"Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives," Andrew VanWyngarden sings on that song. "I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and f*** with the stars/You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars/This is our decision to live fast and die young/We've got the vision, now let's have some fun."

“I’ve had this whole thing playing around my head whether I want to keep myself grounded in real life or if I wanted to completely let go and go insane and be like ‘hey I’m in a band on the road’,” says Goldwasser. “It’s hard to tell where to draw the line. I don’t want to be completely unrealistic in my view of the world, which I think kind of happens when this is all you do, but on the other hand if you’re in a band you’ve got to go a little crazy.” Goldwasser and VanWyngarden formed MGMT at university in Connecticut and have been friends since 2002. Goldwasser is unassuming but outgoing and garrulous, while VanWyngarden is flamboyant but calm and quiet. They’re the Ying to each other’s Yang.

After playing small local shows and touring a bit during their university years, they started to create a buzz, which only grew once they released an EP that included “Time to Pretend” in 2005. Only a week after moving to Brooklyn in 2006, they signed a record deal with Columbia Records. The label spared no expense and brought Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann on board to make their debut album, “Oracular Spectacular.” Before it even hit U.S. stores in February, the record sold about 20,000 copies as a digital release. It’s a warm and hazy album that pays homage to the great forefathers of psychedelic music, but still feels fresh, with catchy tracks like “Kids” and “Electric Feel” giving “Time to Pretend” a run for its money.

And here they are, in the California desert, having just played to thousands of people into a sweaty tent packed way over capacity, with L.A. B-list celebrities lining up backstage to check them out.

“I’ve never experienced something like that before, it was really crazy. I was smiling the whole time,” says VanWyngarden. Goldwasser is still on a high from the show. “It wasn’t stressful at all. Usually we have some catastrophe before our shows, but this time everything worked,” he says. “There’s been all this hype, people categorizing us as a buzz band, and that can seem all fake or like it’s not happening. People are telling you numbers, or who said what about you, but to see a crowd of people like that really getting into it and knowing the lyrics to our songs, that’s really special.”

With the notoriety of course comes the press attention. Before me on the bus, a loud and hyper woman from Rolling Stone magazine kept jabbing at MGMT with her tape recorder. “Is this is like your dream come true, or what?” she asked at one point. The boys took it all in stride, as they do the constant questions about their ridiculous name.

“The dumbest question is when people asked why we picked our band name,” says Goldwasser. “It’s not so much that it’s a dumb question, but it’s a dumb answer and people should know that. It’s not an exciting answer. It’s very boring, but everyone asks.” Well we didn’t ask about the name, but we did want to know how they came up with their sound. Was it deliberate, or did it naturally fall into place?

“We weren’t thinking about musical direction when we first started, it was really informal,” says VanWyngarden. “We just wanted to make some music together on our laptop computers. That was the easiest way for us to record songs, so it was electronic by nature. A lot of it was instrumental. That all changed when we graduated and signed to a label and were going to make a full length album. We didn’t want to do electronica.”

Adds Goldwasser: “We listen to a lot more rock and psychedelic stuff, old music, and we wanted to represent ourselves a little more and play the kind of music we would want to listen to.” VanWyngarden, who is a fan of Neil Young and a mish-mash of 60-70s mellow psychedelic music, nods in agreement.

As relaxed as they seem lounging on their tour bus and joking around with the road crew, the two know that they are under a lot of pressure to keep up the momentum and not become a one-hit onder.

“I’m excited to record and make another album, but that won’t happen for a while,” says VanWyngarden. “I think we’re going to be around for a while. I hope so. We just need to put out a strong second album.”

“When we recorded the first album we weren’t thinking that tons of people were going to love it,” says Goldwasser. “We were just making the music that we liked and as long as we keep doing that hopefully things will keep going well for us, but at least we’ll be happy and still have fun.”

Sure, that sounds good, but what about a backup plan? After all, they confess they don’t know exactly how much money they’re making, just that the record label is giving them a monthly payment.

“My back up plan is to learn how to surf and live on a beach,” says VanWyngarden.

