Robert Smith (musician)

Robert James Smith (born 21 April 1959) is an English singer-songwriter. He is the co-founder, frontman, lead vocalist, primary songwriter, and only continuous member of the rock band the Cure. His guitar-playing style (including his use of the Fender Bass VI), distinctive singing voice, and fashion sense (often sporting a pale complexion, smeared red lipstick, black eye-liner, unkempt wiry black hair, and all-black clothes) were highly influential on the goth subculture that rose to prominence in the 1980s.

Smith's other work includes playing the lead guitar as a member of Siouxsie and the Banshees from 1982 to 1984 and being the co-founder of the short-lived band the Glove in 1983. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Cure in 2019, and Rolling Stone magazine ranked him as the 157th greatest singer of all time in 2023.

Early life

Robert James Smith was born in Blackpool on 21 April 1959, the third of four children of Rita Mary (née Emmott) and James Alexander Smith. He came from a musical family, as his father sang and his mother played the piano. Raised as a Catholic, he later became an atheist. When he was three years old, his family moved to Horley, where he attended St Francis' Primary School. When he was six, his family moved to Crawley, where he attended St. Francis' Junior School. He later quipped, "[Janet] was a piano prodigy, so sibling rivalry made me take up guitar because she couldn't get her fingers around the neck." He told Smash Hits that in 1966, when he turned seven years old, his older brother Richard taught him "a few basic chords" on guitar.

Smith began taking classical guitar lessons from the age of nine with a student of guitarist John Williams, whom he called a "really excellent guitarist". He said, "I learned a lot, but got to the point where I was losing the sense of fun. I wish I'd stuck with it." He gave up formal tuition and began teaching himself to play by ear, listening to his older brother's record collection. Up until December 1972, he did not have a guitar of his own and had been borrowing his brother's, so his brother gave him the guitar for Christmas. Smith said of this gift, "I'd commandeered it anywayso whether he was officially giving it to me at Christmas or not, I was going to have it!" Rock biographer Jeff Apter maintains that the guitar Smith received for Christmas of 1972 was from his parents, and equates this item with Smith's Woolworths "Top 20" guitar that was later used on many of the Cure's earliest recordings. Smith has given differing accounts of the instrument’s origin, at times stating in interviews that he purchased the guitar himself for £20 in 1978.

Smith described Notre Dame Middle School as "a very free-thinking establishment" with an experimental approach, a freedom he claims to have abused. On one occasion, he said that he wore a black velvet dress to school and kept it on all day: "The teachers just thought, 'Oh, it's a phase he's going through, he's got some personality crisis, let's help him through it.'" St Wilfrid's was reportedly stricter than Notre Dame. In the summer of 1975, Smith and his school bandmates took their O Levels, but only he and Michael Dempsey stayed on to attend sixth form at St Wilfrid's from 1976 to 1977.

Smith has said that he was expelled from St Wilfrid's as an "undesirable influence" after his band Malice's second live performance shortly before Christmas in 1976, which took place at the school and allegedly caused a riot: "I got taken back [in 1977] but they never acknowledged that I was there [...] I did three A levelsfailed biology miserably, scraped through French, and got a 'B' in English. Then I spent eight or nine months on social security until they stopped my money, so I thought, 'Now's the time to make a demo and see what people think.'" Smith has given conflicting accounts of his alleged expulsion, elsewhere saying that he was merely suspended and that it was because he did not get along with the school headmaster, and on another occasion saying he was suspended because his "attitude towards religion was considered wrong".

Music career

School bands: 1972–1976

Smith has said that his first band when he was 14 consisted of himself, his brother Richard, their younger sister Janet, and some of Richard's friends. He remarked, "It was called the Crawley Goat Band – brilliant!" which is at variance with Smith and his bandmates having already left Notre Dame Middle School by this time. As the Group gradually became Malice and began regular rehearsals in January 1976, Smith was still one of several floating members. Of their first "proper" rehearsal at St Edwards Church, Smith said:

By December 1976, Graham's brother had been replaced by vocalist Martin Creasy, a journalist with The Crawley Observer, whose brief tenure with the group was a live débâcle according to those involved. By January 1977 Malice had changed their name to Easy Cure, partly to distance themselves from these earlier shows. Both drummer Lol Tolhurst and bassist Mick Dempsey are also noted as having performed vocals with the group in the early years. Tolhurst also sang on a cover of "Wild Thing" at Malice's early shows, and Dempsey sang backing vocals on songs like "Killing An Arab", and even recorded lead vocals on one track on the Cure's debut album, their cover of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady". During March 1977, a vocalist named Gary X came and went, and was replaced by Peter O'Toole, described as "a demon footballer and Bowie fan" who made his singing debut in April.

