HERE’S THE CURE FOR DEPRESSION

Robert Smith, the Cure’s eccentric leader, likes to drink. Now and then he suffers a hangover. He was grappling with one on the morning of this interview. That was one reason he nearly didn’t do it. The other reason was that he doesn’t like doing interviews.

“I don’t like talking very much to journalists when we’re on tour because it gets in the way,” explained Smith, the lead singer and chief composer of this oddball British band. Currently it’s on a short tour that includes a date Thursday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre and next Sunday at the Forum.

“If you acquiesce to one interview, there’s always another waiting in the wings,” he continued. “Also if you’re interviewed repeatedly, you just start repeating yourself. I don’t like to do that.”

But to his credit, once he decided to do the interview, Smith was neither surly nor uncommunicative. Pudgy, soft-spoken and supersensitive, Smith is an outsider. He’s proud of it too. To him the mainstream is alien territory. He’s one of those quirky, brainy types who never seem to fit in. Apparently, though, the band’s fans find this endearing.

In his edgy, fluttery vocals, this tortured, brooding quality is very evident. Bleakness has been the group’s trademark. For most of its career, the Cure has been locked into this post-punk, doom-and-gloom syndrome. If you want to be depressed, check out “Standing on the Beach: the Singles,” a collection of the group’s best singles, highlighted by ‘Killing an Arab.”

“I don’t look at myself as being depressed,” Smith said. “No more than anybody else.”

The last Cure album, “The Head on the Door” (the band’s first on Elektra Records), was much brighter than past albums like “Happily Ever After,” “Pornography” and “The Top.” But don’t look at it as the beginning of a trend. Smith is too unpredictable.

You’re excused if you’ve never heard of the Cure. Some knowledgeable rock fans have never heard of the band either.

Though the Cure has been making records for 10 years, its albums haven’t been big sellers in this country--rarely selling more than 50,000 copies. But “The Head on the Door,” as close to a traditional pop album as the Cure has ever recorded, sold more than 250,000. For this band, that’s like a three-million-seller.

The Cure may even hold the record for years as an underground band--10. Americans first heard about them in the early ‘80s, when New Wave was first poking its head out from the underground. New Wave is gone, but the Cure is still underground.

One problem the band has had since its formation in Sussex, England, in 1976 has been a revolving-door membership. Smith and keyboardist Lawrence Tolhurt have been the only constants. Bassist Simon Gallup, who has bounced in and out of the band, is back in again. Porl Thompson (guitars and keyboards) and Boris Williams (drums and percussion) are the other members--for now, anyway.

At one time, after the 1982 “Pornography” album, there was no Cure. “The band just stopped for a six-month period,” Smith recalled. “I had no intention of ever making another Cure record. It looked like were going to be endlessly playing to the same audience. I could see no alternative, no possibility for change. I lost control for a while.”

Touring as a guitarist for Siouxsie and the Banshees helped Smith work his way out of the doldrums. The 1984 album, “The Top,” which was scattered and self-indulgent, seemed like the Cure’s last stand. But then “The Head on the Door” came out last year. Erratic, but provocative, it proved that the Cure was back.

Smith doesn’t like the music business. He made that clear right away. This has been a problem. He’s spent more time rebelling against the industry than working to sell records.

To Smith, promoting records is somehow a violation of musical integrity. That’s why doing interviews, which is part of the selling process, rankles him.

“We don’t want to get caught up in the game of promotion and public relations,” he explained. The cutthroat competition in the business disturbs him, too.

“I hate the idea of groups competing against each other in some kind of race to see who can sell more records or get higher on the charts,” he said. “The whole thing is ludicrous. We’re not going to try to sell more records than somebody else. We’re not going to try to broaden our appeal. We don’t particularly want to.”

Where does fame fit into all this?

“I’m certainly not in it for the fame,” he insisted. “We’d try a lot harder if we wanted to be famous. Who needs it? It’s just one more thing that gets in the way.”

A nasty rumor has been circulating that the Cure made “The Head on the Door,” its most pop-oriented, accessible album, just to sell records.

“Trying to sell records had nothing to do with it,” Smith insisted. “It’s the happiest Cure record. The mood and tone of the album has to do with how I feel when it’s being made. I just felt good.”

Smith doesn’t have a high opinion of American pop music. To him, it’s hopelessly bland.

Bad records--American or otherwise--are an affront to Smith.

“It makes me angry when people keep making these awful records,” he said. “I got a big box of all of Elektra’s (the Cure’s label, Elektra Records) new releases. They’re awful. I couldn’t believe it.”

It’s not just pop music by Americans that rankles Smith. “Why,” he inquired in a tone dripping with disgust, “do people like a-ha (the Norwegian band) have to make records? It’s a waste of time. And in England there are all these new groups. Their music is dreadful.”

For Smith, however, there is a positive factor in the “wretched” state of pop music: “Every time I see how much junk is out there, it really motivates me to work.”

Smith grudgingly admitted there are a few faint rays of hope in popular music. So far this year, he said, there have been only three decent albums, including works by folkish singer Suzanne Vega and jazz artist Sadao Watanabe.

What’s the third album on his ultra-elite list?

“It’s ours, of course,” Smith replied. “If we stop making records, there will always be one less good record out there. That’s why the Cure will go on.”