Page 71 - Classic Rock (February 2020)
P. 71
The Cure playing in
Belgium, October 1980.
Nik Fiend (Alien Sex Fiend): After the punk
thing, there was a three-or-four-year period where
you had Bauhuas, the Birthday Party, The Cramps,
Killing Joke. My mind was wide open, just soaking
it up like a sponge.
Wayne Hussey (the Sisters Of Mercy guitarist/
The Mission frontman): I can’t remember the Siouxsie Sioux with Siouxsie
first time I heard the word ‘goth’. It might have And The Banshees at Park
been a word that had been bandied around about West, Chicago in 1981.
Joy Division or the Banshees or The Cure.
“With Seventeen Seconds, we honestly felt that we
Siouxsie And The Banshees and The Cure had
formed in 1976, in the throes of punk. But by were creating something that no one else had done.”
1979, both bands had moved beyond their
scrappy beginnings to unknowingly help Robert Smith, The Cure
usher in this new movement with their
respective second albums: The Cure’s like that. A song like Premature Burial from that psychological; nothing to do with ghosts and
Seventeen Seconds and the Banshees’ Join Hands. album is certainly gothic in its proper sense. ghouls. We were quite confident with the image
we were putting across, and were starting to play
Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie And The Banshees Robert Smith (The Cure singer/guitarist): with it a bit.
singer): My first love affair with With Seventeen Seconds, we honestly
a record was with John Leyton’s felt that we were creating something Siouxsie Sioux: Juju had a strong identity, which
Johnny Remember Me [1961]. It had that no one else had done. With the goth bands that came in our wake tried to
these amazing, ghostly backing [landmark 1979 single] A Forest, mimic, but they simply ended up diluting it.
vocals, a great melody, and it was I wanted to do something that was They were using horror as the basis for stupid
about a dead girlfriend, basically. really atmospheric. rock’n’roll pantomime. There was no sense of
tension in their music.
Steven Severin (Siouxsie And Nik Fiend: [The Banshees’ third
The Banshees bassist): We’d album] Juju definitely had goth
described Join Hands as ‘gothic’ elements. It was quite progressive
at the time of its release, but and dark. The Cure and Siouxsie And The Banshees
journalists hadn’t picked up on it. both played a significant part in the genesis of
Certainly, at that time we were reading Steven Severin: If Juju had this new movement. But if one band warrant
a lot of Edgar Allan Poe and writers a horror theme to it, it was the accolade Godfathers Of Goth, then it’s
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 71