On 14 October 2024, Smith announced that he plans on retiring in 2029. "I’m 70 in 2029, and that’s the 50th anniversary of the first Cure album [Three Imaginary Boys]. If I make it that far, that’s it. In the intervening time, I’d like to include playing concerts as part of the overall plan of what we’re going to do. I’ve loved it; the last 10 years of playing shows have been the best 10 years of being in the band. It pisses all over the other 30-odd years! It’s been great" Smith said.

As principal songwriter

Smith was also not the sole songwriter or lyricist in the group during their early years; the band name Easy Cure came from a song penned by Lol Tolhurst, while Grinding Halt began as a Tolhurst lyric that Smith shortened to the first half of each line. Easy Cure condensed its name to the Cure shortly afterwards. During 1978–79, Smith composed and recorded demo versions of some of the Cure's definitive early songs on his sister Janet's Hammond organ with a built-in tape recorder, including "10:15 Saturday Night".

By the time the NME interviewed the band in October 1979 during their tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Smith was acknowledged as the principal writer of "almost all of the Cure's songs and lyrics", and stated that he was uncomfortable playing and singing songs that were not his own. Following his return from the Banshees' tour, Smith also composed most of the music for the album Seventeen Seconds using the Hammond, a drum machine and his trademark Top 20 Woolworth's guitar, during a home demo session in his parents' basement. Most of the lyrics had been written in one night in Newcastle. Michael Dempsey, discussing his own departure from the group at this time, later remarked:

Although Smith wrote most of the lyrics for Seventeen Seconds, many were also rewritten by the group during the recording of the album itself. Dempsey's replacement Simon Gallup described the collective writing process to Sounds in 1980: Lol Tolhurst later stated that he, Gallup and Smith all wrote lyrics for the Cure's early albums, and that the group dynamic only changed after their 1982 album Pornography: Tolhurst claimed to have written the lyrics for "All Cats Are Grey" from the 1981 album Faith, which he later re-recorded with his own project, Levinhurst.

For their first four albums (Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography), all members of the group had received equal songwriting credits. With Simon Gallup's departure reducing the group to a duo, and Tolhurst quitting drums to start taking keyboard lessons, Of 1984's The Top, Smith would say it was "the solo album I never made", having played nearly all instruments himself except for drums (by Andy Anderson), with Porl Thompson contributing saxophone to one song ("Give Me It"), and Tolhurst contributing keyboards to 3 of the album's 10 songs.

In 1985, the band had success with The Head on the Door, with Smith as the sole songwriter. The line-up also included Gallup, Tolhurst, Thompson and Boris Williams. In 1987, the double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, with singles "Just Like Heaven" and "Hot, Hot, Hot!" was released to increasing popularity for the band in the US. From that time and on subsequent records, the writing was made by the whole band but still with Smith as the main composer and arranger.

Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Glove, and collaborations

Smith, Severin, and Siouxsie on tour: 1979

Robert Smith met Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees at a Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire gig at the London YMCA on 3 August 1979. Both the Banshees and the Cure had been signed to Polydor and its imprint Fiction, respectively, by Chris Parry, and Smith was already a fan of the Banshees. A few dates into the Join Hands tour, however, Banshees' guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris quit the band hours before they were due to go on stage in Aberdeen, placing the tour in limbo. The tour resumed on 18 September, with Smith playing in both bands each night.