“I want to do some really punishing social work. A job that drives me crazy but is helping people. I have friends who are social workers. They love it but it’s really hard work,” says Goldwasser.

But for now, it’s time for another kind of hard work, and quite a lot of fun, too. The band has a whole list of summer festivals in Europe ahead of them, including Denmark’s Roskilde – one of the festivals that inspired Coachella’s organizers. VanWyngarden professes to be a camping fan, so this summer’s schedule should suit him fine. Besides the three songs mentioned above, he’s looking forward to rocking the song 'Of Moons, Birds & Monsters', a spaced-out jam that seems tailor-made for festivals. “It’s great for people stoned in a field,' VanWyngarden says with a smile.

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Unlike NIN's recently released Ghosts I-IV, there are no paid options available for The Slip, nor are there any retail partners. At present, The Slip is available exclusively as a free download at NIN.com. A physical configuration on CD and vinyl is in the works for a July release.

The Slip marks the first time Nine Inch Nails--or any artist of NIN's stature--has made its new album available completely and exclusively for free as a DRM-free digital download. The Slip is available as a high-quality MP3 or in a variety of lossless formats including, for the first time, a higher-than-CD quality 24 bit 96k version. All downloads include a PDF with credits and artwork.

As with previous Nine Inch Nails releases Year Zero and Ghosts I-IV, the complete multi-track files to The Slip will be available free at launch, allowing anyone who wants to create his or her own remixes and reinterpretations of the songs. As always, the Remix.NIN.com community will provide a sire and infrastructure for fans to upload, share, stream and download these various remixes as well as the original masters, all free of charge or restrictions.

The Slip, like Ghosts I-IV, is being released under a Creative Commons license, allowing fans to distribute the songs and files freely and without fear of copyright infringement.

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The first single is “The Only One” (released May 13th) and includes the b-side “NY Trip”. This song is now streaming at thecure.com. The second single “Freakshow” (released June 13th) includes the b-side "All Kinds Of Stuff". Neither b-side will appear on the album. Both tracks were produced by Robert Smith and Keith Uddin. July 13th and August 13th singles will be announced shortly, the band said.

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robert smith

ashlee simpson

If you're a fan, this has got to be good news: the boys have brought a finished song to their record label, Warner and played it for the execs. Read after the break to find out what the label thought...

In related news, you may have already heard that Amazon.com jumped the gun and posted on their website that you can now preorder the new album and that it will be delivered on Oct. 28. The band has not responded to this, but it does seem curious that Amazon later took down that preorder page. You can still see it cached by Google if you go here http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:JXN57e6lCeEJ:www.amazon.com/2008-Release-TBD-Metallica/dp/B0017I1FQ2+metallica+amazon+october&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7 or if you search for "metallica amazon october" in Google. Then again, once upon a time you also could preorder Axl's "Chinese Democracy" on Amazon, so who knows how on the ball or not these guys are...

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Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

Where/how did you grow up?
I was born in California and raised in Minnesota on a farm of 90 acres until I was 14, then I moved back to California. I guess I grew up with a healthy disrespect for city folks. Us farm boys stuck together. I still have a bit of that even though I live in a city now. Just holding on to the roots... I just look back at that and what I do now I don’t really consider work. That was work, on a farm. Out here, playing music, is nowhere near working. I try to keep that reality in my brain. ]]> Do you have to compromise between art and money?
Definitely. All the time. Absolutely. We’re out on this tour right now and we had to drop a musician because we weren’t making enough money to survive on the road, which affects the music. This guy would play bass on some songs while I was playing piano. He’d play acoustic guitar, he’d do three-part harmonies with us, but we didn’t have enough money to make that survive and that affected the music. We could also use an extra guy to help us with the house sound. At the same time some of this stuff can be looked at as just extravagance. It could be done without those people, but it’s affecting the music.

What was your greatest moment of doubt?
I still doubt it, man. I still doubt being able to pay rent. All I wanted to do was be able to pay rent.

