Things had changed in my head and heart now that my mother was gone. I was adrift. For a few months I didn’t do much but drink and feel sorry for myself.
Things had also begun to change in the band somewhat. Parry had not been a great fan of Faith, as it hadn’t spawned any major hits. “Primary” was the only single from the album and it only got to 43 in the UK charts. We had spent the previous three years working nonstop. When we weren’t on the road, we were recording, and vice versa. One reason Faith took a while to make was that we didn’t have enough time to write on the road and get the material prepared before we went into the studio. We were just go, go, go.
In the course of those three years of working and touring, my alcohol consumption steadily increased. Although I tried many different drugs, I was mostly a drinker. Parry decided that if we were going to fulfill his version of success for his label, he would have to get more deeply involved. He said that for our next record he didn’t really need to come to the recording sessions, as we were such a closed-up unit, which was true, but he wanted to make The Cure into a bigger concern.
Pornography was a very difficult record to make. I feel that it represents the highlight of our sound as a three-piece. It also represents a creative peak for everyone involved, especially Robert. We operated a pretty closed studio, with only ourselves, our producer Phil Thornalley, and Mike Nicoto, the assistant engineer, in the room, with occasional visits from Gary Biddles. One night Siouxsie was allowed to visit, but most of the time the three of us were wrapped up in the fury of what became Pornography. It’s a big, monolithic slab of sound. We had hoped to get Conny Plank, Kraftwerk’s producer, to help us record it. In fact, Robert and I had a meeting with him at Fiction’s offices one afternoon. He was a great, brooding German man all dressed in black leather. He regaled us with stories of his last recording sessions, “where the sound was like a wild animal.” We were quite impressed with what he said he could bring to our music. Unfortunately, he passed away before it could happen.
We may not have generated as many hits as Parry would have liked, but the gigs were getting bigger and the audiences larger. Although we definitely grew at a slower pace than some of our peers, it was, I think, due in part to Robert’s steadfast but stubborn insistence on taking our time to make sure that what we did was the highest possible quality. I think time has proved him right on that score.
In many ways Pornography is my favorite Cure album. I love the great big sound of the drums and the huge slabs of music used to make the songs. It’s the pinnacle of the three-piece Cure sound, though we incorporated a variety of instruments. On Pornography you’ll hear a smattering of keyboards, bass pedals, and other things (cello, anyone?), but the main triangle of sound is created by the drums/bass/guitar structure, with Robert’s immense vocals on top.
It represents one of my proudest accomplishments with the band. The circumstances surrounding its making were certainly intense, but that made it the album it is. It stands the test of time to me because it’s not a slave to whatever the current fashions of the day were. It was born out of our own desperation and peculiar madness.
It was an unusual recording process, which at the time seemed perfectly normal. As our sessions progressed we would arrive at RAK Studios in St. John’s Wood later and later in the day, until finally we settled into a groove of coming in late in the afternoon and emerging the next morning, having seen the dawn rise yet again through the control-room windows.
I think that Mickey Most, the studio owner, was as bemused by our schedule as everybody else seemed to be, but having been in the music business for many years and worked with many people, he knew enough to give us our space and not intrude too much. However, some days he’d bring us the occasional gift, like the guitar that Jimmy Page played when he recorded “Stairway to Heaven,” for Robert to use.
The rest of the album continued in similar fashion. We made an arrangement with the owner of the off-license—that is, liquor shop—across the street. Basically we would come in every day and place what we wanted on the counter, and his son would deliver everything in a box that night. We kept a tab going to be paid once a week, and must have doubled his income for those months we were there. We were living in the offices of Fiction at the time, which added another level of claustrophobia to the mix. We were with each other 24/7, which wasn’t a good idea, considering the amount of substances that were being consumed every day. I am grateful that Phil and Mike kept a sane and somewhat sober eye over everything; otherwise it might have ended in catastrophe.
The drum sound was obtained by putting the kit in the large recording room and removing all the acoustic shields so there was an immense natural reverb. I had my own sticks made to my own specifications, so they were basically thicker in the middle and thinner at each end, giving them a great “throw,” or power, whichever way I chose to use them. For most of the album, I turned the sticks over and used the thicker end to play the snare, which I had bought from John Bradbury of The Specials. It was a military snare ten inches deep, as opposed to the usual four- or six-inch-deep snare drum. The combined effect of all this was to make a huge crack with every snare beat. No ambiguity or ghost notes, just the metronomic mantra of the drums!
Both Robert and Simon had new Peavey amps that were bigger and more powerful than the ones we’d used before, so the combined effect produced aggression in the songs. Many of the cymbal crashes I overdubbed later in a separate room of the studio that had just been built. It didn’t have any acoustic padding or finished walls built in it, and was just a bare concrete box. Phil and Mike set up some microphones, and I put my new Ray Man Chinese cymbal in there to record. That thing was so loud when I played it that I had to turn my head sideways to avoid being deafened. You can imagine the noise it made in a concrete box! I think that was the start of my hearing loss right there.
