TAKEN WITH THE CURE

The Cure is one of the many fascinating bands that came out of the English pop-music revolution of 1976-77. It’s also one of the few that has lasted through the decade since. The Cure has done more than that--it has continued to challenge and change and remain one of the world’s most inventive collections of musicians, right up through the new double album “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me.”

Through various personnel changes, Robert Smith has always been the leader of the Cure, and one of the true geniuses of modern pop music. It has also become clear, now that the ‘80s are drawing to a close, that along with U2 and a disappointingly few other groups, the Cure represents what was best about the decade.

The Cure has something special to offer, and a surprising number of American fans--who’ve generally ignored the best British groups and rewarded the worst--have finally realized it. The group’s last three albums have sold far better than previous ones, and the Cure is currently on its most successful American tour, which rolls into Southern California this week (Monday at the Santa Barbara County Bowl, Tuesday and Wednesday at the Forum, and Friday at the San Diego Sports Arena).

In its early albums, the Cure devised a starkly simple bass-guitar-drums sound that, unlike punk, drove home feelings of despair and hatred with understatement and exotic melody. Later, the group’s flip--and flippant--side came through, too, ultimately resulting in the marvelous yin-yang blend heard on “Kiss Me.”

A couple of weeks before beginning the tour, Smith flew into New York to do several interviews.

Even during the last interview, at the end of two journalist/deejay-filled days, Smith was gracious and forthcoming throughout the hourlong phone conversation. Perhaps one reason is that I told him at the start that I was planning to write a “Why I Love the Cure” essay and didn’t need to ask some typical questions--about the silly controversy over the lyrics to “Killing an Arab,” for example.

I also said that I didn’t know whether an essay was such a good idea--they’re a lot more fun for the reader when they’re about someone you hate . Another problem was that the main thing that attracts me to the Cure is the mood of the music--something that’s a lot harder to convey than lyrics, political stances and the like. So I thought I’d see if I could get Smith to offer some of his own ideas about what separated the Cure from the pack.

What is it about the Cure that makes it so special?

“Perhaps a healthy disregard for what goes on around us, and a devotion to what you care about,” said the soft-spoken singer.

Smith named a few other bands he admires--the Jesus and Mary Chain, Wire, the Cocteau Twins, Echo & the Bunnymen. “There is an attitude at the core of those groups that you can discern very easily: You know that they would not compromise what they do. And most groups don’t have that sort of integrity.”

Last year’s “Standing on a Beach,” an album that compiled several of the band’s singles, and the video collection “Staring at the Sea” made a lot of new fans (and even some old ones) aware of how many different periods the Cure had gone through in eight years of recording, and how many moods it was capable of creating--not just the dark one it’s generally identified with. In its own way, explained Smith, “Kiss Me” also reflects the width of the Cure spectrum.

“The new album, in particular, relied on us having a history. All the others revolved around a certain core.”

And the very multiformity of “Kiss Me,” he said, resulted from putting together the singles and video collections.

“When we were doing all the retrospective stuff last year, I sat down, got a few beers and listened to everything we’d done from the beginning right through. I’m sure that influenced the way the new record was put together. I was startled. Things I thought I’d like, I didn’t, and things I thought didn’t work were really good. Like ‘Doubt’ on ‘Faith.’ I’d always maintained it was the weakest track on the record. But listening to it last year I found it was a really good song.”

This “madman”--as the English press has loved to portray him--went through his maddest period around 1982-83. After completing its most somber album, “Pornography” (also one of its greatest), the Cure caught fans off guard with a single (“Let’s Go to Bed”), an EP (“The Walk”) and an album (“The Top”) that demonstrated that the group could be upbeat--even if it seemed a strange, cynical “happiness.”

“The period around ‘Pornography’ was the darkest extreme that I can imagine any group being involved in,” said Smith.

“It had its conclusion then with the disintegration of everyone involved. I found myself on a camping holiday with my girlfriend a couple of months after the whole thing broke up. I was sitting in a field thinking about what I was doing, and all the good things I could do, about why I was feeling so dreadful and morose--why everything had become so overwhelming.”