But critics love your music, and kids love it…
But it doesn’t mean that they buy it. They just seem to be downloading it. But that’s fine. That’s a culture thing that’s pretty sad. It’s confusing and it’s a shame, but it’s understandable. Why would you pay $13 for a CD when what’s most likely gonna happen is that musician is gonna get rich, buy 13 cars and develop a drug habit and spend $4,000 on a new shirt. That’s a waste. That’s not art, that’s a culture of crap. So once all that shit gets out of the way, hopefully we’re left with musicians that can just do their art.

I love where I’m at, because I’m able to play music, so far. I don’t really want to be anywhere else. I just want to try to keep this going, to make music that people care about and support. If you’re having the same conversation with a politician that’s not getting funding for their political campaign, is that going to work for them? If they give a fuck about it they’d happily do it for free, as long as they find a way to keep it going. If you’re a writer and you love writing, you’ll do it for free, but still you need to at least turn it into a barter system so someone gives you a sandwich for your article.

So what's the future of the music biz then? The Radiohead model?
I don’t know what’s the future of that. I do believe art is worth something. And if you’re gonna have it in your life it needs to be respected somehow. Doesn’t matter if you’re giving it away or not, people are taking it anyway. I guess it’s a nice gesture, it makes the point that art should be free, but that’s been going on from day one. Yea, art should be free, but so should food and clothes and so should the roof over your head.

Have you considered starting your own label?
That don’t work. Major labels have had their wings clipped, which is good in a way. It went down the road of just money hungry businessmen for a long time and it turned musicians into the same thing, money hungry businessmen. It’s been long overdue for that to go away. We went with an indie in England for a little while. As far as releasing ourselves, it’s possible, but… I’m not much of a businessman, I’m really not. And you kinda have to have a little bit of that to survive. I thought that’s what a record company was for. They were people that were able to get your music out to places, they schmooze the magazine guy. I like the idea of musicians being musicians and business people being business people. I don’t have to deal with having to kiss ass to have someone write about my music. I think that’s a bunch of bullshit. That’s what it’s turned into, you have to be nice to everybody. It should be if you like something you write about it. Same with MTV, if you like the band, you play it. Music is held ransom by people’s attitudes, it’s ridiculous. There should be a line in the sand, you do that, we do this.

Should artists have a political cause?
You have no option but to be political. It goes back to lines drawn, there’s us and there’s them. That’s the point of art. That was my point of art, anyway. Be it comedy or movies or poetry or writing or music, it was there to give voice to something that was not being said in the culture. That’s needed and is disappearing.

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Oh, and another thing: Rooney don't like it when you steal their songs. Here is Robert Schwartzman.

We’re the band that sings "when did your heart go missing". Our music is catchy and melodic, lots of harmonies, our show is very tight and it sounds really good. We have a lot of hooks and it rocks. It's a rock and roll band with hooky songs.

We’re lucky. It would be stupid to not acknowledge the fact that there are so many bands vying for attention but we've been at it for about 9 years in the states working our asses off. before we had a deal we'd make demos and sell them ourselves. Our music is good and the band looks good and performs really well.

The business is in a crazy time. It'll continue to change. People who steal music really hurt the artists. We connect with fans and get airplay but people don't seem to go out and buy the record. We want to say this is bullshit. We make a really good product and they should support the artist and buy t-shirts that’s the only way to support the artists.

Too many bands are clouding the air, or people maybe are not as fanatical about bands anymore. Music is not as important for them. You have to appreciate it and you can't if you don't buy it. But you can't be knocked off course as an artist. Metallica were right to sue Napster. I wouldn't sue somebody for taking the record that liked the band but if there's a company that gives your music away for free it would like stealing coca-cola from the store. And now you can download whole movies, really good quality. People don't understand the work that goes into creating something. Maybe music is invisible that way, they think they don't need to pay for that. But then people get mad at you for criticizing them for taking it for free but if they knew."

Tag: rooney

Do you see those songs in a new light now?
I don’t approach them any differently, but I suppose some of the those songs I wrote when I was 15, and it’s a nice feeling to be 40 and doing stuff that you wrote that long ago. It makes even more sense to me now that when I wrote them in the first place.

They still speak to you?
I would never sing anything that doesn’t speak to me. I couldn’t do a good job singing something that didn’t.

