Looking for a particular Robert Smith interview

Jul 9, 2014 19:39:35 GMT 1 steve said:

Done a lot of searching & can only think it may have been a mention about the Tweaker collaboration in 2004 .

steve,

I’m very sorry to hear about that. The good news however, is that I may have possibly found a fragment from the interview in question in this thread over at the “Vintage Synth Explorer” forums, where a poster was asking about the synths used on The Cure’s “The Walk” song. In it, Robert Smith mentioned using the same equipment and producer as Japan’s “Tin Drum” because he happened to enjoy the album. Apparently, my memory of it was quite hazy, after all.

The problem however, is that I don’t know the source or if it’s even a legitimate quote. Would you or anyone else happen to know which specific interview it was from?

Here’s the quote I was referring to:

"We did The Dream using the same Oberheim synthesizer setup as The Walk, using Japan as a reference, because I loved what Nye had got on their album Tin Drum, and I wanted something along those lines. We were off on a short holiday to electropopland!"

Also, after a couple more Google searches, I came across an excerpt from Chapter Nine of Jeff Apter’s “Never Enough: The Story of The Cure”. It seems that what the author said was basically the same as the quote from the forum post. Only this time, it’s a secondary source instead of a primary one. The two important excerpts from the book are listed below with the parts about Japan bolded and underlined.

“This time around, it would be just Smith and Tolhurst in the studio. For the five-day sessions that would generate the tracks, ‘The Upstairs Room’, which was written while bunking of Severin’s floor, ‘The Dream’, a re-recording of ‘Lament – Smith’s favourite track of the four, which he felt showed off his “romantic side” – and their next single ‘The Walk’, the duo chose to work with chain-smoking producer Steve Nye. Just like Thornalley, Nye had learned from the masters, having started out as an assistant engineer to Beatles producer George Martin, at AIR Studios in 1971. Amongst many subsequent productions, he had worked with XTC and Roxy Music and had co-produced Bryan Ferry’s solo outing In Your Mind. But Nye was best known to Smith for his work on Japan’s Tin Drum album from 1981, widely regarded as the finest hour of these dedicated followers of synth-pop fashion.”

***

“It became even clearer that The Cure was on the rise when New Order, who’d risen from the ashes of Joy Division accused the band of plagiarism: the Mancunian’s ‘Blue Monday’, which appeared around the same time, bore some striking similarities to ‘The Walk’ – or was it the other way around?

“Plenty of people have ripped us off,” barked New Order’s Peter Hook, “but The Cure really take the piss sometimes.” Some years later Smith would defend himself when he revealed that if ‘The Walk’ was stealing from anyone, it was Japan, not New Order. And if there was any similarity between ‘The Walk’ and ‘Blue Monday’, he accredited to the fact that both bands fancied six-string basses.

Of course New Order would have the last laugh, because ‘Blue Monday’ became the highest-selling 12-inch single of all time, breaking the band in the States and finally helping to put the legacy of Ian Curtis to rest. But Hook’s comment said something about The Cure – they’d become serious players in the pop world, a band that couldn’t be ignored.”

Anyway, thank you for your help in trying to find the previously mentioned article. I apologise for my foggy recollections.

MW