Hollywood in the 1930s wasn't the ideal environment for a feisty, independent actress with an inquiring mind who couldn't stomach the iniquities of the studio system.

Frances Farmer found this out the hard way. After particularly cruel ice-pick lobotomy treatment to cure what was perceived as her madness, she was moved to remark: "Everything's gonna be real slow now. Everything's gonna be alright, but slow."

Camden in the 1990s and Toni Halliday brings this sad tale up to describe her state of mind after three years in the wilderness. Things are going to be slower for her from now on, at least in terms of a career. Curve might have been one of the more revered groups at the turn of the decade, but they are now surely marginal to the current scheme of things.

If the new, young guitar groups are as elegant as customised Lamborghinis in the fast lane of pop, these stars of another era - who have returned with their dignity intact - are like a beat-up Volkswagen jalopy cruising on the hard shoulder. Yet it would be a churlish fool who refused to acknowledge Curve's contribution to the modernisation of guitar-pop, especially when stolen bits of their past work gleam from the supposedly innovative output of some of today's big names.

For the first year of Curve's self-imposed exile, Toni Halliday's musical partner in the group, Dean Garcia, found himself unable to deal with anything that was going on in the pop world.

"I just couldn't relate," he sighs. "I thought, 'That's it, I'm too old now'. I was quite aware of that right from when we made our first record. I felt quite old, even then. But I thought what we were doing was relevant to what was going on, as I do now. So I just take the piss. I just think I'm an old c---..."

"A fat old c---," Toni rejoins, laughing.

"...And what we do is still relevant," Dean continues, "judging by the things going on around us. Pop music has always been young and beautiful; music by the young for the young, but on the outside of that, it goes deeper."

"If I was trying to sell you a Menswear record at our age - and Dean is 37 to my 31 - then that would be a bit crap," says Toni. "But we're not. We're not even purporting to be a pop band."

THE MAIN reason for Curve's broken career and subsequent lost years was madness. Nervous breakdowns, mental problems, agrophobia, eating disorders, anguish...

"A lot went on," Toni understates. "We got to the point where we weren't having fun."

"I just lost it, really, in my attic," Dean says. "I went a bit mad upstairs, Didn't wanna do it any more.

One minute they were in the USA, trying to disprove theories that they were an electro-goth act - albeit a twisted one with a penchant for wild samples, extreme guitar noise and sarcastic lyrics - to packed houses. The next, they looked in the mirror and didn't like themselves very much.

On the tour that broke Curve's back, things went slowly haywire. As the domesticated Dean Garcia reflects now, if the situation had dragged on for another six months, he'd have ended up an alcoholic. The slide started with a tumbler of vodka after every show and gradually spiralled into half-a-glass before the show, then finally onto the more destructive full bottle a day. Toni, for her part, tried her best not to eat anything for five weeks and later ended up in a clinic with anorexia.

To compound the problems, it felt as if the country around them was in the grip of a heroin epidemic.

"Heroin was everywhere," she remembers now, "but it was really sad because even the runners in the venues were all smacked-out (Laughs). They thought it was really hip and cool. And in the end, y'know, they're the ones left with the habit when everything round them changes and it's not like that any more."

Matters escalated when Toni and Dean found out they were becoming arseholes. Not only that, but they were being encouraged by people around them to behave as badly as possible.

"When we had a little bit of time to ourselves, though, there were regrets," she admits. "It would be like, 'Oh! F---ing hell. I said that thing last night. You c---, you're such a dick'. You feel like a c---. And no-one wants to feel like that or should have to feel like that.

"And all the 'shake-and-fake' stuff. You're just standing there. shaking hands with people you have no respect for. And you know it. And they know it. And you start to feel sick. And you can't eat. And you just drink. And then you just become a bigger and bigger wanker. And then you can't live with yourself."

CURVE DISAPPEARED as swiftly as they had arrived in the public consciousness, without so much as an explanation. Since Toni and Dean find it easy to work together, on and off, this wasn't a problem. She guested on 'Original' with Leftfield - possibly the only reason the present generation will know who she is - while he delved into noise experiments and film scores. And alhough Toni believes the ulterior motive driving most musicians is the need to balance the attention they lacked as children, neither of them particularly missed the limelight.

"We were just having a life," she says of the period of recuperation and rest. "Dean's got a whole family. I'm married now. There's other things going on in our lives that stimulate what we do, by the way. We would never sacrifice our lives, because there's priorities.

"It's such a privileged position to be in, to make music. But the reality is: when music's gone, and you have no career, where are your friends and family? And I would never sacrifice a friendship, even for music. It's too important. People are too important. Relationships are too important."

An avid gig-goer, Toni couldn't attend concerts for a while because of her troubles. Instead, she went out to dinner with mates and "started to mend all the relationships I'd broken over the years... I started to repair my life, started to repair relationships with my family, my mother."

Didn't she feel others would fill the vacuum left by Curve and cash in on their painstaking work?

"That always happens. You go away and expect the hole to be filled. Some bright spark will definitely come along. I'm really pleased with bands that are coming up now, because at least we sound modern."

"They'll never be able to do what we do," Dean says of their imitators.

Some say Garbage already do.

Toni: "We can't do what they do."

Dean: "Butch Vig is a well-travelled man. He put the record together and he's dealt with some serious people. And the only reasons they get comparisons to us is because they're modern. And we're modern. We don't sound retro. We never sounded retro and neither do Garbage."

Toni refuses to be drawn on the subject. Today, she and Dean are alternately playful and watchful, friendly but always ready to strike back. The lines are drawn with respect to their personal lives, but they will gleefully discuss most subjects, including her perception that there's been a serious breakdown in society in this country over the last three years, of which road rage episodes are but a symptom.

"Where I live in Kilburn, round the corner there's an estate known as Crack Central," she explains. "I've been attacked in my car, just driving along. Once, this little guy came along on a pushbike. This grown man on a kid's pushbike. He was wild. His face was wild and his hair was wild. His eyes were just... indescribable.

"Something happened and he pulled out his mobile phone and started talking. And I went home and said, 'Alan (Moulder, her husband), I think I should have a mobile phone because the crack dealer around the comer's got one, so why can't I have one? Just to get help! So I can speed-dial the police'. I've never had to lock my car when I've been driving before. I feel threatened and I never felt that before in London."

Trying times, perhaps, but Curve seem a lot happier and upbeat than can be expected after their various traumas. The compulsion to 'get a life' and stockpile experiences for future wisdom has served them well, even if the angular return single, 'Pink Girl With The Blues', will mainly tide people over until what Dean insists will be "the first real LP" next January.

Alternately, Toni Halliday mutters darkly about the possibility of 'doing a Blue Nile' and resurfacing every seven years. Which would mean a completely unrecognisable pop landscape, perhaps one where the future is more receptive to them, and just dues are finally paid in full. Whatever happens, Curve have weathered a powerful storm.

(article nicked from 'New Musical Express', 7 September 1996)