Talk about your new album.
The theme on that album is based around or inspired by particular scriptures. For years it was something I wanted to do because some of those scriptures are really beautiful and really poetic. They’re really crying out for music, but a lot of religious music is corny. So I was really interested in trying to create something that was on the right side of the line between corny and cool. It’s supposed to just be a beautiful thing, it’s not any big message or anything.

Are you religious as a person?
I am someone who thinks that God and religion are two different things. I’m interested in religion and I study it a lot, all my life, but I’m more interested in God than religion, if you know what I mean. But I don’t believe in fucking going on about it. I lived in Atlanta and I grew up in catholic Ireland our priests are quite boring, quite bland, they flicking bits of dust off the altar in the middle of the mass like they’re bored. So I got a bit addicted watching the preachers when I lived in Atlanta cuz they were so alive and completely mental. I thought it would be great to bring them back to Ireland so they could teach the priests how to do it. There was one guy I loved best, his name was Creflo Dollar, he was always going on about how it’s okay to pray for money. I think it’s brilliant.

What do you think of religion in general in the US? Too religious maybe?
I'm not really familiar with it. The only experience I’ve ever had was on this record when I was doing promotion I talked to a lot of Christian media and 20 percent of them get really angry if you suggest that God doesn’t like war. If you even say that perhaps, maybe, God might not like war they get really angry. But that’s all over the world I supposed, with lots of different religions. They’re all wondering around insisting that God likes war, especially if it’s against people of a different religion. That’s why I separate God and religion, because God is getting a bad rap because of these fuckers.

Are you tired of being asked about that episode when you tore the Pope's picture?
No. it’s natural that people ask, so…

What did you want to accomplish with the new album?
Something that might begin to reclaim the good name of the God character. It pisses me off to see these people blowing people up and saying they’re doing it on behalf of God, and that libels God. If there is a God then that is the most libeled creature ever. I do believe there’s a God but I don’t know what it looks like or what you call it and all that kind of shit and I think it’s all the same, it doesn’t matter if you call it Allah, God or whatever. I don’t believe God is in any way violent or would support use of violence as a means of sorting things out. So I wanted to kind of argue these people on their own theology. Go into their very scriptures and show how the opposite of what their saying is true. I wanted to lift out scriptures that would show the peaceful nature of the God character.

How do you feel right now in your career and your life?
Comfortable.

Where are you going from here?
I don’t know, that’s the advantage that you don’t know what’s around the next corner.

Introduce yourself in a few words.
Christ, that’s very difficult. I’d be too nervous. I’d probably just say, I’m Sinead, and that would be it.

What's your biggest contradiction?
That I’m an intensely shy person but I do what I do for a living. I just close my eyes or look at the floor. If I look at the audience, really I’m fucked.

What's the best place in the world to be?
At home with my kids.

Have you ever had to compromise your art?
I’ve done it twice in my entire career and I hated it and I wouldn’t do it anymore. One was when I recorded a song for a band for their album. I fucking hated the song, it was horrible. Every time I had to sing in the studio I just wanted to barf, it was horrible. i won't say what it was, it wouldn't be fair. [We have a pretty good hunch she's talking about 'Tears from the Moon'... -- ed.] ]But I got paid a lot of money. The other one was recently actually, my management talked me into doing a corporate thing because they offered me 75,000 quid. It was a whisky company in Ireland launching a new whisky and it was fucking awful. It was devil business I will never do that again, but I got paid a lot.

What makes you happy/sad?
My kids make me happy. My boyfriend makes me happy. Stuff on TV makes me sad usually. The news. I’m mostly watching what goes on here and in England cuz I’ve lived in the states and in England a couple of times. I’m not so interested in irish news, it’s kinda boring. Nothing interesting ever happens.

How do you create your music?
Generally songs come to me when I’m doing stuff like washing the dishes or pushing the baby up the street. I start to get tunes inside myself when I’m doing ordinary household things. But I don’t really sit down to try to write something. If the tunes are there then I might vocalize them but I don’t sit down and try to create them. They just start singing their way to you, that’s how I see it. They have a kind of a life of their own, their own consciousness.