Cult Hero and Dance Fools Dance label: 1979–1980

Smith meanwhile conceived the Cult Hero side-project to collaborate with bassist Simon Gallup of the Magspies, recorded at Morgan Studios in October 1979. With some leftover time in the studio from the Cult Hero sessions, Smith also produced recordings by the Magspies and a young vocal and percussion duo the Obtainers (described by Steve Sutherland of Melody Maker as "two 11-year olds banging on pots and pans"),

The Stranglers and Associates: April 1980

On 3 and 4 April 1980 at the Rainbow Theatre in London, Robert Smith and Matthieu Hartley (also of the Magspies, Cult Hero and by this time, the Cure) were among the many guest members of a unique line-up of the Stranglers to play two protest concerts for Hugh Cornwell, who had been imprisoned on drugs charges in late 1979. Joy Division were also one of the support bands on the second night. Recordings from the event were later released as The Stranglers and Friends – Live in Concert in 1995. Also during April, Smith provided backing vocals for the Associates' debut album The Affectionate Punch, released in August 1980. At the time, the Associates were also signed to Fiction Records, and had been joined in late 1979 by former Cure bassist Michael Dempsey. The Associates' front man Billy Mackenzie was a friend of Smith's for more than 20 years, and the Cure song, "Cut Here" (from 2001's Greatest Hits album), was written in response to Mackenzie's suicide in 1997. As Smith told Jam! Showbiz following the release of "Greatest Hits":

And Also the Trees: 1981–1982

During 1981, the Cure received a home demo tape from And Also the Trees and immediately became friends. Front-man Simon Huw Jones later told Abstract Magazine that the Cure were AATT's "biggest fans, the first people who came up to us and said 'we think you're great'" and that the two groups were mutually influenced by one another. The group joined the Cure in support of the Eight Appearances tour of Scotland and Northern England during November and December 1981, together with 1313, featuring Steve Severin and Lydia Lunch, and the following year Robert Smith together with Cure/Banshees co-producer Mike Hedges co-produced And Also the Trees' 1982 cassette release From Under the Hill. Smith was initially to have also produced the band's debut single "The Secret Sea", Smith would again collaborate with And Also the Trees in 1991.

Post-Pornography projects: 1982

In the wake of the Cure's Fourteen Explicit Moments tour, which culminated in the departure of Simon Gallup and the temporary dissolution of the Cure, in June 1982, Smith began collaborating with Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees again. Although released under the name of the Cure, the only personnel to perform on the original Flexipop single release of "Lament" in August 1982 were Smith and Severin as co-producer, and soon afterwards, Smith admitted that the Cure as a band now existed in name only. That August, Smith briefly resurrected the Dance Fools Dance label to record and release the single "Frame One" by Crawley gothic/post-punk outfit Animation. In September, Smith with

Tolhurst (now on keyboards) and session drummer Steve Goulding went into the studio to record a "blatant pop single" at the instigation of Fiction Records manager Chris Parry. Smith was reportedly so unhappy with the resultant track "Let's Go to Bed" that he attempted to have the single released under the name of Recur, feeling that the single let Cure fans down. During October, Smith and Severin also recorded early demos for what would become the Glove's "Punish Me With Kisses" single, at Mike Hedges' studio "The Playground".

Smith also returned to touring as a live guitarist with Siouxsie and the Banshees from November, following the collapse of then-Banshee John McGeoch from nervous exhaustion one week before the band were due to go on tour. His return to guitar duties with the group prompted Smith to remark: He later said that he was "fed up" and "really disillusioned" with the pressures of playing in the Cure, and that "the Banshees thing came along and I thought it would be a really good escape".

Smith and Severin meanwhile co-wrote the music to Marc and the Mambas' song "Torment", which appeared on the album Torment and Toreros. Between March and June 1983, Smith recorded with the Glove and (ostensibly) the Cure; prompting him to remark: "I need a holiday ... I keep making plans to go every week, but every week I'm in another group." Severin said of the project: Smith described the creation of the album by saying:

Smith wrote several songs on bass. He commented during an interview for the British magazine Making Music in 1987: "A lot of the songs that we've done over the years I've written on the bass. I think I've been influenced by listening to [[Steven Severin|[Steven] Severin]] play really, strumming bass chords. I was given the six-string bass... and as soon as I got that I thought — ah, unusual sound, and I translated that back on to guitar".

