{"id":791275,"date":"2018-12-13T15:41:44","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T22:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=768934"},"modified":"2018-12-13T15:41:44","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T22:41:44","slug":"the-cures-lol-tolhurst-on-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-ive-got-my-goth-tux-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/the-cures-lol-tolhurst-on-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-ive-got-my-goth-tux-ready\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cure\u2019s Lol Tolhurst on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: \u2018I\u2019ve Got My Goth Tux Ready\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Lol-Tolhurst-The-Cure.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"\/><\/div>\n<p>At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, former Cure drummer-keyboardist Lol Tolhurst felt his wife tapping him on the shoulder. \u201cShe told me she had a big surprise to tell me,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought maybe she was pregnant and I\u2019d get to be a father again. But then she told me that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/the-cure\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-cure\" data-tag=\"the-cure\">the Cure<\/a> had been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/radiohead-janet-jackson-stevie-nicks-rock-roll-hall-of-fame-2019-class-767917\/\">inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>. Ever since then the phone has been going off. It\u2019s been a bit of a surreal morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tolhurst \u2014 a founding member of the the Cure who left in 1989 \u2014 took a few minutes away from his surreal morning to talk about the induction, the possibility of an onstage reunion with his former band, his brief stint back in the band in 2011 and his current relationship with Robert Smith.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was your first reaction to the news?<br \/><\/strong>It\u2019s gonna sound strange. Last year I was on the road for the whole year with my book and I met so many Cure fans and so many people that the music had affected. It felt like the perfect circle. It had come to the point where I didn\u2019t assume it was going to happen, but I sort of knew. I had a precognition that it was going to happen. It was just like, \u201cOh, yeah. That\u2019s cool.\u201d I just felt very grateful in that moment, I think.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What does this mean to you on a personal level?<br \/><\/strong>I always hear from people how much the Cure touched their lives. Obviously it\u2019s nice for people to say that something you\u2019ve done has meant something to them, but on a personal level it\u2019s humbling if you take it in the right way because otherwise you can let your ego go completely ridiculous. That\u2019s not really what I want to experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019re definitely going, right?<br \/><\/strong>I\u2019ve got my tux ready, my goth tux of course [<em>laughs<\/em>].<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j2Lyn4_KZrY?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>They\u2019re taking in you, Robert Smith, Porl Thompson, Perry Bamonte, Michael Dempsey, Simon Gallup, Boris Williams, Jason Cooper and Roger O\u2019Donnell.\u00a0Any mistakes? Did they get that right?<br \/><\/strong>Yeah. I don\u2019t really understand their criteria too much. It seems a little arbitrary in some respects. It would be nice to meet everyone again. A couple of those people I haven\u2019t seen in ages. That will be good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you guys all get along with each other?<br \/><\/strong>Yeah. I\u2019d say so. You gotta consider that Robert and Simon and Porl are my teenage friends. They are people I grew up with. I was talking to Michael about it this morning. We communicate quite regularly. We\u2019ve known each other for 50 years. Of course, we\u2019re all gonna be there and chat. But we won\u2019t necessarily talk about music. We\u2019ll talk about people that we know and family stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Who haven\u2019t you seen in decades that you hope to see that night?<br \/><\/strong>I haven\u2019t seen Perry in a long time, probably for maybe 20 years. That\u2019ll be interesting. Everyone else I\u2019ve seen fairly recently.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you think you\u2019ll all play together?<br \/><\/strong>I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll hear from Robert sooner or later about that. If we do, we do. If we don\u2019t, I\u2019ll be happy to sit there and watch what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I would love to see a super jam on \u201cBoys Don\u2019t Cry\u201d with everyone from the Cure, past and present.<br \/><\/strong>Yeah. I\u2019ve been looking at social media today and a lot of people have already suggested that we do that or this really long, sort of improvisation at the end of every set that we named \u201cForever.\u201d They\u2019ve suggested we do that with everyone in the band playing together at once, which would be quite horrendous, but it could be fun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s the cool thing about the Hall of Fame. They brought in Yes a couple years back and they were in the middle of a nasty spat, but they still performed as a unit.<br \/><\/strong>It\u2019s funny. Michael told me this morning that it was quite surreal for him. I told him that I was going to treat it like a high school reunion because that\u2019s basically what it is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s a really cool class this year with you guys, Roxy Music, Radiohead, the Zombies \u2026<br \/><\/strong>You know what I\u2019m most proud of? For us and for Radiohead probably, I feel like we\u2019ve broken that glass ceiling because there was a time when I don\u2019t think bands like Depeche Mode or the Cure or Radiohead were going to be in the Hall of Fame. We were too different for whatever reason. I\u2019m glad that we\u2019re able to be the ones that go in there and break that ceiling down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I think part of the problem is the Hall of Fame is so American and sometimes they don\u2019t fully appreciate British bands.<br \/><\/strong>I don\u2019t really subscribe to that because the Cure are very much, to my mind \u2026 I\u2019ve lived in Los Angeles for 25 years. I\u2019m an American citizen. I travel around America a lot, and to me, the Cure are as much a part of American culture as they are British culture. We came to play in America in 1980 for the first time. We played all the small towns and the small clubs and colleges. For all intents and purposes, we were like the local band. We just came from 5,000 miles away. And so we\u2019re deep in the consciousness of America, to me. The things we sang about and wrote about were always applicable to people everywhere. The suburbs of South London were the same as the suburbs in Orange County, just with better weather really.