Confessions of a Curehead 23
Robert Smith turns fifty this month, yes, that’s how old we’re all getting, King Curehead clocks the half century, happy birthday Bobby-boy ya made it. Back in the late 1970s it didn’t look that way, did it? In fact, you wouldn’t have put all your pennies on the whole Gothic Rock genre lasting to blow the fifty candles. Robert Smith is often accused of being Goth’s chief architect, an accusation that he quite rightly debunks as lazy journalism, The Cure were far more in some ways and far less in others, either way it was not simply Gothic. The original members of The Cure met in the rather snooty sounding Notre Dame Middle School in the rather not so snooty sounding Crawley, Sussex. They formed bands named Obelisk and Malice, various members dropping in and out, a habit that would continue through the decades, creating a mind-boggling array of personnel in countless manifestations. Realistically, only the curest of Curehead is going to be very bothered with who was in when, the only thing you really need to know it that Robert Smith was always at the helm. He had assumed vocal duties when the band had settled on the name Easy Cure and had assumed control when he simply chopped off Easy and added The – now they were The Cure. Relative success came early with the German record label Hansa offering them a recording contract, Smith’s unwavering desire for complete creative control also came early when he dissolved the contract after Hansa began pressurizing the band into recording covers.
Working now as just a trio – Smith, Lol Tolhurst and Michael Dempsey recorded sessions at Chesnut Studios in Sussex and sent the demo tapes off to all the major labels. What a first effort it was! containing the tracks Boys Don’t Cry, Fire in Cairo, It’s Not You and 10.15.With what you would assume some confidence they waited and duly Chris Parry signed them to his Fiction label in September 1978. Their debut single, Killing an Arab was released that