What was your greatest moment of doubt?
Probably in labor. With all four of my children.

Where and how did you grow up?
I grew up in a town called Claremont, in California. It’s about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. I discovered music through my parents’ passion for it. They have a music store they built up since 1958 and it’s been open until now. That’s my earliest inspiration, the earliest way that music formed me.

What is your greatest contradiction?
Oh man, I’m a contradiction a day. I’m choc-full of them. I can argue both sides of my own argument. It’s an exhausting proposition. Anybody who knows me will know exactly what I’m talking about.

What is the best place on Earth right now?
It could be my backyard, but basically anywhere that I can have my whole family together and just take a deep breath. That’s number one. And number two is on stage.

Do you have to compromise between art and money?
Not yet my friend, not yet.

Should artists have a political cause?
If they feel it, and only if they feel it.

What makes you happy and what makes you sad?
What makes me happy is sitting still in my own backyard. What makes me sad is waiting in line at Trader Joe’s in Santa Monica.

What comes out of boredom?
Creativity is connected to isolation. But are grownups allowed to get bored? Don’t you call that apathetic, which is more of a fancy term for slacker? What do I do with my boredom… I get out, exercise, make music, have conversations with friends, change the world. I don’t think I get inspiration. I think inspiration grabs me out, shakes me up, turns me over from the ankles puts itself in the melody. Sometimes I sit down and say I’m gonna write a song right now and I’ve done it. Sometimes inspiration just comes naturally and the song was waiting there. Sometimes you’ve got to piece it together. That’s what’s great about music and art in general, that there are no rules.

What was your greatest moment of doubt?
When concerts sell great and records are going strong, there is no doubt to be had. When ticket and record sales aren’t so great, doubt creeps in. It’s no different than sports, really.

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ben harper

The album is now expected to hit the stores in September. Originally Lars Ulrich said it would be out in February, then the release was delayed till April. With the band still in the studio, it was clear that April was not gonna happen. Fans can take comfort in the fact that the last time the band spent this much time in the studio the year was 1991 and the result was the Black Album. One can only hope for similar results this time!

In the meantime, the boys have lined up a few dates for their upcoming European tour this summer. I guess that means they hope to be done recording by June...

Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

Does it bother you that The Cure is still being called a goth band when it’s so much more complex than that?
I’ve given up a long time ago worrying about mainstream media calling us a goth band. It lightened up a little bit when we were called goth-pop after the Live 8 show, where we played some upbeat 3-minute pop songs. It’s so pitiful really when “goth” is still tagged onto the name The Cure...

Do you like any of the bands who profess to be influenced by you? Who will pick up your mantle when you retire?
I like a lot of them. I’ve seen Mogwai this year and they’re still top of my list. I take my nephews and nieces out to see bands all the time. I really still like Interpol a lot. I listened to their album on the drive up tonight in my car. They really have got a fantastic sound. Most of the bands that have name-checked The Cure over the last 2-3 years I tend to like anyway. I like to think that we can give hopes to young bands that we can do something we want and still be successful. I like the idea of inspiring people to do things their own way.

Reviewers almost never fail to mention that you still wear makeup on stage, some even suggesting you’re too old for it. Does it bother you?
My makeup is pretty 80s, isn’t it? (laughs) my appearance is preposterous anyway, so it doesn’t matter how old I am. I don’t think I look that different than I did 10 years a go, with or without makeup. It puzzles me why such a big deal is made about it when everyone puts make up on when they go on stage. If I didn’t wear makeup on stage it would be very hard to discern my features. I haven’t got very strong features so I do it to accentuate my eyes and my mouth. If I wanted to accentuate my nose I’d paint a big yellow stripe on it, but I don’t. It’s part of what I do when I go on stage. I wouldn’t feel in the right frame of mind if I went on stage in bare feet on no makeup. It’s part of the ritual of going on stage and performing for people which is in essence what reviewers have missed – you’re actually performing for people. It doesn’t come that naturally to me even though I’ve done it for years. I go thru this process when I go on stage, I don’t need to wear that kind of makeup to put fuel in my car. But sometimes when I go out, when I went to see the musical “Chicago” I wore makeup just in case I was asked to go on stage for the encore (laughs).

