was a demanding, often challenging listening, an uncompromising restatement of the singular contrary aesthetic that the Cure have never relinquished, even after nearly half a century. And so, with that in mind, what did you notice about Robert's songwriting after such a long hiatus?
- [26:57]
Ian Gittins
What I noticed was the. It was. And I don't see this in a negative way. It was in a way more of the same. The Cure have always sort of circled the same themes, really, just with growing intensity and growing focus. And it's almost as though, I mean, he had this theory that he wanted to write the ultimate. That T.S. eliot line about roll the world into a question. I think he's always been trying to do that, ever since the days of pornography and disintegration and faith. And this album is a very kind of. I think there's a similar aspect to it, but it also. It was definitely very much a later life record. It was reflecting on what has been more than looking forward to. To what may come. In fact, he said that what's to come is the dark and empty stage. You know, it's definite intimations of mortality all through this record. I mean, he did say that the opening track of the record alone made the album fall into place. And it was when he came up with that. That hook and the melody and the lines where the whole record began to take shape in his mind. And the main line of the. Of the song, the first line, is, this is the end of every song that we sing. And it has that. It definitely has that end of life sort of reverie and, you know, the end of sequel. It has to think of something coming to an end. I think Robert's always wanted to make the Kill records sound important. Always want to have them, to have sort of gravitas and be profound. And he's always striven for that, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. I think Songs of a Lost World, everything really came together. And it's a very sincere album. I think he really, really is, with this record, trying to evaluate his life. What has he done? What kind of person has he been, what kind of band of the Cure being. It's like an encapsulation of their entire career to a large degree. And I think that that sincerity comes across. I think that's why it was a huge commercial success, you know, number two in America, number one in Britain, compared to the two previous albums, which just didn't have that level of intensity and level of creative commitment to them.
- [29:08]
Bradley Morgan
When it comes to what's next for the Cure, Robert has teased a new album based on the same sessions recorded for Songs Of a Lost World. But there is also the upcoming milestone of the band's 50th anniversary. What do you think is in store for Cure fans?
- [29:21]
Ian Gittins
That's a very good question, and I really haven't got a clue, because Robert always teases that kind of thing. After 4:13 Dream came out, he wanted to make that a double album originally, and he wasn't allowed to. Bought a record label, which had a bit of a petulant, hissy fit about. And he's going to produce a second album called 426 of the songs that got left off the first album, and he didn't do that. And again, with Songs of the Lost World, he claimed that the sessions produced, again in typical Cure style, some very, as he said, doom and gloom songs and some more upbeat ones. And the doom and gloom songs are the ones that largely made up Songs Of A Lost World. So he's saying that they're these kind of more upbeat tracks, which he'd like to release as a second album, if he will do that. I don't have the. I'd probably guess not, because the Asics track record of promising these things and. And not doing them. I mean, he has actually said exactly what he wants to do until the end of the Cure, which is produce that second album, do a lot of touring, a lot of festivals in 2028. 2028 is the 50th anniversary of the cure forming. And in 2029 he turned 70. And he said if he makes it to 70 years old, then that's it. He's done. His work here is done and the Cure is over. But again, I wouldn't guarantee him sticking to that. I can imagine him retiring and doing a Frank S and, you know, a year or two down the line, missing it, wanting to come out of retirement and play again. So it's a mystery. I mean, what I have learned, and I think the way I finish the book is by saying that the last person to ask for the future of the Cure is Robert Smith, because he's a very unreliable witness.
- [30:58]
Bradley Morgan
Well, they've already given us so much music and, you know, how can we ask for anything more? But hopefully we do. But I thank you so much for going through all that with me. The updated edition to your book looks amazing, and it's so great to have their recent history laid out so well. It looks beautiful. However, before we finish, just so we could chat a little bit more about the music, because that's why we're here, what are some of your favorite Cure songs? Or albums.
- [31:21]
Ian Gittins
Well, do you know what? I may well lose half of the audience here, but my favorite Cure songs have nearly always been the upbeat ones. I love the pop songs. I mean, the Cure order. I'm. I'm just a few years younger than Robert Smith. Pretty close, you know, The Cure of all has been on my radar. I've been watching them live since the early 80s. And I've always enjoyed hearing Love Cats and why Can't I Be you and the Caterpillar more than I've enjoyed hearing most of the kind of more melodies from pornography or. Or disintegration. I've seen Cure songs. I've seen Cure shows. Remember Wembley? Wembley Arena, Big, big London venue in the 90s where they finished the set with something like Love Cats, why Can't I Be you? They were three absolute pop bangers. Went off to Hands above the Air, Clapping Adulation, and came back and did three of the dreariest dirties in their entire back catalog. And you think, well, okay, that's Robert Smith for you. That's what he does. But I've always personally tended more towards the more upbeat side of things.
- [32:28]
Bradley Morgan
So as we're approaching their 50th anniversary, and I was asking you about why they continue to be such a popular touring act. You know, you said that the fans have grown up with them, but you don't get to be around for 50 years and not develop a whole new legion of new fans. And for those who are just discovering the Cure or are not as familiar with them as we are, where do you recommend that they start?
- [32:49]
Ian Gittins
That's a very good question. The album that built them in America was actually a greatest hit, the compilation called Staring at the Sea. And that is not a bad. That's not a bad leap off point, actually, because you get all the best about the Cure. You get all facets of the all sides of them there. And if you listen to that and you find you're more attempted towards the kind of soul searching, existential end of things, then off you go into faith and pornography and disintegration. They're there waiting for you. Yeah. And also in a bizarre way, in a very strange way, I think Songs of a Lost World, the End Point, would be a good starting point. That's also a good encapsulation of what the Cure have done for nearly 50 years. And if you like that, there's plenty to go back and dive into from before that.
- [33:37]
Bradley Morgan
Ian, thanks so much for speaking with me today. I really enjoyed your book and congratulations on the new edition. It looks absolutely gorgeous.
- [33:43]
Ian Gittins
Thank you, buddy. Thank you for having me.
- [33:45]
Bradley Morgan
My name is Bradley Morgan, and you've been listening to the New Books Network with my guest, Ian Gittins. His latest book is an updated edition of the A Perfect Dream and is published by Gemini Books.