Right then and there, he devised a new approach.

“It came to me in one day--’Let’s Go to Bed,’ ‘Lovecats,’ all that. I was sitting there thinking what could I do that would be so ludicrous that people would think, ‘This can’t be the Cure, he must have lost his mind--it’s finally happened.’

“It came out of that happier, more contented side of my character, but it was also designed as an escape. I knew some people would be confused by what we were doing and lose interest--the people who were just living vicariously through me. I just wanted to shake off their interest in me.”

While the resulting records were uneven, the revised attitude eventually led to the powerful diversity of styles on the next two studio LPs, “Head on the Door” and “Kiss Me.” The newest cliche about Smith is that he’s a changed man--the happy if not quite sappy “new” Robert Smith.

Said Smith, “It isn’t that I’m necessarily any happier. I’m still troubled by many of the same things. It’s just that I’ve had more time to come to terms with them. I don’t feel as much need to scream these things at other people.”

Smith has one of the most distinctive looks in pop, his appearance at times leaning toward the androgynous--at least in terms of makeup. Has he ever tried to be provocative with his image?

“Not really,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve always had people around me who’ve allowed me to do what I want. Whatever I was doing, even when I was at school, I never repressed anything that I felt. I wasn’t flamboyant, I was actually quite reticent most of the time. But if I felt I had to do something I did it. So this naturally led me into where I wanted to be in an environment where I didn’t feel straitjacketed.

“A lot of it has to do with what you go home to (when growing up). And I went home to a sort of very deranged mother and father who were very supportive. They were always on my side. All along the line, though, I’ve never contrived an image. I’ve never thought much about what other people think about me. I never worry about what I do.”

He paused, and had second thoughts. “Well, I do. I am very self-conscious a lot of the time. For the videos I usually drink an extraordinary amount to sort of liberate myself, but beyond that I don’t really think about what I’m going to do in a video until the camera’s actually going and I’m standing there trying to lip-sync. The most difficult thing is just trying to stand up a lot of the time.”

The Cure has made simple but outstanding videos ever since the band started. The ones from “Let’s Go to Bed” on, however, have been especially instrumental in exposing the group to an American audience, and were made by one of the most creative directors in the business, Tim Pope--whose eccentricity matches Smith’s.

“He doesn’t try to sell us or sell the record,” observed Smith. “He doesn’t try to make us look good. He makes films of us that he wants people to watch and be entertained by, and he almost sees us as props sometimes. Which is fine. If people think we look stupid, that doesn’t bother me.”

The Cure has avoided the social/political lyrics that excite so many American critics. But Smith’s probing, personal reflections, combined with the group’s mesmerizing music, sometimes constitute real and great art, the kind that can lead to catharsis and individual change. Smith, however, wasn’t so sure the Cure could have that much effect on very many people.

“Most people don’t seem to even care or understand how they might be trapped,” he said. “I’m horrified by how many people live, and about how they don’t want to change.”

But some do, and when reminded of that Smith brightened his view a bit. “Yes, and when they see other people being able to do it, they can feel more able to do it themselves. That’s why it’s important for me not to be cowardly about doing what I want to do.”

And in that way, the Cure is provocative. “In some cases I quite like irritating people who need to be irritated.”

With momentary exceptions, Smith and his mates (Simon Gallup, bass; Porl Thompson, guitar, keyboards, saxophone; Laurence Tolhurst, keyboards; Boris Williams, drums) have also avoided making music as grating as many of the underground art/noise bands that the Cure is sometimes associated with. The darkness, even at its darkest, was melodic and entrancing.

“I’ve always thought that there has to be enticement in our records. People have to be lured before they can be snared. You can’t confront them if they’re not there.

“It’s like the whole thing of us becoming more prominent in America. People say, ‘Are you worried about it?’ I’m not worried. It’s not going to change what goes on in the group. I think we should have been listened to much more years ago.”