Robert Smith

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 attended Notre Dame Middle School from 1970 to 1972, and St Wilfrid's Comprehensive School from 1972 to 1977. He and his younger sister Janet received piano lessons as children. 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 has said his guitar tutor was "horrified" by his playing. He gave up formal tuition and began teaching himself to play by ear, listening to his older brother's record collection. He was 13 or 14 when he became more serious about rock music and "started to play and learn frenetically". 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 anyway—so 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.'" He said "four other kids" beat him up after school, although Apter notes that Smith has given several conflicting versions of the story. Apter also reports that Smith put in just enough effort at Notre Dame to pass tests, and quotes Smith as saying, "If you were crafty enough, you could convince the teachers you were special; I did virtually nothing for three years." 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.

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!" However, while the Crawley Goat Band may have been Smith's first regular group, he would have been just 13 when he and his Notre Dame schoolmates gave their first one-off performance together as the Obelisk, an early incarnation of what would eventually become the Cure. The Obelisk featured Smith (still playing piano at this point) alongside Marc Ceccagno (lead guitar), Michael Dempsey (guitar), Alan Hill (bass), and Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst (percussion) and, according to the Cure's official biography Ten Imaginary Years, gave their only performance at a school function in April 1972. Jeff Apter, however, dates the performance to April 1973, which is at variance with Smith and his bandmates having already left Notre Dame Middle School by this time.

During the latter part of 1972, the nucleus of Smith, Ceccagno, Dempsey and Tolhurst had gone on to secondary school together at St Wilfrid's Comprehensive, where they and their friends continued playing music together. Smith said that they were known simply as "The Group" "because it was the only one at school so we didn't need a name." Dempsey, who eventually moved from guitar to bassist for the Group, said that another name they toyed with was the Brat's Club – a reference to Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust. Smith said that "the group" eventually became Malice, "sort of a sub-metal punk group -with Michael Dempsey, Laurence and two other blokes." According to the band's Ten Imaginary Years biography, between January and December 1976, the shifting line-up for Malice featured several "other blokes", with founding guitarist Marc Ceccagno being replaced by Pearl Thompson, an early drummer known only as "Graham" replaced by Lol Tolhurst, and "Graham's brother" replaced by vocalist Martin Creasy. By 1977, Malice had become Easy Cure.

The Cure: 1976–present

Smith did not intend to become the lead vocalist of the Cure. Bowler and Dray note that the Obelisk had "featured Dempsey and Ceccagno as guitarists and him [Robert] on piano as very much a background player." 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:

I think it all came about because Marc Ceccagno wanted to be a guitar hero. Michael had a bass, I had got hold of a guitar and our first drummer, Graham, had a drum kit. His brother had an amp and a mic, so he sang.

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. O'Toole remained Easy Cure's steady front man for several months while the group played the local pub circuit, "building up an enormous local following", and was even the singer on the home demo tapes that landed them their first recording contract with Hansa Records.

However, by the time Easy Cure entered London's Sound And Vision Studio to record for Hansa in October 1977, O'Toole had left to work on a Kibbutz in Israel. Smith then fell into the vocalist role by default, since no better replacement appeared. He told Musician magazine in 1989: When we started, and were playing in pubs, I wasn't the singer ... I was the drunk rhythm guitarist who wrote all these weird songs. We went through about five different singers – they were fucking useless, basically. I always ended up thinking, 'I could do better than this.' ... I mean, I hated my voice, but I didn't hate it more than I hated everyone else's voice ... So I thought, 'If I can get away with that, I can be the singer.' I've worked on that basis ever since.

Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Glove, and collaborations

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. The pair hit it off, and Severin invited Smith to accompany the Banshees on a UK tour in support of their second album Join Hands. The two bands embarked on the tour later in August, and meanwhile in September Banshees singer Siouxsie Sioux contributed backing vocals to "I'm Cold", the B-side to the Cure's next single "Jumping Someone Else's Train" (released in November), 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. Determined not to let the tour end, Smith volunteered to replace McKay temporarily on condition that the Cure remained the opening act, while ex-Slits drummer Budgie joined on drums. The tour resumed on 18 September, with Smith playing in both bands each night. At the tour's end, Smith returned full-time to the Cure.

Severin has attributed Smith's transition from a reticent figure to a more enigmatic front person to Smith's early experiences playing with Siouxsie and the Banshees: I think he learnt how to be a front person, just by standing next to Siouxsie for a couple of months every night. I think he completely changed his persona on stage because of that; he came out of his shell. I think that he learnt how to be a bit more flamboyant, and how it was okay, and I think he saw how, y'know... how should I put it... Siouxsie's more "diva" moments were kind of acceptable because they were the front person, and I think he learnt how to get away with stuff. And just a bit about stagecraft, and how to use the audience a bit more. Because if you look at early clips of their performances you can see he's sort of much more shy and retiring than he becomes a bit later on, and of course, his whole look changes as well.

