Things changed dramatically for The Cure the moment we signed the record contract with Chris Parry’s label in 1978. Up until that point, we had been totally a law unto ourselves. Granted, we hadn’t moved very far into the crazy world of rock and roll, but anything we had done prior to signing with Fiction Records emanated out of us and our own thoughts and ideas. Now, because we were funded by someone else, we had to take their wants and ideas into consideration. We tried to minimize the influence from outside but found that difficult to achieve.
I think it all started the day Parry presented us with the cover for Three Imaginary Boys. I say “presented” because we didn’t have any say in what the cover would be like. The same thing had happened for our first single, “Killing an Arab” / “10:15 Saturday Night.” We were just presented with the artwork, a fait accompli.
It seems impossible to me now that we would have accepted that state of affairs. In our defense, we were really quite young, and we assumed that this was how it was done, and that because Parry was bankrolling us we had to go along with his ideas. To be fair to him, I think his heart was in the right place and that he genuinely thought this was a good way to represent the band. However, I now understand why Robert has such antipathy toward the album and its artwork. It’s part of us but at the same time not part of us. I mean a fridge, a standard lamp, and a vacuum cleaner? When journalists asked us about it, we had to make up stories about who was what on the cover. Nobody ever wanted to be the fridge, trust me.
There’s another, more serious side to the change that occurred. It was really the first time we realized we would have to negotiate with other people outside of our own immediate circle. We were going to have to leave the safety of our home area and everything that was familiar to us. We would have to go from being big fish in a small pond to being small fish in a large ocean. Initially that worked out in our favor. We were such a close unit that nobody could really get inside and divide us. At least for a little while.
We had been playing some London gigs that Parry had arranged for us, supporting various bands. Charlie Harper’s UK Subs was one of them. I’d met Charlie previously at a club I used to go to in Croydon, the Greyhound, where he had asked me to become a member of the Subs. I declined, of course. People were starting to take us seriously, I could feel it, and I didn’t want to disrupt that. At the Moonlight Club in West Hampstead, where we were supporting the Subs, a United Artists scout turned up and tried to poach us from Fiction. He was too late: we had already inked a six-month deal with Parry in September.
The first tour in which we played gigs outside of London and environs, just fresh from the pub and village hall circuit, was with Generation X, Billy Idol’s first band. As a sort of pop-punk band, they had had a couple of hits, so they were playing to larger audiences than we could reasonably expect to pull in on our own.
The first gig was in High Wycombe, a large market town just west of London. The venue was the town hall: an old Georgian red brick and white stone façade building. A little different from the downtrodden pubs and clubs we had been used to so far.
Inside we could see the stage had been set for Generation X, with many large amps and a huge silver drum kit with double bass drums. The big time beckoned enticingly. Alas, it was not to be the glamorous affair it seemed from the outset.
We were approached by a large, brutish-looking man and informed fairly quickly of the harsh realities of touring as an opening act.
“You’re going to use the lights and PA, right?” the large man asked us.
“Er, yes,” Robert replied.
“Okay, £25 then,” said the large man, who by now had introduced himself as the tour manager.
“Is that all?” Robert asked. He, like Michael and myself, who had been following this conversation, had assumed that the tour manager meant £25 was all he was going to be paying us if we used the PA and lights. Suddenly a look of understanding crossed Robert’s face as he realized the large chap wanted to charge us £25 for the privilege.
“We haven’t got the money for that,” Robert said. “We only have enough for petrol to get home.”
The tour manager then pulled out what he thought was his ace card. “No £25, no lights or PA!”
We had heard of this type of rock-and-roll chicanery, and as flag bearers of the new reality were having none of it. So the look on his face was priceless when Robert replied to his ultimatum.
“Right then, we won’t use them!” Robert turned and motioned to me and Michael to go back and start pulling our gear out of the van. “We’ll use our own PA!”
We wheeled our small club PA system onto the large town-hall stage and stuck a couple of floor lamps we used in pubs on either side of us. Punk self-sufficiency.
I don’t know how much that endeared us to the tour manager, but it certainly interested the lighting guy, Angus “Mac” MacPhail, because he is still the lighting director for The Cure today. I think because he felt sorry for us being bullied by the tour manager, Mac put up a couple of channels on the desk—lighting-director speak for giving us a couple of lights to see by and by which to be seen onstage—and we were grateful.
The doors opened and we were ushered onstage almost immediately “to warm the punters up,” as the tour manager informed us. I’m sure Robert gave him a disdainful look as we marched onstage. We were not the same as these old hippies running the show. That much was obvious to all. However, we welcomed the opportunity to play, even if it meant we had to deal with the predictably capitalistic remnants of the counterculture from time to time.