Smith started incorporating more distortion and feedback sounds and textures on albums such as Wish where Smith predominantly played a Gibson Chet Atkins as well.

Stage persona and image

Smith started to backcomb his short hair in 1980–1983. He adopted his aesthetic of a pale complexion, smeared red lipstick, black eye-liner, dishevelled nest of wiry long black hair, all-black clothes, and brothel creeper shoes or trainers in 1984, after being the guitarist of Siouxsie and the Banshees for 18 months and borrowing Siouxsie Sioux's lipstick. Around the same time, the goth subculture took off. He denied any credit for this trend and said it was a coincidence that the styles were similar. The sombre mood of early albums, combined with Smith's on-stage persona, cemented the band's gothic image. Although considered a goth icon, Smith said that his aesthetic was a "theatrical" custom.

In 1986, Smith altered his image by appearing on-stage sporting short spiky hair which can be seen in The Cure in Orange. His new look made the headlines. He soon returned to his usual style.

In popular culture

Early television and film references

An early "pop culture" reference to the Cure is found in the eleventh episode of BBC2's anarchic alternative comedy series The Young Ones, from 1984. The series featured regular cameo performances from British rock and pop groups of the period, such as Motörhead, the Damned, and Madness. As the episode's title "Sick" suggests, all four of the main characters (Vyvyan, Rick, Neil and Mike) are ill, prompting Vyvyan to send Mike to the pharmacy for medicine. Neil remarks: "I hope Mike hurries back with the cure!" to which Vyvyan replies, "No Neil, Neil, it's madness this week." The band Madness then performs a musical cameo. Rock biographers Bowler and Dray note that increasing popular interest in the Cure in America during the mid-late 1980s became "a pat shorthand for TV and film writers to indicate mixed up children – the Steve Martin film Parenthood uses a bedroom poster of Robert to underline the point that 'this adolescent is confused and miserable'".

Edward Scissorhands and influence on Tim Burton (1988–2012)

In 1988, a Spin magazine interview with Smith reported that "the director of Pee-wee's Big Adventure" [Tim Burton] had asked Smith to make an appearance in a film. The Cure's keyboardist Roger O'Donnell has since said that during recording of the Disintegration album (1988–89), Burton approached the group about providing the soundtrack to the 1990 film Edward Scissorhands, and even sent them the script.

In a 1991 article discussing inspirations behind the look of the film's title character, Entertainment Weekly (citing Burton and costume designer Colleen Atwood) reported that "the character's retro hair and penchant for leather clearly draw on punks like the Cure's Robert Smith". Burton is a self-proclaimed fan of the Cure and his sartorial style has been likened to that of Smith. In 1996, Smith confirmed to French magazine Télérama that Burton had approached the Cure about a number of collaborations, and regularly kept in touch with the group about each of his latest film projects, but that they had thus far always been too busy either touring or recording to contribute. Burton asked Smith to score the soundtrack for Sleepy Hollow (1999), but Smith said that "they were postponing it so much that I got involved with [the Cure's album] Bloodflowers and let it aside". In 2009 Burton presented Smith with the Shockwaves NME Godlike Genius Award, saying that when he was "chained to a desk" and "fucking depressed" during his time as a young animator for Disney, "this music was the only thing that saved me. I just want to thank you for inspiring me." Shortly after the award ceremony, Burton again reiterated to BBC 6 Music his long-standing admiration for the Cure, and his desire to collaborate with them. Other illustrators of the character over the course of the series' run have also drawn influence from other popular musicians; Sam Kieth, for instance, describes his rendering of the Sandman character as the "David Bowie/guy-from-the-Cure" version, and said that the Robert Smith look of the character was "really heavily championed" by Gaiman and DC Comics editor Karen Berger. Mike Dringenberg, on the other hand, compared Kieth's Sandman to Ron Wood and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, and asserts "my version ... was more like Peter Murphy or Robert Smith." Conversely, Kelley Jones, who illustrated the Dream Country and Season of Mists (volumes 3 & 4 in the series), said he "just hated the Cure" and thus based his own version of the character on the angular gestures and facial features of Bauhaus front-man Peter Murphy instead. Gaiman said that early conceptual sketches for the character by Leigh Baulch and Dave McKean drew influence from Bowie's Aladdin Sane persona, and Bono from U2. Cure posters were also "known to creep into the background of some of the sandman stories" and Smith told fans that he was flattered by Gaiman's reference, and thought The Sandman was "a brilliant series". Smith said that the song "Burn", the Cure's contribution to the 1994 film adaptation's soundtrack, was deliberately written and performed in the style of "The Hanging Garden".