However, after we recorded Pornography, there was a sense of urgency to get the music out and then go on the road to promote it. The thinking was to keep things fresh and vibrant, which usually worked for us, but on reflection I think we should have waited a little bit instead of storming out of the studio and going back on the road so soon. Even a short break of a few months would have helped the band, and might have possibly prevented what was to become the death knell of the old Cure.
If the Pornography album sessions were difficult, the Pornography tour of 1982 was even more so.
The initial shows of the “Fourteen Explicit Moments” tour for Pornography in the UK were actually okay, even though we were dog-tired from playing over 120 concerts the previous year, then going straight into the studio to record Pornography, and then back out on the road. It was a recipe for disaster, and one which is repeated again and again in the music business. When you’re firing on all cylinders it’s okay to keep going, especially when you’re young and enthusiastic, but we really hadn’t had much of a break in the three years since we’d signed with Fiction. No wonder we were in such a frazzled state! Add heavy drinking and drug use and we were a powder keg ready to explode.
Our set list included most of the songs on Pornography, making up a good third of the show. The album was released just as we went on the road, so a great deal of the show was unfamiliar to all but the real diehards. This was how we always operated, but Pornography was a very different record. It was confrontational compared to what had come before, and then there was the look. The stage set comprised screens that were remotely operated to come down over the drum kit, which was placed to the side of the stage. They also covered other areas of the stage to create different effects. It was stark, to say the least.
Mac would project washes on the screens, which he’d done before. That was the only continuity for us. There were other significant changes. For instance, during one song I would get off the drum riser and walk in the dark to the front of the stage to play the keyboards during “One Hundred Years,” while the screen came down to shield the kit and create another space. The fronts of the amp and drum risers were coated in a mirror-like finish, which meant the audience would not only see themselves between Robert’s and Simon’s legs, but also could be blinded by lights that were focused on the risers. The effect was similar to sitting in a pub or club with a mirrored bar. Strange, to say the least, and probably a little disconcerting for the audience, which was part of our intention. It was also a bit of an obstacle course for me, as I had to make sure I got off the drum riser in time to avoid being hit on the head by the rapidly descending screen support. I learned the hard way.
A couple of times, I staggered to the front, having been hit with a resounding thump by the fast-falling screen. I then used the keys to hold me steady while I recovered from what felt like a mild concussion.
Our outfits were as stark and sharp as the monochromatic light show. White T-shirt and black trousers for Robert, a gray shirt with epaulets and gray trousers for me, with Simon favoring a slightly different look of leather jerkins and tight trousers with biker boots. The main difference was the makeup, though. Our hair was longer and more fierce-looking during the Faith tour, but Pornography was where it became a thing unto itself. We started to crimp our hair, backcomb it, douse it with hairspray, and fix it in place with KMS gel. Our look was gradually evolving, but nobody could have predicted the bright red lipstick that now adorned Robert’s face and eyes! The sheer shock of his appearance was tremendous to anybody who encountered him in the backstage area before the gig. It looked like his eyes were bleeding or someone had taken a knife to his face.
It was a pose, but a confrontational one. People responded with uneasy smiles when they met us backstage or after the gig. Simon and I had a sort of toned-down version of Robert’s face. I figured that it was up to him to have the most extreme version in order to carry the very striking and aggressive songs we were playing. As Robert said, “I wanted it to be the ultimate ‘fuck off’ record.” I think on that front we succeeded, and if you missed the point, our look made sure you got the message.
For the first time we were booked into venues in Europe that were really too large for our present audience. At the Philipshalle in Düsseldorf, only a handful of people turned up to see our large, stark stage show. Actually, it was probably several hundred, but that number of people in such a large hall meant only the first couple of rows were filled.
We walked out onto the stage and a pregnant silence filled the air, not the usual roar of the crowd to which we’d grown accustomed. The air filled with smoke, and dry ice billowed across the stage like cumulus clouds. The silence in the hall was almost overwhelming. After a couple of songs, Robert walked to the front of the stage, sat down with the mic, and sang the songs to the small crowd in a more intimate style. The tickets for that night said, “Pornographic The Cure.” Quite!
The rest of the tour continued in similar fashion, and on most nights the atmosphere was morose and challenging. Perhaps that’s understating it. Fans of The Cure know the Pornography tour ended up with the band in disarray.
By the time we rolled into Strasbourg on May 27, 1982, we had already played around thirty-three very intense gigs promoting Pornography. We were both tired and mentally drained. Which put immense strain on our relationships in the band.
I had struck up a friendship with Paul Bell, the singer of the opening act Zerra One. Later on we actually ended up living close to each other in north London, so we hung out off the road too. In fact, my friendship with Paul was to take me out of the eye of the storm brewing between Robert and Simon. After another fraught gig, we went out to a club in Strasbourg. I was actually having a reasonably good night, chatting with Paul and Grimmo, Zerra One’s guitarist, and drunkenly dancing with a girl in a sailor costume, when it was proposed that we swap shirts. I had on a Pornography T-shirt and I immediately agreed, spending the rest of the evening dancing in my new white and blue sailor top.
