An Interview With Simon

Zillo Magazine

You had some time of abstinence of playing gigs. Why do you play only one concert in Germany? Why in Konstanz? In 1989 you had been the headliner of the "Rock-am-See-Festival" ("Rock-at-the-lake-festival") as well.

It wasn't that concert itself. We wanted to play on as many summer festivals as possible. This simply means to get a time plan. A week has passed since we played in Mailand, but there weren't any festival in-between. On the planing of the tour, we tried to choose a dozen open airs all around Europe. Meanwhile we already played in Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Belgium, France, England and today in Germany.

Many young bands have covered their favourite cure song. Which of them is your favourite cover? I like "A Forest" by Waltari best.

Don't know that... oh yes! A Scandinavian heavy metal band has played "A Forest". Is that Waltari? Sounds amusing, really! Well, I think, there are hundreds, if not to say a thousand of bootlegs by The Cure. And we play old songs like "A Forest" every time. Played in the encore, some versions easily become a length of 10 to 15 minutes. Now you can imagine how many versions there are - just played by The Cure. The song permanently changes. It grows in itself, is different and new every time we play it. I - for myself - have no favourite cover version of any Cure song.

If you were asked to say some final words about the quarrel with Lol, what would you say?

Personally I regret how Lol excluded from the band. I don't necessarily feel bad. Because of his behaviour Lol was becoming an outsider. If you see it like that, it is negative for him to quit the group. It has much to do with his person. Unfortunately it is a fact that we maybe could have find a new beginning concerning him if only healing time would have go over the wounds. I don't think he could have returned to the band but at least we had have a friendly relationship towards him. Yeah, I had have imagined that. At a private level we could have remain friends. I consider this to be excluded after this long, extensive lawsuit. This wound won't heal for a long time for he has brought so many disturbances to the band. An album had to postponed therefore. The lawsuit cost a lot of money and caused a greater amount of trouble. The worst thing of that thing was: It was totally unfair! And Lol has known it. He had had such a good life, even after his quit. He could have bring his life in order. Then he had be assured. This is why I say I regret this. It is a shame. It's a pity.

Do you know what he's doing at the time?

I've heard some rumours that I don't want to spread 'cause they are rumours. But if half of them are the truth he just has a bad time. I don't know if he plans to make music. As you may heard he's founded a band called "The Presence".

It doesn't mean a thing to me.

I don't think you can get material by them from anywhere. But the fact you haven't heard something of them yet shows the extensions of their success.

What can we expect from your next album?

Altogether, it sounds softer. Disintegration probably comes nearer to it as Wish does. But it will be different for sure because we use real strings instead of keyboard sounds. When I listen to the demos that we've already recorded it seems to me that Robert has gone an other way of song writing on the half of the songs. New arrangements, new kinds of compositions.

Are you well at this?

Of course. The style of music doesn't change that much only because Robert takes the songwriting different.

What do you think of electronic music?

I like that the bands can keep their private sphere if they like it. Many of the electronic music, i.e. Acid, Ambient or Techno, is directly sampled and then is only put together by DJs. All kinds of Singles, CDs and tapes pile up at them. A big store of electronic sounds. But the people making those music mustn't exist as a band necessarily. The just work together; thus there are so many different names for new projects. But you don't know who composes this music or how does he look like. The good thing is, that only the music itself counts w/o an image of face belonging to it. Actually, I don't listen to that sound; it's a completely different world. But I can appreciate this breaking-through-the-barrier. You just can't look at the band and say that you can't stand it before you hasn't really listen to their music. That takes the prejudice `cause you just judges their music and you don't care about how they look like.

How do you assess Industrial or Crossover?

There is an immense power behind it. NINE INCH NAILS are a good example. Electronic music is often very stereotyped looked at. But this example shows that very much energy and emotions can impart with it.

Here in Germany, a clear trend toward electronic music has developed just within the field of independent music. In England it has not.

If I were ask what have changed I'd say that just before 10 years all British bands sounded like Sisters of Mercy or The Cure. Germany seems more progressive. But somehow this movement toward electronic music has happened behind my back. Since I go rarely to clubs to dance, I can't really say something exact. During a tour, when we come from the stage and want to get rid of our adrenaline, this is the only occasion to me to dance to some music. Since we worked on recordings in the last nine months, I hardly had time to go out at all.

Then I'd like to thank you for your responses and that you have took time so short before the time.

I thank you, too.

Last Revised: Monday, 15-May-2006 14:59:59 CDT

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