Other comic book and fan fiction references

Garth Ennis's Muzak Killer stories for 2000 AD Comics from 1991 also contain visual references in the form of characters resembling Robert Smith, and again, Smith himself is a self-professed fan of 2000 AD. Revolutionary Comics produced a biographical comic book on the Cure in 1991 as Issue No. 30 of Rock n Roll Comics series, and the following year Personality Comics produced their own Cure biography in the form of Music Comics 4: The Cure. Ian Shirley, author of Can Rock & Roll Save the World?: An Illustrated History of Music and Comics, considers the fact "that the Cure have spawned two biographical comics ... just shows the impact that Robert Smith and his Goth chic had upon America in the 1990s". In the 1980s, the Japanese music magazine 8-beat Gag published a series of caricatures of western artists by manga artist Atsuko Shima; Robert Smith had his own edition, and figured on the cover. Gothic horror and fantasy writer Poppy Z. Brite, in his vampire novel Lost Souls (1992), uses a poster of Robert Smith on a bedroom wall as a sexual prop during a homoerotic encounter between two of his characters, Laine and Nothing. Colin Raff of the New York Press described "Poppy Z. Brite's enthusiastic appraisal of Robert Smith's mouth in her (sic) depiction of a fictional blowjob" as "an example of the unfortunate habit of many fiction writers (especially since the 1980s) to invoke pop stars and their lyrics with un-ironic [sic] reverence, resulting in prose about as reflective as voyeuristic journalism, bad porn and bumperstickers".

Television parodies and cameos: 1990–1993

In television comedy programs during the early 1990s, Smith was sometimes the subject of lampooning. MTV's Half Hour of Comedy Hour (1990–1991), featured a mock episode of This Old House in which a parody of Smith's Disintegration-era persona is seen asking building contractors to leave his house in a semi-demolished state to retain the sense of "urban decay". The Mary Whitehouse Experience (1992) poked fun at Smith's attempts to use lighter pop music to "show his happier side", by presenting a series of sketches in which Smith (played by Rob Newman) performs comedic novelty songs "The Laughing Policeman", "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", "Ernie", "Crash Bang Wallop", the theme to the children's programme Play Away, and the WWI soldiers' "Chinese crackers in your arsehole" parody version of the patriotic anthem "Rule, Britannia!". Newman portrayed Smith dolefully wailing the lyrics over a backdrop of gloomy Cure-styled mope-rock. Another of the series' regular characters, Edward Colanderhands, appears in one episode as a member of the Cure's audience.

Another sketch on The Mary Whitehouse Experience revolved around "Ray: a man afflicted with a sarcastic tone of voice", also portrayed by Newman, and presented in the style of a medical case history. Ray's catchphrase was "oh no, what a personal disaster". In the series' final episode, Ray is given a copy of the Cure's Disintegration LP as a present, and is so overwhelmed that he can no longer speak in a sarcastic tone, and spontaneously begins speaking Flemish. In the closing scene, Ray has a chance meeting with the real Robert Smith in a cameo appearance, who punches Ray in the face and declares "oh no, what a personal disaster". Rob Newman and David Baddiel's live comedy video, History Today (1992), also features Newman's Robert Smith character, singing the children's songs "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and "I'm a Little Teapot". Smith later made another cameo in the comedy duo's spin-off series Newman and Baddiel in Pieces (1993). In a scene where David Baddiel fantasizes about his own funeral, Smith appears graveside, saying: "I've never been this miserable. I always preferred him to the other one" before leading a conga of mourners in party-hats around the graveyard.