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bands often play three songs. Can you think of three songs the Cure should play?<br \/><\/strong>I suppose it would have to encompass everybody of every era. Maybe a song off <em>Wish<\/em>, maybe \u201cBoys Don\u2019t Cry\u201d and then I don\u2019t know. There\u2019s such a big catalog of stuff that it\u2019s hard to put it all together in three songs, but definitely \u201cBoys Don\u2019t Cry\u201d has to be there somewhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Were Roxy Music an influence on you?<br \/><\/strong>Michael played in Roxy Music for a while, but I read that they\u2019re not having any of their myriad bass players come back for it; otherwise he\u2019d be in the strange position of being inducted in two bands at the same time. Roxy Music, definitely, but you know who I\u2019m really looking forward to seeing? The Zombies. I want to tell Colin Blunstone that as a teenage boy living in suburban South London, my life was forever changed by that single he made \u201cSay You Don\u2019t Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LsdBXJyAo0E?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/zombies-colin-blunstone-rod-argent-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-interview-768457\/\">I spoke to him yesterday.<\/a> He\u2019s just ecstatic.<br \/><\/strong>That\u2019s good! They\u2019ve been going longer than us. I saw them play in Los Angeles last year. They played down there in Santa Monica. It was pretty awesome. I didn\u2019t get a chance to meet them, but I\u2019m hoping the ceremony will put us in the same space and I get to say hi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are you a fan of Radiohead?<br \/><\/strong>I\u2019m a fan of their most electronic stuff. I know a lot of super Radiohead fans always talk about the early albums, but I like <em>In Rainbows<\/em> and <em>Kid A<\/em>. I\u2019m really a fan of the experimental stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How about Def Leppard?<br \/><\/strong>You know what? I think Simon in the Cure is a big Iron Maiden fan, so he\u2019ll have a lot to talk about with them. He told me it wasn\u2019t just a passing phase. Def Leppard did something that was quite different for their particular genre. That\u2019ll be interesting. Also, they\u2019ve been through a lot as well, so that qualifies you as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can you envision a big jam at the end of the night with Radiohead, Def Leppard, the Zombies and the Cure?<br \/><\/strong>[<em>Laughs<\/em>] Frankly, probably not, but I don\u2019t say never. The truth is that despite whatever cultural things are different and where we came from, the thing that holds us together is music. And music is the universal language. I\u2019ve travelled around the world a few times and I\u2019ve seen that people can be different, cultures can be different, but I would always hear music everywhere and it unites people. There\u2019s no reason why it wouldn\u2019t unite a bunch of very disparate bands. I say that, but there\u2019s lots of connections between us. We all come from the same root back in the Fifties. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re all from outer space.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How often do you speak to Robert Smith these days?<br \/><\/strong>Last time I heard from him was probably three or four weeks ago. We\u2019re in contact from time to time, and me and Simon, and Michael I talk to quite a lot, and Porl Thompson from time to time and Boris Williams. I keep in touch. I\u2019m sort of like the glue for the whole Cure family.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m sure at the height of the lawsuit over the name rights back in the Nineties you didn\u2019t think that would ever happen, right?<br \/><\/strong>Right. In a matter of weeks I\u2019ll be 60, which is more surreal than getting into the Hall of Fame. And one thing I\u2019ve learned is that life is not really linear at all. When you\u2019re a young man you think that life is like, \u201cOK, I\u2019ve climbed this mountain. Let\u2019s get ready to climb another one.\u201d Life isn\u2019t like that. Life, I\u2019ve found, is a set of concentric circles. You sort of jump from one to the other, but in the end you come around to the same things, the same emotions, the same people. And the Cure is no different, which is probably why it\u2019s gone on for so long.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rEl6yEnJom8?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>How were the 2011 reunion shows you played with the Cure for you on an emotional level? I\u2019m sure being back on that stage after all those years was intense.<br \/><\/strong>That was actually part of the impetus for me to write my book. It was such an amazing, emotional thing. It was a transcendent journey, really. The first show at the Sydney Opera House was really like an out-of-body experience for me. It was beautiful. I can\u2019t get any more hippie-fied than that, which would shock my punk-rock self. But then again, I think the punks are just hippies in different clothes. It was wonderful and a good point in life to sit and do that sort of stuff and reacquaint ourselves with each other. Maybe we\u2019ll do something like that again in the future.<\/p>\n<p><strong>At the very least, hopefully, at the Hall of Fame.<br \/><\/strong>Yeah. When I heard about this this morning, it was kind of like when we first started the Cure in that we would do things and stuff would happen. I wasn\u2019t blas\u00e9 about it and I never assumed things would happen. But people always ask me, \u201cDid you ever think your band would be so big?\u201d I didn\u2019t really think it would be so big, but I didn\u2019t not think it would be so big. It was just a natural part of life. It started to roll along and I thought, \u201cOK, we do this and that and this will happen.\u201d It\u2019s kind of like this. I kind of assumed in my gut, which is the thing I trust most of all, I thought it would happen. And so at the moment, the jury is out about what might happen at the actual ceremony, but I\u2019m looking for some surprises.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/cure-lol-tolhurst-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-interview-768934\/\" target=\"_blank\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, former Cure drummer-keyboardist Lol Tolhurst felt his wife tapping him on the shoulder. \u201cShe told me she had a big surprise to tell me,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought maybe she was pregnant and I\u2019d get to be a father again. But then she told me that the Cure had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-791275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 09:55:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}