The last time Robert Smith stopped in Hong Kong, he wasn't sure where he was. Tired and emotional after missing a connecting flight from Japan to Australia (or the other way round - he really can't remember), he recalls being in a hotel room with his band, the Cure, feeling far less than 100 per cent. Something to do with drinking. It was 1984. The outside world was a muddle of bright lights and loud noises. 'I don't even think I knew I was in Hong Kong,' he says. It's 4.30am in London, but Smith sounds chipper on the phone. It's the end of his work day, or night (he starts at 2pm) and he's been trying to wrap up the band's 13th studio album before they head off on a tour taking in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australasia and North America. When Smith arrives here for the Cure's July 30 show, he'll be treating it as his first official trip. 'My intention this time is to visit Hong Kong and walk away from it with some memories of what it's like,' he says with a wry laugh. The Cure have been pegged as a gothic rock band, but their vast catalogue of songs, from the gloomy Charlotte Sometimes to the syrupy Friday, I'm in Love and the hopelessly romantic Lovesong, renders any categorisation futile. Since the band formed as a teenage outfit in the 1970s, its changing lineup of members has threatened, but never extinguished, its existence. Smith has been the only constant. Guitarist Porl Thompson is Smith's brother-in-law and was a member of the original lineup in 1976, but was dropped in 1979, only to be re-enlisted in 1983. He stayed until 1993, when he left to tour with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. He eventually helped reform the Cure in 2005. Jason Cooper has been first-choice drummer since 1995. Bassist Simon Gallup joined the band in 1979, before leaving three years later due to differences with Smith. As he explained shortly after: 'It's just basically that Robert and I are both really arrogant bastards, and it got to an extreme. I suppose you just can't have two egocentrics in a band, and Robert was sort of 'the main man'.' But Gallup was back with the Cure by 1985 and was best man at Smith's wedding in 1988. With his bird's nest of black hair and lipstick that looks as if it's been applied with a spatula, 48-year-old Smith remains a looming influence in pop culture, as evinced by the mainstream success of emo, of which he's probably chief progenitor. Bands such as My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Interpol all owe him a debt. He has drunkenly interviewed David Bowie on a London radio station and performed at his birthday concert, he's beaten up a cartoon version of Barbara Streisand in an episode of South Park, and he's responsible for writing the music that helped sell more than 25 million albums. But he's not sure what to expect in Hong Kong. 'I don't know what the Cure mean in Hong Kong, if anything,' he says. He needn't worry. The band has a solid following here, says music critic Wong Chi-chung. 'They transformed gothic into another level that's more accessible, which is a good thing because sometimes gothic music turns itself into an indulgence,' Wong says. Local musicians such as Seasons Lee, formerly of the band Virus but now a solo act, consciously reference Smith. Lee plays his own brand of Canto-Goth, says Wong. But there are detractors. In 1990, for instance, an evangelical radio host described their work as the music of 'negativism, nihilism, and nothingism' and convinced a 13-year-old fan to renounce the Cure on-air and pledge to heal her troubled relationship with her mother, for which the band was apparently to blame. Smith, a soft-spoken but talkative man with a quick wit, scoffs at the story. 'I think all evangelicals are nutcases,' he says. A half-second passes. 'Unequivocally - nutcases.' Despite an increasing benevolence demonstrated by a series of charity gigs in recent years, Smith stands by the nihilism of some of his lyrics. 'Essentially, my position has remained unchanged: I find it very, very difficult to see a real point in existence.' But his gloom-mongering has been tempered by time. 'At 48, you'd have to be insane to think, 'I can just keep doing what I'm doing without taking any notice of what's going on around me'. You'd be morally bankrupt.' The forthcoming album has been more than a year in the making, having been delayed by a drawn-out DVD project, Festival 2005. When it eventually emerges, a special-edition double album mixed by Smith is likely to follow. He has resisted the urge to airbrush the songs in an effort to capture the spontaneity and rawness of the recording sessions and he's pleased with the result. Smith is also rediscovering the joy of being in a band. The Cure's last outing - for 2004's eponymous album - was so fraught that it resulted in another break-up. But he says that 'this album has been without question the most pleasurable experience I've ever had in a recording studio.' It feels as if the quartet are all pulling in the same direction. 'We've played great shows and the last album had some great songs on it and was a good album, but I forgot what it was like to come off stage feeling that I was part of something bigger than me.' A Night with the Cure, Jul 30, 8pm, AsiaWorld-Arena, Chek Lap Kok, HK$380, HK$580, HK$780 HK Ticketing. Inquiries: 3128 8288