Career Girls (1997)

Mike Leigh's 1997 film Career Girls depicts the reunion of two women who formerly shared both a flat and a love of the Cure as teenagers in the 1980s, featuring the band's music and imagery throughout. Smith was invited by Leigh to the premiere, which Smith described as "one of the weirdest afternoons of my life ... There's one bit in the film when they see a poster for 'The 13th', the first single from the last album, and she says to her friend, 'Are they still releasing records?' And I thought that was really unfair -'The unchanging man in the changing world.'"

South Park: Mecha-Streisand (1998)

In 1998, Smith voiced an animated version of himself in "Mecha-Streisand", an episode of South Park, in which he battles "Mecha Barbra Streisand" in "a battle of Godzilla vs. Mothra scale" that completely destroys the town of South Park. Streisand is portrayed as a "calculating, self-centered, egotistical bitch" who wants to conquer the world with an ancient artifact accidentally discovered by Eric Cartman, known as the "Diamond of Pantheos". After film critic Leonard Maltin and actor Sidney Poitier transform into kaiju creatures (based on Ultraman and Gamera, respectively) to battle Mecha-Streisand, yet ultimately fail to defeat the beast, Robert Smith enters, confident he can defeat Mecha-Streisand, with the help of the boys. To battle Mecha-Streisand, the boys help Smith transform into "Smithra", who has the ability of "robot punch", and ultimately defeats the monster by taking it by the tail and hurling it into space. He offers to "roshambo" Cartman to get his Walkie-Talkie back, and immediately kicks Cartman in the groin, causing him to drop the walkie-talkie. At the end of the episode, as Smith walks off into the sunset, Kyle Broflovski calls out, "Disintegration is the best album ever!" and Cartman adds, "Robert Smith kicks ass!" To date, he is one of only a few celebrities to be portrayed in a universally positive way on the show.

At the time, the episode brought South Park its highest ratings to date, with approximately 3,208,000 viewers; about 40,000 more than tuned into ABC's Prime Time Live. Comedy Central's debut screening in February 1998 marked the first time a cable station had beaten one of the Big Three television networks during prime time viewing, and "Robert Smith Kicks Ass" T-shirts were reportedly "doing a healthy trade among Cure fans" soon afterwards. He told Belgian magazine Humo:

Interviewed by Placebo's Brian Molko for Les Inrockuptibles magazine, Smith said that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone sent him the script, but deliberately left some portions blank "to keep the surprise". He said, "They didn't want anybody to know, they wanted to shock. When I saw myself, I found it surrealistic." In another interview set up by Entertainment Weekly, Smith told Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz that the "Disintegration is the best album ever!" scene was one of his "greatest moments in life"

The Mighty Boosh: Nanageddon (2004)

In 2004, in an episode of the BBC surreal comedy series The Mighty Boosh, "Nanageddon" (Series 2, episode 11), the character Vince Noir offers Howard Moon the opportunity to spend the evening with two goth girls, on the condition that he dresses like a goth. Vince produces a can of "Goth Juice", described as "the most powerful hairspray known to man, made from the tears of Robert Smith". In the same episode, the Moon sings "The Love Cats" over the credits. On the same night that Smith was presented with the Godlike Genius Award by Tim Burton at the Shockwaves NME Awards, The Mighty Boosh also won "Best TV Comedy". Asked by NME.com backstage after the ceremony if there were any plans for more pop-star cameos in The Mighty Boosh, series co-creator and co-star Noel Fielding replied, "We're trying to get hold of Robert Smith for the film – I want him to be my uncle. That would be great!"

This Must Be the Place (2011)

The look of Cheyenne (played by Sean Penn), the main character in director Paolo Sorrentino's 2011 film This Must Be the Place, is inspired by Smith's appearance.

Personal life

Marriage

Smith met Mary Theresa Poole in drama class at St Wilfrid's when they were both around 14 years old, and they were married at Worth Abbey on 13 August 1988. They have 25 nieces and nephews with Smith espousing the antinatalist view that he not only objects to having been born himself but refuses to impose life on another. He also "does not feel responsible enough to bring a child into the world". It has been reported by the Daily Express that she used to be a model and worked as a nurse with intellectually disabled children, but gave up her job so that the couple would not have to spend so much time apart as the Cure became more financially successful during the mid-1980s. He told The Face in 1985 that he had once accidentally left a video camera running in their home: "After a couple of hours you forget that it's on and I was quite horrified at the amount of rubbish we say to each other. It's like listening to mental people [...] I feel more natural in the company of people who are mentally unbalanced because you're always more alert, wondering what they're going to do next." He added that Mary used to dress as a witch to scare children, that she sometimes dressed up as him, and that he could never take people home as he did not know "who [would] answer the door".