Mostly people ordered drinks at the bar when the opening act was on, or arrived halfway through the set. That happened for the first gig or so on the “Gen X” tour, but pretty soon people were staying out of the bar and watching us play. Our conviction in what we were doing was obvious to everyone. We played for about thirty minutes and then removed all our own gear. No roadies for us!
The Gen X show was quite a spectacle of punk rock. As the opening number, “Ready, Steady, Go,” started, Billy Idol, resplendent in a red leather jumpsuit, strode to the front of the stage, and then, almost on cue, a thousand gobs of spit came arching over the stage front like arrows shot from longbows into the spotlight toward Billy. To our amazement he didn’t recoil from this assault of phlegm, but positively reveled in the ghastly gobbing frenzy. Suddenly, the purpose of the red leather suit became shockingly clear. It was the only suitable material for such an onslaught, especially considering that this same scene was repeated every night of the tour. We watched from the side of the stage for a few more minutes, transfixed by the spectacle of Mr. Idol being drenched with sputum. I think we were all secretly glad that the audience had decided we weren’t worthy of their shower of spittle.
As we adjusted to the feeling of actually being on the road for the first time, we made a startling discovery. Generation X’s dressing room had a lot of beer in it and it was apparently free!
After that we made sure that every night, as Billy and Co. went onstage, we paid a visit to the free beer room and grabbed a couple of cans to drink while either watching the gig or talking to the new fans we were making. Little by little, we seemed to be getting across to people who actually watched the opening act.
It was there where I think I noticed for the first time Robert’s wonderful ability to talk to each fan of the band. People lit up as he talked to them, and he had that charismatic way of making each one feel as though they were the only fan that mattered. He still has that ability today. I always thought it was a great quality to have. People responded to it in a very positive way. We were just starting to find out how The Cure seemed to make people feel—as if they belonged, even if they were outsiders like us. In fact, it was probably because they saw that we were outside the normal rock-and-roll channels that they felt that kinship.
And they still do.
The Generation X tour rolled on full steam ahead after that inauspicious start. The tour manager avoided us as we set up our equipment, but we gradually got acquainted with Nigel, who ran the PA system for Generation X. He liked us, and we felt he might be a good choice for mixing the sound at our own gigs after the tour. We were getting better offers now, and we would need to ramp the show up a bit from our old club PA and floor lamps. Perhaps we could persuade Mac to come “run a few channels” for us, too.
We played the Croydon Greyhound, a south London ballroom, opening for Generation X at a club we had often been to as paying customers. This was where for the first time the supposed “glamour” of rock and roll was destroyed before my eyes.
At the side of the stage, two large swinging doors provided access to the backstage area. As an audience member, I had often seen bands come through these doors to get onstage. In my adolescent fantasy I had thought that behind these doors lay a very exciting dressing-room scene complete with all the trappings of rock-and-roll mythology.
On entering the Greyhound as a performer, my first order of business was to find out exactly what lay behind those mysterious doors. I rushed headlong through only to discover . . . the fire escape stairs. There was no dressing room. The bands came up from the street directly onto the stage. The glamorous stories exploded right there for me. It was as I had feared all along: smoke and mirrors (or staircases). Nothing solid.
At Aston University a week later, several large bikers loomed up at the front of the stage, took one look at us, and screamed, “Play ‘Paranoid,’” meaning the song by Black Sabbath. We decided that it was a reasonable request and at the end of our set we did just that. Actually, we could only play what we knew of the song, but it seemed to satisfy them, as afterward their large leader, in studs and leather, approached us in the student bar.
“You’re all right, youse are,” he said in a broad Midlands accent, pointing a skull-ringed finger at us.
Robert looked at him and said, “Thanks. I’m glad you liked it,” or words to that effect. This seemed to mollify the other bikers lurking behind their leader, and they skulked off back into the bar. As much as Robert could be a lightning conductor for violence, he could also be a soothing panacea to some of the more outré elements of society. I think they were just appreciative of the fact that someone would acknowledge their existence. I think that’s true of most of us, really.
Two nights later the highlight of the tour occurred. I was searching desperately for the Gents to relieve myself of several pints of free Gen X lager I’d consumed after the Bristol gig at the Locarno, a throwback 1960s Mecca ballroom complete with sparkly curtains and glitter balls. It was the kind of place that was more accustomed to hosting beauty contestants in bikinis and grass skirts than punk gigs.
I finally spied the men’s toilet and burst into the room, unzipping my flies as I entered to save precious time, as the pressure had built up substantially. As I rushed toward the urinal I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Billy Idol perched somewhat precariously in the next stall with a young lady clasped to his bosom (or maybe he was clasping her bosom, time distorts such distinctions).