In the past you also used to drink before going on stage to work up the courage to perform. Are you past that now?
It was more to liberate me from my natural reservations. I got past it on Curiosa. For the first time in my life I went on stage straight and I found out I enjoyed it. I always knew when we were playing stadiums that I was too drunk to be good but it didn’t seem to matter that much to people. It was more the event or the occasion and I got away with it more. I am keenly aware more than anyone of how old I am I’ve always maintained that there’s something reasonably charming about seeing a 17-year old fall over after one beer too many and very far from charming seeing a 47-year old keel over after one beer too many. So that’s another reason why I don’t drink like I used to but I still have a fair go at it when I’m with friends. I acknowledge my age, but I’m not thrilled about getting older. Nobody ever is, but it’s not as crippling as it used to be for me to understand that I’m getting older.

(c) Stereo Warning 2007. All Rights Reserved. Be nice and don't reproduce this content without prior written approval.

Tags: the cure robert smith ashlee simpson

The album, which was supposed to be released in February -- as Lars Ulrich had said several times -- is running behind schedule and will not be in stores until April at the latest, sources tell us. The band's website has recently said that the boys are still doing overdubs, although it did not give a date for the album release.

Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

You don’t have a keyboards player for the first time in decades. Why did you not replace Roger?
There’s no need to when you got someone like Porl playing guitar. He can pretty much create any sounds that you want. There are only two songs out of the 33 that have any keys on them at the moment and that’s me playing so I don’t really miss the keyboards. It’s nice every once in a while to totally limit the palette of sounds that we have. We did that on Disintegration to only allow certain sounds to happen so that that holds the whole album together so if you’re playing a very slow Eastern sounding song and put it against a really upbeat driving song, the fact that you’re using the same instrumentation and the same palette of sound tends to hold the whole thing together. ]]>

What is your approach to your next tour?
We’re going as a band everywhere around the world. The idea of being a four piece is getting back to that stripped down stage look and sound. The fact that we can turn out anywhere with very little equipment and play a concert is going back to the old idea of The Cure. It’s less grand than things we’ve done in the past, but we’re still planning to play for three hours.

I read somewhere that Ashley Simpson said she might collaborate with you on some music. Is that true?
(laughs) I happened to meet her a couple of times. I don’t normally hang out in places where I bump into artist like Ashley Simpson, but I took some of my nephews and nieces to see her in (the musical) “Chicago.” Musicals aren’t really my form of entertainment I have to confess, but I was pleasantly surprised by it actually. As to working with Ashley, I’m not so sure how that’s going to happen. I’ve been tempted to work with a couple of people that I’m not normally associated with and I suppose I won’t rule anything out. I’m a lot more easy-going than I used to be.

You already retired once, how much longer are you going to be doing this?
I’m genuinely surprised at the people’s reaction when we play shows, it’s hard to ignore it. It’s gratifying to know that people still want The Cure to exist. The best thing about playing live is that we’re an old band playing to a young audience. As long as I still enjoy it I should keep doing it. I personally find it slightly upsetting to see seriously old people performing contemporary music. I haven’t quite reached that very old person stage but I’m aware that time is moving on. Once I won’t be able to sing for three hours and also mentally wanting to do it, that’s when I’ll stop. I don’t want The Cure to fizzle out doing 45 minute shows of greatest hits, I think it would be an awful way to end the legacy of The Cure.

The last time we talked you said you were thinking about growing a beard and starting to write film music.
I’m not so sure about the beard part, I look like Father Christmas when I have a beard, which is entertaining for this time of year but not really for the other 11 months. Film music is definitely still my goal. But I had to choose between to continue on with The Cure and make an album with Porl or become a film music writer, and I opted for The Cure. Hopefully another opportunity will arise for me to be involved in a film. If it doesn’t I still think I made the right choice. I’m still able to stand up and sing for 3 hours so as long as I can do that I should probably take advantage of it. The day will come when I can’t then it’s probably the time to sit down and start making film music.

Check back tomorrow for part 4 of this interview.