While the Cure was recording Wish at Shipton Manor between 1991 and 1992, among the objects pinned to the wall was "Mary's Manor Mad Chart", listing 17 members of the Manor's staff and residents (including the Cure and their entourage) "in order of instability". Mary was ranked in second place after a kitchen worker named Louise. Smith said of this time, "We all voted and we had an award night. It was very moving."

Family

Smith had an older brother named Richard, an older sister named Margaret, and a younger sister named Janet. He has said that he is significantly younger than Richard and Margaret because his mother "wasn't supposed to have" him: "And once [my parents] got me, they didn't like the idea of having an only child, so they had my sister. Which is good, because I would have hated not having a younger sister." Janet, together with Simon Gallup's then-girlfriend Carol (both dressed as schoolgirls) with real-life schoolboy band the Obtainers, sang backing vocals for Cult Hero at the Marquee Club as the opening act for the Passions in March 1980.

The Cure's in-house design company Parched Art created the album cover for the Cure's The Head on the Door using a manipulated photograph of Janet taken by the band's guitarist and album cover artist Pearl Thompson. Janet had known Thompson since they were children, and the pair began dating during his early tenure as lead guitarist for Malice and the Easy Cure. During the mid-1980s, Janet gave up a professional career as a pianist to spend more time with Thompson and the Cure, Janet is also credited with having taught Smith's guitar technician Perry Bamonte to play piano while the band were recording Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, prior to Bamonte joining the group as keyboardist in 1990. According to Bamonte, "With the patience of a saint, she spent a month teaching me the rudiments of playing piano. Before this, I knew nothing."

During a concert at Tauron Arena Kraków on 20 October 2022, the Cure dedicated their song "I Can Never Say Goodbye" to Richard, who had recently died.

Views

Smith is uncomfortable giving interviews and talking to strangers, expressing a desire to avoid both where possible. He has openly expressed disdain for the British royal family, lamenting how musicians he respects have accepted British honours while stating that he would rather "cut off [his] own hands", as well as sporting a "citizens, not subjects" slogan on his guitar during a tour in 2012 and 2013.

In 2024, Smith signed an open letter criticizing the use of artificial intelligence in music.

Discography

;With the Cure

;With Cult Hero

"I'm a Cult Hero" single (1979)

;With the Glove

Blue Sunshine (1983)

;With Siouxsie and the Banshees

Nocturne (1983)
Hyæna (1984)

;As solo artist

"Very Good Advice" (2010) Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard cover, from Almost Alice
"Small Hours" (2011) John Martyn cover, from the Johnny Boy Would Love This tribute album
"Witchcraft" (2012) Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh cover, from Frankenweenie Unleashed!
"C Moon" (2014) Wings cover, bonus from The Art of McCartney
"There's a Girl in the Corner" (2015) The Twilight Sad cover, from a split single

Collaborations

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"

! scope="col" style="width:18em" |Release

! scope="col" style="width:3em" |Year

! scope="col" style="width:15em" |Collaborator

! class="unsortable" scope="col" |Comment

! scope="row" |The Affectionate Punch

| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;" |1980

| style="text-align:center;" |The Associates

|Backing vocals on "The Affectionate Punch" and "Even Dogs in the Wild"

! scope="row" |"Yeh Yeh Yeh" and "Lifeblood" (split single)

| style="text-align:center;" |The Magspies/The Obtainers

|Producer

! scope="row" |"Frame One" (single)

| style="text-align:center;" |1982

| style="text-align:center;" |Animation

|Producer

! scope="row" |From Under the Hill

| style="text-align:center;" |1982

| style="text-align:center;" |And Also the Trees

|Co-producer

! scope="row" |Torment and Toreros

| style="text-align:center;" |1983

| style="text-align:center;" |Marc and the Mambas

|Smith co-wrote the song "Torment" with Marc Almond and Steve Severin

! scope="row" |"I Want to Be a Tree" single

| style="text-align:center;" |1984

| style="text-align:center;" |Tim Pope

! scope="row" |The Pear Tree EP

| style="text-align:center;" |1989

| style="text-align:center;" |And Also the Trees

|Smith and Mark Saunders co-produced the remixes; one of which also appears on some CD editions of the Farewell to the Shade album