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"), for the fledgling independent label Dance Fools Dance co-founded by Robert Smith and Ric Gallup, elder brother of Simon. The Cult Hero single was released on the Fiction Records label in December 1979, while the Magspies/Obtainers split single appeared on Dance Fools Dance the following year.

Musical influences

Smith has credited his older siblings Richard and Margaret with exposing him to rock music such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones when he was six years old. He has said that his early songwriting "was influenced by early Beatles – the sense of a three-minute guitar-pop song", and early in his career the Cure's second single "Boys Don't Cry" was compared by British music paper Record Mirror to "John Lennon at 12 or 13". His parents encouraged their children's musical development, as he told French magazine Les Inrockuptibles: "My parents were lending us their stuff; my mum made me listen to a lot of classical music to enable me to have a larger vision of music." When Smith was eight years old in 1967, Richard played him "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix, who became hugely influential. Of this period, he went on to say, "My brother was also crazy about Captain Beefheart, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, so much so that when I was 7 or 8, to the despair of my parents, I became some kinda little devil fed on psychedelic rock."

Smith was 10 years old in 1969 when he first heard Nick Drake's album Five Leaves Left: "Nick Drake's on the other side of the coin to Jimi Hendrix. He was very quiet and withdrawn ... I think also that because he had an untimely death like Jimi Hendrix, he was never able to compromise his early work. He was never able to put a foot wrong. It's a morbid romanticism, but there is something attractive about that." It was not long afterwards that Robert Smith attended his first rock concert: Jimi Hendrix at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. At the age of 13 in 1972, Smith first saw David Bowie on television, performing "Starman" on Top of the Pops. He recalled, "Every person in Britain who saw that performance, it's stuck with them. It's like Kennedy being shot for another generation. You just remember that night watching David Bowie on TV. It really was a formative, seminal experience." Smith said that the first LP he ever purchased with his pocket money was The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. According to Apter, Bowie also paved the way for Smith's love of glam rock bands such as Slade, the Sweet, and T. Rex, and during the same period, he also became a fan of Roxy Music. His parents maintained their supportive attitude: "My mum and dad were encouraging us to talk [about] the records we liked. I remember staggering talks about Slade and Gary Glitter."

Smith said that he was 15 when he first heard Alex Harvey, and that the Sensational Alex Harvey Band was the first and only group he ever really followed. He said, "[Harvey] was probably my only real idol. I travelled around the country to see them. [...] People talk about Iggy Pop as the original punk but certainly in Britain the forerunner of the punk movement was Alex Harvey. [...] I remembered the power of that live performance and I've tried to have that in my mind since I started up my own group." He soon became influenced by the emergence of the UK punk scene of 1977 and has cited the Sex Pistols, the Stranglers, Elvis Costello and the Buzzcocks as important influences on his own music from this period. In 1993, he described the release of "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols as "the last time something major happened to me and changed me [...] it was the best summer of my life. I remember listening to 'Anarchy' for the very first time at a party and thinking, 'This is it!' You knew straight away, you either loved it or hated it, and it polarised an entire nation for that summer." Elsewhere, Smith said that the Stranglers were his favourite punk band and that Costello "was a cut above the whole lot of them" in terms of lyrics and song crafting.

Musicianship

Songwriting

In an interview in 2000, Smith said that "there is one particular kind of music, an atmospheric type of music, that I enjoy making with the Cure. I enjoy it a lot more than any other kind of sound". When Smith was asked about the 'sound' of his songwriting, Smith said that he did not "think there is such a thing as a typical Cure sound. I think there are various Cure sounds from different periods and different line-ups."

Guitar playing

Smith is considered to be one of the most influential and underrated guitarists of the 20th century. In 2022, Andrew Daly of Guitar World ranked him at number four in the "22 guitar heroes who shaped the sound of '80s indie and alternative rock", saying he "set the gold standard for post-punk, goth rock, new wave, and art rock" and praising his "skillful blending of melody and a never-ending desire to genre hop."

In a 1992 interview with Guitar Player, Smith shared insights from his first guitar lessons—undertaken at the age of nine years—and his guitar-playing style, such as alternative tunings as well as his habit of purposely detuning the high "E" (first) string on his guitars. Of his first lessons, Smith stated:

I started on classical guitar, actually. I had lessons from age nine with a student of John Williams, a really excellent guitarist. [...] I learned a lot, but got to the point where I was losing the sense of fun. I wish I'd stuck with it. I still read music, but it takes me too long to work through a piece.