(c) Stereo Warning 2007. All Rights Reserved. Be nice and don't reproduce this content without prior written approval.

Tags: the cure robert smith ashlee simpson

How’s the recording going?
As usual I’m holding it up, because I can’t get the words how I want them. I find myself stopping short and thinking I’ve done this before better, so it’s hard to find subject matter that really matters to me, things that I really want to sing. I just don’t want to make a record because we’re in a group. That flies in the face of what I’ve always wanted The Cure to be. It frustrates the others a lot I think but there’s not much anyone can do about it. The last four Cure albums have really stalled on my lyric writing. I think it’s worthwhile because they end up better than they otherwise would have been. I never worry about writer’s block, I figure if I don’t have anything to write about I shouldn’t be writing.

We didn’t demo this album. It’s the first time we hadn’t done band demos since the early 80s. It’s a bit of a leap in the dark but I wanted to capture the band just playing. I loved the way Russ Robinson recorded us for the last album, the demos for that were sensational, but we lost something when we worked out the songs went back in and rerecorded it based on what I’ve written. I wanted to let the band play and then write to what we played, which is why I’m finding it a little bit hard. I used to steer the band into a direction based on what I wanted the song to say. This time I’m giving the band a couple of vocal pointers and some titles and some words and then we’re playing and then I try to fit the song to that. It’s more enjoyable because it’s a way around of doing it. It doesn’t sound like “Pornography” though, it doesn’t have that relentlessness that some of those early albums had. It has more color, a lot more style.

The album will be what would normally be demos, but it sounds fantastic. We spent one day per song. We’d learn the song in the afternoon. When we’re comfortable, we take a break then we come back and we run through it until we think we’ve got a take. Exactly like last album, the difference this time around being that we’re not going to go back and rerecord it. The reason why demos often sound good and exciting is because it kind of teeters on the edge. Everyone’s concentrating and trying very hard to get it right. Often when you come back and rerecord there’s a bit of a comfort zone, there are no mistakes or glitches, they always get rid of them in the end. This time around we’re not gonna get rid of those. Listening to the live stuff from last year with Porl playing drew me to this idea because I thought we played 60+ songs and there was no way we could’ve rehearsed that many songs to get them all perfect and we just went with how we felt on stage about that particular performance. Some of them have what one might call mistakes in them but they sound great and that pushed me to this idea of not trying to refine everything all the time. That’s something I do a bit too much I think.

Check back tomorrow for part 3 of this interview.

(c) Stereo Warning 2007. All Rights Reserved. Be nice and don't reproduce this content without prior written approval.

Tags: the cure robert smith

Once again, you made big personnel changes in your band. What happened?
At the turn of the year 2005 it was time for a change. Roger O’Donnell and Perry Bamonte left and Porl Thompson returned for his third time in the band. It’s very hard to leave a successful group. Sometimes it takes a little cajoling and a little nod to make people realize they’re not happy in what they’re doing and holding everyone else back. I’m always the driving force of the band and if everyone’s happy with what I want to do it’s a happy band, if they’re not it’s not. I’m not very good at compromising when it comes to music and art. I just find it ridiculous that I should have to do something I don’t want to do, so it leaves everyone only one option, to leave. That’s what happened to Roger and Perry.

How’s your relationship with Porl now?
Porl is my brother in law, he married my younger sister a long time ago. He’s part of the family. It's strange, when he was in the band we had a difficult relationship, and as soon as he left our relationship got a lot better. This time around that he’s back into the band we’re all older and wiser and we know each other a lot better obviously. I think we want the same things now as a band, which is why he’s back. He’s brought back a sense of urgency, we’ve got a rock edge again. He’s such a fantastic guitarist -- the new record that we’ve been making is showcasing what Porl does.

Check back tomorrow for part II of this interview.

(c) Stereo Warning 2007. All Rights Reserved. Be nice and don't reproduce this content without prior written approval.

Tags: the cure robert smith

All we can say is, watch and learn. Rodrigo y Gabriela doing Orion by Metallica. A great cover of a great song.

Tags: metallica rodrigo y gabriela