The Cure – Pornography

There's two reasons why this has made the list and the first one is very obvious. It's my favorite Cure album; it’s my favorite one that I ever made. In lots of ways we were performing at the best we possibly could for a three piece. And in lots of ways we were completely disintegrating as well. So it had some very poignant moments. But, you know, that's the intersection of a lot of things and a lot of processes. So I like it for that reason.

And the other reason is perhaps a little more personal. My son, Gray, who is going to be 32 this year, has always liked music. I didn't want him to feel pressured in any way to be a musician, or to be a musician of the same type [as me]. I didn't want him to be – and, I mean, no disrespect at all – Julian Lennon. I didn't want him to be any of those people because I thought that that wouldn't serve his purpose. So when he was growing up, I would put different instruments in front of him when he would talk about them. Then one day his friend came around with his tiny little guitar, and he was fascinated by it; the whole day he just made sounds on it. And I thought, okay, that's what he wants to play. So I got guitar lessons from a friend and stuff for him to do and he went that way. He's had a band since he was 14 and his music was never like my music. He was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do something different,’ which I supported.

About five or six years ago, he started up the band that he has now, and he has a guitarist, a French guy, called Jeremy. And him and Jeremy are very obviously the pivotal point in their band. Very creative, right? And Jeremy said to Gray, ‘What do you think about your father’s band, The Cure? What have you listened to?’ And Gray said, ‘Well, I tried not to listen to it. I mean, I know the singles and stuff, but I've never really listened to it.’ And Jeremy said to Gray – bless him – he said, ‘You have to listen to Pornography if you've never listened to that album, because that will explain to you all of the things that you want to know about them.’

His musical friend led him, which is probably the way it should be, because if I'd come down to him and said, ‘Hey, sit down son, I'll show you what it's all about,’ then that wouldn’t have worked. It took somebody else to show him his father's work. And now he has a completely different viewpoint about it. Not only is it an album that saved my life in one way, but it also definitely saved my life in another way, so I'm grateful.

Budgie and I were talking about this as well, because on our new album he said, ‘I repurpose some of the stuff that I did with the Banshees. I'm still thinking about beats and I reclaim them because they were my adventure.’ And the same thing has happened to me recently. I did a track for some friends here, a cover version of a David Crosby song of all things, ‘Everybody's Been Burned’, and it sounds great. I finished playing it. And I realized that I played ‘The Figurehead’ to that song, you know? Then I listened to it closely and I realized that's because of the guitars doing a little loop – that's what triggers you off!

What would have Pornography have sounded like if Conny Plank had produced it? I don't really know. I think it might not have been as good because what was good about it – and I say that with reverence to Conny because he made some great records – was that we had met [producer] Phil Thornalley. He was 22-years-old and he hadn’t been sullied by the music business. He had ideas and we were willing to let him do those ideas. I remember the meeting Connie, Robert and I had in the Fiction Records offices, and he was this huge brooding German guy dressed head-to-toe in black leather. He came and sat down in front of us, and we're, you know, reverential, and he goes, ‘I've just finished an album with Killing Joke. And the music is like an animal! This sound I have to corral!’ And we were like, ‘Oh, God! Is he going to chase us around with a bullwhip and corral us into making music?’ Phil was totally different and totally good for us in that way. And that kind of allowed it to come out. So I think, you know, it would have still been good, but I don't think it would have been like it was.