How punk changed The Cure singer Robert Smith’s life
The Cure is not a punk band, but the scene undoubtedly inspired frontman Robert Smith, and it had a significant impact on his creative psyche. Although he didn’t join the punk revolution, Smith was enamoured by the attitude expressed by those in the movement which he adopted.
Before punk arrived in the mainstream, Smith had his favourite bands, but they belonged to a previous generation. As much as he admired groups like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, they didn’t speak to him directly, and the world had moved on from the counterculture days of the 1960s.
The Cure started out in 1976, a time when the punk movement started to gain traction, but they weren’t particularly part of it. Of course, The Cure is a band that people have been attempting to put a label on for decades, but it’s an impossible task simply because Smith’s group remain a lone entity who have carved out a niche sound unlike any other.
In 1986, once punk had died a death, Smith was asked by Radio 1990 if The Cure was inspired by the scene, to which he replied: “No, I was inspired by the attitude. I liked people rather than the people that you were saying. I preferred groups like the Buzzcocks, who were part of that movement. I mean, the only real hardcore punk band that I liked was the Banshees and the Stranglers, possibly, even though they were really old then.”
He continued: “But it was just more than the music, it was the attitude that we adopted, and we were part of. We were never fashionably punk, and that was what was wrong with punk: It had a uniform. I mean, I hate those new fashions in music which there’s always something like ‘You have to wear a certain outfit to be part of it.'”
Meanwhile, in a conversation with Rolling Stone in 2004, Smith was asked about the music he listened to as a kid. The Cure frontman revealed: “When punk came along, I found my generation’s music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, ’cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, ‘This is it.’ And I saw the Buzzcocks the following week, and I thought, ‘This is definitely it.'”
While The Cure operates in a different musical realm to The Stranglers and The Buzzcocks, the discovery of both bands still played an important role in his approach to music. Those two groups threw the rulebook away, which is an attitude which Smith appreciated.