“I don’t know what’s happening between Robert and Simon! They are fighting!” said one of the fans in the club.
I didn’t really know what to do. The tension of the tour had been building, and I guess it had finally boiled over. The gigs were so intense I’m surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.
I shimmied—or did a drunk impersonation of a shimmy—off the dance floor and flopped down beside Paul.
“What’s yer man up to now?” he said in his broad Irish brogue.
I quickly relayed the scant details given to me by the fan. Paul wanted to know what I was going to do. For once I made a really good decision. I was going to do absolutely nothing! I would carry on drinking, dancing, and talking with Paul and the sailor girl, who by virtue of our shirt swap was now the porno girl, and keep well out of this. I had the feeling, correct or not, that my intervening would result in both parties taking out their frustrations on me.
We were only twenty-three years old—twenty-one in Simon’s case. So we opted for that very English solution and just ignored everything, while keeping our feelings at bay with drinks and drugs. At least that’s what I was going to do about it.
The music was loud and the room was steamy from all the dancing bodies. I was drunk and a little high from the gig and the perfume of the sailor girl. Dancing with her seemed like a much more agreeable way to spend the rest of the evening than adjudicating the fight between my two bandmates. So I stayed down in the belly of the club.
Some hours later, I made my way back to our hotel with Paul. The last thing I remember is hanging out of the rear window of our van, serenading people walking by the canals, and passing the beautiful old Gothic cathedral. I’ve seen the sights of many a city in the predawn hours, and Strasbourg was no exception.
Later, the morning light shone through the curtains in my room and I recalled with horror the events of the previous evening. My drinking had taken on epic proportions. I was accustomed to the occasional blackout, but I had no trouble recalling what had happened. The previous night was somehow frozen in sharp relief.
The phone rang and I answered it, hearing the slightly deranged voice of the tour manager informing me that earlier that morning Robert had gone to the airport and caught a flight back to London. So this is how it ends, I thought, not with a bang but a whimper. I was slightly shocked, but not really surprised, and, to tell the truth, a little relieved. The whole year had been like a furious volcano of emotions getting ready to erupt, a train about to go off the rails and plunge into the ravine at any moment. Although it was not really great news, I figured it could have been much worse. At least no one was hurt.
Then another call came. This one told me that Simon had gone home too. There I was on the edge of France by myself, the lone representative of The Cure, with a gig to play in a couple of days. What the fuck was I supposed to do?
I called Paul and arranged to meet him in the hotel café. We were sitting discussing the night’s events when the tour manager came and informed me that the next couple of gigs had been put on hold, pending cancellation. I always hated canceling gigs. Everyone in The Cure did. Things were definitely getting out of control. Suddenly an idea popped into my head, which until this day I haven’t really discussed.
“Paul, you can do a reasonable imitation of Robert, right?”
He nodded in agreement, albeit a little cautiously—and rightly so, for my plan was most audacious.
“Why don’t we dim the stage lights and put you in a wig and have you sing, Paul?”
He blinked and looked at me uncomprehendingly.
“I mean, we have tapes of the gig, so we could run that mix in, and Grimmo can stand in the shadows with a bass pretending to be Simon. I’ll just do what I normally do and it might just work.”
For a brief moment we looked at each other and then my lips curled slightly upward in a smile. Paul smiled too.
“Yer a fookin’ idgit!”
Of course, it wouldn’t work. We all got on the bus, as Robert had called and said he would be back for Montreux in two days’ time. His father had convinced him to finish the tour. Alex Smith was old school, and he believed, rightly, that if you say you’ll do something, you are obliged to do it. The bus would roll on with just me and Zerra One—down the A5 to Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps, where we would wait for the return of Robert and Simon.
The band reunited after a couple of days had passed and everyone had cooled off. We had a few gigs left, and we played them perfunctorily. The last night was at the Ancienne Belgique, a famous Belgian theater that normally I would have been very interested to be in. That night, however, it felt like death. It was the death of that version of The Cure. The glorious three-piece that had poured its heart out, and then some. The gig was of a certain manic intensity, but it was the finale that was really dreadful.
At the end of our performances it had become a habit to play a free-form song that we generally called “Forever.” We had a basic format that we stuck to, but most evenings the lyrics and certain elements could evolve as the day dictated our mood. It was a sort of coda to the evening.
On this occasion we changed it around a little and swapped instruments. I played bass, Simon played guitar, and Robert played the drums. Our roadie, Gary Biddles, came onstage and started singing about Robert and me being wankers and only Simon was any good. So Robert threw the drumsticks at him, and eventually we all stopped and left the stage. The next day we all went back to England on the ferry. We didn’t speak to one another on the journey home, but nothing needed to be said. It was the end of tour and possibly The Cure. Something would have to change for the band to continue, but at that moment things looked bleaker than they’d ever done before. As we got to London, I said goodbye to everyone and wondered if I’d ever see them again.