! scope="row" |"Jewel" single

| style="text-align:center;" |1993

| style="text-align:center;" |The Cranes

|Smith remixed and played on the single versions

! scope="row" |The Stranglers and Friends – Live in Concert

| style="text-align:center;" |1995

| style="text-align:center;" |The Stranglers

|Guitar on "Get a Grip" and "Hanging Around". Recorded 1979

! scope="row" |"A Sign From God" single

| style="text-align:center;" |1998

| style="text-align:center;" |COGASM

|From the Orgazmo soundtrack

! scope="row" |Ulysses (Della Notte)

| style="text-align:center;" |2000

| style="text-align:center;" |Reeves Gabrels

|Vocals and other instruments on the track "Yesterday's Gone"

! scope="row" |Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin

| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;" |2003

| style="text-align:center;" |Junkie XL

|Vocals on the track "Perfect Blue Sky"

! scope="row" |Blink-182

| style="text-align:center;" |Blink-182

|Vocals on the track "All of This"

! scope="row" |Zig Zag

| style="text-align:center;" |Earl Slick

|Vocals on the track "Believe"

! scope="row" |Monument

| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;" |2004

| style="text-align:center;" |Blank & Jones

|Vocals on the cover version of "A Forest", previously releases as a single in 2003.

! scope="row" |Trust It

| style="text-align:center;" |Junior Jack

|Vocals on the track "Da Hype", previously releases as a single in 2003.

! scope="row" |2 a.m. Wakeup Call

| style="text-align:center;" |Tweaker

|Vocals on the track "Truth Is"

! scope="row" |TheFutureEmbrace

| style="text-align:center;" |2005

| style="text-align:center;" |Billy Corgan

|Backing vocals on the cover version of "To Love Somebody"

! scope="row" |To All New Arrivals

| style="text-align:center;" |2006

| style="text-align:center;" |Faithless

|Vocals on the track "Spiders, Crocodiles & Kryptonite"

! scope="row" |The Ideal Condition

| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;" |2007

| style="text-align:center;" |Paul Hartnoll

|Vocals on the track "Please", previously released as a single.

! scope="row" |MTV Unplugged: Korn

| style="text-align:center;" |KoRn

|Vocals on the track "Make Me Bad/In Between Days"

! scope="row" |We Were Exploding Anyway

| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;" |2010

| style="text-align:center;" |65daysofstatic

|Vocals on the track "Come To Me"

! scope="row" |"J'aurai tout essayé" single

| style="text-align:center;" |Anik Jean

|Vocal duet

! scope="row" |"Not in Love" single

| style="text-align:center;" |Crystal Castles

|Vocals

! scope="row" |Controlling Your Allegiance

| style="text-align:center;" |2011

| style="text-align:center;" |The Japanese Popstars

|Vocals on the track "Take Forever"

! scope="row" |"It Never Was the Same" single

| style="text-align:center;" |2015

| style="text-align:center;" |The Twilight Sad

|Vocals on the cover version of There's a Girl in the Corner

! scope="row" |Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

| style="text-align:center;" |2020

| style="text-align:center;" |Gorillaz

|Featured vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass guitar, and music box on the track "Strange Timez", previously released as a single.

! scope="row" |Screen Violence

| style="text-align:center;" |2021

| style="text-align:center;" |Chvrches

|Vocal duet on "How Not to Drown"

! scope="row" |Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.

| style="text-align:center;" |2023

| style="text-align:center;" |Crosses

|Featured vocals on "Girls Float † Boys Cry"

! scope="row" |Foreign Tongues

| style="text-align:center;" |2026

| style="text-align:center;" |The Rolling Stones

|Smith will appear on the band's 2026 album

Notes

References

External links

Robert Smith at Pictures of You
Robert Smith at the British Film Institute