Smith also described his detuning process: "I don't know what it adds, but the guitar just doesn't sound quite right to me normally. In the studio, I often defy the tuners, particularly with keyboard overdubs. I even change the speed of the tape to detune some parts. I think a lot of players presented with the same guitar and told to tune it themselves would come up with something drastically different. And the way you play [the guitar] affects the perceived tuning. If Porl [Thompson] and I tune together and play the same thing, but he plays hard and I play soft, it will sound completely off."

Speaking about Wish in 1992, Smith also offered the following input on how detuned instruments played a significant role in the album, and the challenges of capturing the sound live. "A lot of things on our record Wish that sound like heavy chorusing are actually just detuned instruments. The only drawback to that is onstage it's very confusing sometimes, especially with lots of phasing effects going on. It turns into this overwhelming pulsing sound, and you can't hear anything."

While recording the Cure's debut album, Three Imaginary Boys, in 1978, Smith was using a Woolworth's Top 20 electric guitar, and he was advised by Chris Parry to use a better instrument. Smith bought a Fender Jazzmaster, having recently seen Elvis Costello playing one on Top of the Pops. He then decided to have the Top 20 pickup installed in the Jazzmaster, giving it a third pickup. Smith explained this guitar customization in 1992: "The third pickup [in the Fender Jazzmaster] is from a Woolworth's Top 20 guitar, my very first electric. I took it in to record our first album, along with a little WEM combo amp. [Manager/producer] Chris Parry, who was paying for the record, said," you can't use that!" We went out and bought a Fender Jazzmaster, and I immediately had the Top 20 pickup installed in it, which really upset Chris. I played the entire Three Imaginary Boys album through a Top 20 pickup. It's a brilliant guitar, though I actually bought it because of how it looked."

Stage persona and image

Smith started backcombing his hair, which had grown longer by the supporting tour for Pornography. He amplified his aesthetic of a pale complexion, smeared red lipstick, black eye-liner and black eyelids, dishevelled nest of wiry long black hair, all-black clothes, and brothel creeper shoes or trainers in 1984, when being the guitarist of Siouxsie and the Banshees and borrowing Siouxsie Sioux's lipstick. Paul Morley said Smith's look "became extreme" during his second stint as a guitarist for the Banshees: "that's when he started to dress like Siouxsie", "he started to be physically like Siouxsie". 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. Smith said that Burton presenting the Godlike Genius award "makes it all that more special". Smith has since contributed music to Burton's Almost Alice and Frankenweenie Unleashed! album projects (See → guest vocals + solo cover versions).

The Sandman (1989–1996)

Neil Gaiman, author and creator of Vertigo Comics' The Sandman (1989–1996), based the appearance of his lead character partly on that of Smith. 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".

The Crow (1989–1994)

Smith's lyrics, as well as those of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, were quoted and referenced extensively throughout James O'Barr's comic book series The Crow, which, like Gaiman's Sandman, also first appeared on shelves in 1989. One issue of The Crow dedicated an entire page to reprinting the lyrics from the Cure song "The Hanging Garden", and O'Barr said that he was listening a lot to the Cure's early albums such as Seventeen Seconds and Faith while he was writing the story. O'Barr has downplayed the influence of Robert Smith on the main character Eric Draven's physical appearance, saying that "the idea that the look has been inspired by him has really been overblown" and that the visual aspect of the character owed more to Peter Murphy and Iggy Pop. 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. Smith later described the impact of the episode on his nieces and nephews to Q magazine: "Being in South Park has made a huge impact on their lives. Now that I'm a cartoon character I'm fully accepted into their world." He told Belgian magazine Humo:

When my nephews had seen that, they worshipped me, but [kept] asking: What is a disintegration, uncle Bob? I simply answered it was something I had made a long time ago. Still funny how everything I do – travel, experiencing so many things, having interesting meetings, making good-selling records – means nothing to them while since my appearance in South Park I'm immortal and famous to them .... Bastards.

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" and described the process:

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 but have remained voluntarily childless, 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".

Smith has said that Mary did not always share his confidence and vision for the Cure's future early in his musical career, which he used as significant motivation to ensure the band was successful. 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, and has 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." He has described Janet as a "piano prodigy" and "the family's musical genius" who was too shy to become a performer herself. As well as participating in the Crawley Goat Band since around 1973, Janet played keyboards for Cult Hero in 1979, to which Margaret contributed backing vocals. 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, and the couple were married in March 1988, making Smith and Thompson brothers-in-law until the couple divorced in 2000. 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 multiple social media profiles, which he uses solely to share news about his work and prevent people from following accounts pretending to be him.

In 2011, Smith described himself as "a liberal kind of guy," but "uncomfortable with politicised musicians". He told Rolling Stone in 2019, "I've always held what could be considered a socialist viewpoint on the world. I think right of centre is always wrong, and that's as political as I get in public." 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