A guttural sound passed from my throat, which might have been recognized as “Hello, Billy,” were I in a more sober mood, but it just sounded like a low grunt after that much alcohol.
The young lady looked somewhat startled by the fact that there was another musician in the vicinity of their love nest, so the ever chivalrous Mr. Idol tried to calm her down with a valiant, “Don’t be nervous, love,” or something to that effect, while she anxiously eyed the toilet door.
Unfortunately, by this time I had reached the point of no return and a stream of urine shot outward to the porcelain bowl next to Billy. Regrettably for me (as well as Billy and his date), my aim was not improved terribly with the consumption of so much cheap lager. As I looked down toward where I assumed the urinal was, I realized that I was in fact urinating on Billy’s leg. Pissing on the Idol!
He gave me one of his trademark sneers and I hastily zipped up and hightailed it out of there in a flurry of drunken apologies. On the drive home, as I sobered up, I was already beginning to perceive that this event might not be seen in the “jolly japes, all lads together,” kind of way one might hope. However, I thought, not unreasonably, that someone who was bathed in spittle every night wouldn’t find much wrong with a little urine on his strides as he was caught in flagrante delicto with a local lass. It might even be seen as “punk camaraderie” of sorts. Right? How wrong I was on that count.
The next gig was two days later at the California Ballroom in Dunstable. I cannot, especially as I now live in Los Angeles, conceive of a place more unlike California than Dunstable. (Although the Palm Cove in Bradford, which was decorated with a pathetically hopeful mural of a beach and palm trees, came close. If you squinted your eyes hard enough you could almost suspend belief that you were looking at peeling paint. Almost.)
As we pulled into Dunstable and the California Ballroom, known as “the Cali” to the locals, we noticed our van had a slow puncture. Not a great start to our night. We started to set up the gear. Then I saw him, the tour manager, red-faced and striding purposefully toward us.
“Last show for you chaps after that stupid prank!”
We gave each other knowing looks. Apparently my accident in the Gents was not appreciated by the headliners. Or was it perhaps that our set was enticing too many of their fans that finally upset the apple cart?
That last night we trooped onstage to an audience made up mostly of snarling skinheads intent on mayhem. This was, after all, where most English bands will tell you the real trouble went down, not in the capital but the satellite towns. These were the chicken-wired stages, the Blues Brothers–type gigs of the UK.
We played our allotted time, while the skins lunged onto the stage to dismantle anything they could lay their hands on. Using my hickory drumsticks I smacked a couple of probing fingers that I caught trying to remove my drum mics. We exited stage right before they finally overpowered the black-suited bouncers in bow ties lined across the stage front.
Billy and Gen X came on and the place erupted into a sort of war zone that may be familiar to those who attended the earlier UK punk gigs. We sat backstage and contemplated whether we were being chucked off the tour because of the reaction to our songs or the actions of my penis (not the first time it got me in some trouble). We were quietly absorbing this sorry state of affairs, after having spent much of Gen X’s gig fixing the tire of our van in the rain, when suddenly the dressing-room door burst open and several fierce-looking skins more or less fell into the room.
“Where is ’e?! Where’s Billy?”
The looks on their faces indicated they didn’t wish to have a polite conversation with Mr. Idol about the state of British punk music. Rather, they wanted to dismember someone with a peroxide haircut. In a flash of inspiration it occurred to us that we could redeem ourselves and save our own skins (pun intended) in one fell swoop.
We pointed the Neanderthal-looking youths in the totally opposite direction of Gen X’s dressing room, and they hurtled around the corner into the arms of several of those mean-looking bastardy bouncers they had chased away from the stage front. The bouncers chortled with glee when they realized heads would indeed be bashed in after all!
We quickly made our escape out the backstage door and into our van, which was now ready to go, and shot across the dismal car park of the California Ballroom. A few miles down the motorway we felt we had escaped both the skins and the tyrannical tour manager.
However, ten miles down the road we realized that while fixing the rear tire we had inadvertently put the car jack through the petrol tank of the van, and now, because of a massive leak, we had to fill up every twenty miles in order to get home. Dunstable to Crawley—so, 76.8 miles on four tanks of petrol! Jesus wept! Goodbye gig money, hello rock-and-roll reality!
There is a sequel to this tale. A few years later I found myself in a club in New York City when one of my companions asked, “Hey, Lol, do you know Billy?”
I swung around sharply to face Mr. Idol again in the flesh! I fearfully stammered my hellos and we chatted haltingly for a few minutes. Billy made no mention of my previous indiscretion. Perhaps I had judged him too harshly, as he acted like the epitome of punk brotherly love, friendly and charming in the extreme. Or maybe no words were needed to convey what had happened between two young men that cold December night, backstage in the tinselly disco of a dismal English market town.