From NME:
“The NME has meant many things to me over the years that I’ve been doing this with The Cure. At the very start, it was NME, Sounds and Melody Maker. You kind of fell into one three camps. Even though Melody Maker adopted The Cure after a while and Sounds were the first to put us on the cover, it was NME with Paul Morley’s piece about [1980 album] ‘Seventeen Seconds’ that got me going, in a way. They sent him out to cover us playing a show in Norwich or something, and I suddenly appreciated what it was like to be writer as opposed to just being in a band that was written about.
“NME still has it, of course, but the quality of writing through the early ‘80s was really good and informed me a lot about people that I wouldn’t have otherwise been thinking about. It was an important part of our cultural life and you rely on it to be a voice for good. At times I think it has lost its way, but generally for 70 years it’s almost done as well as us!
“It does feel like I’m a bit of an imposter to still be part of things like [the BandLab NME Awards 2022]. Not that I don’t think we’re good, but when I look around at what other people are doing I’m just like, ‘Really?’ When I’m on stage playing I understand why I’m still doing it because I love it, but when I go home I’ll wake up tomorrow with a thick head and think, ‘What did I say?’”